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Countdown to Insufferable Redundance
It's not the shameless hype that amazes me or how it captivates the fans. Not the grotesque caricature of a comic book that it is, which moves me to comment on it. It's that creators who produce good work would lend themselves to such a sham. That none of them were able to voice a simple objection with which to change the tides.
Permalink Posted: 6:16 PM EST 0 comments
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The Summer of 77 on 45th and 9th
That's what Alan Weiss calls it. The summer of 77 on 45h and 9th. I shared an apartment on 45th st. and 11th Ave in Manhattan with Chris Goldberg. A comics community insider adopted by the gang, found this sublet at the same time I was looking to move into the city from Queens. Didn't matter much where we lived then because we spent most of our time at Continuity. Neal Adams' studio, where we hung out and made comics. I shared a room in the back with Marshall Rogers. Both of us drew lots of Batman. A couple of years later, Chris also became a creator and wrote 'Cap'n Quick & a Foozle' for Eclipse. Marshall drew it. That sublet was a little surrealistic. Big furniture, four poster beds, plants everywhere. A spaced out movie set is what it really was. We hung out there a little but Continuity was the real home. That's where we made the comics. Alan had an apartment on the corner of 9th Ave and 45th st. We'd sit on his fire escape having a smoke and waiting for Lisa Chapin, Harry's sister, while we conspired how to fix the big mess of a world we were having such a good time in. Alan and I spent more time on his fire escape, overlooking 9th Ave, than I did at my sublet. Tony Dispoto had a land rover. An art dealer from Jersey with lots of old Warner Brothers' cartoon soundtracks and Benny Goodman tapes. It was for going out to hunt for food or to find a good Italian restaurant, depending on who you asked. The soundtracks and the tapes blasted every ride we took in the rover. Joe Barney was an assistant. Cary Bates wrote Superman. Larry Hama played in a band. Russ Heath told jokes. Mike Hinge illustrated Time magazine covers. Jack Abel and Terry Austin inked. Joe Brozowsky colored. Carl Potts pontificated. Joe Rubinstein asked questions. Howard Chaykin popped in. Jim Starlin too. Even Sergio Aragones. Gray Morrow also puffed on a pipe. Everyone in the family popped into the studio sooner or later, during the summer of 77 on 45th and 9th. We saw Zeppelin, Genesis twice, Yes twice, and ELP at the Garden, Tull at Radio City and Peter Gabriel at Carnegie Hall. We toked, we sipped. We tripped. We tooled, we partied, we dined and wined. We smacked each other silly with a volleyball at the Sheep's Meadow in Central Park. We were celebrities at the conventions and pests at the publisher's offices. We gathered at the Wrightson, Kaluta, Jones and Smith studio to have a drink, shake hands with Berni's skeleton and make sure everyone was accounted for. We bashed the First Fridays of every month at Jeanette Kahn's apartment on Central Park West. The comics community was a family in its heyday and we were its children. It was our magical summer of 77 on 45th and 9th. That's what Alan still calls it. The party was coming to an end anyway, so I busted out and got on a highway to California. The family would soon scatter, not to gather together again. Not in the same way it was together in the summer of 77 on 45th and 9th. Everyone was now gone. Except for Alan. 
Alan Weiss. Latest addition to Portraits of the Creators Sketchbook.
Permalink Posted: 3:05 PM EST 4 comments
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Bill Messner-Loebs Benefit Book in April Previews
The Three Tenors: Off Key, a benefit book produced by Aardwolf Publishing to aid Bill Messner-Loebs in his hour of need, now appears in the April issue of Diamond's Previews magazine and can be ordered at all retail comics outlets. This is an important purchase to make as its proceeds are being deferred to helping comics writer Bill Messner-Loebs overcome a time of diffcult financial misfortune which has befallen him and his wife Nadine, who is also suffering a serious health setback. The couple now struggles to recover from the shelter of a Salvation Army living quarters they've resorted to. The Three Tenors: Off Key can also be ordered directly through Aardwolf Publishing's order page at their web site.   Another benefit book for this cause is being produced by Neal Adams and published by Twomorrows Publishing. Previews of the work contributed to the book can be seen here at Neal's web site. Comic book creators are urged to contact Neal and contribute artwork for the effort to help Bill. Writers can contribute stories and text by contacting Clifford Meth.
Permalink Posted: 5:31 AM EST 0 comments
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Adventures into Digital Comics (Documentary)
Adventures into Digital Comics is perhaps one of the more serious works about the comics industry to be made in Hollywood. Produced and directed by Sebastian Dumesnil and Robert Nichols at Top Two Three Productions, the work aspires to paint a picture of the comic book's emergence into the digital age - and apears to achieve remarkable success in the effort. The documentary is compiled primarily of video taped interviews with comic book creators and the list of talent interviewed is quite extensive. I recently completed an interview with Sebastian, to be presented at the web site promoting the making of the film. There's a great deal of material to see there, so go and have a look. It all gives an insightful look at today's comic book creators as they're raised onto a pedestal, front and center stage, to the eyes and ears of the world. 
Below are are some excerpts from the interview. Q: Can you tell us about your background? I'm a storyteller and an activist of sorts, by nature, drawn into the comics at the peak of its Silver Age in the 1960's, profoundly influenced by the dramatic realism of Neal Adams' artwork yet captivated by a host of creators of that era including, Kirby, Steranko, Wrightson, Smith and many others. I emerged onto the comics scene in the 1970's, at a young age, working from Neal Adams' Continuity Associates studios but found myself quickly awakening to the global conflicts and dillemas our world was in. I then began a course of exploring the power that the comics hold in our culture and have since embarked on weaving our collective historical and social experience as a civilization into the medium. I've found that there are some very intrinsic underlying currents in the comics which point to this medium playing a very primary role in the global events unfolding in our time. I strive to bring these undercurrents to the forefront in the hope to inspire the comics community, headed by its creators, to take the more active role in our world - a role which awaits the comics industry in the future and is coming nearer to being realized today. One of the steps recently taken to help bring about this change in awareness within the creators' community is the coming together of a core group of creators to form The Comic Book Creators' Guild, striving to strengthen the creators' independence in the medium in order to help bring a better tomorrow the comics and for the world they thrive in. Q: In the film, we discuss the nature of comic books. Can you tell us what, for you, a comic book is? What are the strengths and ideas you like or intend to explore? First and foremost, the comics exemplify the human spirit in its raw pure force. Whether suprehero, reality-based alternative or simple cartoons, the comics explore the most intense energy inherrent in the human experience. This is perhaps why its heroes and villians are super and its melodrama driven to the highest emotional degree. Unlike other commercialized and more lauded cultural vehicles such as literature, art, music and theatre, the comics - by virtue of having been the bastard child of the creative endeavors - have maintained an independence which allows them to explore aspects of our existence that other forms can't. The creators in the comics remain a breed apart in their renegade exposition of their innermost views of the world they live in. If we were to look at the worlds within the comics as a metaphor of our world, it's easy to absorb the piercing messages that this medium brings. The synthesis of the visual and literary forms within it connect the comics, in a very primordeal way, to the very first communications forms that mankind developed, be they the first etchings made in the dust of the earth, the stone age cave art, the development of the first alphabets, the literary works of ages gone by and even the renaissance art movement from before half a millennia. The comics are a concentrate of the most basic need to communicate and tell stories in order to drive forward the human experience - and civilization as a whole. Q: In contemporary comics, storytelling tools like thought balloons or captions are mostly absent. As an example, John Byrne told us he stopped using captions when he realized that readers did not read them. Do you think that these tools are now perceived as a stigma? I believe it's preferable for a creator to take the lead in their story telling form and not to be led by what's perceived as the readers' whims - which change from time to time anyway. What would Dark Knight be like without captions, for example? I believe that even if captions and thought balooons are perceived to be a stigma today, an innovative creator can bring them back to popularity as viable assets in their storytelling. Creators should take the lead here and remain innovative in their work. To allow themselves be driven by a populist perception of readership whims only stagnates a creator's true ability. Q: In the film, Scott McCloud says there are more golfers in this country than comic book readers. By right, we should be able to sell comics about golf, but it's not happening. Do you feel there is an issue of diversity going on? There is no doubt that the comics need to become more diverse and that they need to learn to communicate to the diverse populaces amongst the people. This will hapen when the act of reading a comic book becomes trendy, so to speak. It will become so when the comics become relevant and desirable to a wider audience. In order for this to happen, the comics must learn to address what it is that the potential readership is interested in and looking for.
The world has changed and evolved greatly since the days when the comics could ingnore the environment they thrive in and still hold their own. The manner in which the comics based films are proliferating in Hollywood indicate that the comics community needs to consider the notion that it no longer exists within the bubble it once did. Imagine how the medium could be elevated into the limelight when it begins to present a model for a new political leadership in America, for example. Or when it begins to unravel the cobwebs from the confusion which engulfs our religeosly diverse social heirarchy. These issues, and more, are at the core of the human experience for the American people today, who feel as if they've been led astray for generations by a leadership which they once believed had their best interest in mind.
Since the attacks on America by Al-Quaeda, it's becomig more evident that the socio-political leadersip in America and the world may not have the best interest of people at heart, but rather scrambles about only in attempting to bolster its own powerbase - at the expense of the people - while promising a nearby rose garden which they can never truly provide. The comic book creators have been delving into these issues of our experience for decades and stand poised to put forth a new and clear path that can deliver our civilization from the catastrophe which its present leaders inadvertantly bring upon it.
Permalink Posted: 2:32 PM EST 0 comments
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Pen-Elyane There is a Blogger Posting Photographs
A shout out from Elyane Riggs at her Pen-Elayne Blog. I met Elayne years ago on a comics newsgroup as she was being assailed by group members for her commentary. She went on to show what it takes to courageously speak one's mind in a world that champions complacency. Along with husband, inker Robin Riggs, they've established a notable presence in the comics community. We've been speaking for years about producing a modern adaptation of the book of Esther, but as is the case with such projects, we'll be speaking about it for some time to come, I'm sure. Thanks for the shout out, partner. Always good to hear from you.
Elayne in on day 29 of Estrogen Month at her blog and wants you to go there and vote for the notable blogger gals she's featuring. So go. And vote.
Permalink Posted: 4:29 AM EST 2 comments
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New Guild Affiliates
First expressions of support for The Comic Book Creators' Guild are coming in from the comics community. A new list of affiliates now graces the Credits page of the guild web site: Adelaide Comics and Books Daniel Best's web site of news, interviews and events originating from Adelaide, Australia. Daniel brandishes a compelling array of interviews which include: Tim Tounsend, Joseph Rubinstein, Jim Mooney, Rich Buckler, Paul Ryan, Bob McCloud, Mike Esposito, Norm breygfogle, Don Perlin, Jim Starlin, Will Eisner, Eric Larsen, Gene Colan, Dick Ayers, Herb Trimpe, Steve Rude, Bob Hall and myself. Great reading for behind the scenes look into the creator's lives. Go and have a look. Mighty Mini Con Rick Olney's advancement of the comics venture headquartered in Syracuse, NY. The Mighty Mini Con is scheduled for June 4th and 5th, 2005. The guest list includes: Jim Steranko, Norm Breyfogle, Jim Fry, Noel Neil, Ramona Fradon, Jimmy Gownley, Bob Mcloud, Mark McKenna, Graham Nolan, Tim Shea, Veronic Hebard, Neil Vokes, Robert Timelli, Tim Shea, and J. David Spurlock. Have a look at the site and visit the con in Syracuse if you can. Dreamchilde Press Phillip Clark is a comics activist who heads this venture. He's an active self publisher and a member of MOCCA, the SPA, and CAG (Comic Artist Guild) and founder of the New York City Comic Creators Exchange (NYCCCX). A musician in his own right who's produced a few albums that can be seen at his personal web site. Have a look at his enterprise.
Permalink Posted: 3:31 AM EST 0 comments
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The John Byrne Guild?
I've always found the phrase "off topic" to be a strange creature in the cyberworld jargon. Imagine if a few people were having a beer at a bar, talking about Batman Begins and one them comments about Sin City, leading the conversation away from its first topic. Well, for someone to forbid a discussion of any other subject within such a group at a bar, would look like a Monty Python satire and not something as widely accepted as its counterpart in the internet forums. But that's not exactly what happened to me on the John Byrne Forums yesterday.Yesterday, I posted the press release there for our new site and titled it with a focus on the formation of The Comic Book Creators' Guild. In the post, I asked John to consider joining the effort to form the guild. When I returned there several hours later, I saw that the post had been removed. I thought about this long and hard and considered posting a query as to why - but decided instead not to waste my time over there anymore. I'm not always good at sticking by all my decisions, however, and I visited there again today with the intention of posting the query. I couldn't bring myself to do it in the end and I'll tell you why further ahead. What I did do is check the forum rules to see if I'd disobeyed something there with that post. Sure enough, it seems I might have. Here's what I believe to have been the problem: Do not start self-promotional threads. This forum exists for the discussion and promotion of the work of John Byrne, not yours. Putting a link to your website in your signature is fine, but making a thread about your latest product or service is not. It's his forum. John can do anything he wants there. If he only wants to talk about himself, it's his right. Who's the one losing out here, after all? Who's the one disengaging themselves from the comics community by doing so? I could allow this incident to pass by were it not for another such previous encounter I had at John's forum. In the first few days after Will Eisner's passing, I posted a topic there which can be seen at our headquarters here, For Truth, Justice and the American Way. As a heated discussion of its content ensued, the post was suddenly locked by the moderators and then removed. Some members apparently felt that it was untimely and were bothered by my invoking Will Eisner's name in a political essay at that time, although I'd tried to explain that I wrote it with only the highest regard for the memory of Will's life and works. My explanations fell on deaf ears, however, and I received no good explanation for the abrupt action of the moderators. So, I went and posted the same piece at Steven Grant's forum at Comic Book Resources, told Steven the story, without specifying whose forum it happened on, and asked his opinion. The thread can be seen here. Steven's response was: They removed it? Idiots. An invigorating and good discussion then followed Steven's response. So I went on to post it at Millarworld and sure enough it was shut down there also after Kurt Busiek objected to it, much on the same grounds as some Byrne forum members did. I persisted, however, and asked the moderators for an explanation. After an amusing fiasco, covered by Graeme at Fanboy Rampage, the thread was re-opened. The Millarworld moderators showed much grace and goodwill in reversing that decision and I have nothing but good memories of every visit I've made there since. For a while, they even honored me by adding my name to the title of that forum section and I went on to spend several great weeks there, producing the sketchbooks promoted on this site, in their company. Not so with the John Byrne forum. The John Byrne forum is only intended for discussing John Byrne. It's not intended for having general discussions with John Byrne, which might include discussing anyone else other than John Byrne. John Byrne doesn't like guests dropping in and discussing anything else other than John Byrne. His moderators are rude to guests who disobey their John Byrne rules. It's not a nice place to be, unless you just want to go there to worship John Byrne. So be it, John. I understand this means you're not likely to want to help us in forming The Comic Book Creator's Guild? Unless, perhaps, we change the name to The John Byrne Guild.
Permalink Posted: 11:19 AM EST 5 comments
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Comics Help Topple Syria's Iron Curtain
Tom Spurgeon brings us an item in The Comics Reporter, featured at BBC News, about a Syrian cartoonist struggling to have his work see publication there, in the face of opposition from the totalitarian regime's mostly state run media industry. Although no one will yet dare publish Ali Farzat's work in Syria, the laws are slowly changing there and an awareness of the virtues of freedom of speech is slowly brewing at the grass roots level in that country - and perhaps in other such regimes in the Arab world, as well. One of the factors sited in the BBC report is the proliferation of the internet and the electronic age into the culture, which the authorities are apparantly helpless to block out, try as they may. Ali Farzat, who puts forth some hard lined criticism of the regime's characteristics, along with other such cartoonists and creators, are taking advantage of this situtation to help bring about some long needed legistlative change which will eventually open doors for their work to see wide publication and distribution.  
Ali Farzat and one of his editorial cartoons, waiting to see publication in syria. Interestingly, this dissemmination of ideas espousing the virtues of civil rights and basic humane social values, through the cultural tools available to the people, be they art, literature or music, has been effective in recent history against such regimes. It's this same force which caused the eventual fall of the iron curtain raised by a similar regime in the Soviet Union, which began to also topple in the 1960's - in great measure thanks to the Rock Music scene rising in Europe and America in that era, led by none other than the Beatles. Most Russian immigrants in Israel and America, whom I've heard describe that era, agree to this basic analysis of what caused the rise in the public awareness within Russia, which eventually enabled the overthrow of the oppressive rulership there. With the presence of such good creative power in the cartooning and comics field in the Arab world, well...who knows. But it is a good sign - and would be a much more preferable way to bring about a change there, than the military attrocity currently being perpetrated in Iraq.
Permalink Posted: 7:50 AM EST 0 comments
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How The BEAT Goes On
HEIDI MacDONALD sends a shout out our way from The BEAT, where she commands a formidable news and commentary enterprise under the auspices of Comicon's news site, Pulse. She says the blog's a doozie and collectively declares "we love you, Mike". I've known Heidi on the web for a few years through a closed forum for creators we both participate in and had the pleasure of meeting her last fall at the Big Apple Con when she came by and snapped a shot. Always a clever delight to talk to and a great team player, whose column will be strategically integral to what goes on here. Our gratitude and love go out to you, Heidi.
Permalink Posted: 7:14 AM EST 0 comments
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For the Man Who Likes Walken
Thanks Graeme, for the nice welcome to the blogoshpere at Fanboy Rampage. The images below are for one of the readers who commented there and writes superhero fiction at his own blog: The Velvet Marauder. From the Heroes & Villains and other Celebrities Sketchbook, The Walken as Superman and Dark Phoenix. For the amusement of Dave Campbell.
Permalink Posted: 4:08 PM EST 2 comments
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Age of Blogposters
It's no secret that I've cultivated an affinity for a web presence in the comics over the last several years. The world hasn't been the same since the advent of the electronic age and it's clear that a great deal of wonder still awaits us through this medium. The world of comics hasn't remained on the sidelines through it all either, as perhaps might have been expected from the afficionados of a primarily print oriented medium. The complete opposite is what's actually happened as the comics community is graced with internet ventures the likes of Newsarama, Comic Book Resources, Silver Bullet Comic Books and The Pulse, amongst many other news and forum enterprises. Comics creators have also stepped forth with their own sites and forums. Mark Millar, Joe Quesada, and John Byrne are just a few of the ones active on a healthy daily basis. Warren Ellis continues to push the electronic envelope with the exploration of real-time posting from anywhere his whims compel as he employs the newer technologies and webtools. The likes of Clifford Meth, Steven Grant and Donna Barr pound away with insightful and activist commetary - while Neal Adams puts forth a politico-scientific model for the universe from his web home. The result has been a notable surge of creative thought and exposition coming from a vast array of sources and creators - and touching on almost every facet of our collective experience in and out of the comics. In recent times, the blog has come to the forefront of this mix, almost overshadowing the traditional website format which preceeded it. One of the pioneers of this form in the comics community is Graeme McMillan and his Fanboy Rampage blogsite, from where he continues to gather pertinent snippets of the goings on in the comics world and pepper them with a concise commentary making for one of the more informative sources of its kind in the industry. Tom Spurgeon recently chimed in with The Comic Reporter to put forth a synthesis of the journal, news and commentary webzine which is adding a touch of grace and intellectual integrity to the community, perhaps not yet seen to this degree. The articulate comics blog rages on today with the likes of Heidi McDonald'a The Beat, Mark Evanier's News from ME, Neil Gaiman's Journal, Marv Wolfman's Today's Views, Peter David's Journal, Elayne Riggs Pen-Elayne, among many others. The age of the blogposters is on the rise and in this spirit I'll attempt to widen the scope of my own rantings in presenting the next stage of the Michael Netzer Online revolution: Rise Of The Comics. The Headquarters and Blogpost presented here are perhaps a fitting format under which to launch the activity around the formation of The Comic Book Creator's Guild. The blog now comes to the forefront, the more traditional website format is pushed back to the recesses of the server directories - all however, always linked to and accessible from the daily blogpost. There's a considerable amount of new material to see here and I'll make use of this debut to give a little taste of it in the few posts below. Thanks for coming by, enjoy the show - and if you're compelled to do so, your comments will more than likely contribute heartily to the party atmosphere we hope to nourish here Michael Netzer, Jerusalem
Permalink Posted: 3:26 AM EST 4 comments
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Mark Badger: First Steps to Organizing the Guild
You can't do it. That's what the smart set will say. Creators won't work together, won't be political, won't make things happen. You can't organize a guild or a union of artists and writers, it's like "herding cats".
That's what the smart set will say. Now, I'm not as smart as the smart set, but I did spend 4 years working with graphic designers, illustrators, some cartoonists and writers. This rag tag band of 125 artists grew to over 400 during those 4 years. We took on California's sales tax laws, went to the legislature and worked with powerful people and compelled the California State Government to rewrite it's sales tax laws for artists. We even received a little bit of help from The United Auto Workers. So, I'm not as smart as the smart set who say you can't herd cats, but that experience looked like lots of little kitty cat paws stampeding together, to me. (More..)
Permalink Posted: 3:11 AM EST 0 comments
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Creators Assemble!
In our fast paced world of informational and visual communications wonders, it's not by chance that so many of the creations brought into the world through the comic book industry are now coming to the forefront of defining the new mythology for the 21st century - and doing so at an ever increasing pace.
The root force which has birthed the comic book creations, since the inception of the industry, can be traced back to the dawn of human history when the first intelligent people began exploring raw visual communications techniques by etching the simplest shapes into the dust of the earth with branch sticks and bush twigs, long before the adoption of the rock as a tool which the stone-age dwellers used to carve out their stories on the walls of their caves. It was this instinct, to communicate and tell stories visually, which began defining the structural alphabets pertaining to the many and diverse languages which grace our civilization. It was also this same instinct which led our cultural evolution as a species, from the literary and artistic works of ages past, all they way to the television and film industries which are pioneering the new technological frontiers of the visual communications and storytelling expanse opening itself to us today. (More...)
Permalink Posted: 3:05 AM EST 0 comments
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Bringing a Better Tomorrow for the Comics
We believe that a strong union of the comic book creators will help secure a better future for the comic book industry within the global entertainment and marketing industries it thrives. The Comic Book Creators' Guild will strive to set new standards for the conditions under which the creators work, including the institution of retirement and medical benefits, legal counseling for newly created properties along with informative research of the fast changing arena of copyright law for existing ones, emergency funding for the support of colleagues in distress and the establishing of our own publishing, marketing and entertainment arms as a base from which to help provide creative and financial independence for the creators. (More...)
Permalink Posted: 2:55 AM EST 0 comments
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Bryan Talbot: Renegade Classicist of the Comics
Considered to be the "godfather" of modern British underground, bridging the underground movement of the early 1970's to the emergence of the English 2000 A.D. Generation at that decade's end, Bryan Talbot has carved out a presence in the comics industry that mixes the classicist spirit of his storytelling, writing and art into the relentless social and historical commentary for which he's become known. Bryan Talbot, said to be the best kept secret in the comics, is perhaps the primary predecessor and influence of raw talent, the likes of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis, among many others, who all came out of Britain in the 1980's to grace the graphic storytelling form with critical relevant commentary, geared for a more mature audience than the mainstream comics had known at the time. (More...)
Permalink Posted: 2:53 AM EST 0 comments
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Flaming Sword Productions: The Entertainment and Publishing Arm of The Comic Book Creators' Guild
Yes, I do believe this imprint will help the comic book creators become more independent in planning projects which they'd have the freedom to create the type of comics they see fit. An imprint that's their own and not in the hands of someone only trying to turn a few fast bucks on their back. It's not for everyone, but for creators who have something to say and want the freedom to say it, this is the place.
That's how it's been in the comics industry since day one. Siegel and Shuster were ridiculed for years about their idea for a Superman comic book. When they finally convinced someone it's a good idea, well, we all know what happened to their property. The essence of what Superman meant to his creators has been long lost and buried under the commercial manipulations and the unfair treatment of the creators by its publisher. (More...)
Permalink Posted: 2:50 AM EST 0 comments
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An Open Letter to Paul Levitz
Hello Paul, It's been a while since we've had a heart to heart talk about the comics and I have been thinking about you lately, so this is as good as time as any, I suppose. I'm writing you this letter because we want to recruit you back to our ranks. Back to the ranks of the comic book creators. We all know you're a creator at heart. Heck, why else would you cast your lot in with A.C.T.O.R., an organization dedicated to the welfare of comic book creators? (More...)
Permalink Posted: 2:45 AM EST 0 comments
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For Truth, Justice and the American Way
The greatest service which can be given to Will Eisner's legacy in his departure from us is the perpetuation of the spirit he breathed into the comic book industry.
The gifts which Will Eisner has given the comics are so insurmountable and well known that they need not be listed here and now. Suffice it to say that amongst his many great works, this giant of the comics defined the sharp sociopolitical statements made in the medium today and invented the graphic novel with which the comics present their message to the world. With the passing of the revered and beloved late great elder of the comics, the reigns now naturally pass over to Neal Adams. Not the reigns of eldership in age alone, but the eldership of prominence, works and stature, all combined into one. (More...)
Permalink Posted: 2:42 AM EST 0 comments
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Heroes & Villains and Other Celebrities Sketchbook
A collection of sketches produced at Millarworld's internet forum documenting a 4 week online sketch session. Drawn at the forum members' request, the art was produced digitally and transferred electronically to Millarworld. 64 B/W interior pages, full color front and back covers with an introduction by writer and host of the Millarworld forums, Mark Millar. Due in November from Flaming Sword Productions. Below is a sampling.
The Archer (More...)
Permalink Posted: 2:39 AM EST 2 comments
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Michael Netzer's Portraits of the Creators Sketchbook
A collection of illustrations based on comic book creators, developed while producing The Heroes & Villains and other Celebrities Sketchbook at the Millarworlld forums. Includes a back cover for The three Tenors: Off Key from Aardwolf Publishing and a cover illustration for The Comic Book Creator's Guild web site, both contributed to the Bill-Messner-Loebs benefit books Published by Aardwolf and Twomorrows Publishing respectively. 64 page b/w interior with a color cover, planned for a fall 2005 publication from Flaming Sword Productions. Below is a sampling.
Alan Moore (More...)
Permalink Posted: 2:16 AM EST 0 comments
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The Creators: An Adventure into Tomorrow
We're in the future, a few hundred years at least. After a glorious revival on Earth at the beginning of this century, we set out to Titan the moon of Saturn, and together with the fledgling Titanians, we've built a second civilization alongside the one here on Earth. Titan has become the new genesis for mankind and seat of authority and culture of both these worlds. For the longest time, an age of peace and prosperity, unimaginable by our standards, is what characterizes the conquest of our solar system. Technology and the human life force are now merging together as these two civilizations near the brink of their next evolutionary stage, the conquest of the entire universe through the discovery and access to other dimensions, which facilitate cross galaxy space travel in the blink of an eye. (More...) The Creators is a 240 page graphic novel now in production, the first 64 page book is due in November 2005, from Flaming Sword productions. 
Permalink Posted: 2:13 AM EST 0 comments
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Science or Fiction?
Excerpts from a discussion at the Silver Bullet Comic Books forums about Neal Adams' science project, which calls into question long held scientific theorems, including Relativity, Pangea and Subduction. The discussion was edited for this presentation. BR: a) When and where has Neal Adams presented a science project? b) Pangea and the Big Bang (or at least expansion of the cosmos) are backed up by evidence. MN: There is only circumstantial evidence for these theories. No real proof for Pangea or subduction, though. These are theories based on assumptions made from observing certain phenomenon. That's the problem with all this and this is what Neal is showing. There are other answers to these phenomenon which Neal suggests. Go to his web site and look at the science project links. There's a lot of reading to do there but the findings are overwhelming. To this day, we remain in a continuous process of learning about our world. It's not wise to support popular scientific theories without fully understanding the reason scientists came to their conclusions. (More...)
Permalink Posted: 2:08 AM EST 0 comments
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Dearly Beloved: A Message from the Anti-Christ
Greetings friends, Yes it is I, the AC himself. Please do not confuse me with your air conditioner, cool as my demeanor may appear to you. You know I prefer the warmer environs, after all. This may be why I've been dispatched to you in the comics, it would appear. You are very well known for your warmth where I come from. I am a much maligned man, you know. Quite unjustly, if I may say so myself. Why, with the names and titles you've bestowed upon me through the millennia, it's a wonder you're even reading this right now. Lucifer, The Son of Satan, Prince of Darkness, The Devil, The Jackal, The Beast, the Serpent. Not very flattering, I'm afraid. Small matter though. What harm can come from a little name calling amongst friends? (More...)
Permalink Posted: 2:03 AM EST 0 comments
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A Challenge to All Supporters of the Christian Coalition
I understand that you truly believe you are performing a great service to God and humanity by banding together and using your unified strength in order to bring about the legislation of what you perceive to be a higher moral standard onto a society which you believe has gone astray with its liberal standards. The comic book industry has long been a prime target of your persecution, ridicule and attempts at censorship of its publications, as part of your efforts to enforce what you believe to be Christian morals on the American people. You are, however, so very wrong about all this - and you do it all in the name of The God of Heaven and Earth and his Only Begotten Son, The Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I turn to you now in order to warn you of the catastrophe you're bringing upon yourselves and upon all of mankind with your pompous arrogant ways. (More...)
Permalink Posted: 1:59 AM EST 0 comments
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Flying in the Gutters: A Satire and Congratulations
Lying in the Gutters, Rich Johnston's comics and media news column at the Comic Book Resources web site has endured more than 10 years of continuous comics journalism and became one of the most widely read column in the comics industry. Rich has often come under fire as a gossip writer, prematurely revealing facts that hurt certain publishers and creators. Yet, he remained the most read of all the comics journalists and always had an eye on what unjustly compromised the subjects of his commentary. He came under fire from many of my friends who perceived his Son of Neal article about my first web site as condescending. Yet that article brought the web site into the limelight and gave me the ability to stand behind it publicly. In a followup covering The Comic Book Creator's Party web site, Rich even expressed some remorse for the disappearance of the Michael whom he wrote of in that first article. Rich's writing is nothing less than journalism at its very best and under the most difficult of circumstances. Not many reporters are willing to put their name on the line as he has - and through his column and news reporting, the comics industry has been made a little better. Rich has also embarked on his own creative ventures in the comics, but the best of all his creations has brought about the hopefully short lived suspension of Lying in the Gutters. From the last installment of LITG: On Saturday morning, March 12th 2005,
in Kingston General Hospital,
to Rich Johnston and Janice Hodgson,
was born a beautiful baby girl, 8lbs 12oz.Eve Johnston. Hats are off to the happy couple. Don't you and Eve hold him down for too long, Janice. Rich belongs to the people. Now it's payback time. (More...)
Permalink Posted: 1:04 AM EST 0 comments
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