Periscope: Portland's storyboard and comics studio.

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Labels: whiteout, whiteout movie

I was at the Alberta food co-op last night with Sara, browsing the magazine rack when I spotted what looked like a new literary magazine:A Public Space. Something in the design makes me think of Tin House, which I always enjoy. Quick flip to the table of contents, and, hey, William Vollmann and a section of writing about Antarctica? I'm sold. I toss it in the basket with the apples and oatmeal and don't give it another thought until today, when I'm on the MAX, reading and I flip to the Antarctica section at the back and see this:

It's a bizarre feeling seeing your name and work in a magazine when you weren't expecting it. I actually looked around, sort of wondering if I was being punked. But no, the page was bound in, and Greg and I have short bios in the contributors section. So, um, I'm a contributor to the magazine I randomly picked up off the rack at a grocery store. I kind of like to think Vollmann was surprised, too.

Labels: whiteout

Terri Nelson realized that the spammers who hijacked our old blog were still using our old template header which includes an image in our webspace. That made its possible for us to make the spam-blog's header say this:



We can't stop them from saying "periscope" up top, but it's something. Maybe we'll mess with the image some more.

In other news, this one came out of nowhere: Whiteout was name-checked in this web-comic.

And Greg Rucka was on tv the other day where he talked about his new novel Patriot Acts, and of course, about Whiteout.

And here's a longer interview with Greg and Whiteout director Dominic Sena.

Labels: whiteout, whiteout movie

Eddie Campbell is blogging about screen tones. I've had a love/hate relationship with the stuff for years. While the traditional Wally Wood approach to zip never seemed a good match for my line, I've always adored what Eddie has done with those little dots. Guy Davis's "Baker Street" and Doug Wildey's work were inspirational too. When I started Whiteout, screen tones enabled me to get, as Eddie says, light, air and atmosphere into my art, and was particularly suited to communicating the dry, stinging air of Antarctica, where old snow is constantly blowing around. They also brought some of the tonal richness of charcoal drawing to my comics page in a way that still had the crispness of a comic. For the first time, I had comics pages that looked like my scketchbooks. I loved the tonal variations I could get by scraping at it with a knife or buzzing it with an electric eraser. Then again, for two years, I went to bed every night with little slivers of the stuff sticking to me. The stuff got everywhere. I'd find bits of zip-a-tone stuck to the cat's face, floating in in my Cheerios, in my wife's hairbrush, in the lint trap in the laundry- everywhere.

In a month or so I'm going to finally get started on the third Whiteout book, and I can't wait to start playing with screen tones again. This time, I'm going to be doing the tones digitally and no since I'll no longer be restricted to the shapes I can get with an x-acto knife, I'll be able to really get "painterly" with them.

Labels: Steve Lieber, whiteout

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

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

Zevon is a six-year-old Welsh corgi named after the singer Warren Zevon because he is so energetic he's truly an "excitable boy". He loves nothing more than to run-- something that, unfortunately, started to cause him great pain and often left him lame for days after even a small amount of play. Zevon was operated on in late January 2007 and the surgery went quite well. So well, in fact, that Zevon already thinks he’s already fully healed and has a hard time understanding he still has weeks of recovery ahead of him!

It's another ebay auction for Zevon! Karl Kesel's been selling some truly choice original art to pay for some medical care for his beloved Welsh Corgi. Go and bid.

"I'm the god of all things Grendel," Wagner says. "Whatever I saw happens, happens. But there comes a point where I want to play with someone else's toys. There's a certain creative challenge in working a puzzle where some of the pieces are already in place. Plus, it's like staying in a hotel. I don't have to worry about cleaning up."

Steve Duin of the Oregonian talks to Matt Wagner.

"Although abusive language being attached, the carry which starts single investigation chasing the news team five scientific investigation camp is stretched in the vicinity of the corpse, arrives to the English Victoria base. "

Someone in Japan has reviewed Whiteout. Beautiful translation here, and the original page is here.

Labels: Corgi, Karl Kesel, whiteout

In 1998, novelist Greg Rucka debuted on the comics scene with the four issue mini-series “Whiteout” from Oni Press. With artist Steve Lieber handling the visuals, the series which followed U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko investigating a murder at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, was an instant hit, garnering four Eisner Nominations. Not content to rest on their laurels, the duo revisited the life of Carrie in this rather harsh environment two years later with “Whiteout: Melt” in which the tough as nails Marshall is called back to Antarctica to investigate the explosion of a Russian science depot. Things got worse from there for Carrie, as she soon discovered an illicit cache of nuclear warheads and evidence that some were missing. This series likewise was an Eisner, but this it took home the trophy for Best Limited Series.

Since then, little has been heard from Carrie, but that all changes in the fourth quarter of 2007 as Rucka and Lieber reunite for the third chapter of Carrie’s story, “Whiteout: Thaw,” once again from Oni Press. Like the two previous series, “Thaw” will likely debut as a four issue mini-series (Rucka, Lieber and company are still finalizing their plans) in black and white once again.

CBR News caught up with Rucka and Lieber to learn more about what they have in store for Carrie, how this series has evolved since the original two books were published, and why the long delay between “Melt” and “Thaw.”

Read the whole interview at Comic Book Resources.

Labels: Steve Lieber, whiteout

Looks like the reviews for Ottaviani and Purvis' Suspended in Language are starting to trickle in. Here's the first.

Another first review: Steven Grant gives a thumbs up to Family Reunion. And Millarworld is liking it, too. If you want a copy, visit my table at a con or paypal me a dollar. Or for two dollars, you can get Family Reunion and Me and Edith Head.

I hadn't seen this before:the transcript of a talk between Ira Glass and Chris Ware. It's in .pdf format.

Paul Guinan has created a wild photo montage/mixed media painting of Tom Strong villainesses Ingrid Weiss and the Swastika Girls. That's Mercury's own Rebecca Woods portraying Ingrid.

Weird: The IMDB message board for the Whiteout movie. It's horribly tempting to go and post a link to a download or afree preview of the entire first issue, but I'd feel like a dork. And no, I don't have any news about the movie.

The Complete Idiot's Guide seems to have made a nice debut at Amazon, hovering around 5,000 in ranking. Unfortunately, there's no way on earth to tell how many copies that actually is.

Jeff Parker's The Interman is offered again in the current Previews. Jeff has news of a great give away for retailers up at his blog. Encourage your retailer to take advantage of it.

Finally, everyone is encouraged to click to see Mercury eat and Karl Kesel cook.

Labels: Jim Ottaviani, Leland Purvis, Steve Lieber, whiteout

I've got a lot of stuff to get done before I'm off, so this'll have to do until I get back on Monday. Here's hoping this doesn't kill the great momentum we've been enjoying.

Paul Guinan has some updates on the growing fame of his Boilerplate site. If you haven't heard of Boilerplate before, start here to learn more. Paul has done us all a great service with his thorough and extensive research into the shamefully neglected history of Victorian robotics.

It's self-serving time. Laura Gjovaag has reviewed WHITEOUT and MELT on her blog. Always glad to see these books find new readers. If you're curious about WHITEOUT, go here , and read the entire first issue for free.

We were very glad to hear about this:
"Marvel Comics and artist Dave Cockrum have reached an agreement on a contract that will allow Marvel to continue to fully own the many characters Cockrum created for the company, while compensating Cockrum for his years of service and the seminal characters he created."Read the rest here.

The Cockrums still have a long way to go, with a lot of bills to pay. We encourage our readers to pick up the tribute book and watch for the benefit auction. You can see my piece for the book by clicking on the thumbnail above. David Hahn gave the auction a beautiful original page from an issue of Vertigo's Lucifer that he illustrated, and studio buddy Jeff Parker contributed an original Batgirl page and a copy of his graphic novel The Interman with a cool sketch on the title page.

Speaking of Parker, I'll be sitting next to the filthy wretch at Wizard World L.A. Stop by, mention that you saw this, and as time permits, I'll do a free quick sketch for you.

Labels: Boilerplate, Dave Cockrum, Jeff Parker, Paul Guinan, personal tragedy, whiteout