Comic Book Critic

2011 Eisner Award Winners Announced at SDCC

December 10, 2014July 23, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

The 2011 Eisner Award winners were announced on Friday July 22nd, 2011 at the San Diego Comic-Con in San Diego, CA. The list of nominees can be found here and you can get more info from the Comic-Con 2011 site.

Media release

SAN DIEGO – The 2011 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, presented by Comic-Con International (Comic-Con®), ended on an unusual note Friday night with the Best Graphic Album-New category going to two winners: Jim McCann and Janet Lee‘s Return of the Dapper Men (published by Archaia) and Dan Clowes‘s Wilson (published by Drawn & Quarterly). The awards, considered the "Oscars®" of comics, were presented in a gala ceremony at the Indigo Ballroom of the Hilton Bayfront. The "Eisners," which honor comics’ best and brightest, were held as part of Comic-Con, the world’s largest comic book and popular arts event in the Western Hemisphere.

The Graphic Album category is somewhat comparable to "Best Picture" in the comics industry. Other notable winners included horror novelist Joe Hill for Best Writer (Locke & Key, IDW), Chew (Image) by John Layman and Rob Guillory for Best Continuing Series, Daytripper (Vertigo/DC) by Brazilian brothers Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon for Best Limited Series, and American Vampire (Vertigo/DC) by Scott Snyder, Stephen King, and Rafael Albuquerque for Best New Series.

Creators who received multiple awards were Hellboy creator Mike Mignola (Best Cover Artist, Best Single Issue for Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil, published by Dark Horse>), famed French cartoonist Jacques Tardi (Best Reality-Based Work and Best U.S. Edition of International Material for It Was the War of the Trenches, published by Fantagraphics), and artist Skottie Young (Best Adaption from Another Work and Best Penciller/Inker for The Marvelous Land of Oz, published by Marvel).

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Amazing Spider-Man HD Trailer

July 21, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

After grainy footage of the Amazing Spider-Man teaser trailer hit the web, Sony officially released an HD version of the trailer online. The trailer features some vertigo-inducing point-of-view camera footage towards the end. I’m sure some people might be closing their eyes during the 3-D version of that sequence!

The trailer will receive its theatrical release with Marvel’s “Captain America: The First Avenger.”

Wonder Woman TV Pilot Leaked Footage

April 11, 2012July 21, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

This week nearly 6 minutes of footage from David E. Kelley’s failed Wonder Woman TV pilot leaked onto the internet. Here are all three parts of the footage.

UPDATE

It turns out that the ‘Powers that be’ at Warner Bros. didn’t want the leaked footage to be shown. They had it pulled from websites such as Daily Motion (who we linked to) and Ain’t It Cool News. So we currently cannot show the footage we had previously linked to. I’m sure all we have to do is wait and the footage will resurface somewhere else.

Footage from failed Wonder Woman TV pilot by kahramanlarsinemada

Review: Daredevil #1 (Marvel)

July 21, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

Writer: Mark Waid
Penciller: Paolo Rivera, Marcos Martin
Inker: Joe Rivera, Marcos Martin
Colors: Javier Rodriguez, Muntsa Vicente
Letters: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Ellie Pyle, Stephen Wacker
Cover: Paolo Rivera
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Date: September 2011
Cover Price: $3.99

Title: “Here Comes… Daredevil” / A Bonus Tale

In this latest Daredevil relaunch, Mark Waid and Paolo Rivera take over as the creative team on the title and, right from the start, they’re taking Matt Murdock in a different direction. There’s a distinct change, both in art style and writing, from recent incarnations of Daredevil.

The tone in “Here Comes… Daredevil” has lost the overwhelming gloom that has been, for the most part, prevalent in a lot of Daredevil stories since Frank Miller first threw grit, death, loss, and despair in Matt Murdock’s face. Mark Waid comes in and lightens up the character and gives him actual hope for the future instead of having life firmly planting it’s boot-heel on his head once again.

Review: The Intrepids #5 (Image)

July 17, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

Writer, co-creator: Kurtis J. Wiebe
Illustrator, co-creator: Scott Kowalchuk
Cover, designer: Scott Kowalchuk
Colorist: Donna Gregory
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Script Editor: Brittany Matter
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Date: July 2011
Cover Price: $2.99

Title: “Carbon Calamari”

In The Intrepids #5, Crystal, Doyle, Rose, and Chester finally come face to face with Dr. Koi and things don’t quite go as planned. After Chester attacks Dr. Koi, the team battles a giant robotic squid designed to protect him from harm. Afterwards, Dr. Koi reveals the truth about Dante’s ‘experiments’ and how they relate to the creation of the Intrepids. And then it gets even more interesting!

Review: Red Skull: Incarnate #1 (Marvel)

July 15, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: Mirko Colak
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letters: Clayton Cowles
Production: Clayton Cowles
Cover: David Aja
Editor: Alejandro Arbona, Tom Brevoort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Date: September 2011
Cover Price: $2.99

Red Skull: Incarnate #1 first grabs you with it’s strikingly terrifying cover, and continues with a raw intensity that pulls no punches.

Saying that David Aja’s cover art is striking is putting it mildly. You can feel the intense hate and evil jumping right out of the Eastern European war propaganda style cover to this book. Although it’s stylistically different from the interior artwork by Mirko Colak, it fits the issue very well.

The Comics Industry Needs a New Strategy

July 25, 2011July 14, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

Recently I was having a conversation with a friend who had read comics years ago, but hasn’t picked one up in a long time. We had just come from a local comic shop where I picked up a few books I was missing and told me that he was overwhelmed by the amount of titles that were being published and didn’t know what to buy. He likes the X-Men, but there are too many X-Men titles to choose from, and on top of that, he didn’t want to get anything that was in the middle of a storyline. Having to pick up #1-10 of a series that was on issue #11 wasn’t what he wanted either.

This is one of the hurdles that the industry has to overcome. Only through the efforts of publishers, retailers, and fans, can this be accomplished effectively.

One problem with the marketing strategy of the Big Two (Marvel & DC) publishers is their reliance on restarting a series in order to increase sales. Surely it will increase short term sales because people love to get in on a ‘first’ issue of a series, but that ‘first issue,’ more often than not, is just a different storyline that could have been continued in the previous title.

You don’t always have to change the numbering when something drastic happens, just indicate it on the cover and make sure your audience is aware. If this ideology of “Number One’s always sell well” becomes the status quo, why would we ever need a series to go more than 15 issues, or 20, or 25? Do we need 10 different Flash #1’s or 15 different Wolverine #1’s? No. Lately, though, it seems like we’re moving in that direction. Does every change to a new creative team require a restart of a current series? Does a major change to a character need to have the series cancelled and retitled? I hope the answer to those, and similar questions, is no.

Milk and Cheese: Dairy Products Gone Bad HC

July 12, 2011July 12, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

All fans of Evan Dorkin’s Milk and Cheese will be having a wonderful Christmas this year. Dark Horse Comics will publish the Milk and Cheese: Dairy Products Gone Bad Hardcover with a release date of December 21st, 2011.

The hardcover, measuring in at 7” x 11” and 240 pages, should leave a smile on every fan’s face – this writer included. With a retail price of $19.99, this book is a bargain considering how much fun is included within its covers and, at that price, would make a wonderful Christmas gift for all your friends!

Loeb and McGunness reunite on _ _ _ _ _ Reborn!

July 8, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

Marvel Comics is being very secretive on the new series that reunites Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness (HULK, Superman/Batman). Currently titled _ _ _ _ _ Reborn, the series is set for a December 2011 release with more info to come at the San Diego Comic Con on Saturday July 23rd.

Batman: Year One Animated Trailer

July 7, 2011 by The Comic Book Critic

The first official trailer for the Warner Bros. Animation ‘Batman: Year One’ original animated feature hit the web today. The story is an extremely faithful recreation of the classic Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli which originally ran as a four issue story arc in Batman #404-#407 and was later collected as a trade paperback.

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