Mike Cavallaro

THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER -- order yours NOW!

2009-07-30T16:12:31Z

ACT-I-VATE is proud to announce THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER.

16 original stories by the premier webcomix collective, ACT-I-VATE, with a foreword by Warren Ellis, coming this October from IDW Publishing.

With its roster of renowned creators serializing webcomix for free since 2006, ACT-I-VATE, has reached a comicbook critical mass. Now this funnybook big bang has birthed The Act-i-vate Primer, the very first collection of stand alone, never-before-seen stories. This tome is a lot bigger than it seems. Each of these stories extend way beyond the boundaries of mere paper and cardboard out into ACT-I-VATE.com where you’ll already be initiated to the worlds greatest webcomix collective.

The Act-i-vate Primer boasts original art and stories by Joe Infurnari, Roger Langridge, Mike Dawson, Nick Bertozzi, Tim Hamilton, Dean Haspiel, Simon Fraser, Molly Crabapple & John Leavitt, Mike Cavallaro, Pedro Camargo, Jim Dougan & Hyeondo Park, Ulises Farinas, Michel Fiffe, Maurice Fontenot, Jennifer Hayden, and Leland Purvis.

“ACT-I-VATE makes comics better.”
–Warren Ellis [from the ACT-I-VATE PRIMER foreword].

Diamond Item Code: AUG090968
ISBN: 978-1-60010-528-9

ACT-I-VATE AT THE MOCCA ART FESTIVAL 2009

2009-06-03T12:37:30Z

Comics come home again to New York City this weekend with the annual Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art Festival 2009, and ACT-I-VATE will be there!

MoCCA Festival 2009 will be held June 6th & 7th at the 69th Regiment Armory at Lexington Avenue and 25th Street in New York City.
The Village Voice calls the MoCCA Festival "the best small-press nexus (anywhere!)" Now BIGGER than ever! An incredible weekend of comic and cartoon art exhibitors, panels, lectures, sketches, autographs, and more! Wired Magazine online calls ACT-I-VATE, "The premiere webcomics collective"!

Visit table 311 to meet the cartoonists of ACT-I-VATE. A wide variety of books by AIV'ers will be available for sale, including BRAWL (Dean Haspiel and Michel Fiffe), FREDDIE & ME (Mike Dawson), A HOUSE DIVIDED (Leland Purvis), SHOOTING WAR (Dan Goldman), THE SALON (Nick Bertozzi), SHUTTERBUG FOLLIES (Jason Little), THE VAGABONDS (Josh Neufeld), JERSEY GODS (Joe Infurnari), NIKOLAI DANTE (Simon Fraser), THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAVIOR 28 (Mike Cavallaro), and more!

Also, get a glimpse at a special upcoming ACT-I-VATE project!

Current scheduled appearances are as follows, with more being added:

SATURDAY:

12 pm - 1pm JAH FURRY, AIV's "Minister of Hype" kicks things off, joined by TIM HAMILTON (Pet Sitter, Floating Elephant)
1pm - 2 pm MIKE CAVALLARO (Parade (with fireworks), Loviathan) & NATHAN SHREIBER (Power Out)
2 pm - 3 pm MOLLY CRABAPPLE (Backstage, and this year's MOCCA poster artist)
3 pm - 4 pm DAN GOLDMAN (Kelly) & KEVIN COLDEN (Fishtown)
4 pm - 5 pm JENNIFER HAYDEN (Underwire) and JIM DOUGAN (Sam & Lilah)

SUNDAY

11-12 pm NATHAN SHREIBER (Power Out)
12 pm -1 pm MIKE CAVALLARO (Parade (with fireworks), Loviathan) & TIM HAMILTON (Pet Sitter, Floating Elephant)
1 pm - 2 pm JIM DOUGAN (Sam & Lilah)
2 pm - 3 pm JENNIFER HAYDEN (Underwire)
3 pm - 4 pm JAH FURRY

THOMAS BAEHR (The End Is Here) will be manning his own table (#215), so be sure to visit him as well.

Where?
69th Regiment Armory
68 Lexington Avenue, between 25th and 26th Streets

When?
June 6th and 7th, 11am-6pm

Cost?
$10 per day
$15 per weekend
MoCCA Members: $10 per weekend

Website:
www.moccany.org

Be sure to check out http://WWW.ACT-I-VATE.COM -- where everyday is Free Comic Book Day!

Parade (with fireworks) trade paperback reviews

2009-03-04T02:02:23Z

Here's a very flattering review of my recent graphic novel, PARADE (WITH FIREWORKS) by Ian Chant at PopMatters.com:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/70710-parade-with-fireworks/

Thanks, Ian!
You're too kind.

S28 Review and Interviews

2009-03-02T14:13:08Z

Some interviews and a review of THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAVIOR 28 #1:

J.M. talks with Drew Bittner of SF Revu HERE.

Drew Bittner's review of issue #1 HERE.

Russell Burlingame and I discuss the project HERE.

All this, and the SAVIOR 28 T-SHIRT!

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAVIOR 28
by J.M.DeMatteis, Mike Cavallaro and Andrew Covalt

"He is the first, and greatest, super hero: an American legend. But when tragedy forces Savior 28 to question the very beliefs that have guided him for seventy years, his life begins to unravel and his nation turns against him. "
March, 2009 FC 32pg $3.99 from IDW PUBLISHING
Diamond Previews Catalog Item Code: JAN094271

www.savior28.com

new stuff...

2009-02-13T14:57:08Z

Hi,
So, this past weekend's NY Comic Con saw the debut of Arrden Entertainment's FLASH GORDON 75th ANNIVERSARY HARDCOVER graphic novel, featuring all-new stories by J.M.DeMatteis, Joe Casey, Jim Krueger, Denny O'Neil, Len Wein, Tom DeFalco, Brendan Deneen, Shawn McManus, Omaha Perez, Pedro Delgado, Shanth Enjeti, Joe Staton, Paul Green, and of course myself.
Although it was meant as a con exclusive, I've seen it for sale around town. I'm told it'll be available as a softcover in a few months. You never know with these anthologies, but it's really a great read, with a wide variety of great artwork.

Also out is the PARADE (WITH FIREWORKS) trade paperback. This is a collection of the 2-issue mini series, with a new cover and added pages of artwork, notes and sketches. It's available from Amazon.

Lastly, don't forget about THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAVIOR 28, issue #1, debuting from IDW in March!

NYCC

2009-02-05T17:20:55Z

The New York Comic Con comes to the Jacob Javits Center starting tomorrow, February 6th through Sunday Feb 8, and I'll be wandering around like a few thousand other people.

My latest book, the PARADE (WITH FIREWORKS) trade paperback, will be on sale at the Image Comics booth (1403).

I'll be signing copies of the brand new 75th Anniversary Hardcover FLASH GORDON anthology at the Ardden Entertainment booth (2441) on Friday, Feb 6th from 5 - 6 pm, and again on Saturday from 4 - 5 pm, when I'll be joined by famed comic book scribe and Ardden EIC, J.M. DeMatteis.

I suspect J.M. and I will also be doing a little promotion for our upcoming 6-issue series from IDW called "THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAVIOR 28".

Other than that I'm looking forward to meeting Joe Sinnot and Al Plastino among others.

If you're going, drop by Ardden and say hi, and check out that hardcover book. I did a little 10-pager with the great Denny O'Neil, and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else contributed.

see ya,
Mike

Giving it away

2009-01-09T15:48:18Z

Jim Amash: How did copyrighting CAPTAIN AMERICA occur to you?

Joe Simon: "At 24 years old, I was just trying to make a living. I was a product of the times... it was the Depression and I was just happy to make a living. We all were. All of us were like homeless people, happy for anything we got. People say, "Well the Shusters and the Siegels, and the Simons and the Kirbys were stupid. They gave away everything." But we never even thought about it that way.

Timely's chief accountant was Maurice Coyne, a guy who promoted that for me; he didn't like them very much... It was his idea that we arrange some kind of a 25% royalty for me. I gave Kirby part of it, but it was hardly anything. Maurice took me aside on day and told me they were putting all the office expenses, all the salaries and everything, on Captain America."

-Alter Ego #76

Too Organized

2009-01-04T16:18:35Z

From 1957 to 1965, John Romita worked for DC Comics. Although he dreamed of working on any of their more recognizable adventure titles, he found himself stuck in DC's romance comic department. Years later, of course, he would become the architect of the "Marvel style" and go on to have some 35 successful years, working on characters like Daredevil and Spider-Man.

Editors at DC were very territorial. They had their own stable of creators whom they never shared with other editors. A freelancer could lose their job if their editor found out they were working with someone else.

Freelancers who needed more money, or who wanted to work on different types of books, took to using fake names to avoid the backlash. A lot of these, like Romita, were artists languishing in DC's romance department. They all began to quietly seek work from Stan Lee.

Says writer and former Marvel Comics EIC, Roy Thomas:

"Gil Kane was "Scott Edward," and Werner Roth was "Jay Gavin," both named for their kids. "Mickey Demeo" was Mike Esposito, and Frank Giacoia was "Frankie Ray." Stan [Lee] and I would chuckle about how DC had had all these great hero artists buried in their romance department. It wasn't that DC was disorganized. It's more like they were too organized to utilize their artists well."

Joe Maneely

2009-01-03T15:59:21Z

"[My first story for Stan Lee] had some weaknesses, especially in the inking - Stan calls up [Timely artist] Joe Maneely and tells him, "I'm going to send this guy out to spend a day with you. Give him as many pointers as possible." And the next day, I think, I went out to Flushing, probably from 10:30 in the morning until about 4:30 in the afternoon. I watched Maneely; and while he's talking to me, giving me pointers, he turned out like two or three pages, one double-spread with an entire pioneer fort in Indian country with Indians attacking from the outside, and guys shooting from the inside.

"He didn't need reference, he didn't need anything. He just sat there, and between 10:30 and, say, 12:30, he had penciled this double-spread in, very roughly. After lunch - I think I just went out and got a hot dog - I come back and he's starting to ink it, and he finished the damn double-spread before we finished the afternoon session! He was just a staggering talent!

"[He] died when he was 38 years old, I think. I jokingly said once that, if Joe Maneely had lived, half of us would have been out of work!"

-John Romita
from an interview with Roy Thomas

Making The Cut

2009-01-02T17:37:32Z

"Stan [Lee]'s secretary would call me. She'd tell me that things weren't going well and ask me if I'd take a $3 rate cut. Well, what could you say? I needed the work because I was raising a family. And the other companies weren't doing much better. Places like EC had folded up.
"About three months later, she'd call again and ask if I'd accept another cut ... I was up to $46 a page for pencils and inks and that was a good rate for 1956, when the decline started. I was down to $21 a page when Timely stopped hiring me. And they expected the same quality of work.

[Later on, in 1959 ...]

"I got a call from Vinnie Colletta, who wanted to know if I was interested in penciling romance stories for [Charlton Publications]. I must have done hundreds of stories for Charlton. I could really knock them out ... I got paid $8 a page, and then it went to $7 a page, which was like a dollar a panel."

- Joe Sinnott
from and interview with Jim Amash
Alter Ego fanzine #26

Common sense

2009-01-01T13:46:53Z

"I was aware of everything Jack [Kirby] did from the time I was eleven. I'd tell my buddies, "This guy is great! Look at this stuff that's popping out of the pages. Look at how he does that!" They thought the comics were some kind of tricky photo technique. They would say, "Aw, you're crazy. Nobody's going to do all those drawings by hand."

- John Romita
Interview by Roy Thomas

The Brave and the Bold

2008-12-31T14:07:08Z

"Mort [Weisinger] and I got along with in a business way, but it was an awful time. If you shook in your boots, especially in those days, they would jump all over you. When he was very rude to [Jerry] Siegel, I told him, "You wouldn't be sitting behind that desk if he hadn't created Superman, you know." I never kept my voice down. When they wanted me to do something over I would say, "Whatever I give you is the best I can do." My attitude was, they're not bosses, they're editors."

-Al Plastino (Golden/Silver Age "Superman" artist extraordinaire)
from an interview with Jim Kealy & Eddy Zeno
Alter Ego fanzine #59

All In A Day's Work

2008-12-30T13:57:38Z

"... in those days, you had to knock the stuff out in order to make a living. I'd pencil a page in the morning and ink it in the afternoon. After supper, I'd ghost a couple of Archie pages for Jon D'Agostino; I did that for a number of years. I was also doing covers for a crossword puzzle magazine publisher. I only had so much time to spend on the Marvel stuff, because I couldn't give up my other assignments. Those people were depending on me, too. I used to juggle a lot of assignments."

- Joe Sinnott
from a interview with Jim Amash
(Alter Ego #26)

My question is, when your pages look like these posted below, exactly what time does your "morning" start???

"Romita on speed"

2008-12-29T13:59:09Z

"Every time [Gene Colan] came in, we always got on the subject of speed and lack of speed, because Gene used to work until three in the morning, every morning.
"I said, "You know what? You're asking the wrong guy because I have trouble, too. The reason I'm working 9-to-5 is because I can't turn out enough pages in five days to pay my bills." I could not deliver work on time. I could do five pages in one day, and then it would take me the next five days to do the next page. I could never tell. In fact, if an editor said, "Can you get this 10-page story done by next Wednesday?," I couldn't guarantee it to him. I used to say, "The truth of the matter is, I don't know. I could get it done in two days or it could take me three weeks. I have no idea how long this is going to take me, because I have no regular flow that I can count on."

John Romita
from a 2006 interview with Jim Amash

new stuff

2008-12-21T14:16:35Z

As anyone who knows me knows, I've been hard at work on a lot of stuff, just like everyone else I know has been.

Work continues on my First Second Books graphic novel, FOILED. Penciling, inking, lettering done. Now, coloring, coloring, coloring.

Penciled, inked and colored the first of four covers for BOOM! Studios' upcoming TOY STORY comic book series:

Today, I'm working on the last page of this very fun ten-page FLASH GORDON story, written by legendary comics scribe, Denny O'Neil, for the 75th Anniversary hardcover Flash Gordon anthology coming soon from Ardden Entertainment. I've penciled and inked the whole thing, one more page to color.

Finally, I'm still penciling and inking the first issue of THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAVIOR 28, my six-issue collaboration with writer J.M. DeMatteis. Did I post this image before? Maybe. Anyway ...

(As it turns out, I DID post that image before, so here's another one ...)

And hey, happy holidays, and best wishes in the coming year.

66kmph @ 2008-11-06T18:03:00

2008-11-06T22:59:46Z

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAVIOR 28

2008-11-03T04:07:58Z

I haven't posted much about this new project I'm currently working on, "The Life And Times of Savior 28". Writer J.M. DeMatteis talks about our joint venture in this interview:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17482

And here's a recent page of artwork I did (click image to enlarge) ...

Really having a good time with it, although I'm way out of my comfort zone. J.M.'s script is top-notch as well. The cool thing about it is that since this is a 6-issue limited series and not a graphic novel, it'll be coming out relatively soon.

I'm pretty psyched about it.

LOVIATHAN pg 15

2008-06-18T14:34:34Z

ONE WORLD ENDS. ANOTHER IS BORN. BUT LOVE AND BETRAYAL ENDURE. A TALE OF HIGH ADVENTURE SET AGAINST THE BRIGHT ABYSS OF ETERNITY!

THIS WEEK: The first king of Atlantis passes judgement on the last, while Llyr struggles to accept his doom!

Click HERE to read the LATEST installment of LOVIATHAN on the new ACT-I-VATE website.

Click HERE to read LOVIATHAN from the beginning.

LOVIATHAN pg 13

2008-06-04T13:23:31Z

ONE WORLD ENDS. ANOTHER IS BORN. BUT LOVE AND BETRAYAL ENDURE. A TALE OF HIGH ADVENTURE SET AGAINST THE BRIGHT ABYSS OF ETERNITY!

THIS WEEK: As ULTAN subway surfs across the Manhattan Bridge, Llyr dials an Atlantean 411!

Click HERE to read the LATEST installment of LOVIATHAN on the new ACT-I-VATE website.

Click HERE to read LOVIATHAN from the beginning.

LOVIATHAN pg 12

2008-05-28T12:22:59Z

ONE WORLD ENDS. ANOTHER IS BORN. BUT LOVE AND BETRAYAL ENDURE. A TALE OF HIGH ADVENTURE SET AGAINST THE BRIGHT ABYSS OF ETERNITY!

Click HERE to read the LATEST installment of LOVIATHAN on the new ACT-I-VATE website.

Click HERE to read LOVIATHAN from the beginning.

LOVIATHAN pg 11

2008-05-21T12:57:46Z

LOVIATHAN pg 9 & 10

2008-05-14T14:54:18Z

Essential reviews...

2008-05-08T01:59:22Z

I don't normally blog for the sake of blogging, but THOR is worth blogging about!!!

Here's a link to Tom Spurgeon's recent review of Marvel Essential THOR volume 3, the best volume in the series and a great jumping on point for mortals unfamiliar with this exquisite KIRBY/LEE collaboration:

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cr_review_essential_thor_vol_3/

LOVIATHAN pg 8

2008-05-07T11:58:42Z

LOVIATHAN continues ...

2008-04-30T11:47:36Z