firehose

Each week, Big Issues focuses on a newly released comic book of significance. This week it’s The Movement #12. Written by Gail Simone (Batgirl, Red Sonja) with art by Freddie Williams II (Brain Boy, Captain Atom) and Chris Sotomayor (Birds Of Prey, Cyclops), the series’ final issue makes a declarative statement about changing the current climate of superhero comics by introducing more diverse characters and applying a compassionate point of view.

Last month at C2E2, Gail Simone participated on the GeeksOut Gay Characters And Creators panel to talk about LGBTQ representation in comic books, a cause she has fought for in books like Birds Of Prey, Secret Six, Batgirl, Red Sonja, and The Movement. During the panel, Simone talked about how superhero comics have been regularly populated by straight white male characters since their conception, so when she has the chance to create new characters, she introduces people from ...

mumblepak:

aforementioned semen drinking comic

…wow

For the better part of the past year (and some change), Tumblr has beheld one of the most blissful art jams of the current millenium, a panel-for-panel recreation of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira manga starring the cast of The Simpsons appropriately dubbed, Bartkira. Inspired by Ryan Humphrey, organized by James Harvey and featuring the work of a sprawling assortment of artists from all over the web, the project has finally reached a print milestone. On May 1 at Portland, Oregon’s Floating World Comics, fans got a chance to take in 16 pages of the project’s original artwork in a special gallery, and also pick up a 96-page exhibition book collecting a selection of the project’s sequential pages. ComicsAlliance dropped by to see the epic of Bart-turned-Kaneda and Milhouse-turned-Tetsuo in print and on the wall. Neo Springfield may or may not have E.X.P.L.O.D.E.d.

Curated by Frans Boukas with design assistance from Matt Deans, the limited exhibition Bartkira collection contains the work of James Harvey, Danny Hynes, Marcel O’Leary, Michael Kim, Erica Henderson, Jacob Chabot, Cameron Stewart, Ben Ommundson, Brenton Barnes, Luke Novel, Richie Pope, Jon Huddleston, Jason Rainey, Cory Tran, Bodie Chewning, Alchemichael, Frans Boukas, Tyler Patrick Boss and Ben Jelter.

The gallery, on the other hand, includes illustrations by Wyatt Carroll, Jeremy Arambulo, Areil Vergez, Jaime Munoz, Alexandre Ghostthead, Rawn Gandy, Nick Sumida and Humphrey. It will be on display at Floating World through the end of May.

You can get a look at Bartkira in action below. With any luck, one day fans will be able to read a full 2,200 pages of Bartkira goodness.

Doraemon Meets ‘Akira’ In Disturbing 2020 Tokyo Olympics Animation

Some people watch Neil deGrasse Tyson‘s Cosmos as a science show. Other’s watch it more as a CGI-powered spectacular. Artist Andrew Stewart seems to enjoy it both ways, although his 5-page, black and white fan comic celebration of the FOX TV series definitely skews toward the latter, propelling the show’s host through some of the most enjoyable cosmic imagery this side of Jack Kirby’s adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Here’s how Stewart describes the comic on Tumblr:

So uh… I love the series Cosmos. I love Neil deGrasse Tyson. What better way then to make a short crappy comic about it. I used brushes I made then some made by kyletwebster and jigokuen!

Stewart is (too) modest online. If anything, he should consider making more. If not, somebody should consider looking into doing a proper Cosmos comic book tie-in along the lines of other science comics and graphic novels like The Stuff of Life. It doesn’t take an astrophysicist to see the potential there.

You can read Stewart’s full comic at his official Tumblr page.

Matt Chapman & Andy Suriano’s ‘Cosmic Scoundrels’ Is The Space Comic You Need

[Via Andrew Stewart]

Tommy Lee has replaced Jimmy Chamberlin as the drummer for The Smashing Pumpkins. According to a post on the Pumpkins’ website, the Mötley Crüe drummer will bring his “shockla-locka-boom” to “all nine songs of Monument To An Elegy,” one of the band’s two forthcoming LPs.

It’s unclear whether Lee will perform on that second record, or whether he’ll tour with the Pumpkins at any point in the future. Lee’s schedule would certainly seem to be clearing up soon: Mötley Crüe embarks on its farewell tour this July, with the band having signed a legally binding “cessation of touring” document earlier this year.