Sharp-eyed Tweeter (Twittee? Twitterite? Twittista? ) Sean Gaffney spots several Yen Press books on the latest Diamond Previews cancellation list, and MangaBlog follows up with YP’s Kurt Hassler, who reconfirms the release schedule for said books. In other words, the books are still coming out, but Diamond has passed on them, and DM retailers must rely on another source. Anime News Network lists all the Yen Press books affected, plus cancelled items from other manga/anime companies, which includes Tokyopop, Go Comi (via PGW), and, unfortunately, Yaoi Generation; as a younger publisher with fewer established distribution avenues, YG may be hurt most by this latest round of cancellations, although it is possible they do a significant amount of business through direct online sales like many other yaoi pubs.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Yen, TP, Yaoi Gen on latest Diamond cancellation list
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Some news for you: Robinson, Bagley step aboard JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
I hope that Robinson gets more editorial support on this book than McDuffie got.
A link to the cover image is here.
So, let’s get right to it: Writer James Robinson and artist Mark Bagley will be the new ongoing creative team on JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, starting in October. I’ll give you a minute or two to wipe the drool off your keyboards.
All done? Great. The fun doesn’t stop there. We managed to snag Robinson for a quick second to talk about the upcoming assignment, and how it ties into his current JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE mini-series, with artist Mauro Cascioli. Take it away, James:
'It's a thrill to be given the reins of DC’s flagship team book and to know that my partner in crime(fighting) will be the esteemed Mark Bagley who's dynamic storytelling skills I intend to make full use of. It's further exciting/gratifying for me that I can dove-tail the events of Cry For Justice into the main book where post-Blackest Night will emerge a new team and a new exciting direction as they get caught up in the next wave of events building throughout the DCU.'
A link to the cover image is here.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Group, The Player and The Lonely Universe
This entry is a bit of an essay, some musing that are percolating in my backbrain as I work on other things (like racing to finally finish the Deadworld system manuscript), but it isn't something that I wanted to forget about. So, we have this.
If you find things interesting, please comment.
This is sort of about comic books, a little about pulps, and something about role-playing games as well. Once upon a time, comic book characters were islands in the streams of the larger universes of their companies. Over in their book, The Challengers of the Unknown were the greatest heroes on Earth (despite sharing an Earth with Superman) because they were the stars of their own books. Most comic books, not the mention the pulps that proceeded them, followed this model because the idea was that the main character(s) should be the hero of their own story and not have to have the day saved by a guest star swooping in during the final act.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad way to tell a story. I whole-heartedly condone it. Then Marvel Comics came along and they pushed forth the idea that each and every one of these characters shared the same city, or the same larger world or universe, and what happened in one story touched what happened in the others. This isn't a bad way to tell a story either, and it works great if you want to sell all of your company's books to as many as possible, rather than just selling a corner or two. Two perfectly valid and yet opposing methods for telling your stories.
If your hero, no matter how cool or potent he may be, has to share a world with Superman or Thor there is a good chance that they'll end up becoming a second banana in their own book. This means a balancing act in your storytelling, figuring out a method to make your hero the best without it looking silly in the face of the competition in the larger setting. Some pull it off, some don't.
This also becomes a challenge in a role-playing campaign where your characters are set against a backdrop of a larger existing world. Licensed RPGs come to mind, like the old Marvel Super-Heroes RPG from the golden years of TSR, but big, giant settings with big, giant characters also can be troublesome here. Settings for D&D, Dragonlance and The Forgotten Realms, also fit into here. How does your character stand out when they have such big characters to have to compete against for screen time? The opposite extreme is to make the characters the only heroes of the setting. I did that in a super-hero campaign using the old Marvel game back in college. "'Where are the Avengers?' 'Out of town.' 'What about the Fantastic Four?' 'Negative Zone, probably.' 'Who's left?' 'You guys have to deal with this.'"
The problem is, while it puts a bandage onto the situation, it doesn't actually solve anything and in some places it can strain the credibility and suspension of disbelief for some of the players involved (not to mention the game master). In our case it wasn't always a problem because we ran a humorous game that, at times, thrived on inconsistencies. Could we have come up with a better way to handle it? Maybe. Maybe we could have.
The reason that I'm bringing this up is because my Danger! Patrol setting is popping up in the back of my head again. It'll probably be my next task. The thing is that I want a rich, full world that has got a lot of heroic people to it but they can't overshadow the Danger! Patrol, a group of people who put on jump suits and take on big menaces using just their fists and what they have in their heads to fight them. This can lead to problems if you postulate a Superman or a Thor in the setting.
Right now, I have been thinking along the lines of keeping the setting at a "pulp level" of power. Yeah, there's a history of people pulling on costumes and doing the "right thing" for the greater world, but no super-powered individuals have risen up. Or, if they have, those powers aren't Earth-shattering. The people might be faster, stronger, tougher but they aren't hugely powered. Most heroes in this world are content with keeping the status quo on a larger scale and working at keeping their own corners of the world clean, one fight at a time.
Again, a valid approach. You get the macro and the micro in some semblance of balance and more importantly you don't have to worry about the players in a home campaign being overwhelmed by the off-screen stars of the world. If you keep everyone at roughly the same "level," you don't have to worry immediately about the cool stuff being done by characters besides those being used by the players. And that is what is the most important, the player characters not doing the important things.
This is one of the things that you have to take into consideration when designing a game or a setting for role-playing. One of many, obviously.
Oh, and a part of my thinking for what might or might not go into Danger! Patrol has been the fact that I've been reading Ed Brubaker's great Incognito comic.
If you find things interesting, please comment.
This is sort of about comic books, a little about pulps, and something about role-playing games as well. Once upon a time, comic book characters were islands in the streams of the larger universes of their companies. Over in their book, The Challengers of the Unknown were the greatest heroes on Earth (despite sharing an Earth with Superman) because they were the stars of their own books. Most comic books, not the mention the pulps that proceeded them, followed this model because the idea was that the main character(s) should be the hero of their own story and not have to have the day saved by a guest star swooping in during the final act.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad way to tell a story. I whole-heartedly condone it. Then Marvel Comics came along and they pushed forth the idea that each and every one of these characters shared the same city, or the same larger world or universe, and what happened in one story touched what happened in the others. This isn't a bad way to tell a story either, and it works great if you want to sell all of your company's books to as many as possible, rather than just selling a corner or two. Two perfectly valid and yet opposing methods for telling your stories.
If your hero, no matter how cool or potent he may be, has to share a world with Superman or Thor there is a good chance that they'll end up becoming a second banana in their own book. This means a balancing act in your storytelling, figuring out a method to make your hero the best without it looking silly in the face of the competition in the larger setting. Some pull it off, some don't.
This also becomes a challenge in a role-playing campaign where your characters are set against a backdrop of a larger existing world. Licensed RPGs come to mind, like the old Marvel Super-Heroes RPG from the golden years of TSR, but big, giant settings with big, giant characters also can be troublesome here. Settings for D&D, Dragonlance and The Forgotten Realms, also fit into here. How does your character stand out when they have such big characters to have to compete against for screen time? The opposite extreme is to make the characters the only heroes of the setting. I did that in a super-hero campaign using the old Marvel game back in college. "'Where are the Avengers?' 'Out of town.' 'What about the Fantastic Four?' 'Negative Zone, probably.' 'Who's left?' 'You guys have to deal with this.'"
The problem is, while it puts a bandage onto the situation, it doesn't actually solve anything and in some places it can strain the credibility and suspension of disbelief for some of the players involved (not to mention the game master). In our case it wasn't always a problem because we ran a humorous game that, at times, thrived on inconsistencies. Could we have come up with a better way to handle it? Maybe. Maybe we could have.
The reason that I'm bringing this up is because my Danger! Patrol setting is popping up in the back of my head again. It'll probably be my next task. The thing is that I want a rich, full world that has got a lot of heroic people to it but they can't overshadow the Danger! Patrol, a group of people who put on jump suits and take on big menaces using just their fists and what they have in their heads to fight them. This can lead to problems if you postulate a Superman or a Thor in the setting.
Right now, I have been thinking along the lines of keeping the setting at a "pulp level" of power. Yeah, there's a history of people pulling on costumes and doing the "right thing" for the greater world, but no super-powered individuals have risen up. Or, if they have, those powers aren't Earth-shattering. The people might be faster, stronger, tougher but they aren't hugely powered. Most heroes in this world are content with keeping the status quo on a larger scale and working at keeping their own corners of the world clean, one fight at a time.
Again, a valid approach. You get the macro and the micro in some semblance of balance and more importantly you don't have to worry about the players in a home campaign being overwhelmed by the off-screen stars of the world. If you keep everyone at roughly the same "level," you don't have to worry immediately about the cool stuff being done by characters besides those being used by the players. And that is what is the most important, the player characters not doing the important things.
This is one of the things that you have to take into consideration when designing a game or a setting for role-playing. One of many, obviously.
Oh, and a part of my thinking for what might or might not go into Danger! Patrol has been the fact that I've been reading Ed Brubaker's great Incognito comic.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
John H Williams III: Batwoman Art
This is from the flickr stream of artist John H Williams, showing some of his work on the Batwoman run of Detective Comics.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Preview: Phonogram 2: The Singles Club #3
This links to some preview pages for the upcoming issue of Phonogram 2. I love these guys and this story.
As the Ice Queen of the Phonogram universe, Emily Aster is only afraid of two things: her past catching up and spending time in dodgy indie venues. In the latest of the seven-stories-in-one-night of the Singles Club, she's having to deal with both. Plus, two complete back-up stories featuring the art of LEIGH GALLAGHER (2000AD, The Witching) and LEE O’CONNOR.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Zombie 'Deadworld' on the horizon
Dark Hero Studios partners David Hayter and Benedict Carver have joined with Pandemonium's Bill Mechanic to turn the comicbook 'Deadworld' into a zombie feature franchise.
Hayter ('Watchmen') will write the screenplay, and he and Mechanic will produce with Framelight's Robert L. Robinson Jr. and Jeffrey D. Erb. Carver and Pandemonium's Suzanne Warren will be exec producers along with Gary Reed, who wrote and co-created the comic.
Pandemonium and Framelight will finance development.
'Deadworld' veers from the popular zombie mythology of depicting an apocalypse in which humans are overrun by flesh-eating corpses. 'Deadworld' picks up four months after that event, where the Dead overtake the Earth, with humans few and far between. Protag is King Zombie, a Harley-riding corpse who holds a grudge against the survivors who made him an outcast.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The Downward Spiral of Wizard Magazine
At the above link Newsarama.com reports on the latest goings on with the downward spiral of Wizard Magazine. It seems that the magazine once read by everyone is now being read by fewer and fewer. I know with sites like Newsarama and Comic Book Resources in the mix I can get my comic news and information fix in quicker bites than Wizard could deliver.
I don't think that I've picked up a new issue of Wizard in over a year, personally, preferring to focus on getting my news off of the internet.
Its a shame to see the passing of an era but that's the thing about eras...they all end sooner or later.
I don't think that I've picked up a new issue of Wizard in over a year, personally, preferring to focus on getting my news off of the internet.
Its a shame to see the passing of an era but that's the thing about eras...they all end sooner or later.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Tonight At The Gnarled Oak
It's like high school and college again for me as I dive deeply into my music library for an old school goth set. Loads of "fun" for everyone involved. I'm the lead off for a mini-festival of depressing music at the Gnarled Oak with three other DJs and myself bringing a variety of sad and depressing songs of heartbreak...with a little extra nihilism on my part.
My setlist:
From 5pm until 11pm SLT at the Gnarled Oak on Prime in Second Life.
My setlist:
1. Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead (9:36)
2. Joy Division - Dead Souls (Peel Session) (4:57)
3. Miranda Sex Garden - Are You the One (4:28)
4. Mephisto Waltz - In The Room That Love Exists (4:40)
5. Tones On Tail - Burning Skies (6:27)
6. Einsturzende Neubauten - The Garden (5:12)
7. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand (Remix) (6:01)
8. Girls Under Glass - In The Darkness (5:23)
9. Suspiria - Allegedy, Dancefloor Tragedy (4:37)
10. Alien Sex Fiend - Now I'm Feeling Zombified [Extended Version] (6:52)
11. Andi Sex Gang and Marc Almond - The Hungry Years (6:50)
12. Die Form - Cantique 1 (6:37)
13. The Shroud - Alice (3:18)
14. X-Mal Deutschland - Incubus Succubus II (4:29)
15. Screams For Tina - 11:11 (3:37)
16. Brilliant - Scream Like An Angel (4:38)
17. The Sisters Of Mercy - Lucretia My Reflection (4:56)
From 5pm until 11pm SLT at the Gnarled Oak on Prime in Second Life.
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