Art Show: It's a Kind of Magic

Aquaman in High Speed



By Leo Matsuda.

Mermaid



Artist Unknown [Never Sea Land]

Baroque Battle Bug



By Sam Nielson. [Avalanche Software Art Blog]

Man-monsters, space girls, heroes in fishnets, Johnny Quest fights robots, and the coolest Fantastic Four line-up ever after the break.

Jonny Quest movie, Shang Chi versus a shark, and how to write comics the Hitchcock way

Adventure

There's a live-action Jonny Quest movie in the works and it's producers have high -- very high -- hopes for it. They're calling it "our Pirates. Our Transformers." They're also saying, "We always knew we wanted to do an origin movie about how Race and Hadji came to join the Quest family ... As for tone, this isn't going to be some kiddie movie. Our model is Raiders..."

Swashbuckling

Moonstone's adding to their prose anthology library with a Zorro volume.

Pulp

My friend Joe sent me this link to Pulp Fiction Central, an excellent pulp resource site.

Horror

Ooh! More Frazetta comics are coming and they sound really good!

Also, more Necromancer coming! Yay, Josh Ortega!

Fantasy

I wouldn't call him a Fantasy Artist per se, but I've just discovered Dean Yeagle's humorously sexy work and this is the closest category I can think of to put him in.

Super-Heroes

DC is redoing its line of kids' comic and, man, it's looks cool.

Shang Chi versus a shark. (One of these days I'm going to have to get in on this whole Friday Night Fights action.)

Writing is Hard

Here's a really excellent article on building suspense the Hitchcock way. It's written for screenwriters, naturally, but applies equally well to comics writers and possibly even writers of prose.

About a year ago I wrote this post on branding that was inspired by a conversation I'd had with Caleb Monroe, another writer. Caleb's added some thoughts on the subject in his own blog. I'm especially interested in his idea about wearing the same hat to every convention and how that got him recognized. My pal Joe (same one from above) made the same suggestion in the comments of my post, so this got me thinking. Where that thinking eventually led though was to the idea that with my size, my long hair, and my white-red beard, I'm a fairly recognizable figure without any headgear. My appearance is my logo. Now I just have to make sure not to taint the brand with bad stories or boneheaded behavior.

Also in Caleb's post is a link to an article on branding by Warren Ellis in which Ellis doesn't give Neil Gaiman nearly enough credit, but does note that if you're good enough at what you do, your name is logo enough.