The Gosh! Authority 26/05/10

"The cleanest toilet I've ever seen in a comic shop."
- Dan Clowes. A proud moment in Gosh! history.

A big thank you to everyone who came to the Dan Clowes and Chris Ware signing yesterday!

Lovely chaps the both of ‘em. I never got to whinge to Ware about my Jimmy Corrigan-induced eye damage but whatever – the sun was out and sometimes you can’t help being cheery. Look! Here’s you:

I hope your sunburn has subsided. (Incidentally, here’s a Gosh! Public Service Announcement from someone who used to live in Australia where sun equals certain screaming death: Listen to Syd Seagull. No, really! I’m quite serious.)

Anyway, if you’re now flipping through your diaries and despairing you can stop - we’ve got big news! Becky Cloonan (Demo, Pixu, American Virgin), Kieron Gillen (Phonogram, Thor) and Jamie McKelvie (Phonogram, Suburban Glamour) will be stopping by on Saturday the 5th of June for a Gosh! basement signing. All details are over in this post here, along with a preview of the special Cloonan/McKelvie jam print you’ll get for free on the day if you’re in early. Aw hell, it’s so nice I’ll put it here too:

Right then, here’s what this week’s delivery holds in store. There’ll be a huge Wednesday Comics hardcover collection for starters (oh yes!), and a deluxe 10-year anniversary hardcover edition of Brian Michael Bendis’ Fortune & Glory: A True Hollywood Comic Book Story, the tale what happened when one of his stories got optioned and the movie madness that followed. It’s his personal Hollywood experience in cartoon form full of ridiculous phonecalls, endless meetings, characters and anecdotes so absurd they have to be true. iFanboy have a review and preview pages and Comics Bulletin have an interview with Bendis from around the time the book first appeared.

‘…It's almost like that scene in The Big Picture where that agent says to Kevin Bacon, "You're a genius, I haven't read your work but I'm never wrong." It's the same thing, I mean, they call you up, they've not read your work but they're telling you how much they love you and how much money everyone's gonna make and what a genius you are and then they realize they haven't even read the book. They literally give you a ten-minute speech about how they're the perfect place for you to be, and then "Could you send us a copy?"’

Madam Samurai looks like it’ll be a good’un. Written by Gary Young (screenwriter of the recent Michael Caine film Harry Brown) and illustrated by Eagle Award-winning artist David Hitchcock (Spring Heeled Jack), it’s about a young female samurai warrior who travels from feudal Japan to Victorian London on a mission of vengeance. Optimum Wound reckons it looks like a “badass little graphic novel” and have preview pages and even a book trailer if you fancy it. This way, folks.

Gosh! Favourite Sean Phillips (Incognito, Criminal) leaves the beaten path of noir and turns his hand to WWII in the series written by French comics scribe Fabien Vehlmann (Green Manor), 7 Pychopaths #1. It came out in France in 2007 but this is the first time the series will see print in the States/UK. Like Inglorious Basterds it’s a Hitler assassination plot but this early reviewer says it’s much more than that and wagers you’ll be hooked after one issue.

Phillips says“this is probably the only chance you'll get to see me draw uniforms and tanks and planes. And a roomful of Hitler impersonators...”

Here’s a preview of his reliably brilliant artwork which he talks about in this Newsarama interview, Bristol board and all.

Phillips’ Criminal co-conspirator Ed Brubaker begins his run on the Heroic Age’s Secret Avengers #1 this week and talks about it here.

“The real crux of what I'm trying to do is a team book that feels somehow different from how we've seen team books up to this point. This is very much about taking that pulpy espionage flavour, mixing it with a Mission Impossible vibe, and doing it with superheroes. It's a new starting point…. It's very much something that ties in with real world history, but bringing in that Doc Savage, H.P. Lovecraft tradition that superheroes came out of. It's very much about stuff we haven't seen in Marvel.”

Illustrated by Mike Deodato Jr. Preview here.

There’s also a mad Titan loose in the Marvel Universe in The Thanos Imperative: Ignition One-Shot by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. If you’ve not been keeping up to date on your cosmic books Lanning says this is a great jumping-on point as well as being full of stuff for devoted readers.

“…This is probably the biggest and most serious cosmic epic we're ever going to produce, but there's still going to be an opportunity for a gag or two. Rocket Raccoon's in it, after all."

An interview and a preview too over at CbR.

The second issue of Grant Morrison’s six-parter Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne hits the shelves tomorrow and this time ‘round it’s illustrated by Frazer Irving (Azrael, Seven Soldiers). Next time it’s Yanick Paquette’s turn. Preview!

That’s it for now. Remember that next week’s comics are delayed because of bank holiday Monday. There’ll be nothing here for you on Thursday but our helpless shrugs.

See you tomorrow.

-- Hayley