The Summer of Scott Pilgrim

Back when I was first talking to Bryan Lee O’Malley about his upcoming “Scott Pilgrim” book series in 2004, neither of us ever imagined what a huge sensation it would become. International best-seller, lauded by critics and media outlets, a cultural touchstone for an entire generation of slacker hipsters. Even with all that’s come before, though, summer 2010 will be remembered as the summer of Scott Pilgrim. It all starts next week with the release of the sixth and final volume in the series, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, wherein all questions will be answered, all plot threads tied up, and we’ll all have to move on to something else. A mere three weeks later sees the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game on the Playstation Network. The 16-bit River City Ransom homage sports squeal-worthy art direction by acclaimed animator Paul Robertson and an original soundtrack by Brooklyn’s own chiptune power group Anamanaguchi. Fandom is sure to reach an all time high, though, with the August 13th release of the major motion picture adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, directed by Shaun of the Dead‘s Edgar Wright and starring a cavalcade of hip young actors from everything cool in the past decade.

Intense new seasons of cutting-edge TV drama

The two most-talked about season finales last year were those from Dexter and Mad Men. One season ended with a small core team of the characters quitting their jobs, stealing everything they could from their old office and setting up their brand new agency in a tiny apartment, the other ended with the protagonist stopping the world’s most successful serial killer only to find his wife as the killer’s final victim and himself with no alibi (see if you can guess which show was which). Dexter and Mad Men were both already among the most popular and celebrated shows on television, but the status quo-changing finales last year served as fantastic set-ups for what are absolutely certain to be fresh and exciting new seasons. The characters are all forced into wholly new situations (starting a new business from the ground-up, divorce, single parenthood, suspicion of murder), the intensity be positively rife.

New albums from the biggest names in indie-rock

2010′s already been pretty great for music. We’ve seen long-awaited returns from the likes of Gorillaz, Gil Scott-Heron, and Devo, powerful returns from Los Campesinos!, LCD Soundsystem, and Xiu Xiu, and stellar debuts from the Drums, Fang Island, and Sleigh Bells. Fantastic as all that has been, there’s the very good chance all of that may be forgotten when the tidal wave of summer and fall releases hit, including new albums from the Books, Menomena, Arcade Fire (whose The Suburbs is seen at right), Chromeo, !!!, Klaxons, Eels, Interpol, The Thermals, Les Savy Fav, Röyksopp, The Walkmen, Of Montreal, No Age, Ben Folds, and Antony & the Johnsons. If there’s not a band in that list that gets you excited and tingly then you probably aren’t hip enough to be targeted by national advertising campaigns for your valuable interest. Plainly stated, that’s a pretty epic lineup of album releases. Here’s hoping most of them don’t suck!

1 – Never Fear Sequelitis!

Usually seeing the number “2″ in a movie title is cause for concern, but Marvel’s movies have shone in their second outings. X-Men 2 (or X2) was by far the best X-Men movie to date, and is still considered by many to be the best superhero movie of all time. Spider-Man 2, Blade 2 and The Incredible Hulk (sequel to 2003′s Hulk) were all arguably the best in their respective film franchises. Free of the necessity or origins and backstories of the first films, these sequels no longer struggled finding their voices (I’m looking at you Spider-Man and Hulk), and had yet to succumb to turns for the ridiculous and laughable (X-Men: The Last Stand and Spider-Man 3).

2 – It Starts With Super Production Art

When it came time to actually block out what the huge action sequences in Iron Man 2 would look like cinematically, director Jon Favreau hired a modern legend to handle to storyboarding duties: Genndy Tartakovsky. Creator of Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack, art director on The Powerpuff Girls and Emmy-award winning director of the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated shorts from 2003, Tartakovsky is the unrivaled master of elegant animated action. On Tartakovsky, Favreau said:

“I really dig his sense of humor and his sense of rhythm, and the way that he acknowledges the same cinematic masters that I really love the work of, like (Akira) Kurosawa and (Sergio) Leone…I feel like I’m really learning a lot from collaborating with this guy.”

3 – …And The Ever-Expanding Universe

It’s no secret that Marvel is milking their properties for all they’re worth these days, but the end results have been pretty damn good ever since Marvel took those projects internal rather than licensing them out to the likes of 20th Century Fox and New Line Cinema. The first Iron Man hinted at the possibilities of a then-rumored Avengers team film. Iron Man 2 drops not-so-subtle hints at the comings of both Captain America and the mighty Thor, both of whom have films scheduled for release next summer with the Avengers movie teaming all of these heroes together the following year. Marvel is already betting on their next three films in this one, and who can blame them with a guaranteed hit on their hands?

Oni’s announcement included original artwork by Parker Jacobs, Julia Vickerman, Matthew Loux, Dave McCaig, Vicente Navarrete and Shawn Crystal. No formal announcements yet about who else will be involved in the anthology, but I think one safe bet would be Chris Eliopoulos, the adorable illustrator with all-ages books coming out soon from both Simon & Schuster and Top Shelf who also directed some animated segments for YGG! last season. Check out his Brobee at right. Cute as a button!

Another easy bet would be the team of Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer, who designed the Super Martian Robot Girl animated segments for the Yo Gabba Gabba! tv show and are frequent contributors to alternative comic anthologies like DC’s Bizzaro and Marvel’s Strange Tales. While we’re at it, it’s hard to imagine an all-ages comic anthology coming out right now without the work of Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier, the power-couple of all-ages comics. Roman himself was comics editor at Nickelodeon for a decade, so his knowledge of Gabbaland is likely intimate*.

Oni’s Director of Sales and Marketing and all-around Hip Dude Cory Casoni said “The first anthology is absolutely something you can read to your kids… You should watch the show even if you don’t have kids, this show is fantastic.” Yo Gabba Gabba! Story Comic Book Time Vol. 1, the first of what Oni promises to be many volumes**, is expected in bookstores this Fall.

* – In truth, it was Dave & Raina who first informed me about Yo Gabba Gabba! long before it was picked up by Nickelodeon. They are both huge fans of the band The Aquabats, whose lead singer Christian Jacobs is one of the show’s co-creators and also voices Plex, the show’s yellow magic robot character.

** – I already have more Oni-published books on my bookshelf than any other publisher, including non-comics, so this could start to cause a problem for me. Or not, you know, whatever.

In recent years, Marvel Comics has tried to solve this problem with more graphic trade dresses that speak to the book store demographic, most notably with major crossover events like “Civil War” and “X-Men: Messiah Complex” (see examples below). The problem here was that, when all of the issues of a single Captain America or X-Men comic book for a year were laid out, the crossover issues stood out like sore thumbs and looked nothing like the regular monthly issues of the books. The recent “Stark: Disassembled” arc of Invincible Iron Man has demonstrated spectacular design simplicity with duotoned graphics and clean Futura type, but again these stand in contrast with the other generic covers of the same series (as seen above). How does one make these “events” and storylines stand out in their trade dressings without disrupting the visual flow of the series?

Crossover covers for New Avengers and Uncanny X-Men are more sparse and restrained. Standard issues are louder and prominently feature violence and breasts.

'Rise and Fall' tie-in issues and unbranded issues of Green Arrow and Justice League of America

In order to brand the books tied in to “Rise and Fall,” Muller designed both a logotype and an incredibly basic ornament for the trade dress, a monochromatic three-layered tear along the left and top edges of the cover. The books involved in “Rise and Fall” are clearly connected by the similar elements, but the illustrative style and logos of the regular monthly issues are maintained as well, meaning these issues won’t stand out as markedly when held side-by-side with other issues of the same books. Fans of the crossover are happy and fans who only read Justice League and not Green Arrow are happy.

Will these issues still stand out because of their trade dress? Almost certainly, but nowhere near as badly as “Civil War” and “Messiah Complex” which look like entirely different books. Maybe I’m obsessing over nothing, but just look at the Fantastic Four issues below. Yes, the “Civil War” cover looks great, but it stands out to the point of making all other issues seem mundane, and that is a serious design problem.

Let’s back up a moment and explain how we got here…

At the dawn of the new millennium, Marvel Comics was just entering the whole “hollywood summer blockbuster” game and decided their comics had become way too complicated and bogged down decades of continuity for new readers who enjoyed the movies. Their solution was the Ultimate universe, which relaunched Marvel continuity in modern times from scratch. Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and most of the X-Men were teenagers coping with their powers for the first time, and for a while these were acclaimed as the best books Marvel was putting out. Nearly ten years later, though, even those books had become weighed down with their own complicated storylines and the relaunch needed to be relaunched. A 2009 storyline called Ultimatum had X-Men villain Magneto summon massive tidal waves to level the eastern seaboard, crushing large chunks of New York City and killing most of its heroes in the process.

Johnny, Peter and Bobby are all surprised when Aunt May tells them to go out and be superheroes.

At the start of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Manhattan is reopening after six months of rebuilding (clearly a work of fiction, as the real Manhattan hasn’t even started building a new World Trade Center eight years after that terrorist attack). News reports on Spidey’s heroic rescue efforts during the Ultimatum attack have recast him in the public’s eyes as a true hero. Anti-mutant sentiment has escalated, causing Kitty Pryde to be harassed even more during school hours, and it doesn’t help that the destruction has led to overcrowding at the few schools still standing. Former X-Man Bobby Drake – the Iceman – has been kicked out by his parents. Peter’s Aunt May, coming to terms with her nephew’s superheroics and feeling the need to contribute in whatever way she can, opens her home and her kitchen to Bobby, along with Johnny Storm – the Fantastic Four’s newly-orphaned Human Torch.

Oh yeah, and Peter is dating his non-superpowered roommate Gwen Stacy, but it’s not the real Gwen Stacy because she was killed by a mindless clone of Peter Parker trying to reabsorb his memories. This Gwen Stacy is a clone of that failed Peter Parker clone with all of Gwen’s memories intact after all the evil clone bits are absorbed by Venom, who pretty much hasn’t been heard from since. Sooo… it’s basically like Gwen Stacy never died and they don’t really talk about it. Comic books…

My favorite parts of the previous Ultimate Spider-Man were the domestic issues with Peter and the rest of the supporting cast. The final few storylines that were far more superhero-centric tended to try my patience, so I’m really enjoying how this new book has so far focused far more on the cast’s private life interactions with timely asides for costumed action.

The old Betty/Veronica situation. If Archie was ever as likable as Peter Parker, I might've enjoyed those books too.

Bendis’s scripts are as tight and character-perfect as ever with the teen drama, which always surprises me as he is most well-known for his gritty crime-driven comics, and as much as I really enjoyed Bagley and Immomen’s art in the previous series, I much prefer David Lafuente’s work here. In costume, Spider-Man actually looks like a kid with his big head, tiny chest and lanky arms. Bobby has baby fat to counter Johnny’s movie-star good looks, Mary Jane’s new glasses make her look like a cute A/V nerd and Gwen’s angled features and heavy makeup plays up her punky counter-culture vibe without resorting to studded leather.

While Ultimate Spider-Man was often little more than a clever update of classic Spidey stories, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man is affording Bendis the opportunity to tell stories that never could have been possible in the proper Spider-Man books. Does the editor of the school newspaper know that reporter Mary-Jane is Spidey’s best friend? How does Kitty Pryde feel about her ex-boyfriend Bobby living with ex-boyfriend Peter? What happens when the Human Torch plays truth or dare with Gwen (youknowit’sgoingtohappen!)? How long until the cops turn on Spidey and what happens Spidey’s former flame and wanted criminal Black Cat comes back to town? All this (purely conjecture) and more in coming issues of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man!

The first two Ultimate Avengers features were an insult to their source material. The Invincible Iron Man was better, but still a convoluted mess, and I’ve been sitting on a shrinkwrapped copy of Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow for over a year. I’d all but given up on the line, but I can’t help being excited for next week’s release of Planet Hulk. For one, this feature is based on quite possibly my favorite superhero story of the past decade. Also, hell, just check out some sweet footage:

First, the trailer shown off at San Diego Comic-Con last summer:

So the basic setup is this: Hulk smash, right? That’s what Hulk do. Hulk’s friends (Iron Man, Dr Strange, Black Bolt, Professor Xavier, Reed Richards and Namor) decide that for the safety of both the Earth and Hulk, it would be best to exile Hulk to an uninhabited planet where he can’t, well, smash anyone. Hulk gets pissed, as Hulk is wont to do, and smashes the ship, veering off-course to an entirely different planet. Getting kind of rad, right? Just a bit? How about this sweet scene of Hulk’s arrival to the strange planet of Sakaar and his not-so-friendly welcoming committee:

(If this video embed doesn’t work for you, click on it to watch on MTV’s site, it’s a bit moody)

This is where Planet Hulk becomes less traditional superhero soap opera and more escapist sci-fi/fantasy. The barbaric planet throws Hulk into gladiatorial battle, wherein we meet a surprisingly deep cast of characters stuck fighting against and beside Hulk for their freedom:

Oh, but that’s only the beginning. Then we get into whether Hulk is the prophesied savior of Sakaar and other non-smashable problems. Ooh, it’s a good fantasy story.

Like I said above, Planet Hulk hits shelves in Blu-Ray and DVD formats next tuesday. I think I may be back on board with Marvel for this one.

Over the past few years, I’ve become convinced that Doug TenNapel is one of the most enviably original dudes in the history of mankind. The man has been the creative voice behind some of the most original animation (Catscratch), graphic novels (Creature Tech), films (Sockbaby. Watch it. You will love it.), and video games (The Neverhood) in recent history. He won an Eisner Award (the top honors for comic book creators) for his work on Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror!

But his most famous creation is the quirklicious Earthworm Jim. He designed the characters, wrote the story, even voiced Jim himself in the first two games. In the past two years, more or less since the disintegration of the Earthworm Jim PSP remake, Doug’s disappeared from the world of games.

So where’s he been? Well, excitement abounds, as it was recently announced that Earthworm Jim 4 is in development, alongside a new animated series and feature film, all with the brilliant TenNapel at the helm.

There’s still not much info about when or what to expect in Earthworm Jim 4, but just to get you pumped, check out this sweet look back at the original by the whacked-out dudes from Screw Attack: