§ Jack Katz, 87, creator of the oddball self published space fantasy epic The First Kingdom, and Golden Age artist, is indiegogoing a new project, called, encouragingly, Beyond the Beyond. It will run to some 800 pages, but he’s good for it. The tale is streamlined from an original 1000+ outline, but his agent told him he might not have time to finish it. Not much is revealed of the story, and the art shown is obscure, but…it is certain to be wild.
The First Kingdom is available from Titan.
§ This has been going around for a while, but just in case you missed it, Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan lay out the numbers and process, or Numberwang, if you will, for their Kickstarter for Oh Joy, Sex Toy. They grossed $69.000 but can you guess how much they netted? That’s Numberwang!
§ EW gave royal comics couple Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick the deluxe profile treatment, meaning it actually ran in print.
This comic-book power couple, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction, are camped out in zip-up pj’s among piles of books in the Portland, Ore., home their two children have just vacated for school. This sounds like a surprisingly prosaic (if cozy) morning for people whose minds are constantly flitting off to distant galaxies or warping through the time-space continuum and giving Death a daughter or gender-bending a classical hero. Stuff like that.
§ Turkish cartoonist MK Perker (Air) defends Charlie Hebdo.
§ Evan Narcisse gives us The 12 Best Comics Coming Out Right Now at io9 and it is a well written and very good list of comics periodical.
§ The second of the two Wonder Woman books is now out, Noah Berketsky’s Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peters Comics, 1941-1948 (The first was Jill Lepore’s history of Marston and his world, which we covered here many times.) Berlatsky’s focus, as the title hints, is more on the kinky stuff that everyone has felt awkward about for years and years. He talks about it at CBR, including one issue which he broke down in depth.
I read all the issues of “Wonder Woman” and that was my favorite. I knew I wanted to talk about one comic closely at great length. I talk about several comics, but I really wanted to look at this one in particular. I think it’s so wonderful, but also because I am trying to make the argument that these comics are worth thinking about as art and have things to tell us — in this case about issues of sexual violence and sexuality. One of the things that Marston is trying to do — with [his assistant-turned-writer] Joye Murchison and Harry Peter — is talk about sexual violence to an audience that is composed mostly of kids. They’re talking to young girls and boys, so they’re talking about sexual violence but also trying to talk about the way that sexuality or sex can be fun and good. They want to show the evil of sexual violence while showing the value of sexual fantasy, which is a really tough thing to do!
§ Not comics: Steven Soderbergh is now making fan films.
§ Finally, The Comics Reporter has updated its photo for the coming event column, and I feel like that bald guy with the knapsack will never get his drink now.
Noah Berlatsky’s book is actually the third Wonder Woman history book to hit recently. Tim Hanley’s “Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World’s Most Famous Heroine” hit last April, though it doesn’t seem to have gotten the PR push that Jill Lepore’s book did. I only found it because my local library got a copy, but I remember that he has a lot of the same info that Jill Lepore wrote about in her magazine article (in the New Yorker, maybe?).
Actually, “The First Kingdom” was not self-published. Comics & Comix published it for the first few years and then Bud Plant published the rest of the issues.
“The first was Jill Pelore’s history of Marston and his world, which we covered here many times.”
—at least on those occasions you spelled the author’s name correctly…
“I remember that he has a lot of the same info that Jill Lepore wrote about in her magazine article (in the New Yorker, maybe?)”
—that would be the excerpt of her book that ran in the New Yorker.
honestly, is it really that difficult to be factual today? it is? crap…
It’s actually the fourth; Phil Sandifer’s self-published A Golden Thread was also out this year (his book and Tim’s both are focused on the entire history of WW, rather than on just the Marston/Peter era, though they both discuss that too.)
Thanks for the blurb, Heidi!
this is the first i’ve heard of Jack Katz, thanks Heidi!
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