Culture

If you've been hanging out on the internet this weekend you have have seen the above shocking "Sexy Ebola Nurse" costume going around on the Reddits and twits. Is it a real thing? Although we can't imagine some gallows humor experts won't wear Ebola-themed costumes this year, this particular costume is actually a repurposing of LAST year's top meme, Breaking Bad, as it began life as a sexy Walter White in the lab costume.

Okay can you say instant classic? HALLOWEEN JUST GOT REAL, people. This wraparound cover by Steve Morris is for Buffy The Vampire Slayer  Season 10...

Manga isn't all awkward schoolgirls and giant robots. There has long been a very strong alternative and literary thread of manga, and two recent articles give you some perspective on it. I would call Ryan Holmberg's Proto-Gekiga: Matsumoto Masahiko’s Komaga a must read, but I have to confess, it is very long and involved, and I have set it aside for weekend reading. BUT the important thing is that he compares and contrasts Yoshihiro Tatsumi, who is kind of credited as the father of "gekiga" or realistic manga, with Matsumoto Masahiko, a figure who appears in Tatsumi's autobiographical A Drifting Life under another name. Masahiko's work went down a slightly different path than Tatsumi's but Holmberg shows that it was equally important:

The Bride of Frankenstein is one of the enduring archetypes of horror. Invented by James Whale in the immortal film The Bride of Frankenstein, and played with hissing horror by Elsa Lanchester, she symbolizes the essential isolation of the Modern Prometheus—even with a mate specially created for him, the Creature receives nothing but rejection. Write Jamie Rich and artist Megan Levens have reinvented the character in Madame Frankenstein, a seven-issue series from Image Comics. Six issues are out and the 7th drops on November 5th, with the trade due in February. Interior art is by Levens and letters by Crank. The covers, seen here, are by Joëlle Jones and Nick Filardi.

Comics biggest distributor Diamond has slowly been working to make Halloween a huge promotional day for comics shops, with special comics, contests and more. Let's face it, it doesn't take too much to get in the Halloween mood, and the promotion has been a big success. You can see a list of special Halloween comcis on the Halloween Comicfest website, such as this one spotlighting Boom! Studios spooky anthology with seasonal stories from Adventure Time, Fraggle Rock and more. This particular story features writing by Bryce Carlson and art by Frazer IRving in a VERY DIFFERENT Adventure Time story.

As you can imagine, we're not the only website counting down Halloween month. Chris Schweizer, comics educator and the man behind the delightful Crogan's Adventures series from Oni, is posting a mostly daily monster picture  and here's today's the Florida Swamp Ape. You can see the rest in the link like this Ghost Rider in the Sky:

 

Well, $412 seems absurdly low to us, anyway. Renowned horror/fantasy artist Templesmith has been experimenting with hand-painted covers for several books, and this is an original one of a kind oil painting done on a copy of The Walking Dead Volume 1. The painting was varnished, and I don't know if you can read the book inside, but it seems to me that this is a pretty darned sweet collectible...especially for Halloween. Also...Christmas is coming. More Templesmith stuff at the 78Squid retail website.

by Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson Frederic Wertham’s name is akin to the devil incarnate in the comics world. Wertham was one of the ringleaders of the anti...

I know we've been slacking a bit with 31 Days due to the horrors of New York Comic-Con, but it's full sped ahead to the pumpkins now. And here is the best thing you will hear today, tomorrow or possibly in a lifetime: Japanese Horror master Junji Ito Is doing a Pokemon collaboration. Yeah that's right. The creator of Uzumaki, Museum of Terror, the Long Hair in the Attic and much more, is doing POKEMON. The news was announced in Japan as a "Collaboration," you know, like Tokidoki doing Marvel, except terrifying and unspeakable. It's called “Kowapoke,” which means “Scarypoke” and a single phone wallpaper image has been released thus far. That's Banette, cute little Banette, admittedly not the nicest Pokemon, now all Kowapoke'd up. T-shirts are being given away in Japan now because life is unknowable and terrifying.

Hm let's see, we need an ambassador of comics who can work with schools, educators and more to show how comics can contribute to literacy and learning. We need someone who is smart, distinguished and universally loved... I know! Let's get Dave Gibbons!

With attendance of 151,000, this year's NYCC is now the biggest reported North American comics convention, surpassing the San Diego Comic Con's 130,000. According to show runner Lance Fensterman, the increase of 20,000 from last year was due to selling tickets for a full day Thursday, which was previously a half-day "pro day. I'm told neither number includes pros and exhibitors and 'industry support" however, so the exact number of numb and yet enthused people wandering the halls of either Comic-Con has not been released. Given the number of lookie-loos who hang around in San Diego, that event would still seem to be the biggest. Many people wondered how NYCC could be bigger than SDCC when the Javits Center is smaller than the San Diego Convention Center. I'm sure Torsten can give us the exact dimensions, but on most lists I've ever seen, the Javits is actually larger than SD Convetion Center. This stat is misleading however.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1 Oh my! I've been waiting for the story of cosplay harassment at cons to get more TMZed. According to the above teaser, tonights' Inside...