You HAVE To Check This Book Out! (Small Press Thread)

[TheButcher]

CCI EXCLUSIVE: Walker & Jones Initiate Readers Into "Danger Club"

What happens to all the sidekicks when the superheroes disappear? That's exactly the question the February-launching Image Comics book "Danger Club was created to explore. Brought to you by Landry Walker and Eric Jones, the team behind DC's lauded "Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures In The 8th Grade," "Danger Club" will shed the creative duo's all-ages storytelling tendencies for a more adult take on teenage characters dealing with finding themselves the only heroes left on earth.

Announced during the Image Comics panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego, "Danger Club" won't simply feature epic superhero action starring characters loosely based on familiar ones. The title mixes in real drama as the reality of the new world order sets in on the now-unsupervised sidekicks. CBR News spoke with Walker and Jones about making the jump from kid-friendly comics to this title's more adult fare, the cast of "Danger Club" and the difference between working on creator-owned and corporate-owned comics.

[TheButcher]

From CBR:
CCI: IDW Spotlights Archives and Artist's Editions

[TheButcher]

AICN COMICS SDCC FALLOUT:
Ambush Bug talks everything from THE GOON to GODZILLA with Eric Powell!

Greetings, folks. Ambush Bug here with another interview I conducted at the San Diego Comic Con. Special thanks to AICN’s unsung hero, Muldoon, for transcribing all of these back and forthings. Expect a ton of interviews to be released daily until my interview well is dry (and believe me, it’s going to be a while after this con). Eric Powell’s creation THE GOON has rocketed the writer/artist to superstardom. With a film in the works, THE GOON couldn’t be hotter. Powell is also an aficionado of all things GODZILLA and wrote the first GODZILLA series for IDW. I had a chance to talk with Mr. Powell about both THE GOON and GODZILLA and more. Enjoy!

AMBUSH BUG (BUG): Alright, so here we go. I’m here with Eric Powell at the IDW booth. How are you doing right now?

ERIC POWELL (EP): I’m good. I’m just wading through the madness.

BUG: Yeah, this is day two and a half?

EP: It feels like it’s day 50 at this point.

BUG: Yeah, it feels like it. So you have a couple of projects coming out through IDW, mainly GODZILLA. Let’s talk about that first. How is that going for you?

EP: It’s fun. I was always a huge GODZILLA fan. When I was a kid they used to play some of the movies on Sunday afternoon and there was only Godzilla. I had the giant SHOGUN WARRIORS toy and you know all Godzilla, so the chance to actually do a comic…

BUG: Was that the one where you pressed the lever in the back and tongue came out?

EP: Yeah, the tongue came out and the fist would shoot off. Yeah, so I love Godzilla and I’ve kind of jumped at the chance to do something with it and it was just fun with giant monsters and everything.

BUG: I actually talked with Phil Hester at C2E2 about the fact that Godzilla came out right after the whole earthquake over there. That was one of those just terrible coincidences that happened. What were the reactions that people had when that came out so quickly after that happened? It was the same week I think it came out, right?

EP: I don’t remember exactly, but not only that, there were a series of really weird coincidences with GODZILLA. There were…right in a row Tracy and I wrote these issues and we had kind of signaling the coming of the monsters, like dead birds, dead fish, earthquakes, and in the news literally the following two weeks “Mass dead fish float up on shore. No one knows the reason why.” “Mass flocks of dead birds lay...” Tracy and I were emailing each other going like “This is really creepy. It’s like we are predicting the future and we need to write in GODZILLA that we become millionaires or something,” because it was literally like weird things…it was bizarre, but as far as the devastation in Japan it was just like…the good thing about the comic was it was spread out globally, because I think that kind of eased the awkwardness, but something that tragic lands it goes way beyond a funny book, you know? It was just heartbreaking and I remember writing Chris and you know as soon as I heard about this stuff and was like “Is everyone in Toho okay?” With your basic connections to this, you just want to make sure people are doing okay.

BUG: And then you guys put out a benefit comic. Is that coming out or has that been out?

EP: I’m not really sure. I talked to IDW about it to see if they were doing anything and they were like “Yeah, we are doing a benefit comic.” I think it’s already come out, but I didn’t really have any involvement with the production of it, yeah.

BUG: So what else do you have that’s going to be coming out then with the GODZILLA characters or anything else?

EP: Well our run goes up to issue #8 with Phil Hester and Eric Chester. We are doing the first two arcs and then I’m also going to do an illustrated version of HUCK FINN with IDW, because Mark Twain is one of my all time favorite writers.

BUG: It’s kind of refreshing to have a couple of lighter stories after something like that. So back to GODZILLA, as far as the way you are portraying GODZILLA. He, it, has been portrayed in different ways throughout the years; it’s been kind of anthromorphized in some places, like the old cartoon. What is your take on it?

EP: Well the difficult situation you are put in when trying to do an ongoing story with something that’s so formulaic, which is Godzilla shows up, he stomps stuff, the military fights him, another monster shows up, he fights the monster, they go back into the ocean. You know, that’s pretty much every GODZILLA film. How do you make an ongoing story out of that? So we kind of set out with the approach of kind of making it a little satirical, kind of making it a little bit of observations of society kind of thing, and really kind of destroying society to the point where it becomes “THE ROAD WARRIOR” with monsters.

BUG: Yeah, well it reminded me…saying this might imply a kind of negative slant on it, but it reminds me of the way it was handled in INDEPENDENCE DAY or some of those big disaster films where it’s a broad scope. But, don’t get me wrong, it’s much better than INDEPENDENCE DAY.

[Both laugh]

BUG: Still, is that something you were going for? That kind of world spanning devastation?

EP: Big disaster. You know, hopefully it wont be compared to INDEPENDENCE DAY, but yeah so we were going for the epic scope, global disaster, because we are really trying to make comparisons to Katrina and the oil spill and all of the big problems our society as a whole globally seem to be having lately that we can’t handle. It’s like we’ve lost our ability to handle big situations or we are not showing enough foresight to not get ourselves into those situations, and yeah, the monsters are kind of a metaphor for that. Another thing that a lot of the GODZILLA stuff doesn’t do is show a real consequence you know, like “Okay, if Godzilla comes through San Diego and rumbles through, the infrastructure is screwed. There’s going to be no power, no water. What’s this city full of people going to do? There’s really going to be no way to instantaneously fix that.” Then if he just keeps going from town to town, how do you keep up with that kind of disaster? So that’s where the apocalyptic side kind of comes in. We would not be able to keep up with the level of devastation if we couldn’t kill the monsters, so that’s where it kind of…

BUG: Yeah, that sounds like a great take. I had no idea it was an ongoing. I thought it was just going to be wrapping up there, but that’s great to know that it’s going to keep on going. It kind of reminds me of going back to the original GODZILLA, the black and white version with Orson Welles’ narration and everything where it was more of a metaphor of devastation and all of that stuff.

EP: Yeah, and I really wanted it to kind of emotionally attach it to the first film where it was more serious and it was more of a social commentary, and of course ours isn’t about the evils of the atomic bomb, ours is just about our inability to not be able to handle big problems, but I wanted that kind of…I wanted it to be a little more thought-provoking than just guys in a rubber suit pounding on each other, as much as I love guys in a rubber suit pounding on each other, because that’s fun.

BUG: So what are the other monsters that you are going to be bringing in? You’ve brought in a couple of them so far.

EP: So far we’ve got Rodan and Anguirus…Battra…we are introducing King Ghidorah. So there’s a whole bunch of Toho monsters that are going to be popping up in there.

[TheButcher]

IDW/MARVEL has put out a tribute to John Romita's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN artwork!!! Harry loves it!

[TheButcher]

Jane Goldman Adapting Eisner Award-Winning Comic 'Nonplayer' For Warner Bros.

[TheButcher]

IDW Publishing Announces Ongoing 'Womanthology' Comic [Wondercon]

[TheButcher]

From CBR:
WC12: IDW Publishing Panel

[TheButcher]

IDW Publishing JULY 2012 Solicitations

Bernie Wrightson’s The Muck Monster: Artist’s Edition Portfolio
Bernie Wrightson (w & a)
Bernie Wrightson is one of the most acclaimed horror artist's of all time. His work on Swamp Thing and many DC mystery books are hailed as classics of the form, but his undisputed masterpiece is Frankenstein, illustrated from the Mary Shelley novel. Leading up to Frankenstein, Wrightson did a series of breathtaking stories for Creepy and Eerie magazines, in the mid 1970s. Chief among these stories, and with the beginnings of the style he adopted for Frankenstein, was The Muck Monster.

Now, IDW Publishing is pleased to announce the first Artist's Edition portfolio, and featuring the incredibly intricate detail of Bernie Wrightson's The Muck Monster. As with all Artist's Editions books or portfolios, the original art is meticulously scanned in color and from the actual original art.
BW • $29.99 • 7 prints • 14.5” x 19”

Bullet points:
• The First IDW Artist’s Edition Portfolio! All pages scanned directly from the original art!

[TheButcher]

From CA:
Don't Ask! Just Buy It! - April 25, 2012: IDW's POPEYE

* POPEYE #1
I can't think of a more appropriate writer than Roger Langridge to take on the newest (miniseries) comic book incarnation of E.C. Segar's sailor man, and Bruce Ozella's artwork for this issue is very much in the Segarian mode. (The regular cover's a cute homage to Action Comics #1; the variant is a Jules Feiffer sketch, which is a good idea too.) Langridge, in his formidable writer/artist capacity, also has Snarked! #7 out this week, continuing his wildly charming (and not entirely un-Segar-like) take on Lewis Carroll's creations.

[TheButcher]

He's Popeye the sailor man, and he's back with a new series

With his one eye, bulbous nose, sour grimace and ever-present pipe, Popeye would never be confused with Brad Pitt in the looks department.

That ugly mug, though, is part of the enduring appeal of the ageless sailor man for Eisner-nominated comics writer Roger Langridge, and doing a new Popeye original comic — the first in more than 30 years — was definitely an "ofker" he couldn't "refyousk."

"Popeye, whatever else you might say about him, never had the handicap of cuteness holding him back," Langridge says of the unlikely cartoon and comics star of the 1930s.

Debuting Wednesday, IDW's Popeye book finds Langridge and a host of artists such as up-and-comer Bruce Ozella (who illustrates the first issue) and Tom Nelly are crafting the latest adventures of spinach-loving Popeye, his girl Olive Oyl, baby Swee'Pea, bully Bluto and hamburger-loving scamp Wimpy.

Under the guidance of IDW co-founder Ted Adams and comics historian Craig Yoe, Popeye will draw influence mainly from the original strips created in 1929 by Elzie Crisler Segar. The self-contained stories in each issue will be longer than those first Popeye strips that were part of Thimble Theatre, Langridge says, and in his first issue, Popeye and crew venture to Jeep Island to find a potential mate for Eugene the Jeep.

Lanridge has been " wallowing in the history" of Popeye over the years, he says, and it's one of the reasons why he was chosen to be the man to script Popeye in the 21st century. "Craig has been great in basically trusting me to know most of this stuff already."

A British writer, Langridge has been doing his homework on the sailor with the oversized forearms since he was little, growing up on the Fleischer Studios theatrical cartoons that originally ran from 1933 to 1957.

He didn't become an ardent fan until he was 10, when he read a Popeye chapter in the book All in Color for a Dime in the late 1970s. Langridge had become a bit obsessed with the character by 1980, when Robert Altman's Popeye was released with Robin Williams in the title role. Although the film was considered a flop, it put the sailor back into pop culture, and Langridge devoured all the collected strips with all the gusto of a booming tank tattoo on a bicep.

While Langridge knows the character well, he concedes he's still grappling with Popeye's distinct speech patterns and vocabulary, where words like "horsh," "suspishkous" and "ettitkkik" (that's Popeye-speak for "etiquette," by the way) are common.

"There are so many idiosyncrasies to navigate," Langridge says. "Yet, on the other hand, you can't make it too eccentric or it won't read smoothly. So it's a bit of a tightrope, and one I will probably fall off of fairly regularly."

He's not consciously writing anything in a contemporary way, but Popeye's sweetie actually seems to be a pretty modern woman in Langridge's series. The foundations Segar had in the strip were actually forward-looking to begin with, he says, and Segar's Olive Oyl was "a much more capable, strong-willed and — dare I say — violent individual than the soppy perpetual victim of the Fleischer cartoons."

Segar's work has a timeless quality, Langridge adds, "set in an environment that never really seems to be tied down to any particular era. So I've had to monkey with things very little in order to make it seem as if the stories are happening in some kind of 'now.' "

One of Langridge's favorites so far, though, happens to be J. Wellington Wimpy, the man who "will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" and is one of comics' all-time great creations, says the cartoonist, who is writing and drawing Boom! Studios' Snarked! and penning a story for Archaia's next Jim Henson's Storyteller anthology.

"Writing Wimpy is an absolute joy. He's such a complex, layered individual. While you never doubt that his heart is basically in the right place — to a given value of 'right' — he consistently lets everyone down for his own selfish ends. He can talk his way out of literally anything, and make the person he's tricking out of his next meal feel like a heel for not doing it sooner. And his use of language is glorious!"

Langridge plans on including many of Segar's characters — the second issue features the return of Willy Wormwood, the first Thimble Theatre villain back in 1919, and will be the first meeting between him and Popeye. (Willy was written out of the strip before 1929.) Also, fans will be seeing Poopdeck Pappy, Alice the Goon, King Blozo, Oscar, Rough-House and other usual suspects.

The writer has been asked not to add new folks to that sizable supporting cast, he says, but there will be one-offs "who can wander off into the sunset at the end, and if nobody ever sees them again it'll be no big deal — though, of course, if anybody else uses them in the future, I'll be enormously flattered. Not holding my breath, mind you."

Cans of spinach made Popeye "strong to the finish" — as the old theme song goes — and they'll also be making appearances in the new series, although not as much as some might expect.

Langridge is sticking to the Segar stories as much possible, where Popeye would often chow down, but the original creator never used spinach in the way as the old Fleischer cartoons. In those, it was almost a deus ex machina, where a well-timed snack often gave Popeye the powerful "muskles" he needed to save the day.

Still, Langridge says Popeye will be eating a ton of the stuff. "It's such a huge part of the Popeye myth. We just won't be showing it as a magical thing that gives him super powers for 10 minutes."

These days, guys usually have to hit the gym to get the same effect Popeye had with a trip to the canned-vegetable aisle. But he still has a lot of traits that Langridge thinks make him very relatable as an everyman, from his complete lack of pretention to his willingness to take a stand.

"These are universal qualities that don't ever really go out of fashion," the writer says. "At the same time, there's his sheer bizarreness — how many other pop-culture icons can be said to be ugly, one-eyed, tattooed, with multiple speech impediments and a vegetable fetish?"

[TheButcher]

From CBR:
"Popeye" #1 Offers A Strong Case For More Popeye Comics

Does the world need more Popeye comics? ROBOT 6's J. Caleb Mozzocco says the latest rendition of the character by Roger Langridge and Bruce Ozella, published by IDW, offers a strong case for them.

[TheButcher]

From BC:
Thirteen Thousand Copies Of Popeye #1 Sell Out. Well, Whaddayaknow.

Now Roger Langridge Quits Marvel And DC Comics Over Ethical Concerns

He also lets us know that Popeye, solicited as a four issue series, will now be an ongoing book from IDW, and he has another IDW series coming up.

[TheButcher]

CROW Creator's First New Story in 10yrs

James O'Barr is returning to his creation THE CROW for his first new story in a decade, taking the character to a new, old location.