Neilalien : A Doctor Strange Fansite : A Comic Book Weblog  

August 02015

50 Summers Ago: Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 [lovenote to "The Wondrous Worlds of Dr. Strange!" by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, with lots of info and trivia] [26 August 02015]

Marvel's November 02015 solicitations include Doctor Strange #2
DOCTOR STRANGE #2
JASON AARON (W) CHRIS BACHALO (A/C)
Variant by SKOTTIE YOUNG
Variant Cover BY ALEX ROSS
VARIANT SKETCH COVER BY ALEX ROSS
Take a tour of Doctor Strange's home-- the Sancto Sanctorum. It's the weirdest and most dangerous place in the Marvel Universe! A place where opening the wrong door can unleash hell on Earth.
Unfortunately for you and your fellow visitor, Zelma, Strange's house is infested with something far worse than bed bugs!
32 PGS./Rated T+ $3.99
[25 August 02015]

Superhero films are American pop culture's most sustained response to 9/11 [9 August 02015]

Is it unofficial policy at Marvel to not create new characters in the Spider-Man and X-Men orbits for whom Sony and Fox would have movie first dibs? [7 August 02015]

The Secret History of Ultimate Marvel, The Experiment That Changed Superheroes Forever [via LinkMachineGo] [6 August 02015]

Ultimate End #4, out today, has a Dr. Strange variant cover by Karmome Shirahama [please note that Dr. Strange has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of Ultimate End #4 and does not appear within- another increasingly-more-common reason to dislike variant covers, but blogged here as always as news-completism for the completist-collectors] [Ultimate End ends the Ultimate Marvel Universe] [5 August 02015]

Kickstarter for Steve Ditko's 40th Anniversary edition of Mr. A #4 [the issue numbering is not pitfall-free- this must be "Count Rogue" (16 pages) and "Brotherhood Of The Collective" (16 pages)- originally published by Bruce Hershenson in 01975] ["Steve Ditko in 01975" article from Ditkomania #75] [update after the fact: hopefully nobody pledging only $10 expected differently: one had to have pledged $15 or more to get an actual copy of the book being supported] [4 August 02015]

Marvel/DC/Image/North American comics and graphic novel sales hit new 20-year high in 02014
Yay! You might have also heard that other comics are for sale and selling well too. Or maybe you haven't...:
> What Our Failure To Cover Attack On Titan Says About The Comics Industry [Marvel/DC superheroes still called "the mainstream", and Star Wars' fake one million sales still dominate North American comics industry press, while dwarfed by manga, kids comics, girl comics, webcomics]
> Comics212: Shifts And Living History [Marvel/DC comics industry still marginalizing anything not aimed at males 18-49, but real progress has been made]
> Comics212: New. Now. Next. [the system's hype/publicity cycle is more broken/divorced from the sales cycle than ever; retailers getting less info than ever to order books farther in advance; longer time-spans (and consumer attention-spans needed) between announcements and when books are actually on shelves; still as difficult as ever to get people talking about non-Marvel/DC/Image books; fewer good critics/curators talking about good comics actually on shelves than ever] [3 August 02015]

Writer Tony Isabella reports some peace-pipe smoking with DC, and a new Black Lightning collection in early 02016 [Trouble With Comics with some collected industry reactions] [via Progressive Ruin] [Robot 6] [Isabella has felt long-term disrespect from DC re: his creation Black Lightning, one of the first major black superheroes to appear in DC Comics]

[Update on a very old hubbub: A major part of said disrespect is DC's apparent nefarious unilateral for-money/lawyer-reasons muddying of the non-work-for-hire deal and creator-credit waters by giving artist Trevor Von Eeden a co-creator credit via costume design, as you'll see on Black Lightning's current Wikipedia page and almost everywhere else (notable exception Toonopedia). Von Eeden has disavowed co-creator status, but he has claimed BL's original visual design (but not the removable Afro mask). Neilalien absolutely supports Isabella vs. DC- but a kind of 'Isabella vs. Von Eeden' won't get the same pass. As a Steve Ditko fan and comics-are-words-and-pictures folk, he's just too wary of artists not getting their due, especially for their superhero visual-costume designs which are critical to the medium and sell those Underoos. Isabella's "A character isn't his costume" sounds a lot like what Stan Lee used to claim ("the person who has the idea is the person who creates it") when he gobbled up every credit in sight. Further reading: 20th Century Danny Boy: Original Art Stories: The (Sad) Saga of Black Lightning's Creation; Tony Isabella's 'FAQ of Recurring Animosity']

[2 August 02015]

Riverdale Punks Up With "Archie Meets Ramones" [series is expected to arrive in 02016 to celebrate both Archie's 75th anniversary and the Ramones 40th] [1 August 02015]

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