2 issues of Black Panther dropping in December w/ Oeming & Martinbrough on art? YES PLEASE!!!

Here's the cover art to Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive #526 (below) & 527 by Francesco Francavilla, plus some cool Black Panther drawings by Mike Avon Oeming (Powers, Hammer of the Gods, Mice Templar) who will kick in on some art for the story arc...

PREVIEW- "Angeltown" by Gary Phillips & Shawn Martinbrough

 I'm a big fan of noir connoisseur Shawn Martinbrough (Luke Cage: Noir, Bullseye: Perfect Game, Batman: Evolution), so I was happy to find these preview pages from the new trade paperback Angeltown: The Nate Hollis Investigations which reprints the Vertigo series he worked on with writer Gary Phillips (High Rollers) in 2005.

It's a Black Thing pt. 2

read part 1 here
in the forward to How To Draw Noir Comics, Eisner Award winning writer Greg Rucka says of the book's author "Shawn Martinbrough has put in his hours... he's a master...what he offers here is a masters course..." and he's right! How To Draw Noir Comics addresses the very technical and often philosophical business of creating Noir storytelling for comics, but with a disarming, conversational tone.
Noir, by the way, is French for Black... hence the the blog series title. "Noir has come to reflect a mood, a tone, or most appropriately, a style" says Martinbrough, after making the humble confession that his favorite color is black (which some don't consider a color at all).
the Chapters:

1. THE TOOLS
2. THE BASICS
3. CREATING MOOD WITH SHADOWS AND LIGHT
4. VISUALIZING THE SCRIPT
5. PAGE LAYOUT
6. STAGING ACTION
7. CREATING DRAMA
8. DESIGNING COVERS
9. GRAPHIC NOVELLA The Truce (a 16 page original comic)

i'll review each chapter in some detail... but for real, don't wait! go out and COP How To Draw Noir Comics by Shawn Martinbrough!
holla!
-gM

It's a Black Thing, Pt 1

I've been sitting on this for a minute... virtuoso comic book artist and illustrator Shawn Martinbrough (Batman, Superman, King James) dropped a book in November 2007 called How To Draw Noir Comics (Watson-Guptill), and i got a review copy from the publisher...
the problem is, this book was so good, i couldn't review it! since this book was waaaay more than i could chew, i decided to review it in sections, so look for chapter-by-chapter reviews of this book, starting tomorrow. that said, this book gets my highest recommendation, top spot on the Spring '08 beg/borrow/steal list!
Shawn has the drawing chops and the communication skills to make this book worth the $19.95 cover price for experienced artists who wanna learn how to control mood with light and dark, newbies curious about comics theory, or anybody who wants an easy-to-digest, beautifully illustrated text on making comics. (read part 2 here)
holla!
-gM