By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/16/2016
It’s been quite a week for master purveyor of words and professional mind f**k*r Chuck Palahniuk. The off the wall comic book sequel Fight Club 2 has a collected edition in stores now. He’s in the final hours of a successful Kickstarter campaign to adapt his novel Lullaby to independent film. If that weren’t enough, he just announced a new […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/28/2015
A lot of Dark Horse Comics were announced yesterday with opening day at Emerald City Comic Con, but probably none more anticipated than the one we already knew about, Fight Club 2. Saturday morning, Emerald City opened with an hour long discussion dedicated to the upcoming comic form sequel. On the panel: Artist Cameron Stewart, cover artist David Mack, Scott Allie, and of course the creator Chuck Palahniuk.
An insanely packed room at the Washington State Convention Center was treated to a preview of the upcoming book right when you walked in the door. As we knew the story picks up years after the events of Fight Club and it looks as though his son has a little bit of Tyler in him. This is also looking like some of Cameron Stewart’s best work, ever.
Dark Horse’s Aub Driver moderates the festivities. Chuck opens up talking about the FCBD issue. “It’ll be the end of the book in graphic novel form.” Allie asked Chuck about the reasoning for doing it as a graphic novel. David Mack and Chuck have been friends since 2006, after he wrote a letter to which he responded with a box of goodies and a letter. They’d been talking about ideas like life, love, and other stuff in the universe. Bendis also had a little bit to do with the genesis. From a dinner party Bendis and Mack hammered the idea of how different publishing comics is.
If Palahniuk was going to talk about Fight Club for the rest of his life then why not do it in a “Lovecraft” fashion and expand the story in two directions. Cameron Stewart came on board after 2013 when he contacted EIC Scott Allie about the book. He adapted one of the later chapters of the novel into a three page comic as proof of concept.
Chuck talked about making Stewart research what he wanted him to draw. In Stewart’s words, it was “deeply upsetting”, though he talked about how that was a good thing with this project. Scott talked about how surrealism was a big part of Chuck’s work and this was the perfect team to do it. A comparison to the last issue of Stewart’s Batgirl, a comparison was even drawn because of Barbra fighting her own mind.
A walk through of the preview interiors was done by the panel. Chuck talked about naming the character Sebastian, because he used every other name he knew in his other fiction work.
We’ll never see GUTS because you can’t literally depict someone being disemboweled.” Cameron Stewart’s work is perfectly cartoony for what the writer wants to depict.
The panel opened up for questions.
ANy other callbacks beyond Marla and Sebastian?
“Yeah”
Gas station worker went back to college?
“I’ll find a place for him now.”
Sebastian’s real name?
“Dealt with in FCBD issue”
Other books in comic medium?
“Invisible monsters by David Mack, Rand done after the Franco movie comes out.”
One of the new stories in Chuck’s upcoming collection will be a girl version of Guts called Cannibal.
what do you prefer, comics or novel?
“Writing a graphic novel is live having a terrific workshop.” Though he’s full of ideas, he doesn’t necessarily know where they’re going to end up.
With that the panel came to an end, we’ll be at the Marvel: Black Vortex to Secret Wars later.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/23/2015
The annual meeting for the retailer organization ComicsPRO wrapped up over the weekend. The meeting is closed to the press but retailer/newspaper columnist Matt Price has an informative series of posts on the event, which consists of meetings and publisher presentations. It was a transitional year for ComicsPRO following a scandal involving former treasurer Gary Dills, who resigned and saw one of his stores closed. But the organization seems to have rebounded in the midst of the general comics renaissance that is taking place.
According to Price, publishers acknowledged the seismic shift going on in the comics reading demographic:
The watchword for a lot of the ComicsPRO annual members meeting was “diversity,” as both publishers and retailers realized the demographics of their audience are shifting. There were a lot of newsbits and notes coming out of the meeting, but there didn’t seem to be many strong areas of dissension — publishers announced ways to work with retailers to mitigate risk and to let them know what content would be of most interest to which audiences.
The annual Industry appreciation awards were presented. Bill Schanes, formerly of Pacific Comics and Diamond and now an industry consultant, was selected as the living winner; hall of fame artist and educator Joe Kubert was selected posthumously.
In other news, the event included perhaps the last chance to fete outgoing sales guru Bob Wayne, whos, as we’ve noted many times before, is the most popular human on earth among comics retailers.
Archie unveiled the above comicsPRO exclusive cover to The Black Hood #1 (on sale this week) by Michael Gaydos.
great slideshow at @comicspro featuring Bob Wayne, retiring from @DCcomics this year #thanksBob pic.twitter.com/3DG9hwIsCr
— Calum Johnston (@comxguy) February 20, 2015
Many more photos from the events from the twitter feed of Strange Adventure’s Calum Jonston
However undoubtedly the greatest optics of the event was the Fight Cub 2 severed arm giveaway, to promote theupcoming book by Chuck Palahniuk and Cameron Stewart. So many uses.
Thanks to @BeachBallComics #ComicsPRO & all the retailers. An incredible weekend & so great to have it in Portland. pic.twitter.com/vaz6Plf2pZ
— Scott Allie (@ScottAllie) February 21, 2015
And some more random tweeting about the event.
#ComicsPRO was an incredibly positive experience for team @ValiantComics this week/end!
— Andy L. (@yourfriendandy) February 22, 2015
It's energizing seeing and hearing from retailers so dedicated to improving and growing our industry. #ComicsPRO
— Andy L. (@yourfriendandy) February 22, 2015
Looking forward to being boots on the ground with #ComicsPRO & #comicmarket retailers this year as @ValiantComics executes our con season!
— Andy L. (@yourfriendandy) February 22, 2015
Just want to make it clear that you check the timestamp on that last RT, you'll see I was still at the #comicspro party.
— Steve Lieber (@steve_lieber) February 22, 2015
Got a lot of serious wisdom from the nation's comics retailers this week, wish #ComicsPro could come to Portland more!
— Jeff Parker (@jeffparker) February 22, 2015
great reconnecting with Brian Hibbs @comixexperience at @OniPress #comicsPRO closing party. @girlfiendcomic #vampire #GraphicNovel
— Pander Brothers (@PanderBros) February 22, 2015
My #ComicsPRO experience was great, though to be fair it mostly consisted of eating stupid amounts of meat.
— Brendan Wright (@BrendanWasright) February 22, 2015
By: Andy Yates,
on 11/14/2014
Change can take a long time to happen. The mainstream comics market is no exception, but there have been some recent encouraging signs. Case in point, the newly redesigned, Doc Marten/iPhone sporting Batgirl by forward thinking creator Cameron Stewart, who co-writes, and sketches story breakdowns for the series. Stewart, a Canadian native, has been drawing comics for over a decade, and has worked with some of the most celebrated comics writers out there, including Grant Morrison, Ed Brubaker, and Jason Aaron.
In addition to the monthly Batgirl, he’s currently working on a comics sequel to Fight Club with writer Chuck Palahniuk, which he’s described as a dream project to be a part of.
Cameron Stewart won both an Eisner(2010) & Shuster(2009) award for his web comic Sin Titulo. You can find a lot more artwork to drool over at his website here.
For more comics related art, you can follow me on my website comicstavern.com - Andy Yates
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 7/28/2014
Live from San Diego Comic Con, it’s More To Come! Publishers Weekly’s podcast of comics news, interviews and discussion with Calvin Reid, Kate Fitzsimons and The Beat’s own Heidi MacDonald.
In part five of More To Come’s San Diego Comic-Con special podcast, Calvin Reid interviews award-winning author Chuck Palahnuik about his decision to write the sequel to his hit ‘Fight Club’ in comic book form, and the comics professionals who helped it happen. This has been San Diego Comic-Con 2014 from Publishers Weekly’s More To Come!
Download this episode direct here and catch up with our previous podcasts on the Publishers Weekly website, or subscribe to More To Come on iTunes