Core Dump

My friend and author, Derek McCulloch, has another book in the pipeline - this one a childrens' story called T. Runt, about a tyranonusaurus who was the runt of the litter. You can preview a few of the pages on the linked site.

Created by award winning author Derek McCulloch (Stagger Lee and the upcoming Gone to Amerikay) and Jimmy Robinson (Evil and Malice Save the World), T. RUNT is the charming tale of the runt of a litter of Tyrannosaurus Rex babies, ! For release in June 2009, ask for your retailer to order it now! ISBN # 978-60706-074-1, and only $12.99 in hardcover. This would make an outstanding gift for the little comics fan in your family. Enjoy the sneak preview

And if you haven't already done so, check out http://www.staggerleebook.com/, which is well worth your time.

Labels: comics

I've never really thought of comics as typographically sophisticated - I'm mean how much can you do with 8 words in a balloon. But after reading Comics Grammar & Tradition, I'm going to have to take another look.

ITALICS
The use of italics is quite varied: Italic dialogue is used for internal monologues, traditional-style locator & time captions, narrative captions, in thought balloons or for any instance where a voice is being transmitted through a TV, radio, communicator, as in a radio balloon. Rarely, you'll see italics used for non-verbal words like "Uh," or "Huh", or in conjunction with someone who is whispering. Italics are also used for non-English words and the titles of movies, books, etc.
grammar

JOINING BALLOON TO BALLOON
Balloons directly joined together are generally of the same thought process. Two or more expressions that are of the same topic should be executed this way. This rule is most often broken when space constraints don't permit it and you have to use a connector.

Labels: comics, technical communication

FreakAngels is a new web comic by Warren Ellis, who I blogged about recently. I've only read a little of it yet, but already I'm hooked. Tor.com says this about it:

Freakangels depicts a near-future, post-flood London, where the only viably working community is being protected by eleven telepaths, the Freakangels, who were all born at the same time twenty three years before the story takes place. It is illustrated by comics newcomer Paul Duffield, who’s got a clean, sleek style which works very nicely with the story’s steampunkish sensibilities. Ellis’ pacing of the story is very leisurely, and makes for some nice, quiet installments which serve to gradually flesh out the world which Ellis has created. Even action sequences, such as the recent attack on the Freakangels’ community by neighboring bands of pirates, have a drawn-out, slow-motion feel to them.

Newsarana has an interview with Ellis about the comic, which will be published in book form soon (but will still be available online).

Labels: comics

So, just in case your eyes glazed over looking at the Large Hadron Collider documentation I posted about a while back, here's something different - a comic written by a physicist visiting CERN and the LHC. It's pretty good and manages to convey a lot of information in a lighter manner.

Labels: comics, science

I don't read a lot of graphic novels, but after reading Warren Ellis' Ministry of Space, I may have to start looking at more of them. This is an alternate history in which Britain becomes the dominant space power by grabbing the German rocket scientists at the end of World War 2. From Wikipedia:

The narrative moves back and forth between the last days of World War II, the first few years of the British space programme, and the year 2001. The British have captured and relocated to England all the scientists and equipment found in Peenemünde, among them Dr. Wernher von Braun and the plans and pieces of the V-2 rocket bomb. All of this is masterminded by a Royal Air Force officer, John Dashwood, survivor of the Battle of Britain, who manages to convince Winston Churchill to establish the Ministry of Space and fund it with a black budget. The following years see British pilots breaking the sound barrier, building a space station, landing on the Moon, and beyond. The story set in 2001 involves an American attempt to go into space, and their blackmailing of the British government concerning the secrets of the Black Budget that funded the Ministry of Space.

It's wonderfully illustrated by Chris Weston in a retro, almost steampunk style. I loved it. And I'm not the only one - it won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2005. Thanks are due to Scott Nesbitt for loaning me the book.

Labels: comics, SF

Libertarian SF author L. Neil Smith and Scott Besser have an online comic called Roswell, Texas. It takes place in an alternate history where the Alamo fell but most of the Texans survived, Santa Anna died, and Texas is now a republic. As you might guess, there's an alien spaceship that crashed in Roswell in 1947. I've read the first couple of chapters and I like it quite a bit.

Labels: comics, SF

Cover Browser is a site for browsing the scanned covers for hundreds of comics. There's some great art here. The scans are good quality and big enough to have some impact.

Labels: art, comics