2009 March
Craig Yoe’s Secret Identity
Secret Identity
Editor and bon vivant Craig Yoe has created a Web site devoted to his new book Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster. Among other things the site features intersting stuff like Yoe talking about how the book’s cover came about and a good deal of risque art that didn’t make it into the book, so, you know, NSFW and all that. Check it out, but only in the comfort of your own home.
- March 6, 2009 @ 09:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Tintin and the $1.3 million luxury sub
Red Rackham's Treasure
Professor Calculus’ shark-shaped minisub from The Adventures of Tintin has become a reality — albeit a pricey one.
The Deep Flight Super Falcon, designed by Graham Hawkes, possesses two sets of wings and two tail fins that allows it to do barrel rolls with dolphins while traveling at speeds of up to 6 knots.
The base price, CNN reports, is $1.3 million. Another model, with open cockpits, is available for $350,000.
Calculus’ shark-shaped submarine first appeared in 1943 in The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham’s Treasure, by Herge. In the story, the eccentric scientist offers the use of his invention so that Tintin and Captain Haddock won’t be harassed by sharks while searching for a sunken ship.
Calculus’ submersible also plays a role in the 1927 animated film Tintin and the Lake of Sharks and its comic-book adaptation, which Hawkes cites in the CNN article.
- March 6, 2009 @ 09:25 AM by Kevin Melrose
Sneak peek: Flight, Vol. 6, and Daisy Kutter
The cover of Flight, Vol. 6, by Kazu Kibuishi
Kazu Kibuishi shows off his cover for the sixth volume of Flight, due out this summer, and offers a glimpse of his Daisy Kutter story “Phantoms.”
- March 6, 2009 @ 08:44 AM by Kevin Melrose
That’s definitely not a straight flush
Yaoi card deck, by Studio KOSEN
Yaoi Press and Studio Kosen have produced several decks of art nouveau-style yaoi playing cards that will undoubtedly please fans of the genre.
Because of the high production costs, the publisher is first testing interest in the card decks by offering a set on eBay (at the time of this post, the top bid was $61).
(via Japanator)
- March 6, 2009 @ 08:26 AM by Kevin Melrose
Food or Comics | A roundup of money-related news
Injury #3
• The bad news at Borders Group continued yesterday as the chain cut 742 employees at its Borders Superstores and Waldenbooks locations nationwide.
• Cartoonist Ted May has announced he’s delaying the release of the third issue of Injury until he can figure out how to work around Diamond Comic Distributors’ new minimum-order policy: “With no large scale distribution, it’s not feasible for Injury to continue in its current format. It was basically engineered for the direct market. I haven’t yet decided how we’ll proceed.”
Tom Spurgeon has some solid commentary on the subject.
• SF Weekly reports on efforts by customers to keep Al’s Comics in San Francisco from closing. A “Save Al’s” benefit has been organized for March 22.
• Rob Felton, the former associate publisher who was one of Wizard Entertainment’s first major layoffs back in 2007, has been hired by art-toy company Kidrobot as vice president of marketing.
- March 6, 2009 @ 07:59 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Wizard
Publishing | I presume this announcement that Wizard Entertainment is moving its entire operation to its New York City sales office means the company has sold is 35,000-square-foot facility in Congers, N.Y. Or else, as Tom Spurgeon points out, it means the company finally has fired enough people so that its staff can fit in the smaller space. [Press release, via Heidi MacDonald]
Creators | Penny Arcade creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins were recognized Thursday by the Washington state legislature for their work on Child’s Play, the charity the two founded to deliver games and toys to children’s hospitals. Since 2003 the organization has raised more than $3.5 million in donations. [Geekdad]
Webcomics | Cartoonist Jane Irwin has decided to end the historical webcomic Clockwork Comics because of her concerns over the depiction of racial stereotypes. [Clockwork Comics, via Johanna Draper Carlson]
Publishing | I love Douglas Wolk for digging through ancient copies of Amazing Heroes Preview Specials to compile this “Imaginary Library” of comics from the 1980s that were announced but failed to materialize. [Savage Critics]
Fandom | The “manga vs. comics” debate is tiresome. [The Eastern Edge, via Brigid Alverson]
Weirdness | Troubled Citigroup could use help from “corporate equivalent of the Justice League.” Apparently. [The New York Times]
- March 6, 2009 @ 07:13 AM by Kevin Melrose
That’s great, New York Times, but ‘Graphic Books’? Really?
Starman Omnibus, Vol. 2
The surprise debut yesterday of The New York Times’ Graphic Books Best Seller lists seems to have triggered three primary reactions: “Yay,” “What the hell is The Courtyard?” and “Graphic Books?”
Yes, graphic books. Stop laughing.
To get to the bottom of the awkward-name mystery, ICv2.com turns to Best Seller List Editor Deborah Hofmann.
“We felt that Books made it clear to readers that our intent is to be inclusive and expansive,” she tells the retail-focused news and analysis site. “… We also like the fact that the word Books sets us a bit apart from what might be expected by simply calling them Graphic Novels. The genre has grown even beyond novels. And novel perhaps implies a ‘novelty,’ when we might indeed be seeing the evolution of something with a far longer arc, past, present and future. They are an established form, not a novelty likely to recede as a fad. One has only to look at the aisles of any bookstore to monitor their growth.”
But the lists’ name wasn’t the only surprise: The hardcover list is bookended by DC Comics’ Starman Omnibus, Vol. 2, at No. 1 and IDW Publishing’s Complete Terry and the Pirates, Vol. 6, at No. 10. Although the hardcover chart shows some genre diversity — superheroes, horror, fantasy, classic adventure — the softcover list is entirely superheroes, led by Watchmen.
And while it isn’t at all shocking to see eight volumes of Naruto on the manga list, MPD-Psycho and Eden certainly aren’t the titles most would expect to fill the two remaining spots.
The Times lists are compiled using an arcane formula that includes sales data from hundreds of retail outlets, including independent booksellers, book chains, online stores and direct-market shops. So I imagine we’ll continue to be surprised by what titles are, and are not, on the lists.
Related: Brigid Alverson delves deeper into the manga list.
- March 6, 2009 @ 04:47 AM by Kevin Melrose
The greatest vs. the greatest: Heads will cave in from shear awesomeness
ItsJustSomeRandomGuy, the creator of those “I’m a Marvel, I’m a DC” video clips from a couple years back, has a new one featuring two familiar-looking movie stars:
Click the link above to view his entire YouTube channel, where you can see his past work. Good stuff.
- March 5, 2009 @ 03:36 PM by JK Parkin
New York Times adds graphic novel best-seller lists
Watchmen
The New York Times debuted three new best-seller lists today under the heading “Graphic Books”: hardcovers, softcovers and manga.
According to the site, the rankings reflect graphic novels sales for the week ending Feb. 28 at thousands of venues around the United States.
The venues they’re using to determine the ranks include “hundreds of independent book retailers (statistically weighted to represent all such outlets); national, regional and local chains; online and multimedia entertainment retailers; university, gift, supermarket, discount department stores and newsstands. In addition, these rankings also include unit sales reported by retailers nationwide that specialize in graphic novels and comic books.” Maybe it’s just me, but I’d love to know more about the process they used to gather the data, or even a breakdown of what sells the most where. Those kinds of things are always fascinating, to me anyway, but then again I’m the guy who can spend an hour slicing and dicing all the Google Analytics data we collect, too.
So what’s making the list this week? Per the intro, a lot of books by Alan Moore. These include Watchmen (No. 1 on the softcover list and no. 3 for hardcovers), The Killing Joke and Avatar’s The Courtyard. Topping the hardcover list is the Starman Omnibus Vol. 2, while Naruto owns the manga chart, taking eight of the 10 slots.
Tom Spurgeon at The Comic Reporter comments, “That clicking sound you hear on the Internet is comics people reading this list trying to find out what the hell The Courtyard is.”
- March 5, 2009 @ 02:27 PM by JK Parkin
Spider-Man and his giant robot fight evil in Japan
Marvel.com has started posting episodes of the 1970s Spider-Man TV show from Japan. Gasp and marvel as Spider-Man rides around in a flying Mach 5 and teams with Voltron to fight the evil Iron Cross Army.
The first episode, titled “The Time of Revenge Has Come! Beat Down the Iron Cross Group!” is available now, with more to come each Thursday.
- March 5, 2009 @ 01:40 PM by JK Parkin
Annotations for Trinity issue #40
Trinity #40
You know, I’m a little ashamed to just be thinking of this now; but in a weird way, Trinity has pulled at least a little truth out of those “Batman will become a New God” rumors from a year or so ago. True, Batman hasn’t become a capital-N new god, but the god he’s become is certainly new to the rest of us….
Too much of a stretch? Yeah, probably.
Anyway, with this issue we start the last quarter of Trinity. It’s 75% over now, people! Give yourselves a hand (assuming you’ve been following all along)! While I was expecting certain developments to last a little longer than they have, I suppose there’s only twelve more issues to go and we need to start wrapping things up.
Naturally, any more and I’d have to say …
SPOILERS FOLLOW
* * *
Continue Reading »
- March 5, 2009 @ 12:24 PM by Tom Bondurant
‘I used to use a single thread to cross the sky’
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
With the release this week of their new album, No Line on the Horizon, U2 are all over the media hyping it up. And as Bono talks about the new album and the other new album from them that will drop later this year, he’s also talking about his work on Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark, next year’s Broadway production featuring the wall-crawler. From this week’s Rolling Stone:
The first song Bono plays on the Maserati’s more-than-adequate sound system is called “Boy Falls From the Sky,” with Across the Universe star Jim Sturgess singing as Peter Parker. It sounds a lot like a U2 hit, especially when Bono sings along in the car with the line “I used to use a single thread to cross the sky.” “Killer!” he shouts as the song wraps up, and then he plays a choral, operatic segue. When Bono’s assistant calls on his cell, he cuts the conversation short: “We’re in the middle of an opera here!”
Clayton and Mullen haven’t even heard what Bono calls the “spider songs” yet, but the singer is hopeful that he can convince them to release the tunes in the form of a U2 album. “If we do, it’ll be a monster, ’cause it’s the most accessible music we’ve probably ever written,” Bono says. “It could be our Tommy. We could do it with guest stars and everything.”
For some reason I started receiving issues of Rolling Stone in the mail a few weeks ago — I think it’s a promotional thing to go along with their new, smaller format — so hopefully I’ll get this issue as well.
- March 5, 2009 @ 11:49 AM by JK Parkin
Slash Print | Following the digital evolution
Scans Daily | Glenn Hauman chats with a couple of moderators from Scans Daily about LiveJournal’s closing of the community, copyright, fair use, and whether the site helped or harmed comics.
In related news: “Hand of God Suspends Homoerotic Scans Daily Comic Book Community.” (via Christopher Bird)
Social media | iFanboy has begun compiling a list of Twitter accounts of comics publishers and creators.
Social media | Someone has formed a webcomics Twitter group.
Webcomics | Michael Sisk is looking for beta testers for the WebComic plugin and InkBlot theme for WordPress.
E-devices | ComicXP is offering its online reader as a free download.
E-devices | Amazon has released a free iPhone application that allows users to read Kindle books on mobile devices. The top iPhone-app companies apparently aren’t too concerned.
This morning a Morgan Stanley analyst predicted Amazon will sell 1 million Kindles by Thanksgiving.
E-publishing | Warren Ellis points to the success actor-author-online personality Wil Wheaton has had with the PDF version of his new book Sunken Treasure.
E-publishing | Barnes & Noble has acquired Fictionwise, one of the largest independent e-book retailers. Although Fictionwise will operate as a separate business unit, B&N makes it clear the retailer is part of its larger digital strategy, which includes launching an e-bookstore later this year.
- March 5, 2009 @ 10:37 AM by Kevin Melrose
Who watches the Watchmen links?
PVP's Ombudsman
Everyone’s got Watchmen fever and we are by no means immune. So here’s another round-up of links to slake everyone’s thirst.
FYI, spoilers for the film and the comic abound so if tread lightly if you want your movie-going (or reading) experience to be pure.
• Meredith Woerner at io9 talks about what parts of the book have been left on the cutting room floor, apart from the giant squid that is.
Bye Bye, Side Characters:
If you’re excited to watch the coming together of man and stranger with the Watchmen ceremonial newspaper man hat pass, forget it. Everyone at the news stand are cut. Sure there are glimpse of the side characters here and there, but they are quick and fleeting. But Snyder promises more from Bernie and other newsstand customers in the Black Freighter DVD and Director’s Cut.
• MTV’s Splash Page delves into the history of the Charlton characters that formed the basis for the comic.
- March 5, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Is the ship sinking? A short chat with Eric Reynolds
Considering the current economic downturn and Diamond’s new policy changes, I thought it might be worthwhile to talk to some of the small press publishers out there to see how some of these changes are affecting them, if at all. This then, will be the first in a hopefully ongoing series of conversations with industry folks, starting with Fantagraphics editor and promotions manager, Eric Reynolds.
Tales Designed to Thrizzle
Q: How many pamphlets do you publish right now?
A: Right now, I guess we publish Castle Waiting, Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Uptight, Angry Youth Comics … there’s one I’m drawing a blank on. They’re so infrequent these days. There’s one more issue of Raisin Pie, the Rick Altergott series that will eventually come out.
- March 5, 2009 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Mautner