Pepe Le Pew:
Zee Best of Zee Best

Not from me this time. Warner Bros. is offering its Warner Rewards members a chance to win its new Looney Tunes Super Stars: Pepe Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best collection, being promoted for Valentine’s Day.

Featuring 17 cartoons, this DVD has all the amorous skunk you could possibly want. All the cartoons have basically the same plot — cat gets white stripe on back, French skunk chases her — and they feel a little like date rape jokes these days, but it is Chuck Jones animation. Plus, the disc includes “Dog Pounded”, a Sylvester and Tweety piece with a Pepe cameo.

To enter, sign up or log in and visit the Warner Rewards giveaways page before February 15.

Jem and the Holograms:
Season Two

Jem and the Holograms: Season Two comes out on DVD on February 14. Thanks to Shout! Factory, I have a copy you can win before then!

In case you’re not familiar with the show, KC did a writeup of the Complete Series when it came out on DVD last year. The Season Two set includes 26 episodes on four DVDs plus a Video Jukebox special feature, so you can hear all of the band’s tunes easily.

To enter this contest for your chance to win, post a comment here with your favorite pop song from the 80s. Winners will be picked randomly from all entries on Monday, February 13.

(U.S. and Canada addresses only. Winners will be emailed to confirm email address. If email is not answered within 24 hours or a valid email address is not provided, a replacement winner will be selected. Your email won’t be used for any other purpose.)

Friends With Boys

Faith Erin Hicks continues her glimpses into the life of a freelancer by telling you how to pitch a graphic novel to a publisher. Or how she did it, anyway. As she says,

They’re tough to do, because you’re trying to convey a lot through the shortest and most succinct language possible, and you’re also trying to do it in a way that is 1) enthusiastic (“you really want to buy this comic, publisher!”) and 2) clear eyed and cool (“I believe in this project, but I am not acting like it is the second coming of Star Wars because that’s obnoxious and people can see through that hucksterism”).

She also shares her pitch and outline for Friends With Boys, due out later this month, pointing out “it shows I have a good idea of what kind of story I want to tell, and the publisher I’m pitching to can judge whether or not it’s the kind of story they want to publish.” In the comments, there’s also discussion about how to find an agent.

I so hope that all this supplementary material is released somehow. Just having it on the web isn’t enough (especially since I suspect that, once the book is out, the full reprint online will go away). I want a volume, even if it’s a self-published minicomic, with all these notes and commentary, to sit next to the book on my shelf.

In other example of valuable professional advice, Jesse Post reviews his work lettering and ballooning the excellent Johnny Hiro. He takes several examples from the book, following the reader’s eye flow through the work, both good and those where compromises had to be made.

If you take in the entire page and follow along naturally, one balloon to the next, you start to see how the balloons act as guides. They ask your eye to linger over artwork you might otherwise skip, back and forth across images, leaping over dead space and further enlivening the live space, words and pictures harmonious at last.

This is an important craft that not enough people pay attention to. It’s one of those “silent skills” that is most noticeable when it fails, while great work goes unremarked because of its achievement.

I owe the guys behind Princeless an apology. It’s a good read, a fresh take and an entertaining story, the kind of wonderfully surprising discovery it’s a joy to find among independent small-press comics.

After previewing the first issue, I reviewed issue #2 and issue #3, and I was critical of the series based on what I had hoped to see, not what it was. I had certain expectations, based on how the title was presented to me, and those weren’t met, but it wasn’t fair of me to be as harsh as I was. A new comic has a huge uphill battle, and I want to be clear that this is a title worth reading.

In this issue, Adrienne and her new friend Bedelia defeat their assailants and get everything in place to set off to rescue Adrienne’s sister Angelica. I love the way the two girls are drawn by M. Goodwin, with strength and gumption and humor. Take, for example, this closeup:

The two demonstrate that a young person can make a difference, can be responsible for their own choices, and can accomplish great things with the right plan, smarts, and determination.

There’s a Princeless collection coming in April, and I encourage you, if you haven’t tried the series yet, to check it out. There will be more stories to follow, continuing the adventures of Princess Adrienne, and I’m looking forward to all of them. Find out more in this interview with the writer Jeremy Whitley.

In this lengthy interview with Jimmy Gownley at PublishersWeekly.com, the author looks back at the history of his series Amelia Rules! From being self-published to being picked up by Simon & Schuster in 2008, his series has been running for over 10 years. It’s a wonderful overview of what used to be possible in the comic market, how much things have changed over the years, and how Gownley has adapted to the changing industry. The most recent Amelia Rules!, The Meaning of Life… and Other Stuff, was one of my Best Graphic Novels of 2011.

However, in the article, he also reveals that “The eighth book, Her Permanent Record, is the last Amelia book that Gownley plans for a while.” He’s instead thinking of putting out a how-to book that focuses more on “why to” create art.

In the latest Manga Out Loud podcast,

* Ed and I talk about Bakuman

* Erica briefly discusses the MangaNEXT convention

* and then Erica Friedman, Ed, and I discuss the questions of fan entitlement, education, and the future of companies in the industry.

We’re hoping for plenty of feedback, here, at MangaOutLoud.com, or on Twitter.

Thom Zahler offered a chance to buy his MegaCon Orlando print and get drawn in line with Mark and Abby, so that’s me and KC there on the left. (In green and purple. Together, we’re a supervillain.)

I’m thrilled to be part of the Love & Capes universe, since it’s one of my favorite comics going right now, never failing to make me smile. And since KC and I spent our tenth anniversary at the park that shall not be named, I couldn’t pass up a combination of both those fun things.

A new Love & Capes miniseries starts later this year, in case you wanted a jumping-on point. In the meantime, Thom will be appearing at MegaCon next weekend, where he will have copies of this print for sale as well as books and commission slots.

Genshiken Book 2

ANN is reporting that Kodansha will release the first book of Genshiken: Second Season in the U.S. on September 4. (There have been two volumes out so far in Japan.)

It took me a couple of tries to appreciate the fan-favorite series, about an anime/manga/cosplay/videogame club, before I got the appeal, but once you know the characters, it’s a lot of fun. The first series ran nine volumes (published by Del Rey), ending with graduation. To prepare for the sequel, Kodansha will also release an omnibus volume of the first three books on May 22.