Culture

About 20 years ago, Neil Gaiman was mostly known as The Sandman Guy. He was as beloved as ever but it was just before he became one of the work's bets known authors. ONE of his projects of the time was THE LAST TEMPTATIOn, based on a theme album by horror rock icon Alice Cooper. Illustrated by Michael Zulli, the themes of the album fit in well with Gaiman's work: a boy named Steven leaves from home only to meet up with the Showman and his Theatre of the Real. Buying a ticket to the show is buying a ticket to a nightmare. Beautifully drawn by Zulli, and published by Marvel's bizarre Music Line (there was also a Billy Ray Cyrus comic by Paul S. Newman, Dan Barry, and Gail Beckett) this oddity is being brought back by Dynamite in a limited edition Hardcover Remarked edition, signed by Gaiman and remarked by Zulli, with the art remastered and colored by David Curiel at InLight Studios. The book is available in an edition of only 200, with bonus material including all three scripts to the book, the original outline, and Neil Gaiman's original correspondence with Alice Cooper.

Kickstarter alert! Bobby Timony (The Night Owls, The Horror Lovers, Detectobot and Goblin Hood) is Kickstarting a deck of playing cards adorned with cute monster girl pin-ups. That says...

It seems we're not the only ones obsessed with Halloween—Mike Mignola and Dark Hose have been running a 13 Days of Hellboy festival, celebrating all kinds of artwork and story reveals in the Hellboy. And we're officially crossing over with this exclusive reveal of Mignola's cover for the trade paperback Witchfinder: The Mysteries Of Unland. This is the latest book in a Hellboy spin-off series that centers on Sir Edward Grey, a Victorian detective of the occult who figures in the past of the Hellboy timeline.

Beginning at 8am artists were busily drawing, inking, writing, painting, and eating boxes of pizza in an effort to complete a 24 page story in 24 hours. Forcing themselves to stretch the limit of their stamina, hoping to string comic panels into a coherent narrative without the benefit of preparation, pre-planning or a script. If the artists complete their projects, they'll earn the satisfaction of achieving something neither Neil Gaiman or Kevin Eastman (Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles) could in the 24 hour continuous time frame. Additionally, if they finish, they are given cover letters and invited to send a copy of their comic to the national 24-Hour Comic Book Day archive, which is hosted by the Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. The 24-Hour Comic Day event began simply as an exercise in 1990 by Understanding Comics cartoonist, Scott McCloud, to challenge himself and his friend Stephen R. Bissette. With comic industry big names taking part and spreading the word, metamorphosising into an annual event in 2004. (You can read the history here). Meant to help artists shake off cob-webs, push through blocks, limber up their story telling abilities and push creativity. Examples Scott McCloud and friend's own attempts at a 24-Hour Comics (including Eastman's and Gaiman's) are archived here.

Nothing says Halloween like Charlie Brown, Linus and the Great Pumpkin. Fantagraphics, which has been publishing all of Charles Schulz's Peanuts strips in chronological order,...

We all know that William Moulton Marston, the creator of wonder Woman, was a bit odd. He had two "wives" and he was heavy...

Want to read a 96 graphic novel about a young woman and a time travelling ghost for FREE? You can read about the making of the book at the Under the Apple Tree webpage and download it here. Cartoonist Sarah Winifred Searle created it as part of a Children’s Writer-in-Residence at the Boston Public Library. here's the logline:

Fall is in the air, bringing a crisp step and the crunch of leaves under foot, and the inevitable—perhaps inescapable—presence of Pumpkin Spice everything all around us! Yes, it's time for 31 Days of Halloween, The Beat's annual tribute to our MOST FAVORITEST TIME OF YEAR. And let's get things going with probably the most obvious link possible...but I have ever written about painter/cartoonist/musician Menton3 on The Beat before so here goes! Based in Chicago, Menton3—aka Menton J Matthews III—is a painter of atmospheric and disturbing images. While you can find a lot of his work at his website, he's probably best known these days as a partner in 44Flood, a publishing company that has teamed with IDW to put out art books and comics. Along with fellow artists Kasra Ghanbari, Ben Templesmith and Nick Idell, 44Flood has put out Tome, an artbook which was mostly Kickstarted, Templesmith's The Squidder, the comic Monocyte, which you see on this page, and Libretto, an anthology of eerieness centering on vampirism. A new volume of Tome is on its way or already here (I couldn't find a lot of solid news about the bunch.)

Friday's announcement of a settlement between Jack Kirby's heirs and Marvel seems like good news—but is it? And what does it mean? I'm told Jeff Trexler, whose identification of the "instance and expense" aspect of the lawsuit may have helped get that into the petition to the Supremes, is writing his summary for TCJ.com, so while we all eagerly await that, here's a little of the known knowns and known unknowns: First off, Mark Evanier, a Kirby family confidant, a witness at various Kirby-related trials and filier of an amicus curiae brief is certainly in a position to know more of the Kirby position and this is all he had to say on the matter:

Over the weekend at the Long Beach Comic Con, Tamara Brooks found some officially licensed DC t-shirts that gave messages that were a...

On December 8th, UFC 181 will take place withThe cover unveiled will be used ahead of UFC 181 as the promotion teams up with...

Chris Pratt hosted Saturday's Saturday Night Live season premiere and along with the inevitable Starlord jokes, there was a pretty spot on parody of...