A Curtain Call For Comic Books

Despite technical woes, legal disputes, and more bad press than even the Daily Bugle would care to print, the Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark continues to swing onward towards becoming one of the biggest musicals in history! It’s officially scheduled to open next month after over a year of false starts and while many have claimed the production seems doomed to fail, it is still anyone’s guess as to whether or not the web-slinger will hit the jackpot with theater goers.

One of the projects biggest hurdles has been it’s production. With a budget busting $65 million expense spread out across it’s massive cast, crew and elaborate effects and set design critics have argued that comics and superhero’s have no place among chorus lines and cat walks. True the high flying antics of many a spandex clad super-hero may not be the most practical choice for a Broadway musical, however that doesn’t mean the medium is without dramatic merits. Check out the list below for some awesome comics worthy of the spotlight but won’t break the bank in the process.

1. Little Nemo in Slumberland: Forget Little Orphan Annie, this classic Winsor McCay strip has the making’s of a sleeper hit. Worth it almost for The Marquee art alone this comic from the early 1900′s serves as a charming reminder of the magic of childhood and the dreams that go along with it. With the right set design and a proper score McCay’s timeless tale could speak to a whole new audience of all ages eager to dream once again on the great white way.

2. Jenny Finn Doom Messiah: Imagine if Oliver twist had been adapted for the stage buy H.P. Lovecraft.  Forget happy go lucky Street Urchins and get ready for a macabre mystery of the highest order. Seeing Mignola’s art translated to a stage production would be spectacular, and just imagine the stage directions “Exit pursued by an enormous tentacle monster” that’s just theater magic waiting to happen.

3. Pinocchio Vampire Slayer: Traditional Puppet Theater pre-dates the modern musical by several hundred years, and while current Off-Broadway hits like Avenue Q have reinvigorated the genre for a new generation, the most famous marionette of all time could use a bit of a re-boot. The SLG graphic novel would provide the perfect source material for an action packed take, savvy among the disturbing trend of vampirism fanatics on the up-swing of late. check it out today!

4. Tom Strong: A role tailor made for a true leading man of Broadway and with the success of Moore’s other work across different mediums Tom Strong seems a likely choice for the next disowned adaption. Tom ,Tesla and The Modular Man!  A homage to the science hero’s of pulp and dime novel’s past would work well in an industry known for revivals.

5. Archie: Speaking of revivals, a lot has been going down in Riverdale lately, a wedding, a funeral and the arrival of a brand new character helped finally bring this classic title up to speed with the rest of the industry. Sure Archie and the gang have have had their share of Musical endeavors in the past, but why not go out on a limb and do something a little different? maybe exam the genre mainstay in a darker light? or perhaps give it the Mel Brooks treatment?

6. Batman/Superman: Without a doubt DC will likely cook up something cool to stake their claim in the theatrical world (although it should be noted there was in fact a short lived superman musical in the sixties, seriously!) but rather than rely on over-top stunts and an expense score, why not go in the direction least expected. Opera. Think Gotham City Soprano’s mixed with a fresh take on the Kryptonian Space Opera!

7.  Hawkeye & Mocking Bird: What’s not to love about the drama of star-crossed lovers unfolding before a live audience? The comic event that brought Marvel’s unlikely pair of Love birds back into lives of mainstream readership seems to operate on an almost shakepearean level. For comic relief just add Deadpool after all who needs aerial acrobatics when you can break the fourth wall and go “meta” with a little gunplay?

Of course these are just simple ideas offered up in the wake of the media frenzy that is Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark. As of this posting it’s scheduled to open on March 15th 2011 fans of live theater, comics and U2 should check it out. In the meantime however, check out the awesome comics hitting the app this week and while your at it why not tell us which one’s you’d love to see get the ol’ razzle dazzle treatment?

comiXology Announces Beta Release of Android App

The Largest Digital Comics Store and Guided View™ Reader Arrives For The Holidays

Official comiXology Android release

New York, NY / December 15th, 2010 – Due to overwhelming demand, the holidays have come early for millions of comic book fans everywhere with the release of the Comics by comiXology Android™ app (beta) powered by comiXology, the leading digital comics platform provider for all iOS devices, the Web and now Android.

Expanding beyond its industry-leading digital comic book apps on iOS and the Web, comiXology brings the largest digital comics library to the Android marketplace, enabling fans to read comics on Android devices running 2.1 (Eclair) or higher. The Comics by comiXology Android beta app gives users the ability to discover, purchase, and read more than 2,500 digital comics and over 300 free comics from 40 publishers. Launch partners include DC Comics, Image Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, and Archie, alongside many more. Users can search and browse through comics based on titles, creators, publishers, genre and ratings, and find local comic book retailers with the built-in retailer finder.

“Our enthusiastic community has been asking us for an Android app and it’s with great pleasure that we bring it to them in time for the holidays,” said David Steinberger, CEO of comiXology. “Comics by comiXology on Android delivers comic books to mainstream audiences on even more devices. Now, more people who want to read a comic will have the opportunity to do so, when and where they want, while giving our content partners another major distribution outlet.”

The comiXology app for Android features a full in-app store and the best digital comics reader on the market. comiXology’s patent pending Guided View™ Technology gives users a natural reading experience while making it readable on small devices.

Comics downloaded to the Android app will be available on the Comics by comiXology iOS and Web platforms through cross-platform synchronization so users can enjoy comics on all their devices, anywhere.

“comiXology is the leading distributor of digital comics, which is why we have partnered with them to power our iOS app and Web Store,” said Hank Kanalz, Senior Vice President of Digital, DC Entertainment. “The release of its Android app shows the company’s ongoing commitment to expand into new markets, create opportunities for increased visibility and revenue, while above all, answer the call of its fans for convergence across platforms with a centralized library to enjoy comics anywhere.”

In addition to DC Comics, publishers on the Comics by comiXology Android beta app include:

• A Wave Blue World
• Adhouse Books
• Alterna Comics
• Antarctic Press
• Arcana Studio
• Archie Comics
• Asylum Press
• Bluewater Comics
• BOOM! Studios
• Com.x
• Creative Impulse
• Creator Owned
• DC Comics
• Devils Due
• Digital Webbing
• Dynamite Entertainment
• EigoMANGA
• Evil Twin Comics
• First Salvo
• Image Comics
• Keenspot
• Markosia
• Moonstone Books
• Oni Press
• Radical
• Red 5 Comics
• Shadowline
• Skybound
• South Fellini
• Slave Labor Graphics
• Studio 407
• Th3rd World Studios
• TOKYOPOP
• Top Cow
• Vertigo
• Viper Comics
• Zenescope Entertainment

About comiXology
Since 2007 comiXology has been developing the technological infrastructure to bring comics into the digital mainstream and expose new audiences to the rich history and culture of the industry. Through partnerships with top comic book publishers including Marvel Comics, DC Comics, BOOM! Studios, and Image Comics as well as their own mobile and web apps which hosts nearly 4000 digital titles, comiXology has become a leader in digital comic book proliferation. Also focused on creating strong ties with retail stores through its technology solutions, comiXology continues to transform the previously fragmented comic ecosystem into a vibrant and cohesive marketplace. http://www.comixology.com/

Android is a trademark of Google, Inc.

MOME Vol. 19 remembers indie’s underground roots: Fantagaphics’ comics anthology delivers a more depraved Ditko

Mome, Fantagraphics’ quarterly collection of independent comics artists new and old, has been delivering the latest in art and lit comics innovations for five. The series started on very strong footing with young upstarts like David Heatley and Sophie Crumb, sure hands such as Anders Nilsen and Gabrielle Bell, and even established European stars like David B. Inevitably, many of Mome’s finest finds began fine arts careers or otherwise became successes in their own right, leaving them less dependent on the anthology’s exposure. Thus, the book has often been a dramatically hit-or-miss read, sometimes offering little to write home about even from legends like Beto Hernandez or Gilbert Shelton. At this late date, it’s even more exciting than ever when Mome’s editorial staff excavates some undiscovered diamond in the rough – and this summer, they struck sequential art gold, interestingly enough, under the influence of mainstream monolith Steve Ditko.

Detail from Haunted #4 cover

Spider-Man co-creator Ditko’s contributions to the Marvel and DC universes are immeasurable, both in terms of crafting characters and bringing pathos and surrealism to a medium that was rarely as fantastical as it might be. The boundless imagination and psychological depth of Ditko’s work were most evident in pulp comics to which he contributed, like Eerie, Creepy, and a variety of titles describing themselves as “strange” of “suspense”-filled. The Mome entry in question draws on a 1972 Ditko short for the Charlton Comics title Haunted #4, “Driven to Destruction”, about a man whose sadistic spouse continues to dominate him even from beyond the grave. The punny title is only the first symptom of the story’s pedestrian pulpiness, with its Crypt Keeper stand-in (“Impy”), equally emotional and psychological violence, and obvious ironies.  Ditko spices up the panels and prose with his trademark Fruedian histrionics and hallucinatory heebie jeebies.

However, not to dis Ditko, but for gruesome ‘70s offerings, it hardly compares to the titillation contemporaneously offered in the grindhouses – or even other comic books, from independent publishers. One imagines that Ditko might have felt as constrained as his castrated protagonist by the Comics Code Authority – shortly before this publication, the artist shared a studio blocks from Times Square with the infamous Eric Stanton, and sometimes collaborated on Stanton’s fetish comics.

With that in mind, D.J. Bryant’s vibrantly perverted take on “Driven to Destruction” is less an update and more a revisionist move, granting Ditko’s story the freedom that other creators enjoyed at the time. It would be almost impossible to present the most powerful evidence here, as most of Bryant’s finest panels are very NSFAnywhere. Though Bryant chooses a far less flamboyant title – naming the work after its villainess, Evelyn Dalton-Hoyt – nearly every page is rife with pornographic flourishes, as he trades in “Driven’s” icy iron maiden for a sadistic sex therapist who uses psychobabble to ensnare a man in a marital nightmare. However, Bryant doesn’t rest on the dubious laurels of simple envelope-pushing; he is a startling talented draftsman who easily proves himself the equal of a Ditko homage.  See Exhibit A below, a panel that serves as a deft summing-up of the ways in which Bryant pigeons Ditkos’s expressiveness while introducing an element of rotten sexuality that ran rampant in other comics (or rather, commix) circles in the original author’s era. Suffice it to say that the rest of Bryant’s artwork overshoots suggestiveness and provides the reader with near-medical specificity about the goings on between the protagonist, his wife, and whoever else strikes her fancy.

As with Ditko’s original, the hausfrau fatale’s degradations transform her husband from unter-mensch to potential murderer, but the circumstances of her death ensure that he is doomed to think of her forever more. Though Bryant certainly enjoys a greater freedom than did Ditko in terms of adult content, one can hardly imagine a penicller more capable of delivering sheer dementia than the elder artist. No one would have the nerve to impugn Ditko’s supremacy in this specific realm, but Bryant makes a valiant go of it with his depictions of the insect-infested, infantile inner working of a man losing his mind. There is hardly room here to flaunt the younger artist’s talents in full, it’s a fair bet that the results would give Dario Argento nightmares.

For the time being, D.J. Bryant seems to be toiling in obscurity – even the Livejournal link provided by his bio leads to a virtual dead end. One hopes that the Mome team will not live up to their name (which is French for nogoodnik, or as Fantagraphics knowingly claims, “blockhead”), and do us all the favor of inviting him back for Volume 20 in the fall.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Alt comic stars give Marvel the indie treatment

Marvel’s Strange Tales title, a regular anthology of dark sci-fi and thriller comics, first hit the stands in 1951. It served as a showcase for the work of Kirby, Ditko and Jim Steranko, and introduced such familiar faces as Dr. Strange and Nick Fury. Today’s mainstream comics audience is no longer tantalized by titles making claims of Strangeness or Weirdness, as the most popular superhero creatives are increasingly those who insist on “gritty”, “realistic” quality in their writing and rendering – or even, god forbid, going meta. For the modern reader, what qualifies as “strange” is other comics; Marvel has confirmed this beyond any shadow of a doubt with its new, startling Strange Tales series, the first collection of which has just arrived in stores.

Perhaps not wishing to be shown up by DC, with their atypically heady Vertigo line and oddball ad-free projects like SOLO, Marvel stepped up to the plate last year with the resurrection of Strange Tales as a regular collection of comics featuring indie luminaries such as Johnny Ryan, James Kochalka, Michael Kupperman and more. Though awkwardly situated under Marvel’s ultraviolent Max division, the project seems to bring out the best in its participants. Many of today’s indie darlings began as pallid little fanboys, salivating over Sue Storm or Kitty Pryde (just ask contributor Jeffrey Brown), and Strange Tales names names. The whole endeavor feels be a bit like when you’re in high school and you realize you can write your sociology term paper on your favorite band.

Paul Pope is a rare bird in the comics world, a taste-maker and fashion victim in equal parts, who has worked for Diesel and DKNY when not drawing Jim Morrison look-alikes and their sooty-lashed consorts dealing drugs in a pre-apocalyptic future. For some reason, Strange Tales’ proposal proved that there is in fact a funny bone buried somewhere in Pope’s famously perfect bone structure, and he leads the volume with a protracted gag strip wherein Lockjaw (a character as rich in comedy gold as MODOK) single-handedly defeats Inhumans nemesis Maximus – only to use the villain’s crown to crack into a can of dog food. Wocka wocka.

Similarly, fine artist-cum-fashion model Dash Shaw churns out the funniest segment in the series so far, wherein we find Strange Tales standby Dr. Strange struggling with soup, contagious yawns, and his enemy Nightmare. Shaw is known for his exceedingly cerebral graphic novels and animated projects – but not so much his sense of humor. Shaw’s “Strange” tale manages to split the difference between his sophisticated art school inclinations, producing challenging layouts and floridly colorful imagery, and the wry wit that the project so deserves. Maybe the key to his success choosing Strange, whose powers allow for hallucinatory visual excess, but who has become something of a second-stringer with the passage of time, making him particularly vulnerable to Mad-style mockery.

A popular pick for the Strange Tales project has been Spider-Man, surprising no one – see also Peter Bagge and Jason here, confirming the erstwhile nebbish’s unstoppable popularity. Perhaps strangest member of Spidey’s fan club is Japanese artist Mizuno Junko, known to art comics and manga audiences for her mix of extreme visceral horror with uber-cute cartooning. Junko does us all the great service of bereaving Peter Parker of his super-powered specialness and damning him to his former terminal dorkiness. Peter’s powers become passé when he and MJ move to a town populated by spider people, and even his trophy girlfriend’s beauty and (um) brains can’t dig him out of the dumps. (See the results of her helpful hints above) It’s refreshing to see this character, who has gone from being the ultimate nerd avatar to a regular old comic book Adonis with a little black book as thick as the King James, returned to a state of relateable geekiness – even in Junko’s seductively surreal world.

I wish I had the word count to pore over every entry in this series, which will continue shortly in Strange Tales II, featuring Tony Millionaire, living legend Jaime Hernandez, the dearly missed Harvey Pekar, and more. Suffice it to say I’ll be back soon to say what more this unholy union spawns.