Janelle Asselin
Hugo Awards Become A Joke After Ballot Stuffing Affects Nominations
This weekend, the Hugo Awards nominations were announced, and almost every category was affected by the "Sad Puppies" campaign, which encouraged anti-liberal voters to push specific works by conservative authors. While every award event with nomination voting has people pushing for votes in specific directions, this systematic approach to affect every single category and make it less about the quality of the work has made these nominations pretty useless. The good news is that the campaign had very little effect on the "graphic story" category, which covers comics, but the Sad Puppies voters did manage to get their one selection in that category into the nominations as well.
Aya Kanno Plays With Gender and Shakespeare in ‘Requiem of the Rose King’
Mangaka Aya Kanno is perhaps best known for her plays on gender and gender roles in the manga Otomen, and she does not disappoint on that front with her new series Requiem of the Rose King, which Viz started publishing in March. Requiem of the Rose King is loosely based on Shakespeare's Henry VI and Richard III, but the operative word here is "loosely." Still, when you take some of the more compelling beats of Shakespeare's plays, the truth of history, and the tropes of manga and mash them all together, what comes out could be terrible --- but in Requiem of the Rose King is not.
Join Rob and Eric in Inspiring Sick Kids By… Watching Marvel Movies
Swell dudes Rob and Eric are going to run a marathon, sort of. They're going to watch all eleven Marvel Studios movies --- including the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron --- back-to-back, and live-stream the experience, and just like the best marathon runners, they're going to raise funds for charity along the way.
Watching a lot of good movies isn't exactly hard work, of course, but that's not the point. The point is to encourage donations to Capes4Heroes, an organization that helps inspire sick kids to be brave and strong by turning them into superheroes. Rob and Eric's marathon is a way to take something that a fair number of comics fans will be doing anyway and give it positive consequences for people in need.
Artists Auction Their Work To Help Wilfredo Torres After the Loss of His Wife
Comics artist Wilfredo Torres' wife recently passed away from cancer. You may know Torres from some of the great work he's done over the last year on The Shadow, Batman '66, Jupiter's Circle, and on covers for the King Features line at Dynamite. To support Torres and his family in their time of grief, several comics creators have decided to raise funds by auctioning off pieces of art. They'll all be posting links on how to buy their work using the hashtag #TorresBenefit on social media. All are welcome to participate, either by bidding on art or by auctioning their art.
Fun and Whimsy and Making People Happy: The Art of Agnes Garbowska [Hire This Woman]
Hire This Woman is a recurring feature on ComicsAlliance that shines a spotlight on female comics creators, whether they're relative newcomers or experienced pros who are ready to break out. In an overwhelmingly male business, we want to draw your attention to these creators --- and to raise their profile with editors and industry gatekeepers.
Agnes Garbowska is an artist best known for her adorable work on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic comics, but she's also done a lot of covers for other series, like Powerpuff Girls and Red Sonja, some children's book illustration, and a little bit of everything else as well!
Bergen Street Comics Press Ships ‘Copra Round 2′ and ‘Revenger Armory’
Bergen Street Comics happens to be one of my favorite all-time comic shops, and it's been fascinating to watch them grow their carefully curated small press operation. ComicsAlliance has been pretty vocal about our love for Bergen Street's first offering, Michel Fiffe's Copra, and so it's surely unsurprising that we're just as excited about Copra Round 2, shipping and arriving in shops next week.
Bergen Street is also working with Chuck Forsman on his series violent vigilante series Revenger, and a special Revenger Armory zine is being offered exclusively with preorders for Revenger #2.
Black Mask Studios Offers Tubecomics (They Are Not Comics in a Tube)
Earlier this month, Black Mask Studios announced a new initiative to bring comics to potential fans who aren't necessarily going into comic shops. This new initiative is a products they call 'Tubecomics', which you can find, unsurprisingly, on YouTube, as well as the Black Mask Tubecomic site. With voice over and camera movement on many of the panels, they're not just videos of still comics. They're also not quite motion comics, not quite animation, not quite guided view... but they're a bit of a hybrid of all of the above. It's an interesting endeavor that's worth a closer look.
We’re Off to the Emerald City! Here’s Where You’ll Find Comics Alliance at ECCC
Emerald City Comicon 2015 begins tonight, March 26th, launching us into quite possibly the most ComicsAlliance-filled convention of the con season. ECCC is a beloved convention not least because it is still very comics focused and has a great community feel. While ECCC is now owned by ReedPop, it's unlikely there will be a lot of ReedPop, it's likely to retain its unique character, especially given how recent the purchase was.
CA folks are quite active at ECCC every year, meaning you can see any number of past and present (and maybe future?) ComicsAlliance editors and contributors on panels.
If you want to hear us speak on panels, or if you want to talk about comics with us, here's where you can find CA folks at ECCC this weekend (and yes, we're pretty sure they cloned Kate Leth this year).
We’re That Much Closer to Another Comics Movie: ‘I Kill Giants’ Movie Has Funding
ComicsAlliance folks are big fans of Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura's 2008 graphic novel I Kill Giants, with its feisty lead character and manga-style art --- and the lovely deluxe fifth anniversary edition that came out just last year. Thus, it's exciting to hear that the movie adaptation directed by Anders Walter has locked in funding from Treehouse Pictures. Given how many steps it takes to get a comics movie from optioned to actual reality, this means we're that much more likely to actually see an I Kill Giants movie.
To Mark the End of ‘The Private Eye’, Brian K. Vaughan Takes Over Panel Syndicate Twitter Feed, Gives Important Brunch Advice
Do you have burning questions for writer Brian K. Vaughan? Well, good news, because for most of the day today, he's taking over the Panel Syndicate Twitter account and answering people's questions. Just last week, Vaughan and artist Marcos Martin finished their 10-issue maxiseries The Private Eye that they offered under a "pay-as-you-like" model on the Panel Syndicate website. In addition to answering questions, Vaughan is talking about comics he likes, posting videos, and more. He promises no spoilers during his tweeting today, though, so if you haven't read the series yet, you can still check out the feed.