Author: Glenn Hauman

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Prodigal, the globe-spanning tale of a team of fortune-hunters living on the edge of danger from writer Geoffrey Thorne and artist Todd Harris, debuted today on Thrillbent.com.

In addition to writing Prodigal, Geoff Thorne has written comics for Dark Horse, Spinner Rack and EZD Comics.  His TV credits include: Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Leverage, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, and Ben 10: Omniverse.

Todd Harris is an accomplished artist for both comics and storyboards.  His credits include: X Men Origins: Wolverine, God of War II & III, In Time, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, and Thrillbent’s own Arcanum.

Geoff was kind enough to take the time to answer a few questions for us.

ComicMix: Give us the Don-LaFontaine-movie-trailer speech for Prodigal. “In a world…”

Geoffrey Thorne: “In a world where psychotics and murderers are accepted as legitimate heroes, two creative professionals decided to reject that paradigm and put a little fun back into the comic book multiverse.”

CM: So literally, Prodigal returns?

GT: Prodigal is the nickname of Byron Lennox, one half of J & L Retrievals. He got it a long time before becoming a retrieval specialist because, for some reason, no matter what befell him on a mission, he always came back. Sometimes he’d be the only one to come back.

CM: Then who’s the “J” in J & L Retrievals?

GT: Pae Mei Jacinto.

CM: How did they decide who got top billing?

GT: Pae wins all arguments. Of the two of the two of them she is, by far, the more dangerous.

CM: Play out a little bit of Prodigal for us. Where are we starting from?

GT: The beginning of a case, the middle of Byron and Pae’s lives. We only tell the stories of the cases that go sideways in the middle. We only tell you as much as you need to know to keep up with the story.  another thing over which we’re not overly fond is ridiculously long and ponderous continuity chains. Everything you need to know is in the story you’re reading. No tricks, no zingers. Just straight-up fun.

CM: Why are these people doing it? Is it literally just the paycheck for them, or is there something else going on?

GT: Thrills. Money.Freedom. Beats the hell out of fighting Galactus.

CM: Isn’t Arcanum supposed to be running on Mondays on Thrillbent ? For that matter, isn’t Todd Harris the artist on Arcanum? Have you stuffed John Rogers into a school locker and taken his pencils?

GT: Well. Yes, except it’s on hiatus. Anyone who tries to stuff John into anything is welcome to the butt whipping that will ensue. John can handle himself and so can his many friends.

CM: What’s it been like working with Todd Harris on the art?

GT: Working with Todd has been the most fun I’ve had creatively.

CM: What’s it like working for Thrillbent? What are the advantages, for you, of working for them?

GT: The advantages are… 100% ownership of our IP, a creator-friendly contract that must be read to be embraced an editorial and publishing team who really know what they’re doing. Plus, the founders of the company are not only writers, but fantastic ones. Working with them and the rest of the team, thus far, has been pretty damned awesome.

CM: How has your storytelling changed in writing for the sort of comics format that Thrillbent has?

GT: Hmmm. Not as much as you’d think. Mainly this format gives us better control of the tempo. Beyond that, it’s pretty much business-as-usual.

CM: You’re a loooongtime comics fan. How big was your collection, and how bad was your weekly habit?

GT: At its height my collection numbered in excess of 65,000. At my worst, and this was when comics cost a LOT less than they do now (and I was a lot richer), I was probably dropping between 60 and 100 bucks a week, depending on what was happening in “indie world.”

Lucky for you folks, Prodigal will be presented for free for the foreseeable future.

So what are you waiting for? Go read it!

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If you’ve ever read anything from Clifford Meth , you know he can be a ferocious writer, and ferociously talented. We like that sort of thing here, and that’s why we’ve published his stuff in the past. He’s compiling his columns and essays into a book, and you have a few hours left to pre-order it on Kickstarter:

Comic Book Babylon  gathers icons HARLAN ELLISON , STAN LEE , ALAN MOORE , FRANK MILLER, JOE KUBERT , GENE COLAN , DAVE COCKRUM , WALTER SIMONSON and NEAL ADAMS into a conversation with CLIFFORD METH where anything goes. Among other stories, you’ll learn how & why X-Men co-creator Dave Cockrum became the first Marvel artist to receive a monetary settlement and lifetime royalties for his creations after years of suffering and virtual banishment… You’ll meet a well-known Hollywood film producer who doesn’t like to pay his writers (until someone squeezes his face)… You’ll read Harlan Ellison saying things no one else would publish…

This fascinating book collects Meth’s decades of comics columns and essays–some too outrageous to publish in their day–and adds never-before-revealed material. Everything is brought to life with sensational illustrations by the celebrated and beloved Marvel/DC artist MICHAEL NETZER .

What’s achieved is a startling look at the REAL villains and heroes of comics. Introduction by STAN LEE. Art by NETZER. Rants by METH. Join us!

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If you’re using Google Reader to read ComicMix, we regret to remind you that Google Reader is going offline tomorrow after eight years of service– which is almost sixty years in Internet time.

Obviously, we don’t want to lose you as readers. There are several alternatives to Google Reader , such as my current favorite, Feedly . Just make sure to point to the ComicMix RSS feed and you should be good to go.

And of course, keep an eye out for us on Facebook , Twitter , Google+ , Tumblr , and Pinterest .

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BOOM! Studios , the comics and graphic novel publisher, has acquired indie label Archaia Entertainment . BOOM! Studios will be the surviving company and the Archaia brand shall be maintained as a distinct imprint of BOOM!.

The addition of Archaia positions BOOM!’s catalog of intellectual property as the largest independent company-controlled comic book and graphic novel library, behind only industry titans DC Entertainment (Warner Bros.) and Marvel Entertainment (Disney).

BOOM! Studios was co-founded by Ross Richie and Andrew Cosby in 2005, and is known for Irredeemable, various licensed properties like Planet Of The Apes, The Muppet Show, Farscape, and the upcoming Sons Of Anarchy, their KaBOOM! all-ages imprint with Adventure Time, and their BOOM!Town imprint with various literary comics. Archaia, established in 2002, is known for graphic novels Mouse Guard, Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand, Rust, Spera, Cowboy, and Gunnerkrigg Court.

BOOM!’s foray into feature films launches this summer with Universal’s August 2 release 2 Guns starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, based on industry veteran Stephen Grant’s original comic. BOOM!’s also prepping to shop two more Grant properties in the works: Damned, Grant’s 1997 miniseries with Mike Zeck which BOOM! is re-releasing in July, and new comic The Deceivers which boasts a set-up akin to 2 Guns with spies. Meanwhile BOOM! is currently prepping its next feature Jeremiah Harm, based on the comic book by Keith Giffen, Alan Grant, and John Mueller, which Timo Vuourensola (Iron Sky) will direct. Archaia also has a number of titles previously optioned or in development including Rust (Fox), Lucid (Warner Bros.), Bolivar (Warner Bros.), and Feeding Ground (Pressman Films).

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Here’s something you’ve probably never seen before: a Tex Avery cartoon from 1955 produced by Walter Lantz simply called “Sh-h-h-h-h-h”.

This was Tex Avery’s last animated short cartoon. The sounds of the trumpet player and the laughing woman who keep the man awake through the night are taken directly from the novelty OKeh Laughing Record, which was released in 1923. The voice, of course, is Daws Butler. Beyond that, we should obviously say no more. Enjoy.

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Fantagraphics co-publisher Kim Thompson died at 6:30 this morning, June 19, at the age of 56. “He was my partner and close friend for 36 years,” said Fantagraphics co-publisher Gary Groth.

Thompson was born in Denmark in 1956. He grew up in Europe, a lifelong comics fan, reading both European and American comics in Denmark, France, and Germany. He was an active fan in his teen years, writing to comics — his letters appeared in Marvel’s letter columns circa early 1970s — and contributing to fanzines from his various European perches. At the age of 21, he set foot, for the first time, on American soil, in late 1977. One “fanzine” he had not contributed to was The Comics Journal , which Groth and Michael Catron began publishing in July of 1976. That was soon to change.

“Within a few weeks of his arrival,” said Groth, “he came over to our ‘office,’ which was the spare bedroom of my apartment, and was introduced by a mutual friend — it was a fan visit. We were operating out of College Park, Maryland and Kim’s parents had moved to Fairfax, Virginia, both Washington DC suburbs. Kim loved the energy around the Journal and the whole idea of a magazine devoted to writing about comics, and asked if he could help. We needed all the help we could get, of course, so we gladly accepted his offer. He started to come over every day and was soon camping out on the floor. The three of us were living and breathing The Comics Journal 24 hours a day.”

Thompson became an owner when Catron took a job at DC Comics in 1978. As he became more familiar with the editorial process, Thompson became more and more integral to the magazine, assembling and writing news and conducting interviews with professionals. Thompson’s career in comics began here.

In 1981, Fantagraphics began publishing comics (such as Jack Jackson’s Los Tejanos, Don Rosa’s Comics and Stories, and, in 1982, Love and Rockets). Thompson was always evangelical about bandes dessinées and wanted to bring the best of European comics to America; in 1981, Thompson selected and translated the first of many European graphic novels for American publication — Herman Huppen’s The Survivors: Talons of Blood (followed by a 2nd volume in 1983). Thompson’s involvement in The Comics Journal diminished in 1982 when he took over the editorship of Amazing Heroes, a bi-weekly magazine devoted to more mainstream comics (with occasional forays into alternative and even foreign comics). Thompson helmed Amazing Heroes through 204 issues until 1992.

Among Thompson’s signature achievements in comics were Critters, a funny-animal anthology that ran from 50 issues between 1985 to 1990 and is perhaps best known for introducing the world to Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo; and Zero Zero, an alternative comics anthology that also ran for 50 issues over five years — between 1995 and 2000 — and featured work by, among others, Kim Deitch, Dave Cooper, Al Columbia, Spain Rodriguez, Joe Sacco, David Mazzuchelli, and Joyce Farmer. His most recent enthusiasm was spearheading a line of European graphic novel translations, including two major series of volumes by two of the most significant living European artists — Jacques Tardi (It Was the War of the Trenches, Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot, The Astonishing Exploits of Lucien Brindavoine) and Jason (Hey, Wait…, I Killed Adolf Hitler, Low Moon, The Left Bank Gang ) — and such respected work as Ulli Lust’s Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life, Lorenzo Mattotti’s The Crackle of the Frost, Gabriella Giandelli’s Interiorae, and what may be his crowning achievement as an editor/translator, Guy Peelaert’s The Adventures of Jodelle.

Throughout his career at Fantagraphics, Thompson was active in every aspect of the company, selecting books, working closely with authors, guiding books through the editorial and production process. “Kim leaves an enormous legacy behind him,” said Groth, “not just all the European graphic novels that would never have been published here if not or his devotion, knowledge, and skills, but for all the American cartoonists he edited, ranging from Stan Sakai to Joe Sacco to Chris Ware, and his too infrequent critical writing about the medium. His love and devotion to comics was unmatched. I can’t truly convey how crushing this is for all of us who’ve known and loved and worked with him over he years.”

Thompson was diagnosed with lung cancer in late February. He is survived by his wife, Lynn Emmert, his mother and father, Aase and John, and his brother Mark. Our condolences to his friends and family.

Photo via Tom Spurgeon at Comics Reporter .

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Marvel Comics announced today Spider-Man: Family Business, one of Marvel’s new line of original graphic novels debuting in May 2014. And if you’re a big Spider-Man fan, you may note that the story seems a bit familiar. Spoilers follow…

Spider-Man: Family Business, written by Mark Waid and James Robinson and painted by Gabriele Dell’Otto, introduces a woman to Peter Parker who says she’s his long-lost sister, Teresa. The two of them never knew anything about each other, and there’s lots of new backstory about Peter’s CIA parents, Richard and Mary Parker, and their deaths that orphaned Peter and put him in the care of his Uncle Ben and Aunt May.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, that may be because you read Marvel’s novel line at the turn of the millennium.

Adam-Troy Castro’s Spider-Man/Sinister Six trilogy— The Gathering Of The Sinister Six , Revenge Of The Sinister Six , and The Secret Of The Sinister Six — introduces us to a character known as Pity, who was raised from infancy by the Gentleman, an associate of the communist Red Skull who was intimately involved in prompting the contract killing against Richard and Mary Parker. Circumstances, including a photograph of Mrs. Parker pregnant a couple of years before Peter was born, make it look like Pity may be Peter’s older sister.

Adam-Troy Castro, who has received numerous Hugo, Nebula and Stoker award nominations and won a Philip K. Dick award in 2009 (and has occasionally contributed to this site) wants to make it perfectly clear that he thinks Mark Waid is one of the very best at what he does, and that he sees this as no more than the product of two separate creative minds, independently traveling in similar directions from the same source material.

He even illuminates this with a case from his own career:

“Many years ago I wrote an acclaimed story called ‘Funeral March of the Marionettes’ about a woman who gives her life to communicate with strange spherical aliens whose language is dance. I was almost done when I became aware how similar this was to a famous story by Spider and Jeanne Robinson , about a woman who gives her life to communicate with spherical aliens whose language is a form of dance. The stories were completely different otherwise, but I felt compelled to speak with Spider and Jeanne, who also understood that we had different destinations in mind. I sneakily acknowledged the similarity by naming the aliens spiders.

“It has happened again, ironically enough with another spider. But again, I stress: there is no wrongdoing here, and I look forward to what the creative team here produces.”

Here’s a trailer for Spider-Man: Family Business:

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