Results tagged “comic book resources”

“Up, up, and away!”

“To infinity and beyond!”

“Spoon!”

When it comes to superheroes, there’s no shortage of catchphrases. They’re nearly as iconic as the costume that the character wears…but not quite. That’s why we’re not going to help you come up with a catchphrase for your character, but we will help you draw them!

Here’s the deal, Christopher Hart has published his latest incredible drawing guide: Superheroes and Beyond: How to Draw the Leading and Supporting Characters of Today’s Comics (view the book here). It’s a book that gives even me hope that I could draw a superhero, and I struggle to create stick figures that don’t look oddly afflicted.

To celebrate this, we’re giving away five signed copies of Superheroes and Beyond. Here’s how you enter: draw us a picture containing at least one superhero and/or supervillian and send it, along with your name and address to sometime between now and November 24, 2009. We’ll collect the entries and send them off to Christopher Hart, who will then judge them and pick our winners.

Be sure to check out our legal page for more details: Superheroes and Beyond legal.

Pretty cool, eh? So break out the pencils and paper (or warm up Illustrator, Photoshop, Inkscape, whatever you use to draw) and have a go at it! Good luck!

Below is an excerpt from the Comic Books Resources review of ASTERIOS POLYP. To read the full review, click here.

The “about the author” blurb on the inside back cover of “Asterios Polyp” says only this: “David Mazzucchelli has been making comics his whole life. This is his first graphic novel.” That last sentence seems wrong, doesn’t it? How can this be his first graphic novel if many of us — most of us — have volumes on our shelves with his name along the spine? Though originally serialized, “Daredevil: Born Again” is surely a graphic novel. So is “Batman: Year One.” They may be genre graphic novels, but that doesn’t mean they should be disqualified.
Yet, those two collaborations with Frank Miller are decidedly different than what we get in “Asterios Polyp.” And if the “about the author” blurb was written by Mazzucchelli himself, which is highly likely, than it’s telling that he would boldly differentiate between what he’s done in the past, “making comics,” and this hardcover “graphic novel.” But “Asterios Polyp” is different, and as Mazzucchelli’s first major solo project, it deserves to be treated differently.

It is, undoubtedly, a major work of graphic narrative. A true graphic novel in a way that so few comics-with-spines really are.

I don’t want to get into the old debates about the inaccuracy of the term “graphic novel,” because everyone knows that it’s used to mean anything from a thick collection of “X-Force” comics to “Maus” I and II. But if “graphic novel,” as a concept, bears any resemblance to the idea of a literary novel, then very few would actually qualify. If we exclude the graphic memoirs, what are we left with for great true graphic novels? Graphic novels that don’t rest comfortably inside the confines of “genre fiction”? “Jimmy Corrigan”? “Bottomless Belly Button”? “Stuck Rubber Baby”? It’s a small list indeed.

“Asterios Polyp” deserves a spot on that list, and after reading it a second time, I’m convinced that no matter how you define the term “graphic novel,” Mazzucchelli’s first graphic novel is one of the great comics of all time.

To order a copy of ASTERIOS POLYP, click here.