SDCC: Marvelman belongs to Marvel.
Marvelman poster by Joe Quesada
So that super secret thing that Rich Johnston alluded to that was going to be announced at Marvel’s Cup O’Joe panel? Well that thing is the company has bought the rights to Marvelman.
“It is an honor to work with Mick Anglo to bring his creation to a larger audience than ever before,” said Dan Buckley, CEO & Publisher, Print, Animation & Digital Media, Marvel Entertainment Inc. “Fans are in for something special as they discover just what makes Marvelman such an important character in comic book history.”
For those not in the know, the Marvelman comics have been out of print and included some ground breaking runs by the likes of Alan Moore, Alan Davis and Neil Gaiman, before the creators were hits here in the U.S. The character was originally created by Mick Anglo in 1954 and published in the United Kingdom’s Fawcett Comics. The comic revolved around a reporter named Micky Moran who when he utters the word “Kimota” it bestows powers of superhuman strength, invulnerability, and force energy blasts.
If you’re not at all familiar with the character, and that’s not so hard to believe, because the character hasn’t been seen in print for a while and has been in the center of a raging legal battle over who owns the character. Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane were locked in a battle over the rights to the character, but only recently did Anglo come out and say that he always owned the rights to the character, and Fawcett (the original publishers) never owned it. So, that’s my short way of saying it was Anglo’s right to sell the character to Marvel.
Regardless, what’s past is past as they say, and now Marvel has the character and is celebrating that fact. With a limited edition poster (see above) and a t-shirt. Mr. Ayers, you may wanna hop on that train asap.
SDCC: Vertigo Crime Panel.
"Daytripper" cover by Fabio Moon.
I am ridiculously fired up over what comes out through the new Crime Line series of books from DC/Vertigo Comics. Shepherded in by Will Dennis, Kiel Phegley at Comic Book Resources gives us a great outlook of what to expect.
Karen Berger [VP of Editorial introduced panelists Jason Starr, Peter Gross, Jeff Lemire, Chris Gage, brothers Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon (who when asked why they have different last names, Ba joked,"It's all fake names"), Max Allan Collins and Gary Phillips.
First of all, Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon are doing a Crime Line book? Oh, that's goddamn brilliant. Their book is called "Daytripper" which is about an Obituaries writer who becomes embroiled in a case beyond his control. The book is going to come out some time around the end of 2009.
Other books discussed: "Nobody" writer/artist Jeff Lemire talked about his ongoing series "Sweet Tooth," which is about a human/deer hybrid wandering the road in post-apocalyptic earth. That's going to be a cool one I'm sure.
Brian Azzarello's "Filthy Rich," which I'm sure is going to be a total gem. Azz is the best crime writer working in comics now. Modern luminary Ian Rankin is going to be doing a "Constantine" story, and doing a book called "Dark Entries."
Peter Milligan is contributing "Bronx Kill," about a writer who is the black sheep of his family of Irish cops, and gets involved in a case when he's suspected of his family's murder. Workaholic Christos Gage is also doing a book (I swear I feel like Gage is writing at least six books now) called "Area 10" about someone who experiments in Trepenation which is the art of drilling a hole in your head to enhance awareness.
There are many more including works from Anderson Gabrich, John Evans, Gary Philips, and more. However the highlight for me is Max Allan Collins' "Return to Perdition."
"Initially Dreamworks didn't want anyone to know [the movie for 'Road to Perdition'] was based on a graphic novel, and the media loved it,” said Collins, who explained that the slow pace his artist worked on precipitated him to write two prose novels while the film took off and the brand expanded. “Right now, there’s one story left, and I said to Will at a con, ‘What would you think of instead of my doing a prose novel, bringing it full circle with a graphic novel?’”
Taking place in the early ’70s with the grandson of Tom Hanks’ character in witness protection and finding out that the government has been hiding the fact that his father lives and the “Watergate-esque” drama that springs from that setup.
Collins announced that his former “Ms. Tree” collaborator Terry Beatty will reteam with him for “Return to Perdition.”
“Road to Perdition” was easily my favorite comic to film adaptation. I’m not a Sam Mendes fan, but I do think this was the best movie he ever did. So, the fact that Collins is bringing the conclusion to this is a Must Buy in my book.
Sources: CCI: Vertigo New Ongoing Series/Crime Line [Comic Book Resources]. Daytripper photo [via Fabio Moon's Flickr].
Friday roundup of news from Day 1 at SDCC.
I’ll admit I’m intrigued with Seth Rogen’s Green Hornet film, Topless Robot featured the above picture of the Black Beauty, the Green Hornet’s car that drives around accompanied by annoying buzzing sound. The car looks awesome regardless. A lot of weird and unexplained bits of news have shown up from the very first day of San Diego Comic Con.
- Someone thought Star Trek cologne was a good idea, and they came out with Khan cologne. Thanks, you can keep that. I can see it now: Like the mall, while walking the Con floor you pass the booth and someone spritzes you with the cologne. Now, there you would finally be justified to hit the people that spritz you.
- Apparently, the first 15 minutes of the redonkulously beautiful Avatar will be screened for FREE in 3D Imax (so your mind and your eyes are officially obliterated) on August 21st.
- We love Paul Pope here, so anything he’s doing is warrant enough of a mention for us. There is going to be an exclusive print being handed out to the first 300 people coming to Pope’s DJ gig at the Pop Cult party on Saturday at the Onyx/Thin club at 852 5th Ave., in San Diego.
- There is going to be some more Bone comics! I know someone’s nephew who is going to be quite happy about that.
- Bob Schreck has joined IDW. So happy to hear this, because when Schreck was laid off from DC a while back it had to be one of the biggest “What the $@!*?!” moments ever. DC letting go of Schreck is like if Marvel let go of Axel Alonso or Tom Breevort, just one of those situations that should never happen.
- Tim Burton’s trailer of Alice in Wonderland is back online after a one day hiatus. Great, awesome, I’m starting to get bored with all of these Tim Burton/Johnny Depp reinvisions of classic children’s literature, but in that spectrum: Dark Shadows is go.
- Rich Johnston says Marvel is to announce “something” at the Cup O’ Joe panel today that will likely be the talk of SDCC, or “blow up the internet” as the publisher likes to say in seemingly every other solicit. Regardless, I’m looking forward to what that something is.
And that is about all. I’d like to remind everyone that tonight is the Eisner awards and there are some Twitterati running around that have been providing enlightening and hilarious observations from around the con. So, if you want to live vicariously through those that are there I recommend following: Jimmy Aquino from Comic News Insider, Mr. The Beat, Ben McCool (who I think should have some truly awesome news coming out of this weekend), Rick Marshall from MTV’s Splash Page for all the comic book movie goodness, Andy Khouri from Comic Book Resources for high quality coverage, and finally Jeff Katz for American Original news.
