Mister Crimson Episode 16

Mister Crimson Episode 16
In which our hero makes a deal with the devil?
Read it here .:

Free Comics Monday: Myteries of Unexplored Worlds

Today I present two issues of Charlton Comics Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds with art by Steve Ditko.

From wikipedia:

Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1946 to 1986, having begun under a different name in 1944. It was based in Derby, Connecticut.

A division of Charlton Publications, which published magazines (most notably song-lyric magazines), puzzle books and, briefly, books (under the Monarch and Gold Star imprints), and had its own distribution company (Capital Distribution), Charlton Comics published a wide variety of genres including crime, science fiction, Western, horror, war, and romance comics, as well as funny animal, and superhero series. The company was known for its low-budget practices, often using unpublished material acquired from defunct companies and paying comics creators among the lowest rates in the industry. Charlton Comics were also the last of the American comics to raise their price from ten cents to 12 cents in mid 1962.

[ Download Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds 05 ]

More from Wikipedia:

By the 1980s, Charlton was in decline. The comic-book industry was in a sales slump, struggling to reinvent a profitable distribution and retail system. Charlton's licensed titles lapsed, its aging press was deteriorating towards uselessness, and the company did not have the resources to replace it. There was yet another attempt at new material, with a comic-book version of Charlton Bullseye serving as a new-talent showcase that actively solicited submissions by comic book fans, and an attempt at new Ditko-produced titles.

A number of 1970s-era titles were also reprinted under the Modern Comics imprint and sold in bagged sets in department stores (in much the same way Gold Key Comics were published under the Whitman Comics branding around the same time). In 1985, a final attempt at a revival was spearheaded by new editor T.C. Ford with a direct-market Charlton Bullseye Special. But in 1986, Charlton Comics went out of business; Charlton Publications followed suit in 1991, and its building and press were demolished in 1999.

[ Download Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds 09 ]

Enjoy!

Are Current Comics Bland?

This week, over at Comic Book Resources, Steven Grant summed up the comics year 2008 with this one sentence:

2008 was one dreary year for comics.

from the article...

...Homogenized is the other word of the year: "mainstream" comics – superhero comics – are at their blandest and most unadventurous since 1977, insular worms eating their own universal tails. (I won't bother explaining the fatal problem of that cherished insularity, since Abhay Khosla already does a good job of it here.) ...

By and large I agree with him on the current state of comics from the big two. However, What I think Grant is mainly talking about what he perceives as a slump in creativity and innovation among the Big two. This makes me wonder: Has this persumed dreariness affected sales?

Was Secret Invasion that much more interesting than Planet Hulk? Hard to say.

Let's see how it compares saleswise:

Going by October 2008 sales

Secret Invasion 7 sold 154,656 copies.

World War Hulk 5 sold 145,769 copies.

Not bad, looks like Secret Invasion is doing pretty well comparatively all things considered. Still, you would think that a mini-series featuring the ENTIRE Marvel universe, that was promoted for over a year and has one of Marvels top writers on it would be doing a little better than 10k copies over one that sort of sprung out of nowhere written by Greg Pak. (Nothing against Pak, he's just not as well known as Bendis.)

Is Trinity more interesting than 52? Hard to tell. It doesn't seem to be generating the same fire on the message boards. How do the sales compare?

Again, using October 2008 sales we see this...

Title	issue #	Sold
Trinity	18	49,168
Trinity	19	48,545
Trinity	20	47,921
Trinity	21	47,246

Here's how 52 was doing around the same time 2 years ago:

Title	issue #	Sold
52	22	108,600
52	23	107,900
52	24	107,400
52	25	106,300

Two things to note here: 52 only cost $2.50 a copy versus Trinity that costs $2.99 a copy. A 20% increase (which sort of begs the question, have production costs gone up 20%?)

The second thing to take not of is that by and large, 52 followed the adventures of a bunch of B and C list comic characters (The Question, Elongated Man, Black Adam, etc...) Trinity features Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Given that these are A list characters, Trinity should be doing better, shouldn't it?

Let's move on to Final Crisis.

The Big Question? How will it end? Will it really shake up DC's status quo?

The Big Answer: Who Cares?

Final Crisis 4 sold 115,651 copies

Infinite Crisis 4 sold 182,600 copies

That's a pretty big difference considering that DC has been promoting Final Crisis for about 2 years now. Shouldn't a huge event comic written by THE GRANT MORRISON! be doing better than one written by Geoff Johns? Was it the art by George Perez that increased sales? His name sure didn't help Waid's Brave and the Bold get huge sales.

So outside of surprise hits like Rage of the Red Lanterns (which seems to have made good use of the buzz from the Sinestro Wars), it looks like the creative ennui IS starting to impact event comic sales.

What do you think?

Are you bored with the current comics from DC and Marvel?

Pierre Speaks: Heavy Metal 2000 pt 3

Although there were many problems while working on Heavy Metal 2000, there were some good stuff too.

The best part of working on that show, was to get the chance to meet Kevin Eastman and Julie Strain.

Lets start with Julie.

Not only was she gorgeous.... but she was very nice.... and REALLY sweet. It was disarming to see how sweet she actually was in person.

And Kevin was a great guy. Very nice and very cool guy.

Heck he was nice enough to let me make copies of pages in progress of the Heavy Metal 2000 comic adaptation.

Yes the movie was an adaptation of the Melting Pot comic to begin with.... but they still made a comic adaptation of the movie. Heck in the HM comic adaptation (see below) you will see some stuff that was in early drafts of the script, but that was changed/taken out in later version of the script.

Although I AM a fool.

I was pressed for time and could not make copies of everything.

So I simply made copies of the black and white artwork..... but in retrospect..... I should have made copies of his notes and his rough sketches/thumbnails that he made for the comic.

But what is done is done.

Also both Kevin and Julie were very casual, very simple (simple in the sense of humble and unpretentious) people despite everything.

Meeting them.... although brief.... was a great experience.

If you get the chance to meet them in person at a CON or any other occasion..... you should jump at the chance and go meet them.

You will be richer for it that is for certain.

So what next......

Fantomette.

Until next time. ;)

Mister Crimson: Episode 15

Mister Crimson: Episode 15
In which Mister Crimson meets The Mayor

Read it here! .:

Free Comics Monday: Planet Comics

Today I present two issues of Fiction House series Planet Comics.

From wikipedia:

Planet Comics was a science fiction comic-book title produced by Fiction House and issued from Jan. 1940 (issue 1) to 1953 (issue 73). Like many of Fiction House's early comics titles, Planet Comics was a spinoff of a pulp magazine, in this case Planet Stories, which featured space operatic tales of muscular, heroic space adventurers who were quick with their ray pistols and always running into gorgeous females who needed rescue from bug-eyed space aliens or fiendish interstellar bad guys.

[ Download Planet Comics 44 ]

More from Wikipedia:

As a comic book, Planet Comics was the foremost purveyor of good girl art in the comics, and is considered highly collectible by modern fans of comics' Golden Age. Each page of each story featured at least one large image of a very lovely female, attired in very little in the way of costume, and in particular displaying long, bare legs.

However, as with many other Fiction House comics, a number of the series developed by Planet Comics upped the ante by providing female heroines who handily defeated the space aliens and interplanetary bad guys, while needing no or little assistance from males. Cynics might have noted that this proto-feminist strategy in effect simply multiplied the number of lovely girls shown per panel, and insured that each and every panel featured at least one smashing spacegirl. Fiction House also employed a number of female artists to work on such tales, particularly Lily Renée, Marcia Snyder, Ruth Atkinson and Fran Hopper, whose art for "Mysta of the Moon" was often stunning.

[ Download Planet Comics 45 ]

Enjoy!

PCDW: Zealous about comics once again

Note: Today's PCDW post was written by FBU writer Caine:

MySpace incorporated into major comicbook event: "Spawnspace"

Image Comics and MySpace have teamed up to release Todd McFarlane and Whilce Portacio's SPAWN relaunch as the second issue sells out at a distribution-level!


“Todd McFarlane Productions is excited to be partnering with Myspace Comics to bring the fans Spawn #185," McFarlane said. "Myspace Comics is the wave of the new generation. Many fans have turned to this form of modern communication. I hope you enjoy looking at a medium that is challenging how things have been traditionally done.”

At first glance this may seem like not such a big deal. I mean most everyone reading this will know about Myspace, and the comic book Spawn. Myspace comics was launched some time ago and seems to have established a following. Spawn is a popular comic book character launched under the Image comics banner in 1992 with the companies first wave of titles that has crossed into nearly all mediums: comics, cartoons, a movie, anime, and has established an abundance of spin offs such as Angela, Curse of the Spawn, Sam & Twitch to achieve a level of success that few independent comic books ever see.

Spawn #185 however is a complete relaunch aimed at invigorating the franchise for a new era. A relaunch produced by two very prominent names in the industry; Todd McFarlane and Wilce Portacio, both of whom are creators who don't necessarily need myspace to get the word out concerning their new comic. A mere mention of a new Spawn between the two creators at the end of a panel discussion at a comic-con was enough for plenty of buzz on the blogosphere.

Todd McFarlane and Wilce Portacio have chosen to use Myspace. Coming from these two, that's a powerful statement. One that reminds me of my glory days of paper comics...

-Image News

PCDW Points: 50,000

Wired [gadgets] proclaims comics are finally being done right on the iPhone: "COMIC ZEAL"

ComicZeal is another application for reading comic books on the iPhone and, despite being a little rough around the edges gets things pretty much right. Back in August we took a look at two other comic readers for the iPhone but they both failed on one essential point: They split the pages into individual frames, leaving the reader unable to enjoy more complex, dramatic page designs.

Comic Zeal lets you read whole pages in the same way as Mobile Safari lets you read whole web pages: You just pinch to zoom in. And although the iPhone's screen is a little small for the medium, reading comics with Comic Zeal works surprisingly well.

Comic Zeal comes with an application that allows the user to upload their own comics! Granted, right now it seems a bit complicated for the average user and may not be something you want to bother with at this time but the app bears mentioning anyway.

-Wired

PCDW Points: 15,000

...if the iPhone is to your liking but for the screen size than this is for you:

Small Screen Woes:The Samsung P4 and the Foldable Screen

We knew that foldable screens were in the future of tech, but I didn’t expect it this soon. My jaw dropped when I saw this demo of Samsung’s latest OLED screen fold up on itself. The video demo is of poor quality, but it looks like it’s a very vibrant screen and video continues to play as it folds.

Targeted to mobile phones, it’s a natural assumption that this will be seen sometime in an upcoming Samsung MP3 player. We know the P3 is right around the corner but perhaps this technology will be ready for the P4. But additionally, Samsung’s tech could find itself to other brands, since many of them rely on Samsung for displays. The iriver clix 2 was the first to use their cutting edge AMOLED screen before anyone else. This opens up exciting new possibilities of portable form factors- I hope to check this out first hand at CES this January. Stay tuned.

-anythingbutipod.com

PCDW Points: 10,000

and there is also:

Gigabyte’s little M528 internet notelet joins n810, S6

"I liked the Nokia n810 when I saw it at last year’s CES, and now there’s a little more competition in the mid-size internet device area as Gigabyte enters the stage with the M528. Bigger than a full-touchscreen mobile phone but smaller than a netbook, these devices comprise a questionable subgenus of the compact computing market. The question is, does this device do anything my G1, or say a Touch Pro or Tilt doesn’t?

Is there a value to the extra diagonal inch of screen, or are they attempting to fill a demand that doesn’t exist? Well, with 800MHz Atom processors in them, they’re certainly more powerful than other pocketable items, but until I have one in my hands I can’t decide."

-crunchgear.com

PCDW Points: 25,000

SALE @marvel.com

If you're a Marvel fan, as I know Jim and a lot of you are, this may interest you:

• Read 5,000 issues, including the first 100 issues of Spider-Man!
• Access exclusive comics not available in stores.
• Enjoy thousands of comics featuring Iron Man, Hulk, the X-Men and many other Marvel characters!

Me? I'm a diehard DC fan so this only manages to rub it in that DC has yet to put together a digital delivery system for its legion of fans. :(

PCDW Points: 5,000

Do you Twitter?Anything and everything associated with digital comic books have been mentioned and even tried on twitter.com. Twitter Comics Twitter Fiction Twitter RPG and more have all been pumped through twitter.com's api. Marvel comics are no exception:

Flash forward a year and a half and we now have a dedicated Marvel Twitter feed (run by myself and a few minions), to spread news and info, as well as converse with the fans. Our "follower" count (those who subscribe to our feed) grows by leaps and bounds every day and the number of Marvel creators, staffers and associates is nearing 100.

And that last part is what really made me want to write this story, spread the word and get to know your pals at Marvel a little better. Who's on Twitter? Check it:

Marvel writers on Twitter include (but are not limited to) Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Duane Swierczynski, Andy Diggle, Jason Aaron, Ivan Brandon, Rick Remender, Matt Fraction, Warren Ellis, Brian Reed, Jim McCann, C.B. Cebulski, Brian Keene, Simon Spurrier, Jonathan Hickman and Paul Cornell.

-marvel.com

Now you wn't find any actual comic books on the marvel twitter stream but following some of the most active and outspoken marvel creators to date can be almost as fun, and with amazing apps like those above who know what could happen...

PCDW Points: 5,000 [ because this is bound to lead to the death of more paper]

Have a great holiday weekend!

- Caine