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Category Archives: Bay Area Comic News

Do you want your funny/horrifying/weird online dating story shared with the masses?

If you’ve dated any time in the last decade the chances are fairly high that you’ve been on at least one online date. The opportunities for online dating in these days of our always networked lives are endless:   mucking with the algorithms of OkCupid, trying to “find God” (nudge nudge wink wink) through ChristianMingle, making dates in hopes for karma on r4r, or even slumming like a champ in Craigslist’s Casual Encounters. Very rarely online dating can result in, depending on the objective, the perfect fairytale romance or the long fantasized night of sinful debauchery the Bosch would blush to paint. More often than not the result is mundane.

Nina

Nina

In between the mundane dates and romance/debauchery lives the funny, horrifying, and weird stories. Those are the stories Nina Kim, the cartoonist behind Melancholy Rainbow, wants to hear. The Bay Area-based creator often uses her comics to tell short semi-autobiographical stories about dating, life observations, and co-existing with cats. She tweeted Wednesday a request for  “funny/horrifying/weird” dating stories to be drawn in her next zine. If you want your dating story to possibly become zine-famous submissions can be sent to nina@melancholyrainbow.com.

Related Links:
LA Zine Fest Nina Kim profile
Melancholy Rainbow
Her Etsy Shop

Bay Area CrowdFunding: Nathan Watson’s “Runner”

Ever thought the world needs more female superheroes who are “tough and pretty and not need guys help all the time”? Artist and Writer Nathan Watson’s 10-year-old daughter agrees with you. Watson, who’s runnerWatsonillustrated comics based on well known properties including Toy Story and Ghostbusters, is hoping to kickstart his daughter’s dream into reality with a new miniseries called Runner. Watson is shooting for $6,000 to cover the production cost of the first issue and anything above and beyond will go toward creating the second and third issues in the series. According to the campaign’s Kickstarter page:

Mixing a few things my daughter and I really dig like monsters, comedy, and parkour, RUNNER will take you on a wild ride of twists and unexpected turns, with super hyper action and creature-punching craziness. Along the way, we’ll watch Bethany learn to control her temper (though not much). She’ll also learn that having someone that she can trust is better than having something she can hit, even though there will be plenty of appropriate things for her to hit over the course of the first three issues! Finally, there’s the central idea of the project: That just because something is big, ugly and gruesome, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the villain.

Strong Female Leads. Gigantic Aliens. Gigantic HUMANS. Freerunning. Dimension Hopping. Conspiracies. Betrayal. Family Drama. Comedy. All these elements come together in RUNNER, where we’re having fun for the sake of having fun!

The project has a long list of unique backer rewards including paper dolls, copies of Watson’s previous work, limited sketch cards, a papercraft figure, and more.

Although Watson has a publisher lined up to assist in packaging and distribution Runner will be completely creator-owned. The purpose of the Kickstarter is to provide Watson with the opportunity to focus on completing the first issue while also paying a fair rate to his colorist William Blankenship.

CBR Previews Daredevil Goin’ Back to Cali

In March, Daredevil returns to San Francisco for the first time in 40 years. Comic Book Resources has the first preview of Daredevil saving a life while leaping from a historic streetcar to the top of a building with palm trees silhouetted  in the background. In case you missed his last awkward experience in the Bay I broke it down in November.

ddsf1

Neil Gaiman and Eddie Campbell bringing “The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains” to San Francisco

Neil Gaiman will be at San Francisco’s Warfield on June 25 performing his short story “The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains.” The author will be reading his short story while illustrator Eddie Campbell (illustrator on Alan Moore’s From Hell) draws and the FourPlay String Quartet perform an original score. Gaiman, Campbell, and the quartet first performed “The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains” at the Sydney Opera House in 2010 as part of the Graphic Festival. The opera house has a highlights video about the performance. This will be the first tiNeil-Gaiman-126-600x400me the piece has been performed in the United States and coincides with the release of a hardcover edition of the story.

Tickets are now on sale at the Warfield’s website.

Photo from Forbidden Planet International.

San Jose Mercury News fails to run Dilbert strip criticizing India’s antigay ruling

The San Jose Mercury News chose to not run a Dilbert strip last week that featured the character Dogbert criticizing a ruling by India’s Supreme Court to reaffirm a British colonial-era law that criminalizes “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.” While the law doesn’t technically make it illegal to be homosexual in India it has been interpreted as making the act of dilbertsame sex intercourse illegal. India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had sought to remove the language, but the Supreme Court upheld the law.

In the February 7, 2014 Dilbert strip Dogbert breaks the fourth wall and informs readers that to “commemorate” India’s Supreme Court upholding a law “making it a crime to be born gay” Asok the intern  “is now officially gay.”

The Advocate reported that “several U.S. newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News, refused to run the Dilbert strip, opting instead to rerun an older comic.” It’s worth noting that in spite of the use of the word “several” no other publications have been cited as having censored Friday’s strip.

The first comic book store owner has passed away

According to ICv2 Gary Edson Arlington, who founded the San Francisco Comic Book Company, passed away on January 16, 2014. Arlington was a comic pioneer opening in 1968 the San Francisco Comic Book Company at  3339 23rd Street in the Mission District. The store is thought by many to be the first comic book store in the United States.

Nearly one year ago Arlington, who was 73 at the time, was profiled by the San Francisco Chronicle after Bay Area-based Last Gasp published a book of his art titled I Am Not of this Planet. The article quotes an Art Spiegeleman passage from the book: “San Francisco was the capitol of comix culture in the ’60s and early ’70s; and Gary Arlington’s hole-in-the-wall shop was, for me, the capitol of San Francisco.”

Image Expo 2014: A photo gallery of onstage antics

Below is a photo gallery of various creators on stage at Image Expo 2014. Click here to view the images in a larger Flickr slideshow.

 

Image Expo 2014: Twitter accounts to follow

This is an updated list of Twitter accounts worth following to keep up to date on all of the news and commentary coming out of the Image Expo. I’ve updated this list with creators who are confirmed to be attending today and creators who have said things that lead various comic book news sites to believe they’ll be there. I also have a Twitter Image Expo list that includes the following people as well as various fans who’ve said they’ll be attending. There are some confirmations regarding creators who will be attending, but won’t necessarily be on a panel. Those include: Justin Greenwood (The Fuse), Ken Kristensen (Todd, The Ugliest Kid on Earth), Jim Valentino (ShadowHawk/Image co-founder), and Rob Liefeld (Youngblood/Image co-founder).

The hashtag is #ImageExpo
Ours: @ashareduniverse
Image: @imagecomics
Skybound: @skyboundent
Kelly Sue DeConnick: @kellysue
Brandon Graham: @royalboiler
Nick Dragotta: @NickDragotta
Rick Remender: @Remender
Matt Fraction: @mattfraction
Robert Kirkman: @RobertKirkman
Nick Spencer: @NickSpencer
Joe Keatinge: @joekeatinge
Wes Craig: @WesCraigComics
James Robinson: @JamesDRobinson
Paul Azaceta: @paulazaceta
Joshua Williamson: @Williamson_Josh
Ken Kristensen: @KenKristensen
Justin Greenwood: jkgreenwood_art
Rob Liefeld: @robertliefeld
Ed Brubaker: @brubaker (maybe)
Andrea Shockling (Comicosity): @andreashock
Aaron Meyers (Comicosity): @AaronMeyers
Tom Spurgeon (Comics Reporter): @comicsreporter
David Dissanayake (Bleeding Cool): @dwdissanayake
Comics Therapy: @comicstherapy
CheapGraphicNovels: @CheapGN
Mission Comics: @MissionComics
Heather (Fantastic Comics): @moriarteas
Juliette (Fantastic Comics): @ElusiveJ
Isotope Comics: @IsotopeComics
Brian (Brian’s Comics): @brianscomics

Advancing Image Expo 2014

imageexpoTomorrow Image Expo returns to San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Cultural Center to share with retailers, media, and fans what the company will be churning out over 2014. Twelve guests have already been announced with a number of unannounced special guests expected to appear. The rumor in the Bay is that in all there will be 18 to 20 guests attending the event, so that means six to eight unknowns (I’m privy to two far flung guests who will be attending, but I’m not at liberty to divulge even though I’ve been chomping at the bit for two months. I can say if you’ve been on the fence waiting to buy tickets you’ll want to snap one of the remaining few up and come to the Expo tomorrow).

The most recent buzz to come out regarding the Image Expo is Robert Kirkman’s Skybound imprint teasing a “startling” new direction for Invincible. The Outhousers suggest this is likely Kirkman trolling Marvel’s relaunch fetish.

Bleeding Cool’s David Dissanayake is playing the speculation game with a post trying to guess who the surprise guests might be. They put money on: Grant Morrison, Darren Arnofsky, Jonathan Hickman, Warren Ellis, and Ales Kot.

I’m still hoping San Franciscan Justin Greenwood shows up to promote The Fuse. That title is one of the new books hitting shelves this year that I’m most excited about reading.

More info on Image Expo:
List of the 12 known guests
Details on variants that will be available
Programming schedule

Twitter accounts to follow: (I’ll update this list tonight and repost it early tomorrow morning. If you’re going and will be tweeting about Image Expo let me know by tweeting at @ashareduniverse and I’ll add you)
The hashtag is #ImageExpo
Ours: @ashareduniverse
Image: @imagecomics
Kelly Sue DeConnick: @kellysue
Brandon Graham: @royalboiler
Nick Dragotta: @NickDragotta
Rick Remender: @Remender
Matt Fraction: @mattfraction
Robert Kirkman: @RobertKirkman
Nick Spencer: @NickSpencer
Joe Keatinge: @joekeatinge
Wes Craig: @WesCraigComics
James Robinson: @JamesDRobinson
Paul Azaceta: @paulazaceta
Joshua Williamson: @Williamson_Josh
Mission Comics: @MissionComics

 

 

Image Publisher Eric Stephenson talks Image Expo with Multiveristy

imageexpoFor the third year in a row comic news site Multiveristy named Image Comics “publisher of the year.” To coincide with granting the honor Multiversity’s David Harper sat down with Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson to talk about the past, present, and future of the company. In the interview, Stephenson discusses the successful Image Expo which will be returning to the Bay Area on January 9, 2014. While no news about what may be announced at the 2014 Image Expo is revealed Stephenson discusses how the event came to be and how it was Robert Kirkman’s enthusiasm that set everything in motion:

…my initial reaction was essentially a cross between unbridled revulsion and abject despair. It all sounded like considerably more trouble than it was worth, frankly, but as typically happens, I got caught up in Robert’s enthusiasm for the ideas, and what do you know? Everything was fine. Better than fine, actually, because what we quickly learned was that there’s real value in making big announcements outside the circus atmosphere of the regular convention circuit.

Since I last wrote about Image Expo a number of new creators have been added to the already robust slate: Nick Spencer (Morning Glories, Bedlam), Joe Keatinge (Glory), Wes Craig (Deadly Class), James Robinson (The Saviors), Paul Azaceta (Outcast), and Joshua Williamson (Ghosted).