I have posted my thoughts on the best and worst comics of 2008 on the AvengersAssemble! board:
http://vplexico.proboards60.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=jarvis08&thread=2245
Showing posts with label Comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comics. Show all posts
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Kull and Solomon Kane
As much as I like the character of Solomon Kane-- the Puritan crusader who wanders the Earth, rapier and pistol at the ready -- better than any of R E Howard's other creations, I haven't enjoyed the Dark Horse comic as much as I'd hoped. It's seemed a bit muddled to me, and the pacing has been off. The art is close enough to what I'd want for the property, but it's not always clear enough as to what's going on.
Meanwhile, I've never cared much at all about Kull, the barbarian who stole a kingdom (and who mainly served as an early template for Conan's later career)...
But I picked up KULL #1 this week and found I really enjoyed it. It's a lot more in the style of what I expected the new/relaunched Howard properties from DH to be like. The writing is crisp and fast-paced and the art is perfectly suited to the character and the world.
If you like the classic Howard properties, give this one a try. Meanwhile, I hope SOLOMON KANE improves soon.
Meanwhile, I've never cared much at all about Kull, the barbarian who stole a kingdom (and who mainly served as an early template for Conan's later career)...
But I picked up KULL #1 this week and found I really enjoyed it. It's a lot more in the style of what I expected the new/relaunched Howard properties from DH to be like. The writing is crisp and fast-paced and the art is perfectly suited to the character and the world.
If you like the classic Howard properties, give this one a try. Meanwhile, I hope SOLOMON KANE improves soon.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Quick Thoughts on HeroesCon 2008
Some quick thoughts on HeroesCon 2008:
* The main event: We had a pretty good crowd for the primary thing I flew out there for: the "Avengers Assembled!" panel on Saturday at 3 pm-- especially considering that it started out listed as Friday, then changed to Sunday, and finally ended up on Saturday. The fact that anyone figured out where and when it was held (including me) was a miracle.
I led a general "Avengers" discussion for about a half hour, touching on topics such as Bendis, Iron Man, Secret Invasion, the way almost all of the Marvel line is now one big story, and so on. Then I talked about the ASSEMBLED! book for a few minutes, by which time the HERO Initiative rep had arrived. He talked briefly about what the charity does, and then I presented him with a check for $1,200.00 for the profits the book has earned to date.
Here's a photo of the check presentation: http://plexico.blogspot.com/
FWIW: I ended up stuffing the big check in the trash. After, of course, handing over a real, normal-sized one. :-)
* In other news: The con was okay, but not as good (IMO) as the other two I attended. Seemed like a smaller crowd, and folks didn't much want to spend money (probably trying to save enough to be able to buy gas to drive home!) Guy Davis was right across from me and had a pretty long line all weekend, and indeed it seemed most folks were spending what they had on sketches and art commissions.
* Chuck at ComicsRelated.com interviewed me as part of his daily podcast series from the con.
My episode is here:http://www.comicrelated.com/audio/relatedrecap011.html
I haven't heard it yet, so I'm sure I'll sound ridiculous. Plus, the first take was better, but Chuck discovered halfway through that his high-tech device wasn't recording! So we had to do it over. Oh well!
* I did sell twelve copies of ASSEMBLED!, including eight at my table over the course of the weekend and four more at the panel. Toss in several copies of the other books and it was a decent show-- about a hundred bucks below my last few cons' average, but since this was a comics convention and folks appeared scared off by all the *text* in the books, I guess that's not bad.
Several folks came up to get the copies they already had signed, which was pretty cool. Lavish praise was handed out for all the contributors, so you folks who wrote the chapters should feel... um... lavishly praised! :-)
* I ran into Two Morrows Publishing's Eric Nolen-Weathington, an acquaintance of mine from a few other convention panels over the last few years, and we discussed a couple of interesting ideas I'll keep under wraps for now. We'll see what comes of it.
* Along similar lines-- One guy who came up to my table had a *thick* book he'd done himself-- a comprehensive history of the minor villains of the DC Universe, I think. He gave me a copy. It has tons of illustrations on every page and is like 600 pages long. He wants to publish it but is afraid of getting sued by DC. He was wondering how we managed not to get sued by Marvel. I said: 1) Almost no pics; 2) profits for a comics-related charity, and 3) probably small-beans enough not to attract the wrong kind of notice. Plus it's a general commentary book, and lots of those get published all the time.
I encountered quite a few other folks of both recent and long-time acquaintance, from Chuck at Comics Related to the "Likely Stories" gang to Danielle and a couple of other DragonCon folks, and many more (including a small but growing group of individual folks who seem to run into me at every convention and have read all the Sentinels books so far-- now that is cool!).
My table-neighbors were Kent Archer and his girlfriend; Kent is the inker of DR McNINJA, and he had quite a few fans coming up to get sketches and buy books over the weekend (I picked up a copy myself). They were super-nice-- they'd driven all the way from Boston!-- and it was great having them to talk with.
The one thing I always feel aggravated about at HeroesCon is that I still don't have an actual *comic book* of the Sentinels to sell. Dozens of people came up, looked very excited, flipped open WARLORD, and walked away upon encountering *text*. *sigh* But I'm working on addressing that very situation presently. Yes, a Sentinels comic book may be coming in the next few months. We shall see.
All in all: a decently fun weekend, some okay sales, and lots of friends and acquaintances to chat with. Not too bad a weekend.
* The main event: We had a pretty good crowd for the primary thing I flew out there for: the "Avengers Assembled!" panel on Saturday at 3 pm-- especially considering that it started out listed as Friday, then changed to Sunday, and finally ended up on Saturday. The fact that anyone figured out where and when it was held (including me) was a miracle.
I led a general "Avengers" discussion for about a half hour, touching on topics such as Bendis, Iron Man, Secret Invasion, the way almost all of the Marvel line is now one big story, and so on. Then I talked about the ASSEMBLED! book for a few minutes, by which time the HERO Initiative rep had arrived. He talked briefly about what the charity does, and then I presented him with a check for $1,200.00 for the profits the book has earned to date.
Here's a photo of the check presentation: http://plexico.blogspot.com/
FWIW: I ended up stuffing the big check in the trash. After, of course, handing over a real, normal-sized one. :-)
* In other news: The con was okay, but not as good (IMO) as the other two I attended. Seemed like a smaller crowd, and folks didn't much want to spend money (probably trying to save enough to be able to buy gas to drive home!) Guy Davis was right across from me and had a pretty long line all weekend, and indeed it seemed most folks were spending what they had on sketches and art commissions.
* Chuck at ComicsRelated.com interviewed me as part of his daily podcast series from the con.
My episode is here:http://www.comicrelated.com/audio/relatedrecap011.html
I haven't heard it yet, so I'm sure I'll sound ridiculous. Plus, the first take was better, but Chuck discovered halfway through that his high-tech device wasn't recording! So we had to do it over. Oh well!
* I did sell twelve copies of ASSEMBLED!, including eight at my table over the course of the weekend and four more at the panel. Toss in several copies of the other books and it was a decent show-- about a hundred bucks below my last few cons' average, but since this was a comics convention and folks appeared scared off by all the *text* in the books, I guess that's not bad.
Several folks came up to get the copies they already had signed, which was pretty cool. Lavish praise was handed out for all the contributors, so you folks who wrote the chapters should feel... um... lavishly praised! :-)
* I ran into Two Morrows Publishing's Eric Nolen-Weathington, an acquaintance of mine from a few other convention panels over the last few years, and we discussed a couple of interesting ideas I'll keep under wraps for now. We'll see what comes of it.
* Along similar lines-- One guy who came up to my table had a *thick* book he'd done himself-- a comprehensive history of the minor villains of the DC Universe, I think. He gave me a copy. It has tons of illustrations on every page and is like 600 pages long. He wants to publish it but is afraid of getting sued by DC. He was wondering how we managed not to get sued by Marvel. I said: 1) Almost no pics; 2) profits for a comics-related charity, and 3) probably small-beans enough not to attract the wrong kind of notice. Plus it's a general commentary book, and lots of those get published all the time.
I encountered quite a few other folks of both recent and long-time acquaintance, from Chuck at Comics Related to the "Likely Stories" gang to Danielle and a couple of other DragonCon folks, and many more (including a small but growing group of individual folks who seem to run into me at every convention and have read all the Sentinels books so far-- now that is cool!).
My table-neighbors were Kent Archer and his girlfriend; Kent is the inker of DR McNINJA, and he had quite a few fans coming up to get sketches and buy books over the weekend (I picked up a copy myself). They were super-nice-- they'd driven all the way from Boston!-- and it was great having them to talk with.
The one thing I always feel aggravated about at HeroesCon is that I still don't have an actual *comic book* of the Sentinels to sell. Dozens of people came up, looked very excited, flipped open WARLORD, and walked away upon encountering *text*. *sigh* But I'm working on addressing that very situation presently. Yes, a Sentinels comic book may be coming in the next few months. We shall see.
All in all: a decently fun weekend, some okay sales, and lots of friends and acquaintances to chat with. Not too bad a weekend.
Heroes Con ASSEMBLED! Check Presentation
At HeroesCon on Saturday I presented the HERO Initiative charity with a check for $1,200.00, the profits earned thus far by the ASSEMBLED! book I edited, written by the Jarvis Heads of AvengersAssemble.net.
A nice crowd witnessed the handover of the check and I thank all who attended. We should have another check for them sooner or later, from both more ASSEMBLED! sales and from the upcoming ASSEMBLED! 2.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Free Comic Book Day
The four of us hit the comic shop in Belleville, IL, around noon for Free Comic Book Day. They had tons of folks in there, and two local artists doing sketches for the little kids. (I spoke with one briefly about doing some work in the future with me...)
I picked up free issues of HELLBOY, Steve Rude's THE MOTH, and ALL STAR SUPERMAN #1. Maddie got OWLY and TINY TITANS and something else. I tried to convince Ami to get a couple for me (the limit was 3 per person), but she got more for Maddie instead. Oh well! The benefits of being nine!
Later I picked up Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War computer game. Not that I will ever have any time at all to play it, but I love the WH40K universe and this lets you be the Tau! They're an alien race of soldiers who all wear armor that's sort of a cross between Stormtroopers and Iron Man. How could I resist that? Now to see if I ever actually play it...
(The way Dan Abnett portrays the WH40K universe has had a lot of influence on the way I'm writing Mars McCoy. I intend it to read like a vintage pulp revival book, but some of the mood and ideas I'm carrying over from what I've absorbed from Abnett-- whose work I tremendously enjoy and respect.)
I picked up free issues of HELLBOY, Steve Rude's THE MOTH, and ALL STAR SUPERMAN #1. Maddie got OWLY and TINY TITANS and something else. I tried to convince Ami to get a couple for me (the limit was 3 per person), but she got more for Maddie instead. Oh well! The benefits of being nine!
Later I picked up Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War computer game. Not that I will ever have any time at all to play it, but I love the WH40K universe and this lets you be the Tau! They're an alien race of soldiers who all wear armor that's sort of a cross between Stormtroopers and Iron Man. How could I resist that? Now to see if I ever actually play it...
(The way Dan Abnett portrays the WH40K universe has had a lot of influence on the way I'm writing Mars McCoy. I intend it to read like a vintage pulp revival book, but some of the mood and ideas I'm carrying over from what I've absorbed from Abnett-- whose work I tremendously enjoy and respect.)
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