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Comics

What Your Favorite Comic Says About You

By Emily Temple on

Yesterday, at long last, the paperback edition of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes hit stores. As far as we can tell, there is a certain kind of person who really goes gaga for Calvin and Hobbes — the person who as a kid loved to tromp through the forest all day and come home to read on the couch with a fat hot chocolate at night, who maybe saw things a little differently than those pesky grownups — and that got us to thinking. While being into comics already gets you into the first stage of nerdery, the stories the form brings us range from the serious to the goofball, the superhero to the realist, so there’s no real way to lump comic fans all together. So what does your favorite comic (or graphic novel, just to be inclusive) say about you? Find out after the jump — and let us know if we’ve hit the nail on the head or if you’re plotting our demise in the comments. … Read More

Pop Culture

The Most Incredible Costumes from New York Comic Con

By Doug Levy on

Halloween may still be a few weeks away, but if you were anywhere in the vicinity of New York’s Javits Convention Center this weekend, you’d be forgiven for thinking it came early. With the annual return of the New York Comic Con, midtown Manhattan’s west side was swamped with comic book, sci-fi, and fantasy fans — over 100,000 of them over the course of the event’s four-day run. Among those multitudes was a significant contingent proudly decked out in costume, representing characters from just about every genre, medium, and realm imaginable. The best of the best earned themselves a place in our exclusive NYCC 2012 photo gallery. And hey, Halloween really is still a few weeks way, so if you’re looking for inspiration, look no… Read More

Television

Comic Book Characters Who Should Have Their Own TV Show

By Michelle Rafferty on

After five seasons on Smallville, DC’s Green Arrow returns to the CW tomorrow night, this time with his own series and a brand new pair of abs. If the hooded vigilante hits the mark (sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves), Arrow would be one on a short list of successful TV superhero programs in recent years. Not too long ago AV Club did a nice piece on why networks can’t get the genre right, making the good point that it’s not the ”powers” part that matters most, but human story that expands beyond them. Arrow doesn’t technically doesn’t have powers, so he’s already off to a good start. And since TV is only getting better at grand, humanity-exploring serials, it stands to reason that there could be any number of successful superhero programs in the future. Which leads us to the big question: If you could choose any comic book character to get their own series, who would it be?! We turned to some experts in the field for their thoughts, and of course invite you to add your own to this impressively diverse wish-list in the comments. … Read More

Art

An Alliterative Apocryphal Alphabet to Dazzle and Delight You

By Emily Temple on

If you’re looking for a way to teach your child the alphabet, we do not suggest Nathan O. Marsh’s Alphabet Apocrypha. However, if you’re someone who thrills at wordplay or enjoys clever comics overflowing with devilish detail, we couldn’t recommend anything better. Marsh’s in-progress alphabet/web comic, which we spotted over at io9, is a brilliant and sometimes poignant satire of — you guessed it — traditional children’s alphabet books, and like many satires, it is much, much more fun than the original. After all, why have bouncing baby bunnies when you could have bastard badgers and butt biting barracudas over on breakneck bluff? That’s what we thought. Click through to see a few of our favorites (so far), and then be sure to head on over to Marsh’s website to see more, peruse close-ups, and even buy your very own prints. … Read More

Art

Preview Adrian Tomine’s ‘New York Drawings’

By Emily Temple on

In Adrian Tomine’s New York, strangers in two passing subway cars connect, or next door neighbors bashfully turn away from each other, children gaze wistfully at the cityscape or cautiously at its streets, people are all alone, yet inevitably, irrepressibly connected. Tomine’s New York Drawings, which hits bookstores early next week, collects a decade of illustrations, sketches, drawings and, perhaps most recognizably, covers of The New Yorker in a beautiful single volume. We’ve picked out a few of our favorite illustrations (the first slide is this writer’s favorite cover of The New Yorker, bar none) after the jump. Click through to get just a taste of this great book, and if you happen to be in New York next week, you might consider stopping by to see the artist on October 2nd at McNally Jackson – otherwise, catch him at another stop on his tour. … Read More

Partner Buzz

The Greatest, Craziest Time Travelers in Pop Culture

By Doug Levy on

There are few notions as compelling as the idea of time travel. Whether it’s the chance to make good on a past mistake, the opportunity to change the course of history, or the possibility of witnessing the far-flung future, moving through time has always held a particular fascination for the more imaginative folks among us. That’s why it’s not hard to envision the idea of a person getting a little too obsessed with the notion — and maybe going a bit bonkers in the process.

In the new film Safety Not Guaranteed, indie fave Mark Duplass (Humpday, The League) plays a man looking for a time-traveling companion via a classified ad in Backwoods magazine. Parks & Recreation‘s Aubrey Plaza is the woman who responds, as part of a journalist’s attempt to see just how crazy this guy is. But is he really nuts or is there something more to the story? Watch the trailer after the jump and decide for yourself, then join us for a look at some of our other favorite chronally challenged figures in pop culture, from an overstimulated boy and his tiger to a murderous cyborg with the face of a governor. … Read More

Comics

A Collection of Incredibly Gorgeous Comic Book Art

By Emily Temple on

This week saw the release of Batman: Death by Design, a much-anticipated collaboration between graphic designer and author Chip Kidd and illustrator Dave Taylor that is being hailed everywhere for its gorgeous art (which as far as we’re concerned, totally makes up for the slightly weak story). Inspired by this new interpretation of a ubiquitous and oft-recreated figure, we put together a small collection of some of the most beautiful comic book art in recent memory, both covers and interior work, for your perusal. Click through to feast your eyes on a few gorgeous comics, and make sure to point us to your favorite graphic beauties in the comments. … Read More

Books

Play Haruki Murakami Bingo on this Gorgeous Bingo Board

By Emily Temple on

We don’t usually go in for bingo unless we’re hanging out with our grandmothers (in which case, it’s the best), but we must say that this awesome Haruki Murakami themed bingo board, drawn by Grant Snider over at Incidental Comics, would have us pulling out the chips — not to mention re-reading the entire Murakami canon. Snider, who writes that he has read all of Murakami’s twelve novels and three short story collections, as well as his memoir, is totally spot on with his choices (cats, so many cats) and looking at this comic is giving us wonderfully Murakami-esque deja vu feelings. If you’re a cut-and-paste kind of person, Snider’s comic will appear in print today in the New York Times Book Review, and for true fan boys and girls, it’s also available as a poster. … Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds in Our Office

By Alison Nastasi on

Today at Flavorpill, we found out what as seen on TV products actually work. We felt Kathie Lee Gifford’s mortifying embarrassment. We enjoyed Neil Patrick Harris’ Tony Awards promos. We adored this artist’s comic strips about failed mobile apps. We got to know Mrs. Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan. We gave a… Read More

Television

AMC Developing Another Comic by ‘Walking Dead’ Author Robert Kirkman

By Judy Berman on

Despite its inconsistent quality, The Walking Dead has been a huge hit for AMC. To put its success in perspective, nine million people watched last month’s Season 2 finale — nearly three times as many as tuned in for Mad Men‘s much-hyped Season 5 premiere. So it makes sense that the network is pursuing a… Read More