Category Archive for ‘Comic books’ at Charles Apple

Archive for the 'Comic books' Category

Even more Batman feature pages

Published

on July 18, 2008

in Illustration, Innovative ideas, Virginian-Pilot, Amusing stuff, News design, Comic books and VizEds Blog

. 6 Comments

A SAMPLING OF A1 BATMAN PROMOS

After careful combing through the pages posted at the Newseum, here are my top-10 favorite across-the-top-of-A1 promo treatments. They’re rated primarily on how unpredictable and inventive they struck me.

10. BANGOR DAILY NEWS
Bangor, Maine

Bangor Batman A1
We’ve all seen this studio art by now. But the reverse nameplate really pops and the typography is very nice.

Does the fisherman look like he’s about to smack Heath upside the head?

9. THE TIMES
Munster, Ind.

Munster Batman A1
Another use of the handout art, but the reverse treatment incorporating the nameplate works for me. We should mess with nameplates more often.

8. LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER
Lexington, Ky.

Lexington Batman A1
Still, that same art and still, that same treatment as in the previous two. But nicely done.

7. CENTRE DAILY TIMES
State College, Pa.

Centre Daily Times Batman A1
As nice as I found those black reverse promos, this much lighter, whiter one works very well for the Times. That’s the best crop I’ve seen yet for that particular handout photo.

6. SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Fort Lauderdale Batman A1
A handout photo, perhaps, but one we’ve not seen umpteen million times. Very sophisticated treatment, with the translucent strip. The clever pun head — and not one everyone else was using — helps a lot.

5. PENSACOLA NEWS-JOURNAL
Pensacola, Fla.

Pensacola Batman A1
Pensacola zigs while everyone else is zagging by ignoring the studio art and going with something straight out of the comics. The interplay with the nameplate is particularly sweet.

4. THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Norfolk, Va.

Virginian-Pilot Batman A1
Handout art, but cropped and used in a way that no one else could get away with. This is why they’re the Pilot and the rest of us are not.

3. THE POST-STANDARD
Syracuse, N.Y.

Syracuse Batman A1
Was that a handout photo? If so, I can’t believe more folks didn’t use it. The reverse around the nameplate is dramatic; the typography is immaculate. And the abundance of blue above the fold makes for an attractive package.

2. THE FRESNO BEE
Fresno, Calif.

Fresno Batman A1
Here’s another photo I’ve only seen in one or two places. A fabulous use of a dramatic shot. Loses points because of the blue box in the upper left and the “7″ in the upper right. Is that a page number? It’s unclear.

And my favorite A1 Batman treatment…

1. THE HERALD
Rock Hill, S.C.

I have to admit, I cheated on this one. For some reason, The Herald’s Friday front wasn’t posted at the Newseum today.

But Friday morning — only my fifth day back in town — I stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast, spotted this in the rack and couldn’t pay my 35 cents fast enough.

Rock Hill front page

Presentation editor Virginia Wilcox writes:

Idea was bandied about among several folks, but Chuck McShane gets the final credit for pulling it together.

My hat’s off to Virginia. She and her folks are kicking major ass. The paper — at which I worked from 1988 to 1993; I even redesigned it in 1990, but that was a couple of redesigns ago — has looked great all week.

This one goes into my slide show as another fabulous small-paper example. I recently added their July 4th page, too. Average daily circulation for The Herald: 31,600.

—

A SAMPLING OF A1 STORY PLAY

A handful of papers found a way to avoid having to promo Batman on A1. They ran a story about Batman on A1. Some, as a lede story.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand: Dude, it’s only a movie. On the other hand: Hey, if it sells papers…

Papers running Batman on A1 included…

THE OREGONIAN
Portland, Ore.

Portland Batman

ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
Albuquerque, N.M.

Albuquerque Batman

METRO
New York and Philadelphia

Metro Batman

USA Today
Tyson’s Corner, Va.

USA Today batman

The Vindicator
Youngstown, Ohio

These guys did a story on a local guy who worked on Batman comic books. Pretty good, except true batfans really, really hate that ‘Holy this’ and ‘Holy that’ stuff.

Youngstown Batman

A few papers worked up A1 stories on local Batman fans.

Kalamazoo Gazette
Kalamazoo, Mich.

Oh, this guy looks very, very creepy…

Kalamazoo Batman

TribP.M.
Pittsburgh, Pa.

This guy looks less than intimidating…

Tribune PM Batman

The Oklahoman
Oklahoma City, Okla.

And OKC split the difference, leading A1 with Heath Ledger and, as secondary art, going with local women dressed up as bat-characters.

Oklahoma City Batman
—
—

MORE FEATURE TREATMENTS

On with our show…

—

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT and LINK
Norfolk, Va.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this paper. But I thought I’d include them anyway…

The Pilot’s Bob Voros writes:

The Daily Break and Link Batman pages came out today; they look really good. Nick Mrozowski did a great job on the photo-illo and the inside page of Link was very sweet!

Here’s Nick’s illustration in the Friday Pilot:

Pilot Batman page

On the left is what Nick’s illo looked like in Link. On the right is the Joker bio that Bob wrote:

As you can see, poor Bob got a dogleg in the Pilot. His piece got a much better ride in Link:

Link Joker history

And here is the Link front page for Friday:

Link Batman front

Find more of Nick’s stuff and Bob’s stuff in their respective NewsPageDesigner galleries.

—

SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL
Santa Cruz, Calif.

Anthony Solis posted this one:

Santa Cruz Batman

See more of Anthony’s stuff in his NewsPageDesigner gallery.

—

BALL STATE DAILY NEWS
Muncie, Indiana

Shelby Murphy posted this tab cover design:

Ball State Batman page

See more of Shelby’s stuff in her NewsPageDesigner gallery.

—

KITSAP SUN
Bremerton, Wash.

Jon Williams calls this one a:

Pretty risky page.

See more of Jon’s stuff in his NewsPageDesigner gallery.

—

GWINNETT DAILY POST
Lawrenceville, Ga.

Nicole Puckett posted this tab cover…

Gwinnett Batman front

…and Tori Boone designed this inside tab spread:

Gwinnett Batman inside page

Find Nicole’s stuff and Tori’s stuff in their respective NewsPageDesigner galleries.

—

EXPRESO
Matamoros, Mexico

Juan Jose Palma posted this pair of pages:

Expresso cover

Expresso batman spread

See more of Juan Jose’s stuff in his NewsPageDesigner gallery.

—

VALEPARAIBANO
São José dos Campos, Brazil

Flavio Forner posted this Friday:

Valeparaibano Batman page

See more of Flavio’s stuff in his NewsPageDesigner gallery.

—

ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
St. Petersburg, Fla.

St. Pete produced a four-page Batman section in its weekly entertainment tab. Jennifer DeCamp writes:

I wanted to allude to both characters in the movie without having to show each. Fabulous illustration by John Corbitt.

Pages 2&3 of our Batman coverage. John created two more images in the same style as the front, so we wouldn’t have to use traditional movie art.

Page 4 of our Batman coverage. A brief history of the suit.

See more of Jennifer’s stuff in her NewsPageDesigner gallery.

—
FLORIDA TIMES-UNION
Jacksonville, Fla.

Patrick Garvin writes:

Here’s the cover of our Weekend section today. Kyzandrha Z. Pratt orchestrated this cover, and Jason Pratt shot and produced a “behind the scenes” video of the process of how this Dark Knight cover came to be.

It’s a fun cover and the video of how they pulled it off was really
interesting.

Click here for the high-definition version or here for the standard version.

You may recall that Jacksonville built one of the more inventive Indiana Jones pages, too. Interesting their solution to The Dark Knight is so damn good as well.

Find more of Kyzandrha’s stuff in her NewsPageDesigner gallery.

—

See more Dark Knight pages here and here.

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Truth in advertising?

Published

Charles Apple

on November 23, 2007

in Getting a life, Amusing stuff, Comic books and VizEds Blog

. 0 Comments

L.A.-based TV/Comics/Entertainment writer Mark Evanier traveled to New York City for a comics convention and to take in whatever Broadway shows he could find that haven’t shut down.

He published this bit Sunday in his blog:

Everyone who stays at the Hotel Pennsylvania receives a little pocket-size fold-out map of New York that also contains a big ad for the Broadway show, Hairspray.

Here’s what it looks like folded out, and you’ll notice there’s a pull quote from critic Clive Barnes that says, “A great big fat gorgeous hit!”

That’s a great quote until you fold up the map…

Evanier notes that somebody owes Mad Magazine’s Al Jaffee a royalty for this one.

If you’re even remotely interested in entertainment news, comics, animated cartoons or related fields, you should bookmark Evanier’s blog and check it daily. Evanier — yes, he’s on strike, but he’s still writing in his blog — has worked with a lot of people over the years. Who else can claim to have:

a) Written for the short-lived 1970s TV variety show Pink Lady and Jeff.

b) Helped create one of the most-hated characters in animated cartoon history, Scrappy Doo.

c) Wrote for one of the better-loved shows in animated cartoon history, Garfield.

And d) Worked as an assistant for comics guru Jack Kirby?

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Is there life after visuals? Yes, says the Pilot’s Larry Printz

Published

Charles Apple

on August 27, 2007

in Virginian-Pilot, Editorial cartooning, Illustration, Comic books, Job changes, Visual Editors, Newspapers, News design and VizEds Blog

. 1 Comment

The Friday edition of Link featured a new free-lance illustrator whose work I enjoyed quite a bit — Larry Printz, who is also The Virginian-Pilot’s auto editor.

Larry joined the Pilot about a year-and-a-half ago, after spending 14 years as a graphic artist and then graphics editor of The (Allentown, Pa.) Morning Call.

Previously, Larry had worked as a cartoonist for the Bucks County (Pa.) Courier Times and the Doylestown (Pa.) Intelligencer. He redesigned each of those papers while he worked there.

The Virginian-Pilot’s Larry Printz

Pilot auto editor Larry Printz.
—

After years of graphics and editorial cartooning, Larry began dabbling in writing assignments in 1993. He started an auto review column for The Morning Call in 1995 and was eventually picked up by a syndicate.

He left the visuals side behind, however, when he jumped to The Pilot in 2006.

Larry agreed to answer a few questions for us about his career and about life after visuals:

Q. When did you get out of visuals? When you came to the Pilot? Or were you already firmly in the word side back in Allentown?

A. I was already on the word side in Allentown, which is where it started.

When I joined the Call in 1992, it had the sort of newsroom culture that allowed you to try other things apart from your job. Being a classically-trained pianist, I initially started writing about music. But soon I realized I should start writing about cars.

I like to get paid for having fun, and cartooning and driving are two things I like and like getting paid to do.

Larry and my daughter, Elizabeth, at a
big Virginia Beach car show, May 2006.
—

Q. How did this migration take place? It was a gradual process?

A. It was gradual, over three years. But I interviewed an amazing number of entertainers, Burt Bacharach, Brian Wilson, Paul Anka, Nancy Wilson, Jacob Dylan, Kirsty MacColl, and Stan Freberg among others.

[The writing] migrated to cars slowly, but surely. Then two news events happened in our backyard and before long, it was a regular feature.

Q. What were the two events?

A. The introduction of the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable and a national meeting of the Austin-Healey club.

Q. You reported them?

A. Yes, then came back, wrote the story and designed the page.

Q. What was the most interesting music interview you had?

A. Burt Bacharach. Not just because of the length of his career, his extensive musical training, his extensive knowledge, but it turns out we’re related.

Music icons of the 1960s: Burt
Bacharach and Brian Wilson.
—

Q. Brian Wilson struggles with mental health issues and has a long history of for giving poor — or, at least, peculiar — interviews. What was he like?

A. It depends whether he’s had his meds. I came away feeling guilty about it. This is a guy who gave so much; people want more. We should feel lucky he’s still with us making music.

Q. You had a background in writing or reporting before all this started, right? Surely you weren’t born with all those word-person skills…

A. Actually, prior to writing at The Morning Call, I had never written a story of any sort. My writing was limited to cartooning.

Larry’s section, Drive, appears in The Virginian-Pilot every Friday. That’s his column on the right; he usually writes the lead feature, as well. Which was the case this past Friday with a test drive of the new Smart car.
—

Q. So you’re out of the visual side, forever. And then you move to the Virginian-Pilot — one of the nation’s more visual newspapers. Is that weird, or what?

A. Oh yeah. But I find that my experience on the visual side has helped structure my writing, since I can think of the layout before a word is written.

Q. You’re still a member of the National Cartoonists Society. Do you still attend their meetings? What’s it like to rub elbows with that bunch?

A. I’ve been a member since I was 23 and still attend meetings. It’s shockingly normal, except their jokes are funnier. And despite what you might think, no one talks in speech balloons.

Brenda Starr cartoonist Dale Messick.
She died in 2005.
—

Q. What’s your favorite famous-cartoonist anecdote?

A. I have a million of them, but here’s one…

A few years ago, I saw Dale Messick, creator of Brenda Starr and the first successful female cartoonist. She was in her early 90s, and I found her in the hotel business office surfing the web. We exchanged pleasantries and agreed to chat later.

At a cocktail reception, she was asked if she had to do it all over again, would she go into Col. Patterson’s office at the Chicago Tribune and become a syndicated cartoonist. She said, “Hell no. I’d go to California and buy real estate.”

Larry gobbles down a Philly cheesesteak for a Virginian-Pilot “Taste test” feature earlier this year.
—

Q. While rummaging around our system for photos of you, I found a shot of you eating what appears to be a Philly cheesesteak. What was that all about? Are you from Philly?

A. Born in Philly, home to such cartoonists as Ted Key (Hazel) and Robb Armstrong (Jump Start).

Q. What was it like growing up in a big city without professional sports?

A. Yo! That hurts.

A sample of Larry’s cartoon work in last week’s Link.
—

Q. Do you miss art direction? Illustrating? Locator maps?

A. Since I am also editor of my section, I still indulge in a bit of art direction.

I do miss being a staff cartoonist, but still freelance.

I will never miss drawing another locator map, but I love it when I find one that’s particularly well executed.

Q. What advice can you give the rest of us designers and artists?

A. Words matter. A designer’s job is to amplify them without detracting from them.

A lesson I learned as a cartoonist is that the words matter more than the drawing. The drawing can be bad, but if the words are funny enough, it won’t matter. Looking at many comic strips today proves that point.

Thanks, Larry, for the interview. And best wishes for the continued success of the Drive section.

And hey, come on back to graphics whenever you get bored. I have some locator assignments waiting for you..

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End your week with a geekazoid festival

Published

Charles Apple

on August 24, 2007

in Amusing stuff, For your bookshelf, Comic books, News design, Charles Apple and VizEds Blog

. 3 Comments

What better way to end your week than with a festival of ultra-geekazoid Star Trek items?

We’ll run through these pretty quickly, so hold on to your pointed ears…

—

1. ANALYZING THOSE RED-SHIRT DEATHS

Seems like damn near every episode of Star Trek, some poor security guard — wearing a red shirt, naturally — would get bitten by a space vampire or knocked into a bottomless pit by a surly android.

Death of a fellow in a red shirt. Yet again.

Left: Before. Right: After. ‘Nuff said.
—

Matt Bailey — a web marketing guru who apparently has waaay too much time on his hands — conducted extensive research into his DVD collection to quantify the actual peril Hollywood extras put themselves in when they put on a red shirt and stood behind the hammy William Shatner.

The Enterprise has a crew of 430 in its five-year mission. (Now, I know that the show was only on the air for 3 years, but bear with me. 80 episodes were produced, which gives us the data to build from.) 59 crewmembers were killed during the mission, which comes out to 13.7% of the crew. So, that will be our overall conversion rate, 13.7%.

Data Segmentation:
However, we need to segment the overall mortality (conversion) rate in order to gain the specific information that we need:

Yellow-shirt crewperson deaths: 6 (10%)

Blue-Shirt crewperson deaths: 5 (8 %)

Engineering smock crewperson deaths: 4

Red-Shirt crewperson deaths: 43 (73%)

He then goes into just how each crewman dies and considers other factors, such as: Is a red-shirted crewman more likely to live or die if Kirk gets laid in the episode?

Here are the statistics:
Red Shirt Death episodes = 18
Episodes with fights = 55
Probability of a fight breaking out = 70%
Kirk “conquest” episodes = 24
Kirk “conquest” + fights = 16
Kirk “conquest” + red shirt casualty= 4
Red shirt death + fight + Kirk “conquest” = 3

…As the data shows, Captain Kirk “making contact” with alien women has an impact on the crew’s survival. The red-shirt death rate is higher when a fight breaks out than when Kirk meets a woman and a fight breaks out. Yet the analysis shows that meeting Kirk meeting women only happens in 30% of the missions.

Conclusion:
We can reliably improve the survivability of the red-shirted crewmen by only exploring peaceful, female-only planets (android and alien females included).

Oh, but Mr. Bailey is just getting started. It’s about then that he pulls out the PowerPoint. And then starts graphing. He even invokes the name of the one, true Great Bird of the Galaxy: Edward Tufte.

Bailey Trek graf
It’s a scream. Read it all here.

—

2. IT’S THE NEW ‘INTERSTATE’!

Here’s a hot new font for all your redesign needs:

Trek disruptor font

This is not the Star Trek typeface. That would be this one:

Star Trek font
(Please excuse the awful kerning. That’s not mine.)

Instead, Trek Disruptor Blast is the typeface used for the nameplate in the old Star Trek comic book, published in the early 1970s by Gold Key comics. Like these:

This really brings back memories. Sigh.

Download it free (for personal use only) here.

If you’re interested in more Star Trek fonts, check out this site here. Or at this site here.We’ve not tried any of these, so we won’t vouch for them. We’re just pointing them out.

I’ll look forward to spotting Trek Disruptor Blast soon on redesigned pages at the Newseum.

—

STAR TREK MOTIVATIONAL POSTERS
While we’re at it, we thought we’d share this little gem (or is that “Jim”?) with you. It’s a site where you can download faux inspirational posters featuring Trek characters and themes.

This one is our favorite. Click for a larger view:

—

DOWNLOAD THAT NEW EPISODE

The latest web episode of Star Trek: The New Voyages was to be posted last night.

We’re not sure it’s there; last we heard, the traffic was a bit much for the fan-produced series and its servers. We’ll cruise by this weekend and check it out.

What are The New Voyages? Glad you asked.

A well-connected group of L.A.-based Trek fans are writing and producing episodes that would, in theory, be placed in the fourth season of the classic 1960s Star Trek — had the show actually lasted four seasons, that is.

Star Trek: New Voyages crew

Jeff Quinn as Spock, James Cawley as Kirk and John Kelly as McCoy. Kelly, I’m told, is a urologist. Playing McCoy, I’m sure, has gained him the respect of his peers.
—

Apparently, Paramount Pictures allows them to do this — as long as it remains a non-profit venture. Their first few episodes created so much buzz that a number of Trek professionals — writers, actors, special-effects folks and so on — have climbed aboard. Among the stars that have made guest appearances in The New Voyages:

* Walter Koenig - He played the Beatlesque Russian Ensign Chekov.

* Grace Lee Whitney - Captain Kirk’s blonde girl Friday, Janice Rand

* Majel Roddenberry - Wife of Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Majel played a number of characters, including Nurse Chapel. In New Voyages, she reprises her role as the voice of the ship’s computer.

* William Windom, who played the doomed Commodore Decker in the popular episode in which the Enterprise goes head-to-head with an alien Doomsday killing machine that looks like a giant Bugle-brand snack chip.

The latest episode — “World Enough and Time” — stars George Takei in his old role of Sulu.

The production values of the episodes is downright stunning. The acting… um, well, it’s stunning at times, too. But for other reasons. *Cough.*

If you’re interested in reading more — or in downloading episodes — find them here.

—

VINTAGE TREK COMIC REPRINTS

If you want to know more about the vintage Trek comics I mentioned above, check out Curt Danhauser’s guide to the Gold Key Trek comics.

All these comics were collected last year and reprinted in nice, neat paperback format. You can get them all from Amazon. Most are around $15.

and volume five:

—

As Mr. Spock told the glow-in-the dark man: Live long and phospher this weekend.

QaPla’!

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Captain America is dead? Yeah, right…

Published

Charles Apple

on March 9, 2007

in Comic books, Charles Apple and Newspapers

. 2 Comments

So at the Wednesday budget meeting, the question was raised: What if we put the death of comic book character Captain America on page one?

I scoffed. Captain America is dead? Yeah, right. They die, they come back to life. And I rolled off a number of other comic icons who have died.

I got on a bit of a roll. At some point, our editor, Denis Finley, pointed at me and said, “That’s funny. Write all that down.”

So I did. And our brand-new-yet-most-excellent Features Editor, Elizabeth Thiel, used it on her Daily Break front today.

I thought you might enjoy it:

The news moved on the wire Wednesday: Captain America is dead.

Yeah, right.

These comic-book jokers – please note the pun – are always dying.

Superman died several years ago. He came back.

Flash died, and was replaced by the former Kid Flash. Now he’s vanished.

Green Lantern died. He was resurrected after a higher power made him serve several years as The Spectre, the avenging spirit for good and evil.

Green Arrow died and came back.

Spider-Man died. But it turned out to be his clone.

Deadman died. Obviously.

Batman never died, but he spent a year in a wheelchair after his back was broken by a drug-powered bad guy. Robin quit, and the replacement Robin was killed by the Joker. But he came back, too.

The Joker shot Batgirl. She’s now in a wheelchair, coordinating databases for heroes worldwide. Batgirl’s replacement died.

So Cap is dead. Yeah, yeah. And those X-ray specs advertised in the old comics really work, too.

— Charles Apple

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Charles Apple

Archive for the 'Comic books' Category

Even more Batman feature pages

Truth in advertising?

Is there life after visuals? Yes, says the Pilot’s Larry Printz

End your week with a geekazoid festival

Captain America is dead? Yeah, right…

Charles Apple

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Charles Apple

Archive for the 'Comic books' Category

Even more Batman feature pages

Truth in advertising?

Is there life after visuals? Yes, says the Pilot’s Larry Printz

End your week with a geekazoid festival

Captain America is dead? Yeah, right…

Charles Apple

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