Are any other members of the Whedon faithful a little concerned by the promise of a sequel to Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog? I see the mini-musical as a complete work of art, a "musical fable" if you will. It's a story with an outcome so final, so appropriate, so rooted in classic tragedy, I don't see how it could be expanded upon. Then again I would like more Bad Horse songs.
At any rate, stories that take place before the events of Sing-A-Long Blog are a-okay with me, which is why I'm super excited for Zack Whedon's Dr. Horrible comic book, a prequel to the musical due in stores November 18th as part of Dark Horse Comic's One-Shot Wonder line.
The younger Whedon brother has already penned one comic in the Horribleverse, an online exclusive that focused on Horrible's heroically conformist nemesis, Captain Hammer. The new comic, however, will be all about the Doc. There's a six-page exclusive preview up at MTV.com, which contains a flashback to his predictably unpleasant childhood. We're witness to the moment he switches allegiances in the eternal battle between heroic ubermench and evil outcasts. Eight is a heady age!
The book's art by Joelle Jones looks fantastic - Neil Patrick Harris is perhaps even more adorable in cartoon form. Check out some of her concept sketches for the series at her art blog.
Oh that Daken. One of the few male characters in comics to wield a pheromone power, the son of Wolverine has spent much of Dark Reign seducing and destroying all manner of victims, male and female.
Leave it to Hulkling (or Teddy, to his friends) to counter Daken's nigh-irresistible charms via the will to stray to true to his long term boyfriend, Wiccan, in last Wednesday's Dark Reign: Young Avengers #5. Okay, so maybe his resistance also has something to do with the fact that Teddy is a Scree-Krull hybrid and probably immune to all sorts of earthly bio-chemicals. Still; chalk one up for the power of love.
I have to say I'm a LITTLE bit curious as to what would have happened if Daken's sex pollen had actually worked on Teddy, particularly considering he was in his "hulked out" mode at the time. Daken may have not fully thought that one through.
Last weekend, hundreds of comic creators, cartoonists, graphic designers, zinesters (is that a word?), and other indie art types flocked to San Francisco for the annual Alternative Press Expo (or APE), easily filling up the 125,000 square feet Concourse Exhibition Center.
Much like NYC's MoCCA Art Festival, APE is a Comic Con for both connoisseurs of the indie arts as well as mainstream comic fans who yearn to take a break from DC's latest crisis and expand their mind with some handprinted minicomics.
I fall squarely into the latter camp, and I was especially interested in checking out some of the books with LGBT characters and themes, which somehow tend to be easier to find at these small press fairs than at major cons.
Cool scans and weird nudity, after the jump!
There is no comic being produced today that I look forward to more than Secret Six. And not just because it spawned my Comic Book Lesbian OTP (half of which is dead now anyway). The series is smart, full of pitch black humor, and boasts one of the most distinctive (not to mention sexually uninhibited) casts in comics. Yep, it's a Gail Simone book alright. This week's issue is the conclusion to a five part story arc called "Depths", as in, "What depths will those crazy sixers sink to next?"
In this ethically oblique adventure, the Six are hired by a David Carridine-looking gentleman to guard his vision for a better tomorrow; the world's biggest prison/slave farm. The inmates include criminals, the Amazons who attacked our nation's capital, and possibly you, thanks to a globally inclusive lottery system. Trouble sets in as the team's more honorable members suffer a crisis of conscience and revolt against their employer, pitting teammate against teammate, sex buddy against sex buddy, and Wonder Woman against the monster from Beowulf. Suffice to say, things get nuts.
Moderate spoilers, after the jump!
My name is AHR, and I'm an AHstar.
Yeah that's a pretty lame catch phrase. I don't know how superheroes think them up on the fly. Get it, on the fly? Superheroes fly...jeez, let's start over.
Growing up in Berkeley CA, the comics I typically came across were expressions of counter culture artistic identity, produced by scraggly teenagers who filled up zines with even scragglier black and white illustrations about how intense their lives were. It all seemed way too cool for me. In junior high my friends would talk about Ariel Schrag's latest biographical epic and I would stay silent, keeping a terrible secret about my relationship with comics.
All I cared about was Batman.
"Oh Lois, you SO don't want to know!"
Comic of the Week
You guys may recall I was a bit cranky about Northstar and his lack of lovin' about a year and a half ago. In fact, at the time, I issued a challenge to Marvel to get him a kiss by June 2009 or I would declare him not really gay. I have not forgotten about this. However, when the X-men moved to San Francisco this year, we were teased with the existence of what looked to be Northstar's boyfriend (and manager), so I delayed judgment until we could see more. Since then, Northstar hasn't had a lot of major appearances, as there have been about a thousand major crossover events in the Marvel universe in the last six months, and each one tends to disrupt the normal storyline for most books, including the many X-books. So I waited. Our patience seems to have been rewarded! Artist Tim Fish revealed on his blog that his upcoming story in Nation X #2 (which comes out in Jan.) is a story about Northstar, and will feature Kyle, his boyfriend in an 8-page story. I'm not sure if an actual kiss is in it, but it's implied that there is some lovin' going on. Check out some sketches of Northstar, Kyle, and Aurora below, and we'll keep you up to date when we get closer to Jan. NATION X #2 1/6/10 [TimFishWorks]...
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