Comics Alliance: An AOL Comic Book Community

I wouldn't be surprised if most of you weren't familiar with the work of painter/colorist/computer graphic artist Jose Villarrubia, with the possible exception of his gorgeous work adapting Alan Moore's Voice of the Fire and The Mirror of Love, both published by Top Shelf Productions. Nevertheless, working along the margins of comicdom is just the way Jose likes it, which is why I'm filling this week's space "outing" the wonderful work of my versatile and modest friend.


Behind the scenes, however, Jose is one of the comics industry's go-to professionals when it comes computer coloring, photography and digital illustration. In fact, the list of collaborators this ex-pat from Spain has worked with over the years -- excluding his work with Moore -- reads like a "who's who" list of industry luminaries, including Jae Lee on Fantastic Four1234, Paul Pope on Batman Year 100, J.H. Williams III on Desolation Jones and Richard Corben on Cage.

I feel a strong kinship to Jose (certainly not on the talent side), because his journey as a creative professional has taken him places he never expected, like his second career paralleling his comics work as a full-time professor of art at the Maryland Institute College of Art (one of my fond memories of Jose is his "Pied Piper of Hamlin-like" influence on his students following him around comic book conventions soaking up the creativity in the room).

Besides the links I've embedded along the way to provoke your interest in Jose's career, I suspect you'll feel some of the same warmth, kindness and creative intensity my talented friend projects effortlessly after viewing this video tour of Baltimore, his adopted town.

In June of 2006, Alan Moore and the folks at Top Shelf were informed by the Great Ormond Street Hospital that publication of LOST GIRLS in the UK would infringe upon GOSH's copyright on Peter Pan. Top Shelf denied any copyright-wrong-doing but eventually agreed that the book would not be published until after the hospital's rights ran out in 2008.

Huzzah! That's tomorrow!

After more than a year and a half of waiting, Alan Moore's epic three-volume LOST GIRLS is finally going to see the light of day in the UK and the rest of the European Union on January 1, 2008. So if you guys get the internet in England, heed my words. Get yourself a copy of this book. It's amazing.

In a previous comics blogging life not so long ago, you may have read my first look piece about Rich Koslowski's newest project, B.B. Wolf & The L.P.s, in collaboration with writer Johnnie Arnold.

Rich has been a very busy guy lately, completing B.B. Wolf in his gorgeous ink wash style (very similar to his work on the award-winning Three Fingers and The List), starting a new Three Geeks GN (a movie based on the trio is in the works) and staying ahead of schedule on his first assignment for the House of Ideas, scripting a 12-part story arc about the new Guardian for Marvel Comics Presents. And, that list doesn't include his freelance endeavors for other publishers including Archie Comics and Devil's Due (Family Guy).

Watching from the sidelines since the debut of Three Fingers five years ago, I'm glad to see Rich's "star" is finally ascending in the comics industry, and it's about time...

BTW, Rich pens one of the more politically incorrect and funnier creator blogs around, no doubt a product of his awesome storytelling, a gregarious nature (that belies a heart of gold) and a frighteningly acidic sense of humor (especially when I'm within earshot).

A few months ago, I kicked off my almost-weekly Comics Page feature with a look at the treasure trove of art and music that is Doot Doot Garden, the blog home of my pal Craig Thompson, nee of the classic and award-winning Blankets and, in my opinion, his even awesomer memoir, Carnet de Voyage. Seems my pal may have to make room for another award, however, not one of the comics variety, according to a recent news piece in The Oregonian.

Craig was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Recording Package category for his groovy design work on the Portland indy band Menomena's latest album, Friend & Foe. (Listen to Wet and Rusting from the new album.)



By the way, Craig accompanied Menomena on their European tour, creating some truly amazing impromptu sketches during their sets, as you can see in the YouTube video below.


For those of you who haven't been lucky enough to have your copy of Blankets, Goodbye Chunky Rice, Carnet de Voyage or anything else signed and sketched by Craig, you may wince after watching this very short YouTube video about what he does with the art he makes during Menomena's shows.

While millions of Americans were flooding malls on Black Friday, one of my favorite cartoonists, the original American Elf James Kochalka, had more important things to do... James and his wife Amy welcomed their second son, Oliver Jonco, into the world on Nov. 23. Just a reminder, my friends at Top Shelf Productions will be publishing a third volume of American Elf strips in 2008, collecting James' online dailies from 2006-07.

My close friends at Top Shelf Productions in suburban Atlanta and Portland, Ore., are giving a little bit of extra thanks for unexpected blessings this Thanksgiving after Variety broke the news earlier this week that Bruce Willis will star in director Jonathan Mostow's upcoming adaptation of The Surrogates, the company's initial venture into "mainstream comics" some two years ago by Rob Vendetti and Brent Weldele, for Disney.

No surprise to me that Willis was cast as the cop who never leaves his house to solve crimes, as he's been one of America's better actors in film over the past two decades with roles in a slew of interesting actioners including the Die Hard series, 12 Monkeys, Sin City and the terrific pre-pre-pre-Heroes film Unbreakable.

BTW, expect to see another Surrogates book from Vendetti and Weldele, perhaps about the time the film debuts in 2009...

For those of you who are friends -- or enemies -- of Eddie Campbell, choose the caption that best explains -- for your amusement -- the bandage on the Maestro's noggin:

1. Thank you, Anne!

2. OK, it is a graphic novel...

3. Alan doesn't like you anymore.

4. Callum, I've decided to give you a raise after all...

5. The hats just don't fit like they used to...

6. Don't EVER stiff me for dinner again at San Diego, or else!

Or, better yet, make up one of your own!

My day began with a fruitless search for the charger for my camera's battery, followed by an equally fruitless search for a store that might sell me a replacement, so I'm afraid I must begin with an apology for the lack of on-the-scene photos. I'm hopeful that some of my fellows at the Alliance will be able to pick up the slack in this regard.

But enough about that: It's the first day of SPX, baby, so everybody get happy!

I've been attending SPX every year since its inception in 1994. I'm pretty sure it was '94 (it's possible it may have been '95), but I'm certain that I've never missed one --and that includes 2001's "SPXiles" show where the Baltimore Comic-Con heroically stepped into the breach in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, of which that year's SPX was a casualty. My point is that this is a show that is very dear to me and, sure, some of the reason for that is that good friends Greg Bennett and Chris Oarr were involved in the show from the beginning (I remember how excited they were to tell me over dinner one night that they'd decided SPX needed an award, and that it would be a festival prize, and that they had come up with the perfect name and design of the award with the Ignatz brick. And it is indeed perfect...though they quickly learned that it is rather expensive to ship an actual brick to winners not in attendance), but the main reason for the affection I hold for this show was that it was those early years of SPX where I first experienced the true community that a common love of making and/or reading comics makes possible.

Despite my best intentions -- also lacking the time and a plane ticket -- I'll be very sorry about missing this weekend's Small Press Expo (SPX) in Bethesda, Md., one of the most enjoyable weekends of any year for fans of independent comics.

SPX represents the last major independent show of the year, after STAPLE!, APE and MoCCA, and it's my favorite of the bunch. I'm partial to the D.C. group of retailers and, now, friends of retailers who have managed to expand the reach and scope of their show to a larger audience over the past decade without losing its indy feel.

I suspect it's a geography thing: SPX is just far enough away from California and NYC not to be the "trendy comic book thing" to do (for now anyways) and important enough to attract special guests the likes of Matt Wagner, Bill Griffith, Jeff Smith and Gilbert Hernandez, heavyweights by any measurement.

And, like MoCCA, you'll discover treasures you'd never find at your local comic shop.

Case in point: Dead Man's Hand, a new anthology of westerns published by Tree Fort Press that features stories by students at the Center for Cartoon Studies along with veterans like the ol' Tyrant himself, Steve Bissette and Web cartoonist Cayentano Garza (Magic Inkwell).

Since I'm partial to Western comics, I think I'm going to order one of these online just to be on the safe side.

If you can't make it to Bethesda this weekend, maybe you should too...

Matt Kindt is not yet a household name in the comics field, and this fact borders on the criminal. You see, Kindt has quietly been producing noir masterpieces with almost frightening consistency for a number of years now, first in collaboration with Jason Hall (Pistolwhip volumes 1 and 2, and Mephisto and the Empty Box), and then on his own as the writer/artist of 2 Sisters and the just-released Super Spy, his best and most ambitious work to date.

Super Spy is a 336-page graphic novel of WW2-era espionage consisting of 37 masterfully interconnected short stories presented as "dossiers," each of which is issued an identifying dossier number as well as a title. As such, the reader can read the book in chronological order if desired, but the order intended by the author for maximum dramatic effectiveness is as presented in the book...which is to say, out of sequential order. Such a conceit could come off as a gimmicky juggling act in lesser hands, but Kindt skillfully keeps all of his dramatic balls in the air throughout, and to powerful effect at that.

The dossiers, between them focusing on a sizeable cast of spies rather than simply upon the titular "Super Spy," take place in a variety of locations in the European theater. Most of the action takes place in Axis countries and is almost exclusively centered on Allied agents as protagonists...or is it? The agents' stories included encompass both males and females (including wartime romances between them in several cases), and spies of both the professional and amateur variety. As such, Kindt provides himself a canvas on which to paint deeply personal, introspective stories of a distinctly literary bent, while at the same time telling a larger, more complex story about a side of the War, and the effect of the War on its active participants -- though not active in the strictest battlefield sense. Oh, did I mention that it's also a taut, suspenseful page-turner?

If you've never had the pleasure of attending a comic book convention, you should strongly consider it in the very near future, if for no other reason than to have the opportunity to catch a rare glimpse of your favorite cartoonist at work sketching something spontaneously that you'll never see published anywhere.

I've had the unique pleasure, in my former life on the convention circuit doing a little bit of everything over the years for my pal Chris Staros of Top Shelf Productions (never a henchman or minion, however), of watching the many artists in the Top Shelf stable sketch for fans and, on rare occasion, for me. Being a man of too many words who'd prefer to say more with less, I am forever envious of talented people who can capture the pictures in their heads on paper.

Hopefully, you'll savor that same kind of experience at least once a week in this space under the moniker The Comics Page, a place to find buried art treasures on the Web and elsewhere from cartoonists whose names you already know, along with a few whose names you should...

This week's stop is my pal Craig Thompson's awesome Doot Doot Garden Blog. There, you'll see your first glimpses of his next beautiful graphic novel, Habibi, pages from his sketchbook and his love for the indy rockers of Menomena. Below is a promotional poster for a concert date with Menomena and Tracker, the group who produced one of the few soundtracks ever created for a graphic novel, in this case Craig's wonderful Blankets.

Yo. It's Labor Day weekend and I am recovering from a barbecue at which I drank too much and Seacord unlocked half the songs on my copy of GUITAR HERO ENCORE: ROCKS THE '80s! But more importantly, the weekend means it's time for the End of the Week Explosion, in which the Amazing Seacord answers the tough questions. And because I'm too scared to tell him in person...
Seacord, I think my GUITAR HERO axe is considering filing a restraining order.
On to the Explosion!

Q: I totally missed on my new releases post, but INCREDIBLE CHANGE-BOTS is, quite possibly, the greatest TRANSFORMERS parody of all time.

What's up dude? First off I want to say that the Go-Bots are the greatest parody of the Transformers of all time. I mean, Cykill? Turbo? With names like that how can you go wrong? Besides didn't the Transformers do a good enough parody of themselves with Beast Wars?...It just got colder in here...man that was awful. Now, if you want to talk in terms of quality, yeah, I'll give you Change-Bots is good. Regardless I don't care about any of this just that hot ass girl in the movie. I mean, c'mon, unreal. Seriously, school's about to go back in session and that means me in my brand new Mustang cruising the parking lots of the local high schools. How can it be illegal? Look at Dazed and Confused...oh and by Mustang I mean Schwinn but why split hairs? At least I have a yellow bike helmet....watch out ladies there's plenty of room on these handlebars.

Picking up where yesterday's post left off, this is a look at ten books being published in October 2007 that you might otherwise miss. From art school girls to gun-toting library police, there's a little something for everyone to enjoy here.

RIVERHEAD BOOKS

GORILLAZ: RISE OF THE OGRE TP
by Gorillaz
The graphic novel meets the rock & roll celebrity tell-all! Gorillaz - bass-slayer mastermind Murdoc Niccals, hip-hop hardman drummer Russel Hobbs, Japanese girl-guitarist Noodle, and spiky blue-haired singer 3D - have lived the rock & roll life that other stars only dream of, a life rife with demonic possessions, underworld dealings, amnesia, prison terms, and jaw-dropping stupidity! In Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogre the Gorillaz put mouth to paper, revealing the complete story of this ground-breaking band from inception to fame and all the depraved misadventures along the way in a graphic novel that's part satire, part history, and entirely entertaining. (C: 0-1-2)
SC, 8x11, 304pgs, FC, SRP: $20.00

Ok, I'm going out on a limb here, but bear with me. One of the creators of the Gorillaz is long-absent-from-comics Jamie Hewlett, best known for creating Tank Girl. Now, I'm not a big fan of the Gorillaz (time to turn in my cool music card, huh?) but I've always loved the visual style of the characters thanks to Hewlett. Now, since this is a graphic novel, I'm hoping and praying that it's illustrated by Hewlett. Because if so, I'm running out and buying it. If not? Well, perhaps not. So this potential hit might really be a bit of a miss. Fingers crossed, everyone, because we need more Hewlett comics.

To wrap up what I began yesterday with my geeky State of the Industry post, here's a few tidbits from the blogger's notebook you may not find elsewhere...

1. My fellow Alliance blogger and pal Greg McElhatton recently spilled the beans about Jeff Smith's indy follow-up to Bone, Rasl. Smith shared the first six pages of Rasl during a Comic-Con panel, and it's a HUGE departure from the further adventures of the denizens of Boneville or Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil in more ways than one. Case in point, it's being published in a Treasury-style format akin to Alex Ross' recent series of oversized and beautiful graphic novels by DC.

Here's the REAL kicker: Once Smith is done with Rasl -- eight to 10 oversized issues over the next two years starting next January -- they'll be collected in a standard-sized trade paperback, not an oversized one.

Scratching your heads about that one too?

I've seen the spontaneous combustion that comes when comics geeks have that rare chance meet their all-time fav writer/artist. You've probably practiced the moment in a mirror a thousand times, and knew it by heart. That is, until the opportunity arose to actually say it... Trust me folks, been there, done that.

I don't believe five minutes went by during today's hour-long Comic-Con panel honoring the short career of J.H. Williams III -- from Chase to Desolation Jones, Seven Soldiers of Victory and, lately, Batman – without being reminded just how much of a genius he really is.

Just don't ask Williams how he's able to transform a simple superhero story into a work of art, however. Lord knows, hosts Lauren McCubbin, Grant Morrison and Scott Johnson tried to get Williams to explain how he does it. Morrison tried to explain Williams' gift as a means to convey superhero drama by approximating the rhythms of music. Sounds good, but no dice...

The closest Williams comes to defining a real influence during the hour: An off-campus art course during his high school days on advertising art and design may have done more to influence his almost supernaturally, intuitive instinct for design. Frankly, I really care how Williams is able to import the look he gives Batman or Promethea from his brain to the canvas. It just works.

Full disclosure: During those halcyon days working for my close friend, Chris Staros (he's really more like a brother to me), behind the Top Shelf Productions booth for many years on the convention circuit, I had my chance to meet Williams in San Diego as his Promethia partner Alan Moore began diverting his comics work there. And, I was just as much of gushing fanboy when I met him. The word genius was mentioned at least once too...

A sidenote: Despite the interest in the room among Williams' fans, don't expect DC Comics to publish trades collecting his first mainstream work – Chase – anytime soon. Since the characters used in the series aren't an active part of the current DCU, the suits claim there's no incentive at this time to reprint them.

Bad call DC!