Majoring in Comics as Literature, Dragons and the Graphic-Novel Trend

Cellphones make for a difficult challenge in dramatic irony anymore. You see them in almost everything, as information is instantly forwarded from one agency to another as the pace of a narrative rockets along. In fact, watching old films where characters stand around a rotary phone, or check in at a hotel desk to receive their "messages" seems so clunky and awkward now.

But cellphones have changed storytelling forever. Writers have had to adapt.

In the world of cellphones, it's hard to delay characters from interacting with each other - so often as soon as someone learns something new or dangerous, they go to inform the protagonist, but are stopped - and then viewers just watch as we know full well the hero is diving head-first into peril. Cellphones basically eliminate the possibilities of this - unless you get creative about why a cellphone isn't working.

And those scenes (where a nemesis is removing of disabling a cellphone) always seem a bit contrived - HOWEVER, I'm certainly not above it. Do you think anything will happen to Casey's cellphone while he's chatting with Barney? (probably!) Think this will be the last time it happens in the script? (probably not!)

Struggling with jet lag and his professional relationship with Howard,
Casey looks to make necessary changes in Why'd you do it?

See more by following the links:

• King Street Capers (updated Mar. 11)
• General comics (updated Mar. 12)
• Tomb of the Undead (updated Mar. 13) 
• Dinosuars (updated Mar. 7)
• Sketch Gallery (updated Jan. 17),
• Fundraising Faux-Pas, or the
• Mugabe comic strip (Pinocchio parody)

Graphic novels and webcomics
Check out Accursed Dragon, and see some of the other neat stuff that's being said about graphic novels at the academic level now! You can find them in the classroom as a learning aide, but you're also able to MAJOR in the style, as well.

Accursed Dragon
Ryan Smith
Accursed Dragon.com

This week I've started reading Accursed Dragon by Ryan Smith, and I'm liking it a lot. I've had this on my reading list for ages - and now I'm mowing through it. What I'm especially impressed with is that each page tells a little gag - which is great writing. It's a constant pleasure to see the narrative continuously propped up with pleasant breaks, while the pacing and serial story telling flow together seamlessly. It's definitely worth checking out!

Click to read more.

The Graphic Novel Trend
Harper Academic
Harper Academic.Blogspot

Reading the review of The Cartoon Guide to Genetics got me thinking about a huge trend we’ve noticed in the academic department: graphic novels. In fact, most of the books that teachers were really excited about (especially teachers of boys) at the National Council of Teachers of English Conference were graphic originals or adaptations. So I thought I’d share a few of our graphic books that the teachers I’ve met seem to really love.

Click to read more.

Yes You Can Now Major In Comics Literature
Rich Johnston
Bleeding Cool.com

As an English professor (Professor Jeremy Larance)at a relatively small public university in West Virginia, West Liberty University, I often try to find ways to sneak comics and graphic novels into my courses. For several years now, for example, I’ve used V for Vendetta as the culminating text in my British Literature course, because—let’s be honest—there just isn’t a better example of a modern-day Byronic Hero than Alan Moore’s V. Some scoffed, but my decision was ultimately validated by the fact that The Longman Anthology of British Literature now includes an excerpt from that graphic novel in its section of contemporary British fiction, just a few hundred pages after James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Click to read more.

Inspiration for the Joker and J. J. Abrams and prequels to the Watchmen

I've plotted out the next six pages for the next scene, which I hope to get some work done on very shortly. I'm really looking forward to putting them up soon. Until then, here's Page 76.

While I was drawing this page it struck me how difficult it is to draw someone putting on or taking off their glasses. Not easy. Usually when I draw the sketches for a scene they're very, very loose but for this page I remember actually going into great detail to design it.

There was a tough combination of vehicles, postures, movements and emotions to put into each cell - more so than in most pages I've put up, so this one's a great example of a lot of things going on in each scene, though it may not look it.

Dr. Casey Miller confronts Dr. Howard Bolam for everything that's happened to him so far in You son of a bitch, Bolam!

See more by following the links:

• Fundraising Faux-Pas,
  
• King Street Capers
• General comics
• Tomb of the Undead (updated Jan. 28), or the
• Mugabe comic strip (Pinocchio parody)

Graphic novel news
In graphic novel news we've got some details on the reworking of the comic The Man Who Laughs, which was the old imspiration for The Joker of Bathman fame, which is pretty cool. Read about J. J. Abram's latest concept borrowing from "Boilerplate" which is being adapted for the silver screen. And see who's writing the prequels for the Watchmen is released, despite the disatifaction of creator Alan Moore's protests to leave his characters alone. Check it out!

David Hine And Mark Stafford Make A Joker Of A Graphic Novel
Rich Johnston
BleedingCool.com

Batman and Azrael writer David Hine who seemed to, well, stop writing for DC with the relaunch, is continuing to write a Batman character in a new graphic novel, The Man Who Laughs, an adaptation the Victor Hugo which inspired the 1928 film starring Conrad Veidt with a “grim carnival freak-like grin” which inspired the appearance of The Joker.

Click to read more.

"Frank Reade" Flies Again with "Boilerplate's" Guinan & Bennett
Shaun Manning
ComicBookResources

Following up 2009's "Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel," which inserted the titular robot into turn-of-the-20th-century America, the husband and wife team of Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett return with another alternate history tale from Abrams Image. "Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention" resurrects the family of heroes first introduced in the pages of boys' magazines in 1868, which rose to even greater fame during the late 1880s and 1890s in the pages of dime novels under the banner "Frank Reade Library."

Click to read more.

DC Comics plans 'Before Watchmen' prequel comics
Curt Holman
Creative Loafing Atlanta

The graphic novel Watchmen has a reputation as the Citizen Kane of graphic novels, so DC Comics' decision to publish a series of prequels sounds as ill-advised as a film called Charles Foster Kane: The College Years. Nevertheless, this summer DC will release 7 titles involving such Watchmen characters as Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan, written and drawn by big name creators in the comics industry:

• RORSCHACH (4 issues) — Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: Lee Bermejo
• MINUTEMEN (6 issues) — Writer/Artist: Darwyn Cooke
• COMEDIAN (6 issues) — Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: J.G. Jones
• DR. MANHATTAN (4 issues) — Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artist: Adam Hughes
• NITE OWL (4 issues) — Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artists: Andy and Joe Kubert
• OZYMANDIAS (6 issues) — Writer: Len Wein. Artist: Jae Lee
• SILK SPECTRE (4 issues) — Writer: Darwyn Cooke. Artist: Amanda Conner

Click to read more.

Homeless in San Fransisco, Mr. Wonderful and the Uncanny X-Force

On page 60 I remember the new challenge - after having the characters trapped in an airplane for a few pages, they were suddenly in a crowded airport ... which wasn't any easier to conceive or draw. Check it out at "Just a Little Escape"

Graphic Novel News
Check out some graphic novel news - first, a graphic novel that's inspired by local homeless, which leads to "Transient Man," learn more about the introverted world of graphic novelist Danny Clowes and meet the Uncanny X-Force!

Homeless in San Fransisco, Mr. Wonderful and the Uncanny X-Force


Artist's graphic novel inspired by homeless people in San Francisco
Alexis Terrazas
SFExaminer.com

Justin Kaufman, art director of Massive Black, recently completed his graphic novel “Transient Man,” which is based on The City’s homeless. For more information, visit www.transientman.com or www.massiveblack.com.

What inspired you to write “Transient Man”? I’ve lived in The City for like 15 years, in and around the downtown area for most of that. And you know, you see these homeless people sometimes talking to themselves. I work in the GFX industry and I got obsessed with this idea. I talked about it to a few of my co-workers and it kind of spawned into [this]. I hope that it will encourage people to look at homeless people in a positive light.

Click to read more.

Graphic Novelist Daniel Clowes on What Makes ‘Mr. Wonderful’ Wonderful
Dennis Nishi
Speakeasy (blog)

If you’ve read the graphic novels of Dan Clowes, you already know the artist. The characters from such work as “Ghost World” and “Art School Confidential,” which have both been turned into movies, are reflections of the 50-year-old and his close circle of introverted but creative friends. He describes them all, and himself, as having a seething anger that surfaces during some social situations but who are very likable once you get them to relax.

His latest graphic novel is entitled “Mr. Wonderful” and it follows a middle-aged divorced man named Marshall that has been set up on a blind date. Of course, the evening spins off into some unexpected directions. “Mr. Wonderful” was originally commissioned as a serialized 20-episode comic strip for the New York Times Magazine back in 2008. The story has since been expanded and turned into a hardcover book that was released earlier this month by Pantheon Press. Speakeasy spoke with Clowes at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Click to read more.

Wednesday Comics Review: Uncanny X-Force 8 And Super Dinosaur 1
Rich Johnston
BleedingCool.com

For weeks I’ve watched Aaron and Mike going on and on and on and on and on about the new Uncanny X-Force series from Marvel by Rick Remender and Billy Tan. I picked up an early issue and, aside from a gorgeous scene with Deadpool and a still-framed assailant, wasn’t overly impressed. But it’s time to go back.

Ostensibly, this is a black ops group, but it’s more about pawns that have lost their king. They act independently, with great ferocity, but in the end are being placed in a position where they can do their thing. Expect these pawns get back on the board after they’ve been sacrficed and start moving each other around the place. Which makes for a very interesting game of chess, even as it’s embedded in Claremontian X-Men with the return of Shadow King, astral battles, possession, the price one must pay to win, the demons unleashed in the process and all that jazz, given a very pleasant painted execution of Billy Tan’s art.

Click to read more.

Powers Supergroup on tv, Tits & clits in the news and Batman funding a graphic novel

Page 50 of Tomb of the Undead is available. The first page of the new scene called Trapped on an airplane, which you can read here.


I was really starting to get the hang of the inside of this airplane, and the light source. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I may have mentioned this before, and you can't really tell in these scenes, but I've got a few Easter eggs kicking around in the other seats on the plane. You definitely can't see them in this scene, but follow the link and see what you find!

For the record, you won't find the Easter eggs in this scene, I must admit.

We took a flight to Mexico for my dad's birthday and I made a point to pay special attention to airports and airplanes, things like that, knowing full well that I was going to be working on these scenes.

Graphic novel news

Michael Zulli Will Even Draw Batman To Fund New Graphic Novel, The Fracture Of The Universal Boy
bleedingcool.com
Rich Johnston

This is a Michael Zulli portrait of Batman.

I love Michael Zulli’s work. From Puma Blues to Sandman to that little Sweeney Todd prelude to a comic that never was. You’d have thought publishers would be falling over themselves to support his latest work. And his new work has been solicited and promised before. But it looks like it has hit a speed bump or two.

But instead he’s turned to Kickstarter.

The Fracture Of The Universal Boy is an original 200 page graphic novel by the man. And it is complete. All it needs is to be published. And Zulli is raising money for a print run.

As always there are various levels of donation and $45 gets you a signed copy of the graphic novel, a Fracture print and your name in the book. Penny for penny, that is fantastic value, which is why I’m just about to donate myself.

And for $2500, as he states, “To get this published, I’ll even draw Batman!”

Click to read more.

Joyce Farmer on Tits & Clits, Special Exit, and How to Write a Graphic Novel
Phoenix New Times
Claire Lawton

Joyce Farmer's more than happy to dish on what she used to create her graphic novel, Special Exits, she even pull out her bright blue mechanical pencil without an eraser and a worn and tattered grip.

The California-based artist and writer's known for her openness both in person and through her projects; she co-created Tits & Clits, an underground comic series to counter sexism in 1975, and just released Special Exits, a graphic novel about aging.

Farmer's also an old friend of New Times' art critic Kathleen Vanesian. The two discuss each others' influences (including each other) and the changing world of graphics in Special Entrances, which you can read in full here.

Farmer will present her novel and discuss "anything and everything" at 7 p.m. tonight at Changing Hands in Tempe. The event is co-sponsored by ASU Art Museum and local artist Jon Haddock will be leading a Q&A with the author. For more event info, see the Changing Hands website.

Click to read more.

FX Picks Up Comic-Based 'Powers' To Pilot
NELLIE ANDREEVA
Deadline.com

After lengthy development, FX has handed a pilot order to Powers, a drama based on the graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming. The project, written by Charles H. Eglee and to be directed by Michael Dinner, is a police procedural set in a world where superpowers are relatively common and centers on two detectives, Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, in a Homicide department that deals with cases involving "powers" (people with superpowers). Powers, from Sony Pictures TV and FX Prods., is slated to begin casting immediately for a spring shoot.

Dinner, who is under an overall deal at Sony, has been the driving force between the project. Eglee came on board to write a new script late last year, after a stint as an executive producer on a very successful cable series adaptation of another graphic novel, AMC's The Walking Dead. (Journeyman creator Kevin Falls was previously tapped to write the script.) In another Walking Dead connection, the company behind the AMC hit, Circle of Confusion, is attached to executive produce Powers alongside Dinner and Eglee.

Click to read more.