Tonight to do: Jacob Ciocci/Paper Rad at Cartoon Polymaths
Another great event in the Cartoon Polymaths exhibit: Video artist, performer, visual artist, and musician Jacob Ciocci is featured in the Cartoon Polymaths exhibit as a member of the collaborative art group Paper Rad. Ciocci has also collaborated with Peter Burr of the music and video duo Hooliganship, who regularly curate tours and DVD releases featuring new independent animated shorts under the Cartune Xprez banner. Burr displays a specially curated selection of recent animated shorts, and Ciocci shows and discusses his recent video work.
Continue ReadingKirkman and Liefeld team for THE INFINITE
Besties Robert Kirkman and Rob Liefeld will team on a new SFish book called THE INFINITE for Kirkman's Skybound imprint at Image, USA Today reports.
Continue ReadingWizard gets new stock symbol — WIZD
Via PR, the official launch of the Wizard World "digi-zine" and also news that they have officially changed their stock ticker symbol to WIZD -- when Wizard went public, it did so by buying out the failed energy company Go Energy, which had the ticker symbol GOEE. Luckily, you can now find all your Wizard SEC filings right here. In recent news, nothing too exciting, aside from switching accountants:
Continue ReadingThe new TCJ.com launches with new editors Nadel and Hodler
As long rumored, the much maligned Comics Journal website has re-launched with a new editorial team: Dan Nadel and Tim Hodler, founders of the Comics Comics website and zine, will bring their view of contemporary comics to the hallowed brand of TCJ.com. Hodler started things off with an editorial which, amazingly, did not talk about how crappy websites are; insead it laid out a pretty exciting vision for the new site: This site is divided into several sections which will continue to grow over the days and weeks and months to come: Feature articles, including lengthy interviews, investigative journalism, and long-form critical and historical essays; regular columns on a variety of subjects; a steady stream of book reviews; thorough and easily navigated event listings; an ever-growing archive of The Comics Journal‘s thirty-plus years as a print magazine (by the end of 2011, each and every issue will be online)—this will be available in full to magazine subscribers only; and of course this daily blog, which will be a catch-all for short items, selective link-blogging, and a forum for guest voices and bad jokes.
Continue ReadingEmerald City Comicon attendance: 25,000?
This weekend's Emerald City Comicon seems to have been a raging success, if only from the amount of "highly refreshed" tweets we saw all weekend. The Seattle Times has a preview which notes that some 25,000 people were expected. Based on the number of pictures like this one from @alisonst showing packed crowds, it would seem that the first year going from a two- to a three-day show was a raging success.
Continue ReadingHOW DO PEOPLE FIND THE TIME: Lego South Park Musical
Someone made a Lego version of the song "Do What You Wanna Do" from the "Elementary School Musical" episode of South Park. In this episode, the boys find that the whole school has gone crazy for musicals because of a cute boy named Briden, and resist attempts to break into song every time there is an emotional moment. It turns out Bridon doesn't even want to sing all the time and the episode ends with all the roles reversed.
Continue ReadingBeat Friday Giveaway: Win a copy of Oscar-winner Shaun Tan’s THE LOST THING
We're sure Beat readers were as pleased as we were when the incredibly talented artist/animator Shaun Tan won the Oscar™ for Best Animated Short Film last weekend for THE LOST THING. Nine years in the making, the short is based on his book of the same name, which has been basically unavailable in the US for a while now. However, a NEW edition has just come out from Scholastic in a collection called LOST & FOUND which includes not only THE LOST THING but two other magical Tan tales, THE RED TREE and THE RABBIT.
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Emerald City Comicon Who’s Where
The excitement has already begun at the Emerald City Comicon, but in case you need more info, here you go.This is the first time the show has run three days, but it has definitely joined HeroesCon, Baltimore Comics Con, WonderCon, and a few others as one of the premier "regional" shows of the year. If things were different we'd be there slurping oysters right this minute, but hopefully next year. Here's an interview with showrunner Jim Demonakos, and a guide to the show with ALL the info you need.
Continue ReadingWizard World Digital debuts
The long awaited Wizard World Digital magazine has debuted, and it's basically a pdf that you can read on your computer or iWhatever.
Continue ReadingBetty Boop decision: Copyright trumps trademark
A little catch-up here on a potentially groundbreaking legal story that we don't have time to completely break out, but basically early Betty Boop cartoons are now in the public domain, despite Fleischer Studios still owning the trademark and licensing out contemporary versions of Betty Boop (which you see all over the place on purses, Ts and so on.)
Continue ReadingCan comics support truly new characters?
Is there anything new under the spinner rack? Only yesterday, Chris Irving quoted the late, great Dwayne McDuffie on the difficulty of launching anything new in comics: “I look at the new Blue Beetle, which was really well done and really entertaining, even though it didn’t sell at all. The new things in the universe are pretty much impossible, and new things out of the universe are pretty unlikely, because people won’t try new things. I hope I’m wrong and there’s some wonderful new thing. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Static will break, but I don’t think people will try it, or that people at comics stores will even care. That book should have come out in 2002 when it was the #2 cartoon on television, and not 2010 when it was in reruns on Disney XD.”
Continue ReadingIndie Month-to-Month Sales: January 2011
January wasn’t all bad news in the comics industry as Image had a strong month. Spawn #200 sold a crazy amount of issues thanks to its many variant copies, while The Walking Dead continues to rise and the new weekly reprints did fairly well. The biggest launches were a Darth Vader miniseries from Dark Horse, and IDW’s zombie crossover series Infestation.
Continue ReadingEmerald City Comic-Con party poop!
The Emerald City Comic-Con kicks off today and it sounds like a rockin' good time! We're GREEN with envy over everyone who gets to go. Lots of outside events too!
Continue ReadingNice art: DARNA LIVES! channels Marvelman
Darna is a popular Filipino superheroine created by Mars Ravelo and Nestor Redondo in 1950. Contemporary creators Gerry Alanguilan (story and art page 1) and Arnold Arre (letters and art pages 2-8) have created a 9 page tribute called DARNA LIVES! which is inspired by Alan Moore's Marvelman.
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