PR: NEW WAVE OF HEROES MEDIA COVERAGE

[Eric J. Moreels]

{Originally posted at X-Fan v3.1 on January 23, 2002}

<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/comics/heroes.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/comics/heroes-t.jpg" align=left alt="Heroes"></a>The Heroes phenomenon continues, this time with CBS, UPN, the AP and other large news organizations shining the spotlight on the comics community's efforts to salute and help the true heroes of September 11th!

Earlier today, Marvel editor Andrew Lis, who helped organize the recent Heroes charity auction (which raised over $66,000.00 for the Twin Towers Fund) and the "Heroes Among Us" exhibit (currently running at the New York City Fire Museum), appeared with artist Dean Haspiel (Muties #3) and David Gabriel (Executive Director of the New York City Comic Book Museum) on CBS This Morning, the nationally broadcast news program.

CNN also aired a small segment on the auction and exhibit on Tuesday, January 22nd. Also on Tuesday, New York regional television stations for ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and UPN ran segments promoting the "Heroes Among Us" exhibit. In addition, Marvel trade paperback designer Matty Ryan appeared on the Big Apple's own NY1 news station, also plugging the Heroes effort.

Meanwhile, New York's print journalists are also adding to the movement, with the New York Daily News (page 14) and New York Newsday (page A14) running articles yesterday, and the New York Post (page 17) covering Heroes today! And you should be on the lookout for newspaper coverage throughout the nation, as the Associated Press has added coverage of the "Heroes Among Us" exhibit to their newswire.

"Heroes Among Us" is an exhibit by the New York City Comic Book Museum (NYCCOMICBOOKMUSEUM.org (http://www.NYCCOMICBOOKMUSEUM.org/)), which contains works created by comic artists in tribute to the heroes of September 11th. The exhibit comprises several major publishing houses (including Alternative Comics' 9-11: Emergency Relief) and over 100 of the top artists of the medium. With its third major retrospective, the New York City Comic Book Museum hopes to provide a lasting tribute for all New Yorkers to remember America's heroes. You can tour the exhibit at the New York City Fire Museum, located on 287 Spring Street in good ol' New York City.

For more information about Heroes, or A Moment of Silence, please contact:

Bender/Helper Impact
Jeffrey Klein or Adam Fenton
Phone: (212) 689-6360
e-mail: jeff_klein@bhimpact.com or adam_fenton@bhimpact.com

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go give an interview to a camera crew from MSNBC, who are currently in The House filming a segment on, you guessed it... Heroes!

Bill Rosemann
Marketing Communications Manager
Marvel Comics

[Eric J. Moreels]

As mentioned above, here is the Associated Press' coverage of Heroes:

NEW YORK (AP (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020123/us/attacks_superheroes_1.html)) - Within two days after terrorist hijackers crashed two jetliners into the World Trade Center, the artists at Marvel Comics were back at work, calling on a repertoire of fantasy to depict reality.

Instead of Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Avengers, the superheroes they drew were firefighters, police officers, emergency workers and airline passengers.

The result of that joint effort is a special edition comic book, Heroes, containing 64 illustrations by more than 100 artists, colorists, writers and editors. The drawings went on display Tuesday, along with works from a second comic artists' project, 9-11, at the New York City Fire Museum (NYCFireMuseum.org (http://www.nycfiremuseum.org/)).

"In this you get to see what the comic medium is capable of. It's not just superheroes running around in Spandex," said Mike Raicht, a Marvel Comics editor, who attended the exhibit with fellow editor Andrew Lis and designer Matty Ryan.

Lis said the project began when a former Marvel comics artist, Neal Adams, called others in the field after the trade center attack and said, "Hey, we've got to do something." Marvel chief editor Joe Quesada said it "became our way of lifting bricks and mortar."

Proceeds of the $3.50 book will go to the Twin Towers Fund to aid families of uniformed personnel killed on Sept. 11. The artists donated the original pictures to be auctioned online for Sept. 11 charities.

While the artists trained their pens on the ordinary people who performed heroically in the chaos of the terrorist attack, some of the regular Marvel superheroes are included as well.

The message was that despite their unique powers, "our superheroes wouldn't have been able to do any more than the men and women who ran back into the falling towers, and were as powerless as everyone else as we stood and watched what happened," Ryan said.

Lis added: "Despite their feats of superstrength and abilities, it's the humanity of these characters that was always appealing in the comics."

Captain America is defiant in one picture, weeps in another and grieves above the smoldering skyline in a third. The Incredible Hulk bends down to gently retrieve a missing firefighter's helmet.

The Silver Surfer stares at a smoking Earth from a vantage point in distant space, a picture that Lis said reflected the feeling of artist Alan Davis, who lives in London, of being "far removed" from the events of Sept. 11.

In a poem, Marvel Comics impresario Stan Lee calls Sept. 11 a day "when Liberty lost her heart - and found the strength within her soul."

Some of the work is based on photographs - the now-famous picture by news photographer Tom Franklin of three firefighters raising an American flag at Ground Zero provides the theme in at least two drawings. Another hints at the iconic image of a firefighter carrying a child from the bomb-ravaged federal building in Oklahoma City.

Even in working close to reality, the creators let their imaginations roam.

Artist Frank Quitely borrowed the reclining female figure in Andrew Wyeth's famous painting "Christina's World", but instead of a pastoral scene she is gazing at the mountain of rubble.

In perhaps the most mind-grabbing of the entire collection, Croatia-born artist Igor Kordey depicts passengers in the cabin of United Airlines Flight 93 making a move to overpower two knife-wielding hijackers.

The plane, the fourth one hijacked on Sept. 11, crashed near Somerset, Pa., after an apparent struggle between the passengers and their captors. The drawing does not depict any actual people aboard the plane, Lis said.

He said Kordey, who moved his family to Canada for safety after the Balkans war, was so affected by the attacks that he could not work for four days.

"He said he didn't want to draw what he thought everybody else was drawing," Lis said. "The interior of the flight was very personal - the idea of terrorists - and he needed to draw the personal connection to it."

A copy of the picture, the editors said, is part of an informal memorial near the Pennsylvania crash site.

[xtremexman]

It is funny that you mentioned that, because for the first time ever a comic book project made it to the front page of my newspaper. Here is the article in its entirety -

The Porterville Recorder
Saturday January 26, 2002

Move over X Men, here come firefighters, airline passengers

In 'Heroes', artists turn pens on ordinary people who performed heroically in the chaos of September 11.

BY RICHARD PYLE

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

NEW YORK - Within two days after terrorist hijackers crashed two jetliners into the World Trade Center, the artists of Marvel Comics were back at work, calling on a repertoire of fantasy to depict reality.

Instead of Spider Man, the X Men, and the Avengers, the superheroes they drew were firefighters, police officers, emergency workers, and airline passengers.

The result of that joint effort is a special edition comic book, "Heroes", containing 64 illustrations by more than 100 artists, colorists, writers, and editors.

The drawings went on display Tuesday, along with works from a second comic artists' project, "9-11", at the New York City Fire Museum.

"In this you get to see what the comic medium is capable of. It's not just superheroes running around in Spandex," said Mike Raicht, a Marvel Comics editor, who attended the exibit with fellow editor Andrew Lis and designer Matty Ryan.

Lis said the project began when a former Marvel Comics artist, Neal Adams, called others in the field after the trade center attack and said, "Hey, we've got to do something." Marvel chief editor Joe Quesada said it "became our way of lifting bricks and mortar."

Proceeds of the $3.50 book will go to the Twin Towers Fund to aid families of uniformed personnel killed on September 11. The artists donated the original pictures to be auctioned online for Sept. 11 charities.

While the artists trained their pens on the ordinary people who performed heroically in the chaos of the terrorist attacks, some of the regular Marvel superheroes are included as well.

The message was that depsite their unique powers, "our superheroes wouldn't have been able to do any more than the men and women who ran back into the falling towers, and were as powerless as everyone else as we stood and watched what happened," Ryan said.

Lis added: "Despite their feats of superstrength and abilities, it's the humanity of these characters that was always appealing in the comics."

Captain America is defiant in one picture, weeps in another, and grieves above the smoldering skyline in a third.

The Incredible Hulk bends down to gently retrieve a missing firefighter's helmet.

The Silver Surfer stares at a smoking Earth from a vantage point in distant space, a picture that Lis said reflected the feeling of artist Alan Davis, who lives in London, of being "far removed" from the events of Sept. 11.

In a poem, Marvel Comics impresario Stan Lee calls Sept. 11 a day "when Liberty lost her heart - and found the strength within her soul."

Some of the work is based on photographs - the now famous picture by news photographer Tom Franklin of three firefighters raising an American flag at Ground Zero provides the theme in at least two drawings.

Another hints at the iconic image of a firefighter carrying a child from the bomb ravaged federal building in Oklahoma City.