Two 47 Ronin Graphic Novels Due to Movie

Coming this Christmas is an action-adventure fantasy movie called 47 Ronin, starring Keanu Reeves as a hero leading 47 “leaderless samurai” (“ronin”) to avenge their dead master in “a savage world of mythic beasts, shape-shifting witchcraft, and wondrous terrors”. It’s based on an historical Japanese tale, but with various liberties taken and a mystical overlay. (The release has been delayed almost a year for effects work and reshoots, which doesn’t bode well.) Here’s the trailer: Because it’s based on a […]

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DC Gets TV, Marvel Does Movies: iZombie Announced for Potential Series

I don’t think it’s arguable to say that Disney/Marvel’s superhero movies do better than Warner/DC’s. Marvel has the third biggest US movie of all time (based on box office) in The Avengers, and while DC’s Dark Knight trilogy also ranks highly on that list, they haven’t been able to make Superman an unqualified success or build a universe the way Marvel has with related films, each with multiple entries in their series (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America). Yet this year, […]

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Next Marvel Knights Motion Comic Wolverine Vs. Sabretooth

Following Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk, the next Marvel Knights animated (motion comic) DVD release will feature another Wolverine battle. Wolverine Vs. Sabretooth is due out January 14, 2014 from Shout! Factory. I don’t even remember hearing about this comic, but it seems that it’s written by Jeph Loeb (now out in Hollywood working on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and drawn by Simone Bianchi (Astonishing X-Men). It was published as Wolverine: Evolution, collecting Wolverine #50-55 from 2007. There’s a major spoiler […]

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Mastering Manga 2: Level Up With Mark Crilley

Mark Crilley, dubbed “YouTube’s most popular art instructor“, is following up last year’s successful Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley with another set of lessons on how to create manga-styled comics. Mastering Manga 2: Level Up With Mark Crilley provides models for drawing basic body parts, such as eyes and other facial features, hands and gestures, and feet proportions and perspective on head shots, front, side, and three-quarter, female and male, using geometrically based guidelines the same for the entire body […]

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Why Manga Doesn’t Get Licensed for English

The anonymous blogger at the official Kodansha Comics Tumblr has posted an incredibly informative article on why some manga titles don’t get licensed to be published in English. The reasons are their own, of course, but they’re logical and sensible, so I suspect other publishers think about the decision similarly in determining what’s likely to be successful here. Many of the reasons are obvious, such as avoiding series that are too long or too old, or those with subject matter […]

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Justice League: War First New 52 DCU Animated Movie

The next original DC universe animated movie will be Justice League: War, arriving as a Blu-ray combo pack (cover shown here), DVD, and on digital download on February 4, 2014. Amazon currently has the list price as $24.98, with the DVD version at $19.98. This is the first “new 52” story to be animated, telling the origin of the Justice League, formed in response to Darkseid’s invasion of Earth. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Shazam, and Cyborg band […]

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On the Ropes

I never read Kings in Disguise, the 1988 graphic novel about a Depression-era boy turned hobo in search of his father, an alcoholic who abandoned his family, although I knew it was much praised in its time. On the Ropes is the sequel, out 25 years later, but if my experience is anything to go by, you’ll get plenty from this story even without knowing the former. They’re both fine examples of literary graphic novels, long-form comics inspired by the […]

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Madison Square Tragedy: The Murder of Stanford White (A Treasury of XXth Century Murder)

Although Stanford White was murdered by a jealous husband over a hundred years ago (in 1906), the case Rick Geary portrays in his newest Treasury of XXth Century Murder, Madison Square Tragedy: The Murder of Stanford White, feels very modern. Rick Geary’s art is amazing in setting the stage in a booming New York City at the beginning of the 20th century, a growing metropolis struggling with conflicts among new money, established society, changing urban life, recent technologies, and burgeoning […]

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