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Seduction Of The Innocent by Max Allan Collins

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Seduction Of The InnocentFantastic news!

I’ve always felt that the comic book industry would be a great background for a mystery novel, and there have been a couple, inclduing The Comic Book Killer by Richard Lupoff and Max Allan Collins’ A Killing In Comics.

Now Max is back with a new mystery from Hard Case Crime, one of my favorite mystery publishers. The book is called Seduction Of The Innocent and it’s no coincidence that it shares the title with good ol’ Fredric Wertham’s classic anti-comic screed.

Collins’ hero, Jack Starr (a comics syndicate troubleshooter - and isn’t that a great-sounding job?) investigates a murder set against the backdrop of Congressional hearings about the banning of violent crime and horror comics.

Click to continue reading Seduction Of The Innocent by Max Allan Collins


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Weekend Reading: Breyfogle, Ellis, Craven, and Spider-Man Sings!

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Reviews, Independent, Marvel Comics,

Scott Pilgrim 2I can’t believe the Spider-Man musical will hit Broadway on December 21. Are there really enough little old ladies who want to take the bus in from Long Island on a Wednesday afternoon to see an all-singing, all-dancing super-hero? That’s quite a bit different from Starlight Express and Cats, right? My prediction: It’ll close before the Tonys are announced, but then a touring version will criss-cross America for years with Jake Lloyd, Mischa Barton, Gabe Kaplan and Angela Lansbury in key roles.

Now let’s see what else is going on:

Scott Pilgrim I: Over at John Scalzi’s Whatever, guest blogger John Anderson bows down before the triumph that is Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.

Scott Pilgrim II: The Early Word takes a look at how a comic book movie adaptation might help sales of said comic and then delivers a slap to the way DC Comics handles itself. “However, those intrigued by the Green Lantern movie are unlikely to be engaged by the continuity-heavy, you-must-buy-every-single-collection tale like Blackest Night. The folks buying Blackest Night? They are already Green Lantern comics fans.”

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Breyfogle, Ellis, Craven, and Spider-Man Sings!


SNEAK PEAK: Craig Yoe & Joe Shuster & Stan Lee

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Reviews,

secreiidentity
Craig Yoe has a knack for putting out great books – the second you hear the title of one of his books, you’ve just gotta have it. From BOODY: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers (which will be published by Fantagraphics Books on March 1) to Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings which was published last October by Last Gasp, you know that Yoe is dealing with fascinating lost, forgotten or secret aspects of comic book/comic strip/cartoon history. Yoe has the gift, yo.

His latest book is Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster, and the material inside is quite a find. You can read online about the financial difficulties Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster encountered once they sold Superman to DC Comics and pursued options to get a piece of the multi-million pie their creation was soon to become. But by the 1950s, artist Shuster needed money. He took a job doing fetish illustrations – bondage, S&M, you name it - for an under-the-counter magazine called Nights Of Horror. There’s a sneak preview available online which is probably NSFW.

The whole sordid enterprise involved not just Shuster and the magazine, but a murder trial and Fredric Wertham (author of Seduction Of The Innocent). Oh, what a tangled web Yoe has uncovered! And you know you’re in good hands. Yoe’s won the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators, two Addys, the Mobius, and an Eisner Award and he’s got mad design skills as well.

The 160-page hardcover is scheduled for release on April 1 from Abrams ComicArts. Stan Lee wrote the introduction.


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