Panel Discussion: Scans from Beasts of Burden, Thunderbolts, Spider-Woman, and More

Cute Overload - Beasts of Burden #2
This book is actually dark and sad and terrifying, but come on, CUTE DOGGIES! The really remarkable aspect of this sequence, in which neighborhood dogs bug our animal heroes with a bunch of frivolous cases, is how Jill Thompson's dog drawings perfectly evoke the personalities Evan Dorkin has written for them in just one panel. We've got the thuggish bull terrier, the dopey briard, the gossipy Pomeranians, and the paranoid Chihuahuas. Anthropomorphizing animals never seemed so true to life.

Pretty girls, crazy supervillians, and cop abuse, after the jump...


Excessive Force - Azrael #1



Gotham is just a mess since Batman died. Robin is slicing faces off with a hacksaw, and Azrael is beating the living crap out of a room full of cops! This isn't even the old crazy Azrael, it's some new perfectly sane guy who just happens to be down with kicking cops in the nuts and punching their noses into their brains.
This scene makes it all better.


Fun with Montage - Power Girl #6
Why are trips to Ikea always fun? Actually sometimes they're horrible and boring, but I've definitely had trips much like the ones experienced here by Power Girl and her galpal whatshername. Amanda Connor continues to turn out the most lighthearted yet densely communicative art on the stands today. I love all the Swedized words - it took me a while to get "tasty rolls" from "tejsti rohls". What is the name of the store, "Aidja", supposed to be?


Best Visual Metaphor - Thunderbolts 137
This panel completely sums up Norman Osbourne's role in Dark Reign. Sitting on his Green Goblin glider (why not?), setting up dominoes, boozing it up. He's completely given up any pretense of pretending to be sane around his underlings. It's kind of classy, somehow.

Photo Reference Done Right - Spider-Woman #2
I don't understand why some comic fans get upset about photo referencing. The model in this case, Jolynn Carpenter, is actually credited at the head of the book along with the writer and artist. I've never seen this done before, but it's a good idea. If you're going to have someone "playing" a comic character, they should get a credit. These panels are beautiful, thanks both to Carpenter being really gorgeous and to artist Alex Maleev's beautiful colors and shadow effects. There's also some very subtle compositional touches that link the panels together - check out how the outline of her shoulder in the top panels becomes the edge of a shadow in the second panel.

Photos: MoCCA 2009 Star-Studded Explosion!

The calm before the storm...the first day of MoCCA 2009 got off to a late start, so I got to snap a picture of the floor mostly free of attendees. Since MoCCA's usual space caught on fire last year, this year's Art Festival took place at the Regiment Armory in Murray Hill, a gigantic high ceiling auditorium space that made the show feel less like a small press fair, and more like a major convention.

That's not to say there weren't plenty of indie creators and publishers at the show, but I was particularly struck by how many big name creators were there as well. It seems MoCCA has continued to gain traction as a place where indie creators come to be discovered as well as a way for more major presses to promote their new, more artsy releases.

Comic stars, fresh talent, awesome sketches, and neat tablecloths, after the jump...


PART 1: Big Names

Adrian Tomine signing at the The Drawn & Quarterly booth. Growing up in Berkeley, I was a fan of local sensation Tomine since I was a teenager, and Shortcomings was my favorite book of 2007. He was taking meticulous care in his autograph dedications, it was awesome just to watch him do the lettering!


Seth, creator of Palookaville, was looking very dapper during his Drawn and Quarterly signing.

Writer Joe Kelly and artist Rodney Ramos were giving away and signing copies of Bang! Tango at the Vertigo booth. I mentioned that I loved the Free Comic Book Day edition of Four Eyes, another of Kelly's books, and he pulled out the second issue and gave me an autographed copy of that as well. Sweetness.

Brian Wood with DMZ aplenty at the Vertigo Booth.

David Mack had Kabuki titles and original art for sale, as well as his recent kids book, The Shy Creatures.

I am of course a huge fan of the Act-i-Vate gang, represented at their booth by Molly Crabapple and Dean Haspiel.

Becky Cloonan was selling advance copies of Pixu (review coming soon!) and promoting her webcomic KGB with co-author/artist Hwan Cho.

Evan Dorkin was promoting Beast of Burden, his upcoming book with Jill Thompson.

Tara McPherson was signing her illustration work as well as her awesome line of Kid Robot toys.

Action Philosphers artist Ryan Dunlavey was just about dwarfed by his booth's immense signage!

Part 2: Webcomics

The boys of Dumbrella.

Oh. Man. Randall Munroe of xkcd had the most consistently big crowd I saw all day. This dude must be like, a millionaire!

Ryan North! I had no idea he'd done these amazing instructions for time travel that have been making the internet rounds. He was selling poster versions that you can put you and post inside your time machine in case of emergencies.

Ben Rosen of White Cat, with his neon killer sign.

These buttons feature "Admiral Snackbar", a fastfood mascot featured in The Rack by Kevin Church and Benjamin Birdie. I'm a big fan of puns, particularly Star Wars puns, and apparently so is Benjamin Birdie. Suffice to say, I bought one of these.


Part 3: Art and Stuff!

Cute overload....Mice doing martial arts by Stephanie Yue.

Some pretty brilliant t-shirt designs by Joanna Mulder (talk about an awesome geek name).

Okay; this is the best thing I saw all day. I'm sorry. I love creator-owned work, I love innovative, experimental comics that push boundaries, but I will always have Star Wars deeply implanted in my heart and soul, and these mini-anthologies of Star Wars comics are freakin' OUT OF CONTROL. I bought the first one, Harvest Is When I Need You Most. Just think about that title. That is beautiful. Each story is a wonderfully thoughtful and funny take on the Star Wars universe, and I may have to go buy the other two tomorrow. These are edited by Shelli Paroline, who autographed my copy along with a little picture of an Ewok.

This is a mural by Michael DiMotta, the colorist of my new favorite DC title, Ink. Turns out DiMotta is an extraordinarily talented penciller as well, and this double tryptic of animals was actually painted as mural for a school. Lucky kids!

More Michael DiMotta. Man, this is good stuff. Be sure to check out his homepage for high-res images of this print and much more.


Artist Jerry Ma was sketching at the booth for Secret Identities, the first ever Asian Superhero Anthology (which I recently covered for Midtown comics). This was just his "warm-up" sketch, so I think we can safely assume his sketches throughout the day were pretty badass.

This print by Lucy Knisley caught my eye, for obvious reasons. I asked when she did it, wondering if she drew it before or after the zombie explosion of the last few years, and it turns out she did it specifically for the convention, and turned it out just two days before the show! I should probably go back and buy this.

Nathan Stapley and Scott C at the Doublefine booth. I have to say I had no idea Doublefine, a studio I know best for creating the brilliant Psychonauts videogame and the upcoming Brutal Legend, did comics as well. But they do! Like I didn't have enough stuff to check out...JEEZ. Also they gave out free stickers.

Here's JoeGP, creator of the Talking Guinea Pigs webcomic. I'd never read it before, but I liked the art and writing so much on my initial flip-through, I had to buy one of the hard copies. He also drew me a sketch which I will post tomorrow at a more reasonable hour.

These two creators win best tablecloths of the day...

Martina Fugazzotto, recipient of last year's Friends of Lulu Kim Yale award, was displaying her awesome sex-positive sex-ed comics on an equally awesome psychadelic tablecloth.

Box Brown, author of Love Is A Peculiar Type of Thing which came out last week and looks great, had this exquisite 1970s Disco Peanuts tablecloth. Every Charlie Brown is happy when he's dancing to disco music! I asked Brown if he had a particular affinity for Peanuts, and he responded with an enthusiastic yes, adding that any comic featuring a character with a perfectly round head is a big draw.

That's just Day 1, folks! And there's even more on Geekanerd's Flickr.

Mr. Wonka! Just Punisher of Coddled Children

As much as I hate posting anything with a shelf date of more than 1 month, this was simply to good not to rave about. This amazing piece of design, this fictional relic...it's everything I love in visual form.

1. It's a Geek/Americana mashup (if you can consider 70s Penguin book covers Americana, and I do)
2. It's Engrish.
3. It's cute.
4. It works on many levels (this is not only the best scene in the movie, but it's a metaphor for the ENTIRE MOVIE, which I never realized till now. Omg.)

The time traveler responsible for this is Spacesick. He has tons more of the "I Can Read Movies" series on his webpage, and tons of just all around great design on his Flickr, like this:



This was a threadless t-shirt design but it lost! What the hell! People just don't get the wereburger joke.

TweenBot Proves Humans Will Be The Agents of Their Own Enslavement

In what is surely another sign of the coming Robot Apocalypse, a student at NYU's Interactive Communications Program has created a small, adorable robot that depends on the kindness of humans to fulfill its goal of getting from one place to another.

TweenBot is armed only with a forward-motor, a flag that pleads for help getting to its desired location, and a disarmingly cute cardboard face. This is all it takes to cajole humans, humans with lives and desires of their own, into doing its robotic bidding.

Behold the power of cuteness...


Learn more about this troubling experiment at the artist/mad scientist's website.

2008 Dog Costume Contest at Tompkins Square

I wanted to go to this event so badly, but unforutnately the rain date conflicted with the zombie crawl. Cute doggies, or gross zombies? TORN!

So I had to delve into the Flickr pages of strangers to get my dog costume fix. Here are some of the best geek-themed costumes, found on the Flickr pages of jeanacosta, katya323, and mysuspira.


We'll kick things off with my favorite, Oscar the Grouch. Simple, yet effective and brilliant! And I'm sure that dye is non-toxic.

This is a puppy from the planet Earth, but it's dressed up as an Ewok from the planet Endor. Ladies and gentlemen, that does not make sense.

Krypto, Link, The Joker, and more, after the jump!


Supergirl and Krypto, the Superdog.


I'm pretty sure this is Link, not Robin Hood.



Even dogs want to get in on the hottest costume of the year, The Joker! That little dog in the background is like, "iz harley quin?" and joker dog is all, "NO WAI".


Green Doggie Dye must have been on sale this year...here's a little Dagobah-era Yoda puppy.

These next two dog's owners should be sent to the PUNitentiary...



A "Greyhound" bus...


And a "Chick" Magnet. Wa wa waa!


And then there's this little guy, who seems to be saying, "OK, whar is judge table pleez?"

If you're going to dress your pet up in a nerd-related costume, please please send us a picture so we can laugh at it. In a nice way.

Panel Discussion: Scans From Blue Beetle, Runaways, Superman/Batman and More

Every Monday, we at Geekanerd rip panels from last Wednesday's comics and post the best, the worst, and the weirdest. Those who didn't read books last week, beware of minor spoilers.

Clearest Example of Batman's Insanity - Superman/Batman #52
In case you need context, Lil' DC heroes and villians have invaded, and the JLA needs to sort it all out. But what you need to know is none of the big heroes ever really lay a hand on the Lil Legion of Doom, I mean they're just so cute, and they're kids, after all, you can't exactly beat up a kid...unless you're a crazy Bat Man, of course. And look at that white-rage expression in his eyes; Batman just sees some Joker-based entity and he goes all "Kill Bill".

On an unrelated note, Catwoman's mid-kiss expression is priceless. This book is amazing.

Awards for Best Actor, Best Coloring, and Most Misleading Cover, after the jump...


Best Actor - Jaime Reyes, Blue Beetle #31

Andrew Coelho is a Blue Beetle artist from around the time the series started, and he's fantastic at wringing sharp, teenager-appropriate expressions from Jamie's armor-abstracted face. Let's examine...

Here we have embarrassed teenager eye-roll. You can really hear the "MooOMM!" intonation of his line.
With just a little lower-lid action, here's the perfect picture of an awkward superhero photo op.

One might call this expression "whedonesque"...

This moment works on the strength of the script alone; this thug just punched Jaime's mom at the hospital she works at, just as Jamie busts in. His expression in the lower panel is a really funny yet touching expression of a young kid who's so angry, he just swings out and doesn't care about having a cool, scrunched up hero face. It's like if " >: O" were a real facial expression.

Best Use of Color - Runaways #2
Last month my only gripe with the new Runaways creative team was that Christina Strain's colors were too "day-glo". But this week I had to eat my words, cause her it's her bright and neon pallete that makes this scene especially remarkable. I can't remember seeing water colored like that before in a comic, but it's instantly evokative of the way the ocean actually looks during a sunset. Great stuff.

Movie Moment - Superman/Batman #52Any fans of The Hudson Hawk out there? In that movie, there are two henchmen named Igg and Ook. And when they are eventually killed with bullets to the head, they grunt out "Igg!' and "Ook!". I rest my case.

Most Misleading Cover - Back to Brooklyn #1 (Variant Cover)How could I not get this comic? That's my subway train stop, and that girl is smokin' hot and looks like she could be a real badass hero/antihero. But you know what? She's in the comic for like two pages, and she's not attractive, tough, or heroic. She's not anything. She's like gray wallpaper, which is pretty much the color pallete of the actual book.

Now That's Comedy - Runaways #2I feel like this is really funny even out of context. Though I've been wrong before.