Heroes 4 Haiti: Comic Creators Organize Disaster Relief
In response to the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti this past week, comics creators have been donating work through the new website Heroes4Haiti.com. Organized by comics artist Mike Cavallaro, the website helps comics creators and fans set up and publicize online charity auctions of original comics art and memorabilia to benefit victims of the earthquake through the charities of their choice. More details are available at the site Heroes4Haiti.com.
Archie Inks Deal with Random House
Comics publisher Archie Comics, the nation's most successful comic company in newsstand sales, has inked a worldwide bookstore market distribution deal with publishing giant Random House. Random House Publisher Services will begin distributing Archie paperbacks to the bookstore market this September. Diamond Comics will continue to distribute to the U.S. comics shop market. More details are available in this article in Publishers Weekly's The Beat.
New DC Weekly Comic Aimed at Gamers
In conjunction with the upcoming DC Universe Online massively multiplayer online game, DC Comics Executive Editor Dan Didio has announced that DC will publish a year-long weekly tie-in comic entitled DC Universe Legends. As well as connecting to the plot of the game, it will also contain special hints strategy tips worked into the book. The full team has yet to be announced, but veteran DC writers Tony Bedard and Dan Jurgens have been attached. The DC Universe Online game will come out from Sony this year and allows players to create and play superheroes fighting alongside major DC characters such as Batman. More details are available in this interview with Didio.
Perez and Wolfman Together Again
DC Comics has announced that the legendary 1980's New Teen Titans team of artist George Perez and writer Marv Wolfman will reunite to create a new Teen Titans original graphic novel set during their previous run on the comic. Entitled Teen Titans: Games, the book features the classic Teen Titans team of Nightwing, Troia, Starfire, Changeling, Cyborg and Jericho among others. Most of the script and 80 pages of the art were created in 1987 during the height of their run and now the two creators have come back together to complete and publish the story. Teen Titans: Games will be published as a 120-page hardcover graphic novel later this year. More details are available here on the DC Comics official blog.
Children's Charity Teaches Comic Creation
This winter semester, with the help of the Christopher Barron Live Life Foundation, the fifth-graders of Paterson New Jersey's Public School 21 are all taking a free course in comics creating. Children will learn how to write and draw their own comic strips. The workshop — which began January 15 - is taught by professional comics writer Alex Simmons and will culminate in an event on February 25th in which the children and their parents can meet comic book professionals from DC Comics and Archie Comics including Fernando Ruiz and Suzanne Rowntree. This will be the first major project of the Christopher Barron Live Life Foundation — the 501 c3 non-profit, devoted to providing children with exiting and unique learning opportunities, was founded in honor of the late Christoper Barron who died in 2007 of leukemia at the age of 9.
Congratulations to Jennifer de Guzman
Best wishes to PW Comics Week columnist Jennifer De Guzman on the birth of son Mateo Bernard de Guzman Belew on January 15, 2010. Get him a pencil and get him editing now!
This Week @ Good Comics for Kids
This week School Library Journal’s blog Good Comics for Kids had coverage of graphic novels in the ALA Youth Media award-winners, graphic novel reporting from the ALA exhibit floor, reviews of Deka Kyoshi Vol. 1 and Pigling: A Cinderella Story, the 1/13 listing of comics suitable for all ages, a links roundup by Brigid Alverson about the storm over The Storm in the Barn.
This Week @ The Beat
This week Heidi MacDonald’s blog The Beat, hosted by Publishers Weekly, revealed costume designs by Jack Kirby for Shakespeare, linked comics legend and bestselling novelist Neil Gaiman's profile in the New Yorker, noted that the ALA awards this year included nods to graphic novels, posted a collection of Martin Luther King Day links including Ho Che Anderson's new graphic novel biography King and discussion on alternate casting of superheroes, Marvel's good deed for the day, hosted a discussion of comics publisher Zenoscope's controversial “Girl of the Month” contest, a meta-list of the best comics of 2009, a collection of upcoming comic book announcements from the big two, discussed Marvel's Siege/Blackest Nightfeudstunt, a discussion of Archie Comics comics creators, MoCCA and credits and the comics nominees of the GLAAD Media Awards.
