This Weekend: Asian American Comicon
Coming July 11 in New York, Asian American Comicon has a huge lineup of star writers and artists ready to share their love of comics. That includes Larry Hama, Derek Kirk Kim, Sean Chen, Bernard Chang, Christine Norrie, and many more. The day is a celebration of Asian culture and comics, with three tracks being planned: Reading Comics, Making Comics, and, finally, Creator Spotlight, all of which will include panels and workshops.
2009 Harvey Nominees Announced
The nominees for the 2009 Harvey Awards were announced and it's a great list. Click through to see the complete list or visit their site. It's a nice mix of some really good superhero books (Ed Brubaker's wonderful work on Captain America; All Star Superman by Grant Morrison) and spectacular graphic novels like Jimmy Gownley's Amelia Rules series and Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
-- John HoganA Look at the Indies
We're pleased to bring you a new listing of current graphic bestsellers, this time courtesy of our friends at the American Booksellers Association. The ABA's list of the top 25 graphic novels and manga covers what's selling right now at independent bookstores across the country, so it's an interesting look at what people are buying and reading. The list covers sales over the past two months. We'll continue to bring you the ABA's lists as they're released; look for the next one to come in November.
-- John HoganNew Superman-Batman Video Coming
A new DCU animated movie is on its way, another continuation of the popular series begun for both Superman and Batman in the 1990s. Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is coming from executive producer Bruce Timm, director Sam Liu, and writer Stan Berkowitz. In it, President Lex Luthor (voiced by Clancy Brown) puts a bounty on the heads of both Superman and Batman (Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy, respectively), and both heroes must avoid being hunted down by other heroes and villains alike. And then there's a Kryptonite meteor headed toward earth that the pair must deal with as well.
-- John HoganThe Warriors Come to the iPhone
I have decidedly mixed emotions about the news that the Dabel Brothers and iVerse have made The Warriors available for download on the iPhone and iPod, as well as Google's Android Mobile Devices. On the one hand, the graphic adaptation of the movie, which was an adaptation of the book by Sol Yurick, is pretty darn cool (it's written by David Atchison and drawn by Chris Dibari and will be available for download on July 15).
A Plea for Iran from Marjane Satrapi, the Author of Persepolis
We received an email from Marjane Satrapi, the author of Persepolis, whose memoir is set in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution of 1979, when she was a young girl there.
-- Carol FitzgeraldThe Return of Captain America
Captain America, who “died” back in 2007, the victim of a sniper’s bullet spray, is set to com
e back in July. That’s the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, who put on the cowl nearly seven decades ago.
Support Your Local Comic Shop
All of here at GNR love and shop at independent comic stores. That's something we definitely wanted to make clear right off, and just in case we didn't do a good enough job, I wanted to point out a new feature on the site: A link to the comic book store locator is now on every page of GraphicNovelReporter.com. Be sure to use it and find the stores in your own community to shop for new (and old) graphic novels and manga.
Spidey Sings
The Spider-Man musical continues to swing closer to debuting on Broadway. Seriously? Yes, it's for real. In fact, there's even some (possible) casting news: Alan Cumming is being mentioned as being considered for the Green Goblin role. Cumming has great musical and acting chops, so that would be suitable, but a Spider-Man musical? They're really not kidding about this?
-- John HoganA Call for Artists
Here’s some news from the folks at Outlaw Entertainment: They’re conducting an artist search to give undiscovered talent a chance to break into the industry. The contest will be based on artists’ work on five pages drawn off a script, with the deadline being July 15. The prize is $1,000 for the big winner, with two runners-up getting a library of books from Outlaw. Plus, the big winner will be announced at San Diego Comic-Con in July.
-- John Hogan
