52 new series. And back in September, we looked at them all. Some were okay, some rather terrible, but a surprisingly high number of them were actually rather good. Certainly good enough to keep reading.

That was the plan anyway. But you know how these things work eh? Too many comics, too little time. So over the next couple of months I really, really, honestly meant to pick up lots of them, but sadly never really managed to. However, I get another chance, as we’re getting the first batch of DC New 52 Collections coming out in May, and I thought I might revisit just a few of those I’d been looking at carrying on with.

Green Lantern: Sinestro

By Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke, with Mike Choi

DC Comics

This was a huge surprise to me when I read issues 1 & 2 back in 2011. Geoff Johns messing with the status quo quite marvellously, taking square-jawed Hal Jordan out of the costume at the start, stripped of the ring for some reason in the recent past that frankly doesn’t make an iota of difference to your enjoyment here.

Instead the unlikely Green Lantern on the cover is Sinestro, Jordan’s nemesis, and from what little prior knowledge I had coming into this, not the nicest of men.

Johns does such a great job of painting him not in simple terms, but as a super-smart, incredibly conflicted being who’s been manipulated into this Lantern role once more by The Guardians, and needs Jordan’s help to free his home world of Korugar from the Yellow Lantern Corps he set up as the planet’s protectors:

This really works best in the first three issues, where Sinestro plays Jordan, manipulates him, forces him to do the right thing. Johns’ simple touch of altering

Sinestro’s intellect, his guile, his simply superior knowledge, and time and again Jordan comes off second best:

That sequence from issue 3 really sums up everything I enjoyed in this, and in these set up issues Johns does so well with characterisation and dialogue that it’s perhaps inevitable that once the action starts in the fourth issue it’s something of a let-down. Once the fighting starts there’s less chance for the sparkling dialogue I’d enjoyed thus far.

Johns does a neat job of resolving the storyline in issue 5 before the epilogue/ cliffhanger/ setup for the next arc in issue 6, which also features a damned annoying switch of artist. Gone is the confident, attractive style of Doug Mahnke, and in his place is Mike Choi, whose photoshop effects don’t disguise a distinctly average style.

What started out as something really well done rather turned into a good example of superhero comics done with pace, style, and an above average entertainment value. But I was offered much more than this by Johns at first, and just giving me pretty good, above average, alright for what it it is superhero book, after giving me such enjoyment early on feels a real disappointment. I think I’ll take my enjoyment of the start of this one and leave it there.

Little League by Yale Stewart. My new favourite thing. Adorable. Funny. Silly. The Justice League as kids; Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Martian Manhunter, Flash. The teacher is Mr Schwartz, and the gym teacher…. well, just go and read the strip. It’s silly, it’s magnificent, it deserves a print version.

DC? Are you listening?

Here’s the first couple of strips… as with most things, in Little League, Batman has all the best lines:

And there’s another 28 more at the tumblr. Go and have a smile. Here’s a few more. Let’s start with the one that had me grinning from ear to ear…. wrong marble indeed:

DC have (finally) scheduled the Marshal Law Omnibus Edition collecting every solo Marshal Law appearance as written by Pat Mills and drawn by Kevin O’Neill for Spring 2013.

Well, it’s always nice to have some time to plan your purchases isn’t it?

So far Mills and O’Neill’s superhero hunter killer has found a home at Marvel’s Epic imprint, Dark Horse, Image, Cool Beenz, and Apocalypse since the first appearance back in 1987. It was originally meant to be finally, completely, definitively collected together by Top Shelf, but that deal was dead a while back, then DC announced they’d taken it on… and for a long time nothing else.

Now it’s definitely on the schedules, and fills a hole in many people’s “if only” lists of things they always wanted reprinting.

Here, have a few covers to whet your whistle….

(cover art for issue #1 of Saucer Country, published Vertigo/DC Comics)

Saucer Country, my new comic from Vertigo, is something I’ve been ‘working on’ since I was eight, reading ‘true UFO’ books that would scare me.  I’ve been fascinated by the beautiful and many-dimensional world of UFO mythology ever since.  I’ve always kept in touch with developments in it, the way the myth and the media feed each other, how the myth talks about America’s (and the world’s) unconscious concerns.

The title concerns Arcadia Alvarado, the Governor of New Mexico, who, on the eve of announcing her Presidential bid, is ‘abducted by aliens’.  Those inverted commas are important to us, because she doesn’t know exactly what happened to her, and neither do we.  This book is about unknown terrors and mythological grey areas, not nuts and bolts aliens with plans and guns and spaceships.  We call it The West Wing meets The X-Files.

I’m fortunate to be joined in this task by two excellent editors, Will Dennis and Mark Doyle, and by the extremely talented art team of Ryan Kelly and colourist Giulia Brusco.

Saucer Country began as a series of conversations with former Vertigo editor Pornsak Pichetshote (he’s since moved to DC’s movie division on the West Coast).  My initial pitches (under the titles Occupants, American Alien, Aliens in America and Resident Alien, the last of which we only decided against when another comic took it) were about the Governor of Alaska, and limited the title to a 24-issue run.  It was very flattering to be told this could be an ongoing, and that opened up many more possibilities in terms of all the different kinds of UFO mythology we could cover.  When Pornsak left, Will took over, and we’ve become the guys who, like me and Pornsak, share long phone conversations where we yell about UFOs.

One of the first things I had to do was demonstrate that I had plots that would keep the title going, so I quickly outlined how Arcadia’s search for the truth, and whether or not what had happened to her was a national security issue, could lead the small team of advisors she shares the story of her experience with into investigating all sorts of branches of UFO lore.  The first issue had to sum up what the rest of the series would be like, with strong, weird, visual sequences, characters established and enigmas set up.  The images Ryan and Giulia are about to show you are from Arcadia’s dreams, as her mind struggles to rationalise what happened to her on the night when the car she was driving (that also contained her loose cannon of an ex-husband, Michael) stopped in a secluded spot overlooking Santa Fe.  My script mentions a museum, ‘all of time and space seen from the outside, looking like a piece of modern art’ (good luck with that!) and a weird-looking curator figure, who would show Arcadia a baby (being shown seemingly hybrid fetuses being a standard part of the ‘abduction’ narrative).

Take it away, Ryan…

It’s true that first issues are difficult. You have to cover a lot of ground in a lot of time. By the time I got to the “dream sequence” in the middle of the story it was an opportunity to revisit the strangeness of the first scene. For a few pages now, there was a lot of necessary set-up, talking heads and formal introduction of characters so it was great to swing the creative pendulum in another direction.

Paul had a 4-page scene in which Arcadia falls asleep and has a vision. Actually, I didn’t really know what was going on, but I understood that Paul was playing with elements that  illustrate her past encounter and how it manifests itself in her mind – her memories – and how those take the form of visual cues in the real world. I’ve also looked into alien abductions enough to know about relapsed memories, nightmares, and accounts of our visitors implanting messages in our minds to be understood at another time. So I just tried my best to capture that and keep it creepy and unnerving with my line work.

In the first page, Arcadia enters her room and hits the shower after a long stressful day. Paul asked to have the shadows in her room take the shape of the alien humanoids in a very subtle way. That was tricky, but if you look, they are there. I’m always in the danger of making these things look corny and obvious instead foreboding and creepy. At first the room was empty, but I actually went back later and drew a creepy cat, because the creepy cat shows up later. It didn’t look right that a creepy cat show up out of nowhere.

In the shower, Arcadia is startled by forms that trigger her memories. I guess this is fairly common with abductees. They end up being towel rods hanging on the wall. Thank goodness I found the right towel rods on Google Image Search. That last panel was difficult. In the Pencils, I showed MUCH more of the room, but it didn’t look scary at all. So, I zoomed in, as if the camera is on her back, and eliminated all the details in the room, and it became much scarier. I suppose it lent itself to that feeling of claustrophobia.

I really struggled with the second page of this scene. I liked the layout but I didn’t succeed with her body language. I did a loose layout and then a penciled version. My editor had me go back and try again with a wardrobe change and just check the body language. My objective with the 3rd panel was to make it the strongest of the page. I needed to make her look anxious, tense and confused all at once. I tried to make the shadows in the room look like they were stifling her or stabbing at her. When things get weird, I let the shadows get weird.

I remember asking Paul a lot more questions for the 3rd page of this scene. I liked to think I had a good handle on the book so far, but there were some things happening on this page that I thought might be reappearing again some other time, so I asked for some clarification on what Arcadia was seeing here. This is another very rare case where I had to redo a page. The layout was okay, but our editor, Will, felt the page should be more fluid-looking like a dream. So I re-visited the page and drew the panel borders like they were liquid or tears in skin. I’m glad we changed it, it looks much better now. My favorite part is panel three in which I put Arcadia’s anguished face in the grooves of the object from panel 2.

And then…Creepy cat! Page 4 of this scene gave me an opportunity to try some irregular panel borders that I just couldn’t make work in the regular “talking” pages. At this point, I felt this issue was missing some excitement and drama, at least in the art. So, I tried to use as many diagonal lines as I could and put as much expression in Arcadia’s face as I possible. Heck, the cat-swatting panel is the only action scene in the whole issue, so I had to spend some time getting it right! In my thumbnail drawing for this page, I had Arcadia turned away from “us” in the final panel. But when it came down to it, it just deflated all the momentum from the page so I made her facing us, so we can see the horror in her face.

And now here’s Giulia, talking about the colouring process…

Saucer Country would be a dream gig for any colourist.  Not only does it mean the chance to work with talents such as Paul Cornell and Ryan Kelly, but it also offers a plot rich in both atmospheres and drama.  The multilayered narrative I’ve discovered in the first three issues (that’s how much I’ve read so far…) fired my imagination straight away.

There is a first level of reality in which plot and subplots develop, characters move, action takes place. To depict this reality, I am using a full colour palette with earthly tones and deep blue skies that I hope convey the beauty and warmth of the New Mexico landscape and its very diversified society.  I use a limited palette for the flashbacks.  And then there are the characters’ personal experiences, scenes that are real to some of them, hallucinations to others. The colors will render those aspects by becoming more primary or vivid, at times tending to surrealism.  One of the most interesting sequences I’ve encountered so far is the nightmare sequence. Because we dream in black and white, I only used different percentages of K tones to colour it, but then I added a vivid green to give emphasis to the subject of the nightmare, hoping it works in a disquieting way.  The first page shows Arcadia in her bedroom, sleeping and… having a dream? Re-living a false memory? Hallucinating? Or is it perhaps all real?…

Since Ryan and I have just started, much has yet to be strategized.  Much will be changed along the way, as our understanding of the story deepens.  So far I am enjoying it, the plot, the art, and the fact that I can count on Paul, Ryan and Will (Dennis) for precious advice and suggestions. I predict that my journey through Saucer Country will be one of true discovery and fun!

I’m really lucky to be working with those two, and I hope the images we’ve shown you, with Ryan’s initial thumbnails, then his pencils, then his inks, then the colours, give you an insight into our process.  Saucer Country #1 is out on 14th March, both in comic shops and digitally.  We hope you enjoy it.  Cheers.

FPI would like to thank Giulia, Paul and Ryan for taking the time to share some insights into the new comic with us. You can pick up issue one of Saucer Country from today and I should also point you to the cool-looking new webcomic Ryan has started recently with Kat Vapid, Cocotte, only a few pages in so the perfect time to jump on board.

And now the second part is up, with part three hopefully live by summer. Amazing bit of fan animation work, sit back and enjoy it.

The Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created Watchmen, released in ’86-’87, 12 issues and a collection that’s never been out of print, and sold in its millions.

And unless you’ve been living under a rock this week, you’re probably aware that DC have now decided it’s time to do these:

Seven mini-series (Crimson Corsair is the back-up feature in each mini), 34 issues in all plus a single issue Before Watchmen: Epilogue. Happening this summer in the same with a new issue out each week.

And in announcing these comics, DC have done what many thought was unthinkable, diluting the story of a self-contained, high-point of comics. It now joins other famous works with modern sequels/prequels - Gone With The Wind had its Scarlett, Peter Pan had Peter Pan In Scarlet.

On a purely “what does that do to the original” basis, the answer is simple. NOTHING. Will they really add anything to the creative genius of Watchmen? We can’t say yet, but really, it’s very probable that they’ll add nothing at all. Read them, don’t read them. Has no effect on the original self-contained start, middle and end of Watchmen.

You may also know of the problems regarding the book, with a difference of opinions between writer and artist, and DC Comics. Whilst Dave Gibbons seems happy to support DC when it came to the film and these prequels, Alan Moore has dissociated himself from the company completely.

It all boils down, with Watchmen to the comic industry in the 80′s being completely different. Comics sold as comics, there was no graphic novel industry, no market, and no comic had ever remained perpetually in print before. So when DC offered Moore and Gibbons a deal that essentially said the rights would revert to them once the comic series and a possible collection went out of print, all seemed well, a victory for creators rights etc etc. (See this by Leigh Walton, quoting from the UKCAC 86 panel where Moore and Gibbons set out the deal.)

But Watchmen never went out of print. And Moore at least felt cheated and deceived by DC. The resulting fallouts have been well documented, and not something we’ll go into here.

Basically we’re into the realms of ethical right and wrong vs commercial/corporation hunt for profits. Yes, DC absolutely have every legal right to publish these prequels, and do a second movie, and lunchboxes, action figures, duvets… the whole Star Wars merchandising thing. And yes, people have made the argument that all of the writers and artists on Before Watchmen are doing essentially what a generation of comic creators did, including Moore and Gibbons – working on other people’s creations, other people who had terrible contracts, awful rights issues and were generally screwed by the big corporate company who had no real need to be so unfeeling.

BUT, the crucial difference here is that Moore and Gibbons went into this with their eyes open. They negotiated the contracts so their creations would come back to them after a series, a possible collection and a year off.

I don’t really buy the argument I’ve seen around recently that Moore and Gibbons should have glimpsed the future, realised that Watchmen was going to do something no comic had done before and remeain in print indefinitely in collection form. Moore became a magician at 50, he wasn’t a bloody psychic in the 80s. And DC initially did the right thing, agreeing a contract that was beneficial to all. If they’d have carried that on, as soon as it became obvious that there was going to be no point any time soon that the book was going out of print, then they should have renegotiated.

(And don’t tell me that would be bad business. Think longterm – it would probably have made them MORE money. A DC that had creator’s interests totally at heart would probably be making money even now off everything comic related that Moore and Gaiman created in the last 20/30 years.)

That they didn’t renegotiate, that they didn’t do the right thing is hardly a surprise, but it does make the situation of Moore and Gibbons different from those that went before. DC decided to leave the contracts as they were, the contracts, that, through a completely unforeseen shift in the comic industry, were essentially meaningless.

Fair? No. I don’t think so, and it doesn’t take much wandering around the Internet to find similar views:

Padraig O’Mealoid at The Comic Buzz:

“So, while DC had promised them that they’d get their creation back once DC was finished with it, they decided instead to keep it in print, and forever keep it from them. This may have been the word of the contract, but it was never the spirit of it. And I know that there are lots of people who are saying that they should have read their contract more carefully, but this is, to be plain about it, a bullshit argument – the graphic novel format didn’t exist as we know it, and nobody foresaw it, so how could there have been a clause in the contract about it. So, I feel that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons have had their great work, which most people who have an opinion on these things regard as the greatest achievement in comics, kept away from them by the greed of a huge American corporation. It’s as apt an analogy for what’s wrong with the world as you could possibly wish for.”

Todd Allen at The Comic Beat:

Finally, we double back to Len Wein, who says to Wired:

“I think reboots are almost mandatory in an industry that has existed for over three-fourths of a century now. The need to inject new blood, new ideas, new approaches, is the only thing that keeps our readers coming back for more.”

My first reaction on reading this was a belly laugh.  Yes, reboot the old characters to inject new blood.  That’s very nearly an oxymoron.   Then it occurred to me, Alan Moore makes an almost annual flustered denouncement that DC is still clinging to his old standards after all these years.  Now it’s a sad comment that DC has to do reboots because they’ve seemingly lost the ability to successfully launch a new character.  The New 52?  All relaunches and revamps.  What is Before Watchmen?  It’s DC going back to an old well one more time.

Heidi at The Comics Beat:

“For all the talk of staying “relevant”, you might substitute the word “solvent.” Just as The New 52 was the Hail Mary pass/adrenaline to the heart that DC desperately needed to prop up a failing direct market, WATCHMEN 2 is the other guaranteed cash grab. It’s DC’s Eros Comix. While we may find the idea of WATCHMEN prequels repugnant on some level, the level of talent attached is guaranteed to “Make us look!” even if the idea itself is still so unnecessary.”

Chris Mautner at Robot 6:

“If we care at all about the comics industry, if we care about comics as an art form, if we want it to be taken seriously, if we want to see talented people produce quality material, then we need to start caring about the way those people are treated in this industry. We need to start valuing creators rights over our own greedy need for more third-rate pulp. We need to stop making shameless, defensive rationalizations and questioning people’s motives when the basic motive underlying those outbursts is “me wanty.” We need to stop acting like petulant, entitled children. And we need to speak out when creators whose work we claim to value and enjoy are given short shrift in the name of the Almighty dollar.”

In case you’re wondering, one of the highest profile pro pieces I could find championing Before Watchmen was this by Lukas Siegal at Newsarama:

“Some will point to Alan Moore’s lack of “approval” or involvement as a bad thing, but that’s one of the best parts in my eyes. It’s good to see new creators taking on these characters. it’s good to have fresh voices reaching into these characters. If a character is compelling, there should always be more stories to tell. Moore’s assessment that DC is relying on his “ideas from 25 years ago” is ludicrous and insulting to the talented people working on these books. He didn’t write prequels, they’re writing them. It’s like saying all of his use of public domain characters is him relying on other peoples’ ideas from 100 years ago: he can’t have it both ways.”

And if you’re sitting there slack jawed at the idea of a creator’s disapproval being “one of the best parts“, don’t worry, head over here where David Brothers doesn’t so much take the argument apart as dissect it:

“I don’t even understand how Lucas can be in a position to know things about comics, which isn’t hard to begin with, and actually say “Some will point to Alan Moore’s lack of ‘approval’ or involvement as a bad thing, but that’s one of the best parts in my eyes.” and mean it. The comics industry is built on exploitation, your favorite artists from the ’60s and ’70s were almost definitely screwed out of their creations, and editors and managers today apparently believe that having a book on the shelves is a higher calling than having a good book on the shelves. The history of comics isn’t even hard to find out. Alan Moore has been vocal about his experiences, Dwayne McDuffie spoke out, every month there’s a new fund raiser for some old artist who drew some incredibly ill and classic comics but doesn’t have health insurance… this is basic.“

In the end, it’s up to you. Sure, some of the creative teams are good. Darwyn Cooke in particular will no doubt do a good job. But even knowing that, the whole thing puts a nasty taste in my mouth. And I’m not alone.

But what do you think? Ignore it? Pick it up out of interest? Looking forward to it?

DC’s new logo. Not the most popular of things around the Internet.

But wouldn’t you like to hear what a designer thinks? How about the best designer in comics?

Here’s Rian Hughes (from his facebook). I reckon he’s worth listening to on this:

“Here’s the thing – a comic book logo has got to fulfill two quite different criteria that often pull the design in different directions. It has to represent a forward-looking professional and modern company. It also has to communicate what the comics are all about.

My main comment on the last DC Comics logo reboot was that it looked too… well, a bit too *comicy*. Outside of the comic ghetto, in the wider real world of design, it looks distinctly cheesy. This one I applaud for taking a more clean and modern approach. More legitimate and, well, more *designed*.

What I would say, however, is that it’s not the most iconic and memorable logo I’ve ever seen. It’s OK. Not bad. But not “YES! Perfect!”, which is what one aims for in an identity mark. I also question how well it’ll work in context on covers, where it may jar uncomfortably with the art styles.

The perfect logo, I believe, would have two things: First, a sense of punchy dynamism and excitement – a reference to the action/adventure core values of comics, WITHOUT being a derivative pastiche of some kind of so-called *comic style* (read: no dot screens, sound effect style lettering, speech balloons, explosions). Secondly, it should work on screen and print, be relevant to comics in the iPad digital realm, and able to stand next to other high-end publisher’s logos without embarrassment. Legitimate, modern, clean, without being too dull and corporate.

I think DC has tried to move the logo from the first category (the swoosh one) to the second category (this Landor version). The swoosh version was too comicy, this one just looks too corporate. Dull, Lacking in dynamism and punch. On the covers, it reminds me of a logo from a blander umbrella corporation that just happens to have a comics division. What we really need is a mark that somehow covers *both* categories.

The variations – the versions with the imagery in – lift the design, but I know that in practice these versions, nice as they are, rarely get used. The fall-back logo – the basic, no-frills version we’ll see on spines, and covers – has to stand on it’s own without these fancy polishes.

A logo has to work “bare”, as it were, stripped of colour, stripped of fancy Photoshop effects. That’s the measure of an iconic logo. This one fails in that respect. Not an easy brief, I know.

So, an interesting effort that I can understand the reasoning behind, but feel it’s not iconic and punchy enough to hit the mark. Two steps forward, one step back.”

You’ll be aware of my deep, abiding love for The Shadow – or more specifically, the DC Comics series from the late 80s. The Howard Chaykin issues were great, the Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker issues were magnificent. And to be honest, I’d rather given up hope of ever seeing them again.

But maybe not – because after securing the rights to The Shadow in 2011, Dynamite Entertainment has finally announced they’ll be reprinting the Howard Chaykin 4 issue Shadow: Blood & Judgment series from 1986:

“The Shadow: Blood & Judgment TPB, collected for the first time in over 20 years!!! Howard Chaykin’s masterpiece will be back in print!

Written and illustrated by legendary and award-winning comic book creator Howard Chaykin, The Shadow: Blood & Judgment TPB is collected for the first time since 1991!!! Chaykin’s dynamic, visceral style added a new dimension to The Shadow of the 1980’s!

The laugh had vanished…the mocking, sinister laugh that signaled doom for the petty souls whose wrongdoing stained the world. It was gone, lost in the night that echoed it. Now, one by one, his friends and operatives are being ruthlessly murdered. Someone is trying to draw him out. Thirty-five years later, it is time for him to return. The laugh is here again.

The Shadow is back. God help the guilty. Be sure to get The Shadow: Blood & Judgment TPB in April 2012!”

No idea whether Dynamite will be looking at doing the Helfer, Sienkiewicz, Baker issues – sales will no doubt be the key. Fingers (and more) crossed.

Here’s a couple of those Chaykin pages (via CBR)

The first round of DC New 52 cancellations have been announced this week. Six titles are gone with issue 8: Hawk & Dove, Mister Terrific, Static Shock, Men Of War, Blackhawks and really sadly – O.M.A.C.

But because market share is oh so important, those 6 cancellations have 6 replacements – “DC Comics – the new 52 – the second wave” as they put it over at DC’s Source blog. Best of all, there’s more Morrison and Burnham Batman Incorporated. And noted author China Melville has a first ongoing comic series with Dial H which may be interesting.

However, there was some good news regarding The Shade, which seemed at one point to be at risk of cancellation before it finished its 12-issue run, but thankfully editor Wil Moss has taken to Twitter to refute this. Which is a very good thing indeed.

Here’s my review of issue 1, and here’s the last bit of that review….

“All in all, it’s a pretty perfect start to the series. Robinson’s writing, so condemned in recent times, has a spark of what made it so good in the early issues of the Starman series. It feels clever, playfully intellectual. And the art from Cully Hammer is just great, and where it isn’t great, like I’ve shown you, he makes it all the way to gorgeous. 1 issue down, 11 to go. See you at the end. This is going to be very enjoyable.”

The most recent issue had the first Times Past episode, with some truly gorgeous artwork by Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone…. you’re not buying this? Really? Why on Earth not?

And if that’s not enough – how about Jill Thompson on art for issue 8? Or maybe future issues by Javier Pulido, Frazer Irving and Gene Ha? Here’s a Thompson page…. looking forward to it already…

“Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark. The mark consists of the letter “D” flipping back to reveal the letter “C” and DC ENTERTAINMENT”

This one is going to be absolutely hated. Although it may never even make it to the cover of a DC Comic – to be honest it looks far more like a product logo, or animated film logo to my thinking. But I’m sure complete universal hatred, unbelievable blandness and a complete lack of product association (does generic D peeling to reveal a C say excitement, fun, dreams and all the rest to you?) will stop DC if they’re determined to put it on the covers of their comics.

Oh, makes you misty for the old days, back in 2005, when everyone hated the swoosh when it replaced the bullet in 2005: