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----------------------------------------------------------------- [2] Letters to the Editor If you want to comment on this or any previous issue, want to offer something for us to publish, or just want to shamelessly suck up to the editor to try and get your name in print send Email to: ComicBkNet@aol.com Note: Letters of comment, including those sent to the columnists, may be used in future issues of CBEM unless you specifically request us NOT to use them. Your Email address and/or name will be withheld upon request. +++++ From: "bcrog@juno.com" <bcrog@juno.com> Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:34:55 GMT To: ComicBookNetworkEmag-owner@yahoogroups.com Subject: BCR Guide to the DC Universe Hi everybody! Just stopped in to let everyone know that The sixth edition of the Brent Clark Rogers Guide to the DC Universe will be out this May. I'm taking pre-orders to cover my printing costs, each copy will be $40.00 + $6.00 p&h. I'll be doing 500 copies this year. please write to me at BCROG@juno.com Thanks! Sincerely, Brent Clark Rogers [CBEM endorses this product. We have our copy on hand for the definitive settler of trivia questions and general knowledge. If you are a die-hard DC nut you have to have a copy. - D.L.] +++++ Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:01:23 -0800 (PST) From: "Tim O'Shea" timmito@yahoo.com Subject: Congrats on the concurrent anniversaries To: David LeBlanc comicbknet@aol.com David: Just a quick note to commend you on nine great years on CBEM and also to thank you for getting us to the 10th anniversary of CBEM itself. While many people make the content happen, you are the force that brings it all together. Thanks for the forum, sir. Sincerely, Tim "Whoops I Missed Another Thursday Deadline" O'Shea PS You are a patient man, sir. I respect you immensely for all that you do. [Thanks Tim. It is the columnists that keep me going! - D.L.] +++++ From: Louise Brooke LouiseBrooke@swindon-college.ac.uk To: "'ComicBkNet@aol.com'" ComicBkNet@aol.com Subject: Courses in Sequential Illustration Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 12:30:56 -0000 Hi, I am the Pathway Leader for Sequential Illustration and I am currently promoting the course here at Swindon College Wiltshire UK. We offer a HND and BA course in the design and creation of Graphic novels, comics storyboards and all narrative illustration. We are currently the only course of this kind in the country. It maybe that some of your readers would be interested in the course for our intake in September 2005. If you are interested in presenting us in your forum then please contact me. Regards, Louise Brooke +++++ From: Ian M. Feller" Subject: Kandora Publishing First Look for April titles Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 12:24:54 -0500 Here are First Look links to Kandora Publishing's April releases. Each First Look contains the cover and first seven story pages with letters for you to read to get a sense of the story direction and quality. Please take a look and use in your publication. If you want to learn more about Kandora Publishing, check out their web site: http://www.kandorapublishing.com/. Thanks! Jade Fire #1: http://www.kandorapublishing.com/JFpgs/jf01previewpgs1.html Barbarossa & The Lost Corsairs #2: http://www.kandorapublishing.com/BB preview pgs/bb02prevpgs1.html +++++ Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:01:23 -0800 (PST) From: "Tim O'Shea" timmito@yahoo.com Subject: Congrats on the concurrent anniversaries To: David LeBlanc comicbknet@aol.com David: Just a quick note to commend you on nine great years on CBEM and also to thank you for getting us to the 10th anniversary of CBEM itself. While many people make the content happen, you are the force that brings it all together. Thanks for the forum, sir. Sincerely, Tim "Whoops I Missed Another Thursday Deadline" O'Shea PS You are a patient man, sir. I respect you immensely for all that you do. _________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------- [3] [TRIVIA CONTEST] Due to costs, customs regulations, and logistical difficulties: THIS CONTEST IS OPEN TO RESIDENTS OF THE CONTIGUOUS 48 U.S.STATES! IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A U.S. ADDRESS DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WIN THE PRIZE. THE FIRST PLACE TO FIND THE EMAG EACH WEEK IS ON OUR HOME PAGE! IF YOU ARE DESPERATE TO WIN THE TRIVIA, GO THERE FIRST ON FRIDAY NIGHT! http://members.aol.com/ComicBkNet QUESTION OF THE WEEK Prizes donated by Discount Comic Book Service at www.dcbservice.com where you can order most DC, Marvel, Image, and Dark Horse comics, statues and retail products for 35% off. Submit your own trivia and win the CHEEZY PRIZE(tm) if you can stump the readers! You MUST submit the correct answer with your question. LAST ISSUE'S QUESTION OF THE WEEK: From the first run of SHOWCASE, name the first character to get a series of their own. Flash was the first character to appear in SHOWCASE that got his own series but that was not the question. The first series to appear featuring a character from an appearance in SHOWCASE was SUPERMAN'S GIRLFRIEND LOIS LANE. Our winner is Bob Doncaster who wins ALPHA FLIGHT: YOU GOTTA BE KIDDIN' ME TP from Discount Comic Book Service. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ THIS WEEK'S TRIVIA QUESTION: What major comic book series first issue was dedicated to "Will Jungkuntz 1955-1985"? NEXT WEEK--->>The NINTH ANNIVERSARY of the trivia contest. We suspend the frequency of winning rules and find out who will be the expert on the first VALIANT Universe trivia. IMPORTANT RULES NOTICE Due to costs, customs regulations, and logistical difficulties: THIS CONTEST IS OPEN TO RESIDENTS OF THE CONTIGUOUS 48 U.S. STATES! IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A U.S. ADDRESS DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WIN THE PRIZE. Email your guess to ComicBkNet@aol.com or just REPLY to the message if you read the Emag in your mail. DO NOT quote the entire message! You MUST allow mail from ComicBkNet@aol.com to be notified if you win. The first correct answer to reach the editor wins the CHEEZY PRIZE(tm). The editor will be the sole judge as to which guess arrived first! Messages with more than one guess will be disqualified. Winners will forfeit their prize if the Email notification is not accepted from ComicBkNet@aol.com LIMIT: ONLY ONE PRIZE every 4 weeks PER PERSON! _________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------- [4] Network Buzz News, gossip and rumors from the industry From: Amy Harlib aharlib@earthlink.net It's about time! This is of great interest! Amy http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/ A27727-2005Feb15.html?sub=new Arab Superheroes Leap Pyramids in a Single Bound By Daniel Williams Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, February 16, 2005; Page C01 CAIRO -- He's a mild-mannered philosophy professor who wears button-down shirts, lives in a drab, anonymous apartment and pronounces maxims such as "There is no glory without virtue" and "Free will pushes toward creativity." But beneath the meek and pedantic exterior lies a buff, masked fighter in tights who is endowed with supernatural strength and a mission to "fight evil until the end of time." Holy banality! Not another self-effacing Everyman who is actually a powerhouse, the stuff of comic book creations ranging from Batman to Spider-Man through Superman to Zorro! No, this is new - - at least for the Middle East. "Why can't the Middle East have its own heroes?" asks Marwan Nashar, managing director of Egypt's AK Comics. (Daniel Williams - The Washington Post) The professor is Zein, aka the Last Pharaoh, billed as the first Arab superhero in a year-old line of comics. It's time, his creators say, to move beyond Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, those Westerners laboring in Metropolis and Gotham City, respectively. Bring on Amgad Darweesh, Zein's alter ego, who is 14,000 years old and lives in Origin City, which, with its pyramids, museums, traffic and random chaos, looks a lot like Cairo. "Why can't the Middle East have its own heroes?" asks Marwan Nashar, managing director and editor at AK Comics, an Egyptian publishing venture. AK Comics intends to flood the Arab world with Zein and three other action idols: Rakan, a hairy medieval warrior in Mesopotamia; Jalila, a brainy Levantine scientist and fighter for justice; and Aya, a North African described as a "vixen who roams the region on her supercharged motorbike confronting crime wherever it rears its ugly head." AK Comics, which publishes in Arabic and English, sells in Egypt and is beginning distribution in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states. It plans to move on to Lebanon, Syria and North Africa this year and next. Like Zein, AK Comics is on a mission. As spelled out on the first inside page of various issues, the goal is "to fill the cultural gap created over the years by providing essentially Arab role models, in our case, Arab superheroes to become a source of pride to our young generations." Truth, Justice and the Arab Way, indeed. "I grew up reading 'Spider-Man' and loved him," says Nashar. "But I couldn't get into Peter Parker. I mean, he lived in New York. I always wondered why there weren't any Arabs leaping off buildings." Behind the creations is a pop desire to show that Arabs can do anything Westerners can. Democratic activists are quick to point out that they have been fighting for freedom for years while U.S. presidents were content to overlook friendly dictatorships. Islamic liberals who have long preached tolerance lament that their religion is tarred by extremists and by Westerners who contend that the Osama bin Ladens of the world represent a whole culture. Business people say that given the chance, they, too, can compete in the rough-and-tumble global trade arena. And AK Comics creators say they can hold their own with the Marvel and DC comics of the world and encourage Arab empowerment. "I believe this region will see much chaos for some time," says AK Comics founder Ayman Kandeel. "But after that, the dust will settle, peace will come, through development and a rediscovery of our true selves." For all this inward-looking pride, AK Comics is very much a product of globalization. Nashar said the inspiration for an Arab superhero series was rooted in contact with not only Western comic books but also Japanese animation and even the "Kill Bill" movies. Kandeel, like Zein a university professor, albeit of economics at Cairo University, gleaned styles and production methods from contact with other publishers at comics trade shows in the United States. Because Egypt has no homegrown tradition of comic strips (unless you count illustrated hieroglyphics), AK Comics decided to outsource the drawings to a studio in Brazil. English dialogue is honed by a writer in California. This cross-fertilization led to some problems. The steroid- quality muscles of Zein and Rakan posed no difficulties, but the attributes of the two female do-gooders, Jalila and Aya, created decency jitters. Seems the Brazilian artists wanted to put Jalila in a string bikini and mount colossal breasts on her and Aya. But what goes in Ipanema doesn't necessarily play on the Nile, so tights replaced the tanga and the bosoms were downsized. Even so, "we've had issues where censors go through page by page and blacken out the breasts with a marker," says Nashar. Otherwise, there seemed to be no gender issues in the futuristic Middle East. In focus groups, Aya challenges Zein as reader favorite. "It's because she's smart and doesn't just rely on physical strength to win," says Nashar. So far, AK Comics distributes 7,000 Arabic-language issues and 5,000 English issues in Egypt and the Gulf, along with 10,000 issues printed in black and white on dull newsprint for Egyptians on tight budgets. The glossies cost the equivalent of 80 cents; the black-and-white versions cost about 20 cents. In the tradition of Western comics, tales of the Arab superheroes play obliquely on current events and the fears and hopes of its readers. The 1940s-era Justice Society of America featured Superman, Green Lantern, Batman and other heroes who battled Hitler on behalf of Franklin D. Roosevelt and J. Edgar Hoover. Zein, Jalila and Aya operate in a world recovering from the "55- Year War" between unnamed superpowers. Their main aim is to keep this universe from sliding into the hands of evildoers. Zein was born the son of a wise pharaoh whose astronomers foresaw the arrival of a giant meteor that would destroy the magnificent civilization -- a fantasy version of the chronic Arab preoccupation with Golden Eras of the past. Anyway, the pharaoh put Zein into a time capsule that would keep him alive until he was rehatched in some distant future. Armed with exceptional strength and agility, not to mention immunity to bullets, he would resurrect the old way of life. In one issue he saves a United Nations secretary-general from assassination, and in another stops terrorists from blowing up a soccer stadium full of 100,000 oblivious spectators. Aya, the lawyer, is the victim of injustice. Her mother was wrongly accused of murdering her father and is in the slammer. Aya is trying to free her but along the way runs into the mysterious Number Zero, who recruits her to join an underground group of crime busters - sort of the Untouchables armed with ninja knives. Jalila survived an explosion at the Dimodona nuclear plant -- a barely disguised reference to Israel's Dimona nuclear research reactor, which was instrumental in developing the country's nuclear weapons. She was protected from radiation by a lead suit tailored by her father, a scientist. Nonetheless, rays penetrated and gave her elephantine strength, the speed of a gazelle and the ability to send out vibes that melt metal. She stays busy protecting the City of All Faiths (read: Jerusalem) from the warring Zios Army (the Zionists) and the United Liberation Force (the Palestine Liberation Organization). Both forces, according to a description of Jalila's activities, cling "to their extreme views, both wanting to solely control the City of All Faiths." Jalila also has to deal with domestic problems. She lives in a small flat with her two brothers. One belongs to a secret terrorist group. The other is addicted to drugs. Neither knows that Jalila is fighting crime and terror in her spare time. Even the stories featuring Rakan, who survived a Mongol invasion of Mesopotamia and was raised by a mystical saber-toothed cat, distantly parallel more recent events. His country is a constant target of invasion -- by Mongols, Turks and Crusaders. If the place and mayhem sound like Iraq, so be it. "We can't help but touch on the real world," says Nashar. Anyway, the constant wars give Rakan plenty of opportunity to protect innocent bystanders from medieval collateral damage. One thing distinctly missing from the AK Comics series is any direct reference to the religion of the heroes. A note in one issue explains why: "The religious backgrounds of the heroes remain undisclosed so that no religion or faith can be perceived as better than another." Yet another first in the region. aharlib@earthlink.net Great article! Sunday, February 20, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m. Marvel's "Black Panther" may shake up "white-bread industry" By Mark Rahner Seattle Times staff reporter Comics Artist John Romita Jr.'s depiction of the Black Panther in the first issue of the new series. Shown here is a detail from the cover. You want to bet that kids are vainly Googling the African nation of Wakanda now? "Yes!" says writer Reggie Hudlin. "When I talk about it with adults they're like, 'Really! And who else has vibranium?' " Google no further: The fictional country and its native super- metal are found only in Marvel's new monthly "Black Panther" series. Its launch during Black History Month, along with Seattle publisher Fantagraphics' graphic novel biography, "King," prompts a thought balloon: Why haven't there been more comics by and about minorities? Hudlin, a Hollywood writer and director whose work includes "House Party" and "The Bernie Mac Show," has breathed exciting new life into a second-tier character who never really caught fire after his 1966 debut in the pages of "The Fantastic Four." The first issue, on sale this month, looks at the technologically super-advanced Wakandan's awe-inspiring decimation of would-be conquerors through the ages. "Every 50 or 100 years, people say, 'Look they've got all these great resources. Let's try to take it from them.' Now there's an international coalition of the greedy out to invade Wakanda, and the latest Black Panther is barely in his throne." Like Lee Falk's classic hero, the Phantom, the Black Panther isn't just one guy but a mantle passed down through generations. In the second issue, out March 9, the current Panther must pass a series of arduous tests to be found worthy of the throne, Hudlin says by phone from Los Angeles. Hard to believe, but while the character was born at the height of the civil-rights movement and the real-life militant Black Panther Party, there may not be a direct connection. In a 2004 Seattle Times interview, Marvel Studios head Avi Arad said, "If you know Stan [Lee], he's just Mr. Good. And he was naive, he didn't connect this. It wasn't about the social statement." Could be. In the back pages of a trade paperback collection of the late artist and Panther co-creator Jack Kirby's brief 1977 solo run of the comic ("Black Panther," Marvel, $19.95), there's an early drawing of the character with a different costume and his original name: "The Coal Tiger." Seriously. "Well, it happened around the same time, so I don't know one way or another," says Hudlin, 43. "But I really do believe it was one of those zeitgeist moments where you had Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, two Jewish guys in New York, and Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, two black guys in Oakland, come up with the same great idea at the same time. Working in Hollywood, that does not seem far-fetched to me at all." This isn't Hudlin's first foray into comics and race. He co-wrote last year's superb "Birth of a Nation" with Aaron McGruder, controversial cartoonist of "The Boondocks," about the secession of East St. Louis. It's renamed "The Republic of Blackland" and bases its national anthem on the theme from "Good Times." Here's how he imagined Black Panther's homeland: "How would they have this great super-science? You do a little research and you find that some African tribes had these metal alloys while people in Britain were still living in caves. What if their libraries never got burned, they never got knocked off track in terms of their cultural advancement? They could only maintain that by being one of the most fierce warrior tribes on earth. Look at the Vietnamese. They beat the Chinese, the French, the Americans. You can't really explain why, other than that they're just a bunch of kick-ass people." To Hudlin, longtime Marvel writer and editor Lee and artist Kirby were like Lennon and McCartney. "All these things were there in the character as created by Stan and Jack, and what I'm doing is just taking some of the implied ideas and making them explicit. This is sort of a relaunch. And the thing about these characters is, you really have to write them for two audiences. There's people like myself with 30 years of continuity in their heads and all this minutiae." Also, Hudlin says, "I really want this to be a lot of people's first comic book." For some black readers, it may be. "It's a real white-bread industry," says Gary Groth, editor of The Comics Journal and co-founder of alternative publisher Fantagraphics. The publisher is home to perhaps the only long-running title by and about minorities, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez's "Love & Rockets," which started in 1982. Marvel has begun a big push for its new Latina spider-heroine, Ara?¤a, but Seattle retailers report that those issues haven't been flying off their shelves. One possible reason why there haven't been more minorities in comics is obvious. Groth figures: "The comic reading public is probably mostly white, middle class." As for mainstream comics and superheroes, Groth says, "The experience is so bland and generic and massified, most of the black people who work in comics, you couldn't tell the difference in their work if they're white or black." "King," by Ho Che Anderson and published by Seattle's Fantagraphics, is a graphic novel about Martin Luther King Jr. It's "an attempt to demystify and humanize him to a certain extent," said Anderson. Humanizing King "King" writer and artist Ho Che Anderson's viewpoint shows the chicken-and-egg circularity to the minority question in comics: "I can only suggest maybe not having grown up seeing themselves in the art form, not too many black folks consider it as something they want to do." His densely worded but engrossing biography of Martin Luther King Jr. reads like a modern-day Classics Illustrated for adults with harsh language and the civil-rights leader's personal foibles left unsanitized. Anderson says his approach got him a cease-and-desist letter from the King estate years ago (the story originally appeared in three installments beginning in 1993), "But I don't know what happened to it." From his Toronto home, Anderson, 35, says, "The basic approach was an attempt to demystify and humanize him to a certain extent. My personal feeling is that it's hard to relate to icons, but it's easier to relate to people who possess flaws like the rest of us. It also leads you back to the inescapable conclusion that the man was truly a hero. "I'm just trying to be frank in there about his faults and some of his escapades on the road," Anderson explains. "But they're given no greater weight or credence than anything else in the book." He's just as frank about getting the "King" assignment from Fantagraphics: "It was kind of an effort to cover their own ass by getting a black cartoonist to tell the story." The lack of color in mainstream comics hasn't been for lack of effort. Recalling DC Comics' now-defunct "Milestones" line of black-themed titles in the '90s, Anderson says, "I guess it always comes down to economics, what sells. I was involved in 'Milestones,' but it kind of died out because the quality wasn't always there." Good stories count "That was one of the ways we were trying to build a stronger and more ethnically diverse DC universe," says DC's editorial vice president Dan DiDio. But, he points out, "From that group came 'Static Shock,' and if I'm not mistaken, that's one of first African-American comic books spun off into cartoon - a very prestigious one." (It's part of the "Kids WB" lineup.) DiDio doesn't dispute that it's a white-bread industry. "But a lot of people are working hard to change that as we speak," he says. "We're getting a lot more diverse characters, but also a lot more diversity of creators in the business. Each one of our super teams has an African-American character in it. Green Lantern in the 'Justice League' cartoon is John Stewart [not the white Hal Jordan of the comics]. Firestorm has been relaunched as new black character." DC's first black character in a solo title fared similarly to Marvel's Black Panther. In 1977, "Black Lightning" lasted a scant 11 issues. One lesson learned since then: Adding color isn't enough if you're not also telling a good story. "We reintroduced Black Lightning to The Outsiders," another super team, DiDio says. "It's not just about a character being black but about him being a father, being a hero, and having a daughter following in his footsteps, and her doing things he disagrees with." Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com Copyright c 2005 The Seattle Times Company +++++ ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater? Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/pkgkPB/SOnJAA/Zx0JAA/bGIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Thanks for subscribing to the Comic Book Network Electronic Magazine (CBEM) --------------------------->Disclaimer<--------------------------- This is an ANNOUNCE only mailing list, only the Editor can send messages to the list. No one else has access to the subscriber list. Replies to these messages will be received by the Editor ONLY, so you must CC: individual contributors if you want them to get your E-Mail. The E-mail to the E-mag MAY be used in future issues at the Editor's discretion UNLESS you specifically request that they not be. It is our policy to withhold names and/or Addresses, by request only, from letters of comment. All contributors are required to use their real name and have a valid Email address for their columns to be published. Send Email comments to: ComicBkNet@aol.com Material for inclusion in the Emag - press releases, solicitations, column submissions, Letters to the Editor, guesses for the trivia contest should be sent to ComicBkNet@aol.com The EDITOR, not the submitter, has final approval and edit rights on ALL material. Printed comic books and advanced copies for review in the Emag should be sent via US Mail or UPS to David L. LeBlanc 84 Heather Circle Jefferson, MA 01522-1419 TO Subscribe send a message FROM the intended address to: ComicBookNetworkEmag-subscribe@yahoogroups.com TO Unsubscribe send a message FROM the address to be dropped to: ComicBookNetworkEmag-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com You may also unsubscribe from the Egroups Web page at the short cut below. Shortcut URL to the Egroup page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ComicBookNetworkEmag All contents COPYRIGHT 2005 The Comic Book Network. This messages may be reproduced only in its original form, and in its entirety for non-commercial purposes. Contact the original author(s) or the Editor for permission to use individual items. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ComicBookNetworkEmag/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ComicBookNetworkEmag-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ |
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| << February19, 2005 - [ComicBooknet E-Mag] CBEM 511.13 |
February26, 2005 - [ComicBooknet E-Mag] CBEM 512.01 >> |
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