'Pon Further Review

A couple reviews of this week's books:

LOCKE & KEY: CROWN OF SHADOWS #3 review at IGN.com, which said, among other things,

There isn't a single person I wouldn't recommend this book to. It's the smartest and most entertaining comic you'll find on the stands. If you still aren't reading Locke & Key, you're missing out on one of the best series out there. Period.

WEEKLY WORLD NEWS #2 review/mention at Comics Grinder, where they said:

This one shows pride in workmanship and that makes perfect sense because the IDW publisher and editor-in-chief, Chris Ryall, is doing the writing himself. And, not only that, the art is in tune with the humor. My hat is off to Alan Robinson for all the care he put into making this comic so much fun.

WWN #2 review at Pendragon's Post, where they said:

Weekly World News #2 picks up the fun of the first issue, following the further adventures of Ed Anger as he crusades to show the world their beloved freaks are not what they seem. Alan Robinson's art and Chris Ryall's scripts make this one of my favorite new titles.

ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS AVENTURE #1 at Pedragon's Post.
Short and sweet ZvRA#1 review at iFanboy.com.
ZvRA#1 and GHOSTBUSTERS: TAINTED LOVE reviews at Every Day is Like Wednesday.



GHOSTBUSTERS: TAINTED LOVE also got 4 out of 5 stars at Hypergeek.com.
Blog@Newsarama talked to Dara Naraghi about writing GHOSTBUSTERS: TAINTED LOVE.



STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE #3 review at TrekWeb.com, where they said:

I feel as though I'm in a lost episode of the series as I read this.

Major Weekly World Spoilers

A nice review of this week's WEEKLY WORLD NEWS #2 is up at MajorSpoilers.com.

The World News of the Day

WEEKLY WORLD NEWS #2 is in stores today, for everyone who's been clamoring to see a "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" parody morph into a DARK NIGHT RETURNS homage.*
(*Not to mention references to Billy Beer, a LOLcats gag and other cutting-edge bits of comedic brilliance)
Art and colors by Alan Robinson and Tom Smith's Scorpion Studios, respectively.

No, *more* Wire Hangers

Alan Robert, writer/artist/colorist of our upcoming WIRE HANGERS series, was featured in a nice piece at Comic Book Resources today. In it, Alan discusses the comic itself, studying art under Walt Simonson, the affect his 20 years in the band Life of Agony had on his art, and more. You can read the entire piece here.

And don't forget about the WIRE HANGERS #1 cover contest--you've still got a couple of days left to enter and have a chance to win your mug appearing on the incentive cover:

Exhuming Tut's cover

I thought I'd break down a bit more the cover art that was sent around for the piece about THE MURDER OF KING TUT project we're doing with author James Patterson. The adaptation is being written by novelist/comic writer Alexander Irvine.

The book itself is historical non-fiction, and tells two stories: that of Tutankhamun's rise to power and early death; and the discovery of Tut's tomb by archaeologist Howard Carter in the 1920s. Since the two stories weave back and forth, we thought it'd be interesting to treat the two stories differently, with two different artists. So the King Tut portion in each issue is being handled by WASTELAND artist Christopher Mitten, and the Howard Carter sequences are being drawn by Ron Randall.

And taking that one step further, we wanted to have the first issue cover be something that combined both stories, and both artists. First up was Chris Mitten's portion:


Next, Ron Randall contributed his part:


Finally, colorist Dom Regan colored the image and composed the two halves into the finished piece seen here:

The Joe Hill Horns-book

(with apologies to Harlan Ellison for the paraphrased blog title)

Joe Hill's got a nice hat-trick of releases this week, starting today with the release of his second novel, HORNS. Joe's also got a story in a new anthology edited by Christopher Golden, also in stores today. And the third issue of LOCKE & KEY: CROWN OF SHADOWS is out this week, too. At least, it is on the west coast. There was a horrific accident involving the truck transporting all of IDW's February 17 releases to the northeast, so shops in that region won't see most of our 2/17 comics until Feb. 24 (the TPBs and HCs) or March 1 (the monthly comics).

This issue of CROWN has a five-page excerpt of HORNS in the back, too, for anyone who'd like to take a look before grabbing the novel itself (page one should be enough to hook you). And since the book is out this week and now the comic will be delayed for some of you, I thought I'd give you page one of the HORNS preview here. (The illustration on the page is by Gabriel Rodriguez.)



And let's not forget about the comic itself: here're the final covers of LOCKE & KEY: CROWN OF SHADOWS #3:



Some of the links above take you to various blog entries at Joe Hill's site, but check JoeHillFiction.com for more, including a good playlist that fits the subject matter of HORNS nicely. And keep an eye out for this guy signing books at a bookshop near you soon:

Making comics with James Patterson

The USA Today news went live a few hours earlier than expected, but here it is: the announcement that we've partnered with the best-selling author in the world, James Patterson to create comics based on his books as well as some all-new properties being created expressly for comics.

Other details to come--along with some good visuals like Darwyn Cooke's covers for the TUT adaptation, Victor Santos' great pages for WITCH & WIZARD, Christopher Mitten's first IDW work on TUT, and much more. But for now, I'll show the same two covers in the USA Today piece. First is J.K. Woodward's homage to the W&W novel:


And then the variant cover for THE MURDER OF KING TUT. This one's a sort of jam cover, with the top half featuring Howard Carter illustrated by Ron Randall, and the bottom "Tut" half illustrated by Christopher Mitten (which is how the art is being handled in the series itself, too):

The Original Johnson takes a swing at multiple Glyphs

The graphic novel we recently released in tandem with ComicMix, Trevor Von Eeden's THE ORIGINAL JOHNSON, VOL. 1, received four nominations for TOJ, and five total.

The Glyph Awards are designed to "recognize the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color from the preceding calendar year," have released the names of the comics and creators that make up their 2010 nominee slate.

TOJ received four nominations, in the categories of Best Artist, Best Cover, Best Male Character, and Story Of The Year.

"It's wonderful to see Trevor Von Eeden's life-work receive such recognition," ComicMix editor-in-chief Mike Gold said. "He's been working on The Original Johnson for 15 years, and we've been working with him for the past three. It has taken an extraordinary amount of effort to produce this book, and recognition from the Glyph awards makes every drop of it worthwhile. We are proud to be associated with Trevor and this amazingly intense work. My personal thanks and gratitude to Trevor and to all of those who have been involved in the effort."

The awards will be presented at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention in Philadelphia on May 14th and 15th.

The cover to Volume 1, in stores now, and the mocked-up cover for Volume 2, coming this summer:




And if I can also stump for a book published by a competitor, it's great to see Josh Dysart's UNKNOWN SOLDIER comic, one of the best comics being published by someone else, also receive multiple nods. Congrats to all the nominees.

Digging the Hole

At Comic Book Resources, writer Scott Tipton and artist Elena Casagande -- the creative team on ANGEL: A HOLE IN THE WORLD -- run through the entire process of adapting multiple TV episodes to a comic miniseries, including Elena's look at the progression of her art. Read the entire piece here.

Happy President's Day