Rocket Bomber - comics

[written 22 May 2014, for folks who find this at a later date]

Webcomics Roulette! Today’s target (chosen at random from a very long list) is…

Megan Kearney’s Beauty and The Beast
URL: http://www.batb.thecomicseries.com/
Writer & Artist: (not surprisingly) Megan Kearney

From the Site: [about page: http://www.batb.thecomicseries.com/about/]
“The story of Beauty and The Beast first appeared under this name in 1740, and was written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot Gallon de Villeneuve, a French noblewoman. Villeneuve based her lengthy narrative on a number of other fairy tales and myths, reaching all the way back ancient Greece, and likely much earlier.” + lots more on the site

About the Author:
“Raised with a healthy love of books and storytelling, and an unhealthy love of comics and cartoons, Megan’s twin passions led her to earn her BA in visual arts, with an English minor, from the University of Windsor (during which time she also self-published her first comic) and then to Sheridan College, where she earned her BAA Honours in Animation, and produced her fairy-tale inspired short film, Once Upon a Winter Wood.” + more on the site

Tags: New Classic, old classics, not-so-Grimm
Format: multi-panel full page comic, “graphic novel style”, black & white
Vintage: first comic dated 1 September 2012
Current? – Yes. Most recent comic was 20 May.
Update Frequency: Tuesdays and Fridays
RSS Feed? – Yes. There’s also a Tumblr.
Archives: looks like …223 pages
Monetized? – Free-to-you, and ad-free as well, but yes – supported by a web store and Patreon

“Where Do I Start?” – For a fairy tale, there’s no better place than the beginning: Once Upon A Time…

Quick Take:

It looks like (from what we’ve seen so far) that Kearney is going for a classic Shakespearean Five Act Play — but the breakdown of ‘Acts’ into scenes (or chapters) and how ‘scenes’ play out in comic pages still leaves a lot of flexibility on how the story unfolds. (plus, you know, it’s not done yet – so I may be reading into things.)

“Husbands are easy to find! A good plowhorse is a whole other story!”

The sisters are named Beauty, Virtue, and Temperance — which means we’re already well outside the city limits of Disneyland, as well as providing (in context! show don’t tell!) a damn good reason why our heroine is named ‘Beauty’ to begin with.

“I’ve incurred a debt that cannot be forgiven. In seven days I must offer my life…”

Already we can see that this story is going to unfold much differently, even for those of us familiar with both dizneyfied fairytalez and the acting prowess of Ron Perlman. The Grimm scholars among us will already be lost, because Beauty v. Beast is a tale *outside* the ‘canon’, never collected by Los Dos Bros Grimm.

“…A Rose in Winter …You know not what it cost me.”

Characters are already questioning the coming narrative. The setting — to start, a single home in the unnamed woods — is made real by the common details and trivial actions of everyday life. The plain bricks of the hearth and the plain boards of the common table speak volumes about what this story is, and where it came from.

“A promise made—even to a monster—is a promise kept.”

And character interaction, and motivation, is more important than the plot we are all overly-familiar with.

“We can’t let him go back there.”

So, to give this webcomic a thumbs-up or thumbs-down is immaterial: Here’s a damn fine version of a once-familiar story, and after reading the first chapter you’ll either be captivated, or not. I myself am holding my breath that this adaptation is not only concluded, but that eventually we’ll be able to own a book version of it.

Nuts&Bolts: nav buttons, an archive, the basics — runs on ComicFury
Bells&Whistles: strip-by-strip comment system, + there’s a sparsely-populated forum (it’s a nice add-on, tho)
What’s that URL again? – www.batb.thecomicseries.com

* I won’t upload art, images, or screencaps unless I see explicit permission given (Creative Commons or similar) so you’ll have to make do with links for many of the quick webcomic reviews – but I trust you remember what the mouse button is for. —M.

[written 20 May 2014, for folks who find this at a later date]

Webcomics Roulette! Today’s target (chosen at random from a very long list) is…

NPC: Non-Player Character
URL: www.npccomic.com
Writer & Artist: Mary Varn

From the Site: [about page: http://www.npccomic.com/about/]
“Welcome to Non-Player Character! NPC is a comic that revolves around the gaming lives of Lisa and her two blue cats Chloe and Bink. It’s part situational comedy, part geeky goodness, and a lot of bizarre feline fantasy.”

About the Author:
“I’m a freelance animator in New York City. I started NPC (Non-Player Character) in Feb 2009 when I realized I was playing too much World of Warcraft and wanted a creative outlet between freelance jobs. I don’t make a living off the comic, but it supplements my freelance income and makes me very happy.” + more on the site

Tags: gamers, geeks/nerds/fans, anthropomorphic cats, slice-of-life, New York
Format: 3-4 panel comic, “classic newspaper style”, color
Vintage: first comic dated 19 February 2009
Current? – Yes. Most recent comic was 21 May (this morning).
Update Frequency: Monday-Wednesday-Friday
RSS Feed? – Yes. (There’s also a Tumblr.)
Archives: looks like …695 strips
Alt-text? – Yes! don’t forget to mouseover for an extra punchline.
Monetized? – Free-to-you, but yes – supported by ads, web store for merch, and Patreon

“Where Do I Start?” – somewhere in the middle

Quick Take:

For me, NPC is more of a grinner, able to generate smiles and the occasional chuckle, and a lot of the appeal operates more on a “I know that sitch” level [see: Subway Reads, Stuff You May Have Forgotten to Clean, 3 Signs You Spend Too Much Time on Twitter] than on gags, pranks, and wild goings on — talking cats notwithstanding. If I were more of a gamer (or a cat owner) then I’m sure more of the jokes would hit home for me.

Running through the archives was a pleasant way to spend an evening (hey, I got the Hearthstone jokes!) and the balance of gamer-life with cat shenanigans keeps either from getting too stale. Overall, I give it a thumbs-up; it’s worth your time to try.

Nuts&Bolts: Archives, blog, clearly labeled nav buttons — running ComicPress for WordPress so you’ve seen this layout before.
Bells&Whistles: ‘random comic’ button, chapter-based archives, strip-by-strip comment system, strip transcipts, active social media presence
What’s that URL again? – www.npccomic.com

* I won’t upload art, images, or screencaps unless I see explicit permission given (Creative Commons or similar) so you’ll have to make do with links for many of the quick reviews – but I trust you remember what the mouse button is for. —M.

So let’s start with the links, shall we?

Hana Doki Kira, a shojo comic and illustration anthology Kickstarter project
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1191994790/hana-doki-kira/

From their pitch:
“An original art anthology in homage to Shōjo, showcasing a diverse group of over twenty artists!

“Hana Doki Kira is a collection of comics and drawings from a fantastic group of artists all inspired by Shōjo – a sub-genre of comics that for many of us were among the first illustrated stories we fell in love with. We asked over twenty artists with diverse skills and styles to consider what Shōjo personally means to them, and to create art based on their interpretations.”

##

Hana Doki Kira will be a 120 page ‘limited edition’ book (another way to say, ‘small print run’), “filled to the brim with lovely illustrations and comics from our participating artists. Our goal is to print the book and compensate our contributing artists for their hard work!”

also: “107 pages of illustrations and comics!”
with 23 artists, that’s 4 pages each?

Obviously some submissions might be longer, and of course advertising “illustrations” as part of the work means we’ll be getting some splash-page-type single page contributions, leaving more room for the rest. And of course a decent little story could be packed into just 8 or 12 pages, but I still feel that this is going to be much more of a sampler: Heavy on the Art Book, rather light on “shojo” comics.

I’m being prejudicial, and also being unfair. But I am still skeptical.

I personally am not backing the project.

With all that said,

I don’t think my bias should stop you (or anyone else) from backing this particular project:

• if you feel like any effort along these lines should be supported, just to help these particular artists a bit and perhaps encourage others to experiment with print projects.
• if you think $5 isn’t that bad price a for a PDF copy of a book like this.
• if you are much more optimistic about the contents than I am.
• if you are interested in seeing this American/Tumblr take on Shōjo (of course there is a tumblr).
• if you just want to pile on:

The project is 90% funded with 3 weeks to go, so it looks like it should fund anyway.

I’m just being old and crotchety — but don’t let me and my grumpy-blogger act get in the way: Please visit the links, judge for yourself, and see if this is a project you’d like to get behind. I certainly support the idea of “roll your own”, minis, zines, and “authors doing it for themselves” comics in theory, but this project didn’t grab me. Your mileage may vary.

I don’t usually shill for my store…
…not least, because the corporate overlords and I don’t always see eye-to-eye…

And also,

I mean we do book signings all the time. All the damn time. I didn’t blog when we had Stephen King. I didn’t blog when we hosted (then Senator) Hillary Clinton. We’ve hosted Khaled Hosseini. Gregg Allman. John Smoltz. Steve Harvey. Jen Lancaster. Laurell K. Hamilton. Kathryn Stockett. Emily Giffin. Stuart Woods. Daniel Silva. ok so now I’m boring you,

How about book signings for The Oatmeal, The Blogess, Cake Wrecks, and Hungry Girl?

[now you’re paying attention? see, this is why I don’t blog these things…]

However,

Tomorrow in the store we’ll be hosting my congressman and civil rights legend John Lewis who will be signing his new book — it was released this past Tuesday — and while that might be reason enough

— this gets a mention on my blog, because John Lewis’s new book is a graphic novel illustrated by Nate Powell (Any Empire, 2009 Eisner Award Winner Swallow Me Whole – both also from Top Shelf)

##

From the publisher:

[blockquote]
“Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper’s farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president.

“Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations, Lewis presents March, a graphic novel trilogy, in collaboration with co-writer Andrew Aydin and New York Times best-selling artist Nate Powell (winner of the Eisner Award and LA Times Book Prize finalist for Swallow Me Whole).

“March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis’ personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement.

“Book One spans John Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.”
[/blockquote]

relevant press:

SDCC: Rep. John Lewis’s MARCH: Book One : Pam Auditore, ComicsBeat.com, 16 August 2013 — the coverage at The Beat includes two YouTube clips that I am Shamelessly attributing to them, before stealing them:

Top Shelf’s Comic-Con sparks media frenzy and sell-out success! : Top Shelf’s website http://www.topshelfcomix.com/news/, article dated 2 August 2013

More Shamelessly Attributed (and stolen) video! [wait 30 seconds for the ad…]

[even more media clips can be found in the Top Shelf article]

John Lewis on the Colbert Report from Tuesday, 13 August:

[part two with Colbert here, Congressman Lewis was also a guest last year, 4 June 2012; plus additional coverage of the Colbert appearances at Top Shelf]

SDCC: Congressman John Lewis Debuts “March” at Comic-Con : Corey Blake, Comic Book Resources, 12 August 2013

More Video! (from the source cited above!)

Congressman Lewis, co-writer Andrew Aydin, and artist Nate Powell will be signing at the Barnes & Noble in Buckhead, Atlanta, on 17 August starting at 1pm.

If you can’t make it in for the event, a limited number of signed copies should be available after the event — no guarantees though: copies are reserved for attendees first, and availability also depends on how long Congressman Lewis can stay to sign stock. Call the store after 4pm EDT to inquire about availability and to also arrange for payment and shipping (we can take your information and credit card payments over the phone).

And I’d also like to point out publisher Top Shelf has limited, signed and numbered hardcovers available to order direct from their site (we’ve only the paperbacks in stock at the bookstore) so that may be an even better option for some (or most) collectors.

March, Book 1 is also available as an ebook, for those who must. For your online shopping convenience, cut-and-paste the ISBNs below:

paperback 9781603093002
digital 9781603093026, ASIN B00CTBU3NC

Once again, while looking at the New York Times comic chart, I’m struck by their choice of language.

If I didn’t know any better, if I were an average reader with an average [non-existent] knowledge of sequential art employed in long-form storytelling, I might see a “Graphic Books” Chart tucked in at the end of other bestseller lists and assume that Graphic meant something else.

Like gory. or violent.

English is a marvellously flexible language, and new words get coined all the time, and old words are dusted off and forced to pull double (and triple) duty.

Take ‘novel’. It used to mean ‘new’. It was applied to a new form of literature, several centuries back, but now very few of us think of [or know about] this double meaning of the word ‘novel’ when we talk about books, even while the meaning of ‘novel’ as new is still current and in currency. In fact, it’s not so far out of the pale to imagine a reviewer discussing a novel novel, though most would balk at that construction.

‘Comic’ used to mean ‘funny’ – and still means funny when we talk of the people who engage in funny as a profession, especially those determined to do so in live performance venues. But for most of a century, ‘comic’ has also been applied to the funny-pages, a shorthand for a whole class of graphic arts that once started with ‘comic strips’ but now encompasses a Whole World of Art, some of it dark, some of it ‘graphic’ in the splattery-gory-sense-of-the-word-graphic; some of it dramatic and weepy; some of it experimental and edgy and expanding the form; and occasionally some of it also quite funny.

The fact that ‘comic’ once only referred to funny, or it’s continued utility in that role shouldn’t automatically preclude it’s new use-and-meaning as a shorthand for sequential art. Just as a ‘novel’ is hardly new these days but is the accepted term for a lengthy work of fiction, ‘comic’ should be good enough as the accepted term for a lengthy work that combines integrated pictures and words in the service of a narrative.

##

Graph as a Greek-derived English word-root is slippery, but almost always comes back to the verb ‘to write’. We can gerund that verb to a noun: “writing” — which is the meaning employed in things like Telegraphs, Photographs, and Spirographs (which are more properly known in mathematics as epicycloids).

Over time, the act of writing and it’s descriptive qualities espoused a new meaning for graph — anything that adequately described something might then be called a ‘graph’ – from pie charts and tables to epigraphs, graphemes, and eventually, the graphic arts.

yes, all this has to do with ‘writing’, in as much as we are still putting marks down to represent ideas, but the meaning of ‘graphic’ doesn’t gain from it’s long history, and only takes us farther away from the unique artistic forms developed in the 19th and 20th centuries.

And ‘graphic’ as an adjective has also picked up the meaning of ‘vividly and plainly shown’ — which is a complement, until one begins to talk about graphic sex and graphic violence. Indeed, given how quickly most of us resort to thoughts of sex and violence, most casual references to the term ‘graphic’ will never be considered outside of that sordid application.

So when I see a bestseller list of Graphic Books on the New York Times website, comics are the furthest thing from my mind.

Oh, I know what the Times means; and I get that they would desperately love to have been the ones to coin the term that defines a whole medium of human expression [who wouldn’t?] but “Graphic Books” they ain’t.

“Graphic Books” conjures up images of noir & splatter & loose women and looser men and No Details Left Out — and, honestly, I’m up for that — but I’m not sure what that has to do with comics. And if one cared to scratch even a millimetre into the etymology of ‘graph’ calling something a Graphic Book is like saying it’s a ‘written book’ and all books are written down, no? might as well call them book books, or recorded stories. “Graphic” means nothing, or at least nothing special in this context.

Yes, I know, I’m nitpicking and cherry-picking when it comes to definitions of Comics — and I’ll concede that “Graphic books” is a neologism adapted from “Graphic novels” — and I appreciate the time and effort the Times invests in tracking comics, which are a growing but still very small percentage of publishing overall.

I just personally dislike that label, ‘graphic’ books. In either case, we’re re-purposing an old term for a new form, and if it is impossible to use Eisner’s term, Sequential Art, then my preference would be to call the whole mess Comics.

So, DC: I’d like to ask –

how much did you recently spend on plastic rings as opposed to, oh, say, the now-past 5-year marketing budget for now-defunct [alas] critically-acclaimed manga publisher CMX?

No, honestly: how much did you spend on trinkets—ephemeral souvenirs—and how much did you dedicate to the hard-working localizers who were slowly building a critical acclaim you didn’t even deign to recognize? CMX was too good for you; you employed staff that handily exceeded the goals set for it — ‘you’ (via your agents) licensed titles so good that fans drooled, and yet even with that beach-head and head-start, you failed them in your execution. And You Did This For Five Years.

Dude.

It was free money. Just sitting there. We can’t hand you a better deal. DC, you bungled it.

If I had the money, I’d buy up everything and everyone involved with CMX and prove to you just how badly you botched this. Dear DC: Is the focus on summer tent-pole movies [not that you have one] and easily-licensed third-party crap, really more important than quality comics?

Oh, I already know the answer – I just wanted to get the uncaring, corporate, anti-fan bastards on record, saying the actual product counts for crap and the only thing that matters is making money on the hard work of artists. Dear DC: fuck you.

##

I’d like to start by mentioning Free Comic Book Day is a fabulous thing, and at least in concept is genius — actual implementation varies from year to year but it’s a great event that has my full support.

##

That said:

I’m making good on a previous threat

It won’t take much. Every blogger just needs to include a blurb for the CBLDF in any post reporting on the Free Comic Book Day. I’m hoping we can even get some cool graphics going (soviet-era-style propoganda posters, ironic or otherwise, would be great) so maybe it’d end up as little more than posting a button & a link at the bottom of any Free Comic Book Day report. (On top of whatever other promotion my fellow bloggers feel like giving this initiative)

I didn’t wait until May to make another donation to the CBLDF; they already have another hundred of my hard earned dollars. But I’ll be back in April to remind everyone of this drive and with a special challenge:

DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, Tokyopop, Viz; Random House, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster: I’m an unknown blogger with $100 — but I’ve put that c-note where my values lie. Can you match me? Just $100, I’m not asking for more. $100 to help protect your retailer partners, your customers, and yourselves. $100 out of your massive PR budgets to show even a token acknowlegement to the concerns of your fans, and to promote both free speech and the future of the comics industry.

You can donate $100 to the CBLDF in my name, or in Christopher Handley’s name, or under your own aegis; and I hope you donate more but $100 is the challenge. Can you match my commitment? And if you can’t, I wish you’d tell us why.

I’d like to challenge every fan and blogger to donate today, dammit to the CBLDF. “Free Comics” means more than just a once yearly industry promotion. “Free Comics” is not a corporate sponsored promotion. “Free Comics” shouldn’t be a gimmick or slogan or me-first-grab-fest.

Free Speech and Free Comics for All

I put my money where my mouth is: I myself donated an additional $100 to the CBLDF just 45 minutes ago. I hope my most recent hundred bucks pays directly for an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on any of the IP and Censorship issues that will no doubt soon be considered, given recent rulings.

My 2010 challenge now sits at $200: I’ve given that much this year just so far and I Dare all publishers [and any fans or bloggers who are also game] to match me at this level.

##

No one submitted any images; I was forced to ‘shop my own propaganda posters.
(All images released under a non-commercial CC license; so please share.)
(And I like to once again encourage others to make their own)

source image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentwang/18520131/

source image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ford/16127481/

source image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rodrigot/3818305854/

Not May Day Soviet, but worth including:

source image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulpod/3293054712/

And not ‘free comics’ but I saw the source and had to add it:

source image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/modestchanges/3214701312/

[and I’d love to see a whole slate of similar “women make/read comics” posters; I’ll be happy to post-&-link to any submitted to me]

1 May is also May Day, a day-of-note for revolutionaries the world over. I’m quite pleased to make my call for increased reader freedom on the same date. Free Comic Book Day, quite honestly, should be more than a promotion-and-giveaway: let’s all take a minute to consider that Free Comics Day should also be a day to celebrate Freedom in Comics.

##

Here’s the donation button again: please consider giving money to the CBLDF to keep Comics Free.

[link]

Not every blog is as easy to navigate and link to as, say, Rocketbomber.com [*cough*] but this shouldn’t be an impediment when the articles themselves *must* be read.

A recent link from Dirk (¡Journalista! at The Comics Journal) pointed me toward the 10th and 11th instalments of Stephen Bissette’s excellent series “Forgotten Comics Wars, Or: How Angry Freelancers Made It Possible for A New Mainstream Comics Era (Including Vertigo) to Exist”

If you’ve missed this up until now (like I had) — You Need To Read This.

and to make it easier, I’m going to spoon-feed you the links:

Part 0 : Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3 : Part 4 : Part 5 : Part 6 : Part 7 : Part 8 : Part 9 : Part 10 : Part 11

…and more is promised. This puts my rather pitiful attempts to chronicle fandom to shame, and for me is also an education into comics that I, as a manga-fan, sorely needed.

So. I’m not sure exactly why stupidity, ignorance, and baseless accusations always end up costing me money, but with the recent news of the Handley sentencing, The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is now in possession of another $100 of mine that I’m hard-put to do without. Honestly: do you know how many comics, how much beer that is?

brief recap of events follows; please keep reading to the end:

ANN, Christopher Handley Pleads Guilty to Possession Charges

ANN, Christopher Handley Sentenced to 6 Months for ‘Obscene’ Manga

RC Harvey at The Comics Journal, Our Nonexistant Liberties

Neil Gaiman, Why defend freedom of icky speech?

David Kravets at Wired’s Threat Level Blog, U.S. Manga Obscenity Conviction Roils Comics World

News @ the CBLDF: Handley Sentenced to Six Months in Prison

and a Google search pulls up so much more.

I’ve posted twice to RocketBomber, once about manga porn generally (including the sticky bit of representations of underage female characters) and more recently re: the loli question,

I just want to read books. All kinds of books. Anything that gets in the way of that is bad, in my opinion. We can question the motives of people who produce works that seemingly encourage Bad People to do Bad Things to children (“Think of the children!”) but I firmly believe that in a free society that encourages free speech, free thought, and free expression we cannot question their works as works. If you can prove a crime, with a real victim, then we can revisit the value of the work.

But Books don’t kill people. People who burn Books kill people. You want to ban something “for the common good”?

I find that to be as abhorrent as the worst, least defensible porn.

And of course, this also cost me $100 back when Handley plead guilty 9 months ago.

##

Here’s my proposal:

You all know about Free Comic Book Day, right? It’s an annual event, happens to fall on May 1st this year. Free Comic Book Day gets an orgy of online blog coverage (and even a smattering of mainstream journo attention) and rightfully so, because, dude: free comics.

This year, in addition to the “Free Comic Book Day” promo offered by Diamond and the major pubs, we need to run a parallel CBLDF “Free Comics” fundraiser.

Free as in Beer plus Free as in Speech.

It won’t take much. Every blogger just needs to include a blurb for the CBLDF in any post reporting on the Free Comic Book Day. I’m hoping we can even get some cool graphics going (soviet-era-style propoganda posters, ironic or otherwise, would be great) so maybe it’d end up as little more than posting a button & a link at the bottom of any Free Comic Book Day report. (On top of whatever other promotion my fellow bloggers feel like giving this initiative)

I didn’t wait until May to make another donation to the CBLDF; they already have another hundred of my hard earned dollars. But I’ll be back in April to remind everyone of this drive and with a special challenge:

DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, Tokyopop, Viz; Random House, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster: I’m an unknown blogger with $100 — but I’ve put that c-note where my values lie. Can you match me? Just $100, I’m not asking for more. $100 to help protect your retailer partners, your customers, and yourselves. $100 out of your massive PR budgets to show even a token acknowlegement to the concerns of your fans, and to promote both free speech and the future of the comics industry.

You can donate $100 to the CBLDF in my name, or in Christopher Handley’s name, or under your own aegis; and I hope you donate more but $100 is the challenge. Can you match my commitment? And if you can’t, I wish you’d tell us why.

##

I’ll repeat this post closer to the actual Day (April 15th, tax day, I’m thinking) with another call for funds, and renewed argument that we all need to adopt Free Comic Book Day as both a cause and call to action. And I’ll likely donate another $100 on that day, though I can hardly afford it. How many companies, how many of you, will join me in this?