NH – Adam Hughes Signing

Comic creators Adam Hughes and Allison Sohn make a rare New England appearance at Merrymac Games and Comics on Friday, May 13, 2016 from 2:00 PM till 6:00 PM!

Best known as a cover artist with long runs on titles including Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Batgirl, Tomb Raider, Star Wars Legacy, and many more, Adam Hughes is a thirty year veteran of the comic book industry and widely regarded for his stylized renderings of women; super heroines, damsels in distress, figures in fantasy. Just recently Archie Comics announced Hughes will be the writer and artist of the re-launched Betty & Veronica ongoing series!

Sketch card artist Allison Sohn’s work has been showcased in several trading card sets, including: Star Wars Galaxy Series 4 and 5 and the Star Wars 30th Anniversary Collection; Women of Marvel; Indiana Jones Heritage; Lord of the Rings Masterpieces, Series 1 and 2; and the Red Sonja 35th Anniversary. In addition, she provided exclusive artwork for both Star Wars Celebration IV and V.

Here are the details of the signing event with Adam Hughes/Allison Sohn on May 13, 2016:

2:00 – 3:00 PM

Mr. Hughes will be doing pre-ordered sketch covers. There will be 20 spots and they will be Sharpie head sketches. These will be $79.99 each if you supply your own cover. If you choose one of the covers we have in stock, it will be plus the cover price of the comic. These items will be available for CBCS grading for an additional $10 NOT including the grading from CBCS.

Merrymac Games and Comics
550 DW Highway, Merrimack, NH 03054
(603) 420-8161

 

Rare Appearances at Boston Comic Con 2016

Press Release:

Boston Comic Con is excited to announce two incredibly rare appearances by superstar creators Sam Kieth and John Cassaday! They will both be available to meet fans and sign comics on Friday August 12 and Saturday August 13.

Sam Kieth is best known for his creator-owned titles The Maxx and Zero Girl and holds the distinction of co-creating The Sandman alongside writer Neil Gaiman. The Maxx was also adapted into an animated television series for MTV. Other notable work includes Four Women, Ojo, Batman, Lobo, and Wolverine/Hulk and many more titles. This is Kieth’s first East Coast appearance in over a decade!

 

John Cassaday is a fan-favorite artist with acclaimed runs on Planetary, Captain America, Astonishing X-Men, and most recently Marvel’s new Star Wars series. He has worked for every major publisher and drawn covers for titles including Batman, Superman, The Lone Ranger, Avengers, Spider-Man and more. Additionally, Cassaday has provided conceptual art for the feature film adaptation of Watchmen and directed an episode of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse.

These are two stellar additions to a guest list already filled with exceptional talent including Jae Lee, Erik Larsen, Terry Dodson, Mike Allred, Greg Capullo, Adam Hughes, Arthur Adams, Amanda Conner, David Lloyd, Jimmy Palmiotti, Phil Jimenez, Scott Snyder, Mark Waid, Bernie Wrightson, Stan Sakai, and many more! and many more. No comic fan will want to miss out on this opportunity!

Tickets are on-sale now at the link!

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About Boston Comic Con:
The Boston Comic Con is a 100% independently run comic book show committed to bringing the biggest and best comic creators to New England. Run by fans for fans, Boston Comic Con is not affiliated with any other convention tour or corporate interests. Hosting over 120,000 square feet of vendors selling comic books, toys, posters, trading cards, and other pop culture memorabilia, this is a destination event for geeks of any stripe. This year’s convention will be held Friday August 12th, Saturday August 13th, and Sunday August 14th at the Seaport World Trade Center, 200 Seaport Blvd, Boston, MA 02210. For more information please go to our website at www.bostoncomiccon.com and follow us on Twitter (@BostonComicCon) and Facebook!

NJ – Gumption Signing

Press Release:

WORD Bookstore has teamed up with our friends over at Loew’s Jersey Theatre for an unforgettable night of hold-your-stomach laughter. On Tuesday, April 5th at 8:00 PM, take a trip through American history as Nick Offerman (Parks & Recreation, Axe Cop) reads from his hilarious essay collection, Gumption, on the twenty-one great American personages that inspire him. And what could be a more perfect setting for this than the lavish late-20s splendor of The Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre?

Offerman will then be joined in conversation by acclaimed actor Patrick Wilson (Watchmen, Batman v Superman), who starred alongside Offerman on the second season of Fargo.

Book signing to follow the discussion.

A $20 ticket gets entry to the funniest event you will ever attend ever + a copy of the paperback edition of Gumption. GET YOUR TICKETS NOW ONLINE or IN-STORES.

RSVP on Facebook!

Loew’s Jersey Theatre
54 Journal Square Plz, Jersey City, New Jersey 07306
(201) 798-6055

CA – Ceremony to Honor Bob Kane

Director Zack Snyder and DC Entertainment Co-Publisher Jim Lee will appear on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday October 21, 2015 at 11:30 a.m. PST in a ceremony to grant Batman co-creator Bob Kane with a posthumous star and commemorate Batman as the Guinness World Record holder for “Most Film Adaptations of a Comic Book Character.” The Batmobile from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will be on display and unique fan giveaways are planned. Fans are encouraged to come dressed as Batman characters. Event will be live-streamed exclusively on www.walkoffame.com Details at the link…

Press Release: 

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is proud to announce that the late Bob Kane will be honored posthumously with the 2,562nd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday, October 21st, at 11:30 a.m. PDT. The star in the category of Motion Pictures will be dedicated at 6764 Hollywood Boulevard in front of GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS Museum. “Kane’s creation of American cultural icon Batman is every child’s dream Super Hero. We are excited to honor the man who gave life to this great character,” stated Walk of Fame Producer Ana Martinez. “Fans from all over the world have been waiting for this monumental day and we hope Kane’s shiny star forever inspires generations of creative minds.”

Helping emcee and Hollywood Chamber President/CEO Leron Gubler to unveil the star will be filmmaker Zack Snyder and DC Entertainment Co-publisher and acclaimed artist Jim Lee. Snyder is at the helm of the upcoming action adventure Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice due in theaters March 25, 2016, and will next direct the long-awaited Justice League feature film. Lee, who had the pleasure of meeting Bob Kane, will speak to the character’s enduring appeal and how Batman has captured the imagination of the entire world.

In 1939 in a New York art studio, Bob Kane created one of the most popular characters of the twentieth century – The Batman. Kane’s creation has become the star of comic books, Saturday afternoon movie serials, newspaper comic strips, a live-action TV series, several animated TV series, and several of the largest-grossing feature films of all time.

“I suppose I must have had printer’s ink in my blood,” Kane said of his childhood, “for as far back as I can recall, I’ve had a pencil in my hand. When I was ten, my dad was a printer for the New York Daily News. He’d bring home all the paper’s comics, and I copied them constantly. It got so eventually I could do them as well as the cartoonists themselves.” This informal training led the young Kane to create his own comics. By 1938, he was selling humorous stories to DC Comics, including the features “Professor Doolittle” and “Ginger Snapp.”

In 1939, one year after Superman’s debut, DC Comics editor Vincent Sullivan decided that he wanted another costumed hero. He asked 22-year-old Bob Kane for his ideas. “I went home that weekend,” Kane recalled, “traced some sketches of Superman, and started penciling different costume ideas. It was then that I got my first brainstorm: I remembered one of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches – a drawing of a flying machine with bat wings. That’s what germinated the idea for Batman. The second influence on me was the hero with the dual identity in The Mark Of Zorro. And then I thought about ‘The Bat Whispers,’ a mystery movie written by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

“I realized I was getting closer. I drew a character with bird wings and called him Bird Man, but that wasn’t quite right. So I changed the wings, made them bat-like, and called him Batman. Almost every famous character ever created had a kind of simplistic, definitive design that was easily recognizable, and that’s what I was striving for with Batman.”

The first published appearance of The Bat-Man, as he was then known, was in the May 1939 issue of Detective Comics #27. Batman’s first adventure was called “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” and was written by Kane’s frequent collaborator, Bill Finger, who over the years would make many significant contributions to the Batman universe. The character was so successful that one year later the first comic book devoted exclusively to the popular caped crusader’s adventures, BATMAN #1, hit the newsstands. In that issue, Batman battled The Joker and Catwoman for the first time.

Bob Kane continued to illustrate Batman’s comic book adventures until his retirement in 1968. His work covered not only countless comic book adventures, but also three years of the “Batman and Robin” newspaper comic strip, which ran from 1943 to 1946.

The success of the Batman television show in 1966 brought Kane and his art back into the public eye. Kane was subsequently featured in various one-man art shows at galleries and museums nationwide. He served as a consultant on the 1989 Batman feature film and its three sequels. Kane’s autobiography, Batman And Me, was published in 1989. Seven years later, Kane was inducted into the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame in 1996. Bob Kane, the American cartoonist, died on November 3, 1998.

Bob Kane was generous with his time and resources. He often visited children’s hospitals and donated funds to such organizations as Feed the Children, Make a Wish Foundation, the Westside Children’s Center, the Bay Area Youth Center and many other agencies providing services to the hungry, homeless, abused or abandoned children. The creative philanthropist donated a portion of proceeds from his one-man exhibit of original Batman oil paintings at the Carlton House’s Paul Stooshnoff Gallery to the American Cancer Fund. He also wrote and illustrated numerous comic strips, cartoons and comic books in tribute to Batman with all proceeds to benefit the Child Welfare League of America.

Hero Initiative Heads to Big WOW! ComicFest 2015

Press Release:

Hero Initiative, the non-profit organization that helps comic creators in medical and financial need, will be attending San Jose’s Big WOW! ComicFest on April 18-19th at the San Jose Convention Center, 150 West San Carlos St. in San Jose.

Hero will be at booth #300 on the convention floor, and Hero Initiative Ambassadors on the con floor will collecting for Hero include: Brent Anderson, Dan Brereton, Dave Gibbons, Mick Gray, Rich Koslowski, Joseph Michael Linsner, John Livesay, Bill Morrison, Marat Mychaels, Paolo Rivera, and Chrissie Zullo. Make sure you stop by and do the right thing!

About The Hero Initiative:

The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strict to helping comic book creators in need. Hero creates a financial safety net for yesterday’s creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. It’s a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment. Since its inception, The Hero Initiative has had the good fortune to grant over $700,000 to the comic book veterans who have paved the way for those in the industry today. For more information, visit www.heroinitiative.org or call 626-676-6354.

CA – Kingsman Signing

Award-winning and best-selling artist Dave Gibbons, co-creator of Watchmen and Kingsman: The Secret Service, appears at Flying Colors Comics on Wednesday, April 22, 2015 from 4:00 – 6:00 PM! This event is co-hosted by Madefire.

RSVP on Facebook!

Flying Colors Comics
2980 Treat Blvd (at Oak Grove Rd), Concord, CA 94518
(925) 825-5410

NYC – Kingsman: The Secret Service Signing

Artist Dave Gibbons (Watchmen) appears at JHU Comic Books on Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at noon for a special signing event of the smash hit comic Kingsman (The Secret Service). 

 

Press Release:

To celebrate the February 13th release of the Fox film, “Kingsman,” JHU Comic Books will be hosting a fantastic signing event! Come meet these two fan-favorite talents and get your books signed!

There will be a limit of 5 items to get signed, per customer, on a first come first serve basis.

KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE
Release: February 13, 2015
Action-Thriller
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Screenplay: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn, based upon the comic book “The Secret Service” by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons
Producers: Matthew Vaughn, David Reid, Adam Bohling
Cast: Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Taron Egerton, and Michael Caine

Based upon the acclaimed comic book and directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick Ass, X-Men First Class), Kingsman: The Secret Service tells the story of a super-secret spy organization that recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency’s ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.

RSVP on Facebook!

JHU Comic Books MANHATTAN
32 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016
(212) 268-7088

UK – Kingsman: The Secret Service Signing

Writer Mark Millar and artist Dave Gibbons will be celebrating the cinema release of Kingsman: The Secret Service with signing of the original Graphic Novel at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore on Saturday 31st January at 1:00pm.

Based upon the acclaimed comic book and directed by Matthew Vaughn, Kingsman: The Secret Service tells the story of a super-secret spy organization that recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency’s ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.

Mark Millar is the award-winning writer/ creator of Wanted and Kick-Ass and worked as an executive producer on their subsequent movie adaptations. He is also the Creative Consultant for Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles, overseeing their upcoming Marvel movies. His ten years at Marvel produced Civil War, the biggest-selling series of the decade, and The Ultimates, credited by screen-writer Zak Penn as his inspiration for The Avengers movie. His Millarworld company has expanded in the last few years to include Kick-Ass 2, Hit-Girl, The Secret Service, Nemesis, War Heroes, American Jesus, Supercrooks and Superior. In 2012, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Glasgow Caledonia University for his services to film and literature.

Dave Gibbons is one of Britain’s finest comic artists, whose most famous work is the multi-award- winning Watchmen. Since then he has drawn series including Batman, Doctor Who and Give Me Liberty, and has written Batman vs. Predator, Green Lantern and World’s Finest, as well as his own graphic novel The Originals.

Due to time restraints, Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons will only be signing copies of Kingsman: The Secret Service graphic novels.

Forbidden Planet London Megastore
179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR

TN – Watchmen Colorist Signs

Colorist John Higgins appears at Rick’s Comic City on Saturday, February 7, 2015 from 11:00 AM till 3:00 PM. He has worked on Watchmen, The Killing Joke, Before Watchmen, Hellblazer, The Boys, War Stories, Jonah Hex, and Judge Dredd and is the creator of Razorjack just to name few projects. He will have prints and artwork for sale.

RSVP on Facebook!

Rick’s Comic City
2710 Old Lebanon Rd Suite 3, Nashville, TN 37214
(615) 883-7890

Baltimore Comic-Con Report!

Who watches the Watchmen? A few hundred people at least, all of whom were in line ahead of me at last month’s Baltimore Comic-Con (Sept. 5-7) for Dave Gibbons’s autograph.

Gibbons is, of course, the artist behind Watchmen, the 12-issue miniseries published by DC in the mid-80s. The accolades heaped on Watchmen are as legendary as the series itself. It was the only graphic novel to appear on Time‘s 2005 “100 Greatest Novels” list, and it appeared again in 2009 on the magazine’s “Top 10 Graphic Novels” list. In 2008, Entertainment Weekly ranked Watchmen thirteenth on its list of the best 50 novels printed in the last 25 years, calling it “the greatest superhero story ever told and proof that comics are capable of smart, emotionally resonant narratives.”

I have loved Watchmen since it came out, and when I saw that Gibbons, who lives in the UK, would be in Baltimore, I booked my flight immediately. By “flight,” I mean I got up at 5:00am and drove the six hours from Raleigh, NC, passing through Washington just miles from the White House and getting stuck in horrendous construction-related traffic that even President Obama is, apparently, powerless to prevent. Other great artists and writers were there, including Steve Leialoha, Walter and Louise Simonson, Greg Capullo, David Finch, and Al Milgrom, who does few conventions these days. Denny O’Neil left early due to a family emergency, and the wait for George Perez was four hours (!), according to one woman who endured it.

But Gibbons was, for me, the star of the show. I waited about an hour in his line, and when I got to the table, I found him to be gracious, funny, and down-to-earth. He was impressed by my Graphitti edition Watchmen hardcover (the first graphic novel version of the series) and my Marvel Comics Doctor Who #1 (for the wife, a consecrated Whovian). But he oohed and ahhed—actually, we all did—over something another guy had: the 1994 computer game Beneath a Steel Sky, still in the box. Gibbons did the background art for this game, and he said he had never signed a copy before. Get it on eBay, young man!

The Baltimore Comic-Con has long been a two-day affair. This was its first year spanning a third day, and everyone I talked to thought it a success. Vendors especially were pumped-up because their rate stayed roughly the same despite the extra day. They also praised the convention staff for being responsive and professional. Sales were good, too: one dealer sold an Action Comics #252 (first appearance of Supergirl) for $900.

Dr. Chilton, the captor/tormentor of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, says that Baltimore “can be quite a fun town, if you have the right guide.” The only guide I needed was the folks at this year’s Comic-Con. As you are planning your convention schedule for next year, mark down September 25-27 in Baltimore. It won’t be a baaa-d decision.

They don’t look like minions, but I’ll take their word for it.

Deadpool doing what Deadpool does.

Hello, Walter Simonson!

Hello, Louise Simonson!

Don’t blink. Or wink. Or think about blinking or winking. Especially when drinking.

The line to see Dave Gibbons.

And, finally, Dave Gibbons, holding my newly-signed Watchmen hardcover (which, if it were shirt, I would never wash again).

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