Comic Book Resources

The Raffling!

Golden Apple’s Ryan Liebowitz and Jonathan Hickman begin the raffle which raised over $400 for the Hero Initiative!

Flame on!

I asked Kevin to gie me flames and Kevin gave me flames!

Hickman talks with Fleecs

Jonathan Hickman talks with writer Tony Fleecs at Golden Apple’s BBQ!

The band plays for Hickman

The band continues to play outside at the Hickman BBQ at Golden Apple Comics.

Yoda bleeds Dodger Blue

There’s a billboard ad campaign currently running in Los Angeles featuring celebrities showing their support for the LA Dodgers baseball team with the phrase “This is my town.”. I’ve seen one with Larry King, which kinda scared me, but this one featuring Yoda is fantastic. Closely the words you read.

Selling Liquor with Captain America

A mural on the side of a liquor store on the corner of Melrose and Vine in Los Angeles. Interesting choice, I guess.

Richard Starkings @ Golden Apple

Richard smiles pretty for the camera during his signing in Los Angeles.

Glen Brunswick @ Golden Apple

“Jersey Gods” writer Glen Brunswick talking with a fan at Golden Apple. When she introduced herself to Glen she began with, “I love you.” Can’t ask for a better first introduction.

Behind The Scenes on the CBR Boat Show

I figured I’d share with you a handful of shots from our video production last week aboard the CBR Yacht, affectionately known as the CBR Boat Show.

While last year looked good, we had a number of upgrades this year over last. To begin with, we utilized a different yacht this year, one that gave us greater room on the top deck with which to film. Lincoln Morrison, our director, took care of it all — from running sound, video and lighting, arranging the set and even snapping the occasional pic. I’ve included a couple of neat shots of what it looked like up there, plus a couple of shots of some guests we had out to the yacht. Look for more video and more pics in the coming days.

This is where Lincoln spent most of his time, popping back and forth from camera to camera, running audio and lighting.  In this shot you can see we’ve blocked off a lot of the background light as the sun was hitting us in weird ways.

Here’s a shot from behind our “set.”  The crappy knock-off statues from Tijuana in the foreground, a three person set-up and then the cameras and lighting equipment.

Lincoln snapped this shot when legendary horror actor Robert Englund visited the yacht.  You can see the scrim in the background, which was used for most of the two-person interviews.

And below are just two of the many photos we took on the yacht.  First up is Zach Qunito and below that is DC Executive Editor Dan Didio.  More soon.

Inside CBRs Floating Newsroom

Stephen Gerding (editor), Seth Sherwood (video editor) (Top Photo), Andhrea Gapuany (Jonah’s assistant) and Kiel Phegley (staff writer) (bottom photo) working hard on the CBR yacht during Comic-Con.

The Floating CBR TV Set

A look at the CBR TV set on the yacht.

The CBR Golf Cart

Forget walking from the Marriott to the Hall H. You’ve head of the CBR Yacht. We present the CBR Golf Cart!

Blackest Night? How about Goldest Night!

Golden Apple Comics in Hollywood celebrated the launch of Blackest Night with these special Golden Apple Corps T-shirts, an homage to the great shirts by Graphitti!

This is Red 5, I’m Going In

Snapped by my friends Neil & Tracy while driving on the 101 in Los Angeles. I Love LA!

A Visit to Henk Comics in Amsterdam

On May 13th I embarked on my first vacation in almost four years. Where’d I go? Cities I’ve wanted to visit for a long time, Paris and Amsterdam. Now while I could have done a bunch of business while on the trip, this was vacation so we kept the business out of it entirely, but I still couldn’t resist the chance to visit a comic shop or two while in Europe.

On the afternoon of May 16th, I decided to stop by Henk Lie’s Comics and Mangastore in Amsterdam. It was about a 15 minute walk from my hotel near the Red Light District and pretty easily found. Here’s a picture of the storefront.

As you can probably tell by the Transformers, Batman, Spider-Man and Superman stained glass pieces above the door and window, this is an American centric comic shop. It’s tiny, but that’s really not fair to say considering the size of the shops I’m used to in Los Angeles. For Amsterdam, it’s about an average size for a store, but the low ceilings and packed confines of the store meant it was a bit cramped inside.

There was a large selection of Manga, American comics, toys, graphic novels and more back issues than you generally find in an American comic shop these days. The new weekly periodicals could be found on the left hand side of the store, as you walk in. I imagine if I spent an extended period of time in Amsterdam for some reason, this would become my store of choice to pick up my American comic needs. There was a small love seat at the front of the store.

As I walked out of the store, I noticed something interesting.

The store directly next door to Henk’s was a coffee shop named The Jolly Joker, where marijuana and hash and the like can be purchased. I could see New Comics Wednesdays being a far more interesting experience in Amsterdam, that’s for sure.

While I didn’t get the name of the two guys working the register that day (was one of them Henk?), they did point me in the direction of a more European centric comic shop just about five blocks down the road named Go Joker. I’ll share some pictures from that visit tomorrow.

Thanks to CBR Twitter follower @xclame for the suggestion to visit Henk.

Third (and Final) Lichtenstein Poster in Amsterdam

Here’s the third photo I took of this series of billboards found in Amsterdam this past weekend. Question is, can you tell which is Lichtenstein?
In the coming days I’ll post photos of some of my other comics findings in Amsterdam and Paris. I visited two comic shops in Amsterdam and today plan on visiting a few in Paris — in fact, just one block over from my hotel are FIVE manga stores on the same street, plus one American comics shop. And two streets over is another more European centric comic shop. Apparently the Bastille area of Paris really needs their comics.

Another Great Lichtenstein Poster in Amsterdam

Here’s #2 of 3 posters I took photos of. I’ve actually got quite a number of great photos of comics or comics influences in Amsterdam. I’ll post one a day for the next week. I’m back in Paris on Monday and plan on visiting.

Amazing Lichtenstein Poster in Amsterdam

Saw this in the Amsterdam Central Train station this afternoon. I’ve got two more photos of different billboards. I love this one particularly because of the Captain America on the bottom right. More good ones to come on Monday and Tuesday and maybe some photos of Parisian comic shops.

Link is to The Stedelijkindestad Museum Web Site, except if I’m reading this correctly it appears it doesn’t open until June 26th.  Too bad.  I’d love to check this out.  If any of CBR’s visitors are from Amsterdam or will be in Amsterdam during this exhibit, please write me.

– Jonah Weiland

The CBR Logo Looms Large over Shatner

First video up tomorrow. Here’s a sneak peak.

Free Comic Book Day Was Awesome

Wow, what a great day, huh?

I’ll be totally honest, I was a bit late to the Free Comic Book Day party, embracing it fully for the first time in 2008. Last year, Atomic Comics‘ Mike Malve (who’s been mobile blogging on this here CBR Live! all day) called me up and asked if I’d come out to Phoenix for FCBD 2008 as they had all seven Image Comics creators signing at their Mesa super store. That’s a piece of comics history and no way was I going to miss out on that. So I went and had a total blast. I owe Mike a big debt of thanks for showing me the light.

Last year was also the first year we used CBR Live! to mobile blog FCBD events from across the country. It was so incredible watching all these different events transpire across the country. It gave you a very real sense of just how amazing this party is.

And here we are, FCBD 2009, and it’s just as good as last year. This year I stayed here in Los Angeles to manage the team and to interview William Shatner in our video studio above Golden Apple Comics on Melrose. The interview went amazing and I can’t wait for you all to see it. Special thanks to Darren @ Blue Water Productions for setting it up.

But as much fun as that was, have a look at all these photos and reports from around the country! WOW! From the East Coast to the West Coast! From Southern California to the Pacific Northwest! From California to Connecticut! How cool is that?

I’m already thinking about how we can do this even better next year and I think the most immediate answer is — more mobile bloggers! And we have to get Canada and England in on the action!

Thanks to our entire crew. Can’t wait for next year!