2010 March
Comics cavalcade: Gumball heads, butterfly planes and Corey Haim
Awesome Hospital by Chad Bowers, Chris Sims, Matt Digges and Josh Krach
- March 17, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Play the Foiled board game: It’s ‘Candy Land, but evil’
The "Foiled" board game
Forget trailers or Twitter accounts for fictional characters or MySpace pages. The next great trend in comics promotion just may be board games. Okay, maybe not. But you have to admit, this board game for Jane Yolen and Mike Cavallaro’s new graphic novel Foiled is pretty neat. (Michael May reviewed Foiled for Robot 6 earlier this week.)
On the First Second Books blog, Marketing Coordinator Gina Gagliano writes that the game has been described at the imprint’s offices as “Candy Land, but evil.” (For a truly evil children’s board game, see Uncle Wiggily. Terrifying.)
Gagliano notes that the game, which is based on the plot of Foiled, has been sent to booksellers “far and wide.” There’s even talk that Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn may organize a game-playing session as part of its Free Comic Book Day activities. However, you don’t have to wait: You can download a printable version of the game from the Macmillan website.
- March 17, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Red Hood: The Lost Days will arrive just in time for Under the Red Hood DVD push
Red Hood: The Lost Days #1
Judd Winick and artist Pablo Raimondi are teaming up for a new miniseries called Red Hood: The Lost Days — “a six-issue mini-series revealing the untold story of the man behind the Red Hood. It’s the tale of an angry young man’s transformation into a deadly villain,” according to DC’s The Source blog.
“I’m thrilled to return to this character, and it’s both a joy and challenge to tackle this new story,” Winick said. “LOST DAYS tracks the time from the Red Hood’s rebirth to his return to Gotham. In it, we get to understand this anti-hero in a new way. I think it explains both how he’s sympathetic, and an unrepentant monster. He’s a wonderfully complex character, and I hope this adds some even greater depth to his mythology.”
And here’s today’s “Why didn’t they start doing this sooner?” moment — the release of the comic will coincide with the release of the Under the Red Hood DVD, DC’s next entry in their animated movie series. Typically when a big blockbuster film hits theaters, comic companies release a barrage of comic tie-ins to maybe pull in new readers. I can’t remember DC doing anything like that, at least this overtly, with any of their previous animated DVD releases, but maybe I’m forgetting something. Many of the DVDs, of course, have been based on existing stories, like New Frontiers and the Death of Superman, so there’s always the opportunity to sell from the backlist, but actually creating a tie-in comic seems like something worth trying as well.
Update: Someone in our comments section points out that there was, indeed, a New Frontiers special that came out back in 2008 when the animated DVD hit that I, obviously, didn’t remember.
- March 17, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Rick from Walking Dead is … wait, what?
Wha ...?
So after seeing Image’s teasers over the last few days featuring Spawn and Invincible, I thought maybe Image really was putting together a team book of their top players. And I expected today to receive an image of Witchblade, Savage Dragon or some other superhero who, y’know, made sense given the line-up we’ve seen so far.
But today’s image features Rick, the one-handed cop from Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead. So all I can say is … well played, Image, well played. You had me going there.
- March 17, 2010 @ 10:24 AM by JK Parkin
Cool things to bookmark: David-Wasting-Paper
A sample Ann Telnaes cartoon. 'Cause I just like her stuff so much
Every couple of days, the blog known as David-Wasting-Paper asks a different cartoonist the same set of questions — what’s your favorite pen to use, what things do you hate to draw, do you keep a sketchbook and so on. The answers are rarely anything less than elucidating, especially if you’re a process nerd like me. More to the point, he’s managed to get quite a few notable folks to fill out his survey, including editorial cartoonists David Horsey and Ann Telnaes, caricaturist Drew Friedman, Mack White, Rick Geary, Carol Lay, Bill Griffith and many, many more. If you’re an aspiring cartoonist wondering what sort of paper and pen nibs to buy, this site would make for good reference material.
- March 17, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Diamond launches KidsComics.com
KidsComics.com
Diamond Comics Distributors launched a new website this week “aimed at directing kids and parents to kid-friendly comic shops across the United States and Canada.”
KidsComics.com not only features a search function for finding this shops, but also highlights kid-friendly comics like BOOM!’s The Muppet Show, Archie’s Sonic Universe and DC’s Tiny Titans, among others. Per the press release, the shop locator includes more than 800 “qualified kid-friendly retailers taken from current shops who participate in Diamond’s comicshoplocator.com service. Each retailer must show a minimum ordering support for kid-friendly comic books and graphic novels.”
- March 17, 2010 @ 09:31 AM by JK Parkin
Congratulations to Joe Sacco
Footnotes in Gaza
The Portland cartoonist won the $10,000 Ridenhour Prize for his recent graphic novel, Footnotes in Gaza.
The Ridenhour Book Prize honors Joe Sacco’s tenacious reporting and recognizes Footnotes in Gaza as a work of profound social significance, one that explores the complex continuum of history. At a time when peace in the Middle East has never seemed more elusive, Sacco’s illustrations bear witness to the lives of those who are trapped by the conflict. This marks the first time that the Ridenhour judges have awarded the prize to an illustrated book
The Ridenhour Prize is named after Ron Ridenhour, who uncovered the My Lai massacre and later became an investigative journalist. (via)
- March 17, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Chapel Hill Comics
Retailing | Ada Price surveys six retailers from across the United States about weathering the tough economy, what’s selling (and what’s not), and the effects of price increases and “event fatigue.” “Event titles brought people in last year, both long-time fans and new readers, but [this year] people are suffering from event fatigue,” said Eric Thornton of Chicago Comics. “The last year and a half [crossover] events didn’t bring people in, and catered to people who are [already] fans.” [PW Comics Week]
Publishing | Manga sales in Japan fell 6.6 percent to $4.63 billion in 2009, the largest annual decline in market history. The Tokyo-based Research Institute for Publications points to fans reading in manga cafes instead of buying in bookstores because of the recession, and the release of fewer hit titles. [Anime News Network]
- March 17, 2010 @ 08:25 AM by Kevin Melrose
Beechen, Benjamin team for Batman Beyond miniseries
Batman Beyond #1
As mentioned at the Emerald City Comicon this weekend, DC is bringing Batman Beyond back to comics. Today on the Source, DC released a few more details and the cover to the first issue. The six-issue miniseries will be written by Adam Beechen and drawn by Ryan Benjamin.
“The dark future of the legendary animated series comes to the DCU in a six-issue miniseries, as Terry McGinniss, Bruce Wayne’s young successor as Batman, faces his deadliest foe yet — a mystery murderer from the Dark Knight’s past!” Beechen said. “Old faces return, new allies and enemies step into the light, and the partnership between Terry and Bruce — not to mention Terry and Bruce themselves — might not survive!”
- March 17, 2010 @ 07:27 AM by JK Parkin
More vampires, Asgardians and ‘Forevers’ in this week’s comics
Welcome once again to Can’t Wait for Wednesday, our weekly look at what you can expect to find in your local comic shop tomorrow. To see what Kevin, Chris and I have to say about this week’s comics, read on …
JK Parkin’s pick of the week: American Vampire #1
American Vampire #1
Typically when we make our picks of the week we’re pretty much hypothesizing about how good a comic will be, based on previews, previous issues, the creators involved, interviews and whatever else has appeared on the ‘net about a comic before it is actually available.
In the case of American Vampire, though, Vertigo sent me a copy of the first issue, so I don’t have to guess — I know that I really, really like this comic. Scott Snyder and Stephen King each pen related tales set decades apart, both sharing a common character and drawn by Rafael Albuquerque — actually, let’s stop right there. This book has gotten some decent media coverage due to the fact that best-selling author Stephen King is involved, but the real shining star in this first issue is Albuquerque. His artwork is pretty incredible, and I particularly like how he gives each of the tales and the time periods in which they take place their own distinct visual flair.
- March 16, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by JK Parkin
Spawn is a member of the Guardians of the Globe, too
Guardians of the Globe teaser
In the latest teaser from Image Comics, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn declares that he, too, is a member of the Guardians of the Globe. He joins Invincible — revealed on Monday — although judging from the tongue-in-cheek quote, it’s not willingly: “Todd lost a bet so he’s loaning me out for this.”
- March 16, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Thursday passes sell out for Comic-Con 2010
So long, Thursday memberships
As expected, Thursday memberships for Comic-Con International sold out this afternoon, more than two months earlier than those for last year’s event.
With four-day memberships selling out in November, followed by Saturday passes in December and Friday passes in January, that leaves hopeful convention-goers only with Sunday, whose memberships now stand at 79-percent sold.
In other Comic-Con news, the annual race for discounted convention hotel rooms starts at 9 a.m. PST Thursday as Travel Planners begins taking reservations. If you’re not actually entrenched in the often-frustrating reservation process, you’ll likely read all about it in curse-laden tweets from those who are.
Comic-Con International kicks off on July 21 in San Diego with a preview night (sold out, obviously), and runs through July 25.
- March 16, 2010 @ 02:18 PM by Kevin Melrose
Missing for a week, buy buttons return for Diamond titles on Amazon
Simon Jones notes that most of the “buy new” buttons appear to have returned for the Diamond-distributed graphic novels at Amazon.com, thus bringing to an end the Great Price Glitch of ’10.
It’s still unclear — to customers and publishers, in any case — what caused the error that led to the drastic discounting of high-priced hardcover collections on March 6-7, forcing the online retailer to remove the buy buttons for all titles supplied through Diamond Book Distributors while the problem was fixed.
For the week that the buttons were gone from the website, customers were unable to buy Diamond-distributed titles directly from Amazon. That means visitors to the retail site could purchase books from publishers like Marvel, Dark Horse, IDW, Image and Oni Press only through third-party sellers. (SLG’s Dan Vado and AdHouse’s Chris Pitzer spoke to Robot 6 last week about the effect the removal of the buttons could have on their companies.)
Publishers like DC Comics, BOOM! Studios, Viz Media and Fantagraphics, whose titles are supplied to the book market by different distributors, were unaffected by the pricing error and subsequent removal of buy buttons.
Some have speculated that the glitch, which also affected the Barnes & Noble website to a lesser degree, was a result of a data-entry error made by Diamond. However, neither the distributor nor Amazon have commented publicly on the situation.
Word of the deeply discounted prices — some $100 Marvel omnibus editions were selling for as little as $8.24 — quickly spread online, leading to a mad rush to take advantage of the deals. Although Amazon filled some orders, it canceled most of them and issued $25 promotional discounts to affected customers.
Using “cocktail napkin-style math” and a lot of guesswork, Todd Allen calculated the glitch could end up costing Diamond somewhere between $100,000 and $400,000. However, barring a highly unlikely public statement from Diamond, we’ll never know whether Allen is in the ballpark.
- March 16, 2010 @ 01:36 PM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | Sean Kleefeld’s Action Figure City
Sean Kleefeld's Action Figure City
Blogger and writer Sean Kleefeld shares this really awesome city he’s building for his action figures, which includes a homemade 4 Freedoms Plaza.
- March 16, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Lady Gaga & Beyoncé ‘Telephone’ tributes
"Telephone" by Yamino
Chances are you’ve carved nine minutes out of your schedule over the past few days to watch director Jonas Åkerlund’s mind-melting video for Lady Gaga & Beyoncé’s “Telephone.” Naturally, the combination of Tarantino-esque exploitation-cinema homages, hilariously overt product placement, lesbian chic, outright silliness (“Let’s Make a Sandwich”!), and utterly fabulous outfits has fired the imaginations of artists around the Internet.
Above is an adorable, lusciously colored tribute to “Telephone”‘s dynamic duo by deviantART member Yamino. The piece got the attention of Lady GaGa herself, who called it “completely brilliant”, and blasted Yamino’s homepage to her three-million-plus Twitter followers.
I’m also rather fond of deviantARTist HamletMachine’s comics-inspired take on the video …
- March 16, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Sean T. Collins