Periscope: Portland's storyboard and comics studio.

The Stranger is making the following offer:

Make him, her, or them blush with a FREE valentine in The Stranger! The first 2,000 mash notes we receive are guaranteed to appear in our special Valentine's Day issue on February 14^th!
SUBMISSION DEADLINE for all valentines: 5 pm on Friday, February 8^th.

Click here to get your message printed with this design by Colleen Coover, or one of four other lovely designs by artists Kris Chau, Rob Ullmann, Aaron Edge, and Mark Kaufman.

Labels: Colleen Coover, illustration, Seattle, Valentine

Colleen and her sister, Janine, grew up reading coverless comics that her grandmother salvaged from her job at the neighborhood Five & Dime. Archie Andrews and Richie Rich taught her to read, and Dan DeCarlo and Harvey Comics' artists like Warren Kremer, Ernie Colon and Sid Couchey introduced her to the wondrous effect of sharp, clean lines on the comic page.

Steve Duin talks to Colleen Coover at the Oregon Live blog.

Labels: Colleen Coover, press, Steve Duin

Colleen Coover art from X-Men:First Class. Pencil rough and finished colors.

Labels: Colleen Coover

Labels: Colleen Coover

Jeff parker reports that

several early copies of X-Men First Class #6 that have pages seriously out of order. Like, the Colleen Coover cartoon falls in the middle of the book now, out of order. I assume Marvel will tell shops to hold on to these books while they make the printer fix things, but just in case watch out this Thursday. This is especially irksome because I was excited about the new storyline starting, and we have the longest Coover story yet. Oh well, it’s not like an asteroid is headed directly for Earth or anything. Which it isn’t.

Here's the cover, drawn by Eric Nguyen. In a better world I'd also be able to show you a panel or two from Colleen Coover's backup story, but that would be a world in which I'm not in Ohio right now.

Labels: Colleen Coover, Jeff Parker, X-men First Class

Colleen Coover's Rom:

Jeff Parker's Rom:


And we've got more Roms by Jonathan Case and Steve Lieber. Find out why so many top cartoonists are drawing Rom:Spaceknight.

Labels: Colleen Coover, Jeff Parker, Rom

Colleen Coover is the latest contributor to Steven Gettis' awesome collection of sketches of literary figures.

Labels: Colleen Coover

Labels: Colleen Coover

Colleen Coover and Paul Tobin got married on Saturday in a cermony in Laurelhurst park in Portland. Paul Guinan and James Ratcliffe have put up photo-sets. I'm not sure whether to be proud or sad that several comics news sites scooped us on this story.

Labels: Colleen Coover, Paul Tobin

"Jeff Parker and Colleen Coover have a four page back-up story in today’s X-Men: First Class #3 from Marvel Comics. In it, Marvel Girl and the Scarlet Witch team up to bond over shopping, and stop an attempted robbery.

I’ve been reading comics for about 30 years now, and I loved the fact that the characters are actually, you know, IN CHARACTER. They’re not angsty and filled with rage, or crazy, or broken."

Pink Raygun checked out the latest issue of X-men First Class, and they like what they saw.
And since I found them on the desktop of this computer, here are a couple of panels from the story:

Labels: Colleen Coover, Jeff Parker

" Everybody loves Colleen Coover... the Illustrator, and comic creator. Listen to Colleen talk about Banana Sunday, X-men, and Small Favors. Listen to the interview with Colleen Coover. Listen to her talk about her working style, secrets that she doesn't want to share with Editors, and hear her grill me about why I didn't go to SDCC."

~Christopher Shields has a podcast interview with Colleen Coover up at cIndycenter.

Photo of Colleen with Bully the Little Stuffed Bull stolen from
Bully's Con Report

Labels: Colleen Coover

I was looking at the Artist's Alley map, trying to figure out how many sherpas we'd need to get all our gear onsite, when I saw this:


"Toy Growers Cultyard." I can't even parse that. Anyone?

Either way, Jesse Hamm has a brilliant San Diego advice guide that'll come in handy everywhere throughout the con, including the Cultyard.

Colleen has reprinted Star of the East, the great mini-comic the Douglas Wolk mentioned in Reading Comics. More info on price and availablity soon.



Oh, and lookie here: we've got a new cover for Whiteout: Melt.

Labels: Colleen Coover, Jesse Hamm, whiteout

The Appreciating Comics panel was a huge success. Big crowd. Great questions. Fun. Informative. All that. The moderator was Douglas Wolk, and the panelists were Colleen Coover, Dylan Meconis, Scott McCloud, Jenn Manley Lee, and Gail Simone.


Big scramble for seats. It was standing room only, and they wound up turning a lot of people away.



Sara Ryan reads the winning door prize number.



Scott mixin' it up, Arsenio-style.


Gail Simone explains all.


Douglas, Colleen and Dylan


Big laffs all around.


Douglas takes another question. Colleen doesn't think he should.


Dylan got a page and a half of Family Man inked between questions.


Gail clarifies something. Scott's thoughtful. Jenn's looking at you out of the corner of her eye, so don't try sneaking up.



Douglas said something alarming, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was.



Jamie Rich, like those around him, pausing to reflect on just what all of this really means.



At dinner, Shannon Wheeler calmly explains that single panel cartoons shouldn't be arbitrarily excluded from any definition of the medium...


...but Scott is having too good a time to revisit that one.


Jen and Vera go straight to the index of Douglas' new book.


Douglas Wolk is talking about your comic.

Labels: Colleen Coover, Douglas Wolk, Dylan Meconis, Gail Simone, Jenn Manley Lee, library, Sara Ryan, Scott McCloud

Appreciating Comics: A Panel Discussion

art by Jenn Manley Lee

Wednesday, June 27, 6–7:30 p.m.

• Central Library, U.S. Bank Room
• 801 S.W. 10th Ave.
• 503.988.5234

Join Scott McCloud, author of Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels, and a panel of Oregon cartoonists for a lively, wide-ranging conversation focused on what can be done in comics that can't be done anywhere else.

• Panelists:
• Colleen Coover, artist of Banana Sunday
• Dylan Meconis, creator of Family Man
• Jenn Manley Lee, creator of Dicebox
• Gail Simone, author of Birds of Prey: Of Like Minds

Douglas Wolk, author of Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, moderates the discussion.

Appreciating Comics is made possible by The Library Foundation and presented in conjunction with the Graphic Novel Intensive at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Space at programs is limited. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Labels: Colleen Coover, Dylan Meconis, library

That X-men First Class Special continues to get more notice. They've interviewed Colleen Coover about it over at The Pulse. And reviewers and message boards continue to talk about it:
Pop Culture Shock|Fanboy Planet|Toonzone|The other Silver Bullet. We're all really glad to see this. Editor Mark Paniccia took a risk letting an unabashedly funny cartoonist like Colleen work her magic on the X-men. Forunately, the reception looks to be positive. Hell, not just positive; wildly enthusiastic.

The fans are also liking David Hahn's work on Spider-man Loves Mary Jane:Comixtreme|Scans Daily One can only assume this is because David rules.

And hey, this is nice:

"She was always spot-on with the story, and spot-on with the mood. I was extremely pleased when she said yes to the project, and I’m extremely pleased with the finished work."

That was Jim Ottaviani at Newsarama, discussing Dylan Meconis' work on the book.

I'm blogging this from Ohio, which is a big switch from Montreal, as you might imagine. I did manage another celebrity encounter, though. Sara and I were grabbing breakfast at the Portland airport before our flight, when a familiar looking guy sat down next to us. My immediate thought; "Geez, he looks like Ed Begley." Later, when he told the person he was talking to that "I wasn't this busy when I was doing St. Elsewhere" we took that as confirmation. Of course we eavesdropped, and it kind of made me want to go watch Living With Ed.

-Steve Lieber

Labels: Colleen Coover, David Hahn, Dylan Meconis, Jim Ottaviani

For the past couple months, we've been pacing impatiently around the studio waiting for Jeff Parker's X-Men First Class Special to come out. Of course everyone was thrilled to see the Kevin Nowlan pages as they came in, and the Nick Dragoda/ Mike Allred story was a hoot, but what really had us shaking was this: "Will the Colleen Coover pages make the internet's collective head explode?" How can I put this diplomatically? Um...How about this: Not all comics fans are able to handle the idea of their funnybooks containing stuff that's funny. Well, the book came out last week and the reaction, I'm pleased and relieved to say, was better than we'd dreamed.

Bully says it best and notes the existence of a possible department of stealth humor at Marvel. We can neither confirm nor deny, though we were glad to see that he also tipped his hat to Parker's Marvel Adventures:The Avengers and David Hahn's Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. Others who weighed in with praise include:Zodarzone | Blake Petit |Living Between Wednesdays |
The ISB |Phonin' it in | Comic Pants |Comics Should be Good |Silver Bullet |Gad Sir, Comics. |CGSPodcast board (this one's evenly divided between the yeas and the nays.) | and, of course, the good people at Scans Daily have put up one of Colleen's three pages and have taken the most important question to the people: Which is cuter: ducklings or otters?



For what it's worth, I've given the matter some careful thought, and I think that Hank's got it right:


EDIT: I forgot to add, Colleen and Jeff would LOVE to do more stories like these, but it's only going to happen if you let Marvel know you want more. Write and let Marvel know at mondomarvel@marvel.com

Labels: Colleen Coover, Jeff Parker

None of us remembered to bring a camera to FCBD. Fortunately, Aaron Albert of About.com has put up a cool gallery of photos of the day. Here's one:


Two Reviews of the FCBD edition of WHITEOUT. Douglas Wolk surveyed the entire slate of titles for Salon. And this one is easily my most favoritest review ever, EVER: Blogger Laura Hudson's mom

And don't miss this interview with Parker, or more importantly, the alarming photo mash-up thing they did.

Labels: Colleen Coover, free comic book day, Jeff Parker, whiteout

Anne Timmons has a new book coming out.

Linda Medley gave a talk at Wondercon.

Sara Ryan has released the latest icon from her sticker campaign with Colleen Coover.


Sarah Oleksyk just put up new pages fromIvy

Dylan Meconis' Family Man just hit the one year mark with its 53rd episode. Happy anniversary!

Labels: Anne Timmons, Colleen Coover, Dylan Meconis, Linda Medley, Portland, Sara Ryan, Sarah Oleksyk

Sara Ryan has released the second of the seven icons designed by Colleen Coover to illustrate Sara's new novel The Rules for Hearts. Sara's website has instructions for how to get a free set of vinyl stickers of all seven icons.

Labels: Colleen Coover, freebies

Novelist/comics writer Sara Ryan has a new book coming out. On her blog, she writes:

Courtesy of the lovely and talented Colleen Coover, here's the first of seven icons based on different elements of The Rules for Hearts. I'll release one a week, each with a quote from the book, until the beginning of April. Feel free to use them wherever you'd like! And if you put them somewhere on your blog, MySpace, journal, etc., I'd love it if you posted the address in the comments!

These icons also exist as vinyl stickers, suitable for decorating computers, skateboards, instrument cases, etc. Want a sticker? Send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Sara Ryan
Mercury Studio
333 SW 5th Ave., Suite 303
Portland, OR 97204

and I will send you a sticker!

BONUS: I will enter everyone who gets stickers into a drawing for a signed copy of Rules.

From my uniquely privileged position, I've had a sneak peek at all seven, and they're great. I expect to see the online versions popping up on ljs everywhere.

Labels: Colleen Coover, freebies