Creator: Noel Sickles Publishing Information: IDW, hardcover, 394 pages, August 2008, $49.99 Ordering Numbers: 1600102069 (ISBN10), 9781600102066 (ISBN13) I first saw IDW's massive Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles spread across the lap of editor Dean Mullaney, who while showing its pages to me had the giddy and slightly apologetic air of a man who'd come home with a much more expensive car than he'd announced he'd be purchasing at breakfast. The reason for much of Mullaney's enthusiasm can be found, I think, in the almost embarrassing amount of riches he was able to provide in the arts section: paintings, commercial art, war-related efforts, commissioned work, personal items such as birthday cards, and abortive syndicated newspaper comics efforts like a mid-'70s Bruce Lee strip. Scorchy Smith is really two separate books, and that's not just a facile slogan here; there's simply that much material. Sickles was an obviously gifted artist that rarely if ever seemed to cheat in terms of preparation and out-there commitment to craft. I don't know much about illustration or where he might stand in the histories of that field, but I would suppose that at the very least he was one of a handful of skilled artists that could boast of a prolific career spanning decades, able to depict the fruits of his visual research while supplying the art with that drama that comes from evocative picture-making. In other words, I have to imagine he was considered quite good, admired as much as he was hired, even if he's not a pantheon-level talent. It's fun to look at his art here. And then there's the strip. Noel Sickles is known to comics fans for his 1930s run on Scorchy Smith, where he created a way of adding depth and drama to comics imagery that has been borrowed from ever since, most famously by his close friend Milton Caniff in giving his seminal Terry and the Pirates its flair. Having an entire run of a strip is always a nice thing; Mullaney goes one better by showing a bit of the run on each side of Sickles' in addition to the full run of the cartoonist's contributions. Looking through Sickles' Scorchy strip you can quickly pick up on the progression in his experiments. The work becomes darker-looking as Sickles innovates in terms of shading and light sourcing and use of negative space -- the famous chiaroscuro effect. However, it's not quite a simple walk from A to B: there are a few stops and starts in addition to the general improvement in visual quality, including what seem like experiments with the weight of the line Sickles employed. An underappreciated aspect of Scorchy Smith peeps through in a few domestic scenes: Sickles' art may have added weight and depth to the action, but it also brought to a life a sumptuous world that served as a perfect backdrop to the feature's mix of slight, sometimes simply hinted-at soap opera and domestic adventures. The strip's writing has the problems you might expect of a non-first rank strip of its period. It takes itself a bit too seriously and it resides so comfortably within a popular genre (aviation adventure) that it rarely has to innovate in terms of plot. I don't think this is an undiscovered gem of the kind that might eclipse its creator's medium-wide contributions through men like Caniff, but it's certainly lovely to look at, and a treat to have under one cover. That there's another entire art book in front of it proves to be a remarkable bonus. please note: these are my scans, not the book's. the book's are nicer

By Tom Spurgeon what's coming out, who's doing it and what it's going to look like; gathered into one place once a week for ease of consumption * the cartoonist Elijah Brubaker has released the cover image for the fifth issue of his Reich ongoing. * the Hero Initiative charitable group will publish a collection of Stan Lee's "Stan's Soapbox" editorials in November. I'm betting half of you just thought, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard" and half of you just thought, "Oh yeah, I'm totally getting that." * starting with the fifth volume, publisher IDW is revamping its approach to their Dick Tracy reprint series to better accommodate the Sunday reprints. Considering how gorgeous those Sundays are, anything that shows them off more effectively is great news. * I totally missed this, but Jason doing a werewolf story at some point would be pretty great. * the cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks does the full preview thing for December's The War At Ellsmere, coming from SLG. * finally, Derek Kirk Kim is working on the follow-up to his forthcoming collaboration with Gene Yang, The Eternal Smile, to be published by First Second in 2009 (art sample below). The one he's working on now is a solo effort, also coming from First Second. I had barely heard of the collaboration, and hadn't heard at all about the solo work, so: fantastic.

The French comics news clearinghouse ActuaBD.com has an update on the status of the case against the cartoonist Maurice "Sine" Sinet, fired from Charlie Hebdo after a comment about the son of French President Nicholas Sarkozy was charged with anti-Semitism. This is some of interest not just because of the profession of the person making the comment and the job from which he was fired, but because Charlie Hebdo won a significant case brought against it by Muslim groups that objected to their coverage of the Danish Cartoons Controversy and is generally a beneficiary of free expression. Obviously, these developments could be interpreted as working against that general spirit. A couple of the more interesting pieces of analysis mentioned in that article, if I'm getting it correctly, notes that Sine's September hearing before a committee designed to hear cases like this (LICRE) will take place in Lyons, not France and that a reading of the summons shows more at issue than the Sarkozy commentary. What I think is a much less interesting line of reasoning seems to be suggesting that the committee's decision will justify or fail to justify the reasons given for the firing by Sine's employer.

The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com offers their usual array of lists, estimates and analysis regarding the performance of comic books and graphic novels in the Direct Market of comic and hobby shops, this time for July 2008. * Overview * Analysis * Top 300 Comic Books * Top 100 Graphic Novels We'll link to an update from John Jackson Miller's Comics Chronicles right below here when available: * Comic Book Sales Estimates * Comics Shop Sales Market Share The big news would have to be the performance of the Watchmen trade following the release of a trailer for its movie version that preceded the popular Dark Knight. The co-big news would be a decline in comic dollars spent extending to a half year now, making it a significant trend and not one that I think can be explained away via historical circumstance. Among other stories worth noting is that the #2 and #3 issues on the serial comic book top 10 are from the X-Men franchise. Now, there's every reason to note that the issues in question are special issues that likely drove those books' sales pop, but right now the health of comics franchises in the Direct Market lies in their ability to drive top-of-chart numbers when it's possible for them to do so. Given Marvel's success reviving the non-mutant part of their publishing line-up, an increasingly heated performance from the X-Men books could sustain their relative juggernaut status for a while. No surprise that the Joker-driven Killing Joke edition led the various Batman franchise books getting a movie bump; little surprise that Trinity has yet to find its bottom. ***** *****

Okay, I know that's a loaded headline, but I've never quite understood why a practical but all-in approach hasn't dominated comics publishers' strategies regarding the Internet rather than the excruciatingly slow toe in the pool approach we have now. This is a survey of where things stand at present. You likely won't be impressed.

Here. While I'm not so interested in hashing out various opinions regarding the works, the fact I couldn't easily find a list of half-way decent or well-regarded superhero comics from the decade of Image and Marvels struck me as kind of odd, so I thought I'd make one of my own here for future reference. Please note that I said "half-way decent or well-regarded," and didn't say "books I'd endorse as the best books ever and defend against all comers." In fact, some of these I personally don't like at all, and maybe one (not the one you think) would make a personal top 100 comics of the decade list. But I'm sure there were a lot of pretty good superhero comics that decade. Weren't there? Here's what I could come up with: * 1963, Alan Moore and Various * Animal Man, Peter Milligan * Astro City, Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson * Aztek the Ultimate Man, Grant Morrison and Mark Millar and N. Steven Harris * Avengers, Kurt Busiek and George Perez * Batman: Blades, James Robinson and Tim Sale * Batman: Faces, Matt Wagner * Batman: Gothic, Grant Morrison and Klaus Janson * Batman/Grendel, Matt Wagner * Batman: Mad Love, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm * Batman: The Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale * Cable, Joe Casey and Jose Ladronn * Captain America, Mark Wait and Ron Garney (their first run) * Chase, D. Curtis Johnson and JH Williams * Daredevil, Karl Kesel and Cary Nord * Deadpool, Joe Kelly and Various * final run of comics in Animal Man and Doom Patrol, Grant Morrison and Various * final run of comics in Legion of Super-Heroes by Keith Giffen and Tom Bierbaum and Mary Bierbaum * final run of comics in Suicide Squad, John Ostrander * final run of comics in Zot!, Scott McCloud * Elektra Lives Again, Frank Miller and Lynn Varley * Enigma, Duncan Fegredo and Peter Milligan * Excalibur, Alan Davis' run * Firearm, James Robinson and Various * Flash, Mark Waid and Mike Weiringo * Flex Mentallo, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely * Grendel Tales, Various * Hitman, Garth Ennis and John McCrea * Incredible Hulk, Peter David and Variouis Including Dale Keown and Gary Frank * Incredible Hulk Vs. Superman, Roger Stern and Steve Rude * JLA, Grant Morrison and Howard Porter * John Byrne's Next Men, John Byrne * Judge Dredd, John Wagner * Kingdom Come, Mark Waid and Alex Ross * Madman by Mike Allred * Marvels, Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross * Miracleman, Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham * New Warriors #1-25, Fabian Niceza and Mark Bagley * Nexus: Alien Justice, Mike Baron and Steve Rude * Nexus: Executioner's Song, Mike Baron and Steve Rude * Nexus: Nightmare in Blue, Mike Baron and Steve Rude * Nexus: The Origin, Mike Baron and Steve Rude * Nexus: The Wages of Sin, Mike Baron and Steve Rude * Power & Glory, Howard Chaykin * Quantum and Woody, Christopher Priest and M.D. Bright * Sandman Mystery Theatre, Matt Wagner, Steven T. Seagle and Guy Davis * Savage Dragon, Erik Larsen * Starman, James Robinson and Tony Harris * Stormwatch (final issues)/The Authority, Warren Ellis and Various Including Bryan Hitch * Superman Adventures Scott McCloud/Mark Millar Issues * Superman For All Seasons, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale * Supreme, Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse * "The American Evolution," Legends of the DC Universe #14, Mark Evanier and Steve Rude * The Batman Adventures, Kelley Puckett and Mike Parobeck * The Demon Garth Ennis and John McCrea * The Golden Age, James Robinson and Paul Smith * The Invisbles, Grant Morrison and Various * The Jam, Bernie Mireault * Untold Tales of Spider-Man, Kurt Buisek and Pat Oliffe * Vigilante: City Lights, Prarie Justice, James Robinson and Tony Salmons * WildCATS Vol. 2, Various * World's Finest, Dave Gibbons and Steve Rude * Youngblood, Alan Moore and Steve Skroce Others written in that I've either never seen, seen but thought they were so terrible I can't even begin to see someone else's view that they're good, or haven't seen and simply don't know the person recommending them to me include: Impulse, Nightwing, Robin, Young Justice, Chronos, DC One Million, Tangent Comics, Batman: No Man's Land, Hourman, Resurrection Man, JLA: The Nail, Spider-Man 2099, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Justice League Europe, Avengers #314-318, Thunderbolts, New Warriors, JLA Year One, , Supergirl, Aquaman, Static, Catalysts: Agents of Change, Barb Wire, Ghost. The most depressing letters were those that 1) thought I was speaking about all comics not just superheroes, 2) subsequently upbraided me for Hellboy and Sandman not being on the list rather than noting Palestine's absence.

* it's refreshing to hear about a cartoonist resigning instead of being fired, and the reason being a change in owners as opposed to a massive drop in circulation and ad revenues. One has to go to Nepal for such an article, but still. * not comics: I suppose this is a big story based on the fact that it hints at possibly denying people some future movie-watching pleasures and it may unleash a blogosphere's worth of self-appointed legal experts and alarmed headline writers. It's not something about which I can generate a lot of passion until it has an impact on graphic novel sales, which is a long way and two or three maneuvers that may never happen off. * the essential dickishness of Sub-Mariner survives across the years and two very different cartooning styles in this James Kochalka re-drawn page from a Jack Kirby Fantastic Four comic book. * I'm not saying he should do this, but I'd certainly read a Chris Butcher blog where he interpreted various comics industry debates according to an appropriate strip from Achewood. * not comics: it's also hard for me to get worked up about prospective movie deals as news, but I'd certainly go see a decent movie based on the Brubaker/Phillips comic book Sleeper. There might be something to the fact that the article mentions the rights situation as complicated; that could mean a lot of things, though. * I greatly enjoyed this broad survey article about the value of editorial cartoonists to the history of the newspaper in Australia. Even the opening lines are funny. * there's a really long and for-mainstream-audience-as-well interview with Jeff Smith up at the PBS NewsHour site. * finally, Franklin Harris provides Reason with a short history of EC Comics; I'm not skilled enough with the history of this period to be able to double-check it as history just by looking at it, though.

Craft Jesse Hamm Sketches Karl Kesel Draws Medusa Exhibits/Events EIBF 2008 Report Indian Cartoons Exhibit History On Linus This Made Me Laugh Elephants On Parade Seven More Weapons Kid Enjoys Pep Comics #28 The Answer Is Element Lad's 'Fro Industry Gainesville Sun Adds Cartoons PR Black Hole Created, Brain Sucked Into It Johanna Draper Carlson on Retailer Economics Interviews/Profiles Propaganda: Paul Pope Daily News: Abby Denson Newsarama: Karen Berger Comic News: Joe Chiappetta OregonLive.com: Matthew Bernier Metromix: Owen King, John McNally Mediabistro.com: Marc Tyler Nobleman Citizen-Times: Bryan Lee O'Malley, Hope Larson Not Comics No God Bless Joe Ferrara Pre-Movie Rape Scene Hype We Need More Bigfoot Hoaxes Bookstore Sales Down In June Well, The Headline Made Me Giggle Hopefully, He'll Lift Even More Things Spawn Endorsed Abstract Notion of Vengeance Publishing Oh Great Opinions Sought Sexy TinTin Fails To Fly Incredibly Weird Article More on FBoFW Decision New Trudeau Book Profiled Drug Comic Hits PR Bonanza That Lynn Johnston Video on FBoFW Reviews Paul O'Brien: Various Greg Burgas: Various Richard Bruton: Laika Jog: The Punisher #60 June: Steal Moon Vol. 1 Don MacPherson: Air #1 Ed Sizemore: Yen+ #1-2 Jared Gardner: Wasteland Jared Gardner: The Sword Rob Clough: Grotesque #2 Jonah Winter: Jackie Ormes Andrew Wheeler: Flight Vol. 5 Shannon Smith: Rashy Rabbit Sean T. Collins: Three Shadows Henry Chamberlain: Exit Wounds Herve St. Louis: Fantastic Four #558 Xaviar Xerexes: How To Draw Stupid Bill Sherman: Too Cool To Be Forgotten Paul O'Brien: X-Men Origins: Jean Grey Chris Mautner: Glamourpuss, Judenhass Paul O'Brien: X-Men: Secret Invasion #1 Johanna Draper Carlson: Beauty Pop Vol. 8 Leroy Douresseaux: Warcraft: Legends Vol. 1 Johanna Draper Carlson: High School Debut Vol. 3 I Wouldn't Share Most of These With Anyone, Actually Geof Boucher: The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics

Creator: Rina Ayuyang Publishing Information: self-published, mini-comic, 56 pages, 2007, $3 Ordering Numbers: go here I very much liked this small mini-comic of random drawings culled from the sketchbooks of Rina Ayuyang. Ayuyang draws lovely clutter, both in terms of where it exists in the real world and in terms of placing a bunch of related experiences within the same mental/comics space for our consideration. She labels and describes some of it, using an amusing voice that is at once chirpy presentation and sly, undercutting remark. Other pages are "silent" for the most part, and it's the density of the writing that begins to control our eye. Words push us through some of the experiences while the lack of same sets us adrift for a moment. It's a nice effect. I'm not certain this would work in any other format: these are definitely sketchbook drawings and the casual nature of the page matches the drift of the mental prcess that assembled this work. The observations stay near the surface and although there is a certain lyric quality to an idea or two that bubbles to the surface, the banality of the everyday life moments represented puts a lot of pressure on a quality of the presenation that I think includes its homemade aspects. It's a valuable snapshot of a life in process, although it's much less of a crystal clear photograph than something blurry made with a child's instamatic or even the shadows cast in a homemade container-camera.

It may just be me, but I'm dubious of a line of reasoning that seems to be developing around Alan Moore and his disinterest in the forthcoming movie adaptation of the Watchmen series he wrote and co-created with artist Dave Gibbons. It feels to me that what I'm reading about Moore's lack of interest tends to brush past the writer's well-documented tussles with the Time Warner-owned DC Comics publishing arm if favor of an interpretation that Moore's something of a grumpy gus that didn't like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie and thought 300 was kind of stupid. I'm a grumpy gus that didn't like LOEG and thought 300 was kind of stupid. Alan Moore, on the other hand, is a renowned comics author that has objected to his treatment at DC Comics, the company whose corporate logo will precede this film. Some of those incidents of dissatisfaction specifically touch on Watchmen. Evidence suggests Moore would not have worked with the company in recent memory were it not for finding himself in a very specific quandary about where his then-publisher ended up and at what time in those projects' development they ended up there -- in spirit, at least, this is a close to two decades break with the publisher. According to public statements, Moore has made the decision to publish future work through Top Shelf, not DC, based in great part on his appraisal of how each entity has treated him. You can debate the reasonableness of Moore's objections and the wisdom of his resulting choices. You can talk of his specific unwillingness to grant that the Watchmen movie could be of any interest at all in terms of his limited but negative past experiences with film based on his work. You can even mention his take on 300, a criticism he made. But I think you're only telling part of the story. The easy part.

The talented Argentinian illustrator Carlos Meglia passed away early Friday from aortic complications that put him in the hospital on the 12th and were perhaps related to ongoing heart problems including a previous surgery. He was 50 years old. Meglia was born in 1957 in Quilmes, about 10 miles outside of Buenos Aires. He entered into the school of Fine Arts because of a proclivity for drawing. He began work at an early age as well, assisting the artist Oswal beginning in 1974. In 1976 his own byline was established on illustrations for the magazine El Pendulo and some book cover work. He pursued book illustration work in the remainder of that decade, expanding to magazine illustration in the '80s from a variety of platforms. According to an interview he gave in 1994, he also taught at the school where he himself was trained. His comics work began in 1983 when he contributed a few short stories to an already existing client, the publisher Record. He moved into animation in the middle part of that decade, working on properties such as The Smurfs, Super-Friends, The Jetsons and Scooby Doo. In 1987 he teamed with Carlos Trillo on the series Irish Coffee. The pair launched the wild fantasy series Cybersix four years later; that series may have been Meglia's best-known and most highly-regarded work. In that 1994 interview he described his relationship with Trillo as a special one. The interview also suggests that Meglia may have been producing somewhere between 100 and 250 pages per month with a team of eight on Cybersix, which would be astonishing. By the mid-'90s, that work found purchase in the European market. Also in the 1990s, Meglia moved to Spain and began to work for the North American comics market, primarily for Dark Horse and DC. He worked on the Star Wars, Elektra, Spyboy and Superman franchises, and worked on the DC/Dark Horse crossover Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle. He received an award described as the Caran D'Ache in 1995 in Rome. He was an influence on several illustrators working in a comics style reminiscent of animation, including Humberto Ramos, who remembers his friend in this blog posting. In recent years his work had been published through Soleil, including the series Canari with collaborator Crisse. His last published work was a first issue of Red Song with Trillo. Upon his passing, friends and collaborators mentioned his lively personality and sense of humor, the palpable life force they were astonished to discover had been extinguished. Testimonials have flooded the the blog kept in his name. It is believed he is survived by a wife and at least one child, a son. please note: a few sources, including Ramos, have Meglia passing away on August 14 rather than August 15

I had three e-mails this morning asking after the fact that Amazon.com vendor Magazine Express, Inc. is apparently offering comics subscriptions through Amazon.com. This mean that someone out there almost certainly posted something about it, and I apologize to that person. On the flip side, I have no idea if this service has been available five days or five years. It looks like this is just a discount service that hooks you up with a traditional from-the-company mail-order subscription, the kind they used to offer through those ads that had the Hulk dressed up as Santa or whatever and that came in that brown paper sleeve that everyone of a certain age has registered as a sense memory. As I don't think the Marvel buttons even work, and The Comics Journal and Comics Revue are near the top of the bestseller list, I can't imagine this program is moving a ton of copies, just as from-the-company subs aren't really a super-popular option in most cases for most fans, particularly fans with options elsewhere. I guess it bears watching. The ability to cancel your subscription and get money back through Amazon.com's mechanisms (I think that's how it would work) seems pretty appealing. Subscriptions and fealty to certain titles is a good way for kids to enjoy comics, so it could have an effect on that segment of the market. If it works, I suppose more could be done in terms of someone trying to replicate a comic shop experience through Amazon.com, although the non-returnability of items pretty much keeps that from happening unless some major deal were reached.

Longtime comics industry veteran and author Bob Greenberger and the Greenberger family lost son Robbie, 20 years old, to cancer, it was announced late last week. Many comics fans and comics industry members had become aware of Robbie Greenberger's situation through on-line updates and through comics/science fiction convention circles. Greenberger spoke of how proud he was of what his son had endured to date in a June interview on this site. The Greenbergers and Robbie's extensive mosaic of friends and acquaintances have our deepest sympathy. A burial is planned for early this afternoon. Donations can be made to the charities indicated here.

Rene Clemente was apparently a veteran Filipino comics artist with a productive career perhaps focused on romance comics or that industry's equivalent, partnering with the writers Georgina De Guzman and Elena M. Patron, among others. He worked as RB Clemente. No date of birth was given. The exact date of Mr. Clemente's death wasn't provided either, although it looks like the postings about it occurred late last week. Click through the image above to go Gerry Alanguilan's write-up on the artist's passing and a better look at his art.