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Gene Yang revives the first Asian-American superhero in “The Shadow Hero”

ShadowHero-Ecover-1-rgbBay Area creator Gene Yang is arguably one of the most consistently celebrated modern graphic novelists. His 2013 two volume novel Boxers & Saints was a finalist for a National Book Award, landed on numerous end of year lists, and was noted as one of the best books of the year by Library Journal. His 2006 book, American Born Chinese, was also a National Book Award finalist, received both a Printz and an Eisner, was named 2006/2007 Best Book by the Chinese American Librarians Association, and was noted on numerous lists.

Yang is finally applying his craft to the realm of superheroes with The Shadow Hero. He’s teaming up with illustrator Sonny Liew to resurrect Chu Hing’s Golden Age hero the Green Turtle. The Green Turtle made his appearance in issues of Blazing Comics and is considered the first Asian American superhero. Yang recently conducted an email interview with Publishers Weekly and he explained the publishing history of the Green Turtle.

Rumor has it, Chu Hing wanted to make his character a Chinese American, but his publisher didn’t think it was a good idea. Chu subverted his publisher by drawing the Green Turtle so that we almost never see his face. In those original comics, he usually has his back to us. When he is turned around, something – a piece of furniture, another character’s head, his own arm – blocks his face from our view. Supposedly, Chu did this so that we could imagine the Green Turtle as he originally intended, as a Chinese American.

Yang goes on to say that the Green Turtle wasn’t very popular and only lasted five issues of Blazing Comics. As a result of his short life in pulp the back story of the hero has never been told. That back story is what Yang is telling in his new comic.

The comic is first being released as a six-part digital series. That six-part series will be published by First Second in a trade paperback format this July. The Publishers Weekly article has more details on The Shadow Hero. Yang has also been writing occasional behind-the scenes posts at creation of the comic on his blog. The digital issues are available on Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, and Apple iBooks.

Daredevil swings through North Beach

In advance of the first issue of Daredevil’s new series, which will see the horned hero in San Francisco, Marvel Comics and Wizard World have released a sneak peak at a variant cover that will be made available for VIP attendees of Wizard World Louisville Comic Con. The cover by illustrator Michael Golden gives fans a first taste of Daredevil with recognizable San Francisco landmarks. The cover shows Daredevil swinging to action in front of the 105-year-old Columbus Tower (also known as the Sentinel Building) and the Transamerica Pyramid. The Transamerica Pyramid, which is the tallest building in San Francisco at 853-feet, had only recently completed construction when Matt Murdock last visited the Bay Area in 1972. Around that same time Francis Ford Coppola purchased and renovated Columbus Tower and it currently houses his American Zoetrope studios. The variant cover is below.

Daredevil Columbus Tower Large

The first issue of Daredevil Volume 4 hits shelves on March 19.

Last Chance to See: ‘Lasso of Truth’ at the Marin Theatre Company

Jessa Brie Moreno, Liz Sklar and Nicholas Rose

Jessa Brie Moreno, Liz Sklar and Nicholas Rose

Regrettably, I only found out about Marin Theatre Company running a production of Carson Kreitzer’s “Lasso of Truth” on Friday. The show, which tells the story of Wonder Woman’s creator William Moulton Marston, debuted on February 20 and runs until March 16. The story follows a woman who grew up with Wonder Woman untangling how all of the elements of Marston’s rather fascinating personal life and how those elements came into the creation of the world’s most popular female superhero. Marston invented the polygraph, was in a polyamorous relationship with his wife and a student, and had an interest in bondage. The show runs nightly until the 16th with bonus matinee shows at 2 p.m. on March 9, 15, and 16. The San Francisco Chronicle has a short interview with playwright Carson Keitzer. Below is a preview trailer for the play.

Marin Theatre Company
397 Miller Avenue
Mill Valley, CA 94941

 

Exhibit: Spoke Art Gallery pays tribute to David Lynch

The owls are not what they seem.

The owls are not what they seem.

Never in my life have I wanted to attend Paris Fashion Week, but reading The 405’s description of Kenzo’s fashion show is making me reconsider my lack of interest in high fashion. Kenzo designers, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, literally turned heads on Sunday by tapping David Lynch’s Twin Peaks as inspiration for their Autumn/Winter 2014 line. In case that doesn’t make the clothing line intriguing enough the design duo had Lynch direct the atmosphere for the Kenzo show. In addition to the models doing their turns on the catwalk to a soundscape provided by Lynch there was an unsettling screaming head that looked like a grownup version of the Eraserhead tadpole baby. According to the 405’s post this is the third time these particular designers have used Lynch as a muse.

Kenzo’s designers aren’t the only artists mainlining Lynch this week.  Starting March 8, San Francisco’s Spoke Art Gallery, 816 Sutter Street, will open In Dreams: An Art Show Tribute to the Films of David Lynch (hat tip to the Last Gasp blog). The exhibit, which runs until March 29, will showcase art inspired by Lynch’s entire body of work from the Great Northern Hotel to Arrakis.

More than 50 artists will be contributing to this group show and a preview of some of the work can be seen on the Facebook event wall. The open reception is March 8 starting at 6 p.m. It promises to be a crazy clown time.

The list of artists can be found below and at the Spoke Art Gallery website.

Read More »

Roxie Theater to host Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pizza Party

When the programmers at San Francisco’s historic Roxie Theater looked at the cinemas long list of accomplishments they realized there had somehow never been a “totally tubular all-night pizza party.” They’re tmnt_poster-195x300planning to remedy that situation this weekend with the help of the 90s-era Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. On Saturday and Sunday the theater will be screening Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze back-to-back. On March 8 the doors open at 7:30 p.m. and on March 9 at 2 p.m.  According to the Roxie:

Join us for a night of pizza, photo booths, costume contests, drinks, and those heroes-in-a-half-shell themselves: Raphael, Donatello, Michaelangelo and Leonardo!  Fun starts at 7:30pm!  Your ticket includes ALL YOU CAN EAT PIZZA (Vegan ‘za, too, brah!)

TMNT, originally created as a 1984 comic by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, has been experiencing a bit of a resurgence in the last couple of years. IDW started publishing a new TMNT series in 2011, a CGI-series was launched by Nickelodeon in 2012, a new film is scheduled for release later this year, and Vanilla Ice has been getting back in touch with his TMNT roots through a mac & cheese commercial and headlining an epic crowdfunded TMNT party.

Comix publisher Last Gasp holding logo design contest

Are you interested in having your name join the ranks of R. Crumb, Mark Ryden, and Saeki Toshio?

lastgaspLast Gasp, perhaps the longest running publisher of comix, has a unique opportunity for you. As an alternative comix publisher it perhaps isn’t surprising that the company has resisted traditional branding and have allowed artists to apply a personal interpretation to the skull, cross bones, tongue logo. According to the company “Last Gasp played it fast and loose in those early days of publishing. There was no set logo design. Since each artist drew their own cover for each comic book, they were also tasked with creating their own interpretation of the Last Gasp logo.”

Last Gasp is hosting a contest to find a 2014 “redesign” (as much as a logo with no set-in-stone design can be redesigned). The company website has all of the rules, but the design concept is pretty much an open canvas:

All artwork must refer to LAST GASP by including, visibly and legibly, EITHER (a) the words LAST GASP (capitalized); or (b) a skull and crossbones image; or (c) both LAST GASP and the skull and crossbones image; or (d) Artist’s Choice.

There are a number of prize levels and Last Gasp founder Ron Turner may personally judge your entry. Entries are being accepted until March 25, 2014.

(hat tip to Laughing Squid)

Image’s Eric Stephenson says only two things matter “good comics and bad comics”

This morning Image Publisher Eric Stephenson gave a speech at ComicsPro, the annual comic retailer meeting, that should be required reading for anyone interested in strengthen the foundation of the industry.

ComicsPRO Logo

ComicsPRO Logo

The Beat has text of the entire speech, but I wanted to dig in and pull out some interesting bits.

Stephenson told the retailers they should see a growing graphic novel section at Barnes & Nobles and increasing sales on Amazon as an opportunity.

And it’s our job – yours, mine, all of ours – to figure out how to reach that growing audience and drive them to the Direct Market, because as bookstores continue to close and chains continue to disappear, the best place to get comics in the future will continue to be the best place to get comics now:

Your stores.

He encouraged the retailers to not see the industry as being about the “big two” or “big three” and instead to focus on the only thing that really matters: “good comics and bad comics.”

Are $4.99 and $7.99 comics going to help our industry in the long run?

No, but they sure help the bottom line at the end of the year.

Same with gimmick covers and insane incentives to qualify for variants that will only have a limited appeal for a limited amount of time.

Of course, Image publishes variant covers, but Stephenson said that’s only because retailers keep ordering them. He said variants and other gimmicks are detrimental to the long-term health of the industry.

Constantly re-launching, re-numbering, and re-booting series after series, staging contrived events designed to appeal to a demographic destined only to a slow march toward attrition, and pretending that endless waves of nostalgia for old movies, old toys, old cartoons, and old video games somehow equals ideas or innovation will not make us stronger.

One of the most important parts of his speech was pushing the retailers to look beyond superheroes and to accept that there are new demographics coming into comics. He notes that one of the most important demographics is women.

There is a vast and growing readership out there that is excited about discovering comic books, but as long as we continue to present comics to the world in the Biff Bang Pow! context of Marvel and DC, with shop windows full of pictures of Spider-Man and Superman, we will fail to reach it.

The biggest problem with comic books is that even now, even after all the amazing progress we’ve made as an industry over the last 20 years, the vast majority of people have no idea whatsoever about how much the comics medium has to offer.

While he’s kind to give a nod to other publishers by mentioning non-Image titles like Love & Rockets and Rachel Rising he comes down hard on publishers of licensed properties that come from film, television, or toys.

TRANSFORMERS comics will never be the real thing.

GI JOE comics will never be the real thing.

STAR WARS comics will never be the real thing.

Those comics are for fans that love the real thing so much, they want more – but there’s the important thing to understand:

They don’t want more comics – they just want more of the thing they love.

I personally don’t agree with this assessment as it’s disingenuous to the writers and illustrators who invested ink and sleepless nights into expanding those Universes. Larry Hama’s GI Joe comics, not superheroes, were my gateway drug. There is a place for such content if you’re truly trying to build a strong foundation. I do understand the greater point he’s trying to make that the comic book industry should strive to be a new idea factory and not build it’s foundation solely on what Hollywood and toy companies churn out.

There’s much more to the speech than the quotes I pulled out. If your LCS wasn’t at ComicsPRO it might not hurt to print a copy out and leave it on their counter.

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.

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