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Signing: East of West’s Nick Dragotta at Escapist on April 12

The always affable Nick Dragotta, who’s currently blowing minds dragottaillustrating East of West, will be signing at Escapist Comics on Saturday. Dragotta will be making his in-store appearance on April 12 at 3 p.m. Escapist, located at 3090 Claremont Street in Berkeley, will have a copies of East of West issues with blank covers on hand for those who desire  illustrations.

Wednesday saw the second East of West trade drop in comic shops across these United States.

While we’re talking about signings it’s worth reminding readers that Darick Robertson will be scrawling his name and pictures on funny books at Two Cats, 320 Portal Avenue in San Francisco, on April 13 at 3 p.m.

Exhibit: Celebrate Giant Robot with little robots at OMCA

SuperAwesome

SuperAwesome

The 20th anniversary of the Asian-American pop arts and culture magazine Giant Robot is coming to the Oakland Museum of California in the form of a three month long exhibit. To kick off the exhibit the museum and magazine will be hosting a “preview” party on April 18 which will feature music, food, art and much more. As part of the exhibit Giant Robot will be unveiling a series of little robots customized by some of the finest artists working today. Chicago artist Jeremiah Ketner has posted a preview of his robot on his blog.

If you’re a member of OMCA an exclusive preview starts at 3 p.m. with the public preview starting at 7 p.m. SuperAwesome: The Art of Giant Robot coincides with the exhibit  Vinyl: The Sound and Culture of Records. In addition to robots there will be an Oakland record swap sponsored by Record Store Day and Amoeba Records.

You’ll also find custom robots by the following artists: Aaron Brown, Spanky Stokes, Mark Nagata, Katsuya Terada, Gary Ham, Julie West, Jason Limon, Okkle, Reactor 88, Stasia Burrington, Junko Mizuno, Yukinori Dehara, Bert Gatchalian, Kano, Mari Inukai, Jay222, Scott Wilkowski, Yoskay Yamamoto, Edwin Ushiro, Jeni Yang, Dril One, Valley Dweller, and Scott Tolleson.

Jeremiah Ketner's Giant Robot

Jeremiah Ketner’s Giant Robot

Wonder Woman to perform at Yoshi’s San Francisco

Lynda Carter

Lynda Carter

Wonder Woman is going to be performing at Yoshi’s in San Francisco! Well, sort of. Lynda Carter, who popularized Wonder Woman in the live action television series, will be performing at Yoshi’s on April 9 and 10 with her All-Star Band. Music was one of Carter’s first passions before being crowned Miss World USA and eventually taking the Wonder Woman role in the 70s. Carter released an album in 1978 and it would be 30 years before she dropped a second. That second album, At Last, reached number 10 on Billboard’s Jazz charts. Carter is currently touring in support of her fourth album which will be released this April. The Bay Area Reporter recently interviewed Carter and discussed her relationship with San Francisco and music.

Lynda Carter and her All-Star Band
April 9 and 10, 2014
510 Embaracadero West
San Francisco, CA
Purchase tickets at the Yoshi’s website

The case against a shared Spideyverse / X-Men / MCU Universe, part two

Oh right. Spider-Man once had six arms. That happened.

Oh right. Spider-Man once had six arms. That happened.

Contrary to the possible misrepresentation of Sony Co-Chair Amy Pascal’s comments, an expanding Universe based solely around Spider-Man has a great deal of potential. Yes, there is a risk of Spideyverse exhaustion (although the reboot being so successful in spite of it being less than five years after the Raimi trilogy suggests otherwise), but I believe Pascal was suggesting Spiderverse-based films that don’t necessarily include Spider-Man. Unfortunately, with superhero films, we’re locked into the blockbuster mentality. That’s why I think Sony may be the best bet when it comes to breaking open a larger Spider-Man Universe. Sony has shown by continuing franchises like Resident Evil and Underworld that they’re  comfortable with their subsidiaries occasionally turning a profit of less than $100 million. This is where I see many of the Spideyverse spin-off films falling. Again, this all comes down to who has the rights to the below characters.

(note: this is part two in a series exploring why we don’t need the X-Men and Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. See part one here.)

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The case against a shared Spider-Man / X-Men / MCU Universe, part one

Silver Surfer

Silver Surfer

My life’s been better since I learned to stop worrying and accept the Marvel films rights status quo. If all of the heroes were under the Disney/Marvel roof it’d be unlikely we’d see as many Marvel heroes on the big screen in a single year as we do now. Theoretically, if Disney/Marvel had X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man they’d be less likely to start gambling on films like Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. Marvel Studios is currently averaging two films a year and Kevin Fiege has said it’s unlikely the studio will up that number. There’s no reason to think that would be different in a Marvel Cinematic Universe that includes Wolverine and Spider-Man as potential Avengers members. Instead, thanks to the rights debacle, 2014 will see the release of films featuring Captain America, Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

What we’re now hearing is the rights holders of these various properties want to dig deeper and do more with what they own. I believe this actually happening is contingent on two things happening for the House of Mouse/Ideas: Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man need to be successful.

Guardians of the Galaxy being successful opens numerous pathways for Fox when it comes to playing with the Marvel Cosmic. Ant-Man being successful could act as encouragement for Sony to follow through with spinning off the Spideyverse. What could that mean for the expansion of Universes?

I’m going to do some speculation, but before I do it should be made clear that I have no clue where the rights of these characters fall. For example, Cloak and Dagger is a bit of a muddle. They made their debut in Spider-Man and were typically associated with his titles. They were classified as mutants, so they could fall under the X-Cinematic Universe. However, they have carried their own titles on occasion, so it could be argued they’re part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They could fall into the Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch zone where it basically comes down to whoever gets to them first and even then multiple Universes can use them as long as they respect certain noun and adjective usage.

Today I’ll toss out two possibilities regarding Fox and Marvel Cosmic. The Spideyverse requires a bit more fleshing out, so I’ll touch on that tomorrow.

Silver Surfer

Silver Surfer was arguably the single best part of the previous Fantastic Four movies. Silver Surfer could (and likely will) be introduced in a sequel to the Fantastic Four reboot. That reintroduction should be followed by a Silver Surfer solo origin film that also acts as a prequel by ending with Silver Surfer leading Galactus to Earth.

Starjammers

Starjammers 1st Appearance

Starjammers 1st Appearance

Disney/Marvel might have the Guardians of the Galaxy, but Fox has the Starjammers. In the comic the leader of the Starjammers, Corsair, is the father of Cyclops and Havok. I need to rewatch X-Men: First Class, because I don’t recall how deep that film went with Havok’s origin story (I’m not even sure Havok and Cyclops were brothers in that film?). It isn’t necessarily relevant as the X-Cinematic Universe origin is nothing like the X-Men Comic Universe origin, so there’s a limitless number of ways to introduce the space faring team. The Starjammers would also bring the Shi’ar into the XCU fold. The Shi’ar, unlike the Skrull and Kree who are important to Fantastic Four and the Avengers, have almost exclusively been featured in X-Men and Fantastic Four titles.

Tomorrow I’ll take a look at the endless opportunities for Spideyverse.

Bay Area Crowdfunding: The New Parkway Facade

newparkwayNot comic book related, but a very worthy mention for one of the coolest indie movie theaters in the United States. Oakland’s New Parkway is raising money to put a new façade on the space. Not only will this help bring attention to the theater, but also make a glum section of 24th & Telegraph a little brighter. The Kickstarter has less than 39 hours left and they’re more than $20,000 away from their goal, so the chances they’ll get what they need this round isn’t likely. This is less of plea for readers of The Shared Universe to pledge, but more of a hope that The New Parkway will try again.

It should be noted that I only found out about this campaign this morning thanks to a sponsored post on Facebook. It’s tragic really, because I spent eight hours in The New Parkway lobby for CAAMFest on Sunday and if there was anything alerting patrons to the Kickstarter it certainly didn’t catch my eye. If they relaunch the campaign I have a handful of suggestions for making a more successful campaign:

1. Have they sought a façade improvement grant through the city of Oakland? The city has limited funds earmarked for helping businesses make better first impressions. There’s no guarantee that The New Parkway would qualify, but I’d like to know the theater at the least made the effort.

2. What materials will go into the façade? How much labor? One of the many things I love about The New Parkway is the entire venue is very DIY. I imagine this will continue when creating the new façade and as a backer I’d like to know how much of the funding is going toward materials and how much is going toward manual labor.

3. How will they promote the campaign? What’s the plan for getting the word out? Any in-house events planned?

4. Lower backer levels. Statistically projects with reward levels of $20 or less are more likely to succeed. Kickstarter isn’t shy about sharing data, so it’s known that Kickstarters without a reward level under $20 only succeed 28 percent of the time while those with a reward level below $20 succeed 45 percent of the time.  Also, the most popular backer level is $25.

5. More updates. I have no statistics on updates, but I do know when I back a campaign I feel more connected if I receive four or five updates during the life of the campaign. In addition to feeling valued it keeps the campaign in my mind and I push it out to friends. For the first Kickstarter the New Parkway made eight updates during the life of the campaign, but this time they only made their first three days ago.

The New Parkway is an amazing space and it deserves to have a top notch street facing showcase.  If you haven’t been it’s worth checking out.

Bay Area Comic Crowdfunding: The Rattler

The Rattler prismatic

The Rattler prismatic

Why did I invest in the Kickstarter for Jason McNamara and Greg Hinkle’s horror graphic novel The Rattler? Because if I’m going to trust anyone to put out a solid horror comic it’s going to be the guy who says he writes graphic novels because he wants “every child in America to believe Two-Face wants to chop them into little pieces.”  Bonus: It includes an artist who went on an epic San Francisco bender with James Robinson in an effort to come up with an original concept for a new Airboy series.

According to Kickstarter The Rattler is a 96-page “atmospheric thriller that delivers strong characterization, a dark sense of humor and moments of abject terror.”

The last two years have seen a healthy  increase in horror comics, but it’s still rare to find a title that can instill genuine terror. Many of the early reviews of The Rattler seem to suggest this book succeeds in bringing terror and tension. The graphic novel came to my attention thanks to an enthusiastic write-up on Nerdlocker who says “I was terrified of what was waiting to jump out at me in the next panel.” Greg Burgas, writing for ComicBookResources, backs this up adding “Reading the book is a fairly white-knuckle experience, and it’s partly because McNamara knows how to manipulate the reader well.”

The Kickstarter launched today and is shooting for a modest $4,600.  There are some great backer rewards including a rad prismatic sticker you can use to decorate your Trapper Keeper.

rattler

Requiem for an Engine: The Warren Ellis comic board’s legacy

It was a strange and fruitful blip in the online comic community. Writer Warren Ellis’s comic book message board The Engine ran from early September 2005 to Aug. 31, 2007, birthing in its short life new comic books, ongoing collaborative superteams, Eisner and Harvey Award-winning projects, and at least one marriage.

My affectionate memories are not only those of a participant, but of one of six hand-picked moderators (or Filthy Assistants, or Enforcers, or Attack Wombs, or…) from its birth to retirement. I spent hours a day reading, enforcing, and talking Engine, so it looms large in my memory as a crucible of comic history. The Engine was uniquely suited to making things happen, not just talking about them, and I’m heading back into the mid-aughts to explore what made it such fertile ground and why its echoes affect comics to this day.

The Engine logo by Brian Wood

The Engine logo by Brian Wood

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change”

The Engine’s original charter called for a unique structure: protected sections for published or contracted-to-publish creators working outside the superhero genre. Somewhere in the mid-aughts web small indie fora devoted to a particular creator’s work no doubt puttered along nicely, but major comic sites simply didn’t excise superheroes.

A few days before The Engine went live, Ellis expounded on his two primary intentions in 8/29/05’s Bad Signal e-newsletter:

[The Engine] serves two purposes: a point for conversation about FELL, DESOLATION JONES and my other adult-oriented, non-superhero, creator owned works. There are loads of other places for people to talk about PLANETARY, NEXTWAVE, JACK CROSS, ULTIMATE SECRET and all. And also a stage for like-minded creators, involved in original non-superhero work, to talk about what they’re doing. That, you’ll note, is not an all-inclusive and all-welcoming stance, and I’m going to be selective about it, too. There’ll also, with luck, be a space for pros to talk that’ll be read-only to everyone else: there are conversations worth having in public that wouldn’t survive thread-drift from the audience.
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A Daredevil Tour of the Bay Area: Issue 1

The Man Without Fear is also the Man Without Rest. After a long road trip Daredevil finally arrived in San Francisco yesterday. Instead of taking a day or two to enjoy the smells and sounds of the Bay Area, he’s already working with the SFPD to track down a kidnapped child. The first issue of the fourth volume of Daredevil is an enjoyable romp that finds hornhead being chased by sky sleds from The Embarcadero to Nob Hill. As noted in the issue, this isn’t the hero’s first stint in San Francisco.

This regular feature on The Shared Universe is intended to act as a tour guide of the Bay Area by following the adventures of our most recent New York City transplant.  If an issue of Daredevil features any notable landmarks I’ll pull them out and provide some context for readers unfamiliar with this region of the country.

In the unlikely event that Waid or Samnee stumble across this website I want to mention that I have no interest in nitpicking inconsistencies with reality. I respect the prerogative of the artist and writer to bend facts and visuals for the purpose of storytelling. Also, I know Daredevil’s a character in a funny book.

A Daredevil Tour of the Bay Area: Issue 1

The issue starts at a San Francisco police station where Matt Murdock is lending his unique set of highly tuned senses to the search for a missing child. He puzzles together enough clues for one of the officers to conclude that the girl may be in the old Naval Yard on San Francisco’s Treasure Island. Matt believes she may be in a bowling alley on the island.

Daredevil Issue 1: Treasure Island reference

Daredevil Issue 1: Treasure Island reference

First Stop: Treasure Island Naval Yard

Treasure Island is a man-made land mass in the San Francisco Bay. The landmass is named for Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson who briefly lived in San Francisco from 1879-80. It was built in the 30s as a federal Works Progress Administration project to provide a place to host the 1939 World’s Fair. The island became a Naval Base during World War II until it was closed in 1997. In 2008 the federal government sold Treasure Island to the city of San Francisco. Since that time there’s been a great deal of controversy over radiation levels and whether or not the island should have been opened for residential use.

(This is at least the second mention of Treasure Island in a comic book since August of last year. In Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman‘s Station-to-Station a secret lab there creates dinosaurs, laser guns, and a massive tentacle monster.)

And, yes, as Matt Murdock learns, there is an abandoned bowling alley on the naval base grounds.
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Image to release Sex Criminals on local comic shops

Berkeley-based Image Comics is preparing to release the first trade paperback of Chip Zdarsky and Matt Fraction’s wildly successful time stopping sex romp Sex Criminals next month. The publisher announced 28128Sex Criminals Vol 1_LGlast week volume one, Sex Criminals: One Weird Trick, will be available at local comic shops on April 16 with mass market distribution on April 29. Over the last few years Image has been loudly declaring its continued commitment to local comic shops as the first line of defense for a strong comic industry foundation. If you’re in the Bay Area consult our directory of local comic shops to find out where you can pick up a copy.