Comic Book Resources – SCOTT McCLOUD GETS BACK TO BASICS WITH “MAKING COMICS”

I will have to get this when it comes out, I really liked his last two books.

Read the rest of the article at the link below.

Comic Book Resources – CBR News – The Comic Wire

SCOTT McCLOUD GETS BACK TO BASICS WITH “MAKING COMICS”
by Beau Yarbrough, Staff Writer
Posted: June 12, 2006 Scott McCloud’s career is something of a litmus test.

If you’re old enough to remember the black and white comics boom and bust cycle (which gave us “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” as one of the breakout successes, back when the book was a Frank Miller homage and not a kid’s cartoon), McCloud is best remembered for “Zot!” and “Destroy!!” – a pair of black and white comics with seemingly nothing in common other than a love of exclamation points.

If you’re young enough to not have remembered either when they hit stores – and to be vaguely surprised at the notion that the TMNT ever had anything to do with Frank Miller – McCloud’s the guy who thinks deep thoughts about comics for a living, beginning with “Understanding Comics” in 1993 and later with “Reinventing Comics” in 2000.

This fall, the two sides of Scott McCloud get reconciled, when he puts out his third book on comics, “Making Comics.”

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TIM SALE ON SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL – NEWSARAMA

TIM SALE ON SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL – NEWSARAMA

TIM SALE ON SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL Artwork colored by Mark ChiarelloAs we already reported, DC will be kicking off two new series in November, focusing on the early days of their most popular heroes. While Batman Confidential will focus on the early days of the Dark Knight, Superman Confidential will examine the earlier days of the Man of Steel through the eyes of rotating creative teams. First up on the series – a six issue arc written by Darwyn Cooke and illustrated by Tim Sale. We caught up with the artist for more on the arc. To begin with, when asked, Sale explained that getting on the book was easy enough. “I was approached by Dan DiDio. Jeph [Loeb] had recently signed with Marvel, and I had still obligations under my exclusive contract with DC that needed honoring, and Dan had come up with the idea of the Superman and Batman Confidential titles. He knew of my admiration for Darwyn’s work, and that I had expressed to Mark Chiarello that I would love to someday work with Darwyn, and once Dan said that Darwyn would be writing, I was in.” Following along with Didio’s vision for the Confidential titles, like the story in Batman Confidential’s first arc, the series tells of key moments in Superman’s history, in this case, the first time he ran into that little souvenir from home – Kryptonite. “Darwyn had dug up the first kryptonite story from 1949 by Bill Finger and Al Plastino and we took that as our jumping off point,” Sale explained. “Our version is very different in both style and plot, but there are structural things in the tale that are similar. It’s really Darwyn’s baby, we didn’t discuss much, only things like what I think is fun to draw, and Darwyn’s instincts along those lines are really good. “Our story is set when Superman is young and just discovering the extent of his powers. It is also very early in his relationship with Lois.” In order to show that Superman Confidential’s Superman isn’t the modern-day version, but rather a slightly greener version of the hero, Sale said that he went back to the approach he took with Superman For All Seasons. “The art style I’m using is different, but the innocence that my Superman has is the same,” the artist said. “There is more variety in his expressions perhaps, in this version than the one I drew in For All Seasons.” The fact that this story’s look doesn’t quite match that in For All Seasons was a deliberate choice Sale made, he explained. “I wanted very much to have a different look than For All Seasons, both because I want that look to be special for the stories I do with Jeph, and because I felt this story deserved its own look. I do think I have matured as an artist since then also, and there will be some difference from that, too.” One of the aspects of the art Sale gives a good deal of thought to is one of the larger challenges of Superman – drawing Clark and Superman as the same person, but at the same time, in a manner so that it’s believable that people in Superman’s world just might not catch on that the mild mannered reporter is also the world’s greatest hero. “For me, it’s largely in the hair and clothes,” Sale said. “Body language, too, but I don’t draw Clark sort of stooped the way they do in the movies, he’s still a big guy. It’s one of those comic book cheats that I just bypass, that Clark combs his hair and puts on glasses and a suit, and suddenly he’s unrecognizable. He’s as big as a house, and no one suspects, he’s just a farm kid.” In regards to working with Cooke, Sale said that the process has been an easy once, given that they share the same approach. “It’s great, and we very much see Superman in the same way. The sense of what makes these people tick, and what’s fun about them, is in large part what I liked about Darwyn’s New Frontier. Although – Sale said that there was a slight learning curve as their styles meshed and adapted – particularly when it came to Superman’s villains. “Darwyn is fond of some of the more cartoony aspects of the villains in Superman’s gallery, and I’m not so much, and so getting my swerve on when it came to them was challenging, but there is so much in Darwyn’s writing that I just couldn’t wait to get to draw, that it was fun. “Also, there’s a scene at a volcano in issue two, intercut with a scene of Lois, that I felt I just nailed. It was really fun to contrast the styles and emotions.” Finally, the artist did give one final hint of something to keep an eye out for in the story: “Darwyn does plant the seed of a character motivation in issue two that I think is brilliant, and long overdue. One of those things that seems so obvious once it’s done that you can’t believe it’s never been done before.”

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SUPERMAN RETURNS, FANTASTIC FOUR 2, TRANSFORMERS, HEROES: JUNE 12TH COMIC REEL WRAP – Comic Book Resources

As this article over at CBR shows, super-heroes are big business in Hollywood these days.  Which is a good thing

Comic Book Resources – CBR News – The Comic Reel

SUPERMAN RETURNS, FANTASTIC FOUR 2, TRANSFORMERS, HEROES: JUNE 12TH COMIC REEL WRAP

by Hannibal Tabu, Staff Writer

Posted: June 12, 2006

SUPERMAN RETURNS

When it comes to the Man of Steel, there’s only three letters you need to know: CBR. We’ve got a spoiler-free review of the film, plus a press junket interview with actor Kevin Spacey. It’s so exciting that the Last Son of Krypton even went and got himself a MySpace page … is he in your Top Friends? Oh snap, Lois and Lex have pages too … Lex used Thomas MySpace Editor V3.6? Hm, whatever …

Meanwhile, director Bryan Singer is quoted at Sci Fi Wire
talking about a scene he had to cut for time. I shot a whole [scene]
with the [return-to-Krypton] sequence,” Singer said. He felt it didn’t
fit the film’s theme and was too long, so out it went. “At some point
you’ll see it, I’m sure sometime … no one told me to do it, to make
these cuts. I had no restrictions. I had no time restrictions. There
was no pressure whatsoever. I just felt, … the movie doesn’t need
this. And I did something else instead. It could exist later, in this
form. I think it would be coolest in 3-D, because of just stuff that’s
flying around.”

Finally, Superhero Hype notes that actor Sam Huntington has been signed for two sequels.

FANTASTIC FOUR 2

Actor Ioan Gruffudd spoke to Comingsoon.net about the upcoming Tim Story-helmed sequel, and revealed that he does plan on seeing a Doctor soon.

TRANSFORMERS

Superhero Hype has a set report with some photos of members of the cast. Human characters, though.

HEROES

Jace of Televisionary (not Jayce of Wheeled Warriors) wrote in to point out his review of the pilot for the new network superhero series.

SPIDER-MAN 3

Set reports? Are you saying you wanna see set reports with secret photos taken of things the production was hiding? All right, if you insist …

SMALLVILLE

Speaking of TV shows, a reader named Maria emailed us to point out some high resolution set stills from the season finale, “Vessel.”

MARVEL MOVIE MASH-UP

Movie mogul Avi Arad talked to If Magazine
about some upcoming celluloid creations from the House of Ideas. About
“Hulk 2,” he said, “It’s a ‘do-over.’ I loved the HULK movie, it was
just a different approach, and it wasn’t exactly the comic. We want to
be much closer to the comic. It’s what we would rather do.” He also
confirmed “Thor” is being written, “Black Panther” is waiting on an
actor to be available, “Luke Cage” is stillborn, that “Nick Fury” and
“Ant Man” are definitely going to be produced, and there’s a new
“Spider-Man” cartoon in the pipeline.

DC DIGITAL DATA

DC Comics institution Paul Levitz talked about a number of projects at the press junket for “Superman Returns,” or so says Superhero Hype.
What sort of projects? Of “Wonder Woman,” he said, “It’s coming along.
Supposedly, Joss is turning a script in any moment now. I can’t
emphasize enough how normal it is for these projects to take forever.
The gap between signing the project for ‘Superman 1′ and the film
coming out was six years. The gap between signing the contract that led
to the first Tim Burton ‘Batman’ movie was nine and a half years. The
gap between the last, if you will, cycle of ‘Batman’ films and ‘Batman
Begins ‘was nine years I think. It’s been about nine or 10 years since
we got the ‘Superman’ film rights back to Warner Brothers before we got
this one going. An it’s not just us. For whatever reason, ‘Spider-Man’
was the worst mess we’d ever seen in terms of the business maneuvers it
took to get it done. By their nature, these are big and complex things
to put together. You don’t build them fast.”

How about Watchmen?
“Warners is looking at Watchmen right now. I believe they are looking
for a director at the moment. I negotiated the ‘Watchmen’ film deal
when the third issue of the maxi-series was coming out in 1985 or 1986.
It’s been through Fox, Universal, Paramount so far and now it’s at
Warners. God knows. I think it’s an extraordinary difficult property to
do right as a film. It is a creative property that is very specifically
designed for the medium in which it is published. I think it’s a real
challenge to break out and do it. I think they had a very interesting
script and certainly Paul Greengrass is a great director, so I had some
hope for the Paramount one. I hope Warner will be able to put something
great around it.”

He also noted that the
Aquaman pilot could be picked up at a later date, that David Goyer was
still writing the “Flash” movie, Pete Segal is directing “Shazam” for
New Line, alongside some other properties in development.

X-MEN 3

In our continuing coverage of the success out in Westchester, Box Office Mojo
reports that the film has made over $200 million up to date with its
third weekend in theaters, and is now the #1 grossing movie of 2006,
being less than $14 million from the total gross receipts of “X2.”

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

Here’s where you get in
on the action. Did you see a link we didn’t catch? Have you snuck into
a closed movie set, and have inside data? Maybe your cousin is dating
somebody who knows something, and they had to tell you? Whatever it is,
we wanna know it all — fire off an email
and let us know whether you want your name used or your contributions
to geekdom to go down anonymously. Broadcasting live from Los Angeles,
this is novelist/karaoke host/all-around lunatic Hannibal Tabu saying thanks for your time and indulgence, Southern California readers should come check me out hosting a new weekly poetry open mic in luxurious Redondo Beach, and [tagline sent back to development hell until something hipper can be dreamed up].

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