Omnivoracious

YA Wednesday: James Dashner's 10 Things I'd Want During the Apocalypse

James Dashner's Maze Runner Trilogy is one of my absolute favorites for YA in recent years.  A plague, a government experiment, non-stop action and plot twists--Dashner had me from the first book and he didn't disappoint except in making this a trilogy.  I wanted more, and sometimes you get what you wish for: last week The Kill Order released and this fabulous prequel to The Maze Runner went a long way toward answering my many questions about the time before Thomas entered the Glade. In fact, we loved it so much around here that we made it one of our picks for Best Teen Books of August. 

After writing these four books we figured Dashner might have a good idea of what would be useful to have in the event of an apocalypse (weapons? duct tape? toothpaste? hot dogs!?) so we asked for his Top 10 list of must-have items, you can check it out below.

Earlier this summer we had a chat with the author (who still has a hint of that smooth Georgia accent, btw) and in the video interview below we learned more about The Kill Order, a new series he's launching this month for middle graders starting with The Infinity Ring: Mutiny in Time, AND a new YA series he's working on (!).

James Dashner's Top Ten Things I’d Want During the Apocalypse:

10. Very, very strong sunglasses.

9. Lots of plastic to wrap around my house.

8. A stranger taken in who happens to be the smartest, ablest doctor in a thousand years.

7. A server containing every show that’s ever been on HBO and a nice entertainment system on which to watch it all.

6. An ereader loaded with 5,000 books.

5. A generator and a gas refinery next door to provide fuel so I can watch all those shows and charge my ereader.

4. Deodorant that smells like a rotting dead body so zombies think I’m just one of them.

3. Lifetime supplies in my basement of the following: hot dogs, Almond Joys, potato chips, and Mountain Dew.

2. A cloaking device to hide my house from the tyrannical, evil, bloodthirsty government that will inevitably spring up.

1. Oh, and my wife and kids.

Graphic Novel Friday: Passport Comics

Regular Omni readers might remember that I take an annual vacation into the Canadian wilderness to unplug and catch up on my leisure reading. I plan to bring up far more books than I will likely ever get to, but that's all part of the fun--to leave books for next year. Already packed:

Blacksad: A Silent Hell by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido (Dark Horse): The previous installment's anthropomorphic detective is back and full of hardened expression, with a cast of characters rendered without parallel. There are several great, regularly published crime comics, but Blacksad walks a far different class of beat.

Dungeon Quest: Book 3 by Joe Daly (Fantagraphics): Skyrim fans (self included), take note: if you can laugh at your obsession while still poring over weapon and armor upgrades, the Dungeon Quest series should be on your couch next to the game manual and open laptop. Millennium Boy and Steve continue their quest for…something or other and dispatch their villains with most excellent skills and fuzzy strategy. It’s absurd, engrossing, very adult, and pitch perfect.

Guest Post: J. Michael Straczynski on Why Comic-Con Matters

J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Changeling) has a special place in his heart for Comic-Con. It's not just an opportunity for JMS to connect with fans of his work in TV, movies and comics — it helped him succeed as a writer, as he explains in this exclusive guest post, written for the Amazon Studios Hollywonk blog:

What’s so special about San Diego Comic-Con? I hear you ask. Yes, that’s right, you, seated in the last row where you thought I wouldn’t notice or call on you. Sit up straight, stop fiddling with your papers and pay attention, because I’m not going to repeat this.

I lived in San Diego from 1974 through 1981, when I made the long trek up to Los Angeles to pursue my writing career in venues a bit broader than were locally available at that time. Despite being a massive comics fan, I was only able to attend SDCC a few times during those years because ... well, frankly, I couldn’t afford it. The con wasn’t unduly expensive, in fact by most measures it was quite a bargain, but at the time every penny I earned as a writer, and there were very few of them, went into buying writing supplies instead of luxuries like convention tickets or food. Which is why despite being 6’3” I weighed only about 145 pounds. I was determined to make it as a writer or die trying.

Whenever I could scrape up enough cash to buy a ticket to SDCC, I did so, even if it meant not eating for a while. It was that important. Why?

Lemme explain.

There is a vast difference between a convention like SDCC and most of the for-profit conventions that are run more by businessmen than by fans. In the case of the latter, there is the audience and there are the participants — the speakers, panelists and special guests — and rarely is there the opportunity for one to become the other.

But that transition, from audience to participant, from fan to professional, is what fan-run conventions are all about. Despite its staggering size and complexity, San Diego Comic Con is the Mount Everest of fan-run conventions. In the course of its history, it has become a Mecca for those who love the visual arts and want to do more than just look on passively.

As a college student, on the few occasions when I had enough cash to buy a ticket to SDCC, I was able to see folks like Harlan Ellison, and Robert Bloch, and Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury and dozens of other leading professional writers talking about the craft of writing. I often learned more about writing in one hour-long panel hosting luminaries of that level than I’d learned in two years of college work. And then there were all the editors and publishers and agents who came to talk about their part of the business, what they looked for in new and aspiring writers, and what it took to break through the background noise and be noticed by those empowered to purchase your work.

And further down the hall, in the dealers’ and exhibits room, you could find publishers from DC Comics, Marvel and other publishers who would actually take the time to review art by novice illustrators or talk nascent writers through the process of improving your dialogue or breaking down a plot for a comic book.

For as much as the event was about comic book companies and others showcasing their wares, it was also about bringing up the next generation of writers and artists, about the transition from here to there, from fan to professional.

And here’s the amazing, the stunning, the delicious part of it all.

It’s still about that!

There is a supportive and positive tide that runs through the core of San Diego Comic Con that crests in the panel rooms and sweeps people up from their seats and deposits them behind the dais where they encourage the next group to hold on as the tidal surge now starts to come their way. It is as regular as clockwork, as powerful as an earthquake and as intimate as the quiet turning of your considered conscience.

It is a celebration, a passing of the torch, a reunion of glorious madmen and women, a parrot-pretty parade of costumes, a top-flight university in the visual and creative arts...and every year it is my favorite place in the world to visit. Because in the final analysis, the whole thing is about hope.

Read the full post at the Amazon Studios Hollywonk blog.

Amazon Exclusive: Eoin Colfer--Unleashed Guest Blogger

Eoin Colfer (pronounced Owen) is the very funny author of the best-selling fantasy series, Artemis Fowl, which began with the eponymous first book in 2001 and is now wrapping up with the eighth and final book in the series, Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian. 

In Colfer's guest blog post below we get the scoop on the Artemis series and more--including (but not limited to) speculation on Thor's underpants and a little Ridley Pearson roasting.  I'm sad to say goodbye to snappy Artemis Fowl, but Colfer convinced him to leave us with a list of his top five favorite books and why he likes them, after the jump.

 

Artemis Blog.

People often ask me how come I’m so good looking. No wait, that was a dream. But people actually do ask me where I got the idea for Artemis Fowl, the teenage criminal mastermind featured in my book series, which is cleverly called Artemis Fowl, the series. And I say to them: Are you saying I stole the idea from Ridley Pearson? Is that what you’re saying? Because it’s a lie! Did Pearson send you? You can tell him from me that he’s barking up the wrong tree. In fact, he doesn’t even have a tree. And if he did, I certainly wouldn’t be up in it watching him work through a telescope.

            And then when I calm down and realise that nobody is accusing me of anything, I say that I got the idea for Artemis from my little brother Donal, or more specifically, from a photo I saw of him taken on his first morning at school. He was wearing trousers with razor creases and holding a briefcase, and I thought that he looked just like a James Bond villain, and wouldn’t it be funny to write a book about a kid villain who was just as much of a genius as Bloefeldt or Goldfinger but only four feet high.

            Apparently a lot of people agreed with me that this was a funny idea, because over the next decade or so more than 20 million people picked up a copy of an Artemis book for themselves. And if you factor in the number of people who shared the book with their little brothers, then that makes 20 million and four readers, because kids do not share with their little brothers, as little brothers tend to store their boogers in between the pages of their big brothers books.

            So, I imagine Ron Burgundy asking: you’ve got a really successful series going, why in the name of Zeus’s beard would you finish it after 8 books? After all, Tolkien wrote twenty four Lords of the Ring books including all the manuscripts, unfinished manuscripts, rough sketches, cartoons, and stick figures that have yet to turn up in his step-grand neighbour’s attic. And that’s not even counting the ones co-written by James Patterson.

            This is a good question. And one I often ask myself in the dead of night when I awake weeping, having dreamed of spiralling sales and obscurity. Why in the name of Thor’s enchanted underpants would I kill the goose that lays the golden egg? This is obviously a metaphor, as I would never personally kill a goose, unless the goose had been genetically modified to threaten the security of our nation (Take that, Ridley!) and I do not get paid in golden eggs. Although I wish I did, as gold holds its value pretty well in our uncertain economy. Also I happen to know that Thor doesn’t wear underpants, as he finds they slow him down when he needs to go potty in battle situations.

 

Graphic Novel Friday: Best of the Year So Far

Our Best of the Year So Far store launched earlier this week with editors’ picks across many subject categories and an overall Top 20, and the Comics and Graphic Novels selections highlight what’s made 2012 an already fantastic and diverse year for the medium.

1. Darth Vader and Son by Jeffrey Brown
2. Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
3. Wonder Woman Vol. 1: Blood by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang
4. King City by Brandon Graham
5. Avengers: The Children's Crusade by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung
6. Jim Henson's Tale of Sand by Jim Henson, Jerry Juhl, and Ramon Perez
7. The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1: From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons by Russ Kick
8. Harvey Pekar's Cleveland by Harvey Pekar and Joseph Remnant
9. The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist by Alvin Buenaventura
10. Mr. Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin: The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpieces of Johnny Gruelle by Johnny Gruelle and Rick Marschall

With the success of Joss Whedon’s film, The Avengers, and the impending releases of The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man, superheroes are still the most public-facing comic characters. If you are looking for actual comics to supplement that blockbuster rush, then the revamped Wonder Woman and the next generation of Avengers (see also our Omni spotlight) should be at the top of your summer reading list.

If your tastes run more literary and autobiographical, Alison Bechdel’s Are you My Mother: A Comic Drama is filled with enough familial anxiety to satisfy readers until the annual holiday get-togethers begin, and Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland offers one last sardonic look at life through the eyes of the departed Pekar. On the academic front, the first volume in editor Russ Kick’s ambitious Graphic Canon series showcases historic literary moments, from The Odyssey to Shakespeare, told through the medium of comics.  

Graphic Novel Friday: Interview with Robert Kirkman

It's probably unnecessary at this point to introduce Robert Kirkman. As the creator of The Walking Dead, he's watched his zombie apocalypse series go from comic book success to televised event. Riding high on the second season's biggest ratings yet, Robert's future plans are not limited to the undead--or even comics. At Emerald City Comicon 2012, we spoke at length about his many other projects, including superheroes, long-form heist plots, novels, dinosaurs, and yes, those flesh-hungry zombies.

Omnivoracious.com: It can’t be easy to introduce a new superhero in today’s comics climate, yet Invincible is nearing triple digit issue numbers. How has Invincible thrived where so many new heroes have not?

Robert Kirkman: Invincible is everything I’ve ever loved about superhero comics thrown into one book. I am a superhero comics fan as much as anyone who reads Invincible. The book speaks to that kind of a fanbase. It’s just a cool little superhero universe that I get to play in every month, and it’s got amazing artwork by Ryan Ottley. It struggled early on because there is a glut of superhero comics in the industry, but it’s held on. I couldn’t be happier that it’s held on, but I don’t know exactly why [it has]. I’d like to think that it’s because it’s entertaining, but maybe it’s because the artwork’s really good.

Emerald City Comicon 2012: Interview with Rick Remender

At Omnivoracious, we're no strangers to writer Rick Remender's work. We covered his creator-owned series Fear Agent all the way back in 2008 and followed his ascent to Marvel hit-maker on The Punisher. Now, he's writing arguably the best X-Men comic around, Uncanny X-Force, and he was recently named writer for another flagship title: Secret Avengers. A lot has changed since we last spoke with Remender at Emerald City Comicon 2009, and it was great to catch up with him on all of the aforementioned books, how his fandom influences his characters, and more at this year's ECCC 2012. 

Omnivoracious.com: Let’s start with the finale of Fear Agent. When we spoke in 2009, you were just beginning the penultimate arc, I Against I, and now the last volume, Out of Step, will release this month. What’s it like to say goodbye to Heath Huston?

Rick Remender: It was nice to get to the end we wanted to. It’s sad not to write Heath anymore. He’s obviously a character that I love writing, and since Tony [Moore] and I created him, it’s been my favorite book to write (at least it was while it was still running). It’s bittersweet: I’m very happy with the ending, but when I see it on the bookshelf there are moments of wishing I were still writing the book.

Omni: How did you arrive at that last scene?

Rick Remender: That’s been the plan since the beginning. I had a couple of potential chapters that could have extended it, but I realized that the end result was still the end result. We hit all the important beats—I don’t think there was any fat on it—and the end result was what I put in that initial document when I cooked the thing up.

Emerald City Comicon 2012: Interview with Brandon Graham

Last weekend in Seattle, the Emerald City Comicon celebrated its tenth anniversary as the Northwest's premier gathering for fans of all things comics. The ECCC remains one of the last conventions devoted to comics without being overrun by the medium's extension into films and media hype.  Here, fans can readily connect with creators, and the 2012 show was once again full of talent. This week on Omnivoracious, we'll feature interviews with writers and artists who are behind some of the most talked about books and projects in the business.

Up first is writer and artist Brandon Graham, whose booth saw a lot of attention this year due to the success of his recent critically acclaimed title, Prophet, from Image Comics. The book is a re-launch of a best-forgotten hero last seen in the 1990s, and Brandon has made it all his own, full of science fiction adventure and creepy, dripping aliens. His fan-favorite series, King City--for which he is both the artist and writer--was collected in its entirety for this first time last month, and Brandon spoke to us about both books, his influences, and Russian werewolves.

Omnivoracious.com: Your art style reflects a graffiti influence, which is atypical for mainstream comics. Where does this stem from?

Brandon Graham: When I was a teenager, there wasn’t really a comic scene for me to connect with so I ended up hanging out with kids who did graffiti. I did that for a couple years and I always thought of it as a cousin art form to comic books, because Vaughn Bode, who did comics in the 1970s, was such a huge influence on graffiti. I really liked it; it relates a lot--I learned a lot about the culture of art and got trained in the roles of how to treat it with respect, I think.

Omni: This art style is especially on display in the finally collected, massive trade paperback of King City. At well over 400 pages, how long was the project in development?

"A Wrinkle in Time" 50th Anniversary

Today marks the 50th anniversary of a children's book classic, A Wrinkle in Time. To celebrate this milestone Farrar, Straus and Giroux (who published the book 50 years ago) have released gorgeous commemorative editions with the original hardcover and paperback jackets and new extras that include an introduction by Katherine Paterson and an afterword by author Madeleine L'Engle's granddaughter.

A Wrinkle in Time is as relevant and captivating in 2012 as it was in 1962, and it's incredible to me that such an iconic story began with a random thought during a cross-country vacation, "...the names Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which popped into my grandmother’s head, and she told her three children—twelve, ten, and seven—that she would have to write a book about them..."--from the afterword [PDF].

Many prominent authors have been influenced by Madeleine L'Engle, including Judy Blume.  Blume was interviewed for a book about L'Engle (titled Listening for Madeleine) coming out in the fall, and we have an exclusive excerpt, a sample of which is below. You can find the rest of the excerpt here (under More to Explore).

"Madeleine and I really bonded over the issue of book banning. Her books were being
challenged all over the country. They were being challenged—and I love this and have used it in
every speech about book banning that I’ve ever given—for teaching “New Ageism” to children. I
always say that I can guarantee you that when Madeleine wrote her books she had never heard of
New Ageism. The attacks on her books made her absolutely furious. She was beside herself, not
just because her books were being attacked, but because any books were being targeted in that
way. We would go out and do TV shows together in defense of banned books. An evening news
show might have a segment on the censorship of children’s books. This was during the 1980s.
She was so elegant and so down-to-earth, and some of her answers were so funny, as much as to
say: Why are you guys so stupid? Why would you be asking questions like this? She never
actually said those things, but it was absolutely clear what she meant. I just loved her."--Judy Blume in an excerpt from Listening for Madeleine: A Portrait of Madeleine L’Engle in Many Voices.

A Wrinkle in Time has been read, loved, and shared, by countless readers over the last 50 years, and I'm certain that trend will continue.  This anniversary inspired me to re-read the book for the first time in decades and I fell in love with the words and characters all over again.  Those of you who adore this book as I do will understand when I say that I got a little bit giddy when I saw the photo posted below, and if A Wrinkle in Time is one of the unread classics on your list--treat yourself to an amazing read. --Seira

A photograph of page one from the original manuscript of A Wrinkle in Time (click on it to see a larger image). 

 

 

Graphic Novel Friday: Happy New Year with Comics, Beer, and the End of Days

So long, 2011, and hello, Apocalypse. Much has been made of our collective demise in the coming twelve months of 2012 (John Cusack starred in a film adaptation, after all), but nothing has been crafted quite like the combined creative and delicious efforts of publisher Fantagraphics, Elysian Brewing Company, and artist Charles Burns. Together, the three forces are ringing in the new year with the “Twelve Beers of the Apocalypse,” celebrating the Mayan calendar’s predictions with thematically grim beers, brewed especially for the occasion and released every month in 2012. Elysian’s bottles will feature Burns’ artwork from his seminal Black Hole (one of our Best Comics of the Decade) in the limited runs of each handcrafted treat.

On the 21st of each month, Elysian will toast the release of that month’s beer at their Seattle locations and Fantagraphics’ storefront in Georgetown. “These limited brews will be available in bottles and draft and at select bars and bottle shops,” Fantagraphics announced, so order ahead—because once they are gone, folks, they are gone.

In January, the end time festivities begin with "Nibiru" (see label at left, click to enlarge), a “Belgian-style Tripel, flavored with an infusion of yerba mate,” followed by "Rapture" in February and "Fallout" in March. Each brew promises decadent flavors and collector appeal.

Fantagraphics published three of Burns’ earlier collections, El Borbah, Big Baby, and Skin Deep—all three in magazine-sized format and full of unsettling stories riddled with anxiety and doom (but every bit must-reads). Black Hole and Burns' latest, X’ed Out, came from Pantheon—the latter was also one of our picks for Best Comics and Graphic Novels in 2010—and present disaffected youths with problems far exceeding their respective suburban abodes. The kids are not all right.

A trifecta of this magnitude only forms once a Ragnorak, and comics and beer aficionados will have much to salute whether or not everything we hold dear collapses in 2012. For more on the individuals releases, ingredients, and brew plans, visit Fantagraphics' FLOG! blog.  

Happy New Year!

--Alex