2008 Eisner Judges Named
The judges for the 2008 Eisner Awards have been announced. The 2008 judges include John Davis, director of pop culture markets at Bookazine; Paul Di Filippo, a Science Fiction author and comics writer; Atom! Freeman, the co-owner of the comic store, Brave New World Comics, in Santa Clarita, Ca; Jeff Jansen, a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly; and Eva Volin, supervising children's librarian at the Alameda Free Library in Alameda, Ca. and a manga reviewer. A call for entries will go out in mid-December, and the judges will meet in early April to choose the nominees for the Eisners ballot. The Eisner winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on Friday July 25, 2008 at the San Diego Comic Con International. More information about the Eisner Awards and the judges can be found at the award's website.
Vampire Writing Contest
Pop Japan Travel, the travel unit of Digital Manga Publishing, is holding a writing contest on the subject "Who wants to be a vampire," to promote their Cold Steel tour of Tokyo. Entries should describe in a thousand words or less "your first night as a vampire." Entries are due on December 15th; applications for the Cold Steel Tour are also due on this day. The winner of the contest will receive the Vampire Hunter D novel signed by the author Hideyuki Kikuchi, a signed copy of the Vampire Hunter D Vol. 1 manga, a copy of the Pop Japan Essential Otaku Guide, and a package of manga from Digital Manga Publishing. The first runner up will receive a hardcover copy of the Vampire Hunter D novel, Volume 1 of the Vampire Hunter D manga, the Essential Otaku Guide, and the manga package from DMP; the second runner up will receive the two Vampire Hunter D books and the Essential Otaku Guide. The contest is being run in conjunction with the online forum community Toon Zone; users can discuss the contest and their entries on the forum before submitting them. More information about the contest and the tours offered by Pop Japan Travel can be found at the company's website.
Adrian Tomine at Giant Robot NY
Pop and fringecult retailer Giant Robot is presenting an exhibition of Adrian Tomine's artwork, "Shortcomings and Goings." The show will include Tomine's illustrations for several of the publications he works for, such as the New Yorker and Giant Robot, and also original artwork form Tomine’s much-praised new graphic novel Shortcomings. A reception will be held on December 8th at 6:30 PM, at which Tomine will be signing Shortcomings. Giant Robot is located at 437 East 9th Street New York, NY. More information on the exhibition can be found at the Giant Robot NY website. Also, more information about Shortcomings can be found at the book's website.
Bryan Lee O'Malley, Hope Larson Signing
Bryan Lee O'Malley, author of Scott Pilgrim, and Hope Larson, author of Salamander Dreams and Grey Horses will be signing books at Chapel Hill Comics in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Saturday December 1st from 2 to 4 PM. More information about the event can be found at the store's website.
Shooting War Signings
The author and the illustrator of Shooting War, Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman, will be at Bottlerocket Wines for a discussion, signing and wine tasting on Wednesday November 28th from 6-8 PM. Bottlerocket is located at 5 West 19th Street in New York City. Lappe and Goldman will also be holding signings at Green Brain Comics (http://www.greenbrain.biz/) in Dearborn, MI on December 29th from 12:30-2 PM and in Austin, Texas at Book People (http://www.bookpeople.com/calendar_of_events.php?view=detail&id=221) at 7 PM. More information about Shooting War can be found at the comic's website.
Fletcher Hanks at Rocketship
Paul Karasik, the editor of I Shall Destroy All Civilized Planets, Fantagraphics surprise hit collection of comics by 1940s cartoonist Fletcher Hanks, will give a presentation at Rocketship on December 8th. Rocketship is located in Brooklyn, NY at 208 Smith Street. The event will begin at 7 PM; the presentation will begin at 8PM. More information about the event can be found at Rocketship's website.
Naruto on Direct2Drive
Viz Media has announced that the Naruto animated series is now available to download through Direct2Drive. Each episode costs $1.99; the first twenty-five episodes are now available for download. Earlier this year Viz Media made Bleach and Death Note episodes available for download through Direct2Drive. More information can be found at Viz's website.
Comics Holiday Shopping
The Comics Reporterblog has posted a holiday shopping guide for comic's fans. The list includes a wide variety of new and classic graphic novels, toys and novelty items, art books, books about comics, subsricbtions to comics and magazines, and other gift ideas for comic lovers. There are 171 gift suggestions; there's something for everyone.
