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Let's check in with the sale of one of Charles M. Schulz's houses, shall we? The house is one that Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, lived in during the 1970s; he bought it back in 1973 for around $250,000.
Some of details original to when Mr. Schulz lived in the Montecito Heights-area house are still present in the home, like the chapel where he married second wife Jeannie Clyde in Sept. 1973.
(He purchased the home from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa shortly after divorcing his first wife, Joyce, with whom he had five children.) The book, Schulz and Peanuts, A Biography says that Schulz converted the chapel into what he called a "combination gym and family room."
Located just a few miles from Santa Rosa and the Charles M. Schulz Museum, the 7,230-square-foot home, which was built in 1949 and is located at 3699 Montecito Avenue, "is on a park-like, gated setting that has hilltop and city views. It sports four bedrooms, including the main- and second-floor master suites; five full baths plus a powder room; an in-ground pool; and a cabana with changing rooms and showers."
Click to continue reading Charles Schulz Real Estate Update
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Weekend Reading: Halloween, Stan Lee, and The Walking Dead
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Reviews, Television, DC Comics, Image Comics, Independent, Marvel Comics,
Happy Halloween to all of you!
My costume this year is simple - I’m going to walk around with my iPad and call myself The Future Of Comics. Which, I admit, is something I do pretty much every day.
First off, congratulations to my pals at Boom! Studios and their sales on Stan Lee’s Soldier Zero #1. And kudos to Boom for sharing their actual numbers.
And if you’d like a 10-page freeview of the November release of Stan Lee’s The Traveler #1 by Mark Waid and Chris Hardin, Scoop has that for you too.
Let’s see what else is out on the internets...
Zombies: Pop culture historian Jim Beard writes about the Walking Dead phenomenon that will soon be sweeping the nation thanks to the new AMC TV series.
Beard, by the way, is the editor of a new anthology that looks back at the Batman TV series of the 1960s, Gotham City: 14 Miles.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Halloween, Stan Lee, and The Walking Dead
Martin Powell: Moonbeam Golden Award Winner
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Independent,
Congratulations to my old pal Martin Powell. His graphic novel, The Tall Tale of Paul Bunyan won the Gold Medal in the 2010 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards in the Comics and Graphic Novels category.
I’ve known Martin since the go-go 1990s when Malibu Comics published his Sherlock Holmes comics, Scarlet In Gaslight and A Case of Blind Fear, among others (usually with artist Seppo Makinen). With artist Patrick Olliffe, Martin also adapted Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a book that’s well worth seeking out.
The Tall Tale of Paul Bunyan, written by Powell, was illustrated by Aaron Blecha, and published by Stone Arch Books.
[Artwork: The Tall Tale of Paul Bunyan]
Read More 
| Aaron Blecha
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I've been reading that Nipper, the first collection of Doug Wright's cartoons, is out from Drawn & Quarterly and already getting some nice notice.
Nipper's a "mischievous little kid" who appeared in newspapers across the country in the mid 20th century." D&Q's Nipper 1963-64 is the first of what the publisher plans as a long-running series of books collecting Wright's classic.
There's a preview of it (pdf) at the D&Q website that offers a nice taste of Wright.
Click to continue reading Doug Wright’s Nipper Vs. Amazon
Read More | Calgary Herald
Groo And My Favorite Comic Book Store
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Reviews, Independent,
You might think that my favorite place to buy back issues would be my local comic shop, or maybe haunting eBay or perhaps running to a comic book convention, want list in hand.
You’d be wrong.
One of my favorite places to find oddball comics is a thrift shop – you know the kind I mean, the ones with old clothes, chipped glassware and broken Betamaxes. The kind of thrift shop that’s usually run by the Goodwill or the Salvation Army or a local charity organization.
The DNA of antique dealers runs through my veins, straight from my maternal grandfather and on down to me. So as a kid, our family field trips were often to estate sales, drafty auction houses, flea markets and, of course thrift shops. My reward was that sometimes I’d find comics. I once won a box lot of 50 or so good-condition Silver Age DC’s for $10.00, so the rewards were often very nice.
When you’re poking through a thrift shop the condition of whatever comics you find might be too worn for a comic book store to bother with, and a lot of them may be multiple copies of Darker Image #1, but that only makes finding the nugget of gold all the sweeter.
Click to continue reading Groo And My Favorite Comic Book Store
Weekend Reading: Wonder Woman, Alex Toth, NYCC and Star Wars
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Interviews, Reviews, DC Comics, Independent, Marvel Comics,
Doesn’t everyone who’s not there wish they were at the New York Comic Con this weekend? Or is it just me?
Big announcements all across the board. Marvel and DC are cutting prices which won’t boost sales enough for the Big Two to make the same amount of money. But it’s good news for non-Big Two publishers who can try to tap into the money customers are saving and steer it their way. I’m looking at you Boom!, Dynamite, Moonstone and IDW.
DC’s also cutting the story count down to 20 pages. Since there aren’t that many paid ads anymore, anyone want to wager on when the $2.99 printed comics go from 32 pages down to 24 to further reduce costs?
And in the wake of his supervisor stepping down, Bob Wayne‘s been given a promotion and stays in New York. Well played.
At Project Child Murdering Robot, Ricky Sprague has some thoughts about the new Wonder Woman TV series in development by David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal; Boston Legal). His advice: “Please don’t shy away from her glorious bondage past.”
Toasting Toth: Who doesn’t love Alex Toth? John Kricfalusi posts panels from a really nice story and breaks down his love for it.
Toth II: Daniel Best at 20th Century Danny Boy has some great information of Alex Toth and the artist’s time in Australia. Bonus: lots of Toth artwork.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Wonder Woman, Alex Toth, NYCC and Star Wars
Steve Rude has been having some financial difficulties. His story has been all over the internets, but in the event that some of you people (gasp) don’t read Tom Spurgeon’s The Comics Reporter or Heidi MacDonald’s The Beat or Robot 6, I’m directing you to Tom’s story.
The Dude’s been auctioning off some of his sweet, sweet Nexus original art on eBay to cover his debt and give him a shot at keeping his home from foreclosure. The prices are nice, but more importantly, this is going to a good cause. Nexus, written by Mike Baron and illustrated by The Dude, was one of the big independent creator-owned comic books to succeed in the growing direct market of the 1980s, and owning a piece of Steve’s fantastic art is like owning a piece of history.
Years ago, at the request of First Comics’ Rick Oliver, I once gave The Dude a ride from the San Diego Comic Con to LAX. We should all live so long to have a 2-hour ride with him in the car. Heidi MacDonald was also with us. Good times!
If you can spare the cash, if you like original art, if you like Nexus, help out the Dude.
[Artwork: Nexus, © Mike Baron and Steve Rude]
Some years ago, in the pre-Ultraverse of Malibu Comics the company had a chance to acquire the old Atlas/Seaboard comic book characters from two guys who claimed to have the rights.
It was very tempting at the time to pursue it – Atlas had a bunch of great characters created by folks like Howard Chaykin, Steve Ditko, Pat Broderick, Gary Friedrich, Mike Ploog, Larry Hama, Michael Fleisher, Ernie Colon, Neal Adams, Alex Toth, John Severin, Russ Heath, Wally Wood, and Mike Sekowsky and many others.
At the time, it would’ve been quite a boost to the company to acquire the characters: they had a certain brand recognition, a lot of sentimental fanboy attachment, and had only been out of the marketplace for less than 15 years or so at the time.
Once acquired, the plan would’ve been to try to round up the original creators – as many as possible - and launch a new Atlas universe that would be separate from the company’s other titles.
Click to continue reading The Return of Atlas Comics
2010 Hugo Awards: Phil Foglio, Doctor Who, Shaun Tan!
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Television, DC Comics, Independent,
Congratulations to all the Hugo Award winners for 2010 (just announced at this year’s Aussiecon 4 in Melbourne, Australia).
The complete list of winners is at the Hugo site, but let’s pick and choose and look only at what really matters to us: the comics. That’s right, a couple of winners with comic book connections have walked off with their own statue, named after sci-fi pioneer and legendary cheapskate Hugo Gernsback.
In the category of Best Graphic Story the winner was Girl Genius, Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm. It’s written by Kaja and Phil Foglio, illustrated by Phil and published by Airship Entertainment. (Volume 8 won last year which should tell you that if you’re not reading GG, you really should.)
Doctor Who, because all comic book fans love the Doctor, picked up the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form for “The Waters of Mars,” written by Russell T. Davies & Phil Ford.
The Hugo for Best Professional Artist went to Shaun Tan (and anyone who’s read his books like The Arrival or Tales From Outer Suburbia knows why).
Click to continue reading 2010 Hugo Awards: Phil Foglio, Doctor Who, Shaun Tan!
Weekend Reading: Vince Colletta, Gene Roddenberry, Tezuka and Zombies!
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Reviews, DC Comics, Independent,
Welcome to the Labor Day edition of Weekend Reading, with a few extra links to help you cope with the extended weekend. Let’s get it started; I’ve got to make the rounds of quite a few barbecues.
Comic Books For Kids: You know who everyone should thank for the influx of great graphic novels for kids? Jeff Smith, creator of Bone. Robin Brenner at Early Word explains, and also points out that while a number of librarians are nuts about graphic novels from NY’s publishing icons, they are somewhat ignorant of the kid-friendly graphic novels actually produced by traditional comic book publishers.
Vince Colletta: I don’t think there’s an inker around who polarizes people as much as the late Mr. C. Scoop reviews The Thin Black Line, a new biography of the inker who “saved the bacon of many an editor.”
Gene Roddenberry: Frederik Pohl remembers his time with the “great bird of the galaxy.”
Superman: Randy Johnson, the writer not the retired baseball pitcher and mustache-worshipper, reviews Jeff Mariotte’s 2007 DC Universe novel Trail of Time. “The real fun for me were the chapters labeled May, 1872. They detailed the gradual coming together of four DC western characters, Jonah Hex, Bat Lash, El Diablo, and the Scalphunter, along with an able assist from Johnny Thunder.” Needless to say, he liked the book, and who among us wouldn’t? I’ve already ordered my copy.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Vince Colletta, Gene Roddenberry, Tezuka and Zombies!
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