The Comics Super Blog!
The former Minx title finds new life in a collection coming from Little, Brown.
Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg still have one more P.L.A.I.N. Janes story to tell, and it looks like it’ll come out in 2019.
According to Publisher’s Weekly, Little, Brown has acquired the rights to Plain Janes, a pair of graphic novels originally published as part of the Minx line by DC Comics. Little, Brown will collect the first two Janes stories and an all-new third story into one volume.
‘Black Hammer: Age of Doom’ by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston picks up after the cliffhanger from ‘Black Hammer’ #13.
Golden Gail, Abraham Slam, Barbalien and the rest of the displaced comic characters from Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s excellent Black Hammer comics series will return next year in a new series, Black Hammer: Age of Doom.
“One thing Black Hammer has always done is comment on the history of superhero comics and we live in a world where superhero universes seem to be rebooted, relaunched, and rebirthed every year,” Lemire said in a press release. “It felt like we needed to play around with that idea, but put a Black Hammer spin on it. So, starting in April, Dean, Dave Stewart, Todd Klein, and I will continue the story and the mystery of Black Hammer farm in Black Hammer: Age of Doom! It’s a new series, but everything you love will stay intact and we’ll deliver the next chapter in the story of Golden Gail, Abraham Slam, Barbalien and the rest of the gang.”
The previous series ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, which Ormston said they plan to pick up on in Age of Doom.
“Black Hammer ends with a major, game-changing revelation,” Ormston said. “Readers are super keen to find out how our heroes are stuck on the farm and more answers, twists, and turns are coming in Black Hammer: Age of Doom.”
The author and painter discusses her ‘comics-adjacent’ books on the City of Lights.
Janice Macleod doesn’t make comics, but her Paris Letters are clearly comics-adjacent. For years she’s been painting images of Paris and elsewhere and combining it with text, a story or her own observations about the place or events. She detailed the story behind how she ended up in Paris, crafting these letters and selling them through etsy in her bestselling book Paris Letters. The book is essentially a how-to guide for leaving your job and becoming a flâneur in Paris, a description she enjoyed.
Her new book is A Paris Year, which is an artist’s book, a datebook-like volume of drawings, photographs and stories about the city.
Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Janice Macleod on ‘A Paris Year’”
The ‘Hip Hop Family Tree’ creator covers both the shoe’s box and creates a new comic about its creators.
Hip Hop Family Tree and X-Men: Grand Design creator Ed Piskor is teaming up with Nike to put his stamp on a special edition Field Air Force 1 Mid “For Baltimore” sneaker.
“If I do work for hire, I’m only going to work on dream projects or things that blow my mind,” he told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
Continue reading “Ed Piskor brings his distinct style to Nike’s Air Force 1 sneaker”
The artist discusses her work on the popular graphic novel series as well as her recent Garfield fan comic, ‘Jon.’
A lot of comics readers know Gale Galligan for her webcomics and short comics like Patbird and Galesaur, 12 Days in Ireland, and Weeb, but this month her first full length graphic novel comes out from Scholastic’s Graphix imprint, which will likely introduce her to a whole new audience. The Baby-Sitters Club: Dawn and the Impossible Three is the fifth book in the graphic novel series. Galligan is taking the reins adapting and drawing the series from Raina Telgemeier.
Already hard at work on the second book in the series, Galligan isn’t slowing down at all, and showed up to this year’s SPX with a new minicomic, Jon. We talked about writing for kids, finding her own style, and Garfield.
Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Gale Galligan takes on ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’”
The ‘Bandette’ creator shares a spooky story from 2012, which will also appear in the upcoming ‘Gothic Tales Of Haunted Love.’
Multiple Eisner Award winner Colleen Coover just announced a new issue of her wonderful comic Bandette is coming out in October, which is awesome news — but if you’re jonesin’ for a fix of her gorgeous artwork right now, you can check out a gothic horror story she did back in 2012.
“Rose’s Heart,” Coover’s homage to “the horror tales of the comics of the 1970s,” is now available on Line Webtoon for your reading pleasure. It’s a quick read best experienced on your mobile device, but it’ll get you through the next few weeks until the new Bandette story is available.
Continue reading “Check out Colleen Coover’s ‘Rose’s Heart’ on Webtoon”
The duo discuss their followup to 2015’s ‘Sunny Side Up’ from Scholastic’s Graphix imprint.
Jennifer and Matthew Holm have been collaborating for years now on two series of graphic novels for kids, Babymouse and Squish. The two have also made board books and a picture book together, and separately worked on other projects. Matt co-wrote and drew the recent Marvin and the Moths and Jennifer is also a Newbury Honor winning author of prose novels like The Fourteenth Goldfish and Turtle in Paradise.
In 2015, Scholastic’s Graphix imprint published Sunny Side Up, a stand-alone graphic novel about girl spending the summer with her grandfather in Florida. Sunny is back in a new book Swing It, Sunny, which picks up where the first book left off with Sunny facing middle school. I reached out to the duo by e-mail and we spoke about the book’s autobiographical elements, how they work together and what the heck swing flag is.
Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Jennifer and Matthew Holm on ‘Swing It, Sunny’”
Named for artist Mike Mike Wieringo, the awards were presented over the weekend at the Baltimore Comic-Con.
The winners for the first-ever Ringo Awards were announced this weekend at the Baltimore Comic-Con. The awards are named for artist Mike Wieringo, who passed away in 2007.
The Ringos showed Skottie Young’s I Hate Fairyland some love, as the creator took home awards for Best Cartoonist and Best Humor Comic. March: Book Three by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell continued to rack up accolades as it took home the awards for Best Non-fiction Comic Work and Best Original Graphic Novel. And Tom King, writer of Best Series winner The Vision, won for Best Writer. Other winners included Fiona Staples, Sean Murphy, Todd Klein, Laura Martin, Bloom County and Dean Haspiel’s The Red Hook.
The nomination process was open to anyone, while comic professionals voted on the final winners. Check out the full list of nominees below, with the winners in bold.
Continue reading “Skottie Young, Tom King, ‘March: Book Three’ and more take home Ringo Awards”
The duo discuss their work on the biography of the actress, dancer and Civil Rights activist.
Catel Muller and José-Louis Bocquet have been working together for a number of years, though American readers likely first read them in 2012 when SelfMadeHero/Abrams released Kiki de Montparnasse, which was awarded the Audience Prize at the 2008 Angoulême International Comics Festival. Bocquet is a writer, editor and former journalist with a long list of credits both in and out of comics. Muller, who goes by “Catel” has received a number of awards for her solo work and her collaborations including the 2005 Audience Prize at Angoulême for Le Sang des Valentines, and the 2014 Prix Artémisia for Ainsi soit Benoîte Groult.
The two have set out to tell the stories of great women and their most recent book is a biography of and tribute to one of the great figures of the 20th Century, Josephine Baker. Perhaps more beloved in France than in her home country of the United States, she was a dancer and actress. Baker fought her whole life for Civil Rights and was a member of the French Resistance. At the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, she told the crowd, “I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents, but I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee.”
The result is Josephine Baker, a lengthy book with more than a hundred pages of bibliography and supplemental material. It is also a visual masterpiece and perhaps Catel’s most inventive work to date. The two were kind enough to talk about the project and answered their questioned together. Thanks to Maya Bradford at Abrams for arranging this.
Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Catel Muller and José-Louis Bocquet on ‘Josephine Baker’”
New series launches in December.
Dynamite Entertainment has announced artist Kenan Yarar will join writer Mike Carey on their upcoming Barbarella comic.
To coincide with the 55th anniversary of Barbarella, Dynamite will launch the new comic in December. Jean-Marc Lofficier, custodian of the Barbarella brand, will join Carey as supervisor on the project.
Continue reading “Kenan Yarar joins Mike Carey on Dynamite’s ‘Barbarella’ comic”
Plus: IDW stumbles, SyFy makes a list, and Darryl Cunningham draws another science comic.
Political Cartoonist Arrested: Government authorities in the African country of Equatorial Guinea arrested political cartoonist Ramón Nsé Esono Ebalé on September 16 and are reportedly preparing criminal defamation charges against him, according to Human Rights Watch. Equatorial Guinea’s defamation law, which dates back to its days as a Spanish colony, makes it a crime to criticize the president or other government officials. Ebalé, who no longer lives in Equatorial Guinea but was visiting to renew his passport, frequently caricatures President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo; he visited the U.S. in 2016 to distribute his book, Obi’s Nightmare, which imagines what the president’s life would be like if he had to live as an ordinary person in his country.
25 of the Best: The SyFy folks have done the research (presumably!) and come up with a list of the 25 best comics writers of the past 25 years. If nothing else, this gives everyone something to argue about!
Continue reading “Comics Lowdown: Political cartoonist arrested”
The Ohio State University professor discusses the new imprint, Latin comics, his new website and more.
Frederick Luis Aldama is an Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University where he teaches in multiple departments. One of his passions has always been comics. He’s written books like Your Brain on Latino Comics: From Gus Arriola to Los Bros Hernandez and co-edited books like Graphic Borders: Latino Comic Books Past, Present, and Future, among many others. His new project is the Latinographix imprint, part of Mad Creek Books at Ohio State University Press.
This month the imprint is releasing its first book, Alberto Ledesma’s Diary of a Reluctant Dreamer, and Aldama also launched a website, The Planetary Republic of Comics. We spoke recently about these projects, the conversations he’s hoping to launch around about Latinx comics and talks about the books he’s publishing in the coming years.
Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Frederick Aldama on Latinographix”
