Dig Comics

Boom! Kids expands to all-ages kaboom! with Peanuts

kaboom! launches with Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown

Los Angeles comics publisher Boom! Studios has been releasing info on their re-branded Boom! Kids imprint this and last week, and the big news is the March release of the first Peanuts original graphic novel Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown as the debut title of kaboom! (formerly teased as Boom! Kids 2.0). (Click on the image to the right for a preview, which immediately sold me on the previously unthinkable idea of buying something Peanuts-related that wasn’t directly written and illustrated by the late Charles Schulz.)

Not to be confused with the Mexican comic book studio ¡Ka-Boom! Estudio or the short-lived 1990s comic book series by Jeph Loeb and Jeff Matsuda called Kaboom or the Texas comic book store KABOOM Comics or the Virginia Beach comic book store Kaboom Collectibles or the Australian comic book store Kaboom! Comics, Boom’s kaboom! will also include Snarked! by Roger Langridge, who recently wrapped up an excellent run creating The Muppet Show Comic Book, as well as a licensed comic based on the PBS Kids animated series Word Girl, and a French Star Wars parody imported as Space Warped. The line will also retain their classic Disney comics Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Mickey Mouse and Friends, Donald Duck and Friends, and Uncle Scrooge as well as the Disney Afternoon comics DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, and Chip ‘n Dale’s Rescue Rangers. (Disney has decided to pull the comics based on Pixar movies such as The Incredibles, Cars and Toy Story in-house where Marvel Comics will publish Disney•Pixar Presents, a magazine currently slated to reprint the Boom!-produced stories.)

Boom! publisher Ross Richie spoke with Comic Book Resources about kaboom! and the Peanuts graphic novel, and I was struck by his explanation for why the re-named Boom! Kids. From that interview:

“We had theorized for a while that we need to change it up for two reasons: one, we were seeing adults apologizing at conventions for buying the kids’ comics for themselves, and we wanted to remove this barrier. Seeing women in their 20s at Emerald City Comicon say, ‘I know the Incredibles comic book is made for kids, but it looks awesome and I love the art and I’m buying it anyway’ — that ain’t right. Let’s remove the perceived barrier,” Richie explained.

“We also knew on the other end that kids that can buy with their own dollars — let’s say 8 year olds for instance — didn’t consider themselves kids, so they were not sparking to the name,” he continued. “A lot of our content is great for this age group, so let’s get rid of that barrier.

“And through the process, what we ended up seeing was that our organic desire as a publisher hewed more towards being ‘all ages’ than a strict ‘kids’ publisher. So why not reflect that? Why not show everyone that our focus is shifting and changing?

I think that realization and change is significant, and it’s smart of them to listen to this and act on it. Many of the strongest material for young readers is in fact enjoyable for a wider cross section of people. It’s why Pixar movies are so successful. It’s why many of the classic Warner Brothers/Looney Tunes cartoons are so timeless. They don’t just speak to a narrow demographic. (As an aside, DC Comics has been publishing Looney Tunes comics for years.)

It kind of ties in with part of a new interview conducted by colorist Chris Sotomayor (Captain America, Hulk) with comics writer Kurt Busiek (JLA/Avengers, Astro City) (via The Beat). In talking about what’s lacking in the comics industry, Busiek said, “What we’re doing wrong is that we’re putting so much of our energy trying to make comics that will keep the existing audience on board, by concentrating the thrills, the hype and the excitement in ways that make the work forbidding to newcomers. And at the same time, not doing enough outreach to new audiences.” He goes on to break down how to bring in new audiences:

The four-part mantra of how to reach a new target audience remains true: 1. Publish material they will like. 2. Publish it in a form they’ll be willing to pick up. 3. Distribute it to places they will see it. 4. Tell them it exists.

When we reach out to new audiences, we often do only one of the four — and sometimes none, and then complain that it’s not possible.

Fortunately Boom! is doing it differently (and there are others too). They get that speaking to the same narrow audience is death in the long term. There’s nothing wrong with being a cult hit or making a product for a very specific audience, but when the majority of a publishing line is developed with that approach, there can only be finite interest.

Those four steps should be plastered on every comics publishers walls.

Cognito Comics creates interactive iPad graphic novels

Last November I talked about innovation and creativity with digital comics on the iPad and other mobile devices. Thanks to Twitter, I recently stumbled upon what looks like an amazing example of what I was talking about that launched in December.

Cognito Comics creates what they call “narrative nonfiction” in comics, animation and games. Their debut is the iPad app Operation Ajax, a political thriller graphic novel explicitly created with the iPad in mind. This is a notable change of strategy because most comics and graphic novels on the iPad are comics that were created and published in print years ago. They have created an interactive experience that includes an advanced version of the panel-by-panel guided view of services like Comixology and iVerse. You can also explore CIA documents, profiles and other information that appear in the story. The app is free and includes the prologue chapter, with subsequent chapters getting released once a month for $2.99. Chapter 2 was released February 11. Take a look at this demo video for a taste:

Operation Ajax is based on Stephen Kinzer‘s best-selling book All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, which tells of the 1953 coup in Iran orchestrated by the United States and England. Kinzer servers as story editor and advisor for Cognito, and there’s a real sense that he was directly involved in the creation of Operation Ajax and not just rubber stamping this adaptation. The graphic novel is written by Mike de Seve (Beavis and Butt-head, Sesame Street), who is also providing art direction. Artists include Steve Ellis (High Moon), Tyler Jenkins (Proof) and others. (I wish it was a little bit easier to find out who actually made the comic – Stephen Kinzer’s name is really the only one pushed. Makes sense given his profile but there are others at work too and I don’t see the artists listed anywhere on the Cognito Comics or Operation Ajax websites.)

With positive press from PBS, The New York Times, ICv2 and Graphic Novel Reporter, this is bound to be just the beginning of this kind of innovation that still uses the language of comics and might even bring it to a new level. For you traditionalists, fear not. A print version is planned.

Make your own comics at Marvel.com – like this one but probably better

My comedic genius at work. Click image for higher quality version at Marvel.com

Hey, look what I made!

Marvel.com has a fun little program where you can create your own comic strips and comic books using clip art. It’s kind of a limited selection but it’s plenty to tinker around. I’m sure younger kids would have fun playing around with it and sort of learning how comics are made (more or less). You can pick Marvel characters like the three I picked above, as well as the X-Men’s Wolverine, Beast and Colossus, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, a few villains, and more. You can choose your panel layouts, pick your backgrounds, speech balloons, type in your own dialogue, and add sound effects.

If you sign up with an account, you can build a portfolio, save the comics at Marvel.com, save them to your computer as PDFs, and email them to friends. Marvel.com apparently saves all of them on their website. There’s a gallery here where you can see some fun comics posted, although it doesn’t look like they display ones created without setting up an account since I don’t see mine there. Other users can rate and leave comments for each comic.

I don’t know when this was added but it’s a fun feature. Maybe I’ll torture you with more of these.

Comics Events in LA: Week of 2/27/11

If you’re interested in finding out more about comic books and graphic novels, a great way to discover new stories is to check out a local comics event. There’s a vibrant comics community here in Los Angeles, where you can meet artists, writers, publishers, and other readers who are ready and willing to turn you on to some amazing material.

Here are some local Los Angeles events coming up that celebrate the sequential art form.

This week:

Wednesday, March 2: NEW COMICS DAY! Find your local comics specialty shop.

Wednesday, March 2, 8:30 PM: The Meltdown with Kumail Nanjiani and Jonah Ray (weekly comedy show) featuring stand-up comedians Chris Gore, Matt Mira, Glenn Wool, Sean Patton, Brett Gelman, and Thomas Lennon, at Meltdown Comics, 7522 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 90046. Tickets: $8.

Thursday, March 3, 7 PM – 10 PM: Meat! art show opening reception, with art by Michael Kupperman, Charlyne Yi, Brandon Bird, Carlos Ramos, J.R. Goldberg, Julia Vickerman, Myke Chilian, Layron DeJarnette, John McGuire Olsen, Richard George Lee, Britt Sanders, Andy Ristaino, and Jhonen Vasquez, at Meltdown Comics, 7522 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 90046. Tickets: $0. Art show on display until March 17.

Saturday, March 5, 8 PM: Film geek podcast Battleship Pretension, hosted by Tyler Smith and David Bax, with special guests comedians Jim Bruce, Michelle Biloon, James Adomian, and Matt Champagne, broadcasts live at Meltdown Comics, 7522 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 90046. Tickets: $5. (more…)

Static Shock creator/All-Star Superman screenwriter Dwayne McDuffie dies

Dwayne McDuffie by Glen Murakami & Andrew Pepoy (click for full bio)

The sad and unexpected death of Dwayne McDuffie was announced yesterday by Comic Book Resources. He passed away due to complications from a surgical procedure performed Monday evening.

Yesterday was also the day of the DVD release of All-Star Superman, an animated feature adaptation of the critically acclaimed comic book series of the same name by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. McDuffie was the direct-to-DVD movie’s screenwriter. He had previously written for the animated TV series “Justice League Unlimited”, and served as both producer and writer on Cartoon Network’s successful Ben 10 animated franchise.

In the comics world, he will be remembered for co-founding Milestone Media, which led to the Milestone imprint at DC Comics in the 1990s. His Milestone creation Static was later adapted into an animated series, “Static Shock”, on which McDuffie served as story editor and writer for several episodes. DC Comics has been reprinting a number of classic Milestone comics recently, including graphic novel collections of Hardware, Icon, and of course Static Shock. Earlier in McDuffie’s career he worked for Marvel Comics, where he co-created the comedy series Damage Control and successfully revamped Deathlok (both of which should’ve been made into movies by now).

McDuffie lived and worked in Los Angeles. He was a guest speaker at CSUN’s Superheroes Seminar with Charles Hatfield last Fall (read Hatfield’s touching eulogy), and would make in-store appearances at local comic book stores to sign books and DVDs. He had appeared at the LA screening of All-Star Superman last week at The Paley Center, and was scheduled to appear at tonight’s ReggiesWorld.com launch party at Golden Apple in West Hollywood. The final hours of that Golden Apple event have been converted to a Tribute to Dwayne McDuffie starting at 8 PM tonight. Fans and professionals alike are invited to attend.

As remembrances started pouring in, two stories caught my attention on Twitter. I think they illustrate the kind of humor and intelligence at his disposal. In my mind they underscore his importance as a respected professional who fought from within for diversity and a stronger industry. (more…)

Celebrate Presidents Day – Read a Comic

Happy Presidents Day! It’s that time of year again when the United States celebrates that we have a President in our form of government! Pretty exciting stuff!

Actually, there are some pretty crazy stories from the life and times of US Presidents past. And sometimes their deaths can make for some compelling reading too. Sure, it’s morbid but it can also be pretty fascinating. Comics writer/artist Rick Geary has taken a look at two presidential assassinations with the same precision and accessibility of all of his work. His series of graphic novels A Treasury of Victorian Murder (and the newer series A Treasury of XXth Century Murder) make for great reads, and pre-dates a lot of the current non-fiction graphic novels coming out nowadays.

The Murder of Abraham Lincoln by Rick Geary

In The Murder of Abraham Lincoln, Geary takes a look at the 1865 murder of the 16th US President and the days that followed. Some of the recently resurrected theories about John Wilkes Booth surviving and living to old age while a body double was killed in his place at Garrett Farm aren’t included but it nevertheless is packed with information glazed over in high school history class while maintaining a great narrative. Geary also uses the power of comics well, weaving in a cutaway of the Presidential Box at the Ford’s Theatre as Booth makes his fatal move, maps and a timeline of Booth’s escape route, and a map showing the route taken by the Lincoln funeral train.

Geary also took a look at the second US President to be killed in The Fatal Bullet: The Assassination of President James A. Garfield.

See NBM Publishing for a complete list of Geary’s true crime graphic novels currently in-print.

What’s with all the comic book talk? I thought this was an actor’s website.

Corey Blake as seen by Scott Shaw!

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been blogging more and more over the last few months. And a lot of it is dealing with comic books. Or graphic novels, if you prefer. Or sequential art, if you want to be hoity-toity.

I love performing, so you’ll always see me talking up new shows and videos and whatever else I’m in. (Three new Magic Meathands sketch comedy videos should start posting in a week or so, and I’ll be in all of them!) But there’s more to me than that. The world of comics also endlessly fascinates me, and it turns out I like talking about it to whoever will listen. Fortunately, the internet and blogs were invented so that I can write ad nauseum about my topic of choice.

I love the idea of introducing comics to new people, so I hope to be able to do more of that. (Unfortunately time limitations prevent me from doing the New Comics for New Readers weekly list I used to do. I’m hoping to find a replacement.) I’m also interested in the history of comics, how that has given us our present, and where comics are going. And finally, I like taking a closer look at the LA comics scene in particular, as I think that’s something that’s under-represented online.

(I can’t blog about everything going on in the world of comics. So if you want to read more about what you see here, check out one of the links in the right-hand column under Comics News, Etc. That’s a list of my a favorite sites focused on comic books and the culture around them.)

So you will probably continue to see me comment on comics news or spotlight certain works or aspects of the comics industry interspersed between self-promotion of my own work as a comedic performer and actor.

Behind the scenes, I’m looking into a way of combining these two aspects of my life – a way to educate, discuss and spread the word about comics in a live presentation. It’s an exciting process to discover just what this new thing is going to be. I hope you’ll join in the discussion and discovery. Please feel free to post comments here on the blog, talk with me on Facebook and Twitter, or ask me a question on Formspring. It’s great to hear from you.

Comics can still be controversial – hot button issues rile up readers

This week, two comics are making national news due to some readers being offended by the comics’ content.

The Washington Post blog Comic Riffs by Michael Cavna takes a look at reactions from an op-ed article in the Press & Sun-Bulletin to a week’s worth of the comic strip Mother Goose & Grimm by Mike Peters. The comic satirized the hypothetical Chernobyl Amusement Park with a series of radiation jokes. The historic meltdown of the Ukraine’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 resulted in the destruction of a community and its local environment, and thousands either dying or being diagnosed with life-altering illnesses in the fallout.

Meanwhile, MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell is shocked and dismayed at the perceived racism of a recent installment of the political comic strip Obama Nation by James Hudnall and Batton Lash. First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative Let’s Move is the target. O’Donnell takes issue with how Lash portrayed the First Family.

My first thought is that these are reminders that comic strips, comic books, graphic novels – the sequential art form that these all use – can still stir a passionate response in people. Not that it’s even debatable, but the medium is still as vital as ever. So that’s great news.

Specifically though, do these comics go too far?

Your miles will vary. We all have varying levels of sensitivity to different topics. And if someone is genuinely upset or offended by something, that shouldn’t be dismissed. Having said that, artistic expression is still a freedom and a right we enjoy, as long as another’s freedoms, rights or safety aren’t limited as a result.

I’ll look at these one at a time after the clickie-jump: (more…)

Learn to read comics with fan-made Power Records videos

As I’ve mentioned in the past, not everyone takes to the language of sequential art instantly. Some need to ease into it. One possible solution probably isn’t really a solution at all, but it makes for a unique way to read some early comic books.

In the 1970s, Power Records released a series of vinyl 45’s of a fully produced performance of comic book stories, complete with voice actors, sound effects and music. A couple of years ago, a crafty YouTube user, noielmucus, put these recordings to an edited presentation of each issue included with each record so that the dialogue and captions being spoken appear on screen. A great way for kids to read along. The pacing is kind of slow for today’s audiences and some voices are just plain weird (like the weird sped up effect on Mr. Fantastic’s voice when he uses his powers) but others are actually quite good. It definitely makes for a fun curiosity.

The Marvel Comics records gave a performance of three classic issues, so it’s a unique way to experience these stories of the origin of the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, and one of the earliest adventures of Spider-Man. But the DC Comics ones appear to be original stories made just for these records (although I can’t identify the creators). They feature Superman against the inter-dimensional imp Mxyptlk, the Joker making his own utility belt to fight Batman and Robin, and more complete silliness.

Apparently this collection of 10 are just the tip of the iceberg. Over 90 LP records and 45-rpm singles were created. A modern version of these for young readers might be worth looking into by some enterprising company. (If you need any voice-actors, let me know.)

Amazing Spider-Man #1 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (1963) parts 1-5

(more…)

Crime Does Not Pay (except when it does)

The comics that changed history. Brilliant cover by Charles Biro. (Click image for more Dark Horse summer releases.)

Dark Horse Comics is releasing a “best of” compilation of the seminal 1940s crime anthology series Crime Does Not Pay this July, according to information the publisher released to Comic Book Resources (and other comics news sites).

Crime Does Not Pay was a huge hit in its day, as spearheaded by editors and writers Charles Biro and Bob Wood. As the first “true crime” comic book, it spawned countless derivatives and significantly altered the course of comics. It was the first non-superhero genre to really take hold in America, and the first to expand readership to a somewhat older demographic. Today people are ordering hookers and heroin if their comic sells over 100,000 copies, so it’s amazing to think that Crime Does Not Pay at one point had sales in excess of 1 million. The publisher theorized that due to friends lending out copies, they had a readership of over 5 million people.

Parents and other concerned citizens didn’t approve of the graphic violence and often glorified criminals, and the entire crime genre of comics, along with the growing horror genre, became a target of political leaders. By the mid-’50s, the United States Senate formed a sub-committee to investigate the relationship between comic book and juvenile delinquency. The entire industry was publicly embarrassed and essentially shamed into self-censorship. Everyone reigned in their content at the risk of losing newsstand distribution, far and away the dominant. While there was definitely a need for some kind of content warning, what instead resulted was that an entire medium was sterilized and made safe for kids. Needless to say, Crime Does Not Pay and the genre it had created lost what made it appealing to readers and was canceled within months.

This story has been told before and will be told again, but the actual stories of the Crime Does Not Pay comics have rarely if ever been reprinted in modern times. I’m very excited to be able to get this as an affordable soft cover graphic novel. Usually these kinds of things are released in massive hard cover tomes that tend to be too expensive for the mildly curious and too unwieldy for reading without a lectern. There will also be great bonus content, like an illustrated essay by comics historian Denis Kitchen detailing how Crime Does Not Pay co-editor Bob Wood’s later life could’ve made for a story in his own comic.

Click through for the full product description: (more…)