ComicsAlliance continues its look back at the best cover artists of 2013, putting the spotlight on Mike Del Mundo (X-Men: Legacy), Massimo Carevale (Conan the Barbarian), Kris Anka (Uncanny X-Force) and Dave Johnson (Brother Lono). When it comes to creating compelling character portraits that open a window on another world, these are four artists who make it look easy.
Ever feel like Club Nintendo has nothing worth spending those coins on? The rewards program might just have solved that all-too-common complaint with an upcoming Luigi figurine which pays tribute to the popular Luigi's Mansion series.
Full details after the jump.
If simply getting a peek inside the guts of CERN isn't cool enough, the lab's computer security officer, Stefan Lüders, has a secret treat for the nerds among us. Just before Google Street View came to visit, he and his crew hid Lego figurines all over CERN's Computing Center. About 20 of them—including aliens, a leprechaun, and a pharaoh—are now lurking, hidden in Google Street View.
kate:O
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It’s tough being the monarch of a kingdom when all your people are timid little folk who don’t understand the first thing about how delicious they are. Redditor IHaveAFluffyCat understands this now that they have created a tiny kingdom of their own. Still, they say they’re probably only going to keep it around for a few days before they “let my husband take it to his workplace to be consumed.”
Truly, IHaveAFluffyCat is a capricious and terrifying god-ruler.
Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
According to this Polygon report citing a YouTube video from "Team Spooky After Hours," the DRM in the Xbox One title Killer Instinct reared its ugly head during a tournament that took place at Queens College in New York.
Over at Slate, Michelle Nijhuis is talking about children’s literature—and what some parents are doing to appease their children when they notice a lack of gender parity. When Nijhuis’ own daughter kept insisting that Bilbo Baggins was a girl, she took her daughter’s words to heart and swapped some pronouns around as she read. The results?
“And you know what? The switch was easy. Bilbo, it turns out, makes a terrific heroine. She’s tough, resourceful, humble, funny, and uses her wits to make off with a spectacular piece of jewelry. Perhaps most importantly, she never makes an issue of her gender—and neither does anyone else.”
The article discusses other changes that she’s heard of parents making to well-kown texts, and the ways in which kids might benefit from their fiction reflecting reality a little better. Not only is the story uplifting and exciting, but it’s also a really great idea! We’re going to start doing this to our favorite children’s book and see what we end up with...
kateOkay, do they have a Bros name yet? Because they seriously need one.
What do you think Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen asked Santa for? A white Christmas? Another year of positive social media press? Sweaters with each other’s faces on them?
(SirPatStew on Twitter via Geekosystem)
Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
Don't throw out that cardboard box! You can instead use it to create a work of art, as Bartek Elsner has done with this series of cardboard sculptures.
The Berlin-based artist and designer makes use of cardboard, a material often taken for granted, to create really neat sculptures like a fireplace (with cardboard fire because, well...), giant boombox (you remember boomboxes, right?), a replica of a heart, a branch, and so on. These works of art certainly take a less conventional approach to recycling.
Personally speaking, cardboard is one of the most underrated materials out there given its ease to form into shapes. It's often been a go-to material for terrain-building in wargames and it's nice to see it receive a broader exposure through Elsner's projects.
[ via Hi-Fructose ]
kateIt will be released at Comiket D:
This summer, Japanese online art community Pixiv launched a Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Artwork Exhibition Illustration Contest to celebrate the Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Artwork FINAL Exhibition at the Hanshin department store in Osaka. The selected works are now being collected in a tribute book, available at Winter Comiket, with a new cover from artist/manga author Lily Hoshino (Penguindrum character designs, Otome Yōkai Zakuro).
She's now posted a look at its cover
The contest gathered 500
Winners were been listed here.
These included
■2 Kunihiko Ikuhara Prize Winners
・Work will be display displayed as a high quality print at the Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Artwork FINAL Exhibition
・A high quality print will be signed by Director Kunihiko Ikuhara.
"Dance" by 1／7 is a bit NSFW-ish
by JONAS
2 Chiho Saito Prize Winners
・Works displayed as a high quality print at the Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Artwork FINAL Exhibition
・A high quality print, signed by manga artist Chiho Saito.
by ピーマ
Love to you by hato is again a bit NSFW-ish
■Shinya Hasegawa Prize Winner
・The work displayed as a high quality print at the Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Artwork FINAL Exhibition
・A high quality print, signed by Character Designer Shinya Hasegawa.
by クシャビリア☆
■ 54 pixiv Prize Winners
・The is work featured in the pixiv x Revolutionary Girl Utena compilation illustration artbook
・A pixiv electronic money card worth 1,575 yen (About $15.75 USD) accepted at Japanese bookstores nationwide.
『永遠よりも輝かしいもの』／ 三崎 礫
『時に愛は』／ 竜崎いち
『-Utena-』／ シチ
『わたしの薔薇』／ ゆみや
『Rose＆release』／ たま
『少女革命』／ 蒼次郎
『もう一度。』／ A.I.
『ウテナ』／ 香
『待っててね、ウテナ。』／ れおぽん
『This rose is our destiny.』／ 雫(deme)
『たとえ２人離ればなれになっても』／ 真時未砂
『少女革命ウテナ』／ オキマル
『革命少女黙示録』／ 千鳥ゆた
『離れない』／ 寄居猫@病気静養中
『逃げるのか！』／ あてか＠ついったATK0207
『Revolution!』／ 魚
『君の世界を革命する』／ はとり
『世界を革命する力を！』／ いわや晃
『いつか一緒に』／ ぴよたま
『革命血統』／ ak2
『貴女の剣は世界を貫き、私の剣は貴女を貫き、世界の剣は私を貫く』／ ㍉ン
『0176』／ B子
『絶対 運命 黙示録』／ 猫柳めろ＠ぎんたま
『ウテナ』／ 花咲まひる
『少女革命ウテナ』／ ちてたん
『潔く カッコ良く 生きて行こう…』／ 藍音
『この黒薔薇にかけて誓う。』／ つつい
『永遠のものなんて』／ キタハラ
『私のすべて中世にして』／ T.T.K.
『無題』／ 乃煌(のきあ)
『時の交錯』／ TOMIA＠コミティアお疲れ様
『幹と梢』／ 本田ぽん太
『よそ見しないで』／ すすぎ
『七実』／ 粟
『見果てぬ』／ 本田ぽん太
『あなたは世界を革命するしかないでしょう。』／栗栖粟
『[限界]』／ きゃり
『アンシー』／ 史人
『少女革命ウテナ』／ カマキリマイ
『世界を革命する力を！！』／ 黒い鳩
『ウテナ様とアンシー』／ たま
『幻の城』／ 1／7
『人のこと』／ 1／7
『ばらいろのふたり』／ はち
『薔薇の演奏会』／ さいこ。
『とびだせ！おおとりのもり』／ris@tam
『やさしいわたし革命』／ ねむねむ
『かしらかしら ご存知かしら』／ むら
『- R e v o l u t i o n -』／ pajapa
『わたしの誕生』／ すおしろ
『世界を革命する力を』／ ゆーこ
『レボリューション』／ バカ●マンディ
『魔女と王子様』／ カラナシ マリ
------
Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.
Last week, we saw the Golden books. Now we get the Silver books, comics that will be free from participating comic stores on Free Comic Book Day, Unlike the Gold books, these will be specifically chosen by individual stores to give away, and not all stores will have all the books.
I’d like to give a shout out first though to the Bleeding Cool Magazine FCBD Edition. Like last year, it will be dedicated to introducing comic books to new readers with a series of suggestions lists – and why. Last year, we recommended comics that no one else recommends, as well as comics that will change you life. I was inundated by people, new to comics who had picked it up, and then gone on to buy other comics in the same store. This year will have the same, as well as the controversial Free Comic Book Day Price Guide, where we list the current market prices of Free Comic Book Day titles from previous years. It could be useful. Oh and it’s got Spider-Man on the cover, our first Marvel cover.
Other highlights include a new hardcover mini graphic anthology from Boom/Archaia, new Buck Rogers comics from Hermes Press, Fred Perry‘s Steam Wars, the story of Uber so far, two CBLDF comics, one for readers, one for teachers and parents,
Okay, all items and images updated…
DC Entertainment
TEEN TITANS GO! #1 FCBD 2014 SPECIAL EDITION
(W) Sholly Fisch, Merrill Hagan
(A) Ben Bates, Jorge Corona (CA) Daniel Hipp
This FCBD issue is the perfect place to start reading the sensational series based on Warner Bros. Animation’s hit animated show featured on Cartoon Network’s DC Nation Saturday morning programming block! Join Robin, Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg and Raven as they display their unique brand of hi-jinks, mayhem and justice! But giant pizza monsters aren’t the only dastardly and delicious villains on the menu… so dig in, Titans! Includes two exciting, action-packed stories that readers of all ages will enjoy!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Marvel Entertainment
ROCKET RACCOON FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Joe Caramagna (A) Adam Archer
(CA) Ron Lim, Richard Isanove
Spotlighting Marvel’s BIGGEST star! No, we’re not talking about Iron Man! Not Captain America! Not Thor! It’s Rocket Raccoon! The madcap mammal takes on the cosmos in an all-new FREE COMIC BOOK DAY adventure!
32pgs, FC FREE!
BLEEDING COOL MAGAZINE
BLEEDING COOL MAGAZINE FCBD 2014 ED
Retail Price: $0.00 US
Readership: All Ages
Color, 32 pages
Bleeding Cool Magazine celebrates Free Comic Book Day and the launch of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 film with an All-New issue dedicated to introducing new fans to comic books! We packed this special issue full of features that will turn FCBD visitors into comic shop regulars. This year’s issue is the perfect tool for local comic shops to introduce new fans to the hobby. With features on collecting, shopping, preserving, and developing their collections, it is a must have for every Free Comic Book Day event. The features include new top Graphic Novel lists, Tips and Tricks for growing your collection, and a guide to your friendly neighborhood comic shop! This perfect entry point into Bleeding Cool Magazine is ideal for giving readers tons of extra FCBD content and to introduce our hot comics, speculation, and unique brand of entertainment to a host of new customers. It’s not just cool…it’s Bleeding Cool!
AVATAR PRESS
UBER: THE FIRST CYCLE FCBD ED
Retail Price: $0.00 US
Readership: Mature Readers
Color, 32 pages
An ideal entry point into the world of Uber! Kieron Gillen and Caanan White electrified the comics community with their runaway hit, UBER in 2013. Now the creative team that revolutionized the super soldier genre is presenting a special Free Comic Book Day edition, Uber: The First Cycle! This is a history book told with the events of the first two story arcs woven into real-World history and with tons of all-new writing from Gillen, special new art and sneak-peaks of upcoming pages. This issue will bring readers new and old up to speed on the first two arcs of the Uber series, without ruining all the fun of reading the collected editions. It also serves as a direct teaser into the summer 2014 Uber story that promises to be the biggest and most shocking yet!
IDW PUBLISHING
V-Wars #0: Free Comic Book Day Edition
Retail Price: $0.00 US
Color, 32 pages
New York Times bestselling horror author Jonathan Maberry presents the chronicle of the first Vampire War in V-Wars! This all-new tale leading into this summer’s ongoing V-Wars series offers the first salvo in the battle between humans and hundreds of new species of vampires! Jonathan Maberry (w) • Alan Robinson (a) • Kevin Eastman (c)
Retailers: Order 100 copies, get one free Alan Robinson ultra-limited “human” variant cover of V-Wars #1, also available on FCBD!
Order 200 copies, get one free Alan Robinson ultra-limited “vampire” variant cover of V-Wars #1, also available on FCBD!
Action Lab Entertainment
(W/A) Jeremy Dale, Ray-Anthony Height, Dewayne Feenstra
Behold the Berserkers! Quinn and crew find themselves facing uncomfortable truths as sins of the past come back to reveal themselves. Fans old and new won’t want to miss the first look at what’s on the horizon for Quinn and Jack! And in Midnight Tiger, sometimes all it takes to become a hero is an unfortunate incident and a single split second decision. The origin of Midnight Tiger!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Zombie Tramp / EHmm Theory FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Dan Mendoza, Brockton McKinney (A), Dan Mendoza, Larkin Ford
(CA) Dan Mendoza
Are you bold enough to take a ride with Janey the Zombie Tramp?!? If you pick her up, she might just share the story of how she came to be the street walking dead! Be brave so you can be ready for her all-new series following this special issue! You also get a mind-shattering sneak preview from the second volume of the coolest comic series you haven’t read yet… Ehmm Theory!
32pgs, FC FREE!
FUBAR: Ace of Spades FCBD 2014 Edition
(W) Chuck Dixon (A) Jeff McComsey, Steve Becker
(CA) Steve Becker
It’s 2003 and the hunt is on for Saddam Hussein. The men of Operation Urgent Surprise think they’ve found the Butcher of Baghdad but instead uncover weapons of mass destruction in the form of ZOMBIES! Shock and awe turns to bite and claw on the bloody sands of Iraq in this full-length FUBAR Spec-Ops spectacular.
32pgs, B&W FREE!
Antarctic Press
Steam Wars #1 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A/CA) Fred Perry
A not so long time ago, in a galaxy relatively close by, an epic struggle plays out on a world seized in the grip of an evil Victorian empire. Only a ragged alliance of rebels opposes the Emperor and his black guard, and hope is fading. While fleeing from the steam-driven war machines of her Imperial pursuers, Duchess Imoen stumbles across the home of the last Dragoon: the legendary Storm Foil Warriors of ancient lore! This new (but strangely familiar) steam-fantasy epic will give thrills that haven’t been felt since 1977!
32pgs, FC FREE!
The Intrinsic Volume 2 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) O’Reilly Sean, Chris “Doc” Wyatt (A/CA) TBD
The Philosophers are an ancient secret order of magic-users who protect the Earth. One of their number, Ishmael Stone, known as Philosopher Rex, has assembled an elite team, called The Intrinsic to deal with the most serious threats from the outer realms. But how will The Intrinsic react when they are called not to protect the Earth, but to protect themselves from it?
32pgs, FC FREE!
Archie Comics
Sonic the Hedgehog/ Mega-Man FLIPBOOK FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Ian Flynn (A) Patrick “SPAZ” Spaziante, Jennifer Hernandez, Lamar Wells, Rick Bryant, Gary Martin, John Workman, Jack Morelli and Matt Herms
(CA) Ben Bates
Its TWO free comic books in ONE! Hot off the heels of the ultra-successful Sonic/Mega Man crossover event, “Worlds Collide”, comes a showcase issue of the hottest new storylines in both characters’ universes — exclusively for Free Comic Book Day! Somic stars in “Blast to the Past” and the origin of his Freedom Fighters! Then, on the flipside of this issue, get ready for the “Mega Man X” crossover event with this primer story!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Worlds of Aspen FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A) Peter Steigerwald, Mirka Andolfo, Vince Hernandez
Aspen’s popular zero issues return, and only in this exclusive FCBD issue featuring two all-new stories by Aspen’s finest! Vince Hernandez, creator of Charismagic and Trish Out of Water, offers his latest creation, the upcoming fairy-tale adventure series Damsels in Excess, along with brilliant series artist Mirka Andolfo (Trish Out of Water) in this special zero issue prelude — just in time for its summer release! Then, superstar colorist and creator Peter Steigerwald (Fathom, Soulfire), takes a journey into the furthest reaches of the universe in his first all-new Aspen series, The ZooHunters! Coming this fall, this new action-adventure series will redefine what it means to voyage beyond your wildest imagination! Get an exclusive first look with these thrilling zero issues, only available in Worlds of Aspen 2014!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Automatic Publishing
Hatter M: Far from Wonder #1 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Frank Beddor, Liz Cavalier (A) Ben Templesmith
Put to rest any delusions or disinformation you have of the tea-guzzling madman of faux literary history and prepare to expand your consciousness as the saga of Hatter Madigan and his relentless search for the lost Princess of Wonderland unfolds in Issue 1 of the Hatter M series!
32pgs, FC FREE!
IPSO FACTO #1 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) J.R. Rothenberg
(A/CA) Jason Badower, Annete Kwok
A peaceful alien race secretly inhabiting Earth suddenly begins to flee when a satellite intended to eliminate nuclear war is launched. Meanwhile, a boy in Colorado, a lovestruck rebel without a cause, believes he’s going insane; his mind replaying a single message: “remember who you are… or this world ends.”
32pgs, FC FREE!
BOOM! Studios / Archaia
Mouse Guard, Rust & Other Stories: A FCBD Hardcover Anthology
(W/A/CA) Various
When Archaia released their first hardcover FCBD offering two years ago, it was a rousing success with fans and retailers alike. Now they’re doing it again! Readers will get original, all-ages content from a powerhouse lineup of Archaia creators. Plus, the debut of Farscape comics under the Archaia imprint!
HC, 6×9, 48pgs, FC FREE!
The Adventures of Jellaby FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A/CA) Kean Soo
Capstone celebrates Jellaby, the award-winning series by Kean Soo! In this Free Comic Book Day 2014 special, ten-year-old Portia Bennett and her beloved purple monster, Jellaby, head to the great outdoors in two comic shorts, including the exclusive, never-before-in-print adventure “The Knot.” Also featuring a monster load of bonus materials: creator Q & A, pinup art, super-secret previews, and much, much more!
32pgs, FC FREE!
DEFEND COMICS FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Mark Evanier, Fred Van Lente, Gene Luen Yang, Chris Roberson
(A) Sergio Aragones, Ryan Dunlavey, Gene Luen Yang, Various
(CA) Cully Hamner
For over 25 years, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has fought to protect your right to read, and this year we bring our mission to Free Comic Book Day, with a light-hearted look at a serious topic. Explore censorship of comics with some of today’s most talented creators!
32pgs, FC FREE!
CBLDF PRESENTS: RAISING A READER! FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Meryl Jaffe PhD (A) Matthew Holm
(CA) Raina Telgemeier
CBLDF’s publication, Raising a Reader!, answers parents’ and educators’ questions about using comics: What skills do they offer kids? What resources are available for using graphic novels in education? How do you teach reading with a comics page? How can graphic novels create reading dialogues? And much more! Text with illustrations.
16pgs, FC FREE!
EPIC #0 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Tyler James (A) Matt Zolman, Fico Ossio
(CA) Fico Ossio
After a freak experiment gives teenager Eric Ardor incredible powers, he does what anyone would do… he puts on a costume and becomes Epic! Super strength, speed, flight, optic blasts… it’s a fanboy’s dream come true. Unfortunately, he’s just discovered he has one weakness… pretty girls! And while most boys his age lose their cool around the hotties, Epic loses his powers!
32pgs, FC FREE!
SCAM: Crosswords #0 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Jason Ciaramella (A/CA) Joe Mulvey
Spinning out of the pages of the super-powered con-man series, Scam, Eisner-nominated writer Jason Ciaramella (The Cape) and “the most dangerous man in comics” Joe Mulvey bring you an explosive one-shot featuring Scam’s ultimate villain: Crosswords! After being exiled from “Sin City”, Crosswords makes a power grab in Europe, using extreme means to take what he wants!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Dark Horse Comics
PROJECT: Black Sky FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Fred Van Lente (A/CA) Michael Broussard
When a biological weapon is hijacked from a secret facility in Nevada, the president calls in two of his top guns: Captain Midnight and Brain Boy! Will the two disparate heroes, a time-displaced inventor from World War II and a snotty psychic Secret Service agent, be able to work together to stop the threat released from Block 13? And what does the mysterious rogue agency Project: Black Sky have to do with it?!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Drawn & Quarterly
Shigeru Mizuki’s Showa: A History of Japan FCBD 2014 Edition
(W/A/CA) Shigeru Mizuki
Shigeru Mizuki’s Showa: A History of Japan FCBD 2014 will offer a rare preview of the 2,000-page masterpiece on the history of modern Japan. The D+Q series will be published in four separate volumes throughout 2014 and early 2015 and this special FCBD edition will offer an excerpt of the harrowing period covering World War 2 and beyond. Mizuki is one of the early pioneers of manga and is one of the most beloved creators in Japanese comics.
24pgs, B&W FREE!
Magic Wind FCBD 2014 EDTION
(W) Gianfranco Manfredi (A/CA) Pasquale Frisenda
With a shard of metal in his brain allowing him limited access to his past memories, and able to foresee the future through visions and premonitions, Ned Ellis is no ordinary man. Once a U.S soldier, he is now a Sioux Shaman who goes by the name of Magic Wind. This FCBD edition will give you an exciting extended preview of the thrilling upcoming graphic novel!
32pgs, FC FREE!
(W) Davor Radoja (A/CA) Well-Bee
A society divided into two classes: the Haves and the Have Nots. Controlled by a government that has banned and destroyed any form of media that it feels will corrupt the human mind. Yet there are those who hold secrets, who hold meetings, and who are prepared to fight for a better future. This special sneak-peak of the upcoming SF graphic novel also features two complete short comics: Crosses and Vegetable!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Fantagraphics Books
Hip Hop Family Tree Two-in-One FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A/CA) Ed Piskor
Hip Hop Family Tree Two-In-One by Ed Piskor is the perfect introduction and bridge to Piskor’s fun and crtitically acclaimed 5 volume book series! This full-color comic book offers two self-contained stories form Hip Hop Family Tree Volumes 1 & 2 as well as new guest pin-ups and content just for FCBD! Lovingly produced and designed in homage to Marvel Comic’s beloved Marvel Two-In-One—Make mine Hip Hop!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Gemstone Publishing
Overstreet’s Comic Book Marketplace FCBD 2014 Edition
(W/A) Robert M. Overstreet, Various
A stunning visual representation of Batman’s 75th anniversary, a look (way) back at the origins of The Winter Soldier, a 20th anniversary chat with Billy Tucci about Shi, a look at the long and sometimes hidden history of Archie’s “Red Circle” line, a forgotten first appearance, and much more are featured in this FCBD 2014 issue of Overstreet’s Comic Book Marketplace!
32pgs, FC FREE!
GRAPHIX
Graphix Spotlight: The Dumbest Idea Ever! FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A/CA) Jimmy Gownley
Graphix (publishers of Bone, Smile, and the Amulet series) makes its FCBD debut with this stand-alone excerpt from The Dumbest Idea Ever! Renowned comics creator Jimmy Gownley (Amelia Rules!) shares his real life adventures of becoming a teenage comic book artist! Called “an inspirational book that could help launch the next great cartoonist” by Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) this is the perfect book for anyone who loves comics . . . and any kid who dreams of someday making comics of their own.
32pgs, FC FREE!
Scratch 9 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Rob M. Worley (A/CA) Joshua Buchanan
He’s back for Free Comic Book Day! The world’s greatest superhero cat returns in this all-ages, all-cat, all-free funny-book featuring all-new stories! Scratch is an ordinary cat who can summon his nine lives to get himself and his pet posse out of a jam. This new edition is a direct lead-in to the summer’s monthly Scratch9 series: Cat of Nine Worlds! The fur starts flying here!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A) Russell Keaton, Murphy Anderson, Howard Chaykin
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the first, best and original sci-fi hero, is supporting Free Comic Book day with a special re-print of one complete Sunday story, “Prophet of the Fire Demon,” by fabled artist Russell Keaton! This story has been painstakingly digitally-reconstructed to perfection, and looks better than the original newspaper Sundays! Hermes Press’ Buck Rogers FCBD issue will also offer bonus material and tons of surprises!
32pgs, FC FREE!
The Tick FCBD 2014 EDition
(W) Jeff McClelland (A/CA) Duane Redhead
The Tick returns for FCBD 2014 in a brand-new, full-color, 24-page, full-length adventure for fans of all ages! Plus more! The Tick and Arthur face off against the Hoarder, a galactic alien menace who hi-jacks The City and the millions of citizens The Tick has sworn to protect! Great for fans new and old!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Oni Press
Courtney Crumrin #1 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Ted Naifeh (A/CA) Ted Naifeh, Warren Wucinich
A full-color Courtney Crumrin adventure for all ages! Holly is new to the creature-filled and magic-made town of Hillsborough and her classmates all agree on one thing — Courtney Crumrin is bad news! Will Holly heed their warnings or will Courtney finally find a friend?
32pgs, FC FREE!
The Smurfs FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A) Péyo
The Smurfs return to Free Comic Book Day! This year’s offering features never-before-seen comic stories from Péyo starring everyone’s favorite blue bombshell: the Smurfette! It’s Smurftastically Free!
32pgs, FC FREE!
PREVIEWSworld FCBD 2014 Spectacular
(W) Dan Manser, Marty Grosser, J.C. Vaughn
(A) TBD (CA) Skottie Young
There’s no place like your favorite local comic shop, and every month Previews celebrates the cool comic books and merchandise available in stores! Now the team behind Previews and Previewsworld.com takes an enthusiastic look at the worlds of FCBD and your local comic shop in this FCBD 2014 special! First, you get a primer on Previews with our comics story on how to use the Previews catalog and buy through your local comic shop’s subscription service. Plus, a “FCBD & Collecting Comics” story from the folks behind the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide on what makes reading and collecting comics so cool! Finally, we’ll take you behind the scenes of 2014′s FCBD titles with interviews with some of this year’s creators, including FCBD 2014′s Commemorative T-Shirt artist, Skottie Young! And we top all of that off with invaluable info on online resources, 2014 convention dates, cool contests to enter and more — all for FREE! Features a cool, Skottie Young cover celebrating FCBD!
32pgs, FC FREE!
2000 AD SPECIAL FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A) Various
The Galaxy’s Greatest SF anthology returns to FCBD with this stellar line-up of stories! Dredd races to save a fellow Judge in “The Badge” from Matt Smith & Chris Burnham; Sláine stars in “Lord of the Beasts” by Pat Mills & Rafael Garres; Rogue Trooper recounts his bloody past in “Glass Zone” by Gerry Finley-Day & Dave Gibbons; and Psi-Judge Anderson faces a magical monstrosity in “Golem” by Alan Grant & Enric Romero! Plus: D.I. Harry Absalom (by Gordon Rennie & Tiernen Trevallion), Durham Red (by Leah Moore, John Reppion & Jan Duursema), Future Shock (by Henry Flint), and classic Dredd newspaper strips by John Wagner &Ron Smith!
48pgs, FC FREE!
Atomic Robo and Friends FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Brian Cleavenger, Jay P. Fosgitt
(A) Jay P. Fosgitt, Scott Wegener (CA) Scott Wegener
Unanimously heralded by fans, creators, retailers and critics as the perfect first comic to give to a non-comic-reader! Atomic Robo has defeated the greatest foes of the last century, but his latest discovery has reduced him to a mere plaything for the Yonkers Devil! Plus, an all-new adventure from mischievously-lovable Bodie Troll and previews of 2014 Red 5 favorites and new faces!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Giant-Size 4-Pack Bundle FCBD 2014 EDITIOn
(W/A/CA) Various
A GIANT-SIZE four-pack of GIANT-SIZE #0 Issue Specials!
ACTION! Wayward Sons—The spin-off to the legendary Webcomic series, this series follows the adult children of beings who were once worshipped as Gods; Tesla—At the turn of the century, Nikola Tesla and his trusty side-kick, Mark Twain, join forces to battle the Illuminati, led by the nefarious Thomas Edison!
FANTASY! Duel Identity—The world’s greatest superhero is actually the world’s greatest assassin! Pandora’s Blog—When a young girl moves to a new town, she blogs about the strange things she sees, and gets some unwanted attention as a result.
ADVENTURE! Magika—A young boy discovers a magical world filled with strange mystical creatures who come into our world through a mound in his grandparents’ backyard! The First Daughter—The President’s daughter learns her destiny when she is pulled into a secret, supernatural enclave beneath the White House.
THRILLS! Darchon—Enter a dark world of supernatural threats that can only be handled by one man – but is he what he claims to be? Shadow Children—Children are brought to another realm, where they acquire supernatural powers and become members in an army of darkness.
Four Pack, FC FREE!
Finding Gossamyr: Way of the Bladeslinger FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) David Rodriguez, Paul Allor
(A) Sarah Ellerton, Thomas Boatwright
Return to the fantastic world of Finding Gossamyr as Th3rd World’s critically acclaimed series continues in a brand new FCBD adventure that leads into the upcoming Volume 2! Also featured in this issue is a preview of the new Th3rd World Studios series, Past the Last Mountain, in which a trio of fantastic creatures escapes human imprisonment to seek a fabled sanctuary known only as “Dragon Lake”.
32pgs, FC FREE!
Top Shelf Kids’ Club FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A) Eric Orchard, Rob Harrell, Top Shelf Crew
(CA) Eric Orchard
Here at Top Shelf, we’re celebrating Free Comic Book Day 2014 with friends old and new — the latest lineup of the Top Shelf Kids Club! This FREE comic book contains an extensive preview of the upcoming Maddy Kettle by Eric Orchard, as well as other stories by Monster on the Hill’s Rob Harrel, and the rest of the Top Shelf crew. Come on in and join the party!
24pgs, B&W FREE!
Sherwood, TX / BOONDOCK SAINTS DOUBLE FEATURE FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Shane Berryhill, Troy Duffy, J.B. Love
(A) Daniel Hillyard, Toby Cypress (CA) Andrew Robinson
After the same biker gang who murdered his father leaves Rob Hood for dead, he returns to seek revenge on an epic, blood-soaked scale. Combining the biker gang epic with Spaghetti Western sensibilities, Sherwood, TX retells the legend of Robin Hood as a modern day, noir-action opus. Hood is joined on his quest by Padre Elvin Tuck, Will Scarlet, and Little John, as they take on the crooked Sheriff of Nottingham, TX and his partners in crime, The Nobles biker gang and their leader John Prince.
32pgs, FC FREE!
Street Fighter #0 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A) Ken Siu-Chong, Jim Zub, Chris Sarracini, Joe Ng, Takeshi Miyazawa
UDON’s Street Fighter comics are back, and bigger than ever! Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and all of the hadoken-hurling action you love fills the pages of this oversized (8” x 11”) comic book! Created especially for FCBD, this issue includes brand-new stories for hardcore SF fans, and a stand-alone chapter from Street Fighter Origins: Akuma — the perfect introduction for newcomers to the SF universe!
32pgs, FC FREE!
Les Miserables: The Fall of Fantine FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A) SunMei Lee
In 2014, UDON Entertainment brings Victor Hugo’s classic novel Les Miserables to comics in a bold new graphic novel adaptation! In this special stand-alone FCBD chapter, learn the story of Fantine, the beautiful, fragile, doomed heroine of Les Miserables. She will fall into poverty… and worse… and she will find salvation in the deeds of a stranger named Jean Valjean! Printed in UDON’s standard manga size of 5 ¼” x 8 ¼”, it features 48 pages of gripping story and brilliant artwork!
48pgs, FC FREE!
Valiant Comics
VALIANT: ARMOR HUNTERS 2014 FCBD SPECIAL
(W) Robert Venditti, Matt Kindt, Joshua Dysart, Fred Van Lente, Peter Milligan
(A) Doug Braithwaite, Bryan Hitch, Clayton Crain, CAFU, Clayton Henry, Diego Bernard
(CA) J.G. Jones
The “Armor Hunters”, a group of the universe’s fiercest warriors, have come to destroy the X-O Manowar for the good of all. What horrible secrets does the armor hold? And how many armors have they destroyed before this one? These answers and more are revealed in the Valiant Universe event of 2014 — and it all starts right here with exclusive previews, character designs, and interviews from the biggest guns the Valiant Universe has to offer!
32pgs, FC FREE!
VALIANT UNIVERSE HANDBOOK FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W/A) Various (CA) Lewis LaRosa
The Valiant Universe from A to Z! Discover for the very first time the untold origins and secrets of Valiant’s heroes and villains, all in one place! Everything you need to know about the Valiant Universe in 2014 and beyond can be found right here in the first official Valiant Handbook release… ever! Featuring artwork from a “murderer’s row” of comics brightest talents: Doug Braithwaite, Bryan Hitch, J.G. Jones, Esad Ribic, Clayton Crain, Clayton Henry, and more!
32pgs, FC FREE!
All You Need is Kill / Terra FormaRs FCBD 2014 Edition
(W) Hiroshi Sakurazaka, Yu Sasuga (A) Lee Ferguson, Kenichi Tachibana
Now a major motion picture starring Tom Cruise! When the alien Mimics invade, Keiji Kiriya is one of many recruits shoved into battle armor Jackets and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to be reborn to fight and die again and again. He receives a message from a mysterious ally — is she the key to Keiji’s escape or his final death? The official graphic novel adaptation based on the original novel! Also, in Terra Formars, the colonization of Mars is an epoch-making event, but an unintended side effect of the terraforming process unleashes a horror no one could ever have imagined…
32pgs, FC FREE!
Grimm Fairy Tales #0 FCBD 2014 EDITION
(W) Joe Brusha (A/CA) Anthony Spay
Extinct for millennia, the most powerful and terrifying creatures to ever exist in the Grimm Universe have now returned! They are the Bloodhunters, and their sole purpose is to hunt down and exterminate Highborns, and they have their sights set on their first prey since returning…Professor Sela Mathers! This special FCBD edition of Grimm Fairy Tales ties directly into GFT #100 and the upcoming “Age of Darkness” Grimm Universe event!
32pgs, FC FREE!
And more on Armor Hunters from Dan Wickline…
Now we see what the teaser images earlier in the week were about here and here.
Valiant Comics is calling this the most ambitious crossover event of 2014. Armor Hunters, a four-issue mini-series by Robert Venditti (X-O Manowar, Green Lantern) and Doug Braithwaite (Unity, Justice) kicks off this June.
When Aric of Dacia returned to Earth with the stolen X-O Manowar armor of an alien race, he thought he finally found a weapon to guard the peace and kingdom he’d struggled so long to secure. But now, a relentless and surgical strike team from the farthest reaches of space – sworn to exterminate the armor and all like it – have found their final target. The ARMOR HUNTERS are coming. They will hunt. They will trap. They will kill. And they will rid the universe of the X-O Manowar’s incalculable destructive power…even if it means taking the Earth with it.
“X-O Manowar is about to find himself at the center of a firestorm embroiling all of Valiant’s most powerful heroes. Believe us when we say that, in an era of events, the scale, scope and intensity of ARMOR HUNTERS will be the biggest and most daring undertaking we’ve ever attempted,” said Valiant CEO & Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani.
Along with the first issue, the Armor Hunters story continues with new story arcs in Unity #8 by Matt Kindt and Diego Bernard and in X-O Manowar #26 by Venditti and Cary Nord. Other Valiant heroes will join in as well as the summer continues with Valiant’s first full-scale alien incursion.
And to get you ready for the event, on Free Comic Book Day – May 3rd, 2014 you can pick up the Valiant: Armor Hunters FCBD 2014 Special. The book contains previews of the summer event and beyond, interviews and more from Robert Venditti, Doug Braithwaite, Matt Kindt, Clayton Crain, Peter Milligan, Bryan Hitch, Clayton Henry and others.
The Disney studio has famously attempted to adapt Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen as far back as the 1940s. However, it wasn’t until the late 2000s when director Chris Buck (Tarzan, Surf’s Up) took a pass on the story that it started to come together as a fully realized idea upon which Disney would create Frozen.
Paul Briggs, story department supervisor at Walt Disney Animation Studios and the Head of Story on Frozen, sat down with Cartoon Brew to talk about the importance of finding a place of truth when developing an animated film and the different paths that must be explored in order to discover the characters. In his role, Briggs is part of the studio’s story trust, and “keeper” of the “safe room,” which is the nickname for the Disney’s writer’s room where artists and writers feel safe to share personal things from their own lives to help inform the stories they are telling. (Spoilers follow.)
Elsa and Anna
One of the biggest changes that Chris Buck brought to the production was turning Andersen’s distant, abstract character of the Snow Queen, and Gerda, the protagonist trying to rescue a loved one from the curse of a frozen heart, into the sisters Elsa and Anna. This fundamentally changed the dynamic of the story to something more grounded and relatable.
“Chris started with the simple idea of love,” says Briggs who has four sisters of his own. “The strength of familial love vs. romantic love.” The concept was then expanded to “love vs. fear,” which provided clearer guidance for the motivations of the principal characters. “Elsa lives in fear because she’s afraid she’s going to hurt the ones she loves, while Anna has so much love in her, but is never able to give it to anyone.”
Olaf
“I knew before the film was released that people would have that reaction: ‘Oh. He’s the comic relief character,’” Briggs says of Olaf, the optimistic snow man that the two sisters build together as children. “[But] he’s serving a stronger purpose; he symbolizes the love between them.” Earlier versions of Olaf had him as the general in the Snow Queen’s snow man army, but as the story evolved, so did he, until the filmmakers hit upon the idea that he would represent the pure, fundamental connection between the two women.
The presentation of this theme in the final film may be fairly subtle to some viewers as there is no big scene where Olaf is first brought to life and his purpose is illustrated. Was the decision to leave this moment out a conscious choice? “We never actually had that [moment],” says Briggs.” We never got notes, we never felt the need to address it.”
Kristoff
“It took a while to find him,” says Briggs of Kristoff, the loner ice deliveryman who helps Anna on her journey. Since Kristoff doesn’t exist in the source material, he went through a good deal of changes before they settled on the character in the film. “We played with the idea of him being a man of few words with a deep connection to nature, really true grit, gruff and rough around the edges. But it just got really boring and didn’t get the interaction with Anna that we wanted.”
Hans
Hans is the fairy tale prince from a far away land who steals Anna’s heart, and then, in an unexpected twist, plots to steal the kingdom of Arendale by attempting to murder the two sisters. The storytellers spent a great deal of time questioning his motivations and received a lot of feedback requesting that they give the audience a clue of his real character earlier in the film.
“In every screening, we were burying this secret and people always wanted us to tip our hand,” Briggs says. “But we stood our ground.” When asked if he believed Hans’ arguably light punishment in the finale fit the severity of his crimes, Briggs thought it was appropriate. “We never wanted him to go down the path of falling on his own sword or dying.” However, he does admit to personally wanting a little bit of chivalry in the end. “I always wanted Kristoff to come in and punch Hans in the face.” Director Jennifer Lee insisted, perhaps rightly so, that it should be Anna who takes a swing.
Paul Briggs is currently working on Big Hero 6, the upcoming Disney/Marvel Comics feature, which by definition alone, will be action-packed and visually thrilling, however, he’s quick to point out that the same rules apply to every story. “I’m really excited to work on a Marvel superhero movie,” he says, “but finding a pure, emotional, universal truth that everybody can relate to is what excites me the most.”
"The Super Awesome Micro Project", as this has become known, is not a special effect. That really is a life-size car made out of LEGO, and it really is being powered by an engine made out of LEGO.
Shirow Miwa, known his work on the manga Dogs and with the band Supercell, has been letting his appreciation for Pacific Rim since this summer. Now, he's gone all out with a preview of the stunned art he's done for a Winter Comiket tribute to the mecha versus kaiju movie.
Some of his earlier posts
Also, his Bandai Cardass reversions of the Jaegers and kaiju
more irreverent, from ero doujin artist @oiqkatou
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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.
Twitter is being turned into a TV show, and there’s a movie in the works about how some guy changed his life through Facebook. I’m done. I’m so done.
The yet-unnamed Twitter show, based on Nick Bilton‘s Hatching Twitter: A True Story Of Money, Power, Friendship, And Betrayal, is being made by Lionsgate TV. I’m guessing the studio’s filled with executives who positively worship Aaron Sorkin. Oh, look, evidence:
“The Social Network was a perfect film, and this series will be different, providing a longer view of the work life changes, gamesmanship and personal sacrifices made by a group of individuals who are building a company that will change the way that people communicate.”
That was executive producer Allison Shearmur, who should probably lay off The West Wing reruns if she thinks The Social Network was a perfect film. It was really good, but… perfect? Really? Ah well. Different strokes for different folks. And the show could be good. Lionsgate TV’s had their hand in a lot of critically acclaimed series, among them Mad Men and Orange Is the New Black.
Not to be outdone, Facebook is the main conceit of a new film by Ineffable Pictures. It’s an adaptation of the memoir Fakebook: A True Story Based on Actual Lies, in which author Dave Cicirelli took to Facebook and invented a brand new life for himself. Only his parents and two friends knew that all the adventures he was blogging about were actually made up.
Says Variety:
“The memoir chronicles fake Facebook adventures and their impact on Cicirelli’s real life as he began to feel jealous of his fictional alter ego and faced the increasing difficulty of maintaining his charade of a double life — one in the real world and one in cyberspace.”
That sounds even more self-indulgent than something by Sorkin, and I didn’t even think that was possible. Only imagining that the staff of Ineffable Pictures is entirely staffed by Good Omens fans is allowing me to hold onto even a crumb of goodwill for this project.
(via Variety, Deadline; movie screen PSD by MericG)
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Game projects were the most popular category on Kickstarter in 2013, according to this GamesBeat report. Kickstarter members pledged $200.4 million in 2013 (so far- the year isn't over yet!), with about $19.85 million going towards projects that ultimately did not hit their funding goals. With that subtraction, an estimated $178 million was pledged and received by game companies and developers.
kate...well that was bizarre.
Winter is a time for ghost stories, so last week I started at ground zero for the Christmas ghost story (Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and The Haunted House). This week I’m going pro. In the wake of Sherlock Holmes’s massive success the world was so overrun by lady detectives, French detectives, Canadian lumberjack detectives, sexy gypsy detectives, priest detectives, and doctor detectives that there was a shortage of things to detect. Why not ghosts?
And thus was spawned the occult detective who detected ghost pigs, ghost monkeys, ghost ponies, ghost dogs, ghost cats and, for some strange reason, mummies. Lots and lots of mummies. Besides sporting ostentatiously grown-up names that sound like they were randomly generated by small boys wearing thick glasses (Dr. Silence, Mr. Perseus, Moris Klaw, Simon Iff, Xavier Wycherly) these occult detectives all had one thing in common: they were completely terrible at detecting.
[Read More]
Arthur Conan Doyle’s consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, changed everything in mystery fiction when his first story “A Study in Scarlet” appeared in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887, but before him came a whole host of proto-detective stories reaching back to Germany’s true crime family fun classic, A Gallery of Horrible Tales of Murder (1650), the fictionalized criminal biographies published as Newgate novels by writers like Edward “Dark and Stormy Night” Bulwer-Lytton, and Edgar Allan Poe’s Auguste Dupin (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” 1841). From out of this literary rabble emerged the very first occult detective: Dr. Martin Hesselius.
Physician, man of letters, and malpractice enthusiast, Dr. Hesselius first appeared in “Green Tea,” published in the October 1869 issue of All the Year Round, then edited by Charles Dickens. He was the creation of Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, known as “The Invisible Prince” because he rarely left his house after the 1858 death of his mentally ill wife. Obsessive and neurotic, Le Fanu was haunted all his life by a recurring nightmare in which he stood transfixed before an ancient mansion that threatened to collapse on him; when he was found dead of a heart attack in 1873 his doctor remarked, “At last, the house has fallen,” which, while witty, probably wasn’t the sort of thing his family wanted to hear.
“Green Tea” is the best of Le Fanu’s ghost stories and it immediately established that same callous tone of professional disregard for human emotions that would come to characterize all occult detectives. Recounted by Hesselius’s eight-fingered medical secretary, “Green Tea” finds Reverend Jennings approaching Dr. Hesselius for help with a phantom monkey that’s driving him bananas. Hesselius determines that too much reading while swilling green tea has inadvertently opened the reverend’s third eye. Hesselius commands Jennings to summon him immediately the next time he sees the monkey. The next time the monkey appears Hesselius is on vacation with orders not to be disturbed, so Jennings slashes his own throat. Hesselius responds with a mix of defensiveness and braggadocio. He’s successfully treated 57 cases of opened third eyes, he writes to a colleague, and he could have cured Jennings, but Jennings was a stupid weakling who died of “hereditary suicidal mania” and, technically, he wasn’t even Hesselius’s patient anyways.
Defensive, condescending, full of made-up knowledge, and absolutely lethal to patients — these are the hallmarks of the occult detective, such as Algernon Blackwood’s Dr. John Silence, probably the biggest jerk in weird fiction. Like Batman, Silence vanished for five years of international training, only to return well-versed in being obnoxious and making things up. His first adventure was “A Psychical Invasion” (1908) in which a humorist overdoses on marijuana and loses his sense of humor. Silence uses a magical collie to fight what he claims is an evil ghost lady, relays a bunch of pseudoscience as patronizingly as possible (“As I told you before, the forces of a powerful personality may still persist after death in the line of their original momentum…If you knew anything of magic, you would know that thought is dynamic…etc.”), then he has the humorist’s house torn down.
Occult detectives love tearing down houses, and they hate women, foreigners, and Eastern mysticism, in about that order. In Silence’s “The Nemesis of Fire” an outbreak of spontaneous combustion is caused by a selfish old lady who stole a scarab necklace from a mummy. Silence demonstrates his bedside manner by tossing the spinster to the pissed-off mummy which burns her to death, then Silence sneaks her charred corpse upstairs and tucks it into bed, presumably to be discovered by her maid in the morning.
Silence battled lots of foreigners, including Canadian werewolves (“The Camp of the Dog”), German Satanists (“Secret Worship”), French cat witches (“Ancient Sorceries”), and math (“A Victim of Higher Space”). Every one of his stories ends with an insufferable lecture followed by a smug smirk. His only adventure that doesn’t make you want to hurl the book so hard it travels back through time and smacks Silence in the head is also his funniest, “Ancient Sorceries.” Much of it is taken up with its narrator, a silk merchant, returning to visit his old German boarding school and recalling its catalogue of sadistic deprivations fondly (“…the daily Sauerkraut, the watery chocolate on Sundays, the flavour of the stringy meat served twice a week at Mittagessen; and he smiled to think again of the half-rations that was the punishment for speaking English.”), and it’s these giddy, parodic updrafts that William Hope Hodgson sails like a hang glider with his creation, Carnacki the Ghost Finder.
Carnacki’s cases revolve around men dressed in horse costumes just as often as they wind up being about disembodied demon hands chasing him around the room. Using a totally made-up system of vowel-heavy magic (The Incantation of Raaaee, The Saaamaaa Ritual), Carnacki spends most of his adventures crouched in the middle of his electric pentacle, taking flash photos of weird monsters like a nightmare pig (“The Hog”), a floor that becomes a puckered pair of whistling lips (“The Whistling Room”), and an indoor blood storm (“The House Among the Laurels”). His trademark is kicking his guests out of his house at the end of his stories, shouting, “Out you go! Out you go!”
Sometimes his enemy is the ghost of a jester, sometimes it’s Irish people, and sometimes he splits the difference and it turns out to be a crusty old sea captain hiding in a well and a naked ghost baby. Carnacki finds as many frauds as he does phantasms, he loves stupid scientific inventions (an anti-vibrator, a dream helmet, the electric pentacle), and he also loves John Silence-ian laser light show magic battles. And while he occasionally destroys a room or sinks a ship, he doesn’t have the taste for mayhem that characterizes other occult detectives.
One of the most satisfying of these is Flaxman Low, who combines the xenophobia of John Silence with the bogus science of Carnacki to produce an unbeatable package of super-short stories that cannot be read with a straight face. Written by Kate Prichard and her son, the improbably named Major Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard, the Flaxman Low stories move with the brisk, violent efficiency of a man who doesn’t take any guff. In “The Story of Baelbrow” he’s invited to investigate a manor house whose quaint British spook has turned violent. Low discovers that the ghost has teamed up with a foreign mummy to form a super-evil vampire-ghost-mummy. Carnacki would take its photo. Dr. Silence would give a lecture on ancient vibratory emissions. Flaxman Low shoots it about a hundred times in the face, beats its head into a pulp, and burns it.
You only hire Flaxman Low if you are truly hardcore, because his cure is usually worse than the disease. Haunted by a dead leper from Trinidad? Pull the house down (“The Story of the Spaniards, Hammersmith”). Bedeviled by a ghost cult of Greeks? Punch them in the face and move out (“The Story of Saddler’s Croft”). Plagued by a haunted bladder, a phantom taste, or family suicide? Flaxman Low is there to instantly pin the blame on a bunch of Dianists, dead relatives who meddled with Eastern mysticism, or an African man hiding inside a cabinet and using glowing poisonous mushrooms to kill off the family. Then he explodes your house.
Later would come Sax “Fu Manchu” Rohmer’s crusty old junk shop owner, Moris Klaw, and his Odically Sterilized Pillow; the lady occult detective, Diana Marburg, a palmist whose adventures include “The Dead Hand” in which she tangles with a six-foot-long electric eel imported for murder; the abnormally destructive Aylmer Vance; New Jersey’s French occult detective, Jules de Grandin, given to exclaiming “By the beard of the goldfish!” and “Prepare to meet a fully tailored porker before you are much older!” (it sounds better in French); and the man of action, John Thunstone, whose silver sword-cane finds itself frequently embedded in the breasts of a race of pre-humans who originally inhabited North America. And so, vaguely racist, extremely violent, and totally unscientific, the league of occult detectives marches on, razing houses, slaughtering other races, and generally just being absolutely awful people who couldn’t detect their way out of a haunted bladder.
The Best of the Bunch:
Next week: Victorian Lady Ghost Story Writers, including one whose stories are as emotionally acute, as subtle, and as delicately observed as any of Henry James’s ghost stories.
Grady Hendrix has his very own occult detective series, Tales of the White Street Society, available as a free audio stories from Pseudopod. The stories are “The Hairy Ghost,” “The Corpse Army of Khartoum,” and “The Yellow Curse.” You can also interfere with him on Twitter.
It might seem kind of an odd time and place, but next week the BBC will be airing a half hour special on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its legacy in media.
The special episode of Front Row is in honor of the 10th anniversary of the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer airing in Britain. Host Naomi Alderman will be talking to Joss Whedon, Anthony Head, Neil Gaiman, Rhianna Pratchett, TV executives Jane Root and Susanne Daniels, and fans of the show Blake Harrison and Bim Adewunmi. So get that big antenna out, or keep an eye on the BBC Front Row website on the day after Christmas to catch it.
Wait, that’s a radio show, you say. You mentioned television. I did! Pivot TV, doing an excellent job of living up to its mandate to target the 18-34 year-old audience, has announced that it has acquired syndication rights to not only Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but also Veronica Mars. The channel will be instituting the Buffy and Veronica Power Hours block every weeknight from 10 to 11, starting January 13th.
So if you are tired of having to choose your own Buffy episodes from Netflix, and would like someone else to do it for you, or, you don’t have another way to watch Veronica Mars, Pivot Network is your place to be. Or to DVR.
Client: Please send me the source files for both [project1] and [project2] biz cards.
Me: They’re being uploaded to Dropbox right now.
A few minutes later…
Client: Thanks. Unfortunately, we don’t have InDesign software. Please provide us with the adobe.
After AT&T failed to deliver on a deal to bring Wi-Fi to San Francisco's Market Street - the busiest and most economically diverse area of the metropolis, according to city leaders - local politicians took matters into their own hands.
From his first appearance in 1969's Hercules in New York to the present day, Arnold Schwarzenegger has killed 509 people/animals/things on the silver screen. And you can see every last one in this video.
Hey, this thing I drew is going to be in the Dragonball Zine, which you can now order HERE!
EVERYONE IN IT IS AMAZING and I’m thrilled that I was included. It’s full of monsters like:
Adrian Bloch
Alexandre Diboine
Andrew Schick
Babs Tarr
Ben Sears
Choo
Corey Lewis
David Alegre
Disa Wallander
Dudu Magalhãess
Emily Partridge
Jacob Canepa
Jasmine Monterroso
Jenn Woodall
Joanna Krótka
Joe Wierenga
Kat Bride
Katie So
Leslie Hung
Luis NCT
MAIS2
Maxence Henry
Mike Jones
Natalie Hall
Olivier Menanteau
Randy Godawa
Ricardo Bessa
Richie Pope
Sachin Teng
Sean Dockery
Stefan Tosheff
T-Wei
Wren McDonald
Isn’t that ridiculous? It’s gonna be so great!
-Jake
Our Glorious Deeds
Short story about a girl who raised an army to help her family overthrow the Sui dynasty, Princess Pingyang (598-623)
I will have this book and prints (and our Jojo doujin which I will post about shortly) at basic booth B1 @ Comic Fiesta 2013
(No Boris & Lalage story this year I’m afraid, otoh no one’s regret over this could possibly outweigh mine. ETA: THANK YOU HOPPER FOR ALERTING ME TO TYPO >
Gorgeous.
Any good fantasy world deserves a map, but how does a world map go from your notebook to an espansive illustration that provides depth and information?
Read on as Isaac Stewart shares his process for making the map for The Emperor’s Blades, the first book in Brian Staveley’s new fantasy series Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne. The book is out on January 14th but you can read the first seven chapters for FREE right here. (Did we mention it has ninjas that ride enormous hawks? It has ninjas that ride enormous hawks!)
[Read More]
I was ten years old, holding a golden Nintendo cartridge in my hands. The first time I’d lost myself in fantasy maps was when I discovered Dad’s old Lord of the Rings paperbacks. But everything was about to change for me.
I didn’t play The Legend of Zelda to win. I played it to explore. With colored pencils and an old piece of graph paper, I mapped the 8-bit world of Hyrule. When I ran out of paper, I taped on new segments. I kept it in my back pocket and took it to school with me, unfolding it at every chance to plan my next adventure. I dreamed of filling out those blank spaces and wondered what I would find there.
Oh boy, I had no idea where that little folded up map would lead me. I guess I could’ve found myself mapping Antarctica or outer space or the bottom of the ocean. But I dislike the snow, am extremely claustrophobic, and am terrified of being out to sea. So I explore fantasy novels.
Exploration
For Brian Staveley’s excellent fantasy debut, The Emperor’s Blades, Heather Saunders at Tor wanted a two-page map that would match the feel of the book. When drawing a map, often all I have is the text of the book itself. This time I had both the book and the author’s sketch of his world.
Brian’s attention to detail was amazing! I immediately wanted to dive into reading the book. I wasn’t disappointed. The same care with which he built the map is also found in the novel.
Before I jumped in headfirst, I needed to make sure of my destination. I wanted the final map to:
I asked Heather for samples of the book’s interior design. I studied the book’s cover. I tried to distill the feeling I had while reading the novel and decided that a somewhat far Eastern looking map would work well.
As much as possible, I try to design my maps as if they were artifacts of the world they depict. This is probably influenced by my time creating ephemera for Brandon Sanderson’s worlds. There are plenty of well-designed fantasy maps that don’t follow this paradigm, but it’s my preference. Because of that, I always try to find real-world examples on which to base my maps.
After some serious web surfing (and an unfortunate delay in the Straits of Social Media), I discovered a map on a website I hadn’t come across before (David Rumsey Map Collection), but which has quickly become my go-to place for map reference.
I later found the same map reference on Wikimedia.
This was exactly what I was looking for and made it my style target.
The Problem of Real World Maps
I almost always run into the same problem each time I try to adapt a real-world cartographic style to a map meant for a novel.
Real world maps are huge and detailed.
A map meant to fit in a hardcover book (and subsequently a paperback) can’t be as detailed as a real-world map and still be legible. Even though I treat the map as a product of its fantasy world, it has to be understandable to modern audiences. Usually this means I can’t copy the exact style of my reference, but I can use it for inspiration. I decided to borrow the style of the mountains, rivers, and ocean.
Borders
I start with the project specs to create a Photoshop file with all the guides I need to keep the image and text from getting too close to the book’s trim line. With a two-page spread like this map, I also add in safety guidelines around the gutter between the two pages.
Using the interior chapter designs as inspiration, I created a border, then went about fitting Brian’s sketched map into the space available, resizing and moving it until it fit right. I also cut the reference map in half and pulled it to either side of the gutter line. This makes the final map slightly wider than the sketch, but it also gives me space in the middle with no labels or important features. This keeps readers from having to pull the book apart to find words that are hidden in the binding.
Map Creation
Painters have their preferred way of working, whether dark to light, light to dark, background to foreground, etc. With maps, it’s a bit more like Genesis (the book, not the band). I decided, for the sake of contrast and legibility, what parts of the map will be light and what will be dark. Then I separate the land from the water.
I add the coastline and different biomes: mountains, deserts, forests, etc.
Final border and texture for that antique feel. (Okay, so this step has nothing to do with Genesis.)
Then I draw national borders and label everything.
I would’ve loved to have found a font with an Eastern flair to match the reference image, but I’ve found that most faux Eastern fonts often aren’t very legible, especially at small sizes. My first rule of fantasy cartography is clarity. For that reason, I opted to go with a nice Roman font that matched the book’s interior design.
Finally, I make a few layer adjustments to make sure the map would print out clearly in the final book.
There you have it. A map that would’ve made my ten-year old self proud, except I doubt I could’ve used it to find another piece of the Triforce.
