Psyren: The Living Island

I read Psyren, Vol. 9: The Living Island

I posted a review at ComicBookBin (which has free smart phone apps and comics).

I Reads You Review: KINGS IN DISGUISE #2

KINGS IN DISGUISE #2 (OF 6)
KITCHEN SINK PRESS, INC.

WRITER: James Vance – @authorjvance
ARTIST: Dan Burr
INKS ASST.: Debbie Freiberg
COVER: Harvey Kurtzman and Peter Poplaski
32pp, B&W, $2.00 U.S., $2.60 CAN (May 1988)

Kings in Disguise was a six-issue comic book miniseries, published in 1988 by Kitchen Sink Press. Created by writer Jim Vance and artist Dan Burr, Kings in Disguise was a highly acclaimed comic book, drawing praise from such comic book luminaries as Alan Moore, Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman and Art Spiegelman.

Kings in Disguise is set during the Great Depression. The story follows 13-year-old Manfred “Freddie” Bloch, a Jewish boy from the fictional town of Marian, California. His father becomes a victim of the Depression when he loses his job, and he subsequently abandons his sons. Freddie’s brother, Al, runs afoul of the law, leaving the boy alone.

Freddie takes to the rails – traveling the country by train as a hobo – where he meets Sammy. Calling himself “the King of Spain,” Sammy is a sickly, older hobo who takes Freddie under his wing. Together, they travel through a scarred America, searching for Freddie's father.

Kings in Disguise #2 opens after a stranger saves Freddie from the crazed hobo, Joker. Who is Freddie’s savior? Why, it is none other than Sammy, the King of Spain. Freddie discovers, however, that King Sammy is unstable. Though he is affable, Sammy could be friend, foe, or even annoyance.

Kings in Disguise has an attention to detail that results when a writer and artist are two separate individuals who can come together to become essentially one creative voice, sharing a singular vision. As a writer, James Vance is both human and humane. As an artist, Dan Burr has an old-fashioned sensibility that uses the bells and whistles of black and white magazine illustration to create texture and veracity. Ink turns the interplay of black and white space into graphics and images that are solid, so this world Burr draws has verisimilitude. Solidity births that which seems like something genuine to the reader, encouragement to buy into the world of Kings in Disguise.

Kings in Disguise is a great American story of true grit. It is easy to see why Kings in Disguise is considered one of the greatest graphic novels of all time.

A+

NOTES:
Harvey Awards
Best New Series
1989 Kings in Disguise, by James Vance and Dan Burr (Kitchen Sink Press)

Eisner Awards:
Best Single Issue/Single Story
1989 Kings in Disguise #1, by James Vance and Dan Burr (Kitchen Sink)

Best New Series
1989 Kings In Disguise, by James Vance and Dan Burr (Kitchen Sink)

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

DC Comics Launches Blog for Parents

Parents Get a New, Not-So-Secret Headquarters with Launch of DC Comics Fan Family Blog

New Online Destination Brings Family-Friendly Fun with Exclusive News, Giveaways, and FAN-tastic Super Hero Features and Activities

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fans both young and young at heart will get even more of the iconic characters they love as DC Entertainment unveils the DC Comics Fan Family blog (www.dccomicsfanfamily.com). This new family-friendly site is designed to deliver the best of the celebrated Super Heroes like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman with a slew of fun, family-oriented content for parents to share with their kids.

The DC Comics Fan Family blog will serve as an online hub for all DC Entertainment family-friendly news and information, and offer readers a variety of content including DC Comics-themed activity sheets, DIY craft projects, guest blog posts featuring DC Comics talent, the chance for fans to see their own artwork featured with a variety of creative submission contests, and much more!

The blog will also feature the recently announced nationwide contest with Capstone, “Be a Super Hero. Read!” in which students in grades 3-6 are encouraged to write about the real heroes in their lives.

“Our fans are parents too and we want to give families the opportunity to create new memories by sharing the DC Comics experience in a fun and family-friendly environment,” said Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment. “The DC Comics Fan Family blog is the perfect destination for parents to discover new ways to interact with their favorite Super Heroes – from building a Batman jetpack to cooking a Green Lantern-themed breakfast.”

To learn more about the DC Comics Fan Family blog, please visit www.dccomicsfanfamily.com.


About DC Entertainment:
DC Entertainment, home to iconic brands DC Comics (Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash), Vertigo (Sandman, Fables) and MAD, is the creative division charged with strategically integrating its content across Warner Bros. Entertainment and Time Warner. DC Entertainment works in concert with many key Warner Bros. divisions to unleash its stories and characters across all media, including but not limited to film, television, consumer products, home entertainment and interactive games. Publishing thousands of comic books, graphic novels and magazines each year, DC Entertainment is the largest English-language publisher of comics in the world. In January 2012, DC Entertainment, in collaboration with Warner Bros. and Time Warner divisions, launched We Can Be Heroes — a giving campaign featuring the iconic Justice League super heroes — to raise awareness and funds to fight the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa.

Kim Thompson's Statement About His Battle with Cancer

I received this message Wednesday night (March 6, 2013): Ed.

Kim Thompson has been my partner at Fantagraphics Books for 35 years. He's contributed vastly and selflessly to this company and to the comics medium and worked closely with countless fine artists over that time. This is a tough announcement to make, but everyone who knows Kim knows he's a fighter and we remain optimistic that he'll get through this and report back to work, where he belongs, doing what he loves.

– Gary Groth

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I'm sure that by now a number of people in the comics field who deal with me on a regular or semi-regular basis have noticed that I've been responding more spottily. This is because of ongoing health issues for the past month, which earlier this week resolved themselves in a diagnosis of lung cancer.

This is still very early in the diagnosis, so I have no way of knowing the severity of my condition. I'm relatively young and (otherwise) in good health, and my hospital is top-flight, so I'm hopeful and confident that we will soon have the specifics narrowed down, set me up with a course of treatment, proceed, and lick this thing.

It is quite possible that as treatment gets underway I'll be able to come back in and pick up some aspects of my job, maybe even quite soon. However, in the interests of keeping things rolling as smoothly as I can, I've transferred all my ongoing projects onto other members of the Fantagraphics team. So if you're expecting something from me, contact Gary Groth, Eric Reyolds, or Jason Miles and they can hook you up with whoever you need. If there are things that only I know and can deal with, lay it out for them and they'll contact me.

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On behalf of Kim, we would like to encourage anyone who would like to reach out to him to feel free to send mail to him c/o Fantagraphics Books, 7563 Lake City Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115, or email to fbicomix@fantagraphics.com.

Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden: Temdan vs. Tegil the Final Battle

I read Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden, Vol. 11 (Fushigi Yugi (Graphic Novels))

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin.

Fantagraphics-EC Comics Present "'Tain't the Meat..."

'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein

224-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-578-5
In-store date: March 2013 (subject to change)

With its pitch-perfect blend of laughs, terror, and gore, as delineated by some of the finest cartoonists to ever draw a rotting, reanimated corpse, Tales from the Crypt (1950-1955, R.I.P.) remains the quintessential horror comic of all time.

And no cartoonist better encapsulated the grand-guignol spirit of Tales from the Crypt than Jack Davis, who, even at the earliest stage of what would become a six-decade career, possessed a level of skill that would elude most other cartoonists during their lifetimes. His maniacs were more homicidal, his victims more terrified, his dismemberments bloodier, and his werewolves more feral than anyone else's.

'Tain’t the Meat... It's the Humanity and Other Stories collects all of Davis's Tales from the Crypt classics, from EC's wicked revenge fantasies ("The Trophy!" and "Well Cooked Hams!") through the outright supernatural (the voodoo yarn "Drawn and Quartered!" and "Concerto for Violin and Werewolf") to the origin of the Crypt-Keeper ("Lower Berth") — and the legendary splatter gross-out of the title story.

This volume also includes biographical notes and essays, and an ultra-rare EC bonus: Davis's completely redrawn 3-D version of "The Trophy!" — back in print for the first time since its original appearance 60 years ago (and for the first time in regular, easy-on-the-eyes 2-D).

"I think a great part of my aesthetic in the genre was born out of EC rather than movies." – George A. Romero


ABOUT THE CARTOONIST: A founding cartoonist of the MAD comic book and one of the most in-demand caricaturists and cartoonists in the world for his 60-year career, Jack Davis was born in 1924 in Atlanta, Georgia, and is still going strong. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2003.

ABOUT THE WRITER: Al Feldstein was born in 1925 in Brooklyn, NY. He was an editor, writer and artist for EC Comics starting in 1947, and editor of MAD from 1956 to 1984. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003, and in 2011 he received the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Horror Writers Association. He lives in Livingston, Montana with his wife Michelle.

Fantagraphics-EC Comics Library Present "50 Girls 50"

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
illustrated by Al Williamson et al.; written by Al Feldstein et al.

264-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-577-8
In-store date: March 2013 (subject to change)

Barely old enough to drink when he joined the EC Comics stable, Al Williamson may have been the new kid on the block, but a lifetime of studying such classic adventure cartoonists as Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) and Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) had made him a kid to reckon with — as he proved again and again in the stories he created for EC's legendary "New Trend" comics, in particular Weird Science and Weird Fantasy.

As a result of Williamson's focus, it's possible to compile all of Williamson's "New Trend" EC work into one book — which Fantagraphics is finally doing here. Sci-fi aficionados should note that although most of the stories were written by Al Feldstein, 50 Girls 50 features three of EC's legendary Ray Bradbury adaptations, including "I, Rocket" and "A Sound of Thunder" — and a unique curiosity, a strip adapted from a short story submitted by a teen-aged Harlan Ellison.

Williamson ran with a gang of like-minded young Turks dubbed the "Fleagle Gang," who would help one another out on assignments. Thus this book includes three stories upon which Williamson was joined by the legendary Frank Frazetta, and one story ("Food for Thought") where Roy Krenkel provided his exquisite alien landscapes, to make it one of the most gorgeous EC stories ever printed. As a supplementary bonus, 50 Girls 50 includes three stories drawn by Fleagles sans Williamson: Frazetta's Shock SuspenStories short "Squeeze Play"; Krenkel's meticulous "Time to Leave"; and Angelo Torres's "An Eye for an Eye," an EC story that famously fell prey to censorship and was not released until the 1970s. As with other Fantagraphics EC titles, 50 Girls 50 also includes extensive story notes by EC experts.

ABOUT THE CARTOONIST: From his days as an EC pioneer to his late-career stint as the preferred illustrator of Star Wars comic strips and comic books, Al Williamson (1931-2010) was one of the greatest science fiction cartoonists who ever lived. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2000.