2009 September
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
M-I-C-K-E-Y
Publishing | The week ends, of course, with more coverage of Disney’s announced $4-billion purchase of Marvel.
Columnist Colby Cash offers a broader overview of the deal, and an assessment of the state of Marvel and the comics market: “It’s ridiculous to think that Spider-Man alone — the brand, the heritage, the myth — isn’t worth $4-billion. Comics don’t make money anymore, but comic-book characters are a different story. [Marvel CEO Ike] Perlmutter didn’t do so explicitly, but he has effectively defined the place of the old-fashioned superhero comics periodical in the 21st century, and imposed that definition on the market. Comics are henceforth to be considered a break-even business that is essentially a research-and-development lab for storytelling.”
Ryan Nakashima, meanwhile, uses efforts by Disney to woo a young male audience with the rebranded Disney XD channel as the centerpiece of an article about the acquisition: ” While there’s no harm in attracting more girls to the channel, Disney also wants to draw more advertising for boy-focused products like video games and action figure toys. That might have taken years on its own. Now Marvel is expected to bring more superhero power to Disney XD, adding to the 20 hours per week that Marvel content already runs on the network.” [National Post, The Associated Press]
Publishing | With the dismantling of anime distributor and manga publisher A.D. Vision complete, a blogger checks on the status of bankrupt Central Park Media. [Nigorimasen! Blog, via Anime Vice]
- September 4, 2009 @ 07:08 AM by Kevin Melrose
‘The essence of Marvel, that lives mainly in its comic books, will remain as is’
Robert Iger
Mouse in the House! Robert Iger, President and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, stopped by Marvel’s Manhattan offices this morning for a company-wide meeting to discuss Disney’s acquisition of the comics, film, and licensing giant. And while on-the-record comments from employees were difficult to come by, a multitude of Twitter posts indicate that the meeting went over like gangbusters.
The most retweeted comment of the day came via Talent Liaison C.B. Cebulski, who quoted Iger as saying, “The essence of Marvel, that lives mainly in its comic books, will remain as is.” Marketing Manager and New Avengers: The Reunion writer Jim McCann similarly reported that, “we were all assured the Marvel we all love will remain that same Marvel.”
Editors Jen Grunwald and Alejandro Arbona waxed enthusiastic about their new boss as well.
While that initial meeting between corporate titan and new acquisition is rarely a time for talking turkey about the future of the relationship — on either side — it’s at least a time for making first impressions. This particular first impression seems positive.
- September 3, 2009 @ 04:24 PM by Sean T. Collins
DC Cab: Taxi explodes outside DC Comics offices
The view from DC this morning
It’s not quite Black Lantern Martian Manhunter tossing Green Lantern into the Batsignal, but as far as urban havoc goes, it’s the most excitement comics has seen in some time: A taxicab burst into flames around 9:30 this morning at 53rd St. and 7th Avenue in Manhattan — just across the sidewalk from the DC Comics offices at 1700 Broadway.
Through eyewitnesses, Gothamist reports that the fire resulted from an exploding gas tank and filled the area with smoke, though no one was hurt. The New York Times quotes FDNY spokesman Firefighter Hugh Giffords as describing the fire and its subsequent extinguishing as “routine,” but the conflagration was the talk of DC’s employees, many of whom could see it from their Broadway-facing windows or passed it on their way into work. Sources say it attracted even more attention than Paul McCartney’s recent performance atop the nearby Late Show with David Letterman marquee. You can see the full progression of the fire in our photo gallery after the break.
The incident obviously worked out pretty badly for the owner of the cab. But DC itself fared better than did some other comics publishers after memorable moments of car-based mayhem from the relatively recent past, as when rogue vehicles plowed through the offices of SLG in 2003 and Oni in 2007.
- September 3, 2009 @ 01:47 PM by Sean T. Collins
Everyone’s A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
Crumb's The Book of Genesis
Trying to play catch-up on some of the more notable reviews this week. My apologies if I missed anything.
• Bookforum has what I believe is the first review of Robert Crumb’s Genesis book, penned by Jeet Heer no less. The magazine also has a review of Asterios Polyp by Dan Nadel and a look at “oddball manga” by Jog.
• Wowzers, the mighty Ng Suat Tong is blogging over at the Hooded Utilitarian! His first post (which looks to be part of an ongoing series0 is spent looking at the critics’ various responses to Dash Shaw’s Bottomless Belly Button.
• David Welsh is still crazy about Astral Project.
• Rob Clough looks at two new books from Sparkplug — Neptune and Sausage Hand.
• Guest blogger Sean Collins reviews the fourth issue of Flash: Rebirth. So, for that matter, does the Speed Force blog.
- September 3, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Is the world ready for a ‘LoComicMotion’ Butterfly? (Probably not)
Not to be outdone by the likes of Warner Bros. and Marvel, cartoonist Dean Trippe has launched a motion comic of his web series Butterfly. Sure, the technology — “proprietary LoComicMotion Technology” — isn’t quite there yet, and the interface could use a little fine-tuning, but …
(Hey, I thought it was pretty funny.)
- September 3, 2009 @ 12:14 PM by Kevin Melrose
Clowes New Yorker illustration in running for magazine cover of the year
Dan Clowes' New Yorker cover
Daniel Clowes’ cover for the May 11 issue of The New Yorker is among the finalists in the Association of Magazine Editors’ cover of the year contest at Amazon.com.
You can vote for your favorites in 10 categories, from Best Obama Cover to Best in News & Business to Sexiest Cover, and be entered to win a $10,000 gift card from Amazon.
Voting on the finalist will run through Sept. 20. Voting for the grand-prize winner will open the following day. Winners will be announced Oct. 14 at the Magazine Publishers of America’s Innovation Summit in New York City.
Clowes will release his original graphic novel Wilson in May 2010 through Drawn & Quarterly.
(via FishbowlNY)
- September 3, 2009 @ 11:09 AM by Kevin Melrose
But what he’d really like to do is write Daredevil
Spider-Man: The Short Halloween
Saturday Night Live‘s Bill Hader, who with castmate Seth Meyers wrote Spider-Man: The Short Halloween, already has his sights set on another Marvel character.
“We have a Daredevil idea that we’d like to do,” the actor-comedian tells io9.com. “I can’t tell you what the idea is. I would say it’s kind of the same thing as the Spider-Man book as it’s kind of a stand alone. … And our idea is similar to the Spider-Man one, where it also involves peripheral characters [as] the main character and Daredevil is influencing the story in different ways. It is that kind of similar thing to the Spider-man one. I know people were kind of mixed on it. Some people liked it and some people were like, ‘why isn’t Spider-Man the main character?’ We weren’t interested in that, we found that funnier.”
Hader, perhaps best known for his role in Superbad, has served as a creative consultant and producer for South Park. He’ll also provide the voice of Professor Impossible in Season 4 of The Venture Bros.
- September 3, 2009 @ 10:39 AM by Kevin Melrose
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up
Hate Annual
• Fantagraphics reveals that Peter Bagge has a new Hate Annual lined up to come out next year and shares the cover image. I thought Bagge had completely given up on these, so this is very good news indeed. More Buddy Bradley! Whoo!
• While we’re talking about Fanta, it’s worth noting that Joseph Lambert of Turtle, Keep It Steady fame will be joining the Mome family. In related news, Derek van Gleason posts some teaser images of his ongoing story in that anthology.
• Alan David Doane has published an e-book of his interviews with various cartoonists and comics industry folk, including Charles Burns, Chester Brown, Seth, Dave Sim, Howard Chaykin, Mark Millar and more. You can download a copy of the book here.
• Cinebook, which translates and publishes a number of French comics for the U.S., such as Lucky Luke, has acquired the rights to the XIII series and will start releasing volumes in May of next year, with a book coming out every two months.
• Jeffrey Brown is working on a sequel to his Cat Getting Out of a Bag book. This one will be tentatively called Cat Walks.The first book was also apparently popular enough to warrant a series of tie-in postcards and journals.
• Secret Asian Man cartoonist Tak Toyoshima is moving his strip from a daily to a weekly strip, which was its original incarnation.
• Via Spurgeon: Paul E. Fitzgerald has a book out exploring Will Eisner’s time on PS Magazine.
- September 3, 2009 @ 10:15 AM by Chris Mautner
‘Whenever your leads are white American males, you’ve got a better chance of reaching more people’
"Truth: Red, White & Black" star Isaiah Bradley, by Joe Quesada
With its unique blend of Marvel-minutiae mastery and near-total frankness, Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort’s Blah Blah Blog on Marvel.com tends to be an extraordinary document even on days when it’s not touching the third rail of fanboy politics. But in his most recent post, Brevoort does exactly that, addressing the question of why, despite having a great big universe at its disposal, Marvel’s comics tend to star white dudes from the U.S. of A.
Responding to a reader question regarding the difficulty of sustaining books with international leads, like Captain Britain & MI:13 or Alpha Flight, Brevoort expands the issue, likening the situation to the plight faced by “series with female leads, or African-American leads, or leads of any other particular cultural bent”:
Because we’re an American company whose primary distribution is centered around America, the great majority of our existing audience seems to be white American males. So while within that demographic you’ll find people who are interested in a wide assortment of characters of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, whenever your leads are white American males, you’ve got a better chance of reaching more people overall.
Interestingly, Brevoort seems to view “American” as a far more key component for a book’s success than “white” or “male”: He goes on to speculate that books whose leads are black or female and American will have an easier go of it than books whose leads are white and male but foreign.
There’s an awful lot to chew on in there, from the assessment of Marvel’s audience to the characterization of their interests to the comparison of international characters with women or minority characters to the whole chicken-egg question of which came first, the demographic or the subject matter. Is Brevoort’s analysis a common-sense observation, a self-fulfilling prophecy, or something else entirely? What do you think?
- September 3, 2009 @ 09:09 AM by Sean T. Collins
Hey, it beats trolling the circus for orphaned acrobats
"The Successor," by Alex Lukas
Super Punch points out a great limited-edition print by Alex Lukas called “The Successor,” which humorously captures Batman’s attempt to find a new sidekick by placing an ad for an “executive assistant,” age 13 to 16. Uniform provided, presumably.
More image views, and ordering details, can be found at Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction.
- September 3, 2009 @ 08:31 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Donald Duck
Publishing | Egmont Publishing House has issued a warning to Danish readers that last week’s issue of Donald Duck & Co. (Anders And & Co.) includes a fingerprinting set that contains a toxic iron-based powder. The publisher is recalling all unsold issues, and has advised parents to immediately throw out the fingerprinting set. [The Copenhagen Post]
Publishing | Tokyopop announced Wednesday in a webcast that seven series that were placed on hiatus last year during the company’s restructuring will resume publication in mid-2010. The publisher also will add several new titles to its lineup. [About.com]
Publishing | First Second’s Calista Brill offers her perspective on what an editor is and isn’t. [Doodles and Dailies]
Webcomics | Sean Kleefeld critiques the Zuda Comics interface, and points to “a larger problem with using Flash to deliver web comics.” [Kleefeld on Comics]
- September 3, 2009 @ 07:48 AM by Kevin Melrose
Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs: Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Vol. 2
Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, Volume 2
Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Vol. 2
Written by Alex Raymond and Don Moore; Illustrated by Alex Raymond
Checker; $19.95
First, wow.
I said when I talked about Volume 1 of this series that Alex Raymond’s art was gorgeous and convincing. Compared to the material collected in Volume 2, it’s xkcd.
Some of that may have something to do with the manner in which it’s collected. The first couple of months of strips follow the formatting from the last part of Volume 1. Each week’s strip is split over two pages to allow each half to be printed at a huge size. Purists might not appreciate the separation, but no story is lost and – since each strip is divided across a single, double-page spread – the pacing doesn’t even really change. It’s the next best thing to something like Sunday Press’ oversized Little Nemo in Slumberland volumes, and when you figure in that Flash Gordon is almost a tenth of the Little Nemo price – it’s a change I can live with.
After the first two months, the format changes and we’re back to one page for one strip. The art’s not much smaller though and it’s obvious that there was some kind of format change to the strip itself in June 1935. What bothers me is that there’s no title on these strips in the collection. I’ve unsuccessfully tried to find a scan of a Flash Gordon strip from this period because I’m a little concerned that we’re missing the drop panels from these strips. I’ve got no way of knowing for sure, and the story still flows nicely from strip to strip without a lot of cumbersome catch-up exposition, but I guess there’s a little purist in me after all and he’s a bit nervous. Still… love the huge, detailed art. Raymond’s linework is a lot more sumptuous and delicate in this volume than the last and it’s a joy to be able to lose yourself in it.
- September 2, 2009 @ 08:06 PM by Michael May
What it did wasn’t pretty: a look back at Sovereign Seven
Grumpy Old Fan
I am fond of saying that the strength of DC’s superhero line comes from its diversity. Ideally, the line would maintain a good mix of traditional and progressive characters, styles, and storytelling approaches. It would be a place where each such approach could carve out its own spot and set its own “local rules”: things are a lot less grim around the Marvel Family, for instance. Perhaps the best example of this heterogeneity was Jack Kirby’s Fourth World. I’m not talking about the fully-assimilated New Gods of today, or even the Grant Morrison-ized New Gods of Seven Soldiers and Final Crisis. No, the pure Kirby of the early ’70s (and maybe even The Hunger Dogs) was its own animal, different enough that DC’s high sheriffs ordered Superman’s and Jimmy Olsen’s heads redrawn just so the squares wouldn’t totally freak out.
Now, most of the time these work out pretty well, both in terms of artistic merit and lasting contributions to DC’s stable.
And then there was Sovereign Seven….
- September 2, 2009 @ 03:22 PM by Tom Bondurant
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Welcome to Send Us Your Shelf Porn, where the collections are shared and the eyes are dazzled. Our guest this week is Steve Flack of Brooklyn, NY. Steve recently moved into a new apartment, and just finished refurbishing it, comics collection and all. He’s eager to take us on a tour of the place, so get your guidebooks and click on the link …
- September 2, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Strangeways: The Thirsty – Chapter 2 Recap
Wanna know what happened in Chapter 2 of THE THIRSTY? Only got a minute? You’re in luck!
Art by Gervasio and Jok. Verbal mangulation by Matt Maxwell
Chapter 3 gets the treatment on Friday. New pages start on Monday. See you all there and then.
- September 2, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell