Art Show: I'd fly with that guy.

Stranski



By Lorenzo Etherington.

Nonplayer



By Nate Simpson.

Art Show: No jacket, Adam. You didn’t think it through did you?

Pirate Girl



By Katie Shanahan. [Art Jumble]

Undersea Agent



By Gil Kane. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

It's Valkyrie, Airboy!



By Fred Kida. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

After the break: Sandmen, Shang Chi and Friends, Wonder Woman, magic, creeps, and a space barbarian.

Art Show: Every Girl Wants a Pony

Namora



Cosplayer Unknown; PhotoShopping by theblackhauke.

Bentlys Trading Post



By Robert McGinnis. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Faeries, aliens, and more superheroes (some of them in fishnets) after the break.

Art Show: Illustrateurs

If you like the Art Show feature here, you need to add Illustrateurs to your blogroll or RSS feed right away. Chris Mautner linked to it from Robot 6 and I'm hooked. So hooked, in fact, that I'm dedicating an entire Art Show post to sharing just a tiny taste of what's going on over there. Every post of theirs is stuffed full of more amazing art just like the images below.

The Deadly Lady of Madagascar



By Robert Maguire.

Fire Fight for the Village



By Mort Künstler.

Jungle people, giant reptiles, derring-do, and more after the break.

Elsewhere on the Internets...

It's been a while since I've done one of these, so there's more stuff than usual to share. Here's some of what else I've been up to online lately. I'll probably need one or two more posts like this to catch up to the rest.

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs

There were two things that always got me excited as a kid: pirates and medieval stuff. Whether it was King Arthur, Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, or something else, I always thrilled to tales of chivalry, plate mail, and yew bows. But then I found Star Wars and everything else didn’t seem as exhilarating anymore.

Well, now I’m grown up and Star Wars has lost nearly all its shine. Jack Sparrow has rekindled my love for swashbuckling scoundrels of the seas, but so far nothing has gotten me excited about castles and wizards again. Not until Demons of Sherwood, that is. Bo Hampton and Robert Tinell’s webcomic turned graphic novel has everything a good medieval story needs: knights, damsels (sometimes in distress; sometimes rescuing distressed fellas), merry men, spooky woods, noblemen of questionable trustworthiness, holy relics, and enough of the supernatural to make things interesting without turning the whole thing into a fantasy tale. It’s also very grounded in reality.

I’m not talking so much about research or historical accuracy, though it may have those things going for it too as far as I know. What I mean is that the art and the script have weight to them. The story reads as if it’s happening to real people, in spite of the utterly fantastic things that are going on around them.

Read more here.

When I reviewed Book One of The Good Neighbors back in the day, I was struck with the maturity that Black and Naifeh brought to their story. Black’s known for The Spiderwick Chronicles and Naifeh’s known for all sorts of kid-friendly stuff like Courtney Crumrin, Death Jr., and Polly and the Pirates. The Good Neighbors, on the other hand, is about a college girl named Rue whose mother is missing and whose father is a suspect in not only Mom’s disappearance, but also the death of one of Rue’s schoolmates. I was impressed with how dark and serious the story was, but how at the same time Black and Naifeh kept the characters lively enough to prevent it from becoming oppressive. They continue that balance in Book Two.

At the end of the first volume, Rue learned that her mother was a faerie; the daughter of the Faerie King who was won in a bet by Rue’s human father. But one of the conditions of the prize was that Rue’s mom would return to her people if Rue’s father were ever unfaithful, which he was. Which explains Mom’s disappearance. The dead student was a related, but tangential casualty of another faerie-related matter. As it turns out, Rue’s paternal grandfather is planning a takeover of Rue’s town and the local faerie activity is getting out-of-control as a result. The trouble is that no one but Rue – thanks to her mother’s heritage – can see it. In Kith, Grandpa’s plan takes a huge step forward as he demonstrates how far he’s willing to go to achieve it. And those who oppose him demonstrate how far they're willing to go to stop him.

So, I don’t know how you feel about faeries. They’re rarely near the top of my list of Things That Are Awesome, but I think that’s largely because of what Disney’s done to the concept. Not that I hate Disney, but they’ve turned faeries into Things That Are Quaint. Read the original tales – or, say, Mike Mignola’s take on them in Hellboy – and you remember that these can be malicious, scary creatures. Those are the kinds of faeries in The Good Neighbors. They’re intelligent, scheming, and utterly inhuman in their priorities and motivations. Black gives us the first hint of this in Book One when a flashback reveals the complete inability of Rue’s mother to relate to or comfort her daughter. When Rue comes home in tears because her friends laughed at her at school, her mother’s response is was to smile coldly and say something like, “How nice. You made them laugh.” Maybe it’s the parent in me, but I found that chilling.

Read the rest here.

What Are You Reading



Made some quick comments about Maus for Robot 6's weekly feature.

Robot 6's Holiday Haul



The other 6ers and I talked about our comics-related holiday gifts, both given and received.

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: The Unseelie Court

Art Show: Nowhere in the Void was there a Greater Menace!

A Flare of Menace



Artist Unknown [Galactic Central]

Queen Ran



By Peter Hurd [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Today's Mermaid



Artist Unknown [Never Sea Land]

Shuna and the Lost Tribe



By Reginald Heade [American Pulps and Magazines]

Julie Fishing



By Craig Harris.

T-Rexterminator



By Per Haagenson [Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs]

Black Widow (and friends)



By Craig Rousseau.



By Bruce Timm. [Brother Calvin]

Zatanna



By Craig Rousseau again. [Comic Books!]

Cernnunos Lady



By Viona Art. [Brother Calvin]

The Octopus of Space



By Edmond Swiatek [Poulpe Pulps]

Adventureblog Gallery: Halt, Murderers!

Your Marvel Classics Comics Cover of the Day



By John Romita, Jr, who makes the story look 1000% more exciting than I remember Mark Twain's writing it. This is the last one of these, by the way. There are many other covers from the series that you can look at, but now you've seen all my favorites.

Surface-dwellers, Beware!



Thanks once again to Brother Calvin, I now have helmets for my undersea forces to wear while launching strikes in their personal battle-subs.

Your 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Picture of the Day



By Alphonse de Neuville.

Trouble Tide



By John Schoenherr.

Rulah vs. Octopus



By Matt Baker.

Footman 15



By Kerry Callen. I think I've got all the Footman 15 issues that Christopher Rich-McKelvey produced. They're very cheesecakey, but unlike a lot of that kind of thing, the stories are also very good. I'm sorry he didn't stay with it. Nice to see this pin-up by Callen.

Underaged Bride



By Sarah Mensinga. (More Universal monsters at DrawerGeeks.)

The Cownt



By Gavin Spence. Actual art from Gav's Cownt Tales story. I love this so much. It may be my favorite thing that Gav's ever drawn.

Life-size Gundam



By crazy people. Apparently, the head turns and the lights really work.

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs in March

The plan is to eaaaase back into this. So let's start with a recap of my Robot 6 posts from March.

Review: The New Brighton Archeological Society
Article: What Looks Good for May
Review: The Abominable Charles Christopher
Review: Dynamite's Sherlock Holmes #1

There's kid treasure hunters, faeries, mad bombers, and a sasquatch in there, so go take a look.

Action Girl News: Faerie Kin, Runaways, Cave Girl, Kelly Sue, Gail Simone, Wonder Woman, and Futura

Good Neighbors Review



I reviewed Kin, the first volume of Holly Black (The Spiderwick Chronicles) and Ted Naifeh's (Polly and the Pirates) graphic novel series The Good Neighbors, at Newsarama. It features a promising, young Action Girl named Rue. And it's very good.

Runaways



Humberto Ramos reminds me why I'm buying Runaways again when he starts drawing it. It's partly because he's Awesome anyway, but mostly because his version of Molly makes me remember how much I miss her.

Cave Girl



The Fortress of Fortitude has a complete Cave Girl story for your politically incorrect reading enjoyment.

Kelly Sue loves women (and mythology)



The Capital Kelly Sue DeConnick contributes to the Newsarama blog's summertime "I (Heart) Comics" feature by focusing on her love for female characters and mythology. It's a great essay, but I especially love this part where she talks about her attraction to female characters, regardless of how feminist they are:

Here’s the thing, I’m not going to say powerful women, or smart women or whatever because… well, that’s not always the case. Politics is politics but the heart wants what it wants and, in my case anyway, has no use for reason.

I love Kelly Sue for a lot of reasons, but her honesty is the best of them.

She mentions Wonder Woman, naturally, and introduces that fantastic panel above, but she also reminds me that I've been meaning to try Lady Snowblood.

Gail Simone talking about Wonder Woman

I never get tired of hearing Simone talk about Wonder Woman. I stay far, far away from the DC Message Boards these days, but Mujer Maravilla was cool enough to repost a message Simone wrote there. Among other things, Simone talks about how she thinks we're missing out by not having a Joss Whedon-written Wonder Woman movie. Based on the little I've heard about Whedon's take, I've been of the opposite opinion, but Simone's lamenting it makes me wonder if Whedon had something that I was missing. It's a moot point now, obviously, but still...

Futura



Sleestak's been posting a lot more Futura stuff since I first discovered what he was doing. Thanks, Sleestak!

Awesome List: Harry Potter, Good Neighbors, and Conan

Half Blood Prince stills



/Film has nine photos from the next Harry Potter movie. Nothing spoilery; just enough to get you excited about seeing the characters again.

The Good Neighbors



I'm down with whatever Ted Naifeh wants to draw. I haven't read her books yet, but Holly Black seems to have a good head on her shoulders too.

Conan



They don't have an actor yet, but they sure have a cool poster.

Adventureblog Gallery: Mythology, Oz, Rip Van Winkle, He-Man, Wonder Woman, and Zatanna

Maiden and Minotaur



By Victor Santos.

The Wizard of Oz



By David Petersen.

Rip Van Winkle



Seems appropriate what with the research I'm doing. By N.C. Wyeth. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four. Part Five. Part Six. Part Seven. Part Eight.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe



By Ben Templesmith.

Wonder Woman



By Travis Charest.



By Vito Excalibur.



By Michele Legendre.

Zatanna



By Ginjirou.



By Riq.



What? Costume-making is an art.