Boom Boom Satellites, Zazen Boys, Echostream and Puffy AmiYumi will be performing at the Far East To East Showcase (FETES) during the New York Anime Festival, it was announced today. The show takes place on Sunday, October 10, 2010 at Irving Plaza. Tickets are $22 each.

FETES is produced by Superglorious, a live event production firm responsible for orchestrating events with a very eclectic and exciting mix of artists. The New York Anime Festival, an anime, manga, and Japanese pop culture convention, will take place October 8-10, 2010 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in Manhattan. It is created by and co-located with the New York Comic Con. Boom Boom Satellites, Zazen Boys, Echostream, and Puffy AmiYumi will all appearing at NYAF for speaking sessions and autograph signings prior to their show. NYAF has additionally announced seiyuu and singer Minori Chihara and Japanese rock band VAMPS will also appear as guests, and comics legends Stan Lee, John Romita, Sr., and John Romita, Jr. will headline the New York Comic Con.

This year’s NYAF is teaming up with the New York Comic-Con for a full-spectrum comics and media event. More here.

And the third one is at Moviefone but can’t be embedded yet.

SCOTT PILGRIM REMIX: ‘LOVE’
Track: “Hillcrest Park”
Artist: Nigel Godrich
Dialogue Remix by Osymyso

Award-winning comic book writer and graphic novelist Ed Brubaker does not shy away from dark themes in his work — or his songs picks. He chooses a slate of songs about heartbreak, loneliness and survival in his Guest DJ Project set for Los Angeles-based public radio station KCRW (89.9FM and KCRW.com). You can find the full set streaming and for download, with a transcript, here:
 
Ed prefers music that “hits you right in the heart” and kicks off his Guest DJ set with “It Changes” from the Snoopy Comes Home Soundtrack: 
 
“(This) is the song Charlie Brown sings after Snoopy leaves. As an ex cartoonist, I just like Charles Schulz better than Charles Dickens and this song was, I think, the first time I ever felt ennui as a child. It very much informs everything about Charlie Brown as a character and about, you know… the particular genius of Charles Schulz is that he taps into this loneliness that we all feel. And it’s just a song that, every time I hear it, it just brings tears to my eyes.”
 
He also reveals the music that inspires his work, particularly the tone of his comic book series Criminal:
 
“When I was struggling with “Criminal,” when I first began it, trying to find the right tone for it, I actually found that tone in old Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. That sort of seedy, depressing kind of music. I thought, if I could get that type of tone across, then I would be golden. So, yeah, that is something I think about sometimes — what music do I want people to listen to when they read this type of comic.”
 
Ed has worked on such notable titles as Batman and Captain America and his critically-acclaimed miniseries “Incognito” was just optioned for a feature film by 20th Century Fox. Considering a conversation we had in KCRW’s Music Library after we taped this session, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more. It appears Hollywood is knocking on his door!
 
On KCRW’s Guest DJ Project, an array of cultural trendsetters and icons are asked to share FIVE songs that have inspired them throughout their lives and a new set is posted each week. We recently taped sessions with The Guild’s Felicia Day, as well as “Watchmen” star Malin Akerman, which will be airing in the coming months. We’ve also featured Mark Waid, Tim Sale, Jimmy Gownley, Brad Meltzer and more. You can find them all in the KCRW archives here: http://www.kcrw.com/guestdjproject

§ RIch Johnston watches an Alan Moore video in order to report that the Damon Albarn/Gorillaz/Moore opera about John Dee is never going to happen. BOO, hiss!

Alan Moore describes the situation above as “It didn’t work out, shall we say” – he puts it down to Gorillaz not completing reciprocal pages for Dodgem Logic and Moore’s role on the project expanding beyond his original committment. What he created will instead be appearing in the next long-awaited volume of  Strange Attractor Journal. As Moore quotes from TV game show Bullseye “let’s see what you could have won.”

GIven that Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett, and Alan Moore are all pretty difficult to work with, file this under “we should never have hoped.”

§ The Awl reports that R. Crumb isn’t working for The New Yorker any more after a cover idea was rejected:

I was asked by one of the art editors, Françoise Mouly, Art Spiegelman’s wife, to submit both covers and comic strips to them. I don’t remember how it came about that all the strips ended up being collaborations with Aline. I guess maybe, probably, it was that I didn’t feel comfortable doing solo strips for The New Yorker because of all the obvious restrictions and limitations–no explicit sex, etcetera–but, hell, the pay was good, and it’s easy to do those strips with Aline without feeling too terribly confined. But I began to feel compromised after an editor there rejected a cover I did for them and would give me no explanation, and so I’m through working for The New Yorker. I refuse to work for anyone under those circumstances, no matter how much they pay. I saw what that did to Harvey Kurtzman’s confidence as an artist, and resolved when I was still in my twenties to never let myself get into a trap like that.

Without knowing the full story, we can understand a commercial need to fine tune a cover — that’s what corporations do — but just blanking one of the great artists of the past 100 years? Kinda lame, people.

On the plus side, a Crumb exhibit of his art for GENESIS just opened at the Portland Museum of Art! Patrick Rosenkranz went and took pictures and all. There was even free booze at the opening!

Of course I was totally blown away by his superb draftsmanship and mastery of human anatomy, animals, landscapes, and architecture. I bought and read the book when it came out, but that crisp black ink on white art boards looked so much more precise than their reproduction onto printed pages. Even the crosshatching and shadowing was revealed in all its convoluted entirety.

On the downer side, Tom Crippen is peeved that Crumb thought that Charles Schulz and Jules Ffeiffer’s art was “not much to look at” compared to Jack Davis or Wally Wood. A hullabaloo ensues in comments. Admittedly when we first heard this, we thought Crumb had actually dissed other cartoonists — but anyone who thinks the genius Charles Schulz drew in the same way Wally Wood did needs to get his head examined.

Aside: Great artists in many media often put down other great artists who are their contemporaries. Often it’s a competition thing, or jealousy, or someone stole someone’s girl or whatever. When you are in the heat of the passion of creation sometimes you need to stay focused on making your own art your own way and reject other equally valid (from an observer’s viewpoint) paths. Our further observation is that when great artists mature and have their own place established, i.e. “lose their edge,” they often admit that, yes, The Beatles were great.

Anyway this isn’t one of those times. Tell it, R.!

UPDATE: Wait, Scott Edelman is also mad at R. Crumb!

But that wasn’t what so horrified me I felt compelled to set the issue down and come tell you about it. No, what disturbed me was one of the things Crumb had to say in answer to a question about which art supplies he uses. His response caused smoke to erupt from my ears and nostrils, and I had to stop and vent.

When asked what kind of paper he used, Crumb said:

Well, I use the old Strathmore vellum surface paper, which is the best paper you can get in the Western world for ink line drawing. It has a good, hard surface. I have it mailed from the New York Central Art Supply in New York. For a while I was using this old Strathmore paper from fifty years ago that some guy sent me, it had bad comic art on one side, hacked-out comic work from 1959, 1960, but the paper is superior to anything you can get now. It just holds the ink better. I ran out of that and now I use this new stuff that’s not quite as good.

What do you think? Is one scribble from Crumb the worth of 100 hack cartoonists?

We can’t POSSIBLY be the first person to point this out…are we???? While the SCOTT PILGRIM trailer briefly supplanting Justin Bieber as the most important topic on earth has been noted, Bieber’s uncanny resemblance to an animated manga character has not — or at least not on comic book message boards.

Also it should be noted that while we were prepping this graphic, our software kept crashing — have we made a cute joke or opened the gateway to another dimension of terror and woe?

• In other Scott Pilgrim news, CBR interviewed Bryan Lee O’Malley:

Have you started work on your first project post “Scott Pilgrim,” and can you give us any teases on what it might be?

I’ll never tell. If there’s one thing I’m learning, it’s to not tell anyone anything about what I’m doing. It just creates weird and false expectations.

How heavily involved have you been with the filming of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World?”

I have been heavily involved since day one. If I wasn’t busy writing and drawing the comic books, I think they would have had me working on the movie full-time. They really like my brain.

BUT, O’Malley also tweeted:

soon you will feel like a loser for ever having liked scott pilgrim and you will curse my name and rue the day etc etc

If O’Malley is somehow responsible for the Bieber-verse leaking into our own reality, then his name shall indeed be cursed.

Reader Maclaine Diemer alaerted us to this new Gorillaz video which, in addition to being just excellent, features a couple of guest stars. One is obvious — the star of many comic-bookical movies. The other — appearing at around the 4:00 mark — could be an homage to another well known character? Since this is the first part of an evolving story, perhaps this mysterious figure will be back in future installments. To be continued.

According to Albarn, Dee was also “responsible for creating the concept of the British Empire. So he affects all our lives in one way or another. He was an alchemist and it’s about his life.” The Vulture interview continues:

Q: Do you know what the music will sound like?
D.A.: No, not really. This will be the first time I’ve stopped writing for six months; I’ve just been reading about Hermetic magic and catalysts and philosophy, which is what all of his stuff is based on  Euclid and Pythagoras and all of that stuff. It’s a lot. And it’s been brilliant. I’ve got an idea of how it’s going to sound.

It’s not entirely clear if Albarn’s Gorillaz’s collaborator, Jamie Hewlett, will be involved in this project, as he’s very busy promoting Plastic Beach, the Gorillaz newest and best album, but one can hope.

Dee has made several previous appearances in the “Moore-verse” of comics, with a prominent role in his mystic-themed PROMETHEA — Dee was also reinvented as Dr. Destiny in Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN run, and we’re pretty sure Grant Morrison mentioned him somewhere, and he’s part of the whole Cthulu mythos. So it’s about time Dee got his own mystico-pop opera!

Although best known for his music, in an interview with CBR Robert reveals much more comic book cred than your average nerdlebrity:

I’ve always wanted to be a comic book artist. I remember drawing black and white comics back in high school that I would photocopy and sell at a local Brooklyn comic shop. Yes, the content was pretty graphic back then, too! But, when I got really serious about it in the early ‘90s, I received a scholarship to study cartooning under Walt Simonson at SVA. I learned a hell of a lot about page layout and storytelling from him. Walt would bring in guest speakers all the time, including his wife Louise, who would share their knowledge about the comic industry and give us useful, practical tips about surviving in the field as freelance artists. It was a real eye opening experience, hearing stories from the mouths of these great comic book legends.

Nerdcore rap pioneer MC Frontalot has teamed up with comics legend Jhonen Vasquez for his new album cover. Known for his dark classic comic Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and cartoon Invader Zim, Vasquez’s most prominent recent projects have been his collaborations with the band Mindless Self Indulgence,  although you can follow his mordant Twitter stream.

Frontalot is a regular at comics and nerd related gatherings, and will play at the upcoming PAX East show.

More deets and Frontalot’s tour schedule in the jump.

MC Frontalot is the progenitor of nerdcore rap, having coined the term himself in early 2000. Since his first forays into music—online, via the songwriting and recording competition Song Fight!—his popularity and influence have continued to spread as his work has matured. Growing audiences seek him out at comics and gaming conventions like Penny Arcade and Blizzcon. He has garnered attention The New York Times, Newsweek, SPIN and The Wall Street Journal, and he was prominently featured in the documentary Nerdcore Rising: The Movie. MC Frontalot’s forthcoming Zero Day finds him displaying a fully realized artistry. The album reveals not only his centrality in the nerdcore movement, but also his resonance outside his genre. The recording features guest appearances by the rock singer-songwriter Mike Doughty and the Daily Show humorist John Hodgman as well as the rappers YTCracker, Dual Core, Schaffer the Darklord and Beefy. Together, they expound on a variety of topics, rhyming over funk and electro beats and eclectic instrumentation, including saxophone, flute, kazoo and a banjolele. The album includes odes to online MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing (“Council of Loathing”), a theme song for author and former Star Trek: The Next Generation star Wil Wheaton (“Your Friend Wil”) as well as self-scrutiny (“A Little Bit Broad” and “Front the Most”). Zero Day also features artwork by graphic novelist Jhonen Vasquez (Invader Zim, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac).

Frontalot will take his singularly energetic live show, featuring a full band, to cities across the country this spring. An itinerary of confirmed shows is below. More dates will be announced soon.

MC FRONTALOT TOUR DATES

February 7 New York, NY Piano’s
February 8 Allston, MA Harper’s Ferry
February 15 San Francisco, CA Café du Nord
February 20 Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle
NC Comedy Arts Festival
March 11 New Haven, CT Cafe Nine
March 17 Austin, TX TBD
SXSW Showcase & Panel
March 26 Boston, MA Hynes Convention Center
Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East

Or a futuristic alien from Click n’ Drag circa 1996:

The Black Eyed Peas went full-on comic book.

Is that Judge Fergie I spy?

And doom.i.am?

Beyonce came out with a full battalion of some kind of death troopers behind her, but we couldn’t find a picture of it. and courtesy of io9’s own futistic Grammy galery, here’s a look at her Imperial Guard retainers:

Luckily. The Jonas Brothers came as characters from a Gilbert Hernandez comic:

And while you can rejoice that there will always be a fat guy in a knit cap…

The sad reality is that some poor victim is always going to have to sit behind Lady Gaga’s headpiece and miss ALL the action.

Fanboys will love it!