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Tag Archives | Robert Kirkman

Launch: Cape and Cowl present Image+

By on April 13, 2016 in Bay Area Comic News, Comics by the Bay

image+ launch partyImage Comics is launching it’s newest promotional publication at the Bay Area’s newest comic shop. Cape and Cowl Comics, 1601 Clay Street in Oakland, is hosting a launch party on April 27 for the new magazine Image+. The monthly magazine will be distributed alongside the Diamond Distributors publication Previews. In addition to promoting up and coming Image titles, the magazine will feature exclusive content. The first 12 issues of Image+ will tell the backstory of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead big bad Negan. Each issue will contain four pages of an overall 48-page story. The first issue of Image+ will feature a profile of Cape and Cowl as well as interviews with creators like Marjorie Liu, Bryan Lee O’Malley, and Leslie Hung.

According to an Image Comics press release:

Image+ will clock in at 64 pages and feature exclusive interviews, spotlight features, bonus never-before-seen preview pages, editorials from industry voices, and more in-depth, insightful and provocative comics coverage curated by David Brothers, Branding Manager at Image Comics.

Customers who purchase Previews will receive Image+ as an add-on. The title can also be purchased independently for $1.99.

As for the kick-off event, Cape and Cowl announced special guests including Nick Dragotta (East of West, HowToons), Jimmie Robinson (Power Lines, Five Weapons, Bomb Queen), Justin Greenwood (The Fuse, Stumptown), and Brad Simpson (Sex). Side note: Should I start listing creators as if their titles are nicknames? Jimmie “Five Weapons” Robinson! Brad “Sex” Simpson! Justin “The Fuse” Greenwood!

 

The party starts at 6 p.m. Food will be provided by El Super Taco Man food truck and the store will host a cash bar.

Requiem for an Engine: The Warren Ellis comic board’s legacy

By on March 24, 2014 in Commentary, The Full Bleed

It was a strange and fruitful blip in the online comic community. Writer Warren Ellis’s comic book message board The Engine ran from early September 2005 to Aug. 31, 2007, birthing in its short life new comic books, ongoing collaborative superteams, Eisner and Harvey Award-winning projects, and at least one marriage.

My affectionate memories are not only those of a participant, but of one of six hand-picked moderators (or Filthy Assistants, or Enforcers, or Attack Wombs, or…) from its birth to retirement. I spent hours a day reading, enforcing, and talking Engine, so it looms large in my memory as a crucible of comic history. The Engine was uniquely suited to making things happen, not just talking about them, and I’m heading back into the mid-aughts to explore what made it such fertile ground and why its echoes affect comics to this day.

The Engine logo by Brian Wood

The Engine logo by Brian Wood

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change”

The Engine’s original charter called for a unique structure: protected sections for published or contracted-to-publish creators working outside the superhero genre. Somewhere in the mid-aughts web small indie fora devoted to a particular creator’s work no doubt puttered along nicely, but major comic sites simply didn’t excise superheroes.

A few days before The Engine went live, Ellis expounded on his two primary intentions in 8/29/05’s Bad Signal e-newsletter:

[The Engine] serves two purposes: a point for conversation about FELL, DESOLATION JONES and my other adult-oriented, non-superhero, creator owned works. There are loads of other places for people to talk about PLANETARY, NEXTWAVE, JACK CROSS, ULTIMATE SECRET and all. And also a stage for like-minded creators, involved in original non-superhero work, to talk about what they’re doing. That, you’ll note, is not an all-inclusive and all-welcoming stance, and I’m going to be selective about it, too. There’ll also, with luck, be a space for pros to talk that’ll be read-only to everyone else: there are conversations worth having in public that wouldn’t survive thread-drift from the audience.
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Advancing Image Expo 2014

By on January 8, 2014 in Bay Area Comic News, Conventions

imageexpoTomorrow Image Expo returns to San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Cultural Center to share with retailers, media, and fans what the company will be churning out over 2014. Twelve guests have already been announced with a number of unannounced special guests expected to appear. The rumor in the Bay is that in all there will be 18 to 20 guests attending the event, so that means six to eight unknowns (I’m privy to two far flung guests who will be attending, but I’m not at liberty to divulge even though I’ve been chomping at the bit for two months. I can say if you’ve been on the fence waiting to buy tickets you’ll want to snap one of the remaining few up and come to the Expo tomorrow).

The most recent buzz to come out regarding the Image Expo is Robert Kirkman’s Skybound imprint teasing a “startling” new direction for Invincible. The Outhousers suggest this is likely Kirkman trolling Marvel’s relaunch fetish.

Bleeding Cool’s David Dissanayake is playing the speculation game with a post trying to guess who the surprise guests might be. They put money on: Grant Morrison, Darren Arnofsky, Jonathan Hickman, Warren Ellis, and Ales Kot.

I’m still hoping San Franciscan Justin Greenwood shows up to promote The Fuse. That title is one of the new books hitting shelves this year that I’m most excited about reading.

More info on Image Expo:
List of the 12 known guests
Details on variants that will be available
Programming schedule

Twitter accounts to follow: (I’ll update this list tonight and repost it early tomorrow morning. If you’re going and will be tweeting about Image Expo let me know by tweeting at @ashareduniverse and I’ll add you)
The hashtag is #ImageExpo
Ours: @ashareduniverse
Image: @imagecomics
Kelly Sue DeConnick: @kellysue
Brandon Graham: @royalboiler
Nick Dragotta: @NickDragotta
Rick Remender: @Remender
Matt Fraction: @mattfraction
Robert Kirkman: @RobertKirkman
Nick Spencer: @NickSpencer
Joe Keatinge: @joekeatinge
Wes Craig: @WesCraigComics
James Robinson: @JamesDRobinson
Paul Azaceta: @paulazaceta
Joshua Williamson: @Williamson_Josh
Mission Comics: @MissionComics

 

 

Image Publisher Eric Stephenson talks Image Expo with Multiveristy

By on December 18, 2013 in Conventions

imageexpoFor the third year in a row comic news site Multiveristy named Image Comics “publisher of the year.” To coincide with granting the honor Multiversity’s David Harper sat down with Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson to talk about the past, present, and future of the company. In the interview, Stephenson discusses the successful Image Expo which will be returning to the Bay Area on January 9, 2014. While no news about what may be announced at the 2014 Image Expo is revealed Stephenson discusses how the event came to be and how it was Robert Kirkman’s enthusiasm that set everything in motion:

…my initial reaction was essentially a cross between unbridled revulsion and abject despair. It all sounded like considerably more trouble than it was worth, frankly, but as typically happens, I got caught up in Robert’s enthusiasm for the ideas, and what do you know? Everything was fine. Better than fine, actually, because what we quickly learned was that there’s real value in making big announcements outside the circus atmosphere of the regular convention circuit.

Since I last wrote about Image Expo a number of new creators have been added to the already robust slate: Nick Spencer (Morning Glories, Bedlam), Joe Keatinge (Glory), Wes Craig (Deadly Class), James Robinson (The Saviors), Paul Azaceta (Outcast), and Joshua Williamson (Ghosted).

 

Image Expo reaches effective frequency

By on November 12, 2013 in Conventions

imageexpoConsidering how successful the 2012 and 2013 Image Expos were for the 21-year-old company it comes as a no surprise the company’s hosting a third in 2014. The surprise in the announcement is that Image Expo will be making a return to San Francisco’s  Yerba Buena Center for the Arts only six months after the previous expo.

Image seems to have learned that by hosting a solo event they can command headlines in a way that’s impossible during a large convention due to the “quantity over quality” convention reporting of many comic news websites. By hosting the Image Expo on January 9 the company is carving out a little island in the middle of what amounts to the convention doldrums. In recent years the headline producing convention season has been book-ended by Emerald City in March and either Comikaze Expo or New York Comic Con in October or November. There are very good reasons for not hosting a convention between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day, but it’s important to remember that the Image Expo is first and foremost for retailers and media. Image has essentially adopted and twisted the convention model used by large companies who want to get all of their clients in one place to announce new product developments or highlight best uses.

In 2012, Image Expo was criticized for the lack of female creators on the stage. While not completely excusable (there were a number of titles being promoted that featured women) it is worth noting that  Image Expo, unlike traditional conventions, had a much smaller pool of creators to tap when navigating availability and schedules. The company has made efforts to not repeat that error with 33 percent of their 2014 announced creators being women. Taking the stage will be Pretty Deadly‘s co-creator Kelly Sue DeConnick and Beast‘s Marian Churchland. Churchland has kept busy doing beautiful illustrations for titles such as Elephantmen  and Madame Xanadu, but hasn’t released a solo book since Beast, so it’s likely she’ll be announcing a new project.

Other creators in attendance will include Super Dinosaur‘s Robert Kirkman, Satellite Sam‘s Matt Fraction, Fear Agent‘s Rick Remender, and Prophet‘s Brandon Graham. Kirkman, Fraction, and Remender were also in attendance at Image Expo 2013 to announce new projects or give updates on existing endeavors.
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