tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332950092024-03-21T18:09:32.808-07:00Tom Scioli ComicsAll contents TM and copyright Thomas ScioliTom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-69098214291423301162013-07-10T07:42:00.006-07:002013-07-10T07:42:55.647-07:00American Barbarian<div style="text-align: center;">
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American Barbarian is an epic revenge quest across the post-post apocalyptic world of New Earthea.</div>
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Meric, the titular aMERICan barbarian, survives his own personal apocalypse when Two-Tank Omen destroys everything the young warrior has ever known. Meric must fight his way through an army of zombies, mutants and robosaurs (robotic dinosaurs) on the way to his final battle with the undead cyborg pharoah.</div>
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This graphic novel by Tom Scioli, co-creator of Godland, is both laugh-out-loud funny and deadly serious in the tradition of the classic comic book epics of Jack Kirby.</div>
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<a href="http://www.ambarb.com/?p=11" rel="attachment wp-att-1051"><img alt="PterodactylPrintpixel" class="aligncenter wp-image-1051" src="http://www.ambarb.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/PterodactylPrintpixel.jpg" height="382" width="490" /></a></div>
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You can read the story of American Barbarian online at <a href="http://www.ambarb.com/?p=11" title="American Barbarian">ambarb.com</a>.</div>
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You can buy the American Barbarian hardcover graphic novel at Amazon.com.<br />
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For media inquiries regarding American Barbarian, email: tom [at] ambarb [dot] comTom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-80571440494090816012013-04-18T09:07:00.002-07:002013-04-18T09:07:32.904-07:00Check out ambarb.com for Tom Scioli ComicsAt <a href="http://www.ambarb.com/">ambarb.com</a> there are new comics Monday - Wednesday by Tom Scioli. Here's an excerpt of the first page of the newest comic, <a href="http://www.ambarb.com/?p=883">Mystery Object</a>:<br />
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI_0lOcCLG5TYF7aVq0qluHErBhbOxbqpeKdOmB-cFtjY4__j_NLdEaEWk8T75vGM7j40fng_Kh_jv16sxM3aOKpyi4QZ3r0TE4Es1lNF9glKgDNddVvEjLKE4zegfk_giYxB_/s1600/2013-04-17MysteryExcerpt.jpg" height="640" width="276" /></div>
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Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-23259629698421788072012-08-27T10:53:00.003-07:002012-08-27T10:53:46.386-07:00Kirby WeekIn honor of Jack Kirby's 95th birthday tuesday August 28, here's a comic Jean Depelley and I made about Kirby's wartime experience:
<a href="http://www.ambarb.com/?p=676">http://www.ambarb.com/?p=676</a>Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-24687408404826909182012-03-20T08:17:00.002-07:002012-03-20T08:20:10.781-07:00American Barbarian at Copacetic Comics<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6FunaPp-M943xlxYQ3xDtlw3E7-MjLkBS9WUYGVfy27NMiLKm-_uBRwspCVD4keMNSzdpFgtCHZ5SsiFC9XOWAN463LoO7mT9A5VltADiX79HYOEmwDTPKevNLJqTZYwD8ef5/s1600/CopaceticColorScioli.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6FunaPp-M943xlxYQ3xDtlw3E7-MjLkBS9WUYGVfy27NMiLKm-_uBRwspCVD4keMNSzdpFgtCHZ5SsiFC9XOWAN463LoO7mT9A5VltADiX79HYOEmwDTPKevNLJqTZYwD8ef5/s400/CopaceticColorScioli.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721999204751456210" /></a>Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-88868763548604147802011-10-27T09:45:00.000-07:002011-10-27T09:46:53.223-07:00Frankenstein<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_nQYdvsOMvzlZHDCy3UwFx5PONC87TJFIdSh8wkyh2wvmcEH9CzM-4xrtIhGlzwZIdUKY8AqovjWIcEa7vODk-xl5mTQVPt7GA9xXLJJpJ3q6gqLbCydQzoy5y6bpihEij4D/s1600/Frankenstein.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 269px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_nQYdvsOMvzlZHDCy3UwFx5PONC87TJFIdSh8wkyh2wvmcEH9CzM-4xrtIhGlzwZIdUKY8AqovjWIcEa7vODk-xl5mTQVPt7GA9xXLJJpJ3q6gqLbCydQzoy5y6bpihEij4D/s400/Frankenstein.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5668214400748283922" /></a><br />Just in time for Halloween:Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-50097417026950727082011-09-07T09:05:00.000-07:002011-09-07T09:09:56.457-07:00American Barbarian The Hardcover Graphic Novel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHgFO0X-Z9E3yl7Uv8YaSDE3kjGilyYt5WYK2eiApD4GAdGALhw6pF_ESf8qgUiq9HP-227j5r1WdRHsKsCZwTkZ-62AONywf0kyoC1jI3N5SMGPmVJ27QvWSVlnD3HEJ4Opv7/s1600/AD.AMBARB.CVR72.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHgFO0X-Z9E3yl7Uv8YaSDE3kjGilyYt5WYK2eiApD4GAdGALhw6pF_ESf8qgUiq9HP-227j5r1WdRHsKsCZwTkZ-62AONywf0kyoC1jI3N5SMGPmVJ27QvWSVlnD3HEJ4Opv7/s400/AD.AMBARB.CVR72.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649650441449912322" /></a><br />The hardcover version of American Barbarian is on the way: <a href="http://www.adhousebooks.com/blog/?p=277">http://www.adhousebooks.com/blog/?p=277</a>Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-51901482722579039382011-02-01T09:18:00.001-08:002011-02-01T09:19:18.771-08:00Captain America: Hail Hydra Store Appearance<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-4mcVpBkckg_iWcRH_NCR-unwPbwJMESR8KV81ErCI3MlLb4KQHR_OgEhxTuM6H0bACCcVPkvgj9FCQwLQ23RTODndZl9LmB_suPLmK5nyLvpL_sWa4UIv93MA0YsfaxVAYGL/s1600/signingad.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-4mcVpBkckg_iWcRH_NCR-unwPbwJMESR8KV81ErCI3MlLb4KQHR_OgEhxTuM6H0bACCcVPkvgj9FCQwLQ23RTODndZl9LmB_suPLmK5nyLvpL_sWa4UIv93MA0YsfaxVAYGL/s400/signingad.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568771930724046306" /></a><br />I’ll be at Phantom of the Attic Comics (Oakland) in Pittsburgh at 4:30 on Wednesday Feb. 2 for the release of Captain America: Hail Hydra #2.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-1083655046047099972011-01-05T11:00:00.000-08:002011-01-05T11:03:21.574-08:00American Barbarian's Back!After a month of drawing "Captain America: Hail Hydra" I've returned to American Barbarian. Chapter Four of Ambarb begins <a href="http://www.ambarb.com">here.</a>Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-32599437802181003212010-10-24T20:05:00.000-07:002010-10-24T20:08:14.402-07:00Kirby Drawing VideoI didn't know such a thing existed, actual extended video footage of Kirby drawing. Check it out at <a href="http://www.kirbymuseum.org/kirbydraws">The Kirby Museum</a>.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-23834306688832246902010-10-15T10:32:00.000-07:002010-10-15T10:34:17.515-07:00PIXThis weekend is PIX, the first-ever Pittsburgh Indie comics eXpo:<br /><br /><a href="http://homepage.mac.com/bem/PIX/index.html">http://homepage.mac.com/bem/PIX/index.html</a>Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-38901996605252764992010-10-14T13:08:00.000-07:002010-10-14T13:40:18.278-07:00This Week's Comics:10/13/10Strange Tales 2 #1: Picked this up for Frank Santoro's Silver Surfer story. He talks a lot about the grid, but this is where you see the proof of its power. When you get to page 2 and 3 of his Surfer story, the grid just washes over you, pulling you into his orange and purple world. Only Frank could combine Jack Kirby, Moebius, John Buscema, Marc Rothko, and vintage surfboard airbrush art into a whole new think never before seen in superhero comics. His story wasn't quite located in the book's center, but it sure as hell felt like the center of the comic. I hope Marvel's going to get him to do some kind of miniseries, like Brendan McCarthy's recent Spiderman:Fever, where they let him cut loose with one of their characters.<br /><br />Rafael Grampa's Wolverine story and Dash Shaw's Spiderman story were the other two standouts. Grampa even threw in a cool nod to Barry Smith's Weapon X coloring technique in one of the panels. Like Frank's Surfer story, Dash's Spiderman yarn took great advantage of the power of variation within repeated images. He compressed Ditko's Mysterio, Ditko's patron saint of movie trickery, the Spider-Clone saga, the movie kiss, and a dumpster full of decades worth of shitty Spiderman comics into four pages. Definitely worth re-reading and dissecting. Much better than his Dr. Strange story. It was a trifle, an enjoyable trifle, but still pretty disposable like much of what is in this series.<br /><br />Thor #615 and 616: I'm guessing these are the first two issues of Matt Fraction and Pascal Ferry's Thor run. I was pulled in. I like Fraction's writing, and Ferry's brand of sci-fantasy is the perfect fit for Thor. It's a lot of setup. I was hoping for Thor to get into a cosmic brawl in the second issue, but I'm willing to stick around for at least a couple more issues.<br /><br />Superior #1: I didn't really connect with this one, but I'll stick around to see what happens. It's the companion piece to Nemesis, which I enjoyed for the pure simplicity of the costume and the concept. It's odd that Millar is doing these DC Elseworlds series at Marvel. When I first saw the promo art for Nemesis, I thought it was exactly that, an Elseworlds story where Batman is the Joker.<br />Superior seems to hew more closely to Captain (Shazam) Marvel than to Superman. It'll probably unfold in an interesting way, but the simplicity of Nemesis won me over. Maybe Superior will win me over with narrative and visual clutter.<br /><br />Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne: I've been enjoying this one. I'm a fan of Morrison's Batman run from start to finish. A sci-fi Batman is something I've always wanted to see. I suffered from narrative disappointment with the way the Fourth World content was slowly leeched out of Final Crisis issue by issue. What I'm enjoying most in Return of Bruce Wayne, is the way the Fourth World is creeping into Batman's narrative from the edges. (I was disappointed to hear that after this wraps up Morrison is taking Batman in a decidedly un-sci-fi direction). In this issue Satanists pray to the dark angel's of Darkseid's inferno pits. They're summoning Barbatos the Hunter, which I'm assuming is another aspect of Orion, using an art-deco motherbox. There's an escape via boom-tube. That's three pages in the context of an old-timey detective yarn.<br /><br />When Morrsion first started talking about Final Crisis, one of the things was that Batman was going to die and ascend as a New God. Same with Martian Manhunter (who being named after Mars, the Greek god of war would be a likely replacement for Orion The New God of War). It got nixed. I feel like we're seeing tiny glimpses of the echoes of the storyline that didn't happen.<br /><br />I also picked up Neal Adam's Batman:Odyssey #4 (I've been buying more Batman comics lately than I have since I was a teenager) and Dick Briefer's Frankenstein, but I haven't read them yet.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-67901411051909170322010-10-10T18:42:00.000-07:002010-10-10T18:46:24.360-07:00Thundarr on DVDJust got the new Complete Thundarr the Barbarian DVD set. What it lacks in extras it makes up for in content. This is Steve Gerber, Jack Kirby, and Alex Toth's saturday morning masterpiece. It was my first exposure to Kirby and sowed the seeds for making me a fan for life. I've watched 3 episodes so far and am in nostalgia heaven. When an obviously Kirby-designed character, vehicle or environment shows up, it's transcendent.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-92173892016794415612010-10-08T16:18:00.001-07:002010-10-08T16:19:08.876-07:00Gobzilla Part 2 by Tom and Sofia Scioli<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg49jkN8pjVsbU6XgQlghaNCox7CUNxZWBNwghiIBnXrU6lCgowQqzceEYbJ3zd261wbsf2AkFaNiuJPCAA8U3KzIu42L29CsvVZhWbDrx6aMJqsPtyEHUiDYL1AN4BoFUN02Sz/s1600/centaur.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg49jkN8pjVsbU6XgQlghaNCox7CUNxZWBNwghiIBnXrU6lCgowQqzceEYbJ3zd261wbsf2AkFaNiuJPCAA8U3KzIu42L29CsvVZhWbDrx6aMJqsPtyEHUiDYL1AN4BoFUN02Sz/s400/centaur.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525818772263339874" /></a>Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-59113298225899776172010-10-08T15:41:00.000-07:002010-10-08T15:43:19.767-07:00Gobzilla by Tom and Sofia Scioli<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsdpbE5FQoSkoznEIURR_ZcFI2LTDhc8gacXDMyF2rCIwvhIFi9qiStTGMPdA0xzTZKEtkljeHnM7v0p1EFtxGx63tv9N3wzQI5JvIDtXdGMmQ1AVBky7ps6UhbT9auSTgcE2O/s1600/Gobzilla.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsdpbE5FQoSkoznEIURR_ZcFI2LTDhc8gacXDMyF2rCIwvhIFi9qiStTGMPdA0xzTZKEtkljeHnM7v0p1EFtxGx63tv9N3wzQI5JvIDtXdGMmQ1AVBky7ps6UhbT9auSTgcE2O/s400/Gobzilla.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525809533992803010" /></a>Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-85642819676622253072010-10-06T19:56:00.001-07:002010-10-06T19:57:10.290-07:00Gods and M3n #12: Page 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnrk-dsBlAlaiN9GaE52xoRdbJPFDxiTDjhaGKgjNDzfUw6Or14zSjYIlzrTcbcyGOzBk0-tYamZM8_g7w8X6cZs0dPhT1Tpv_0jysxbKjXmFQ_CQBJj23ESif4Q8CJ373ZMsh/s1600/GM012001.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 271px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnrk-dsBlAlaiN9GaE52xoRdbJPFDxiTDjhaGKgjNDzfUw6Or14zSjYIlzrTcbcyGOzBk0-tYamZM8_g7w8X6cZs0dPhT1Tpv_0jysxbKjXmFQ_CQBJj23ESif4Q8CJ373ZMsh/s400/GM012001.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525132791871680978" /></a>Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-55923400370787121922010-10-05T23:28:00.000-07:002010-10-05T23:29:55.453-07:00Coming Soon: Gods and Men #12<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibIgBlNrlfEyZb2QKO_v92q0zQB30-Dnk4b5LdjpgjMyQYnEMxxQBxQ-PNbEh_C4ETRq5UEbnYTIE-LLRtLi-LUiV_zLXo7Pg39WUUefnNDIIVSjAP327Gm1Z3RPIxtLLGr_uq/s1600/godsmen12.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 233px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibIgBlNrlfEyZb2QKO_v92q0zQB30-Dnk4b5LdjpgjMyQYnEMxxQBxQ-PNbEh_C4ETRq5UEbnYTIE-LLRtLi-LUiV_zLXo7Pg39WUUefnNDIIVSjAP327Gm1Z3RPIxtLLGr_uq/s400/godsmen12.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524816459179255106" /></a><br /><br />Hi Lost Mosaic: Taking Fake Kirby to the Next LevelTom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-30006095769122267622010-10-02T19:56:00.000-07:002010-10-02T19:59:05.522-07:00Superman Cocoa in the Raw<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCnuPKKUyewnGSPeqYXwBE94akbmKsuqs-qPhm9x2pVeHmjcyyP30_0D14e_3d_ySL15hYl8a0tMb67Y_pis6klIqliaYOjdkUDJGDrCxCUnqETccsgBvBoNpv5BxibVvo9bet/s1600/Supes.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 398px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCnuPKKUyewnGSPeqYXwBE94akbmKsuqs-qPhm9x2pVeHmjcyyP30_0D14e_3d_ySL15hYl8a0tMb67Y_pis6klIqliaYOjdkUDJGDrCxCUnqETccsgBvBoNpv5BxibVvo9bet/s400/Supes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523648768665052066" /></a><br /><br /><br />Here's a pitch I once sent to DC Comics. Nothing ever came of it:<br /><br /><br />Superman: Return to Transilvane<br />The Cowboy-Vampire Wars<br />By Tom Scioli<br /><br />Basic premise: Superman is shrunken to microscopic size and shorn of his powers by Brainiac. To get back to normal, he enlists the aid of the nearest people he knows to have mastered the science of shrinking and expanding: the strange folk of the miniature planet Transilvane, from Jack Kirby’s classic two-parter in his run on Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. Transilvane is a garage-sized planet where its microscopic lifeforms have modeled themselves after the old horror movies projected onto their sky. If you recall, at the end of that story, Superman substitutes the horror flicks with Oklahoma, the musical western. “We’ll revisit it sometime,” promises the narrator at the end of the story. You’d expect that when Superman returns he’d find a planet of micro-cowboys. Not so! On Superman’s return visit, he will discover that his glib intervention has brought about an upheaval to the social order on Transilvane. Three races have sprung up as a result: singing/dancing cowboy monsters, cowboys with small vestiges of their former horror-inspired selves, and the old guard, full-fledged monsters who have bitterly isolated themselves from the world and its cowboy story, holding strictly to their vampiric/Frankensteinian way of life.<br /><br />Basic plot: Braniac has broken into the Fortress of Solitude and stolen the bottle city of Kandor, along with all its inhabitants. Superman pursues Brainiac to his look-alike spaceship (the one with the robotic skull and tentacles circa 1983), hovering somewhere over the Atlantic. He and Superman duke it out in what seems to be their final battle. For the first time in the pre-crisis Superman’s career, he loses! Braniac hits him with his signature weapon, the shrinking ray, and Superman is placed in the bottle city of Kandor, shorn of powers, but surrounded by friends and family. Maybe Jimmy Olsen is with him, for the added tie-in with the old JO Transilvane story, but I’d prefer he have a female companion for this adventure, maybe Lois or maybe he teams up with a young Kryptonian woman named Zora he meets in the bottle city.<br /><br />Superman is a can-do guy. No powers? Shrunk to the size of a microbe? No problem. The stolen bottle city is now on display in Braniac’s trophy room. Superman knows that Braniac has all kinds of shrinking and expanding technology in his ship, just on the other side of the glass bottle. “How do I get to the other side?” The Son of Jor-el begins work, with the help of the Kandorians, on a new spaceship (similar in design to the old Supermobile toy from the 1980’s Super Powers line of toys), tricked out with the big trademarked Superman logo on the hood. It has attack capabilties, including a pair of robotic fists mounted on the bottom. It can punch a hole in the bottle wall so that micro-Superman, and his micro-companion can pilot the two-seater to Brainiac’s shrink ray, switch it in reverse, and get himself and the whole city back to normal size. Braniac got badly damaged in the battle, so as soon as he popped Superman in the bottle, he dragged himself back to his restoration/recharging station. This gives Superman and his cousins the time needed to build his spaceship. He bursts through the wall. Flying around the interior of Braniac’s ship, which looks suitably distorted from his mini-perspective, Superman searches for the right piece of equipment, the shrink/expand ray. He finds it, but Braniac, fresh from his recharging chamber, enters the room, and starts zapping away at the mini-supermobile. With no other option left to him, mini-Superman escapes Braniac’s ship. Fortunately, once outside, he finds he is still on earth, hovering somewhere over the Atlantic, and not in orbit, like he had feared. <br /><br />Zora insists on joining Superman on his mission. She’s a good example of the industrious and scientifically advanced people of Kandor. She’s very enthusiastic, full of Kryptonian optimism. Superman thinks it’s too dangerous for her to come along, but how can he refuse someone the opportunity to leave Kandor. He should take somebody with him. <br /><br />“What’re we going to do now, Superman?”<br />“Well, Zora, I know of another planet that also has shrinking and expanding technology.”<br />“But , Superman, how is this little ship going to get us to another planet? We don’t have enough fuel to leave earth?”<br /> “This planet I’m thinking of is ON EARTH, a planet within a planet.” <br />DC Comics Presents: Superman: Return to Transilvane.<br /><br />Let me take you back for a minute to Jimmy Olsen #142-143, recently reprinted in the Jimmy Olsen Adventures by Jack Kirby Volume 2 trade paperback, and soon-to-be-reprinted in the Fourth World Omnibus hardcover series. This two-parter is, for my money, THE highlight of Kirby’s wild Jimmy Olsen run. It’s a great concept with great execution. In this story, there’s a mysterious NASA scientist, who built a planet the size of a house. It was an experiment in creating new forms of life. The scientist, Dabney Donovan, was a bit of an eccentric, and is never actually seen in the pages of the story. He populated the small planet, Transilvane, with amorphous microbes, which had the ability to slowly change form. On the skies of this small world, Dabney Donovan projected the old Universal monster movies. The microbes began to imitate the images they saw. They slowly evolved into a race of vampires, werewolves, mummies, and Frankensteins. To avoid a prophesied armageddon, they built spacecrafts and traveled to the larger world, Earth. They expanded themselves to full human size and encountered Superman and his pal Jimmy. Superman helped them avert their doomsday. They returned to their small planet. At the end of the story, the King of Comics added a neat twist. Superman changed the movie that was projected onto Transilvane’s skies. He substituted the old horror movies with “Oklahoma,” the wild west musical. In the final panel of the story, Kirby writes, “Perhaps, some day soon, we’ll all take a ‘small’ trip to Transilvane—and see the changes wrought by Superman’s substitute psychology!!!”<br /><br />Well, we never got to see those changes. DC has done a post-Kirby Transilvane story. It was an excellent story, reintroducing the concept of Transilvane with some new twists. But it’s been a while -- over ten years. This is one of my favorite Kirby concepts, and it’s worth re-introducing to a new generation of fans. The last time DC re-introduced Transilvane, it was part of post-crisis continuity, shorn of any direct link to the previous Kirby story, as if the Kirby story never happened. Well, I’d like to, if possible, place this story in pre-crisis “Kirby Kontinuity.” In this new story, what I’d like to see happen, is when Superman returns to this world to ask their aid in getting him back to normal size, he finds, not the race of midnight movie monsters you’d expect. As the story progresses, by necessity Superman delves deeper into the politics of this world. He finds that the movie he projected onto this world has had unintended consequences, further fracturing the society on this planet into three groups:<br /><br />a. The Old Guard, who still embrace the dark side, the vampire horror way of life<br />b. The Halflings, who are the monster cowboys, somewhere between the horror movie, and cowboy musical life<br />c. The New Breed, those who are almost totally cowboy, with only the tiniest visible vestiges of their pre-cowboy, monstrous appearance. <br /><br />We could have a few musings on politics, tangential references to racism, homophobia, the religious right, some cool horror movie action, and maybe even some post-Brokeback cowboy jokes. The idea is to basically have a ball with this story, as Superman tries to prevent all-out war with the three sides. He needs the three of them to unite, since each faction has one piece of the shrink/expand technology know-how. Of course, Superman wants to bring peace to this world, because that’s just the kind of guy he is. But the fact that peace will give him what he needs to get himself back to normal, and possibly restore the rest of the bottle city of Kandor.<br /><br />It’s a three-sided war. Dragorin gets secret intelligence regarding the location of the cowboy vampire leader and his elite guard. That will be the place to strike. Superman isn’t involved, but the Transilvane version of the Invisible Man who travels with Superman, is a spy who brings word of where the cowboy vampire leader will be. The Invisible Man is a triple agent, secretly taking orders from the Halfling leader. He brings it to the New breed, the regular cowboys, too, so that the Old Guard and the New Breed will come, guns blazing, thinking to strike at their mutual enemy, but instead, unknowingly strike at each other. The Halflings don’t show up. They stand back, waiting until after the battle to reveal themselves. The New Breed think that the Old Guard are Halflings, due to their vampiric appearance. They start shooting. The Halflings watch the battle they secretly engineered from afar. The Old Guard think the New Breed are Halflings, due to their cowboy appearance. They start hexing, biting and fireballing<br /><br />Before the battle Superman pieces together the last bits of the process to get him back to normal size (and his powers back). He’s able to leave Transilvane, and pursue Brainiac and help his people, the rest of the bottle citizens. He’s tempted to abandon the hard-headed Transilvanians. Zora says, “They’re hardly even human – just microscopic blobs of protoplasm.” But Superman makes a speech about all the forms of life he’s encountered and if these creatures don’t constitute intelligent life, he doesn’t know what does. They’re every bit as human as any Kryptonian, or any earthling. <br /><br />Superman is caught in the middle, trying to break the battle up, trying to avert catastrophe. Superman has a hunch, and spots the Halfling leader hiding in the distance. Superman grabs each of the leaders of the three factions. He brings them to the front lines (like the old Superman comic from WW 2). He shows how their soldiers are killing each other. He reveals the Halfling leader’s plan to get his two enemies to kill each other off. Superman forces them to make nice, realizing how much they all have in common, and how they can live in peace.<br /><br />Newly-restored to normal size, Superman is on the warpath. He’s going to tear Brainiac a new one. He finds the Brainiac ship and starts zapping it with his heat vision. Of course, Superman’s quarry eludes him. Braniac knows when to count his losses and escapes into hyperspace. But at least Superman managed to bring peace to Transilvane, and get one of his bottle city companions back to normal size. Superman and Zora have a bittersweet conversation over Superman Brand Hot Cocoa back at the Fortress of Solitude, ending the roller coaster ride story on a quiet note.<br /><br />Any number of reasons can be given for why Superman’s power doesn’t work on Transilvane. It could be because of Transilvane’s eternal midnight, or because, Superman and Zora are infested with a Kryptonian parasitic virus he picked up during his stay in Kandor. At the point in the story where they are testing the growth ray on Superman. It hits the kryptonian virus instead (since they are power absorbers). The virus grows big enough that Superman has got to wrestle with it. The virus, when fully grown, will look like Morticoccus from Kamandi #10.<br /><br />There’s one bit I’m really looking forward to drawing. When Superman arrives, he finds singing cowboy monsters who take him prisoner. He asks to see the person he knew best from his last encounter with this planet, Count Dragorin. The Halfling cowboy monsters are shocked to hear this, because Dragorin is the enemy leader. They see Superman as being part of an enemy conspiracy, a spy. They lynch Superman. They hang him. He doesn’t die of course, but Zora watches as it happens and thinks he is dead. We’ll do what we can to make it as convincing as possible so the readers will believe it, too. When Superman shows up later in the story, we’ll treat it like a visitation from beyond the grave, a ghost, in keeping with the tone of the story, but we’ll quickly reveal that Superman didn’t die after all. We’ll go back to the scene, in flashback. During the hanging, in flashback, we see Superman wondering “Why am I not choking? Are my powers back?” We see his arms tugging at the ropes that bind them behind his back. “Nope! I’d better count my blessings and play dead.” So Superman goes into a dramatic, yet very convincing, fake death. (A big thing in the 70’s was showing covers with Superman being hung, or in other grim, real-world death situations). The reason why Superman didn’t die, is because an agent of Count Dragorin, an agent who WAS a spy, was standing under Superman the whole time, holding him up on his shoulders. The spy is the Transilvane equivalent of the Invisible Man. <br /><br />Another highlight will be the distorted over-sized perspective during the flight of the Supermobile through Brainiac’s ship to the tombstones of Bloodmoor Cemetary, where Transilvane is hidden. Superman first thinks of visiting Ray Palmer, but he’s too far away, unlike nearby Bloodmoor Cemetary. He thinks he might not have the fuel to make it to see the Atom, but he knows they can make it to Bloodmoor. <br /><br />Format and target audience: Kirby fans, Fourth World Omnibus readers, Superman fans, particularly of his Silver Age incarnation, fans of the animated series, people who like whimsical sci-fi, fans of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman run, fans of Alan Moore’s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow Superman story (particularly in the visual of Brainiac and his ship from that story), fans of Alan Moore’s run on Supreme (and the Across the Universe trade paperback), the indie comics crowd (the same kind of people who buy the Bizarro Comics anthologies, people who want to see the DC Comics characters do things that are true to the characters, but that you really wouldn’t expect to see in their more sober in-continuity stories.<br /><br />I want the tone to be somewhat similar to the tone of my Image comic, Gødland: jokey and psychedelic, but with its serious/poignant moments. Of course Superman himself will be played straight. The pre-crisis Superman will never be the butt of a joke. I’ll use an art style similar to what I use on Gødland, a slightly skewed version of the Kirby style. I figure we won’t need to go out of our way to explain that this isn’t an in-continuity Superman story, since the Kirby-esque style will tell a reader that we’re in Silver Age territory.<br /><br />With the release of the Kirby Fourth World Omnibus, the original story will be fresh in the minds of the current audience. Those who haven’t read the original story will be clued in by the flashbacks, or we could forego the flashbacks altogether and re-present the first story in its entirety and this sequel all as one complete trade paperback.<br /><br />The tinier specifics of the story can be ironed out between us. I figure we could do it as a three –parter, which we could collect as a 72-page prestige format story. I’d prefer pre-crisis continuity, but If you want to place it in current continuity, that’s not impossible, or particularly difficult. We could even expand it with an extra chapter, revisiting the events of the original story. If it is going to be out of continuity, I’d like to ask for a couple of wish-list items. Playing the role of Brainiac, I’d like to use the last pre-crisis version of Braniac, the terminator-looking one with the skull dome and visible electronic brain. I had the Super Powers action figure of this guy when I was a kid. I think it’s the greatest design Brainiac ever had. Any lapses of logic in this story’s current form can be ironed out. I think the essence of the story is strong enough to work. A planet of singing cowboy vampires, cowboy werewolves, cowboy mummies, cowboy Frankensteins? Nobody’s ever done that. It’s only fitting that the world’s first superhero blaze that trail.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-28947326327958384742010-09-29T09:50:00.000-07:002010-09-29T09:56:59.725-07:00Image Firsts: GodlandAs part of Image Firsts, they're re-issuing Godland #1 today for $1.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-70485807922342617172010-09-13T08:21:00.001-07:002010-09-13T08:25:49.503-07:00SPX 2010SPX was great as usual. It was incredibly busy, so I didn't get a chance to see anybody who didn't come to my table. I spent Saturday at the show, went to the Vampire Weekend concert in the evening, then drove home. It was all a blur.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-28939781033401890062010-08-19T11:55:00.000-07:002010-08-19T12:04:52.710-07:00Collage<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKEqcIUzukErTzy4KgxXHej3tVyoEHL26k9n4uQrnP3DBgJRo3xCxbjNflT_Zf10i2g_DpZqCSOxgacc3APCfJJC-pY7Ybn6Qu3p38a4q_1DkgNyfHfL3zPbrTI3uQvC9saUvC/s1600/8OPUSANDBG.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKEqcIUzukErTzy4KgxXHej3tVyoEHL26k9n4uQrnP3DBgJRo3xCxbjNflT_Zf10i2g_DpZqCSOxgacc3APCfJJC-pY7Ybn6Qu3p38a4q_1DkgNyfHfL3zPbrTI3uQvC9saUvC/s400/8OPUSANDBG.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507198983996982946" /></a><br />I've been tinkering with animation lately and I'm finding that basically it's a collage artform. Here's a collage that spun off from one of my animation projects. The end product is reminiscent of Kirby's cover to New Gods #1, which was an atypical cover for him. I didn't intend to homage that cover, but since Kirby is so much a part of my DNA it doesn't surprise me.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-72734889986567579742010-08-02T18:09:00.000-07:002010-08-02T18:26:16.570-07:00E.E. Doc Smith's Lensmen TrilogyThe thought struck me, has anyone ever done a comics adaptation of the Lensmen trilogy? There's the American manga series from the 80's based on the Anime movie. But that had very little in common with the Lensmen books. The reason I was wondering this was, from reading the plot description on wikipedia, the novels sound fascinating. I'd heard it was very influential, the comparison you always hear is that it's the basis for the Green Lantern. But it also sounds like it's the basis for Star Wars and Star Trek. Between Lensmen and Skylark of Space (the template for Flash Gordon) it seems like E.E. Doc Smith is single-handedly responsible for the entire genre of space opera.<br />I know Lensmen was an influence on Kirby. You see it in those Sun Collider super starships in the techno-cosmic war segment of New Gods #7.<br />I tried reading the first novel, Triplanetary, but found its prose style very off-putting. Not that it was particularly bad, but it was very much of its era, which can be good, but in this case it made it difficult for me to get very far into the book. It would be the perfect book to adapt to the comics form, if only so I could finally read it. It's got all these great visual concepts, and it would probably be an eye-opener for people who are unfamiliar with just how many new trails were blazed by this one writer.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-44561574197476562672010-07-15T11:29:00.000-07:002010-07-15T11:39:41.374-07:00Zombie Kamikaze<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj81-Dx2qt8axRibaOEHQpTNjFPwrH2tsvhLucC7hWCS1NfqI1jbAS1ATZ_eNW1am2Y10dzjgDeKyO5HnjfhyphenhyphenSFHZrjFMPMkwbd0XQFIUs1P2EhBtQhk6kQJYnoMGj3LGjNXveG/s1600/cover1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 262px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj81-Dx2qt8axRibaOEHQpTNjFPwrH2tsvhLucC7hWCS1NfqI1jbAS1ATZ_eNW1am2Y10dzjgDeKyO5HnjfhyphenhyphenSFHZrjFMPMkwbd0XQFIUs1P2EhBtQhk6kQJYnoMGj3LGjNXveG/s400/cover1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494203497090046386" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNxwpJhLqxk1-fLreeQxZ5A9Y1kfVjZBaf6uyi4TmQq1JW04v0vvFqWtn6yh8sdcVCrm5WoGXTNYA108nR_IwSmq-MYXr6NfTqTdk8tp62OVO7O5oElzGCA9E3G0iiFm-5kEI/s1600/attack.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 327px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNxwpJhLqxk1-fLreeQxZ5A9Y1kfVjZBaf6uyi4TmQq1JW04v0vvFqWtn6yh8sdcVCrm5WoGXTNYA108nR_IwSmq-MYXr6NfTqTdk8tp62OVO7O5oElzGCA9E3G0iiFm-5kEI/s400/attack.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494203119896350642" /></a><br />This is a project I get asked about a lot, strangely enough. Just before Godland, there were a half-dozen different projects I was working on, this being one of them. At that time, I really wanted to be Jack Kirby. Working on one or two different comics wasn't enough, I wanted to draw a whole line of comics. There's that lesson of knowing your limits that I hadn't heard yet.<br /><br />Zombie Kamikaze was a script that Scott Mills sent me. I loved it, and at the time I was looking to work with other writers, trying to work on material that was outside of my voice. This was a script that appealed to me. It was action-packed. Another thing that appealed to me about it was that I saw it as a way of working on a comic in a genre that Kirby hadn't tackled, which is a hard thing to find.<br /><br />Once Godland started taking off, I soon learned that you can't do everything. I had to drop a couple of the projects I'd been working on. ZK was a tough one to drop, it had so much going for it. What helped is that I'm not really a fan of the Zombie genre, so drawing page after page of it wasn't fun the way drawing cosmic spacescapes is for me. Another thing, which is funny in retrospect, is at the time I thought "this Zombie comics fad isn't going to last." There've been several points since then where the zombie genre in comics has gone up and down, but it seems to me it's definitely here to stay. The other factor for me was that when I started ZK, I hadn't read "The Walking Dead" before. Once I read TWD, I realized, this is the ultimate zombie comic. It's so good, how could I ever compete with this? So that's where ZK stands as of now. I still feel that maybe at some point I'll come back to it, but there are a lot of other projects that are higher up on my to do list.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-41397426663120372262010-07-14T20:53:00.000-07:002010-07-14T21:11:44.287-07:00OdinOkay, so the photo of Anthony Hopkins as Odin is making the rounds. I do see some Kirby in that costume. The costume it's closest to, though, is the armor Odin wore when he fought Surtur in the Walt Simonson run. I'm assuming they'll use that run more as the template than the Kirby run. I hope they don't. They seemed to do that in the Hulk vs. Thor cartoon. I'm a big fan of Simonson's Thor run, it's second after Kirby's for me, but I'm not a fan of his design of Asgard. It looked like an authentic viking settlement, not the home of other-dimensional Kirbygods.<br /><br />I feel like this is one movie where you can go full opera, so why not? Why doesn't Odin have an impossibly large and intricate helmet? You could really pull it off with CGI, so the actor will have no trouble moving his head (see Natalie Portman in Star Wars episode 1 for how not to do a Kirby-esque helmet).<br /><br />Of course, early production stills of actors in costume is a lousy barometer to use to judge whether a movie will be good or not. I thought the Spiderman costume looked bad in early stills, but the movie ended up being awesome (IMHO). The early shots of the Hulk looked like an inflatable pool toy, but I thought the film was phenomenal. Brandon Routh as Superman looked absurd in the stills, but the movie ended up being great. So maybe Thor will end up being my favorite movie of all time? Of all the Superhero movies thus far, this is the one where the source material is dearest to me. Those Kirby Thor comics are some of my favorites. They're my favorite of his sixties work for sure.<br /><br />The only superhero movie I can remember where I really though the costume stills looked good was the Tim Burton Batman. I could not wait for that movie. The silhouette was just like the then-current Jim Aparo Batman. As we all know the movie ended up being just okay. So here's hoping in the case of Thor, bad costume stills equals great movie.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-9316502531502274572010-07-02T11:21:00.000-07:002010-07-02T11:31:44.275-07:00Kirby's Barbarians (Part One)Though most people never think about ghis work in this regard, Kirby is the father of the barbarian comic. His Thor laid the groundwork for all that was to come. Kirby's Thor is really the first fully realized sword and sorcery comic. It started out with the default sci fi ties that go with the superhero genre, but as more and more mythic elements were brought in you ended up with this really neat combination of sci-fi, mytho-fantasy, and superhero. With New Gods Kirby combined these elements in a more purposeful way to achieve the effects he waqnted to get, a reevaluation of the self-image and dreams of 20th century culture, as opposed to the on-the-fly cobbled together sensibility of Thor. New Gods arrived of one piece.<br /><br />Toxl the World Killer was Kirby's post-Conan fantasy character. A throwaway character, but hard to forget once you've read it. Nothing Kirby did was truly throwaway.<br /><br />Kirby's other big outlet for barbarian stories were the early issues of 2001: A Space Oddyssey which would feature some imagined primitive ancestor of ours in some pivotal situation in Kirby's view of our early development, then flash-forward to their ancestor in futurespace dealing with some related peril, whether it's thematically or just visually linked.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33295009.post-49896017918883860242010-06-28T02:09:00.000-07:002010-06-28T02:13:00.777-07:00Painting<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZA1yojYhrNDMDaqzaeg94WMV9Q3NVeQQaAJYW-u3eGmqhntvyDxaRgeRgDgI6_EI8qbemXneHv4b9DAqvfBNBFtJiU9iPXD9mmARjkJ5Jr5BThTJA0mcqG5mtp_nUY3DwLujr/s1600/painting.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 281px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZA1yojYhrNDMDaqzaeg94WMV9Q3NVeQQaAJYW-u3eGmqhntvyDxaRgeRgDgI6_EI8qbemXneHv4b9DAqvfBNBFtJiU9iPXD9mmARjkJ5Jr5BThTJA0mcqG5mtp_nUY3DwLujr/s400/painting.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5487749669034859362" /></a><br />Here's an old painting. I used a photo negative for reference. The best-executed part of this painting is the patch of pink on the lower right corner.Tom Sciolihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741243482023720087noreply@blogger.com0