If you’ve read his book James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction (reviewed here) or watched his accompanying series, you can tell that James Cameron is first and foremost an artist. With an artist’s eye he has created some of the biggest science fiction movies ever made, from The Terminator to Aliens to The Abyss and Avatar. For the first time Cameron is revealing the contents of his sketchbooks and personal art archives and discussing his creative process and inspiration. Insight Editions’ giant chronicleTech Noir: The Art of James Cameron, arrives in bookstores next week and available for pre-order here. Fans will find a collection of rare and never-before-published art that reveals how this award-winning director has translated his ideas to film, often employing advanced film-making technologies to realize his unique vision. But as readers will find, it all begins with pen, pencil, and paint.
As expected Saturday at Planet Comicon Kansas City 2019 meant a great turnout for the annual convention, with tens of thousands of fans from the Midwest converging on the Kansas City Convention Center after a day of rain and morning of surprise March snowfall to meet their favorite celebrity and creator guests from years past and today. Each year the event gets bigger, and for the show’s 20th anniversary that also meant better, with a host of comic book creators whose names any comic book reader of the past 50 years should recognize.
Creator of dozens of characters including Rogue, Mystique, Phoenix, Emma Frost, Legion, Gambit, and Captain Britain, and whose books include a long run on Uncanny X-Men, including the popular story arcs The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past, adapted into X-Men: Days of Future Past, multiple X-Men movies, and this summer’s coming film Dark Phoenix, writer Chris Claremont was on-hand signing his books for fans.
Artist Denys Cowan studied under the late comics legend Rich Buckler (a previous Planet Comicon guest) and went on himself to become one of the biggest names in comics, drawing issues of several great series from both DC Comics and Marvel Comics including runs on three of my favorites from the 1980s, Green Arrow, Batman, and The Question. He was signing books and selling prints of some of his best-known work.
Jim Starlin is a well-known writer/artist and creator of Thanos, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, the Master of Kung Fu, and his classic books include Batman: The Cult, Batman: A Death in the Family, and Cosmic Odyssey. This weekend he signed autographs for a long line of fans.
Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez began in comics illustrating books for Charlton Comics and then became one of the longest running names associated with DC Comics, where he drew major issues of Superman, Action Comics, The Brave and the Bold, Detective Comics, and later, the pop culture favorite Atari Force. He signed comics and had prints of his work on hand for his fans.
Most of us knew him from the single word that graced many of his unique and futuristic comic book covers–Steranko. Pretty much nobody has been making comics longer. Here Jim Steranko chats with a fan at his booth in Artists’ Alley. More recently he’s known for his nostalgic recollections he shares with fans in his many near book-length tweets on Twitter.
Detective Comics, the title DC Comics took its name from, first hit the shelves of newsstands just before March 1937, 26 months before Batman would first appear in the famous Issue #27 in May 1939. This Wednesday the monthly comic book’s landmark Issue #1000 is arriving, and it’s going to be packed with content from several writers and artists. It’s 96 pages in all, including the first appearance outside video games of Arkham Knight. And as you’d expect, DC Comics is releasing the issue with several covers (our count below is a whopping 84 or about a cover for each year Detective Comics has been in print!), including a standard cover, a set of decade-inspired covers, both a blank sketch cover and new black edition, retailer incentives featuring logos or no logos, and several limited, exclusive shop, convention, and creator store variants. More than a few are simply stunning, and this is the rare mass cover event where the final regular cover set (10) includes several works as interesting or better than the exclusives (the Frank Miller with the classic title art really takes us back to the 1980s). Check them all out below–all 100 images including art without logos–with links to where to buy them (exclusives that haven’t sold out in pre-sales).
Writers for stories in Detective Comics Issue #1000 include Brian Michael Bendis, Paul Dini, Warren Ellis, Geoff Johns, Tom King, Christopher Priest, Dennis O’Neil, Kevin Smith, Scott Snyder, Peter J. Tomasi, and James T Tynion IV. Interior artists include Neal Adams, Greg Capullo, Tony S. Daniel, Steve Epting, Joëlle Jones, Kelley Jones, Jim Lee, Doug Mahnke, Alex Maleev, Alvaro Martinez, and Dustin Nguyen.
DC Comics did a nice job of pulling out creators defining each decade, with Steve Rude (1930s), Bruce Timm (1940s Detective Comics #69 homage), Michael Cho (1950s), Jim Steranko (1960s), Bernie Wrightson (1970s), Frank Miller (1980s), Tim Sale (1990s), Jock (2000s), and Greg Capullo (2010s)–all appear to only be available with the trade “Detective Comics” logo (but we’ve included images of the original art below). DC Comics publisher Jim Lee is back again with the standard cover, a wraparound design. The rest reflect a crazy big stack of variants by everyone and anyone, most available with the Detective Comics logo (with “trade” logo) or without logo (“virgin”), some in black and white, some with sketch art, some with foil cardstock. The following are all the non-standard variant artists and where to get them (we heard an Andy Kubert cover may be out there, but could not confirm this): Neal Adams (three designs, NealAdams.com), Jay Anacleto (trade, virgin, and B&W) (Unknown Comic Books), Kaare Andrews (trade only, no virgin-only edition confirmed) (Third Eye), Artgerm (trade, virgin, retro) (Forbidden Planet), Lee Bermejo (virgin, trade) (Midtown), Brian Bolland (trade, virgin, B&W) (Forbidden Planet), Greg Capullo (gold foil version of his 2010s cover) (WonderCon variant), Clayton Crain (virgin, trade) (Scorpion Comics), Tony S. Daniel (trade, no virgin-only) (artist website, Comic Stop), Gabriele Dell’Otto (trade, silver virgin, and gold convention) (Bulletproof), Jason Fabok (trade, virgin, B&W) (Yesteryear Comics), Riccardo Federici (trade, virgin) (ComicXposure), Pat Gleason & Alejandro Sanchez (trade, virgin, B&W) (Newbury Comics), Adam Hughes (trade, virgin) (Frankie’s Comics), Jee-Hyung Lee (trade, virgin, B&W) (Frankie’s Comics), Dan Jurgens & Kevin Nowlan (sketch, line art, and color versions) (Dynamic Forces), Mike Lilly (trade-only, no virgin cover) (Comics Vault), Warren Louw (virgin, trade) (KRS Comics), and Doug Mahnke (trade, virgin) (Planet Comicon).
Plus there’s Francesco Mattina (trade, virgin) (Midtown), Mike Mayhew (trade, virgin) (The Comic Mint), Stewart McKenny (trade, we couldn’t locate anyone selling the virgin cover) (Comics Etc.), Dawn McTeigue (virgin, trade) (Comics Elite), Rodolfo Migliari (trade, retro trade, virgin) (BuyMeToys.com), Lucio Parrillo (trade, virgin) (Scorpion Comics), Alex Ross (two covers) (via his website), Natali Sanders (virgin, trade) (KRS Comics), Nicola Scott costume match design to her Superman image for Action Comics #1000 (trade, virgin) (Kings Comics), Bill Sienkiewicz (two designs, signed or not, one in trade, one virgin, via his website), Mico Suayan (trade, virgin) (Unknown Comic Books), Jim Lee & Scott Williams (midnight release vertical and convention silver foil, B&W, and four villain designs) (Torpedo Comics, Bedrock City Comics, Graham Crackers).
Captain Kirk, The Fonz, Chewbacca, The Flash, Starbuck, the Weasleys, two Supermans, Tank Girl, and a slate of characters from The Princess Bride are heading to Kansas City
For twenty years Planet Comicon has been one of the Midwest’s biggest comic book and pop culture conventions and that was no less so in 2014 when it became the largest attended event in the history of the Kansas City Convention Center. And it’s only gotten bigger. Last year’s show featured guests including Jason Momoa, John Cusack, Michael Rooker, Danny Trejo, and Alan Tudyk, and this year Planet Comicon Kansas City is bringing in some of the most memorable names from TV and movies from the past and present for its 20th anniversary show. Leading things off, Captain (and Admiral) James T. Kirk, William Shatner is returning to Kansas City for the annual event, which takes place at Kansas City’s convention center at Bartle Hall, March 29-31, 2019.
The guy who invented cool, the first person to “jump the shark,” Arthur Fonzarelli “The Fonz” from Happy Days actor Henry Winkler is making his first comic-con appearance in Kansas City. Star of last year’s bigStar Wars event, Solo: A Star Wars Story,Chewbacca actor Joonas Suotamo is scheduled to attend. Star of one of the best sci-fi TV series of all time–the reboot of Battlestar Galactica–Starbuck actor Katee Sackhoff will be appearing at the show. Two co-stars of the CW’s The Flashwill be on-hand for autographs and photographs: Danielle Panabaker and the original 1990 Flash, John Wesley Shipp, both attending the event for the first time. And for more of your superhero retro fix, two Superman actors, Lois & Clark’s Dean Cain and Smallville star Tom Welling, will have autograph booths on the convention floor.
Famous for her role as Tank Girl, and star of A League of Their Own and Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, actor/director Lori Petty will be in the house. Harry Potter fans can meet actors that portrayed three of their favorite Weasleys: Ginny Weasley’s Bonnie Wright, and brothers Fred and George, James Phelps and Oliver Phelps. Also in the fantasy movie realm, three stars of The Princess Bride are making their way to Planet Comicon 2019: Westley’s Cary Elwes will join Prince Humperdinck’s Chris Sarandon and the inconceivable Vizzini himself, actor Wallace Shawn.
–there’s something for every TV and movie fanboy and fangirl at this year’s show.
In less than four weeks pop culture convention Planet Comicon Kansas City returns, this time to celebrate its 20th year. Even more than before the event is hosting a pantheon of nationally recognized comic book writers and artists for its seventh year in the downtown Kansas City, Missouri, venue at the giant Bartle Hall facility at the Kansas City Convention Center. The show runs Friday, March 29 through Sunday, March 31. Bring your stacks of comics for autographs from your favorite creators–we’ve included here only a few important and familiar books by creators scheduled to be at the event. Attendees will see some of the biggest names and most popular character creators spanning fives decades of comics, including:
Chris Claremont, writer and creator of dozens of characters including Rogue, Mystique, Phoenix, Emma Frost, Legion, Gambit, and Captain Britain. His classic books include a long run on Uncanny X-Men, including the popular story arcs The Dark Phoenix Sagaand Days of Future Past, adapted into X-Men: Days of Future Past, multiple X-Men movies, and this summer’s coming film Dark Phoenix.
Jim Starlin, writer/artist and creator of Thanos, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, the Master of Kung Fu, and the first graphic novel published by Marvel Comics, The Death of Captain Marvel. His classic books include Batman: The Cult, Batman: A Death in the Family, and Cosmic Odyssey.
Jim Steranko, writer/artist known for his unique 1960s style, his work on Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., plus memorable runs on Captain America and X-Men. He was also a creator of concept art designs for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Fabian Nicieza, writer known for creating Deadpool in the pages of The New Mutants, and working on dozens of key superhero titles. His classic books include New Warriors and Psi-Force.
Keith Giffen, artist and creator of Rocket the Raccoon and Lobo. His classic books include several issues of Legion of Super-Heroes.
Kevin Eastman, writer and creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Steve McNiven, artist and creator of Marvel Comics’ Civil War. McNiven is known for his cover art on dozens of Marvel titles.
Bob McLeod, artist and creator of The New Mutants. (A concept that is the subject of 20th Century Fox’s last slated Marvel project, the coming late summer big-screen release The New Mutants).
Synthesizing and consolidating 30 years of X-Men lore, writer/artist Ed Piskor surprised everyone last year with his first issue of a groundbreaking new series X-Men: Grand Design. With a retro look only he–or several of the best classic artists of the past coming together–could create, Piskor brought to a new generation of comic book readers a way to catch up on a lifetime of Marvel Comics. All in a single mini-series. It’s all coming together in six issues. The first two issues, discussed here at borg.com and available in a new trade compilation at Amazon here, were successful sell-throughs, immediately going to second printing. The middle chapter (Issues #3 and #4) subtitled Second Genesis begins tomorrow with Issue #3. Take a look below at some preview pages from tomorrow’s issue.
The series is printed on a classic newsprint type of paper stock with unique inks and trademark white inks that really pop on the page. What Piskor has called a love letter to the medium of comics as much as a love letter to decades of X-Men comics, the series was inspired by several artists, including the obvious ones:, Robert Crumb and Jack Kirby, but also Jim Steranko, John Byrne, Alan Silvestri, Jim Lee, Katushiro Otomo, and Moebius. When you flip through one of these issues it brings back sitting on the curb reading when you were a kid.
Elite Comics will have plenty of these available tomorrow in case you forgot to add them to your pull list. If your nearby comic book shop doesn’t have it you may have a long wait, as the trade X-Men: Grand Design–Second Genesis Treasury Edition isn’t coming until October.
Eighty years ago Superman first hit neighborhood newsstands in Issue #1 of Action Comics–an issue that if you kept your copy could pay off your house, car, and retirement. The cover was dated June 1938, but it was in kids’ hands first on April 18, 1938. DC Comics is celebrating Superman’s big anniversary this week with a celebratory issue of Action Comics numbered 1000, created by some of DC’s top writers and artists, an anthology of stories just as you’d find in Action Comics’ first 500 issues. The 1,000 issues is spot-on with the number of Action Comics issues released, but those counting the months since 1938 will come up short: Action Comics shifted from a monthly to a bi-weekly once upon a time, and you won’t find numbered issues #905-956, which were replaced by 52 issues of the New 52 reboot numbering 1-52. For American comic book fans, there’s something special about holding this issue in your hands. It’s no small feat seeing such a truly undisputed iconic character get to this point.
The 80-page giant issue is one not to pass up. For current fans, it’s a ramp-up to Brian Michael Bendis’s writing run beginning with the complete issue #1001. For everyone else, it’s a nostalgic trip via variant covers and dozens of classic and modern creators offering up stories about the Man of Steel. The writers? Dan Jurgens, Peter Tomasi, Marv Wolfman, Paul Levitz, Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, Scott Snyder, Tom King, Louise Simonson, Paul Dini, Brad Meltzer, and Brian Michael Bendis. The artists? Dan Jurgens, Pat Gleason, Curt Swan, Neal Adams, Olivier Coipel, Rafael Albuquerque, Clay Mann, Jerry Ordway, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, John Cassaday, Jim Lee, Norm Rapmund, Butch Guice, Kurt Schaffenberger, Kevin Nowlan, Scott Williams, Hi-Fi Color, Alejandro Sanchez, Dave McCaig, Jordie Bellaire, Trish Mulvihill, Laura Martin, and Alex Sinclair. Cover artists include Steve Rude, Michael Cho, Dave Gibbons, Michael Allred, Jim Steranko, Joshua Middleton, Dan Jurgens, Kevin Nowlan, Lee Bermejo, Dave Dorman, George Perez, Neal Adams, Jim Lee (providing the main cover and two variants), Curt Swan, Felipe Massafera, Nicola Scott, Jock, Oliver Coipel, Jason Fabok, Kaare Andrews, Gabrielle Dell’Otto, Artgerm, Tyler Kirkham, Pat Gleason, Francesco Mattina, Ken Haeser, Doug Mahnke, and Tony S. Daniel. Check out images of all the variant covers below. Our favorite? Danielle Dell’Otto’s take on Christopher Reeve at the Fortress of Solitude, and Pat Gleason’s cover, which includes Krypto.
Some comic book stores are holding events to celebrate the Man of Steel’s big day. This Saturday if you’re in the Kansas City area head on over to Elite Comics, where you can pick up copies of Issue #1000 plus a limited exclusive Superman print (shown above) by artist Bryan Fyffe, a nationally-recognized artist whose licensed works include projects for Disney and Star Wars. Or check out your own neighborhood store.
The American mid-century modern design movement began in the 1930s and grew into the 1960s as a unique style of art, architecture, and graphic design. Mid-century advertising is its own nostalgic niche, and a new book released this week provides a refreshing reboot to the artistic stylings as represented in pop culture, toys, and toy promotions. Toybox Time Machine: A Catalog of the Coolest Toys Never Made could be a catalog of the actual toys of the past. But it’s not. It could be a chronicle of box art and packaging of your favorite action figures and trading cards. But it isn’t.
Instead, commercial illustrator Marty Baumann, a creator behind the visuals in Toy Story 3, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, and Disney/Pixar’s Cars and Planes franchises took inspiration from the Christmas catalogs, store displays, television ads, and comic books of his youth to create ideas for new toys and new toy companies–toys that might have been. And he’s put them together into an encyclopedia full of fun that will tug at your memory. We’ve no doubt you could show this book to someone who will tell you specifically that they remember one or more of the toys in this catalog. That’s the power of nostalgia and Baumann’s sense of mid-century design.
You’ll see ads that might have been created for View Master or Ben Cooper Halloween costumes, designs for toys that could have been Marx Toys action figures, G.I. Joes, Barbie dolls, Guillows balsa model kits, and those cheap plastic toys you could only order from the tiny ads in comic books. The commonality is the bright, loud, color palette of the era, plus trading cards, battery-operated gadgets, and anything you can display in 3D. And much of the reflection in design is not secretive but obvious, like an ad for a codebook for The Man Called… C.O.U.S.I.N. You remember that classic series, right? Of course you do.
Another banner year for comic books has come and gone. You can find something for anyone and everyone at your local comic book shop, and the diverse selection of winners of this year’s Eisner Awards illustrates that better than ever. The latest round of winners were announced this weekend at San Diego Comic-Con.
What’s better than to see winners that you would have selected yourself were you on the judging panel? Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson can’t publish enough of their Beasts of Burden stories, and we previewed this year’s winner for Best Single Issue, Beasts of Burden: Hunters and Gatherers, last year here at borg.com. We couldn’t agree more with this win. Are you listening, Hollywood? It’s time for an animated movie from this series.
We also like to be in sync with the critics. Remember when we picked Greg Smallwood as our Breakout Artist of the Year here at borg.com back in 2013? Greg was given the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award at this year’s Eisners. We’re glad others want to see more of his work, too.
It’s also fun to see the rare repeat winners. Our own borg.com writer Elizabeth C. Bunce shared a panel at Comic-Con with Raina Telgemeier, winner this year as Best Writer/Artist, when she won her first Eisner Award back at SDCC 2011. Raina won this year for her book Sisters.
And our own local comic book shop couldn’t seem to keep the new Lumberjanes series on the shelves this past year. Lumberjanes was a multiple winner this year, scoring Best New Series and Best Publication for Teens.
Here is the full slate of 2015 Eisner Award winners:
Best Short Story: “When the Darkness Presses,” by Emily Carroll
Best Continuing Series: Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples (Image)
Best Limited Series: Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland, by Eric Shanower & Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
On the comic books shelves this month is Guardians of the Galaxy Annual #1–one of those rare issues that matches a stellar cover artist with a stellar interior artist. In this case both of those people are Frank Cho. When Frank Cho creates a complete end-to-end book, he always provides something to attract readers, both with his stunning characters, action-packed panels, and subtle visual humor. We saw this last year with his exciting run on the Savage Wolverine series. That same quality of artwork is matched here with the comparable writing prowess of Marvel’s Guardians scribe, Brian Michael Bendis. And the result is a fun, powerhouse read, and a darned-near perfect book.
Often annuals are quick stories that don’t offer much memorable. They’re gimmicky efforts to sell another issue behind a monthly series. The Guardians’ first annual is not like that. It will stick with you as a story you want to know more about, with ramifications you would love to see play out in future books.
The standard Guardians of The Galaxy team is here. It’s a team both readers of the series and film fans will be familiar with, both in look and via their dialogue and mannerisms: Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot. Added here for great fun is Ms. Marvel/Carol Danvers and Spidey-verse superhero Venom. They encounter a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier in space, which prompts them to meet up with the likes of the classic Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan, and a team of other familiar heroes, who introduce a dark menace to the Guardians team.
