Like Santa Claus, Spectrum only comes around once per year and is always highly anticipated. This annual collection of the world’s best contemporary fantasy and Sci-fi art is always a favorite not only due to its sheer size and beautiful production, but also because of its diversity in scope. Spectrum presents the best art from the fields of books, comics, advertising, editorial, concept, and even sculpture into each year’s volume.

As always, the book begins with a look at the year in review and the trends in contemporary fantasy art before getting into the opening category of advertising art and presenting the first of its gold and silver annual awards to the best in each category. This year’s gold winner in the advertising category went to James Jean for his Retro-hip “Spacerace 2020” painting for Nike. This gorgeous pop-art piece is a tribute to Sci-Fi imagery of the ‘40s and ‘50s. (more…)

You may have seen this post yesterday, in which we detailed how Hart Fisher of Boneyard Press feels he’s not getting credit for Gerard Way’s first comics work, and claimed that Dark Horse was

touting these books by Gerard as his first foray into comics.

When contacted for statement, both Scott Allie, Senior Managing Editor of Dark Horse Comics and Gerard Way, lead singer of My Chemical Romance and the creator in question, gave an initial response. Please note they had not, at time of comment, seen the exact posts where Fisher made his claims.

Scott Allie:

I don’t see anything online where Hart says that we’re trying to suppress the fact that Gerard worked for him. Hart published Gerard’s first comics when Gerard was fifteen. I don’t think we’ve ever said Umbrella Academy is the first comic Gerard did—he did something for DC when interning there, but we haven’t talked about that. It looks to me like Hart’s had something on his website for a while about Gerard working for him—we haven’t tried to suppress it; no one’s brought it up.

When Gerard first told me about the project he did for Hart, he said Hart was generous with him, even though Gerard was a real young kid with no background. What I can find online with Hart talking about this, he seems to be pretty positive about it. I don’t see him looking for a slag match here.

On one hand, there’s some bragging rights for having a writing credit at 15—but it was a long time ago. If anyone ever asked Gerard what his first published work was, I’m pretty sure he would’ve told them about Boneyard Press. Mostly interviewers have asked about his art background, and his music. If Hart actually has a beef about this, please ask him to drop me a line.

So, Hart, if you’re reading this, drop Scott Allie a line.

Also, Gerard Way had this to say:

I sent [Hart] an email years ago, before we finished ‘Revenge,’ thanking him for believing in me, and never got a response. I think I emailed him once again as well…never heard anything back. I’m not ashamed of what I did for him, and wanted to see him in person and thank him. I’ve never had the chance.

Way is currently on tour with My Chemical Romance in South America, and may be difficult to reach for further comment.

Dark Horse has been contacted again with links and quotes of the original posts. Look for further update as it comes.

Okay, so our dollar is getting stronger but our buying power has always been high. The Lyrical Lounge’s favorite Canadian recently found her way backstage on a snowy Monday night to interview both Classified and Shad after their sold-out show. And yeah, Tim Horton’s fans, the title is a shoutout to how we do our coffee (the closest compliment to the NYC deli coffees). -Angelica LeMinh
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On his LiveJournal, Hart D. Fisher, the head of Boneyard Press, wants to set the record straight about Gerard Way, lead singer of My Chemical Romance, and his first comics work. It started with this:

On Raven’s Wings is Gerard’s (lead singer of My Chemical Romance) first published work when he was 16 years old and in high school. He’s denying it now, but it’s true. Gerard is avoiding me, and is lying to the public about his work in comics. I’m confused and hurt by this.

And then went to this:

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Hieeeee Everyone! Can I be any more honored or excited to say that my little comic “So Super Duper,” along with other amazing local Bay Area comic talent, has been featured in the SF Chronicle!! Aw yeah babeeee!

And my comic is one of the main images featured on the first page of the article!!! Whooo! How insanely cool is that? This being the SF WonderCon weekend I didn’t think I could be anymore more stoked than to have my actual comic book in the newspaper, but then to see my fellow Muni (public transite, natch) riders reading it, well, it just blows my mind! You can read the article online below - I have three whole paragraphs devoted to my ramblings! Yay!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/22/DD0RV4KQH.DTL

And check out my site if you feel like reading some preview pages of my comic! Wheee!

www.sosuperduper.com

Back again, for the first time…with mo’ heat than a lil bit! (damn, we’re so old school!)

Introducing Mr. James Pants! Going from fresh-as-a-fish intern to the new “it” guy of independent music has been one heck of a ride for this smarty Pants! How’d it all happen? A chance meeting (at a high school prom of all places) with Stone Throw’s label head Peanut Butter Wolf and *poof* JP’s first album Welcome is a reality. Checkout the electro-meets disco-80’s-groove medling style for yourself on the free-bee single, KA$H.

Majik Most: A track by Majik Most is about as funny as an episode of Family Guy. (Real Talk) And Majik’s latest web offering off his You Got Jokes LP most certainly follows suit. Peep the Johnny Carson show sample on, The Tonight Show.

Other Side Of The South: What do you get when you blend two-handfuls of Southern flavored underground heat, the mix-stylings of one DJ Y-Not and the emcee skills of the extra-ordinary Supastition all into one? One helluva musical ride! Other Side Of The South (or OSOTS for short) not only features two hip-hop dynamo’s in DJ Y-Not and Supastition givin’ it there all, but also a royal guess list of ‘down south rappers’ that ain’t even thinkin’ twice about tryin’ to do the Souljaboy dance! And that’s word to Lord Jazz—hit me one time (make it funky!) Download all the goodness here: OSOTS

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]

“Of course. More ninjas.” Batman about Ra’s al Ghul’s minions, Detective Comics #840.

Alright, so the longest catch-up in the history of this column continues, and here are the dissections from the week of 01-04! It’s short, both in amount of dissections and in the length of the write-ups, because there wasn’t really much to write about. In fact, with a total of twelve dissections for the column (the closest ever to the ten dissection minimum I require before resorting to my vaults), I didn’t even want to not write up a few of the dissections I had. Last column’s Dissect This! was not solved by anyone (a lot of my readers are missing… MKF? Roy? guys??!?!), but I’ll reveal it anyway: John Stewart’s costume was incorrect; he was drawn and colored as having full green gloves, when he actually has some sort of bracelet thingies… I should have credited that issue’s colorist too, because he could have fixed Freddie William’s mistake.
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Wow!  It seems sweet little Hayden Panettiere is going the way of the all the Britneys, Lindsays and Paris’ before her and sexying up her image in a bid to gain more Hollywood notoriety. But I have to wonder, is this such a good plan Hayden? Who are these ads geared towards, besides horny middle-age men wishing they could tap a piece of that?  

When will these teen starlets learn from the mistakes of the past? It seems that anytime a young girl makes the leap from talented kid actress/singer to sexed-up Lolita only bad, horrible stuff follows; underage drinking, drugs, random hook-ups, sex tapes, eating disorders, rehab, loss of creditability. Soon the “celebrity” is more famous for her hard-partying ways and personal traumas than her work as an actress/singer. I for one am totally sick of these girls who are famous just for being famous.

I hope this won’t be Hayden’s future, but judging by the steps she is emulating, I don’t have a good feeling. How long will it be before we see a snapshot of her ‘pom pom’ on the internet? Two weeks? Hopefully this is a minor bump in the road for Hayden’s Hollywood career and not an omen of things to come.

Long-time friend of the site MERC VERSUS has a number of shows happening that we’d like to tell you about.

Get a complete list here.

02/20/2008 10:00 PM -
Spin Nightclub
6308 Guilford Ave.
(Broad Ripple)
Indianapolis, Indiana
46220 US

Cost:$5
Description:Open Mic
Night featuring Black Gnostics, CIAS, & Merc
Versus

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That sound you hear is hundreds of thousands of men rushing to check her birth date at IMDB.

Eighteen, by the way (nineteen in December ‘08).

Ready for some hot hand flourishes, interesting and gripping body pretzels, and some of the greatest electronic-voice singing since Cher in “Believe?” Of course you are!

Don’t wait another second and click below to glory in the wondrousness that is Paula Adbul’s new “I’m-desperate-for-a-come-back-so-watch-how-I-can-still-dance” music video for “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow”!!

http://www.fox.com/paula/

I’ve been reading about the latest marketing gimmick to come out of Welch’s, the maker of concord grape juice and children with such obscenely tiny voices that you want to punch them in the face. Welch’s has decided that in order for their print ads to be able to compete with the movement and sound of television ads, they need to be lickable. (Because Americans apparently don’t have the attention span for mere words and static pictures anymore.)

Lickable ads!

Initially, I found the idea novel and unique–though I was to learn that Welch’s is not the first company to try out this idea. I would even venture to say that the concept of a salivarily engaging advertisement was delightful to my brain. I always liked scratch-n’-sniff stickers when I was a kid. This is the same thing. In a way. Sort of. Okay not all, but it’s cool right?

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As a kid the Smurfs were my most favorite and most beloved cartoon series! I would get up at 6-mother-freakin’-AM every Sat. morning just to watch my cheery little blue friends scamper about in their many exciting and joyous adventures! I had, and still have on my desk at work (super nerd alert!), many of the little toy figures. I also posses a treasured Smurf binder given to me when I was 8 years old as a Valentine’s Day gift, and this amazing binder still holds all my drawing and doodles as a child. No other cartoon impacted me more; even to this dad my dad calls me anytime he sees something Smurf related.

So can I be anymore jazzed about the new 3-D Smurf movie coming out! OMG! I don’t think so! Seriously, I hope I don’t get hit by a truck before this movie makes it the big screen ‘cause this is the fulfillment of all my kiddie dreams (because, like, the first Smurf movie was utterly and completely horrendous! What was up with the singy-voices? Ugh! Sooo bad.). Bring on the movie baby, you know I’ll be waiting in line! Wheee!

So, uh, does this cover to Robin #171 make anyone else feel, um, Phallicly uncomfortable? Just wondering.

Poor Lindsay Lohan. She gave the public meltdown the old college try, but found herself utterly eclipsed by Britney Spears. She’s apparently found a new direction though: here she tries to invoke the spirit of Marilyn Monroe’s famous “Last Sitting.” The thing that will light “teh internets” up? The fact that it’s basically Lindsay Lohan nude.

This will be A Fuss. Not work safe, by the way.

So what do you think, Shotgun faithful? Desperate grab for attention? Honest attempt at something artistic? Final seconds of her fifteen minutes? Me using “Lindsay Lohan nude” to boost readership? Discuss among yourselves.