This popped up on Twitter this morning via Laura Hudson’s ComicsAlliance, and wow! It’s a huge surprise. In short, MF Grimm was Marketing Director for Tyrese’s Mayhem. The full info is on ComicsAlliance, but here’s an excerpt:

I would like to take this time to inform you all that I have officially stepped down as marketing director of Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM!

Although I handled the marketing up until San Diego Comic Con 2009, I did not agree with the direction the owner(s) and the creators were headed. Therefore, I submitted my resignation shortly after our return.

On several occasions over the past few months, the creators decided to forget about their responsibilities (writing a good comic book) and on a whim, turned their focus to the marketing of Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM!; it was during these times they found multiple ways to insult well-respected people within the comic book industry.
[snip]
It’s easy for people to take credit for things (like strategic marketing) when they are going well, but no one will step forward when unethical methods are implemented, methods that are clearly not “strategic”. Because I am credited in Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM! as Marketing Director, I’m obligated to come forward and absorb the blame for these (unauthorized) snake oil selling marketing tactics which I found to be unnecessary and insensitive to comic book retailers. (I do not want to be associated with the comic book retail problem that has arisen because of this project , especially in this frail economy.

At one point, I put in a personal request to Arch-Enemy Entertainment (the parent company of Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM!) To have the members of Team MAYHEM! Who insulted Mr. Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience (and several other comic book retailers, many of whom are close friends of mine) by using snake oil selling marketing tactics to send a apology in the same forum(s) where the insult(s) took place; my request for the apology went ignored by the creators. I must therefore take it upon myself to do what should have been done quite some time ago.

And you know, good on him. Other than writing one of my most favorite stories (Sentences), I appreciate that he saw that the gang he was working with was headed down the wrong road, tried to correct it, and when he was rebuffed, made a tough decision and quit. Genuine apologies seem to be pretty rare, and judging by the text of his letter, he means it.

What’s important, and what Carey touches on here, is that if you’re coming into an area, respect is a rule, not a choice. When you’re trying to put out a floppy, you need to take into account how the market works and play along with the retailers. You aren’t going to be able to create overnight change, no matter how hard you try. It sucks, yeah, but them’s the breaks.

As far as Tyrese Gibson’s Mayhem and whether or not it was a good comic… “I read your book, now I break weed up on it.”

Isotope Award Submissions are Open!

Bring Your Best for the Seventh Annual Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics

SAN FRANCISCO (August 11th, 2009) San Francisco comics retailer James Sime, proprietor of Isotope – the comic book lounge, announced today that submissions for the 2009 Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics will be accepted until October 1st at midnight. “It’s our seventh annual award, and I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be especially lucky and help discover an amazing new talent this year!”said Sime, “In 2009 one mini-comic creator’s career will be forever changed, so fire up your xerox machines and get ready to submit your minis!”

The five comic professionals who will serve as this year’s Isotope Award judges include:

Brett Warnock– Co-publisher and art director of the amazing Top Shelf Books. Brett’s great taste in comics and enthusiasm for the artform are legendary. His shrewd eye for discovering new talent has played no small part in unearthing and introducing some of indy comics greatest talents to the industry. We love Brett, don’t you?

Tom Spurgeon – The editor of The Comics Journal during its best years (1994 to 1999), Tom has gone on to become the industry’s most esteemed comics scholar, historian, and journalist. Often referred to as “the smartest man in comics” by at least one comic book retailer, there simply is no better place for interviews and news from the world of independent comics than on Tom’s website www.comicsreporter.com.

Eva Volan – Supervising children’s librarian for the Alameda Free Library in Alameda, California, the chairperson of the ALA/YALSA 2010 Great Graphic Novels for Teens committee, a former judge of the 2008 Eisner Awards, and also a writer for www.graphicnovelreporter.com. She is amazing!

Kirsten Baldock – The Isotope’s Special Projects Director, acting manager of the Oakland Main Library’s Magazines and Newspapers Department, and Kirsten is also the author of the warring-gangs-of-cigarette-girls graphic novel Smoke & Guns.

James Sime – Proprietor of Isotope – the comic book lounge in San Francisco.

The award, which comes with a particularly dangerous-looking carved ebony fossil stone and satin silver trophy by famed designer Frank Crowe, has been instrumental in bringing attention to mini-comic creators the world over and launching the professional comic careers of Daniel Merlin Goodbrey (ASTONISHING TALES: IRON MAN 2020), and two Eisner Award Nominated cartoonists Joshua Cotter (SKYSCRAPERS OF THE MIDWEST), and Danica Novgorodoff (A LATE FREEZE).

Entry to this competition is five copies of your mini-comic sent to Isotope’s address (326 Fell St. San Francisco, CA 94102) before the October 1st deadline. The award will be given out at a grand ceremony during APE AFTERMATH at the Isotope in conjunction with San Francisco’s ALTERNATIVE PRESS EXPO. The APE convention has been a forum for small and independent publishers in the industry for many years. Because of the nature of this award, the winner will be contacted in advance and must be present at the Isotope at 9 PM on Saturday, October 17th for the award presentation ceremony.

“I consider each year’s winner of this award to be the Isotope’s Miss America for the year and always love helping to get their work under the noses of the entire industry!” Sime said, “Oh… and speaking of which, don’t forget to place your preorders for two previous winners of this award who both have new original graphic novels coming out this September, Danica Novgorodoff‘s Refresh, Refresh from First Second and Joshua Cotter’s Driven By Lemons from AdHouse Books!”

For more information contact the Isotope at (415) 621 – 6543 or at isotopeaward@gmail.com

Gentlemen, start your engines.

Kristy Valenti has a wonderful look back at Oh! My Goddess!, a series I remember always being curious about but unwilling to break out of my “Anime should be about FIGHTING! and sometimes being sad but mostly FIGHTING!” mold as a teenager. Not that I’m any better now, of course, since I re-watch Ninja Scroll a couple times a year. Anyway, it looked interesting, and I liked the idea of the cosmology/theology/bureaucracy in it, so her look back is very welcome. She does a good job of explaining its place historically, too, which is always fun to see when someone’s talking about an older series, where “older” here means “pre-Naruto explosion.”

Kate Dacey sat down and read and reviewed all of the current Shonen Sunday manga chapters. Shonen Sunday is one of Viz’s TWO online manga endeavors. IKKI and Shonen Sunday are aimed at two different markets, more or less, with IKKI seemingly being a bit more mature and Shonen Sunday being aimed at the teen-ish market. Kate’s observations seemed dead-on to me when I read a couple of the installments, so bam! Take her word as holy writ and go and read.

In the end, Garth Ennis’s Punisher was about both the best and the worst of humanity. The worst, in that he represents just how thoroughly a human being can be broken by the unthinking and inhuman actions of others. The best, in that he looks at the terrible things that the best of us tolerate and says, “No more.”

Ennis’s Punisher isn’t a hero. He may do heroic things, and he may save lives, but he’s no hero. He is, at best, a murderer whose goals happen to coincide with those of many members of society. Punisher MAX really works for two reasons. Ennis treats the series as a war comic, making sure to show the effects of the violence on society and the characters. He writes Frank Castle not as the Punisher, a costumed mental case with a mad-on for criminals, but as a soldier using the things he learned in Vietnam to put the screws to the people he hates.

Frank Castle is no one to look up to, but he exists as the ultimate “If I could…” character. A social worker partway through the series, in the phenomenal The Slavers arc, gives Castle information on his targets, against her better judgment, because she wanted them to pay for what they’d done. She knew the law would never be able to touch them and that they would skate through life, and she hated them for it. They were trash, less than human, and the only person who could do what needed to be done was a man wiling to be inhuman to them right back.

And he does so, if not admirably, then with a certain amount of skill. He makes a child of a hard man with ease, before he finds the woman who helped mastermind the entire scheme. When she begs for her life, explaining that they just wanted to be in America and do business, he coldly tells her, “All that counts is you can’t stop me. I’m stronger than you, so I can do anything I want.” There’s a beat, as time passes and the panel switches, and he asks her, “Isn’t that the way it works?”

And it’s wrong, he’s beating this woman to death, and it’s terrible… but she’s the one who came up with the “rape them to break them” plan. She was willing to use other people as cattle to make sure that she lived a life of luxury. You’re appalled, and it’s ugly, but deep down, you understand that she’s getting exactly what she deserves. Getting to be a monster with no repercussions is unthinkable. It makes for some uneasy feelings. So, you don’t cheer, exactly, but there’s a quiet understanding, the feeling you get when you squash a bug that might have, or did, sting you. It is ugly, but it needed to be done. It is not a good thing that it was done, exactly, but it was necessary.

Frank Castle is a monster, but he’s also a representative of our gut instinct when confronted with some fresh horror. He does what a lot of wish we could, or, failing that, wish would happen, but make no mistake: he is only better than those he kills by comparison. He is a monster, and when confronted with this fact, he agrees. He cannot bring anyone into his life, because at some point, no matter how happy his life is, he is going to turn on the news and see someone that must be punished. He’s damned, he knows it, and he accepts that it is what it is.

The thing about Frank Castle, the thing that keeps him from becoming a generic and bloodthirsty action hero, is that he takes no joy in what he does. One-liners are rare, and stand out when they do occur. It is clear to both the reader and to Frank Castle himself that he takes no pleasure in what he does. The closest he comes is satisfaction, and even that is a vague inference. He does it because it must be done, and he does it because no one else will.

When confronted with the death of a broken and sad woman, all he thinks is, “If I could, I’d kill every single one of them. I’d wipe them out. And you’d never have had to exist at all.” It isn’t an honorable sentiment, but it is a sad one. Whenever Frank Castle meets a normal person, someone not in his line of work, he’s met with shock, scorn, and horror. They understand his appeal, and a couple characters even take him up on it, but his way is not the way life should go. There is no honor, no glory in being Frank Castle.

Garth Ennis took a derivative character, a Dirty Harry for superheroes, a character used to reiterate the ridiculous idea that heroes should never kill, and used him as a mirror for us. Our fears and our insecurities were put on display and put down over the course of the past five years.

Frank Castle didn’t die at the end of Ennis’s run on the Punisher, but I’ve read all the Punisher stories I need. I can’t read the one that fights supervillains, gets up by superheroes because he’s a loose cannon, and never seems to accomplish anything. I can’t take him seriously. It’s like going from photorealism back to stick figures, from the modern age back to the Silver Age, or aging backwards. I’ve read a Frank Castle that brought feelings and thoughts that I’d left unexamined right to the forefront of my mind. I watched him murder people, people who absolutely deserved it, and felt that that was the only way their story could have, and should have, ended. I’ve had to examine my reactions to his actions, and figure out what that means about me as a human being. And, honestly, I’m better for it.

After The Slavers, Punisher vs Kingpin is hollow. I’ve seen real villains in these pages, and that comic book nonsense is just that. The Punisher shouldn’t be a character that makes you pump your fist and go “YEAH!” At this point, that’s a take on the character I want nothing to do with. It’s boring and retrograde.

Those five hardcovers on my shelf, though? Those are five of the finest, and most thoughtful, books Marvel ever put out. It’s a poorer comics world without them. All five volumes are on Amazon. Five, Four, Three, Two, One. The hardcovers collect two stories a piece, and are by far the best way to read the series. These are comics to get angry to and comics to care about. These are comics to think about.

Slaughterhouse, the hip-hop supergroup composed of Crooked I, Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz, and Royce da 5’9″, dropped their debut album today.

I’ve got a soft spot for Royce, since his classic Bad Meets Evil record with Eminem is 100% responsible for re-igniting my love for rap and opening me up to what we called “underground” rap back then. Ever since, I’ve stuck with him, through highs and lows. He’s in the middle of a career renaissance right now, with a leaner, meaner flow and a sicker sense of humor. You can legally download his Bar Exam 2 mixtape from Hip-Hop DX. The title of this post is from one of his freestyles from that tape.

Joe Budden I discovered a couple years ago. I’d heard Pump It Up, wrote him off, and played the hater for a while, but his Mood Muzik 3, particularly the Mood Muzik Third remix album that mixed his rhymes with Portishead beats, turned me right around. He brings a simultaneously intensely personal and deeply arrogant style to the mic, kind of like Slug from Atmosphere but with less self-loathing. He’s dope, always ready to talk trash, and funny.

Crook and Joell are newer to me, but no less dope. I realized recently that Crooked was on a Chino XL Felli Fell (I think) freestyle I’ve had for years, probably back to when he was on Death Row, but I only really started listening to him lately. He brings a thug swagger to the gang that reminds me of a younger Ice Cube, secure in who he is and a beast on the microphone. All you need to know about Joell is that he says “Yaaaowa” and dropped one of my favorite mixtapes this year, with him covering a whole gang of classic rap songs.

My advice? Cop it. If you’re fond of lyrical rap, heavy on punchlines, and with listenable beats, cop it. 9 bucks is a steal, really, and these guys put out enough free music that supporting them through this is no big deal for me at all. Buying the mp3s through Amazon helps us out with hosting here, too, so if you like us, and not them, use that Amazon search box that’s sitting off to the right there.

This one’s easy. We talk about the ways comics, both superhero and otherwise, are slipping into the mainstream and then talk a bit about Wednesday Comics’s not-quite-halfway point. Quick and easy, right? As usual, 6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental is our music.

Longer explanations next week, because I’m wiped. Grab our podcast-specific RSS feed or subscribe on iTunes. Get the full-blown RSS feed here, or join the Facebook group.

Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka is an adaptation of a classic Osamu Tezuka Astro Boy and probably the best comic to drop this year, with only Asterios Polyp (review here, amazon) and Darwyn Cooke’s Parker: The Hunter (spotlight coming, amazon) coming close to toppling it.

The story it’s based on was also turned into a cartoon years upon years ago. Luckily, because Manga Entertainment understands how to use the internet the way it should be used, you can check it out for free and legally here:

Man, it’s been like three years since I last posted this, and the old image links are broken. However… here is the photoshop I’m still the most proud of.

Well, hello, Tony Starks! Ghostface Killah – Cell Block Z.

To his fans, Cole Dennis is a heavyweight contender with a devastating right hook. To a city being held hostage to chaos and terror, Dennis has a grit and charisma that make him the shining hope for justice–until he is arrested for a brutal murder. Framed for a crime he did not commit, he finds himself captive in a foreboding high-tech superprison whose masters secretly conspire to turn inmates into tomorrow’s most terrifying bioweapons–with Cole Dennis as the intended prize specimen. But Dennis is nobody’s lab rat. Reborn as a towering engine of destruction, Dennis will prepare for the fight of his life. He will rename himself Ghostface Killah. And his cry of righteous rage will echo beyond the cold steel walls of Cell Block Z.

I need to get in touch with somebody at Hachette asap. This is right up my alley.

Preview.

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you…

Here’s some catchup for you, Joe Casey Fanclub style-

-I joined my Joe Casey Fanclub gang on The Factual Opinion‘s Television of the Weak a couple weeks ago. Thrill as I talk about Leverage, the last TV show I watch! You can read the first entry here and click on through to the second. Read the third here. Just wait until Matthew Brady gets back on the Television of the Weak train. That’s the Comics Blogger Death Squad right there.

-Speaking of Matthew Brady… that guy has been on fire lately. He’s finally finished 100 Bullets, and he came with the big guns in “100 Bullets: Everyone dies in a flurry of arrows” and “100 Bullets: My only friend, the end.” On top of that, he’s doing these Jack Kirby flashback posts that rock my world. In “No goddling! No faltering! No whining!,” he’s got a great big panel, and then a wonderful sequence of Big Barda nonchalantly destroying things while Scott Free quips, and then a look at Holocaust imagery that Kirby used in his 4th World. He’s also got “Wow! Get that Orwell ‘double think!’ I’ve read ‘1984’–It sounds nastier–when spoken!” This is another flashback piece, and just as good as the rest.

If you aren’t reading him, you should be. Here, I’ll make it easy– here’s his blog and here’s his rss.

–Comixology‘s Comics app for iPhone/iPod Touch is pretty great. Just saying. I haven’t gotten a chance to see Longbox yet, though.

–Tucker Stone and Jog wrote my favorite reviews of The Hunter. Tucker’s is here and Jog’s is here. Neither of them approach it like a normal review (here’s the art, here’s the words, here are some opinions, in conclusion…) and the reviews are all the better for it.

–Sean Witzke‘s found a couple awesome things lately. There’s James Brown reading Werewolf by Night and ALL CAPS, an idea that I totally wish I’d thought of first. If something similar appears here, don’t be too surprised. Sorry, Sean! Ideaspace! Information wants to be free!

-Advanced Common Sense Episode 4:

In non-JSCF news–

-Laura Hudson wrote an excellent post on the direct market over at Comics Alliance. You should definitely read it sooner rather than later.
-You should read Charlie Huston‘s Twitter. He’s writing a story. Start from the bottom.