It’s your own comic, Hugh Jackman

Lately, quite a few celebrities have gotten involved with comics in some form: Rosario Dawson, Thomas Jane, Mr. T and Jenna Jameson, to name a few. Now Hugh Jackman, who filled the role of charming tough guy Wolverine in the X-Men films, is working on his own comic called “Nowhere Man.”

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=151295

“a Sci Fi odyssey set in a groundbreaking vision of the future in which mankind has traded privacy for safety.” Sounds topical. While the term “groundbreaking” can be thrown a little loosely sometimes, I admit the premise does sound intriguing. Comic and TV writer Marc Guggenheim (Amazing Spider-Man, Eli Stone) is going to help bring Jackman’s idea to life on the comic screen, which should help smooth out Jackman’s entry into comics a little bit.

Larsen on comic creators who’ve left us

Image Comics editor Erik Larsen talks about the recent passing of comic creators Dave Stevens, Steve Gerber and Mike Wieringo, and it’s a very good read. Check it out below:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=ofo&article=3021

2000AD online

Meant to post this a while back, but I guess I got busy! 

2000AD’s online archive is up and doing quite well, it seems.

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=146854 

This part really caught my eye:

Although the digital initiative was initially aimed at the international fans instead of those who reside in the UK, Demeter said that the online initiative to release each new weekly edition a week after the print edition was sold in shops in the UK has not affected sales of 2000AD progs at all. In fact, the publisher has seen an increase in the sales of the print edition.

Ha! As the first poster says, “RUN PROG DC_MARVEL_GETACLUE.” Obviously there’s no guarantee 2000AD’s model would work for Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited or whatever DC comes up with some day, but’s it’s still something to take note of.

New Wanted trailer

New Wanted trailer is up, and while my initial concerns are still there, the movie looks like it could be entertaining. Nice special effects, too.

Turning back the clock- For Better or For Worse

We take a break from comic books to look at long-running comic strip For Better or For Worse. For years, it has been one of the few comic strips whose characters have aged over time. Yet the strip’s creator, Lynn Johnston, plans to change all that by September. According to an article in Editor & Publisher, Johnston intends to wrap up the loose ends of all the strip’s characters before “freezing” them in time and returning them to their younger days. The strip will consist of reruns as well as brand-new material: Johnston even plans to tweak some of her older strips.

I have to admit, this is quite a surprise: after all, the strip is jettisoning one of its defining traits. Being unfamiliar with the earlier For Better or for Worse strips, I have no idea if this a good thing or not. On the bright side, it’ll certainly lighten Johnston’s workload, as she won’t have to make every strip from scratch anymore.

Special thanks to Blog at Newsarama’s article for bringing that to my attention.

Mark Millar, marketing machine- UPDATED AGAIN

Just as Amazing Spider-Man editor Steve Wacker did when heavily promoting Brand New Day, writer Mark Millar’s been making the news rounds lately. It’s not every day a writer gives not one, not two, but THREE separate interviews about the same project on the same day! Read below as Mark Millar talks about his upcoming storyline in the Wolverine series, “Old-Man Logan.”

• IGN

http://comics.ign.com/articles/847/847742p1.html

• Newsarama

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=144471

• Comic Book Resources

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=12820

As Frank Lee Delano pointed out on his blog, The IDOL-HEAD of DIABOLU (scroll down a bit), Millar certainly knows how to market himself.

UPDATE

Okay, make that four sites!

• Wizard Universe

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/007382784.cfm

EDIT: note how Mark Millar is slowly unveiling which of his other projects are tying into his story. Talk about clever marketing!

2007 in review, part 2

So, 2007. Interesting year. Not so great, in some ways, for the Big Two (Marvel Comics and DC Comics), who continued to suffer from late comics as they have the past few years. It wasn’t quite as bad as last year’s Civil War (Marvel Comics’ last big crossover) debacle, which forced Marvel to push back several of its titles so they wouldn’t prematurely reveal certain plot elements of the story. Still, it was a persistent concern throughout the year: for example, “Last Son,” the first six-part storyline of Geoff Johns and Richard Donner’s (yup, the guy who directed Superman: The Movie) debut as writers on the title, still isn’t complete. Marvel Comics’ big Spider-Man story, “One More Day,” also suffered from delays, even though the creators had finished pages as early as May.

It wasn’t all bad, though. DC had a winner in Green Lantern, whose “Sinestro Corps War” event surprised even DC’s higher ups with its success. It was a pretty good year for Marvel (not to my liking, but nevertheless), as its various events, including the death of Captain America, World War Hulk and Messiah Complex (the X-Men event that’ll soon be wrapping up) have kept sales strong and fans on their toes.

As usual, you can’t really point out particular trends with the many other comic companies, as they’re all doing their own thing. We saw Dark Horse celebrate Star Wars‘ 30th anniversary by printing various hardcovers of previously-released material, comics writer Mark Waid named editor in chief of Boom! Studios and much more.

2007 also saw a lot of crossing over with other mediums, with comics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Dark Tower and Heroes performing incredibly well.

My favorite comics of 2007? Green Lantern, The Spirit and The Incredible Change-Bots (a loving tribute/parody of The Transformers: highly recommended). There were several others I also enjoyed, but honestly? 2007 felt a bit lackluster. I like good stories in my comics, and unfortunately, the year was a bit underwhelming in that regard. Hopefully comics will pick up their game in 2008.

Extra

Rack Raids Presents: 2007 In Review (via Top 5 lists)

Holding off on Justice [League] – UPDATED

We interrupt “2007 in review” with this news: Variety has reported that the Justice League movie has been indefinitely shelved. Such a shame, as it had just gotten greenlit with director George Miller (Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) onboard. However, the movie is expected to get rolling in either late summer or early fall, so it’s nice to see the project hasn’t been completely shot down.

Let’s hope for the best, eh?

 UPDATE: more info on the project’s woes can be found here

Marvel

Before getting to part 2 of “2007 in review,” I just wanted to direct you guys over to Marvel Kids, Marvel Comics’ new site for younger readers. I think this is a very wise move: people have argued that fewer children read comics than they used to, which is a shame, since they used to be the bread and butter of the industry, so to speak. The web design is fantastic and the site is very easy to navigate, so kids should have no trouble browsing it. Marvel’s also put up brief synopses of their more popular characters’ origins, as well as many comics kids can read online before deciding whether they want to buy them. Not surprisingly, the comics are all from the Marvel Adventures line, which is specifically targeted at children.

The site also has an exclusive video, “Iron Man’s Adventure,” in which Iron Man and Spider-Man fight a giant robot in New York City. The animation is all in 3-D and looks fantastic: nice acting and dialogue, too. I think kids AND older viewers will enjoy it.

2007 in review, part 1

Year in Review articles are fun. I think it’s a great exercise to take a chunk of time and analyze it, see what worked and what didn’t, and ponder how next year will compare. Seems Comic Book Resources agrees with me, as the site’s posted a variety of articles about the past year.

• CBR reviews comic trends of 2007. Part 1 discusses how Marvel, DC and even other publishers have been focusing on crossovers lately and weighs the pros and cons. I think the last line encapsulates the year perfectly: “Geoff Johns has made everybody look really bad.“
• Part 2 covers several other trends, including late books, anthologies, omnibuses and archives, and the growing overlap between comics and other media (i.e. My Chemical Romance’s frontman Gerard Way writing the Umbrella Academy series).
• CBR’s staff picks the best of 2007. Best writers, artists, series, etc. Pretty diverse list, though certain comics, i.e. The Nightly News, get lots of love.
• Creators pick their favorite comics of 2007. Loved this list- I’d never even heard of Busiek’s pick! This list and CBR’s “Best of 2007″ are wonderful reminders that comic pros and reporters can be fans too.

CBR’s not the only one who’s commented on last year:

• Paul O’Brien looks back at the X-Men comics of 2007 at his site, The X-Axis. Paul’s been reviewing virtually every single X-Book on a weekly basis since 1999, and his commentary always entertains.
• And as I’ve posted previously, Dan Didio and Paul Levitz talked to Newsarama about the year as a whole for DC Comics. Hopefully Newsarama will have a similar conversation with Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada in the future.

NEXT: I’ll talk a little about comics in 2007 myself in Part 2.