Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

The Holiday Season is upon us! It’s hard to believe another year has come and gone but here we are at Christmas 2010! We here at MegaComicsGroup.com hope each and every person reading this blog has the best Holidays ever!

Who’s the guys in front of the Marvel Painting? The gentleman’s name is Allen Bellman. Mr. Bellman’s is one of the  great cartoonists from the Golden Age of Comics and in particular Timely/Marvel Comics. From his web site:

Allen Bellman was born in Manhattan and studied at the High School of Industrial Arts. He eventually became a staff artist at Timely during the Golden Age of Comics. While still a teenager, he did the backgrounds for Syd Shores’ Captain America in 1942, and eventually worked on titles such as: The Patriot, The Destroyer, The Human Torch, Jap Buster Johnson and Jet Dixon of the Space Squadron, All Winners Comics, Marvel Mystery, Sub Mariner Comics, Young Allies and so much more.”

Mark Poe, our esteemed Publisher-In-Training and Black Friday Comics contest winner got an early Christmas gift in the form of an original pencil sketch from Mr. Bellman. Thanks to Michael D. Hamersky and  Make It So Marketing, Mark won the Grand Prize on the Black Friday Comics event the day after Thanksgiving on Facebook. Mr. Bellman promised a “…a tight graphite pencil sketch, 9×12 of Cappy (Captain America), belting Hitler, or any other villain of that period. I will put all but the kitchen sink into it. This one could have a value of $195.” True to his word, he delivered at Mark’s request of  “Cap punching out the Red Skull with Hitler in the background.” Click the image to the right for a larger viewing in a new window.

Find out all about Mr. Bellman and his commission sketches on his web site: www.AllenBellman.com, where you can contact him.

Coming up in 2011, Allen Bellman is scheduled to be at: Tampa Bay Comic Con, MegaCon, Texas Comic Con, and the Florida SuperCon! You’ll find dates and times at these links.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I hope you get more than you asked for! 😉 I sure did! As you read above I am now the proud owner of a bit of Golden Age Treasure. I’d like to thank Allen Bellman for the great job he did. It turned out even better than I imagined and will have a reserved place of honor on my office wall as soon as the mailman delivers it. Also a big “Thank you!” to Michael D. Hamersky at  Make It So Marketing for putting on Black Friday Comics and giving me the opportunity to enter for the Grand Prize.

Also on a related note of gratitude…. Thanks to each and every reader who have diligently and patiently followed this MCG blog since we started it back in 2008. This year, as has been reported, has not gone at all as planned and we’ve had a lot of distractions and delays on our publications along the way. But we’re still here and we’re making progress toward our goals. Most of that progress of late has been behind the scenes as we have been bringing to a close our old Art Service business in favor of expanding our Art Production business including our new comics publications. Hopefully, we’ll be able to give you a full report soon and get all our comics projects back to full production mode. So thanks for sticking with us and Happy Holidays!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

______________________________

Archives Spotlight

We continue our look back at our previously posted web comics. We’ll be looking at all that’s come before with this feature and adding new comments as well. This month we are reviewing Project: New Man #2 and Humants #1! Stay tuned to this section every Friday for more of our archived titles.

Project: New Man #2 – Page 15 – An offer he could not refuse! What would you do? The guy is on death row, slated to die anyway. So here he has an opportunity to live, IF he can survive being a guinea pig!

Mark’s Remarks: My layouts are better on this page… but the proportions are a bit off. Of course I’ve seen other books with the same type of mistakes published by the big two in times past. The thing about production art where deadlines are always looming, the art is often rushed. It’s not as obvious these days especially with larger staffs and the use of PhotoShop and like programs which allow for much more editing and adjustments. Maybe someday I’ll go back and redo some  or all these pages, who knows?

Humants #1 – Page 14 – And so the first meeting of The Humants team is done. A chapter ends and a new one begins… on the next post! Be here! …uh, that is, if you want to… and we sure hope you do! 😉

Mark’s Remarks: Freazie covers a lot of ground on this page setting up the story for the action to come. More than that, even though it’s basically talking heads, Mr. White manages to keep it interesting with his layout and art. Freazie has been criticized before concerning his use of shadows. Maybe he does get carried away some with his light sources but I recall other artists who used abstract shadow casting for dramatic effect.  One of my favorite cartoonists is Jack Kirby, as you might have guessed by now. 😉 Kirby could get more use out of dramatic, abstract shadows than just about anyone I’ve ever studied. Yeah, sure, Freazie’s art may not be prefect, but whose is? He can tell a story with his pictures and perfect or not there has always been something about Freazie’s art which is appealing. Exactly what that bit of charm is I don’t know, but I like it! 🙂

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

CU Next Friday!

Captain America, the Red Skull and related Marvel characters are TM & © Marvel Entertainment. Captain America battle the Red Skull art  © Allen Bellman. Images and information for conventions and signings, see convention sites for copyright and trademark owners information. Fair Use reference to intellectual property of other companies are intended for historical and informational accuracy only. Mega Comics Group™ or Mega Graphics, LLC™ does not represent or have any relationship to any other company or entity or their intellectual property unless otherwise clearly noted. Ghost Owl, The Guard, Ghost Woman, Blackout, The Conqueror, Amazona, ArchAgent, Atomaster, Medicine Man , Black Fury , Lady Patriot, Madame Strange, Black Lion, Atlas the Titan, Iron Lady, Atomoro, Mega Tales, A-1 Comics Spectacular, and the Amalgam Agents and all contents ™ and © 2010 Mega Graphics LLC, unless otherwise noted herein.  Project: New Man™ and  Humants™ and © 2010 Freazie White, Jr. D.B.A. Legacy Comics. Tess, the Living Tesseract™ and © Stephen Greg Legat and Mark Poe. All rights reserved. Mega Graphics LLC, licensor.

Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

Happy New Year!

2011 is here! Fresh off of the  Christmas 2010 here we are with New Year’s Eve! As we did with Christmas we here at MegaComicsGroup.com want to wish each and every reader of this blog and our comics a great New Year in 2011!

Mark got his First Prize Art! As you read in our last blog, Mark Poe won the Allen Bellman art shown here. He got it via UPS the other day and couldn’t be happier. Seen here with said masterpiece is our esteemed Publisher-In-Training and part time art collector. Soon the piece will take it’s place framed along side his signed Kerry Gammill Superman print and his Dave Simon’s original Power Girl art. Mark, being somewhat of a Golden Age of Comics Fan, is proud to have a little of his own Golden Age Memorabilia.

In case you missed it and,  like us, are too lazy to scroll down to see it, 😉 here’s the recap from last week:

Thanks to Michael D. Hamersky and  Make It So Marketing, Mark won the Grand Prize on the Black Friday Comics event the day after Thanksgiving on Facebook. Mr. Bellman promised a “…a tight graphite pencil sketch, 9×12 of Cappy (Captain America), belting Hitler, or any other villain of that period. I will put all but the kitchen sink into it. This one could have a value of $195.” True to his word, he delivered at Mark’s request of  “Cap punching out the Red Skull with Hitler in the background.” Click the image to the right for a larger viewing in a new window.

Find out all about Mr. Bellman and his commission sketches on his web site: www.AllenBellman.com, where you can contact him.

Coming up in 2011, Allen Bellman is scheduled to be at: Tampa Bay Comic Con, MegaCon, Texas Comic Con, and the Florida SuperCon! You’ll find dates and times at these links.

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

______________________________

Archives Spotlight

We continue our look back at our previously posted web comics. We’ll be looking at all that’s come before with this feature and adding new comments as well. This month we are reviewing Project: New Man #2 and Humants #1! Stay tuned to this section every Friday for more of our archived titles.

Project: New Man #2 – Page 16 – Ah! Now we are starting to learn something! Do you recall a post a few days ago on the main MCG blog regarding a group called Razor’s Edge? See how this all ties into our previous work in Small Press for Magi Graphics?

“E.D.G.E. stands for Excecutive Division of Genetic Engineering. I trust the implications speak for themselves.”

Mark’s Remarks: I like this page better…although I think I over did the size of the panels here a little. The story telling would have been better suited to have 4 or 5 panels on this page. My own inking started to take over more here as well, giving a little more continuity in the art from page to page.

Humants #1 – Page 15 – Now that the hero introductions are out of the way it’s time to prep for the introduction of our chief villain. Watch as Freazie pulls off some nice storytelling here and leads us through the origin of our baddie.

Mark’s Remarks: We had the name first! A few years ago one of the big two comics companies, Marvel I think it was, swiped our chief villain’s name: Mageddon for use on a totally different villain in one of their big crossover events. I’ve always heard if your stuff is worth stealing, that’s a big compliment… No, wait… it’s “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”… or something like that. So I guess we’re flattered.. yeah, anyway… just so you know, we had that name first!

It was the same with the name New Man. We used it first then one of the guys at Image Comics used it for his own character. So this happened more than once. Coincidence? Maybe… Of course in comic books, names have been used for characters, especially villains, by more than one company over the years. It use to be fairly common. For instance Marvel and DC had villains called The Thinker. But these days, lawsuits, and more so, threats  of lawsuits over copyright infringement are easy to come by. You will notice on book covers now the small TM (trademark) by just about every name used. It should be noted here, the one threatening a lawsuit has to have the money to pay the lawyers to back it up, which, naturally is no problem for the big two. It’s been an interesting  observation of mine, that usually it’s the small companies, who don’t have the money to defend themselves in court, the big guys usually threaten with “cease and desist” letters. They seem to be far more tolerant of each other with such characters as Captain Marvel, for instance. I’m just saying… 😉

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

CU Next Friday!

Captain America, the Red Skull and related Marvel characters are TM & © Marvel Entertainment. Captain America battle the Red Skull art  © Allen Bellman. Images and information for conventions and signings, see convention sites for copyright and trademark owners information. Fair Use reference to intellectual property of other companies are intended for historical and informational accuracy only. Mega Comics Group™ or Mega Graphics, LLC™ does not represent or have any relationship to any other company or entity or their intellectual property unless otherwise clearly noted. Ghost Owl, The Guard, Ghost Woman, Blackout, The Conqueror, Amazona, ArchAgent, Atomaster, Medicine Man , Black Fury , Lady Patriot, Madame Strange, Black Lion, Atlas the Titan, Iron Lady, Atomoro, Mega Tales, A-1 Comics Spectacular, and the Amalgam Agents and all contents ™ and © 2010 Mega Graphics LLC, unless otherwise noted herein.  Project: New Man™ and  Humants™ and © 2010 Freazie White, Jr. D.B.A. Legacy Comics. Tess, the Living Tesseract™ and © Stephen Greg Legat and Mark Poe. All rights reserved. Mega Graphics LLC, licensor.

Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

The Mighty Thor In A Theater Near You!

Chris Hemsworth as Thor Wallpaper courtesy of comicbookmovie.com.

The Thor movie poster.

We’re on a roll here! A film roll that is! 😉 The last two weeks we’ve talked about the new movies of  Green Lantern and Green Hornet. So since we have nothing better to talk about at this point and the subject is interesting to some of us, we’ll continue with the theme! Albeit, this time around we’ll not be going with the Green motif for obvious reasons. Today we’ll share what we know of the forthcoming Thor movie. What we know could fit in a match box, but that’s never stopped us from spouting off before! So why change now, eh? 😉

By now you know the drill. So here we turn it over to Mark Poe, our esteemed Publisher-In-Training and part time Myth Manager.

Take Note: If you like the awesome wall paper above, get more for your computer desktop at: www.comicbookmovie.com .

Mark’s Remarks

The Hammer of Thor Promo Poster.

The stuff of legends… literally! Chris Hemsworth portrays the mighty but arrogant god warrior whose careless actions re-start an ages old war. Thor is kicked out of the heavenly gates of Asgard by his father Odin played by… gulp… Anthony Hopkins? Forced to live and move among the lowly mortals of Earth he meets a beautiful young scientist, Jane Foster portrayed by Natalie Portman. She, of course, as the old Stan Lee/Jack Kirby story goes, becomes his first love. Here, as is the usual case with a classic love story, is where Thor grows up. He soon learns what it takes to be a true hero when the Asgard’s most dangerous villain sends dark forces to invade Midgard (Earth).

So far so good. Except for casting one of the biggest movie villains ever, Anthony Hopkins, as Odin, it sounds as if we have the making of another great film from Marvel. The sets and costumes look convincing, even if not exactly as Kirby drew it. The hammer is perfect, which will go a long way. Mjolnir of course is no mere movie prop, and it will be interesting to see how they use the Hammer of Thor in the flick. A lot of the props and costumes reflect the work of Walter Simonson from his run on Thor in the ’80’s as well as that of Lee and Kirby from the ’60’s. That’s a nice tribute to Walt who probably did more with the characters than anyone else since Stan and Jack created them.

Anthony Hopkins as Odin.

So why isn’t Hopkins playing Loki, Thor’s evil half brother? Good question. Age, I suppose has a lot to do with it. But to his credit Hopkins seems to do well for the part in the little bit which can be seen in the movie trailer. Still, in my mind at least, Odin should be played by someone a bit heavier, more imposing figure with a deeper voice. Someone like Orson Wells, if he were still alive, would be perfect, but maybe that’s just me.

Chris Hemsworth seems to fit the Thor role to a “T”. This Thor again is more like the character Walter Simonson revamped than does the original Lee/Kirby creation. Donald Blake seems to be no where in sight on the trailer. Maybe the producers thought the timid, Clark Kent type was not right for the movie, but it seems to me to be an interracial  part of the story of Thor’s humbling. For Odin to have forced his arrogant  son to spend time in a weak, crippled body as Blake was portrayed in the comics seems to be the perfect path for the story in my estimation.

Natalie Portman, of Star Wars: Episode 1 fame, is a great pick for the Jane Foster role. But she seems to be a stronger personality than Lee and Kirby’s Jane. Of course the world is a lot different place now than it was in the ’60’s. Watching the trailer we noticed another female role in the film. Could that be Sif, Thor’s warrior maiden girlfriend? Hmmm…

Out of the 3 films I have reported on, this movie looks the most promising. I still have not seen Green Hornet, but some of my friends on Facebook were less than impressed with it. So much so I may wait until it’s released on DVD this summer to watch it.

Something to watch for: The website comicbookmovie.com has reported the movie trailers for both Thor and Captain America are to be two of this year’s Super Bowl commercials.

Again this week as an added treat we’ve linked the Thor Movie trailer to this site for everyone to see.: www.greenhornetmovie.com. Enjoy!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

______________________________

Archives Spotlight

We continue our look back at our previously posted web comics. We’ll be looking at all that’s come before with this feature and adding new comments as well. This month we are reviewing Project: New Man #2 and Humants #1! Stay tuned to this section every Friday for more of our archived titles.

Project: New Man #2 – Page 19 – Prison makes for a good backdrop for the telling of a story. And this is some kind of story to tell!

Mark’s Remarks: Ah! Listen to the dialog here. Freazie White, Jr. Creator and editor of Humants as well as Project: New Man’s csripter extraordinare, masterfully used the conversation between Max & Dave to reveal a lot about the Rockwell Prison Holding Facility. Using this device subtly explains why a guy on death row would be in the same joint with someone serving a sentence for a minor offense.

Humants #1 – Page 18 – Yow! Is that guy going into convulsions?! Whoa! What’s with his eyes?! Gulp! He’s being levitated and it seems he is being absorbed by that dark figure. Uh oh…

Mark’s Remarks: It’s alive! The origin of the Humants chief nemesis Mageddon continues! Nice page, Freazie!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

CU Next Friday!

The Green Hornet, Kato and related characters are TM & © by The Green Hornet Inc. Clark Kent, Green Lantern, and related characters are TM & © DC Comics. Captain America, Thor, Odin, Loki and related characters are TM & © Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Images and information for conventions and signings, see convention sites for copyright and trademark owners information. Fair Use reference to intellectual property of other companies are intended for historical and informational accuracy only. Mega Comics Group™ or Mega Graphics, LLC™ does not represent or have any relationship to any other company or entity or their intellectual property unless otherwise clearly noted. Ghost Owl, The Guard, Ghost Woman, Blackout, The Conqueror, Amazona, ArchAgent, Atomaster, Medicine Man , Black Fury , Lady Patriot, Madame Strange, Black Lion, Atlas the Titan, Iron Lady, Atomoro, Mega Tales, A-1 Comics Spectacular, and the Amalgam Agents and all contents ™ and © 2010 Mega Graphics LLC, unless otherwise noted herein.   Project: New Man™ and  Humants™ and © 2010 Freazie White, Jr. D.B.A. Legacy Comics. Tess, the Living Tesseract™ and © Stephen Greg Legat and Mark Poe. All rights reserved. Mega Graphics LLC, licensor.