I Interview Alex de Campi About the Ubiquitous Digital Valentine

For this week’s PW Comics Week, I interviewed Alex de Campi about her digital comic Valentine and the issues she’s had making it so widely available in so many different formats. Key excerpt: De Campi’s activities are driven by a unique understanding of the speed of digital. She knows her audience is asking, “Why wait?” As she sees it, “This isn’t that world any more. We want everything now, thank you, and in convenient digital form and not for some […]

Read more

Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy

Review by Johanna and KC Carlson The 25th Anniversary Trilogy edition of Back to the Future totally justifies the purchase of our Blu-ray player. The excellent picture quality (newly restored for this release) made me feel like I was watching it for the first time. As for special features, the set is so comprehensive it’s almost overkill. You have the movies on both Blu-ray and DVD. You have all these extras (some redundant, but extra points for being complete). You […]

Read more

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec: Pterror Over Paris and The Eiffel Tower Demon

I don’t read enough European comics. I like many of their visual styles, but I’ve found often that the package seems expensive for the amount of story you get, or worse, they’re written from and for a very male perspective. (The science fiction books, for example, tend to have lots of undressed busty robots.) When I saw The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec: Pterror Over Paris and The Eiffel Tower Demon at the Fantagraphics table at SPX this year, then, […]

Read more

Digital Manga Guild Launches; Free Fan Labor, Pay on Profits

As briefly mentioned earlier this summer, Digital Manga has launched the Digital Manga Guild, their bid to get fans to work for them for no money upfront. The plan, actually, is that everyone will work for free. Fans will translate scanned works, and everyone, including Digital Manga and the original Japanese property owner, gets paid based on sales. They’re also looking for editors/rewriters and letterers, same system. As posted: With the changing tide of the economy and the high cost […]

Read more

Animal Crackers

Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese was such an award-winning success that it’s no surprise that his earlier works would be brought back into print. Animal Crackers collects Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks and Loyola Chin and the San Peligran Order. I’m not a fan of Yang’s work that I’ve tried. I was uncomfortable seeing so strong a reliance on stereotypes in American Born Chinese, even though they were used for the purpose of saying “stereotyping is […]

Read more

Friends of Lulu Award Winners Announced, New Website, Organization Followup

This year’s Friends of Lulu awards were presented last night at the Long Beach Comic Con. According to an official source, 1164 people participated in the online voting. The winners are: Leah Adezio Award for Best Kid-Friendly Work: Diana Nock: The Intrepid Girlbot Best Female Character: Ramona Flowers: Scott Pilgrim, Bryan Lee O’Malley Kim Yale Award for Most Talented Newcomer: Kathryn Immonen, The Runaways Lulu of the Year: Kate Beaton Woman of Distinction Award: Lauren Sankovitch, editor, Marvel Comics Female […]

Read more

Butterflies, Flowers Volumes 3 and 4

I really want to support this series, because I very much want publishers to believe that there is a market for manga for adult women, not just girls, but its exaggerated sense of humor doesn’t quite match up with mine. Having experienced my own share of work discrimination in real life, I have a hard time finding it a laughing matter for Choko to be singled out for uncomfortable attention in the workplace. I don’t know the finer cultural distinctions, […]

Read more

Slush Pile: SLG: Sisters’ Luck, Shadoweyes, Captain Long Ears

I’m normally, as a comic reader, focused on story first, but I was surprised to find that these three SLG Publishing graphic novels impressed me more with their illustrations than their plots. All were review copies provided by the publisher. The Sisters’ Luck by Shari Chankhamma, $12.95 I was intrigued by the premise behind this graphic novel, that of twin sisters, one of whom steals good luck from others, another who brings bad luck, but it wasn’t handled the way […]

Read more
1 461 462 463 464 465 618