Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the 1950s. The term pulp derives from the cheap wood pulp paper. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks"; the typical pulp magazine had 128 pages. The pulps gave rise to the term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, short-fiction magazines of the 19th century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid and sensational subject matter. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps"; the first "pulp" was Frank Munsey's revamped Argosy magazine of 1896, with about 135,000 words per issue, on pulp paper with untrimmed edges, no illustrations on the cover. The steam-powered printing press had been in widespread use for some time, enabling the boom in dime novels. In six years, Argosy went from a few thousand copies per month to over half a million.
Street & Smith, a dime novel and boys' weekly publisher, was next on the market. Seeing Argosy's success, they launched The Popular Magazine in 1903, which they billed as the "biggest magazine in the world" by virtue of its being two pages longer than Argosy. Due to differences in page layout however, the magazine had less text than Argosy; the Popular Magazine did introduce color covers to pulp publishing, the magazine began to take off when in 1905 the publishers acquired the rights to serialize Ayesha, by H. Rider Haggard, a sequel to his popular novel She. Haggard's Lost World genre influenced several key pulp writers, including Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Talbot Mundy and Abraham Merritt. In 1907, the cover price rose to 15 cents and 30 pages were added to each issue. Street and Smith's next innovation was the introduction of specialized genre pulps, with each magazine focusing on a particular genre, such as detective stories, etc. At their peak of popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, the most successful pulps could sell up to one million copies per issue.
In 1934, Frank Gruber said. The most successful pulp magazines were Argosy, Blue Book and Short Stories, collectively described by some pulp historians as "The Big Four". Among the best-known other titles of this period were Amazing Stories, Black Mask, Dime Detective, Flying Aces, Horror Stories, Love Story Magazine, Marvel Tales, Oriental Stories, Planet Stories, Spicy Detective, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Weird Tales and Western Story Magazine. Although pulp magazines were an American phenomenon, there were a number of British pulp magazines published between the Edwardian era and World War II. Notable UK pulps included Pall Mall Magazine, The Novel Magazine, Cassell's Magazine, The Story-Teller, The Sovereign Magazine, Hutchinson's Adventure-Story and Hutchinson's Mystery-Story; the German fantasy magazine Der Orchideengarten had a similar format to American pulp magazines, in that it was printed on rough pulp paper and illustrated. During the Second World War paper shortages had a serious impact on pulp production, starting a steady rise in costs and the decline of the pulps.
Beginning with Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1941, pulp magazines began to switch to digest size. In 1949, Street & Smith closed most of their pulp magazines in order to move upmarket and produce slicks; the pulp format declined from rising expenses, but more due to the heavy competition from comic books and the paperback novel. In a more affluent post-war America, the price gap compared to slick magazines was far less significant. In the 1950s, men's adventure magazines began to replace the pulp; the 1957 liquidation of the American News Company the primary distributor of pulp magazines, has sometimes been taken as marking the end of the "pulp era". All of the few remaining pulp magazines are science fiction or mystery magazines now in formats similar to "digest size", such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine; the format is still in use for some lengthy serials, like the German science fiction weekly Perry Rhodan. Over the course of their evolution, there were a huge number of pulp magazine titles.
Many titles of course survived only briefly. While the most popular titles were monthly, many were bimonthly and some were quarterly; the collapse of the pulp industry changed the landscape of publishing because pulps were the single largest sales outlet for short stories. Combined with the decrease in slick magazine fiction markets, writers attempting to support themselves by creating fiction switched to novels and bo
Planetary (comics)
Planetary is an American comic book series created by writer Warren Ellis and artist John Cassaday, published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics. After an initial preview issue in September 1998, the series ran for 27 issues from April 1999 to October 2009. Planetary was previewed in issue #33 of Gen¹³ and issue #6 of C-23, both dated September 1998; the first issue of the series was cover-dated April 1999. Intended to be a 24-issue bi-monthly series, the series was on hold from 2001 to 2003 due to illness of writer Warren Ellis and other commitments by Cassaday. Laura Martin colored every issue of the series; the series recommenced in 2004 and concluded with issue #27 in October 2009. Ellis intended the focus of the book to be the superhero genre, rather than the superheroes themselves. "I wanted to do something that went deeper into the subgenre, exposed its roots and showed its branches" and stated in his proposal for the comic series: "hat if you had a hundred years of superhero history just leaking out into this young and modern superhero world of the Wildstorm Universe?
What if you could take everything old and make it new again?"Rich Kreiner described John Cassaday's artwork in The Comics Journal as being "close to the gold standard for fabulous realism in mainstream comics". Tom Underhill noted colorist Laura Martin's contribution as "every bit as compelling" as Cassaday's in his review for The Comics Journal. One of the main features of the series is the portrayal of alternate versions of many figures from popular culture, such as Godzilla, Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage; this extends to comic book characters from both DC Comics and Marvel Comics. Ellis introduced the concept of a multiverse to the series, drawing upon the mathematical concept known as the Monster group for inspiration; the multiverse is described as "a theoretical snowflake existing in 196,833 dimensional space", a reference to the visualization method used by some mathematicians when describing the Monster group. Describing themselves as "Archaeologists of the Impossible", Planetary is an organization intent on discovering the world's secret history.
Funded by the mysterious Fourth Man, the field team consists of three superhuman beings: Jakita Wagner. Planetary member Ambrose Chase was a member of the field team until he was killed, it was revealed that Ambrose Chase was still alive and had used his powers to manipulate time and suspend himself in a time distortion bubble where the effects of his mortal injuries proceeded at an slow pace. Elijah Snow and the rest of Planetary, using technology based on Randall Dowling's notes, were able to recover Ambrose Chase and save his life; the field team travel the world investigating strange phenomena - including monsters and other superhumans, unusual relics and suppressed military secrets - for both the betterment of mankind and out of sheer curiosity. The group is, first covertly and more and more opposed by a rival group of metahumans called the Four, a parallel Fantastic Four who are using the secrets of the world for personal gain; the series, spin-offs, have been collected into a number of volumes: Planetary: Volume 1: All Over the World and Other Stories Volume 2: The Fourth Man Volume 3: Leaving the 20th Century Volume 4: Spacetime Archaeology Planetary: Crossing Worlds Planetary Book One ISBN 1-4012-7166-9) Planetary Book Two ISBN 1-4012-7799-3) Absolute Planetary volume 1 Absolute Planetary volume 2 The Planetary Omnibus.
Star Wars (2015 comic book)
Star Wars is an ongoing Star Wars comic series published by Marvel Comics since January 14, 2015. Written by Jason Aaron with art by John Cassaday, it is set between the 1977 film Star Wars and its 1980 sequel, The Empire Strikes Back; the series features classic Star Wars characters Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2. It was one of three new Star Wars comics by Marvel announced in July 2014, along with Darth Vader and the limited series Princess Leia. In 2017, Jason Aaron stepped down as the comic's writer and was replaced by Kieron Gillen while the art was taken over by Salvador Larroca; the Star Wars series focuses on Luke and Han's continued conflict against the Galactic Empire with their fellow Rebel allies soon after the destruction of the first Death Star. As the series begins, Leia leads a covert rebel mission to destroy an Imperial weapons factory, attracting the attention of Darth Vader. In issues #4–5, Luke returns to Tatooine, searching Obi-Wan Kenobi's abandoned house for anything of interest regarding Obi-Wan or his father.
He fights Boba Fett but discovers Obi-Wan's journals, which Luke reads in issues #7, #15, #20 and #26-30. Issue #6 introduces Sana Starros, introduced as Han Solo's wife but confesses to have only posed as his spouse during a previous scam, she becomes a recurring character. Issues #13-14 figure into the "Vader Down" crossover with the Darth Vader comic series, issues #31-32 focus in "The Screaming Citadel" crossover with the Dr. Aphra series. Aaron said. We wanted to feel like we were hired to do the direct sequel to the original film... It's much a team book and we've got all the main players here. Luke, Leia, the droids, Darth Vader all get big moments in this first arc, that's our core cast going forward." He explained that Luke's story is a main thrust of the comic, considering where the character is at this point in the timeline, adding: This is all pretty new to him. His world has changed completely, he had this mentor for five minutes who now is dead and leaves him with all these questions about his father, about his history, where he goes from here, what’s his role in the grand scheme of things...
He's on this journey of discovery by himself, he wants to find out more about his father. Meanwhile, Darth Vader's chasing after him trying to find out who's this guy that blew up the Death Star. I like the fact that they’re kind of chasing each other, without realizing the full implication of what they’re chasing. Luke’s chasing after his dad while running away from Vader. Aaron noted that Han is in "an interesting spot at this point in the timeline... We don't know how committed he is to this Rebellion, we're in the early stages of his relationship with Leia... And of course, you know with Han his past is going to start catching up to him." Star Wars was one of three new Star Wars comics by Marvel announced in July 2014, along with Princess Leia and Darth Vader. The Star Wars comic was set to be written by Jason Aaron and illustrated by John Cassaday, released in January 2015. Several variant covers were printed for the first issue. Simone Bianchi was the guest artist for issue #7. Stuart Immonen took over as artist with issue #8 in July 2015, completing the series' second story arc through issue #12.
Star Wars on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki
Comics artist
A comics artist is a person working within the comics medium on comic strips, comic books, or graphic novels. The term may refer to any number of artists who contribute to produce a work in the comics form, from those who oversee all aspects of the work to those who contribute only a part. Within the comic strip format, it is typical for one creator to produce the whole strip. However, it is not uncommon for the writing of the strip and the drawing of the art to be carried out by two different people, a writer and an artist. In some cases, one artist might draw key figures. Many strips were the work of two people. Shortly after Frank Willard began Moon Mullins in 1923, he hired Ferd Johnson as his assistant. For decades, Johnson received no credit. Willard and Johnson traveled about Florida, Los Angeles and Mexico, drawing the strip while living in hotels and farmhouses. At its peak of popularity during the 1940s and 1950s, the strip ran in 350 newspapers. According to Johnson, he had been doing the strip solo for at least a decade before Willard's death in 1958: "They put my name on it then.
I had been doing it about 10 years before that because Willard had heart attacks and strokes and all that stuff. The minute my name went on that his name went off, 25 papers dropped the strip; that shows you that, although I had been doing it ten years, the name means a lot." With regards to the comic book format, the work can be split in many different ways. The writing and the creation of the art can be split between two people, an example being From Hell, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Eddie Campbell; the writing of a comic book story can sometimes be shared between two people, with one person writing the plot and another the script. The artistic work is subdivided on work produced for the larger comic book publishers, with four people working on the art: a penciller, an inker, a colorist and a letterer. Sometimes this combination of four artists is augmented by a breakdown artist. However, this occurs only when an artist fails to meet a deadline or when a writer, sometimes referred to as a scripter, produces breakdown art.
Breakdown art is where the story has been laid out roughly in pencils to indicate panel layouts and character positions within panels but with no details. Such roughs are sometimes referred to as "layouts." The norm of four artists is sometimes reduced to three if the penciller inks his own work being credited within the book as a penciller/inker. John Byrne and Walt Simonson are artists; that these roles are interchangeable, many artists can fulfill different roles. Stan Sakai is a regarded letterer of comic books who creates his own series, Usagi Yojimbo. Producing his autobiographical works, Eddie Campbell has created both scripts and art, plus teaming with his daughter on the coloring. On Cerebus, for the majority of the run, Dave Sim created everything except the backgrounds, which were drawn by Gerhard. Glossary of comics terminology Daily comic strip Mangaka Sunday comics Sunday strip Comic Creators at Curlie
Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics is the brand name and primary imprint of Marvel Worldwide Inc. Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, a publisher of American comic books and related media. In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Worldwide's parent company. Marvel started in 1939 the common name in the Golden Age was Timely Comics, by the early 1950s, had become known as Atlas Comics; the Marvel era began in 1961, the year that the company launched The Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and many others. The Marvel brand had been used over the years, but solidified as the company's only brand with in a couple of years. Marvel counts among its characters such well-known superheroes as Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, the Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider, the Punisher and Deadpool, such teams as the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Midnight Sons, the Defenders, the Guardians of the Galaxy, supervillains including Galactus, Doctor Doom, Ultron, Green Goblin, Red Skull, Doctor Octopus and Venom.
Most of Marvel's fictional characters operate in a single reality known as the Marvel Universe, with most locations mirroring real-life places. Pulp-magazine publisher Martin Goodman founded the company known as Marvel Comics under the name Timely Publications in 1939. Goodman, who had started with a Western pulp in 1933, was expanding into the emerging—and by already popular—new medium of comic books. Launching his new line from his existing company's offices at 330 West 42nd Street, New York City, he held the titles of editor, managing editor, business manager, with Abraham Goodman listed as publisher. Timely's first publication, Marvel Comics #1, included the first appearance of Carl Burgos' android superhero the Human Torch, the first appearances of Bill Everett's anti-hero Namor the Sub-Mariner, among other features; the issue was a great success. While its contents came from an outside packager, Inc. Timely had its own staff in place by the following year; the company's first true editor, writer-artist Joe Simon, teamed with artist Jack Kirby to create one of the first patriotically themed superheroes, Captain America, in Captain America Comics #1.
It, proved a hit, with sales of nearly one million. Goodman formed Timely Comics, Inc. beginning with comics cover-dated April 1941 or Spring 1941. While no other Timely character would achieve the success of these three characters, some notable heroes—many of which continue to appear in modern-day retcon appearances and flashbacks—include the Whizzer, Miss America, the Destroyer, the original Vision, the Angel. Timely published one of humor cartoonist Basil Wolverton's best-known features, "Powerhouse Pepper", as well as a line of children's funny-animal comics featuring characters like Super Rabbit and the duo Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal. Goodman hired his wife's cousin, Stanley Lieber, as a general office assistant in 1939; when editor Simon left the company in late 1941, Goodman made Lieber—by writing pseudonymously as "Stan Lee"—interim editor of the comics line, a position Lee kept for decades except for three years during his military service in World War II. Lee wrote extensively for Timely.
Goodman's business strategy involved having his various magazines and comic books published by a number of corporations all operating out of the same office and with the same staff. One of these shell companies through which Timely Comics was published was named Marvel Comics by at least Marvel Mystery Comics #55; as well, some comics' covers, such as All Surprise Comics #12, were labeled "A Marvel Magazine" many years before Goodman would formally adopt the name in 1961. The post-war American comic market saw superheroes falling out of fashion. Goodman's comic book line dropped them for the most part and expanded into a wider variety of genres than Timely had published, featuring horror, humor, funny animal, men's adventure-drama, giant monster and war comics, adding jungle books, romance titles and medieval adventure, Bible stories and sports. Goodman began using the globe logo of the Atlas News Company, the newsstand-distribution company he owned, on comics cover-dated November 1951 though another company, Kable News, continued to distribute his comics through the August 1952 issues.
This globe branding united a line put out by the same publisher and freelancers through 59 shell companies, from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications. Atlas, rather than innovate, took a proven route of following popular trends in television and movies—Westerns and war dramas prevailing for a time, drive-in movie monsters another time—and other comic books the EC horror line. Atlas published a plethora of children's and teen humor titles, including Dan DeCarlo's Homer the Happy Ghost and Homer Hooper. Atlas unsuccessfully attempted to revive superheroes from late 1953 to mid-1954, with the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, Captain America. Atlas did not achieve any breakout hits and, according to Stan Lee, Atlas survived chiefly because it produced work cheaply, at a passable quality; the first modern comic books under the Marvel Comics brand w
Penciller
A penciller is a collaboration artist who works in creation of comic books, graphic novels, similar visual art forms, with focus on primary pencil illustrations, hence the term "penciller". In the American comic book industry, the penciller is the first step in rendering the story in visual form, may require several steps of feedback with the writer; these artists are concerned with layout to showcase steps in the plot. A penciller works in pencil. Beyond this basic description, different artists choose to use a wide variety of different tools. While many artists use traditional wood pencils, others prefer mechanical drafting leads. Pencillers may use any lead hardness they wish, although many artists use a harder lead to make light lines for initial sketches turn to a softer lead for finishing phases of the drawing. Still other artists do their initial layouts using a light-blue colored pencil because that color tends to disappear during photocopying. Most US comic book pages are drawn oversized on large sheets of paper Bristol board.
The customary size of comic book pages in the mainstream American comics industry is 11 by 17 inches. The inker works directly over the penciller's pencil marks, though pages are inked on translucent paper, such as drafting vellum, preserving the original pencils; the artwork is photographically reduced in size during the printing process. With the advent of digital illustration programs such as Photoshop and more artwork is produced digitally, either in part or entirely. Jack KirbyFrom 1949 until his retirement, Jack Kirby worked out of a ten-foot-wide basement studio dubbed "The Dungeon" by his family; when starting with clean piece of Bristol board, he would first draw his panel lines with a T-square. Arthur AdamsArthur Adams begins drawing thumbnail layouts from the script he's given, either at home or in a public place; the thumbnails range in size from 2 inches x 3 inches to half the size of the printed comic book. He or an assistant will enlarge the thumbnails and trace them onto illustration board with a non-photo blue pencil, sometimes using a Prismacolor light-blue pencil, because it is not too waxy, erases easily.
When working on the final illustration board, he does so on a large drawing board when in his basement studio, a lapboard when sitting on his living room couch. After tracing the thumbnails, he will clarify details with another light-blue pencil, finalize the details with a Number 2 pencil, he drew the first three chapters of "Jonni Future" at twice the printed comic size, drew the fifth chapter, "The Garden of the Sklin", at a size larger than standard, in order to render more detail than usual in those stories. For a large poster image with a multitude of characters, he will go over the figure outlines with a marker in order to emphasize them, he will use photographic reference when appropriate, as when he draws things that he is not accustomed to. Because a significant portion of his income is derived from selling his original artwork, he is reluctant to learn how to produce his work digitally. Jim LeeArtist Jim Lee is known to use F lead for his pencil work. J. Scott CampbellArtist J. Scott Campbell does his pencil with a lead holder, Sanford Turquoise H lead, which he uses for its softness and darkness, for its ability to provide a "sketchy" feel, with a minimal amount of powdery lead smearing.
He uses this lead because it strikes a balance between too hard, therefore not dark enough on the page, too soft, therefore prone to smearing and crumbling. Campbell avoids its closest competitor. Campbell has used HB lead and F lead, he maintains sharpness of the lead with a Berol Turquoise sharpener, changing them every four to six months, which he finds is the duration of their grinding ability. Campbell uses a combination of Magic Rub erasers, eraser sticks, since he began to ink his work digitally, a Sakura electric eraser, he sharpens the eraser to a cornered edge in order to render fine detailed work. Travis CharestArtist Travis Charest uses 2H lead to avoid smearing, sometimes HB lead, he illustrated on regular illustration board provided by publishers, though he disliked the non-photo blue lines printed on them. By 2000, he switched to Crescent board for all his work, because it does not warp when wet, produces sharper illustrations, are more suitable for framing because they lack the non-photo blue lines.
Charest prefers not to employ preliminary sketching practices, such as layouts, thumbnails or lightboxing, in part due to impatience, in part because he enjoys the serendipitous nature in which artwork develops when produced with greater spontaneity. He prefers to use reference only when rendering objects that require a degree of real-life accuracy, such as guns, vehicles or characters of licensed properties that must resemble actors with whom they are identified, as when he illustrated the cover to Star Trek: The Next Generation: Embrace the Wolf in 2000. Adam HughesThe penciling process that artist Adam Hughes employs for his cover work is the same he uses when doing sketches for fans at conventions, with the main difference being that he does cover work in his sketchbook, before transferring the drawing to virgin art board with a lightbox, whereas he does convention drawings on 11 x 14 Strathmore bristol, as he prefers penciling on the rougher, vellum surface rather than smooth paper, preferring smoother paper only for brush inking.
He does preliminary undersketches with a lead holder, because he feels regular pencils get worn down to the nub too quickly. As he explained during a sketch demonstration at a comic book
Negative Burn
Negative Burn is a black-and-white anthology comic book published beginning in 1993 by Caliber Press, subsequently by Image Comics and Desperado Publishing. Edited by Joe Pruett, Negative Burn is noted for its eclectic range of genres, mixture of established comics veterans and new talents, promotion of creative experimentation; the first volume of Negative Burn ended with issue 50 in 1997. Revived by Image and Desperado in 2005 with two seasonal specials, Negative Burn returned to a monthly format in 2006; the first eleven issues of the new volume were published by Image. A typical issue of Negative Burn might include a number of stand-alone stories; the sketchbook featured studies, rough drawings, never-before-seen artwork by a single illustrator. Artists such as Dave Dorman, Michael William Kaluta, David Mazzucchelli, Terry Moore, P. Craig Russell, Greg Ruth, Charles Vess, Neil Gaiman have been featured in the sketchbook section. Desperado Publisher Pruett views the new incarnation of Negative Burn is a potential launching pad for new creators: "I’m offering Negative Burn as a way for a new creator to break in with us.
If a creator shows promise and potential with his/her short story contributions I might try to find them work with an established creator or title in our library of titles, such as Dalibor Talajic and Federico Dallocchio with Deadworld and Will Volley with Antoine Sharp. I believe there needs to be an outlet for new talent... and will try to do what I can to help them."Regarding Negative Burn's current sales, Pruett said "it has the advantage of being a well-known commodity from its long run in the 90’s, but then it suffers from the consistent month-to-month drop in sales, the rule of thumb in the marketplace. As long as we can break with Negative Burn I’ll keep it going."The title was scheduled to return for a third time, as a yearly, in 2009 from Desperado as a 200-page trade paperback anthology. After a November 2009 announcement that Desperado was becoming an imprint of IDW Publishing the 2009 paperback was canceled in 2010 June and was re-solicited in April 2010 to be published in June 2010 by IDW Publishing but has since been canceled..
Notable Negative Burn contributors include Brian Bolland, Alan Moore, P. Craig Russell, Dave Johnson, Dave Gibbons, Evan Dorkin, Phil Hester, Arthur Adams, Edvin Biuković, Bob Burden, Zander Cannon, Mark Chiarello, Guy Davis, Michael Gaydos, Dean Haspiel, Darko Macan, Mike Wieringo, Terry Moore, Brian Michael Bendis, Josh Neufeld, Ron Kasman, Patton Oswalt, Paul Pope, Jim Mahfood, Roxanne Starr, Mike Perkins and Tony Harris. Negative Burn has been nominated for over twenty comics industry awards, including the Harvey Award, the Eisner Award, the Eagle Award, the Don Thompson Award, many others. In addition, the collection Negative Burn: The Best from 1993-1998 was named by Diamond Comic Distributors' Scoop e-newsletter as a Top Ten Trade Paperback of 2005; the Best of Negative Burn, Year One The Best of Negative Burn, Year Two Negative Burn: The Best from 1993-1998 Negative Burn at Caliber website Negative Burn contributor checklist
