Center Stage

Marie Severin – The Chromatic Queen

Marie Severin is probably most famous for having colored over some of the most famous talents in the industry. She began her career back in the 1950's working for EC Comics during its heyday. In addition to coloring, she is also a talented penciler and inker.

Interviews

Donie Odulio – Making Music

One of the best fantasy series you're not reading is an imaginative tale from Cydonia Press called Music Box. This comic chronicles the tales of a magic world and our own modern society and how the two lands are connected. Donie Odulio mixes genres and art styles to bring this elaborate six-part mini series to life.

Terry Nantier – NBM's So Graphic!

NBM is the oldest publisher of original graphic novels in the United States. The company founded by Terry Nantier, Chris Beall, and Marc Minoustchine was founded 25 years ago and offers some of the best in US and European graphic novels, as well as original comics series like Boneyard. NBM has lots of treats planned for this year, and we wanted to catch up with founder Terry Nantier and find out some of the new works coming soon.

Maureen McTigue – Not All Superheroines Wear Spandex

Maureen McTigue is one of the best in the editing business. She's worked with Starlog, DC, Wizard Online, and Harris. She is one busy person, but she took precious time from her schedule to talk to the Tarts. The results make for fascinating reading.

Christopher Golden – Ferrymen, X-Men, and Vampires, Oh My!

Author Christopher Golden is known by a lot of fans, in a lot of fandoms. Besides Buffy and X-Men, Golden has written for the Hellboy franchise, as well as written a number of original novels, for adults and young adults, and a few non-fiction books. Golden tells us about life as an author and a fan-boy, and of his newest original novel, The Ferryman.

Tony Bedard – Bad to the Bone

Tony Bedard's not someone whose name is on the tips of all comics fans tongues — yet. Although he's made a lot of heads turn with his work on Mystic and Negation, it's the new horror series Route 666 that should bring him to the foreground as one of the most talented scribes in the business.

Articles

Spotlight On ... – Cartoonists Against Terrorism

by Jennifer M. Contino
In an effort to raise awareness about terrorism, the Cartoonists Against Terrorism (CAT) will be holding a series of interactive workshops, demonstrations and exhibits at the Peace Museum in Chicago, Illinois. The show will be mounted in late August by Kelley King, the curator of The Peace Museum, and Adrienne Sioux Koopersmith, founder of CAT, with an opening night of September 11.

Hopelessly Lost, But Making Good Time – Part #14

by Pam Bliss
Pam Bliss returns with her fourteenth article in an ongoing series about comics and those compelled to make them. Geared towards those who "don't know what they're doing, but are going ahead anyway", Pam's commentary and insight into the realm of making comics is sure to give newcomers, established creators, and readers alike a new view of the process and answer more than one question along the way.

Family Configurations in Newspaper Comic Strips

by Margaret O'Connell
For the past four or five decades, newspaper comic strips that prominently featured families have tended to focus on what could be described as Leave It to Beaver-style nuclear families — a dad, a mom (most often a stay-at-home mom, occasionally with some kind of part-time job on the side), and usually at least two kids, generally one of each gender. Margaret O'Connell begins a look at how the family is portrayed in newspaper comic strips.

Fish N Chips

by Jennifer M. Contino
Steve Hamaker's Fish N Chips isn't about seafood or fast food, it's a police drama like Top Ten meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series is going under a lot of radars, but Tart Jen Contino thinks it's one that definitely deserves a second look.

MoCCA Art Festival

by Jennifer M. Contino
On Sunday June 23 from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m., the MoCCA Art Festival, benefiting the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, will bring together creators, publishers, art dealers and other professionals in and around the world of comics, to showcase a vast array of their work and products. Open to the public, the MoCCA Art Festival will unveil a wide range of comic and cartoon art from original artwork to limited edition prints, posters, three-dimensional art, graphic novels, comics and animation.

Publisher Snapshot – Drawn & Quarterly.

by Andrea Burgess
Andread Burgess takes a look at what is available from D&Q and explains the influence they have had on her comics reading over the years.

Publisher Snapshot – GT Labs

by Katherine Keller
GT Labs is the independent comics publisher founded and run by Jim Ottaviani, comics geek (the name GT Labs is a little bit of homage to the Spider-Man origin story), Nuclear Scientist, and Librarian. In addition to receiving multiple Eisner nominations, Ottaviani's books Two-Fisted Science, Dignifying Science and Fallout have received coverage in the mainstream press.

Free Comic Day Part One – Or, The Little Girls and Guys Hatch a Plan

by Rebecca Salek
Free Comic Day! A grassroots movement, a suggestion made by a fan. Not some corporate gimmick. Not some publisher's stunt. But a movement started by a fan, a guy just like you and me. A suggestion that was made and heard and passed along and quickly became real. Rebecca first describes Free Comics Day from her retailer point of view.

Free Comic Day Part Two – The Big Girls and Boys Hatch a Plan, Too

by Rebecca Salek
It's not often that a suggestion made by a fan for something as big as Free Comic Book Day becomes a reality. But that is exactly what happened in this case. First suggested by retailer Joe Field in the industry magazine Comics Retailer, the idea of Free Comic Book Day quickly picked up support — not just among other fans and retailers, but among publishers as well. In part two, Rebecca describes the industry reaction to Free Comics Day.

Under the Microscope – Raven's Children

by Jane Irwin
In only three issues, Raven's Children has firmly presented itself as a genuine contender, and is amongst the best minicomics seen lately. Rather than being a series of one-shots, Layla Lawlor gives readers a complicated, intriguing story, one that's already far more and better developed than most first efforts.

Con Reports

WonderCon – Three Days of Wonder

by Adrienne Rappaport
WonderCon may seem like it's for the big publishers, but Adrienne Rappaport finds more than a few familiar Indy faces in her 3-day visit.