I may be young, male, semi-nerdy, and therefore biased, but this movie, The Losers looks really good. I’m not 100% sure I have this right, but it’s based on THE LOSERS by Andy Diggle from DC Comics’s Vertigo imprint, which, I think, is based on a movie of the same name that came out in 1968. (Someone please correct me in the comments if I have this wrong.)
The movie is written by “Friday Night Lights” scribe Peter Berg and stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan (P.S. I Love You, Watchmen, “Supernatural”) and Avatar’s Zoe Saldana. Here’s the great-looking preview. Be sure to have the graphic novel on the shelves when the movie hits!
According to a New York Times article, DC Comics will soon be publishing a series called “American Vampire,” which, illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque, will concern itself with “a new breed of vampire through the lens of different eras in American history. The second 16-page portion of the story will be done by none other than Stephen King! His story will be about Skinner Sweet, the first vampire to not fear the sun (see above illustration).
The article also describes a story by Scott Snyder of a fame-hungry woman in the Jazz Age–which actually sounds even more interesting. Overall, the series seems like it’ll be very cool, even if it is a little bandwagon-ish.
The National Ledger, in their article about the comic, seems to be obliquely accusing Mr. King of condemning the Twilight series while also capitalizing on its popularity. But really, I don’t think he has to prove anything at this point, and he certainly doesn’t need any more money, right? Anyone think this is a bad idea?
I’ve been consuming Bill Willingham books with regularity for a few months now. The series I’ve been reading from DC Comics is called Fables, and it takes characters like Snow White and Cinderella and Pinnochio and King Cole and drops them in present-day New York City, where they have their own little subculture among the non-magic “Mundies” like us. (That’s short for “mundane,” of course.) The reason I’ve been able to plow through these 9 books so fast is that they’re graphic novels, and short ones at that.
The Fables series has been so successful that they’ve done one spin-off already: Jack of Fables. Now, apparently, it’s time for a second…and it will be something absolutely crazy: a PROSE NOVEL! From DC Comics! This will be their first foray into the medium, and will be a standalone story centered around Peter Piper, of tongue-twister fame. I’ve been waiting to read this for a long time. Based on the quality of the storytelling in the graphic novels, this one is sure to be a quality book.
And now, the Vertigo blog has put the first chapter up online for free! Check it out if you get a chance. You can find the PDF here.
As the “Graphic Novel Guy” around here, I tend to get excited about new stuff from DC Comics. As some of you may already know, DC has a web component of free comics called Zuda, and “Bayou” has been one of the most popular comics they offer. Popular enough, it seems, to be made into a book!
Ain’t It Cool News, the well established, slightly geeky online news & reviews spot, gave it a glowing review recently:
This collection of the popular DC Zuda webcomic is one of the best comics I’ve read in a long time. Volume one introduces us to an all too real and ugly world of 1933 Mississippi and all the hardships you could imagine for our star, a young African American girl, Lee, who through a series of unfortunate events leaps through the swamp-like version of the Looking Glass into a world of horrible monsters and wonderful mysteries. This is a beautifully written fable that doesn’t pull punches when it comes to depicting real world ugliness. The pain and heartache felt by the main character oozes off the page and will touch even the coldest of hearts. The art is altogether unique in its slightly caricaturistic yet realistic versions of real life characters. Writer/artist Jeremy Love is a true find and proof positive that true talent lies in DC’s Zuda online comics zone…(Read it in full at AintItCool)
Check out the comic at the link above. This one pubbed in paper just one week ago, and volume two will be coming shortly.
This weekend, I started reading a series of graphic novels by Bill Willingham called FABLES, and I think I’m hooked. The concept of the series is that all the characters from the world’s fairy tales and, well, fables, have been exiled from their homelands by some nebulous force called the “Adversary” and forced to live in New York City and surrounding areas.
We find out that things didn’t exactly work out to be “happily ever after”: Snow White and Prince Charming have divorced and he now womanizes female wait staff. Beauty and Beast are having marital issues. Big Bad “Bigby” Wolf is now the Bogartesque sheriff of Fabletown (the underground fable community within NYC), and is investigating the ostensible murder of Rose Red. Jack (of beanstalk fame), her boyfriend, is a prime suspect.
The mix of noir-detective mood with a cast of mythic Shrek-like characters is just bizarre. And bizarre in a really good way. Now I just have to find Volume 2. And 3. And 4…If I’m going to be addicted, I might as well be well-supplied.
As part of a seemingly endless promotional campaign for this weekend’s Watchmen movie, the folks at DC (or the studio people, I’m not sure exactly who) have created an 8-bit throwback game for online play. It pretty much consists of walking around and kicking thuggish-looking people, which, for people like me who were raised on 8-bit, can be hours upon hours of entertainment/nostalgia.
The game is cleverly conceptualized too, touting the Veidt brand, which is the fictional corporation within the book.
The game can be found at http://www.minutemenarcade.com/uk/ but take caution because it can be very addictive. I mean, how do you think I get these stills?
The 53 graphic novels that made this list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens were selected from 154 official nominations. These books are, according to YALSA, “recommended for those ages 12-18, meet the criteria of both good quality literature and appealing reading for teens.” We’d like to congratulate the 13 from the Random House, Inc. family:
We are extremely happy to have just finished work on the first ever comprehensive company-wide graphic novel catalog! Featuring titles from great graphic novel producers like DC Comics, Pantheon, Del Rey, Vertical and Titan, this resource is designed to help librarians build or expand substantial graphic novel collections in their libraries. According to a recent article in PW, demand for such collections is growing all over the country.
We also got librarian blogger Robin Brenner of No Flying No Tights fame to write our introduction, featuring invaluable tips on building comics collections. Check out the PDF version online or request a printed copy by emailing us at library@randomhouse.com with your library’s mailing address.
That’s the question people are asking, in reference to the new movie trailer for The Watchmen, debuted in most places before the record-breaking Dark Knight film. What they really should be asking is, “Have you read this?” After putting it off for over a year after several of my friends simultaneously told me to read it, I finally did back in January. I won’t blather on about it. Look it up on Amazon. The gushing adulation you’ll find there is completely justified.
Upon seeing the movie trailer for the first time, I was hit with major doses of excitement and disquiet. Excitement because the trailer is so perfectly done, and disquiet because I have no idea how they’re going to pull it all off. I hate it when they don’t pull it off, especially for books I love. Either way, a trailer like this is certainly going to drive curious people to the library, so be sure to have it in your collections, en masse.
-David
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