Japanese Manga Stamps

We received a box today covered in the the Japanese Postal Service's new stamps celebrating "The 50th Anniversary of Japanese Weekly Comic Books for Boys". Pretty damn cool! Since someone went through the trouble of carefully applying the all the stamps around the shipping labels by hand, we naturally assumed the box was for me, sent by one of my otaku friends in Japan. Wrong. It was for Mutsumi, which cracked me up. Guess Kobe's postal meters were busted last week, or they were really pushing these stamps!

So, how many different manga series can you identify here?

Heroes Con Schedule

I'll be at Heroes Con this weekend, June 19th - 21st, in Charlotte, NC. You'll probably be able to find me at table #711 in Artists Alley most of the time, where I'll be selling, signing and reviewing portfolios, but taking breaks to attend the following panels:

FRIDAY, June 19th, 1:00pm-2:00pm, Room 217BCD

MARVEL: Pint o' C.B.
He’s one of the most recognized persons in the comic industry, at the center of many things Marvel. He’s C.B. Cebulski, Writer and Marvel Talent Liaison, and he’s joined by the top writers in the industry to take on all questions and drop a few surprise announcements! Join Brian Michael Bendis (ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN), Matt Fraction (INVINCIBLE IRON MAN), Ed Brubaker (CAPTAIN AMERICA), Mark Waid (AMAZING SPIDER-MAN) and more!

SATURDAY, June 20th, 2:00pm-3:00pm, Room 217BCD

MARVEL: DARK REIGN
He lost, they won. They are the new Masters of the Marvel Universe, and they are NOT nice people. The villains finally have their day, now hear from the folks pulling the strings what happens next. This panel will have the announcement of the next big chapter in Marvel history, so be there for it! Featuring Brian Michael Bendis (DARK AVENGERS, NEW AVENGERS), Matt Fraction (Dark Avengers/X-Men), Jonathan Hickman (SECRET WARRIORS), editor Jeanine Schaefer and Talent Liason C.B. Cebulski.

SUNDAY, June 21st, 3:00pm-4:00pm, Room 217BCD

MARVEL: X-MEN
They thought they’d found a home, a safe haven. They’re about to find out how wrong they were! The world the X-Men built is about to come crashing down, and we have their personal wrecking crew right here to take on your questions, including Matt Fraction (UNCANNY X-MEN) and C.B. Cebulski (X-INFERNUS).

Hope to see you all there!

Breaking Into The Big Two

A few weeks back I made a comment on Twitter about being able to count on my hand the number of artists who broke into comics with their first gig at Marvel or DC. While I made this comment in reference to the number of people who have done so during my time at Marvel, over the past 8 years, the always enterprising Eddy Choi decided to research things a little farther back and sent me over the following list, reprinted with Eddy's permission:

"Hey CB, your recent tweet, "I can count on one hand the number of creators I know who had their 1st writing or art gig on a Marvel or DC book with no prior experience." got me thinking. I used to hunt down back-issues of a creator's first work as a kind of "rookie comic," so I wanted to see how many creators I could find who started at DC or Marvel and here's what I got:

Jason Aaron - Wolverine #75
Chris Bachalo - Sandman #12
Travis Charest - Showcase '93 #3
Jim Cheung - Justice League Task Force #26
Darwyn Cooke - New Talent Showcase #19
Marko Djurdjevic - X-Men: First Class #1
Ron Garney - G.I. Joe #110
Gene Ha - Green Lantern #36
James Jean - Fables #1
Geoff Johns - DCU Heroes Secret Files and Origins #1
Joe Kelly - Fantastic Four 2099 #5
Adam Kubert - Secret Society of Super-Villains #13
Andy Kubert - Savage She-Hulk #20
Jeph Loeb - Challengers of the Unknown #1
Joe Madureira - Marvel Comics Presents #87
George Perez - Astonishing Tales #25
Whilce Portacio - Alien Legion #6
Paolo Rivera - Marvel Double Shot #2
John Romita Jr. - Amazing Spider-Man #146
Jim Shooter - Adventure Comics #346
Marc Silvestri - House of Mystery #292
Walt Simonson - Weird War Tales #10
Chris Sprouse - War of the Gods #1
J. Michael Straczynski - Teen Titans Spotlight
Brian K. Vaughan - Tales From the Age of Apocalypse #2

Btw, one of the first guys to come to mind was Stephen Platt. I still remember when he did Moon Knight #55 and it was such a splash for an unknown guy to be so popular right off the bat. I found out later that he did a cover for an independent company earlier in the year, so I didn't include him in the above list, but I'm sure there are plenty of guys like that who just got one little thing published somewhere before getting their first storytelling work.

Another example is Olivier Coipel who got a single character published in Resident Evil Magazine #3 through WildStorm and then years later, he drew Legion of Super-Heroes #122. Techincally, his first work is Resident Evil, but like Platt, I could see where some would say his first work is actually LoSH, b/c I don't think he really used that previous piece to land work at DC."

Wow! That's a pretty damn impressive list. Thanks for compiling it and sharing, Eddy. And couple artists I can add off the top of my head are...

Skottie Young - Iceman #3
Adrian Alphona - Runaways #3 (although it may technically be an Exiles pinup in X-Men Unlimited.)

But I know there are probably a few more that I'm blanking on now. Anyone care to play along and try to add to the list?

Update from Mark Waid: "Not to undercut your point, which is FAR more applicable today than it was in the two-horse-town days of the '70s and early '80s, but, yeah...my first published gig was Action Comics #572, Oct 1985."

Too Cute Not To Film

Caught this on my camera yesterday afternoon, these two active little kittens were having a playful Sunday here on Broadway in NYC as they waited for the right person to come along and adopt them...

Supermarket Signage

This sign always cracks me up and makes the ride up in Fairway's elevator that much more bearable...

Another Post-Con Image

And sometimes when you meet an artist at a portfolio review you'll make an off-hand comment about a Marvel character you think would look cool illustrated in that artist's style. Say, like... Venom. Then you open up an e-mail weeks later and find a kick-ass piece of art like this...

Caricatures

Yes, sometimes the artists whose portfolios I review at the various cons I travel to like to follow up with an image commemorating our meeting...




And while I greatly appreciate them all, some can be more flattering than others. :)

Star Wars meets Wall*E

My buddy Agent_M just posted this and it's so damn cool I had to steal it to share...

Battle of the P.I.s

By now, I'm sure most people who visit this blog have seen the HAN SOLO P.I. video that's been making the rounds on the net. Well, here's something else that crossed my desk that you may not have seen yet, a side-by-side comparison with the original Magnum P.I. opening...



Snagging the Indiana Jones role away from Tom Selleck wasn't enough for Harrison Ford, was it? He needs to go after his most notable character as well?