When Marvel announced Girl Comics four years ago it unleashed a firestorm of outrage (just check out the comments if you care in the link). Now they are announcing a whole month of variant covers by female artists and everyone thinks it’s A-OK! Because suddenly women read comics.
The event will celebrate Women’s History Month in March but also spotlight some of Marvel’s most popular artists. “2014 was a huge year for Women of Marvel, both in our comics and behind the scenes,” says Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso in a statement. “Marvel now has more titles starring female leads than ever before, the Women of Marvel panel is one of the most highly attended at conventions, and the weekly Women of Marvel podcast continues to grow. In 2015, we intend to continue that tradition, and March’s Women of Marvel variant covers — featuring 20 of the best female artists in the industry – is just the beginning.”
Here’s the complete list…and eight covers released so far, by some of the top cover artists out there such as Sana Takeda, Sara PIchelli, Colleen Doran, Amanda Conner and MORE. Can’t wait to see the whole list!
- All-New Captain America #5 by TBD
- All-New Hawkeye #1 by SHO MURASE
- All-New X-Men #39 by FAITH ERIN HICKS
- Amazing Spider-Man #16 by MING DOYLE
- Ant-Man #3 by KATIE COOK
- Avengers #42 by TBD
- Black Widow #16 by VANESA DEL REY
- Captain Marvel #13 by AFUA RICHARDSON
- Deadpool #43 by TBD
- Guardians of the Galaxy #25 by ERICA HENDERSON
- Inhuman #13 by JILL THOMPSON
- Legendary Star-Lord #10 by SANA TAKEDA
- Ms. Marvel #13 by TBD
- New Avengers #31 by SARA PICHELLI
- Rocket Raccoon #9 by JANET LEE
- S.H.I.E.L.D. #4 by COLLEEN DORAN
- Superior Iron Man #6 by TBD
- Thor #6 by TBD (Above image by Stephanie Hans)
- Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #3 by GURIHIRU
- Uncanny Avengers #3 by AMANDA CONNER
- Uncanny X-Men #33 by STACEY LEE
Vertigo is NOT DEAD. Although a lot of people thought DC’s edgy imprint would go the way of the dodo in a more cost conscious environment, this is one of several interesting project I’ve been hearing about coming up. I’m told there will be even more before San Diego. This mini series hit in November and has covers by Doyle and Cloonan. Storywise, it’s American Hustle by way of Mob Wives, with 70s style taking over.
NYC. THE SEVENTIES. DISCO. PUNK. BLACKOUTS. SUMMER OF SAM. YANKEES FEVER. TIMES SQUARE.
This is the world of THE KITCHEN, a new 8 issue mini-series announced by Vertigo today.
Written by newcomer Ollie Masters with art by illustrator Ming Doyle, THE KITCHEN follows a group of four mob wives who get a taste for crime when their husbands are jailed.
Following Tom Fowler’s four-issue opening arc, Valiant have announced that Ming Doyle will be joining Quantum and Woody for the second arc of the series. Sadly not as a character herself – although hey, James Asmus, there’s a cracking idea for you – but as penciller.
Starting in December, Doyle will begin on the series with issue 5. Colourist Jordie Bellaire will still be handling the book, which looks set to jump headlong into this whole ‘goat’ business that so many of you are looking forward to. The series has been pretty well acclaimed so far, with The Beat calling it ‘great fun’.
Just now. We just now called it that. It’s great fun! CBR have an interview with the creative team and editor Alejandro Arbona over on their site.
Thought Bubble 2013 have announced a second list of guests for their convention this year, which, I notice, means the convention has a brilliant gender parity. Of the 21 guests so far announced, 10 are female!
That might not sound like much, but British conventions have struggled with this in the past – last year’s Kapow Comic Convention was widely criticised for not having any females on the guest-list, to which Mark Millar at the time responded:
“The reason the comic guests are mostly male is because the biggest names in UK comics are male.”
Well, this year’s Thought Bubble Convention currently has a guestlist of ten female creators and eleven males (with that slight disparity being caused by Paul Cornell, ironically!) in total. And joining the previously announced Ming Doyle, Emma Rios, Robin Furth, Annie Wu, Isabel Greenberg, Becky Cloonan, Fiona Staples, will be Jordie Bellaire (a colourist, at a convention?!), Hope Larson, and Emma Vieceli.
So… I think that pretty effectively shuts down Millar’s argument, eh?
Also just announced are Paul Duffield, Declan Shalvey, Antony Johnston, and Francesco Francavilla. A full guest list can be found here.
Illustrators can now jump with both feet into digital publishing with the help of some free software and a contest launched by InteractBooks.com
“What better way to showcase all that our InteractBuilder e-book software can do on the iPad and iPhone than holding a contest to find the very best interactive book it can make?” asks the Interact Books website .
“And who better than you to produce this book by using your developer talent and our app software for the Mac and PC?”
A Youtube video doesn’t do the reading experience justice, but an actual iPad encounter with The Tortoise and the Hairpiece by Don Winn, illustrated by Toby Heflin and distributed on the Apple iTunes store demonstrates how the touch screen interactions and subtle animations of an interactive book (let’s call it an i-book) make for a whole new storytelling language.
I-books or interactive e-books aren’t quite the same as the e-books now making headlines for trouncing paperbacks in sales at Amazon.com.
They’re a new animal — maybe a new art form, and it may be months or even years before anyone knows where this fusion of interactivity and literacy is going, aesthetically or commercially speaking. Developers and a few publishers are delving into the format, but no leader for an interactive book-building engine or platform has emerged — yet.
In the meantime Austin, Texas based-InteractBooks wants to push the innovation timeline up a little by launching the first ever contest for an interactive children’s book. Entries must be built with their free InteractBuilder software.
First place prize – 16gb white or black WIFI iPad2, or $500. lnteractBooks will also publish your title and give you a three year membership in the InteractBuilder community (a $300 value)
- 2nd Place wins a 32gb iPodTouch or $200* and a two-year membership to the InteractBuilder community.
- 3rd Place yields a $100 Best Buy Gift Card and a one-year membership to the InteractBuilder community.
All runners up and anyone entering the contest with an InteractBuilder-approved book will have a free year’s membership in the InteractBooks builders community.
The deadline is September 18 and the winner will be announced October 1, which doesn’t give you much time.
That’s why the InteractBook folks are encouraging illustrators and authors to mull over the books they’ve already done, published or unpublished, with pictures and text ready to go — and see how they might adapt their story to this new media
That shield cover is out of this world good.
Are these going to be sold like the recent DC variant covers where retailers can order in equal amounts or are they 1 in 25/50/100 type variant covers? I would like to get some but my retailer does not buy the “1 in xx” type very often. He is a good retailer, he claims that it’s hard to justify the expense on the “1 in xx” type.
If you are willing to pay for it, I don’t see why he wouldn’t order it.