Hard to believe, but it’s been two years since we last interviewed Matt Sturges. In this episode, we play catch-up becayse Matt’s been up to a whole lot of stuff since 2009. We discuss the finale to Jack of Fables, writing House of Mystery for Vertigo and Doctor Who for IDW.
We yammer about digital comics, the DC Reboot and Matt’s early geekery.
Plus in an Ideology of Madness/Funnybooks exclusive, Matt reveals his… wait… you’ll have to listen for that.
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Last week in Funnybooks, we talked about the books we’re supposed to like, but don’t. The title I referenced is Y: The Last Man. Despite my deep admiration for Brian K. Vaughan’s writing and Pia Guerra’s pencils, I just didn’t dig it. But many, many others have! I mean, c’mon, it won an Eisner Award.
“…A compelling series” – Booklist
“A gift to the comic book world!” - Ain’t It Cool News
“…Damn perfect.” - Brad Meltzer
I tried to like it. I did! Y just wasn’t to my taste. My loss, though is your gain! I’m giving away my previously read, first three volumes of Y: The Last Man.
The Deets:
To qualify, just tell us in the comments which comic everyone tells you you’re supposed to like, but you just can’t abide.
One entry per person, please.
One winner will be chosen at random.
Items will only be shipped within the United States.
You must be 18 years or older to enter.
Contest ends Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 1:00 am Central time. The winner will be announced on episode 70 of Funnybooks with Aron and Paulie.
Local Heroes Comics in Norfolk, Virginia will be featuring acclaimed comic writer Jason Aaron (Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Scalped, and Punisher) will be signing autographs on February 20th from 3-6pm! I’ll definitely be there…will you? Directions can be found at their official site.
Oh, and to help encourage you to catch up on your Jason Aaron goodness, they’re offering a pretty sweet deal:
Tom Taylor had a life that was screwed from go. His father created the Tommy Taylor fantasy series, boy-wizard novels with popularity on par with Harry Potter. The problem is Dad modeled the fictional epic so closely to Tom’s real life that fans are constantly comparing him to his counterpart, turning him into the lamest variety of Z-level celebrity. In the final novel, it’s even implied that the fictional Tommy will crossover into the real world, giving delusional fans more excuses to harass Tom.
When an enormous scandal reveals that Tom might really be a boy-wizard made flesh, Tom comes into contact with a very mysterious, very deadly group that’s secretly kept tabs on him all his life. Now, to protect his own life and discover the truth behind his origins, Tom will travel the world, eventually finding himself at locations all featured on a very special map — one kept by the deadly group that charts places throughout world history where fictions have impacted and tangibly shaped reality, those stories ranging from famous literary works to folktales to pop culture. And in the process of figuring out what it all means, Tom will find himself having to figure out a huge conspiracy mystery that spans the entirety of the history of fiction.
Mike Carey and Peter Gross (Lucifer) teamed up to create one of 2009′s most critically-acclaimed and inventive titles, The Unwritten. Because we love this title so much, to celebrate the release of the first trade paperback, Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity, and we’re giving away THREE copies! The book collects the first five issues of the series, and will no doubt get you hooked one of the most imaginative new titles in modern comics! Trust me … you’ll be hooked before the end of the first issue, especially if you’re an adult fan of a certain boy-wizard!
How do you enter? Simple! Tell us (in the talkback section) about your favorite childhood fantasy story! I’ll start off by saying the book that I loved the most growing up was The Book of Three, the first of Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain (the second of which was The Black Cauldron). I spent an entire year of elementary school borrowing the book from the school library over and over so I could read it as many times as possible!
Here’s the deets:
Again, all you gotta do is tell us about your favorite childhood story.
One entry per person, please.
Three winners will be chosen at random.
Items will only be shipped within the United States.
You must be 18 years or older to enter. Despite the Harry Potter references, The Unwritten is a mature readers book.
Contest ends Friday, February 5, 2009 at 11:59 pm Central time.
And don’t forget this isn’t the only contest we have going on! We’ve also got our Indy Comics Week Sampler contest going on until January 22nd!
Hey everyone! This post will be at the top of the page through Tuesday scroll down for the latest updates!
This week Jonathan Landreth, co-host of podcast Kicked in the Dicebags, joins us in chatting about his relapse into comics, the week’s books, and all kinds of other assorted goodness.
Don’t forget about our contest for 100 comics that may or may not suck!
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Kicking off our series of New Comic Book Day interviews, we bring you DC Comics writer Matt Sturges. Author of such titles as Final Crisis Aftermath: Run!, House of Mystery, Jack of Fables, Justice Society of America (with Bill Willingham) and the upcoming JSA: All-Stars, Sturges spoke with us about his current and upcoming projects inclusive of hints regarding his All-Stars storyline, wussy elves, and even offers a special message to Geoff Johns.
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Absolutely LOVE the cover.
I’ve really been looking forward to Vertigo Crime. See, even though I’ve never read 100 Bullets, which I hear is the ultimate example of the genre, I love crime comics. I especially loved the recent Darwyn Cooke graphic novel from IDW, Parker: The Hunter, which put me in the mood for more new comic crime fiction.
DC’s Vertigo Crime line is, well, exactly like it sounds – a line of crime graphic novels released by DC’s mature readers imprint, Vertigo. The line began last week with the release of two books, Filthy Rich (Written by Brian Azzarello; Art by Victor Santos) and Dark Entries (Written by Ian Rankin; Art by Werther Dell’Edera). I wanted to pick up both, but decided to go ahead and just start with Dark Entries, since it had the plot line that most intrigued me:
Occult detective John Constantine has seen his share of strange things in his career, but nothing could prepare him for the horrors of…reality television. “Haunted Mansion” is currently the hottest show on tv, but when the macabre house actually starts attacking the contestants, Constantine is hired to be the ultimate mole. Locked inside with a cast of wannabe-celebrities, his every move being monitored by a deadly figure from his past, Constantine must figure out who (or what) is pulling the strings before he gets cancelled—permanently.
Before I go into spoiler territory, if you want to know the long and short of it – when it comes to a good mystery, the story is made or broken by the twist. You can enjoy the journey as much as you want, but if the twist upon which the story rests isn’t worth the journey, then the story just isn’t worth it. I can name dozens of movies off the top of my head where the twist wasn’t worth the journey, my primary example being Identity starring John Cusack. Absolutely LOVED the first half of that film, but when the twist is revealed, it killed the entire thing for me. Dark Entries does the same thing. Spoilers after the jump.
The Nobody, from Vertigo Comics
I know Vertigo Comics has always kind of been on the radar for comic fans looking for stuff a little out of the ordinary. I mean, we’re talking about the publisher that released the revolutionary Preacher, 100 Bullets, Sandman, Fables, and many more. Still, it’s been a while since Vertigo has seen a big runaway hit. Critically-acclaimed, sure. But runaway hits in sales? Not so much. There have been many titles being touted as “the next Preacher,” but none have quite been up that caliber.
Still, Vertigo has been doing some big things lately, including starting up some new series (with $1 introductory issues), and advertising the hell out of their comics and, perhaps best of all, giving away the first issues of some of their most critically-acclaimed titles on their website, www.vertigocomics.com (including 100 Bullets, Lucifer, Preacher, The Books of Magic, and more). They’ve also started up a new line of crime comics, Vertigo Crime, that begins next month with the excellent looking graphic novel Dark Entries.
I’ve picked up two of Vertigo’s new titles, Greek Street and The Unwritten, both with $1 introductory issues. Continue reading for my thoughts on these exciting new titles!
I was once told that most good stories begin with the phrase “To be honest, I didn’t think things through.” Once properly placed within the narrative there is a good chance that the phrase “and that’s when things went south,” will be the lead up to the climax of the story and reveal where everything went wrong.
Why are you explaining this to us, Rich? Well, I am glad that you asked. You see, when I was talking to Aron about getting back into comics after a long break, I offered to write something for Ideology of Madness. After spending some time trying to figure out just what exactly I was going to write about, I remembered this axiom. When I volunteered I had nothing but my past experiences with comics to relate to you, dear readers. But writing about New Mutants #98 or Pirate Corp$ #1 isn’t exactly timely. To be honest, I didn’t think things though.
I wanted to write about looking for comics that were compelling in their story as well as hold that sense of amazement that they did when I was a child. So I went to my FLCS and tried to find a comic that was not only good literature, but had characters that were larger than life, beautiful art work, and a strong and believable world. I found 100 Bullets. And that’s when things went south. Read the rest of this entry »