-
The Future Is Almost Now
Although comic books have always been a creature of print and paper and ink, the idea of converting them to computer screens is nothing new. Examples of digital comics date back to as early as 1985, and pirated comics have long been available to savvy Web users on underground BitTorrent sites. But publishers, ffor the most part, have ignored the whole issue of digital comics for years.
-
Comics Briefly
CBLDF Benefit ; Viz releases Stan Lee Manga; PW The Beat:Time Warner; Fans of 1974; David Glanzer Speaks; Doug Wright Awards; NYAF Cosplay Day at Kinokuniya; FLCL Ultimate Ed. Defect; Stephen King’s The Stand; and Mark Miller, Tony Harris at Midtown Comics
-
Fans Flock to Baltimore's Otakon
24,000 Fans flocked to the Baltimore Convention Center for this year’s Otakon, an anime and manga convention held August 8-10.
-
Many Tokyopop Series ‘Postponed,’ Not Canceled
Despite rumors that Tokyopop canceled many titles in the wake of its reorganization, the company says that many of the titles purported to be on the chopping block will be published on a modified schedule.
-
DK Lands on Comic Fans’ Coffee Tables
Dorling Kindersley is coming out this fall with not one but two new oversized hardcover books about the history of two large forces in the comics world: Marvel Comics and DC’s Vertigo imprint.
-
Books About Comics: The Man Behind the Spider
After Mark Evanier’s Kirby: King of Comics came out earlier this year, one would expect that a biography of Steve Ditko would come next. As cocreator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, Ditko ranks second only to Kirby among Stan Lee’s collaborators in devising the Marvel Universe. Blake Bell’s Stranger and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko (Fantagraphics, $39.99 hardcover) has followed quickly indeed, arriving in early summer.
-
Fantasy Island
The Company K.J. Parker . Orbit , $24.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-316-03853-9 This exquisitely written novel by a pseudonymous popular author blends gritty military fantasy with the 18th-century “island story” tradition. Seven years after the end of a war between unnamed countries, four friends who fought together have settled back into civilian life.
-
Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 8/11/2008
This week on the Web: more writing advice from the Eggers crowd, more wildfires from the Southwest, more bad news from the War on Terror, and more co-authored novels from James Patterson. Plus: an engrossing overview of human evolution, two guides to caring for your pre-teen, and the much-anticipated Cheech & Chong story.
-
Nonfiction Reviews
The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music Ben Ratliff . Times , $25 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8050-8146-6 Ratliff, the jazz critic for the New York Times, spent just over two years interviewing jazz greats for a recurring feature at the paper: rather than ask musicians like Pat Metheny or Dianne Reeves to name their favorite records, Ratliff sat with them as they listened to songs and picked out the qu...
-
Children's Book Reviews
Picture Books Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa Jeanette Winter . Harcourt , $17 (32p) ISBN 978-0-15-206545-4 Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner whose Green Belt Movement has planted 30 million trees in Kenya, is the subject of Winter’s (The Librarian of Basra) eloquent picture biography.
-
Fiction Reviews
Friendly Fire A.B. Yehoshua , trans. from the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman. Harcourt , $26 (400p) ISBN 978-0-15-101419-4 Celebrated Israeli novelist Yehoshua (A Woman in Jerusalem) explores the power of grief and bitterness in a blunt drama studded with political, historical and religious significance.
-
August Comics Bestsellers
Rodrick Rules stays at #1; DC has The Killing Joke (#4) and Y The Last Man (#10) ; Marvel has The Walking Dead (#5) and X-men: Unstoppable (#9).
-
Everyday Hiro: Fairy Tail’s Mashima at Comic-Con
Hiro Mashima first burst onto the scene in Japan with the popular comedy/supernatural series, Rave (known as Rave Master in the US), in 1999. His mix of fantasy, over-the-top slapstick, and down to earth irreverence led him to create Fairy Tail next, a comedy/fantasy adventure series licensed by Del Rey Manga in the U.S.
-
Kubo Comes to Comic-Con
Tite Kubo is the creator behind the manga series, Bleach, now up to volume 23 in the U.S., and volume 33 in Japan, where it has sold more than 100 million copies. It's also been developed into an anime series, two feature-length animated movies—one of which had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. this summer—and a number of video games.
-
Two-Fisted Tiki Tales
If you’ve ever seen South Pacific or been to a Trader Vic’s, Tiki Joe Mysteries might be for you. Mixing Polynesian pop culture and Las Vegas kitsch, this graphic novel is part murder mystery, part hard-boiled thriller strummed on a ukulele. Debuting this month, the black-and-white graphic novel comes from cartoonist Mark Murphy and San Jose-based SLG Publishing.
-
Comics Briefly
Lolita Fashion at NYAF; Third Volume of Plain Janes; Obama and McCain Bios from IDW; Fantagraphics August Events; David B. from NBM; Typhon Signing at Jim Hanley’s and Sam Henderson at Desert Island
-
Bull’s-eye
The Dart League King Keith Lee Morris . Tin House (PGW, dist.), $14.95 paper (280p) ISBN 978-0-9794198-8-1 In this absorbing and intelligent novel, Morris (The Greyhound God) follows five characters through a handful of hours culminating in a dart contest on a Thursday night in Garnet Lake, Idaho: Russell Harmon, who lives for the dart league and his cocaine habit; teammate Tristan Mackey,...
-
Children's Books
Picture Books Pete & Pickles Berkeley Breathed . Philomel , $17.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-399-25082-8 A pig named Pete leads a perfectly predictable and sensible existence until Pickles, the runaway circus elephant, turns it upside-down. Pickles possesses the joie de vivre of Auntie Mame (and the extensive wardrobe to carry it off with élan).
-
Fiction Reviews
Blindspot Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore . Spiegel & Grau , $24.95 (600p) ISBN 978-0-385-52619-7 Professors Kamensky and Lepore try for playful historical romance, but deliver instead a novel that is, if rich in period detail, also overwrought, predictably plotted and at times embarrassingly purple.
-
Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 8/4/2008
This week's Web: a schlub's moment in the sun, habits of the consumer class, a friendly owl, art iconoclast Jeff Koons, George Costanza channels Kirk Douglas, and a UK fantasy behemoth makes it to the U.S. Plus: When you're sick, you get sad, and you get high.
Browse archive by date:
