Check out the good word about our latest art show "Icons," featured in today's The Times-Union. We encourage everyone in Jax to support our local artists and writers!
Be on the lookout for updates on our upcoming shows. I'd like to especially thank Ed Dansart, whose coordination of this month's show made it all possible. Come see Ed's work, along with our own Rob Jones, at Club TSI Friday, August 15th!
Link to Laura Capitano's article http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/080808/enc_314853261.shtml
Reprinted from jacksonville.com
Art, icons in world of fun and games
By LAURA CAPITANO, The Times-Union
It was all very inviting, last weekend's opening reception in Jacksonville Beach for Comics & Classics' first group art show: "Icons: Interpretations in Comics & Gaming Pop Culture." Martini glasses flowed over with Jelly Bellies and the melodic yet futuristic sound of the Flaming Lips paired perfectly with a shop full of fantasy. Even the Batman-for-hire refused to break character to talk to the press. "I'm here in case things get out of hand," were his only words to me.
Kimberly Smith-Johnson, who opened Comics & Classics Books and Art Gallery 10 months ago with her husband, Percy, says the "Icons" show is the first in a series of monthly group art shows. This month's show includes works from 24 local artists and features watercolors, mixed media sculpture, photography and illustrations.
The artists come in all shapes and sizes, even an eight-months-pregnant Ellie Hoffman, who subscribes to the Juno anti-maternity-wear stance. Oh, how her T-shirt strains as she tells me about her paintings: "I'm into robot chicks, and I'm a video game dork!" she giggles, gesturing toward her collection. None of the three offerings includes a Pac-Man ghost or the BurgerTime chef, so I'm clueless. Hoffman explains her icons are from Ghost in the Shell, a game adapted from an anime series, where the main character is a cyborg chick named Motoko.
Most of the gallery space is in the back corner of the store. Additionally, I'd consider the tomes of comics and graphic novels on display an extension of the art show. From slim comics to graphic novels that weigh in like dictionaries, browsing a comics shop has the same "you never know what treasure you'll turn up" thrill as antiquing. The Prisoner had a comic book series? Whoa! A whole comic collection called I Love Led Zeppelin?
Comics & Classics currently carries three Jacksonville-grown titles. There's the dark and zombie-laden She's a Super Freak, which tracks the adventures of superhero Party Girl. Behemoth is a bounty hunter who can turn into a werecat as a means to save mankind from his evil father. The Perfect Storm spins the adventures of busty spy Erin Storm.
Smith-Johnson, a former teacher, says the store is a way to keep kids interested in reading. To play up the hang-out vibe, the couple added gaming tables and a reading lounge.
Informal "sketch societies" meet at the store Saturday mornings to exchange ideas. Youth art lessons are also available. "Icons" show director Rob Jones, artist and editor in chief of Alpha Cat Comics, heads up instruction series, at a very reasonable $5 rate, per student per class.
laura.capitano@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4370
Friday, August 8, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
"Icons" Show Sets Record Attendance and Garners Media Attention!
Twenty-four artists came together to contribute to our August group art show "Icons: Interpretations in Comics & Gaming Pop Culture." Among the opening reception's honored guests were no other than Batman himself! Florida Times-Union columnist Laura Capitano, dropped by, as well! We thank Laura for checking out our newest show and invite everyone to come and appreciate the talents of all those who contributed their time and talents.
Below are pictures of the evening, which included artwork by the following artists:
Erin Adams, Laurie Childs, Cesar Cordero, Toy Crusher, Ed Dansart, Wade Dillon, Grindstone, Inc., Brian Gray, Ellie Hoffman, Latwan Holland, Josh Hoye, Rob Jones, David King, Matthew Kirkland, Max Michaels, James Ranieri, J. Dallas Russ, Jeremy Sellers, Matthew Stinson, Robert Thilmont, Oliver Villar, Korey Watkins, Logan Zawacki, and Glenn Zimmerman.
Thanks to all who made the evening a great success.
Below are pictures of the evening, which included artwork by the following artists:
Erin Adams, Laurie Childs, Cesar Cordero, Toy Crusher, Ed Dansart, Wade Dillon, Grindstone, Inc., Brian Gray, Ellie Hoffman, Latwan Holland, Josh Hoye, Rob Jones, David King, Matthew Kirkland, Max Michaels, James Ranieri, J. Dallas Russ, Jeremy Sellers, Matthew Stinson, Robert Thilmont, Oliver Villar, Korey Watkins, Logan Zawacki, and Glenn Zimmerman.
Thanks to all who made the evening a great success.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Con-con reporting! Wish we could have gone!
Here's reprinted info. on this year's San Diego Comic-Con. From everything we read, the biggest concern was whether Hollywood and the gaming industry has taken over Comic-Con and the difficulty in finding and meeting the creators of smaller indie comics at the mega event. Ultimately, we think Comic-Con is good for the industry, but it should resist being swallowed up by other, competing forces.
Art Show Note: "Icons: Interpretations in Comic & Gaming Pop Culture" opens this Saturday Aug. 2nd from 7-9pm with an opening reception at Comics & Classics. Come support local art!
Comic-Con International 2008 Bursts at the Seams
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on July 29, 2008 Sign up now!
by Douglas Wolk, Calvin Reid and Laura Hudson -- Publishers Weekly, 7/29/2008 12:42:00
AMFor the first time ever, 2008's Comic-Con International was a complete sell-out--there were no passes available at the gate, and the San Diego Convention Center was jammed wall-to-wall for the entirety of its July 23-27 run. The curious thing regarding this is that quite a few of its attendees had no particular interest in comics. CCI has become a crucial spot for movie, TV and game studios to promote forthcoming major releases; there's still a huge chunk of the show that's devoted to comics, their artists and their publishers, but the banners promoting it in downtown San Diego don't have pictures of comic book characters on them any more.
The biggest book of the show was a trickle-down effect from the biggest movie of the show: Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel, came out over 20 years ago, and still sold well over 500 copies between various dealers on the floor (one of which marked up the $20 paperback to $30); the longest line at the con was for a showing of a few minutes of footage, whose attendees were rewarded with Watchmen T-shirts. Even MAD magazine got in on the action: a special giveaway issue of MAD included a Watchmen parody drawn by Glenn Fabry.
Comic-Con's biggest debut, though, wasn't a movie tie-in—it was a music tie-in. Comic Book Tattoo, a 480-page, LP-sized anthology of comics inspired by Tori Amos's music, was the anchor of Image's booth; the company sold around 400 copies of the $30 paperback and a generous stack of the deluxe $150 hardcover edition. (It helped that Amos was present for a panel to promote it.) Image also sold around 100 copies each of the Popgun 2 anthology and the long-awaited hardcover reprint of Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! The Image-affiliated collective of artists Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Bá, Vasilis Lolos and Rafael Grampa were the buzz cartoonists of the week—after the Eisner Awards on Friday night, their table boasted trophies for Best Anthology (5), Best Limited Series (The Umbrella Academy) and Best Digital Comic (Sugarshock).
Oni Press announced a handful of forthcoming projects, notably Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe (the lines for O'Malley's signings were impossibly long) and Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth's detective series Stumptown; First Second debuted Chris Blain's Gus, and sold a sizeable stack of copies of Eddie Campbell's The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard. Fantagraphics blew out piles of the debut of the Hernandez Brothers' Love and Rockets: New Stories, and featured constant signings at their booth; Drawn and Quarterly reported an excellent year, including debuts of books by Rutu Modan and Ron Regé Jr., and signings by Lynda Barry (the lines to get her book What It Is signed included a lot of other cartoonists).
Both the DC and Marvel booths were constant hives of activity, thanks to a perpetual stream of in-booth signings and events. They weren't selling their own books, though, and canny shoppers tended to head toward the end of the hall, where various vendors had large selections of Marvel and DC graphic novels discounted by 50% or more. DC also unveiled a new sub-imprint, Vertigo Crime, and announced forthcoming Batman projects to be written by Kevin Smith and Neil Gaiman. (If they sell one for every San Diego cosplayer in a Nurse Joker outfit, they'll do just fine.) The Batwoman series still hasn't been officially announced, but it's the worst-kept secret in comics; art collectors' jaws were dropping over the pages by J.H. Williams on display at the Naked Fat Rave booth.
At Marvel, the biggest announcement was a joint venture with Stephen King and Scribner to produce an online motion comic called N, based on an unpublished short story from King's upcoming prose collection Just After Sunset. N will be released in 25 installments by screenwriter and Young X-Men writer Marc Guggenheim, artist Alex Maleev, and colorist Jose Villarrubia. N is designed for viewing on the web and on more advanced cell phones such as the iPhone, with the first episode now available at nishere.com. N will be also be published as a comic from Marvel in early 2009.
Dark Horse was having a pretty good week of its own: Hellboy 2 may not have had quite the runaway success of The Dark Knight, but Hellboy creator Mike Mignola was effectively a rock star at the Con in terms of the mob scene at his signings, and so was an actual rock star: Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, who announced the second Umbrella Academy series and promoted it with an onstage conversation with Grant Morrison. (Morrison was the con's Conversationalist-in-Chief; he also had onstage chats with Deepak Chopra and Stan Lee.) And anything with Joss Whedon's name attached, from his Web musical Dr. Horrible to Dark Horse's Buffy series, set cash registers ringing at this show. Is he a mass-culture star or a comics creator? As far as Comic-Con's audience is concerned, there's not really a difference any more.
Art Show Note: "Icons: Interpretations in Comic & Gaming Pop Culture" opens this Saturday Aug. 2nd from 7-9pm with an opening reception at Comics & Classics. Come support local art!
Comic-Con International 2008 Bursts at the Seams
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on July 29, 2008 Sign up now!
by Douglas Wolk, Calvin Reid and Laura Hudson -- Publishers Weekly, 7/29/2008 12:42:00
AMFor the first time ever, 2008's Comic-Con International was a complete sell-out--there were no passes available at the gate, and the San Diego Convention Center was jammed wall-to-wall for the entirety of its July 23-27 run. The curious thing regarding this is that quite a few of its attendees had no particular interest in comics. CCI has become a crucial spot for movie, TV and game studios to promote forthcoming major releases; there's still a huge chunk of the show that's devoted to comics, their artists and their publishers, but the banners promoting it in downtown San Diego don't have pictures of comic book characters on them any more.
The biggest book of the show was a trickle-down effect from the biggest movie of the show: Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel, came out over 20 years ago, and still sold well over 500 copies between various dealers on the floor (one of which marked up the $20 paperback to $30); the longest line at the con was for a showing of a few minutes of footage, whose attendees were rewarded with Watchmen T-shirts. Even MAD magazine got in on the action: a special giveaway issue of MAD included a Watchmen parody drawn by Glenn Fabry.
Comic-Con's biggest debut, though, wasn't a movie tie-in—it was a music tie-in. Comic Book Tattoo, a 480-page, LP-sized anthology of comics inspired by Tori Amos's music, was the anchor of Image's booth; the company sold around 400 copies of the $30 paperback and a generous stack of the deluxe $150 hardcover edition. (It helped that Amos was present for a panel to promote it.) Image also sold around 100 copies each of the Popgun 2 anthology and the long-awaited hardcover reprint of Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! The Image-affiliated collective of artists Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Bá, Vasilis Lolos and Rafael Grampa were the buzz cartoonists of the week—after the Eisner Awards on Friday night, their table boasted trophies for Best Anthology (5), Best Limited Series (The Umbrella Academy) and Best Digital Comic (Sugarshock).
Oni Press announced a handful of forthcoming projects, notably Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe (the lines for O'Malley's signings were impossibly long) and Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth's detective series Stumptown; First Second debuted Chris Blain's Gus, and sold a sizeable stack of copies of Eddie Campbell's The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard. Fantagraphics blew out piles of the debut of the Hernandez Brothers' Love and Rockets: New Stories, and featured constant signings at their booth; Drawn and Quarterly reported an excellent year, including debuts of books by Rutu Modan and Ron Regé Jr., and signings by Lynda Barry (the lines to get her book What It Is signed included a lot of other cartoonists).
Both the DC and Marvel booths were constant hives of activity, thanks to a perpetual stream of in-booth signings and events. They weren't selling their own books, though, and canny shoppers tended to head toward the end of the hall, where various vendors had large selections of Marvel and DC graphic novels discounted by 50% or more. DC also unveiled a new sub-imprint, Vertigo Crime, and announced forthcoming Batman projects to be written by Kevin Smith and Neil Gaiman. (If they sell one for every San Diego cosplayer in a Nurse Joker outfit, they'll do just fine.) The Batwoman series still hasn't been officially announced, but it's the worst-kept secret in comics; art collectors' jaws were dropping over the pages by J.H. Williams on display at the Naked Fat Rave booth.
At Marvel, the biggest announcement was a joint venture with Stephen King and Scribner to produce an online motion comic called N, based on an unpublished short story from King's upcoming prose collection Just After Sunset. N will be released in 25 installments by screenwriter and Young X-Men writer Marc Guggenheim, artist Alex Maleev, and colorist Jose Villarrubia. N is designed for viewing on the web and on more advanced cell phones such as the iPhone, with the first episode now available at nishere.com. N will be also be published as a comic from Marvel in early 2009.
Dark Horse was having a pretty good week of its own: Hellboy 2 may not have had quite the runaway success of The Dark Knight, but Hellboy creator Mike Mignola was effectively a rock star at the Con in terms of the mob scene at his signings, and so was an actual rock star: Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, who announced the second Umbrella Academy series and promoted it with an onstage conversation with Grant Morrison. (Morrison was the con's Conversationalist-in-Chief; he also had onstage chats with Deepak Chopra and Stan Lee.) And anything with Joss Whedon's name attached, from his Web musical Dr. Horrible to Dark Horse's Buffy series, set cash registers ringing at this show. Is he a mass-culture star or a comics creator? As far as Comic-Con's audience is concerned, there's not really a difference any more.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Boom! Launches Disney Imprint
Very exciting news out of Comic-Con for those of us who love comics and Disney's Pixar. We're looking forward to The Muppet Show: The Comic Book, especially!
Reprinted from Publisher's Weekly Comics Week Post
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on July 26, 2008 Sign up now!
By Laura Hudson -- Publishers Weekly, 7/22/2008 2:28:00 PM
By Laura Hudson -- Publishers Weekly, 7/22/2008 2:28:00 PM
Boom! Studios announced the formation of Zoom, a new children's comic book imprint for licensed Disney properties, at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday. The new line, which launches in spring 2009, will publish original comics based on Pixar films like the animated hit movie Wall-E, and also on The Muppet Show.
According to Boom! publisher Ross Ritchie, the imprint’s first title will be The Incredibles, a four-issue miniseries based on the Pixar animated movie about a superhero family. The comic book will be scripted by Kingdom Come writer and Boom! editor-in-chief Mark Waid, with covers by The Spirit artist Darwyn Cooke.
Waid expressed excitement over stepping back into his former role as a superhero comics writer. “As someone who has written The Fantastic Four in the past, it seems like a natural fit. I still feel the itch to dabble within the superhero genre. Plus, The Incredibles is probably my favorite animated movie ever.”
With the dominance of superhero titles in comics shops, “The Incredibles is the most obvious book that will have an audience in the direct market,” added Ritchie. “There’s also a big crossover with comic book fans who are also Disney fans, and that will drive sales as well.”
A miniseries based on the Toy Story movie is slated to follow in the spring as well as the first of four one-shot comics based on characters from The Muppet Show. Centering on Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fonzie and Gonzo respectively, the comics will be written and drawn by Fred the Clown creator Roger Landridge.
Other titles planned for 2009 and beyond include Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., Cars and Wall-E. Each four-issue miniseries will be collected into a trade paperback and sold both at mass market bookstores through Boom!’s distribution deal with Perseus Books and in direct market comic shops.
The licensing deal with Disney has been two years in the making, said Ritchie, in part because of the approval process involved in licensing high-profile Disney properties for new content. All Zoom comics will feature original stories that take place within the world of each property, rather than translating existing plots. “We are not doing any adaptations,” said Ritchie. “That’s huge, especially with licensed characters.”
Waid lauded the creative latitude Disney offered to the comics creators handling its properties. “They were after us to not feel bound by style sheets,” Waid said. “They don’t want us to try and emulate the faux 3-D graphics; they want it to look like line art. And with the Muppets stuff, they're letting us go crazy with that.”
Waid calls the child-oriented imprint the result of his and Richie’s commitment to making sure that comics find their way to the next generation of readers. “As much as I appreciate that we have hundreds of thousands of hardcore superhero fans, I'm smart enough to realize that we're going to die off,” particularly now that the comic book readership has become so dominated by adults.
“I hope that [a Zoom comic] will be the first comic for some six-year-olds—the age I was when I got my first comic— and that it helps them fall in love with the medium and progress with it as they get older,” said Ritchie.
According to Boom! publisher Ross Ritchie, the imprint’s first title will be The Incredibles, a four-issue miniseries based on the Pixar animated movie about a superhero family. The comic book will be scripted by Kingdom Come writer and Boom! editor-in-chief Mark Waid, with covers by The Spirit artist Darwyn Cooke.
Waid expressed excitement over stepping back into his former role as a superhero comics writer. “As someone who has written The Fantastic Four in the past, it seems like a natural fit. I still feel the itch to dabble within the superhero genre. Plus, The Incredibles is probably my favorite animated movie ever.”
With the dominance of superhero titles in comics shops, “The Incredibles is the most obvious book that will have an audience in the direct market,” added Ritchie. “There’s also a big crossover with comic book fans who are also Disney fans, and that will drive sales as well.”
A miniseries based on the Toy Story movie is slated to follow in the spring as well as the first of four one-shot comics based on characters from The Muppet Show. Centering on Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fonzie and Gonzo respectively, the comics will be written and drawn by Fred the Clown creator Roger Landridge.
Other titles planned for 2009 and beyond include Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., Cars and Wall-E. Each four-issue miniseries will be collected into a trade paperback and sold both at mass market bookstores through Boom!’s distribution deal with Perseus Books and in direct market comic shops.
The licensing deal with Disney has been two years in the making, said Ritchie, in part because of the approval process involved in licensing high-profile Disney properties for new content. All Zoom comics will feature original stories that take place within the world of each property, rather than translating existing plots. “We are not doing any adaptations,” said Ritchie. “That’s huge, especially with licensed characters.”
Waid lauded the creative latitude Disney offered to the comics creators handling its properties. “They were after us to not feel bound by style sheets,” Waid said. “They don’t want us to try and emulate the faux 3-D graphics; they want it to look like line art. And with the Muppets stuff, they're letting us go crazy with that.”
Waid calls the child-oriented imprint the result of his and Richie’s commitment to making sure that comics find their way to the next generation of readers. “As much as I appreciate that we have hundreds of thousands of hardcore superhero fans, I'm smart enough to realize that we're going to die off,” particularly now that the comic book readership has become so dominated by adults.
“I hope that [a Zoom comic] will be the first comic for some six-year-olds—the age I was when I got my first comic— and that it helps them fall in love with the medium and progress with it as they get older,” said Ritchie.
Friday, July 25, 2008
McCain and Obama to Get their own Graphic Novels
I love politics and I love comic books, and yet I'm not sure what to think about IDW's efforts to bring the two together. I'll withhold judgement until I see them, but anything that promotes comics in mainstream America is good with me.
Reprinted from Booksellers This Week
Reprinted from Booksellers This Week
BTW News Briefs
July 23, 2008
McCain & Obama to Get Their Own
Graphic Novels
The Los Angeles Times reports that senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) are getting their own comic books. The Times said, "IDW Publishing, a comics company best known for horror titles (most notably 30 Days of Night)
and adaptations of movies and television shows, is going into the beltway
world by publishing Presidential Material: Barack Obama and Presidential
Material: John McCain, a pair of graphic novels that chronicle the life of
the two men who both want to be riding on Air Force One for four
years."Jeff Mariotte, co-owner of San Diego's Mysterious
Galaxy and author of a number of graphic novels, wrote the Obama book,
which is drawn by Tom Morgan. The McCain book is written by Andy Helfer and
drawn by Stephen Thompson. According to the Times, both books will be priced
at $3.99 and will be in stores on October 8.
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