Midnight at Meltdown- DC ReLaunch

This is an exciting time for the Comic world. DC's relaunching a new version of superheroes and there's been a lot of debate. To calm everyone's mind, the old version is still around. They haven't been deleted or burned in effigy. You can still enjoy them and pass it on to the younger generations. But for now, I think it's about time to do a revamp. Get some fresh perspectives, new ideas, new writers, take a chance on new artists. It's only going to help.


According to my twitter feed, people were headed out to their local comic book shops to support. And that's a good thing! There was a really big turnout at Meltdown with a few creator/artists stopping by. A few notables included Josh Fialkov, Kyle Higgins, and Scott Lobdell.

There's a lot to look forward to in the coming months. Personally I can't wait to read Batgirl by Gail Simone, Wonder Woman or even Catwoman (of course). Knowing Rob, he will get first issues of pretty much everything. I'm glad I'm not the only one who does the shopping.

SDCC 2011: Yummy Fur Collected

A couple years ago while diving through back issues bins at my local comic shop, I happened upon a full run of Yummy Fur by Chester Brown. I had read a few of the Ed the Happy Clown stories before (one of the serialized stories in Yummy Fur) and really enjoyed them, so finding a complete run priced at a dollar an issue was a no brainer. I read through the series over the next couple weeks and thought it was great. A while later, when I got into the binding hobby, Yummy Fur was one of the first books I wanted to have done. The book turned out well and it has since became one of my favorite binds.

 

One of the previous owners of these issues had Chester Brown sign many of them at the top of the first page. It's pretty cool knowing the books have some history to them and to think that they had actually passed through the creator's hands once before.

 

When I heard that Chester Brown was going to be at the San Diego Comic Con, I thought it would be a perfect chance to have him sign the book. So I tossed it into backpack and when I got to the con, I tracked down Mr. Brown at the Drawn & Quarterly booth. Here he is holding the book:

Instead just signing the blank end sheet, Chester decided to drawn up a new title page. He even found a fun way to personalize it to me.

I'm incredibly happy with the book! It's something I will cherish and keep in my collection for a long time. It's only the book I've had signed by a creator (the other being Frank Quitely on All-Star Superman) but after the great responses I've gotten, I can't wait to do it again!

Here's a link to the Drawn & Quarterly Blog where they posted a few photos my book. Very cool!

San Diego Comic Con 2011

Yes, Comic Con has ended. And only now do I do a recap. It was fun, exciting, and exhausting. With so many panels, screenings, artists, and parties (yes, geeks convene) it's hard to remember it all. Rob and I took some blurry pictures, to coincide with blurry memories.

Although Wednesday was preview night, they opened the flood gates to the masses on Thursday. The Exhibition hall was teeming with cosplayers. Some were very funny, like this dude, Magneto. I can't imagine anyone not wearing sneakers. It's a lot of standing and walking around, especially if your hotel is more than a few blocks away.

On Friday, the Lock and Key panel had the creators Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, along with the screenwriter, producer, actors, and director Mark Romanek of the TV pilot, talk about the process of converting the graphic novel to a TV show.

This followed a special screening of the pilot. From what I heard, it was really good. Will it ever become a series? Right now, no. But I'm still crossing my fingers.

So until then, I'll keep reading the trades. I just finished the third volume and I can't get enough of it. All I do is gasp when I turn the page. We even got the fourth volume at SDCC signed by Joe and Gabriel. Yes, we are on a first name basis with them. At least on this blog.


Later Friday night we attended the Tr!ckster event at the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center. They featured a gallery of original art based on Kurosawa films. Proceeds went to the Japanese Relief fund. Lots of talented artists contributed pieces, like this one inspired by the film Throne of Blood.
On Saturday we headed to a Comics Creator panel featuring Robert Kirkman, Brian K. Vaughn, Jonathan Ross, Frank Cho, Jonathan Hickman, and Fiona Staples. They talked about past projects and what they're working on now. Judging by the photo they don't seem excited but they are. Trust!

And yes, finally BKV is returning to comics. His next series is called Saga. We received a poster just for sitting in the first few rows. I got him and Fiona to sign it. Truth be told, it's already framed. He seems really committed to Saga, and hopes it continues for a long time.

I asked Robert Kirkman about the Walking Dead show and how the second season is panning out. He's all about the creator's voice and really encourages people wanting to break in, to keep working towards their goal.

Thanks Bob!



Now the following photos are in no particular order. But I have to say meeting the creators (writers and artists) is such a treat. You can see that they really appreciate their fans, especially when you approach them with your favorite book.


Like for instance, having Eric Powell sign my favorite Goon book, Chinatown. He made it out to me and did a quick sketch of Goon's ugly/cute mug. I was about to remind him that I was the girl who asked for a quick sketch of Danger Mouse last year, but who would remember that? Besides me.



Here's Bill Willingham (Fables) signing at a video game booth.

Artist Dave Gibbons was signing Watchmen.

Craig Thompson was signing at the Top Shelf booth. I'm sure he gets this a lot but Blankets made me cry. Like actual sobbing.

His new book comes out later this year.

Rob had the pleasure of meeting Jerry Robinson, the creator of the Joker, one of the most famous villains in comic book history.

Filmmakers are always around, too.
Edgar Wright was promoting Scott Pilgrim last year. Joss Whedon is always going from panel to panel. This year, Guillermo del Toro was at the Legendary Pictures booth for his next film, Pacific Rim.

Then we get this weird photo op with Billy Zane holding someone's baby. He's one of the few people wearing a suit at a con. Bold move, sir. Bold.

Cute kid, too.

Finally Sunday, we bought some merch and decided to head to the train station early. Well not early enough. There was a mega line and the train oversold seats, as usually for this time of year. Rob and I had a great weekend, met up with friends, and made some new ones. Also, I got compliments on my shirt. The only time I found Luke attractive was when he trained with Master Yoda at the swamp. Thanks, Her Universe.

Akiko Bound Set

A few years ago during my weekly trip to Meltdown Comics in Hollywood, I was looking through their spinner rack selection of 25 cent comics.  I would often grab a couple of issues from the rack, because, well.... they were only 25 cents!  I'm not sure why, possibly because I enjoy a good family friendly story or maybe just because it looked interesting, but I picked up a couple issues of Akiko.  With a huge backlog of comics to read, I didn't get around to these issues for quite a while.  When I eventually did read the comics I found them to be very entertaining, nothing earth shattering, but enough to leave me wanting more.

Over the next year, I managed to complete the entire series (helped mightily by winning an ebay auction of 40+ issues for 3 dollars shipped, SCORE!).  I split the 52 issue series into two volumes; 1-25 and 26-52, starting the second volume before a 6 issue arc.  I had them bound at the now defunct Library Binding Company, a bindery that was quite popular because of their low prices.  For no reason in particular, I went with an orange buckram and gold foiling color scheme.  I think it came out pretty well.

Library Binding's base price was 15 dollars for a book with a computer lettered spine, no head or tail lines/bands, and up to 2" thick.  I never really liked the way those no-frills books looked; just my personal taste.  So when I customized my bind to have a hand lettered spine, the books wound up costing about $40 shipped each.  At the time I was over the moon with the books, but in hind sight they pale in comparison to the quality of work I've found from other binderies.  There was some glue seepage that make a few page stick together and also slightly uneven trimming.  These weren't major problems and if my more recent binds weren't as great as they are, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought, but they are still problems nonetheless.  I've seen a lot of people happy with their Library Binding books, but personally I'm glad I found new binderies.

As for the content of the books, Akiko is a very funny all ages comic.  The stories jump back and forth between longer multi-issue arcs and shorter done-in-one issues.  But regardless of format, Mark Crilley (writer/artist) manages to keep all the different types of stories entertaining.  The art is also another strong point of the series.  The black and white (and grayscale) art starts out quite good, but continues to get better throughout the run.  That's one of the cool thing about reading a long series; watching the growth of its creator.  Crilley spent almost ten years making the series and you can tell how much he loved the book and how he would try to push himself to better his skills.  From reading the letters column (a great advantage to having bound the original issues), he would listen to all opinions, good and bad, and then try to improve the book with every subsequent arc.  I'll be honest, the letters columns were so informative that I think I might have enjoyed them more then the stories.  All in all, Akiko is a fun series that I would recommend and I'm glad I had it bound.

At the Movies

Summer of 2011 is shaping up to be a season of hits and misses.

With Captain America on the way, adaptations are here to stay. And who am I to complain? Sure I keep my expectations low and just enjoy the ride, but there's maybe one movie out right now that I actually liked. A lot. And then there's the other ones that tried and didn't deliver. High hopes, especially on known comicbook titles lead to big let downs. Blockbusters are graced with a bloated budget to accommodate all the special effects (3D included) and the marketing hoopla. Problem is that the studios rely too much on fanboy enthusiasm that they think we won't notice the importance of story and character development. They are wrong. I was enticed enough to buy a ticket for a midnight screening and now I have to deal with whatever's put on the dim lit screen. But if I may protest, TRY HARDER.

Comics A-Bound!

Like most comic readers, I've amassed quite a few books over the years. I'll dig through long boxes at cons or at my local stores, picking up anything I've heard was good or even something that just looks vaguely interesting. After picking up and reading a couple of issues of a series and discovering I really like it, I'll continue to get more issues whenever I can. But I find myself not reading it anymore until I've completed a long run of consecutive issues or have finished off the entire series. Though, even once I have all the issues, they will sit in a box, not readily available to flip through or to loan out to friends. It sucks to sing the praises of a series to someone, then drop a stack of single issues on their lap. So this has lead me to a hobby I've had for the last few years....

COMICBOOK BINDING!

I've had a number of hardcover volumes made since I started about three years ago (31 volumes to be exact). It's been fun mapping issue by issue continuity and tracking down stray floppies to complete the volumes. It's especially exciting to complete a series that hasn't been collected yet and, in some cases, might never be collected. Heck, even with a series where I could easily pick up in trades, it's still nice to have my own customized hardcovers. I'll add or leave out issues, include creator interviews, or design a table of contents to make the bound volume more personalized.

Unfortunately, I've had way too much stuff to read and not enough time in the day to read them. I have yet to go through the majority of my bound volumes... but I plan on changing that! As I go along I'll post a short review and breakdown the contents of the bind. Anyways, enough talk, time to crack open those hardcovers and get some reading done!

Soapbox time!

Here at Ginger Rabbit, we like to balance work and play. So the following post is somewhat related to comics. Last Saturday, we decided to "research" the beloved soapbox derby in downtown LA for a comic short I'm writing. We got to see participants get creative with their karts and wardrobe. The pop culture themes ranged from the past (Wayne's World) to the present (Angry Birds).


There was a huge turnout. Everyone got into cheering and jeering the racers. The most memorable moments were the soapbox crashes. Some karts tumbled, flipped over, or lost multiple parts along the way. Even Adam Carrolla took a dive. It was awesome.


The winner (when it comes down to it, are there losers in this field?) was the Jurassic Park themed kart, "Hold onto your butts". Congrats to them!


Thanks Red Bull for the caffeine and the material needed for my comic.

Business cards

Just received my new business cards! I ordered them through Moo cards and I'm really happy with how they came out. I got an order of 50 cards that came in a nice, sturdy case.

For the front of the cards, I just wanted to keep it simple. White font on a blue background. Why blue? Because I like it. I decided to include my facebook and twitter info mostly to give people other ways of connecting me. There are a lot of social networking sites out there, but I think it's important to have some kind of presence on a few of them. I don't tweet much, but I do check it at least once a day so if someone wanted to hit me up there, no problem!

On the backs of the cards I scanned panels from some old comics. I love reading old stuff, because they're so much fun, they have some great art, and honestly, they're a little ridiculous. Whenever I read a comic from the '50s, '60s, or '70s, I'm more inspired to write than when I read something like Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns. While those two are absolutely fantastic books, in my opinion, older comics are just as full of great and original ideas. It's just that unfortunately the writing style of comics prior to the '80s didn't really allow for as much fleshing out of concepts. Obviously some writers got to expand on their story lines, but for the most part old comics are filled with seeds of some truly amazing ideas. I can totally see why someone like Grant Morrison uses old comics as a source of inspiration for his stories.

Sorry for the tangent. Point is, I like old comics, so I put them on my business cards.

Now, I know it might seem a little early to be getting business cards, considering that I haven't even produced a single comic yet! But I think it's best to be as prepared and as professional as I can. I plan on talking to a lot of artists and writers at conventions over the next year and having a decent looking card could make a nice impression... and it's better than writing your info on a backing board.