More love for Kill All Monsters

A couple of the biggest supporters of Kill All Monsters are James Biggie and Frankie B. Washington, creators of the amazing, kaiju-themed webcomic Robot God Akamatsu. You may remember the awesome print James created for us (which is one of the Kickstarter reward levels, just sayin') and be forgiven for thinking that he's the artist on RGA. As talented a visual artist as he is though, James actually writes the webcomic and Frankie draws it. And now Frankie's done his own, stunning version of what an RGA/KAM crossover (A-KAM-atsu!) would look like. Check out RGA and also be sure to like their Facebook page, a one-stop shop for keeping up with giant monsters and robots news.

Since I mentioned the Kickstarter, the quick update is that as I'm writing this we just passed $6,000.  That's so far beyond my initial hopes for the campaign that I can't even remember them. A few people have been nice enough to mention the Kickstarter, including Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter, the folks behind the Outré anthology, and Crimson Engine, so thanks to all of those people.

There've also been some more reviews, starting with my Robot 6 compadre Corey Blake talking about KAM in our What Are You Reading? feature. "After the novelty buzz of the concept wears off," he writes, "you're actually left with a world and people that you want to spend time with and learn more about. There's some mystery, some intrigue, some questioned motives, some social commentary, all lightly peppered throughout to keep the story chugging along even while the oversized slugfest takes a break."

My pal Siskoid at the indispensable Siskoid's Blog of Geekery also had an advance look at KAM and praises the team's diversity (something very important to me) as well as Jason's loose style. "The material (robots) might have called for very technical drawings, but Copland's work has a sketchiness to it that trades technical accuracy for energy, which I think is really the way to go." Jason had been wanting to loosen up his style for a while and debated about whether or not Kill All Monsters was the time to do that, but I totally agree with him and Siskoid about its being perfect for this series. It gives everything a grittiness that makes the world real.

The last review was from David Goodman at Geekadelphia. He wasn't familiar with KAM until he heard about it on Twitter, so it's fun to hear from someone who's coming at it totally new. "Yes, a few pages in I had distinct visions of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and wasn’t sure what I had gotten into. But once I really got into the tale May and Copland were telling, you realize that Kill All Monsters is science fiction storytelling at it’s best. You have robots the size of buildings beating the snot out of giant monsters in what’s left of Paris, while at the same time you get to experience a very human story of survival. Add in a conspiracy theory or two, some tensions among the pilots and dynamic art that is just a joy to look at and you have a prime example of why webcomics are so great."

Thanks to Corey, Siskoid, and David for the very nice comments!

Finally, a couple of interviews: Russ Burlingame from ComicBook.Com interviewed Jason about the comic, Kickstarter, Jason's influences...lots of stuff. It's a great, comprehensive interview and I even learned some new things about Jason myself.

And I got to talk to my friend and colleague Tim O'Shea for his "Talking Comics with Tim" column at Robot 6. Everyone at Robot 6 feels weird when we talk about Kill All Monsters - and no one more than me - so it's especially nice of Tim to go for it anyway. Check it out; Tim always asks fun and interesting  questions.

At C2E2. BRB

I'm at the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo. You can follow my adventures on Robot 6.

Kill All Monsters and Other Updates

It probably isn't smart of me, but I try not to post about it every Friday when new Kill All Monsters! pages go up. For one thing, I know that a lot of folks read it in chunks instead of every Friday, but I also figure that this way it makes a bigger impact when I do say you should go over and catch up. And folks, you should go over and catch up. If the image above isn't enough to do it, I'll add that page 71 features my favorite panel yet for reasons you'll find very obvious when you see it.

Mondo Sasquatch

In other news, the Mondo Sasquatch anthology will be delayed from next month to later this summer in order to make sure that it's not rushed and that the finished product will look as cool as everyone wants it to.

Robot 6



Something else I haven't regularly been mentioning here is my Robot 6 posting. Part of that is because I figure that those of you who are interested in that are probably reading Robot 6 anyway. But also, I've been doing more daily posts over there lately and it would be annoying for me to say something here every time I did something over there.

Still, I would like to direct your attention to a couple of reviews I wrote for some really excellent books: Incredible Change-Bots 2 (although I actually review both volumes in the article) and Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake. I feel like Change-Bots needs less promotion, because a lot of people already know about it, but Pepper Penwell is just as good and it would be a shame if people overlooked it. Especially people who like junior detective mysteries and laughter.

Jessica Hickman's new book



Cownt Tales artist Jessica Hickman has illustrated a children's book that's coming out this Halloween. Written by Tom Waltz, Little Jackie Lantern tells the story of a young boy who's too frightened to enjoy everyone's favorite spooky holiday. I haven't read it yet, but I can't imagine a project more suited for Jess' interest in things cute and scary.

SpringCon

The SpringCon guest list has been posted (for a while now, actually) and I'm on it. Looking forward to seeing all of you who live in the Twin Cities. Jason and I are working on a second printing of the Kill All Monsters, Chapter One ashcan, so hopefully that'll be ready in time.

A review I didn't write, but am nevertheless responsible for



I meant to say something at the beginning of the month, but my contribution to the White Elephant Blogathon was Cutthroat Island. For which I owe an apology to Non-Union Mexican Equivalent. I'm sorry you had to watch it, but glad you were able to nail so firmly why that movie didn't work.

Elsewhere... Best Comics of 2010

Hm. I should've done this yesterday to follow up the movies posts, but bucking years of tradition (and contrary to my earlier prediction), I came up with a list of my ten favorite comics from 2010. I share that link with the other Robot 6eteers, so there are lots of great comics to be discovered there. And for even more comics recommendations, check out Comic Book Resources' Top 100 list. I got to do a few of the write-ups for those too.

It's kind of interesting, I guess, that not all the books I picked for Tom Spurgeon's year-end Five for Friday made it into my final list, but there are a couple of reasons for that. First is that Five for Friday's rules require fast thinking and I never do my best thinking quickly. But I also took to heart Spurgeon's criterion that we simply list five books that we liked without having to take into account their quality relative to everything else we read during the year.

Anyway, you can easily guess my Number One pick and I did a full review of it for Robot 6. I also managed to squeeze in another critical favorite before the end of the year, Charles Burns' X'ed Out. And to start 2011 off, I questioned how much of the Silver Age should really be a model for adventure comics today.

One final piece that I'm pretty happy with is the interview I did with Archaia's Editor-in-Chief Stephen Christy and the creators of Mouse Guard (David Petersen) and Return of the Dapper Men (Jim McCann and Janet Lee) about the sell-outs of Dapper Men and the Mouse Guard spin-off, Legends of the Guard. As I say in the interview's intro, I usually ignore press releases about sell-outs, but Archaia's a great company and at their C2E2 panel I was impressed with how honest and forthcoming they are about their business strategies. Enough so that I felt like this was an opportunity to learn more about what selling out really means - at least for them as a small publisher - and what they did as a company and creators to make that happen. They were even more open and helpful than I hoped and I learned a lot. Hopefully readers will find something enlightening and interesting in the interview too.

Elsewhere... The Best of 2010

Five for Friday | Comics 2010



Last week's Five for Friday assignment was to Name Five And Only Five Comics Publications From 2010 You Liked. Mine were:

1. Warlord of Io, James Turner (SLG)
2. Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites, Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson (Dark Horse)
3. Zeus: King of the Gods, George O'Connor (First Second)
4. Almost Silent, Jason (Fantagraphics)
5. Solomon's Thieves Book One, Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham, and Alex Puvilland (First Second)

This is probably as close to a Best of 2010 article that I'm going to do.

What Are You Reading? | Graphic Classics, Vol. 19: Christmas Classics



A not-so-short review of Graphic Classics' Christmas anthology. You can bet you'll be hearing more about this on Old Sinner.

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs | Brian Clevinger and What Looks Good for February



I didn't do an "Elsewhere..." post last week, so there are two GRD columns I need to tell you about. First, I asked Atomic Robo writer Brian Clevinger a bunch of really personal questions.



Then, this week I went through Previews and found a bunch of cool adventure comics coming out in a couple of months.

Elsewhere... it was a very busy week at Robot 6

Six awesome Wildstorm titles



After news that WildStorm is shutting down this December, the Robot 6 gang reminisced about our favorite of their books. I talked about League of Extraordinary Gentleman and touched briefly on the rest of Alan Moore's America's Best Comics line.

History's Kid Heroes



In last weekend's What Are You Reading? I gave a short review of Graphic Universe's series on the adventures of real, historical children.

Food or Comics?



I can say that I love the Food or Comics? feature without bragging, because I don't typically contribute to it. Until this week, anyway. A couple of the regulars couldn't contribute this time, so I filled in. It was fun, so hopefully I'll get to do it again.

If you're unfamiliar with the feature, we talk about the week's new comics from a budget perspective. What would you buy with only $15? What would you get if you had another $15 on top of that? And what would you splurge for if you had a sudden windfall?

Beasts of Burden



And finally, I reviewed Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson's awesome Beasts of Burden collection about a group of lovable pets who exorcise haunted doghouses, fight witches (or their cats anyway), run from zombie roadkill, and battle giant frogs.

Elsewhere... I forgot to visit the swamp

Wilderness Exploration



Last week's Five for Friday assignment was an awesome one. Spurgeon asked us to Name Five Areas From Comics You'd Like To Explore. Mine are below, but the whole post is full of excellent places ripe for discovery in comicsland.

1. DC's undersea kingdoms (Atlantis, Lemuria, etc.)
2. Marvel's Savage Land
3. Bone's Valley
4. The world of Kazu Kibuishi's Copper
5. Conan's world as drawn by John Buscema

After I sent in my answers I realized that I left out Pogo's Okefenokee Swamp. I should've put that instead of the Savage Land, which Spurgeon had already listed in his picks. 

What Looks Good for November



Last week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs column was a peek at what looks good in new, adventure comics in this month’s Previews.

Holmes for kids



This week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs was a look at the On the Case with Holmes and Watson series and whether or not certain characters should only be read by certain age groups.

Elsewhere... there was MIXing

I apologize for not getting anything posted yesterday. Diane's mom's funeral was last night and that took up most of the day.



I was able to get a couple of articles written this week though. One was this report on the newest addition to the Twin Cities' awesome convention schedule: the Minneapolis Indi Xpo.



The other was this week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs in which we look at all the cool comics coming out in October. Seriously, there's so much awesome stuff in there that I get a headache trying to pick favorites.

Elsewhere... Comics Documentaries and Tripping through Intestines!

Five for Friday



I don't know if Spurgeon planned it this way or not, but shortly before Warner Brothers announced its documentary about the history of DC, he gave this Five for Friday assignment: Name Five Extended Moments In Comics History You Wish Had Been Documented On Film As They Were Happening.

Mine were:

1. The Rise and Fall of CrossGen
2. Marvel explores new genres during the Bronze Age.
3. DC vs. Captain Marvel
4. The Charlton Comics Story
5. The History of Archie

But after seeing some of the other responses, I'd change No. 5 to Jack Kirby: The DC Years.

Should there be a double standard on tripping-through intestines?



This week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs was a response to Robert Kirkman's GQ interview where he suggested that dark, complicated plots for superhero comics are okay in Invincible and other creator-owned comics, but not for corporate-owned ones. Some great discussion follows because I have awesome readers.

Elsewhere... Lucas vs. Asimov!

Here's what else I've been up to online lately:

What Are You Reading?



Short reviews of Rooster Jack vs. The Mermaids and The Children of the Phoenix.

Warlord of Io vs. Science Fiction



This week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs is all about what makes an awesome space story: Science or Imagination?

Elsewhere... Space Ninjas and Uranians

What Are You Reading?



In last week's What Are You Reading, I briefly reviewed Captain Long Ears and The Aviary.

Marvel Boy and Retcons



This week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs is about retroactive continuity, "that controversial thing that happens when a character’s adventures have gone on long enough that they include embarrassing things that need fixing." As seen through the filter of Marvel Boy from Agents of Atlas.

Elsewhere on the Internets: Cownt Tales Review

Here's what else I've been up to online lately:

What Looks Good for August



Last week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs was a look at cool adventure comics coming out in August. There's a lot of great stuff, but what I'm most looking forward to is Fantagraphics' English translation of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec. Though one of the commenters has read it and lowers my expectations somewhat, I'm still very curious to read the source material behind the upcoming film. (Also in the comments, Kurt Busiek talks about his experience with the toys that inspired Moonstone's clunky-robot series Zeroids).

After the break: some quick reviews, the Teen Titans vs Ebenezer Scrooge Scrounge, and is Cownt Tales a Comic Worth Reading?

Elsewhere on the Internets: Foamy!

Here's what else I've been up to online lately: 

Friend of Aquaman



Rob from the Aquaman Shrine was kind enough to link to my most recent Grading Aquaman post, but he also did me one better than that. He made me a member of FOAM (Friends of Aquaman). Thanks, Rob!

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs: The Killer



In which I favorably compare Matz and Luc Jacamon's assassin comic to James Bond.

Old Sinner: Merry Christmas, Uncle (1970)



Looking at Albert Finney's Scrooge and how his nephew's kind of a jerk.

What Are You Reading?: The Anchor



A quick review of Phil Hester's Viking demon-slayer comic.

Undeserved Rejoicing



I shouldn't be pointing this out because it's almost assuredly a glitch, but for the last few days Robot 6 has been the top-ranked comics blog on Technorati. Not that Robot 6 doesn't deserve to be near the top (and I say that as someone who does exactly none of the heavy lifting over there), but it's telling that some blogs that should be near the top of the list (like MTV's Splash Page, for example) aren't. Still, it's been fun to look at.

Elsewhere on the Internets: Hopped Up and Hotwired!

Here's what else I've been up to lately:

Five for Friday



Last weekend's assignment was to Name Five Memorable Islands From The Comics. Mine were:

1. Hydra Island
2. Paradise Island
3. Dinosaur Island
4. Madripoor
5. Oolong Island

But that post if full of great ones that I didn't think of.

David's Dinosaur Blog



My son let his dinosaur blog lapse, but he's promised me that he's recommitting himself to it. Up this week, a non-stegosaurus and an indricothere cake.

What Are You Reading?



Recently, I've been reading a monster-hunter comic called Ex Occultus and Jeff Smith's Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil.

After the break: July comics, SpringCon, and I get quoted.