| Collectable comics | | Posted Thursday, February 02, 2006 1:12:29 PM by Rose Martins | For the comic collector there is no shortage of what to collect. Comics have been a favourite for many, many years, and the old out-of-date editions have become collectors items that are worth a small fortune.
Comic books are produced by various companies such as jab, marvel, dc, videl, manga, and anime.  Each company prints comics of a different genre, sometimes overlapping, but never treading on each other's toes. Some comics feature superhero's such as Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk, others are fun characters like Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead. Beazley comics are meant to be funny, as are characters such as Casper the friendly ghost and Dennis the Menace.
There are also comics featuring characters like those of anime productions, where the characters of Japanese origin, are sharper and more stylized. Not all comics are geared towards children. An example of this is Calvin and Hobbes, which is definitely adult orientated.
Comic art is a culture unto its own. Comics are a means of expression and a talent of the comic artist. Many of the characters of comic art are the result of not just one comic artist, but rather a team of dedicated comic artists, who work together to produce the final images.
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| | | Shanth Enjeti, 31, publishes comics, teaches art at RISD | | Posted Sunday, February 04, 2007 2:46:39 PM by Blog57 Team | | Shanth Enjeti doesn't have super strength. He can't leap tall buildings, catapult into the stratosphere under his own power or conjure supernatural powers to fight evil. Keeping up with his 15-month-old twins is hard enough, he says. But Mr. Enjeti, 31, can draw, and through his talent the mythical figures of his fantasies come to life. The Bristol resident, who teaches illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence and the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Mass., is a highly respected comic book author and illustrator, and has gained a nationwide reputation not only for his self-published work but also his chops as a freelance illustrator. A native of Chattanooga, Tenn., he is the son of an Indian immigrant and an American mother.... | |
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| | | Stores launch campaign to lure youth back to books | | Posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006 2:48:03 PM by Blog57 Team | | Shocked by a survey last year showing that many students read no books in their free time, 64 bookstores in Aichi Prefecture have launched a campaign to try to persuade schoolchildren to read more. The campaign runs until Jan. 15. In the survey, held by the National School Library Conference in May 2005, 24.6 percent of respondents enrolled in middle schools said they read no books at all if they were not attending school. The same answer was given by 50.7 percent of high school students and 5.9 percent of primary school students. The stores have set up special displays of 500 books for recommended reading. A sticker is attached to the cover of each recommended book, most of them classics from Japan and other countries. Readers are advised to collect two stickers, put them on a postcard, and send it to the Aichi Bookstores Association.... | |
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| | | COMIC BOOKS FOR ADULTS | | Posted Sunday, October 29, 2006 10:48:24 PM by Blog57 Team | | Not too long ago, comic fans faced an uphill battle in the debate over whether comics were a legitimate and respectable art form. Brian K. Vaughan is part of a wave of young writers who have have rendered that debate moot through their complex and imaginative stories. In Y: The Last Man, Vaughan examines what really might happen if women ruled the world after a mysterious plague kills every last male on Earth except for a young man and his pet monkey. Runaways, one of Marvel Comic's biggest breakout hits in recent years, stars a handful of teens who discover they not only have superpowers, but their parents are some of the world's most feared supervillains. With Ex Machina, Vaughan follows the path of a former hero who trades the dangerous gig of crime fighting for the even more dangerous role of mayor of New York City.... | |
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| | | Comic Books No Laughing Matter | | Posted Friday, October 20, 2006 2:47:23 PM by Blog57 Team | | Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! We all know America's most famous superhero, and now, Burlington College filmmakers know who brought the Man of Steel back to the silver screen. Director Bryan Singer says, "Anytime you have 'blockbuster' attached to your movie, that's a good thing." Blockbusters are Singer's forte. He directed 2000's "X-Men" comic book adaptation, '03's follow-up, "X-2," and this summer's "Superman Returns." Singer explains, "With a certain few key characters, there's a huge interest because a lot of people of different generations grew up with these characters." Hollywood has a long relationship with comic book characters. Mix familiar stories with conflicted heroes, toss in lots of action and good versus evil plotlines, and you've got the recipe for big money for studios.... | |
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| | | Alan Moore Comes Like a Thief in the Night | | Posted Friday, October 20, 2006 12:47:29 PM by Blog57 Team | | Whatever his literary reputation ends up being, there's one thing Alan Moore, the British scriptwriter of such legendary comics as V for Vendetta, From Hell, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, will always have going for him. When he started in the business, people were still reading comic books. Now, thanks largely to him, they still read comic books, but they're called "graphic novels." Just one example of how he has upscaled his medium: Time magazine last year lifted Moore's 1986 superhero deconstruction Watchmen out of the funny-book ghetto to rate it among the best 100 novels of the last eight decades. Prior to Moore's milestone works, writing comic-book dialogue was an occupation akin to being the script doctor on a porn video: It wasn't clear the job even needed to be done.... | |
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| | | Comics - Infinite Crisis | | Posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006 10:47:18 AM by Blog57 Team | | INFINITE CRISIS/Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez With all of the mini-series leading to this mega-DC event, with all of the mainstream titles tying into the mega-series, with all of the characters given new titles, specials, etc., it was difficult appreciating the main seven issues of the "Infinite Crisis" storyline as they were being released amidst all of the other events at DC during more than a year of publications. DC has released a hard-cover, special edition of the ground-breaking work that has reshaped the comics company and its characters. Being able to re-read this series in its entirety in one sitting shows just what a triumph of fascinating storytelling the IC event was. Batman's distrust of his Justice League buddies to an extent that he places a satellite in the sky to spy on all super-powered beings.... | |
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| | | Inspired by comics | | Posted Monday, October 02, 2006 6:50:21 AM by Blog57 Team | | NORMAL -- Christopher Hoerdemann envisioned a high-tech suit. Imagine it regulates temperature to the comfort of the wearer, that it is bulletproof and that it has a chameleon effect of blending into surroundings.Imagine the usefulness of such a suit in desert warfare and the military contracts that would come and how fabulously wealthy the inventor of such a suit would become.It's the premise of Hoerdemann's book, "Pipeline RnD," published through a dot.com that produces both electronic and printed versions.Hoerdemann counts sales by single copies, not the thousands. It sold about 50 in the first couple weeks of the release.Those sales figures would make this story about a publication unremarkable -- except Hoerdemann is 15, a Normal teenager and a sophomore at University High School.Hoerdemann identifies the book's theme as redemption, but the process of writing it speaks to perseverance and to how a young person, failing to make the basketball team as hoped, harnessed his time and energy toward the project.Working off a general outline but letting the story take its own turns, Hoerdemann completed his 140-page science fiction novel this summer.... | |
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| | | Bible comics catch few eyes | | Posted Friday, September 22, 2006 10:48:13 PM by Blog57 Team | | SAN DIEGO -- On his recent book tour, Robert Luedke skimmed four nearly empty rows of folding chairs at a Borders, hoping someone in the audience -- an audience of three -- would have a question. Or maybe, against the odds, someone would ask him to sign a poster touting his works. No one did. One listener had grabbed a seat in the back row to read Vogue magazine. Eventually, the man spoke up. "I have no idea who you are," he said. "Nobody knows who I am," said Luedke, half-joking, half-sighing. Luedke is among a small but determined cadre of artists who hope to bring Christian-themed comic books -- or their preferred term, graphic novels -- to a larger audience. Luedke opened "Eye Witness: A Fictional Tale of Absolute Truth," the first work in a planned trilogy, and held it up so his audience could see his rendering of the Crucifixion.... | |
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| | | The Mural of the Story | | Posted Saturday, September 09, 2006 12:47:59 PM by Blog57 Team | | Artwork and books about artwork messy his apartment floor in stacks and piles - from outlines of his sweeping murals to the penciled comics he hopes to draw full time someday. "Right now, my art is currently comprised of painting murals and other illustration work to come my way," Christensen said. You might recognize Christensen's murals near the Illinois & Michigan Canal. One depicts the canal as it was in its heyday, painted in a wash of earthy tones and historical flavor. He's also painted murals in St. Charles and for private residences. The murals themselves can take a week to two weeks, with painting hours as long as 8 to 11 a day. Christensen has studied and composed art his entire life, from studying the exciting form of comics to crafting postcards of a winter snowfall for a local veterinarian.... | |
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| | | Baldwin Plans Christian Comic Books | | Posted Monday, September 04, 2006 10:49:52 AM by Blog57 Team | | THE USUAL SUSPECTS star STEPHEN BALDWIN is launching a series of graphic novels to help his spread the word of Christianity to teenagers. The born-again Christian is the brains behind the SPIRIT WARRIOR series of comics, which follows the fortunes of a group of God-loving skateboarders. He explains, "There's really not a lot of stuff out there in the media or in products that are available to kids that represent the Christian thing that's relevant. "There's nothing that's hardcore and fun that can really compete with a lot of stuff that's similar. If you go to a bookstore to their graphic novel section if you look at the Christian stuff it's pretty dorky and cheesy stuff. It's not as hip and edgy and cool. "Spirit Warriors is the story of six or seven kids that are out there; they're gnarly skateboarders that are edgy kids who are living out their faith in Jesus Christ.... | |
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