2009 January
Is this a sign of a coming blogocalypse?
LiveJournal
LiveJournal, the social networking site that’s home to countless bloggers, scanlators and slashfic writers, has cut a significant portion of its staff — although the actual number is unclear.
An initial report said the company had let go about 20 of its 28 employees, but a statement from LiveJournal claims there are “about a dozen” layoffs, amounting to about one-fifth of the staff.
Valleywag reports that the social-media pioneer laid off all of its product managers and engineers, “leaving only a handful of finance and operations workers — which speaks to a website to be left on life support.”
Founded in 1999 by Brad Fitzpatrick as a way to keep his friends from high school updated about his activities, LiveJournal was among the first blogging services and social networks. The company was bought in 2005 by blogging-software company Six Apart and then sold two years later to Russian online-media company SUP.
According to the statement from LiveJournal, the company’s servers, technical operations, administration and customer-service teams will remain in the United States. However, global product development and design now will be coordinated out of the Moscow office.
I should’ve seen this coming when my RSS feed for Scans Daily stopped working …
- January 6, 2009 @ 11:03 AM by Kevin Melrose
Preview: 08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail
Artist Dan Goldman of Shooting War fame sent over word that he’s posted 20 pages of the upcoming 08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail on his website — you can find it here. The book, written by The New Republic’s Michael Crowley and drawn by Goldman, documents Crowley’s time on the campaign trail during last year’s presidential election.
While Crowley was on the road with the candidates for the duration of the campaign as part of his day job, Goldman said he was able to join him as he traveled through New Hampshire during the first primary. “I had to stay home to draw,” he told me, “but it was important to get a taste so I could make the story ring true.”
He added that the book is “stylistically a mashup of sequential narrative and graphic design” and “is a documentary-in-comics of this historic and magical election we’re all still buzzing from, as seen from reporters’ perspective on the campaign trail.” The book is due to hit stores Jan. 27.
- January 6, 2009 @ 10:34 AM by JK Parkin
Ten from the old year, ten for the new
Grumpy Old Fan
Last January, I listed ten items I’d be watching in 2008 from (or related to) DC’s superhero line. Today I’ll revisit each of those and offer ten new items.
Can you stand the excitement?!?
Yeah, I thought so. Let’s cruise on.
2008
1. The Dark Knight. I was afraid that a too-intense Joker might confirm for the normals that they didn’t want to have anything to do with modern Batman comics. I don’t think that happened, exactly. As far as I could tell, Heath Ledger’s Joker didn’t spark any protests from parents afraid to buy their kids Dark Knight toys. (Of course, I didn’t see any “Magic Trick Joker” action figures out there either.) Instead, while Ledger’s performance turned out to be one of the movie’s big selling points, TDK seemed to do more for superhero movies than it did superhero comics. In any event, I doubt that all the upheavals in 2008′s Batman books would have made them especially friendy to the general public.
Continue Reading »
- January 6, 2009 @ 09:00 AM by Tom Bondurant
‘Graphic NYC’ site, devoted to book project, launches
Paul Pope, from Seth Kushner's "Graphic NYC"
Photographer Seth Kushner and comics historian Christopher Irving have launched a blog devoted to their upcoming book Graphic NYC, which is devoted to New York City-based comics creators.
Many of the beautiful photos, of such folks as Dash Shaw, Dean Haspiel, Becky Cloonan, Joe Kubert, Christine Norrie and Art Spiegelman, have appeared on Kushner’s other blog, and circulated around the comics Internet. The newly launched site so far features photos and interviews devoted to Shaw and Howard Chaykin.
The finished book, which is being shopped to publishers, will feature 50 subjects.
You can read the press release about the project, and the launch of the new site, here.
- January 6, 2009 @ 08:49 AM by Kevin Melrose
‘The Gerber Curse,’ a work in progress
Steve Gerber
One of the more interesting links you’ll read this morning is this one, to The Gerber Curse, a work in progress dedicated to the life and works of writer Steve Gerber, who passed away on Feb. 10, 2008.
So far the anonymous author has penned three chapters, covering territory up to 1978 (including, of course, Howard the Duck and Omega the Unknown).
“More information and illustrations may be added to these chapters in the future,” the author writes, “or some information may be deleted or altered. There’s still another 30 years to cover. Chapter 4 will deal with Stewart the Rat, Destroyer Duck, Gerber’s work in animation, and his lawsuit (with Destroyer Lawyer in his corner) against Marvel Comics over the ownership of Howard the Duck.”
(Via Estoreal)
- January 6, 2009 @ 06:58 AM by Kevin Melrose
‘A part of me died inside every time I had to read it’
Alley Oop
Samantha Swindler may be the bravest person in the newspaper business — today, at any rate.
Swindler, managing editor of The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., has done something many editors only dream of: She axed a syndicated comic strip, not because of shrinking news space or budget cutbacks or reader complaints, but because she thinks it’s bad.
The comic strip? Alley Oop, which just celebrated its 75th anniversary (15 years after the death of creator V.T. Hamlin, who retired in 1971).
“Fans of the strip, you can blame me personally,” Swindler wrote in the newspaper, “but I swear that comic doesn’t make any sense, and a part of me died inside every time I had to read it. Today, please enjoy Dilbert in its place.”
If you don’t see what the big deal is, you’ve probably never worked at a newspaper, where most editors would rather walk through fire than risk incurring the wrath of the last remaining Broom-Hilda fan in their circulation area. And rather than shoulder the blame for replacing a comic well past its prime — and past the lifetime of its creator — they’ll launch elaborate polls in which readers make the decision. (They still get complaints.)
But not Swindler, who presented the time-traveling caveman with an anniversary present: the heave-ho.
Update: A reader already has written to express displeasure with the removal of Alley Oop. Apparently, this is the second time the strip has been axed by The Times-Tribune.
- January 6, 2009 @ 06:31 AM by Kevin Melrose
In the future, all we will have is Naruto
Naruto Vol. 1
As loathe as I am to link to the same site in two days (yeah, right) I encourage you all to check out Chris Butcher’s “Idiosyncratic Take on the Future of Manga” if you haven’t already. To sum up: Butcher thinks that it’s in the interest of both the Direct Market (i.e. Diamond and comic book stores) and most midlist manga publishers to develop a better relationship now that the big box book stores are being more choosy about how they stock their shelves:
- It’s entirely possible to successfully publish good manga in North America, if everyone involved reconsiders their point of view on what successful means. The art-comix model espoused by D&Q–good books, released less frequently with lots of fanfare and a 10-cent per page price point rather than less than half that… for some releases. I don’t think anyone should expect Naruto-level sales, or even the sales levels that midlist titles hit a few years back, but if buy-in quantities are going to be capped by bookstores because they want to limit their exposure, doesn’t it make a kind of sense to make sure the price-point is higher on each of those units? At least when the material is intended for anyone outside of the mainstream shonen/shoujo demographic.
This, of course, ties in with ICv2′s recent report that projected manga releases are down for 2009.
Anyway, I think Chris makes a lot of good points — the DM and manga publishers should have a better relationship in this worsening economy — but, also like Chris, I’m a bit cynical about the reality of this occurring at any substantial level — and not necessarily for the reasons he lists.
This is pure anecdotal evidence I realize, but I know of a couple of stores that attempted to make inroads to attract manga readers and failed horribly. Now, you can reasonably argue that they did a poor job of it, but I think it’s also true that most manga-buyers are trained to go either to the big chains or online to get their fix and even in this retail downturn, retraining those readers to come to your store instead can take a huge investment, both in time and money.
Meanwhile, in semi-related news, David Welsh names the books he’s looking forward to the most this year over at Comics Reporter.
- January 6, 2009 @ 06:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: Drawn and Quarterly’s spring/summer catalog
A Drifting Life
Continuing our look at the coming year in comics publishing, here’s a look at what the esteemed Canadian publisher Drawn & Quarterly has planned for the spring and summer.
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A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Probably the biggest book the company will publish this year, and at 840 pages, I mean that literally. This is Tatsumi’s (The Push Man, Good-Bye) memoir of his life from 1945-1960, the end of WWII to his arrival as a professional manga-ka. Expect to see this on a lot of top 10 lists a year from now. $39.95 hardcover. Continue Reading »
- January 6, 2009 @ 06:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Comics A.M. | The Internet in two minutes
Tokyopop
Publishing | The managing director of Tokyopop Germany says he doesn’t know why Japanese publisher Kodansha pulled its licenses. “There has been no explanation by Kodansha, just the information that old contracts won’t be extended and no new contracts signed,” Joachim Kaps told ICv2.com. “We can only guess that Kodansha is sorting its activities in a new way for Germany.”
Kaps says that two other publishers in Germany of canceled several manga from the Kodansha catalog because of low sales.
Meanwhile, the editorial director of German publisher Carlsen leaves word at the Icarus Publishing blog that his company is unaffected by Kodansha’s moves.
Retailing | The Los Angeles location of Secret Stash, one of writer/director Kevin Smith’s two comic/novelty stores, will close on Jan. 11. Secret Stash West originally opened in Westwood in 2004 but relocated three years later to the Laser Blazer DVD store on West Pico Blvd. But now tough economic times are forcing Laser Blazer to close.
Publishing | The whirlwind of speculation about who would replace David Tennant as the 11th Doctor ended over the weekend as the BBC finally announced that 26-year-old Matt Smith will step into the Tardis in 2010. But what does that mean to comics — specifically, IDW’s Doctor Who titles? Nothing, for now at least.
“The obvious question here is which Doctor we’ll use in the comics going forward,” writes IDW Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall, “and the answer for now is Tennant’s 10th Doctor. Smith will make his debut on the show and then after that, we’ll see, but for now Tennant remains our guy (and my personal favorite of ‘em all so far).”
Creators | In an interview with Bookslut, cartoonist Jason Lutes (Berlin) talks superhero comics, and Westerns (among other things): “[Doing superhero comics today] is like squeezing blood from a stone. No, a better analogy is beating a dead horse. Because the horse, at this point, isn’t even there. It’s like a putrefied puddle. Within the context of superhero comics today there’s a million of interesting different takes on the subject, but for me that basic subject matter is so — characters die and then are brought back to life and they’re discovering the darkness of the human soul through the superhero — so dead and gone to a point where I have so little interest.”
Creators | At Good Comics for Kids, Mouse Guard creator David Petersen discusses gender roles in his well-regarded series, and answers the question, Why mice?
- January 6, 2009 @ 05:44 AM by Kevin Melrose
It’s gettin’ late, have you seen mah mates? Mama, tell me when the boys get here
Not a day goes by that I don’t receive a request for my thoughts on an academic paper about the retailing of comics, because it’s well-known I’ve baby-sat the cash registers of three world-class comics shops in my time; not a day goes by that someone doesn’t ask me just how I launched the creative careers of folks like Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan and Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba and Matt Fraction and gave a leg up to Jason McNamara and Kirsten Baldock and Kieron Dwyer and Adam Beechen and all.
But more than a few times a day, people pitch me stuff to AiT/Planet Lar, hoping my publishing house might put their work out into the world, what with us having such a good ratio of quality versus quantity of story-telling, over the past ten years. And I have to tell them, you know, I’m not so down with their twelve-volume graphic novel cycle about a cybernetic jellyfish and his newly articulate urban zebra who team up to fight the onset of gingivitis and other awkward dental trials in the mouths of preternaturally-aware Blue Spruce trees moving, slowly, westward, on a trip of self-discovery. Ya gotta tailor your work for the publishing house that might make a go of it, yeah?
So, I don’t have any insight into any of all of that. I don’t know what sort of thing Karen Berger of Vertigo is looking for, or the kind of book that will make the boys at Oni swoon. I couldn’t tell you what Eric Stephenson at Image would greenlight, or the particular thing that might strike the fancy of the lads at Top Shelf.
I can tell you that the first thing that any would-be comic book creator should understand is that it is hard.
When you create something… that moment is a time when you are not working towards the things you need to eat and drink and live and breathe. Creation is not necessary, and yet it is vital, if you know what I mean. And if you know what I mean, you’re probably a creator. And if you’re a creator, you’re creating, and you don’t really need to hear what it is I’m going to say.
But those of you on the fence; those of you who need a bit of a push… here’s this: get yourself in the game. Do a little trash-talk. Pick up your favorite book, and know you can do better than that. “Don’t come in here into my comics world with that weak stuff,” you should say to the comic book open in front of you. And then craft your own story, or draw your own artwork, or color your page, or letter your word balloons; but do the work to put it down on paper. It is the business of art to glorify life, and you have to bleed and suffer to illuminate and instruct and entertain.
Create.
If you’d like me to tell you something different… some sort of secret the rest of us are keeping from you, I could. But it wouldn’t be true. Just make your comics, and put them out into the world.
- January 6, 2009 @ 12:01 AM by Larry Young
Millar ok after reaction to Crohn’s medication
This is pretty scary — the Sunday Mail reports that comics writer Mark Millar, of Wanted, Fantastic Four and Civil War fame, almost died last month after having a severe reaction to his medication for Crohn’s disease:
“I went off sick the first week of December and thought I had a heavy cold or flu. My temperature was a consistent 103F and I was awake all night shivering.
“After a week, it wasn’t passing andmy wife made me an appointment with the doc.
“He did tests and found my blood was wonky, my spleen was huge and my liver was acting weird – all the symptoms of several very nasty things.
“I was sleeping 20 hours a day and have almost no memory of the whole episode.”
Millar goes on to say that although he’s feeling “a little stronger” now, he’ll be taking January off in order to fully recover. On behalf of the rest of the Robot 6 crew, I’d like to wish Mark Millar a speedy recovery.
Hat tip: Journalista.
- January 5, 2009 @ 12:56 PM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim: Dave Astor
Dave Astor (Photo by Daniela DiMaggio)
2008 will not be remembered as the year of the editorial cartoonist. From 1983 to late October 2008, any development in the editorial cartooning or comics syndicate market was noted and thoroughly covered by Editor & Publisher Senior Editor Dave Astor. Unfortunately, just like the 12 or more staff cartoonists that lost their job in 2008, Astor was one of 20 employees let go by Nielsen (E&P‘s owner) in late October. Widely respected in the industry (as evidenced by the collective reaction to Astor’s departure), Astor struck me as a great person to interview in order to put the 2008 editorial cartoonist/comics syndicate market in a proper perspective.
Astor was associate editor and then senior editor of Editor & Publisher from 1983 to 2008. He covered newspaper syndication, cartooning, column-writing, and more for E&P‘s print magazine, Web site, and blog. In 2006, Astor received the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists’ Ink Bottle Award for his cartooning coverage over the years. He also helped E&P win two Neal Awards for stories about newspaper coverage of the Iraq War.
Astor has also been a columnist for The Montclair (N.J.) Times from 2003 to the present. His weekly “Montclairvoyant” feature humorously comments on local and national news in a mock-Q&A format. “Montclairvoyant” helped the Times win two editorial-page awards from the New Jersey Press Association.
During his time at E&P, Astor also drew freelance gag cartoons published in several magazines. That was from 1997 to 2003, before starting his Times column.
My thanks to Astor for his valuable time and perspective.
- January 5, 2009 @ 08:38 AM by Tim O'Shea
Your wallet will be thin and your bookshelf fat: A 2009 preview, Fantagraphics Books
The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972
I thought I’d spent the better part of this week looking ahead at what various funnybook publishers have planned for the new year. First up is a look at Fantagraphics Spring/Summer catalog. It’s a doozy of a list …
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The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972 by Charles M. Schulz. Sally’s on the cover. Kristen Cheoweth (who played Sally on Broadway) does the introduction. $28.99 hardcover. Continue Reading »
- January 5, 2009 @ 08:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Kodansha tells Tokyopop Germany “Nein”
Hell Girl Vol. 1
We’re not going to be revisiting every big news story that broke while we were away, but there was one that happened late last week that’s worth mentioning. Namely, Japanese publisher Kodansha’s out-of-the-blue decision (scroll down) to pull all of its licenses from Tokyopop Germany. The affected books include Beck, School Rumble, Hell Girl, and Cromartie High School. If you can read German, the full announcement is here.
Obviously, unless you purchase your manga in a foreign language other than Japanese for reasons best kept to yourself this news doesn’t really affect you directly. But it does point towards the rumored troubles and discontent between the two companies and suggests that TP is far from out of the clear yet. At least two folks have offered commentaries so far — Simon Jones:
There are plenty of possibilities, and not many of them bode well for Tokyopop. Is TP Germany a victim of soured relationships at the parent company? Is this another clue to Kodansha’s international manga ambitions? Has Del Rey been posting recruitment ads for German translators recently? Absent any explanation from the above parties, I’m tilting away from this being isolated to the German arm alone. But there is another potential avenue to explore… Carlsen and Egmont are German publishers who also hold Kodansha manga titles, so whether or not they experience similar issues in the coming months (or perhaps, pick up a bunch of new licenses) may give Kodansha’s actions some context.
- January 5, 2009 @ 07:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Spider-Man newspaper strip gets its own Brand New Day
The Amazing Spider-Man (Dec. 31)
Darn that Parker luck.
One moment you’re kicking back with your identically dressed supermodel wife, commenting on the daily televised screed from J. Jonah Jameson. The next, you’re waking up in your aunt’s house to the smell of coffee and the sounds of awkward exposition.
It’s as if the past two decades never happened, and it’s … a Brand New Day.
Yes, The Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip, which has been chugging along ever-so-slowly since 1977, has again fallen somewhat in step with comic-book continuity. The change was teased for the first time in the Dec. 31 installment. The next morning, readers — and Peter Parker — awoke to an abrupt continuity reboot.
No angst-filled build-up, no deal with the stand-in Devil. Just … poof.
Thankfully, on Jan. 3, the editors stepped in to alleviate any confusion with a “special note to perplexed readers” that explains: “In keeping with the new Spider-Man story line at Marvel Comics, we, too, are going back to Spidey’s roots. He’s single, and attending college. Now let the surprises begin!”
Mystery solved! No?
- January 5, 2009 @ 06:43 AM by Kevin Melrose