2010 March
Woods, Finch join Guggenheim on Action Comics
Lex Luthor by David Finch
DC Comics announced that Last Stand on New Krypton artist Pete Woods will join writer Marc Guggenheim on Action Comics in June, providing interior art for DC’s longest-running title. And they’ll be joined by cover artist David Finch, who began working at DC exclusively earlier this year (he drew the Lex Luthor you see to the right).
“I am absolutely thrilled to be working with Marc on Action Comics,” Woods told DC’s The Source blog. “I also feel incredibly blessed to have David Finch doing covers — I have been a fan for years. Marc and I have some fun plans for this book and intend for it to live up to it’s name!”
Guggenheim spoke about his upcoming work on the book with Comic Book Resources back in December, where he discussed the challenge of writing a character who theoretically could get out of any situation.
“It’s funny. I’ve actually given a lot of thought precisely to that problem,” Guggenheim said. “In part, one of the things I want to do is introduce some villains that Superman could be defeated by. The truth is, his powers are not infinite — he has weaknesses and he has limitations to his powers. Truth be told, I could come up with a cosmic character that could just squash him like a bug. But the bigger challenge is, if I were to tell that kind of story, convincing the reader that there is some legitimate danger. Just because it’s Superman, it means I’m not going to squash him like a bug. Even if I did a whole arc where Superman lost his powers, I think people would be kind of hip to the idea that Superman is probably going to come out of this OK. They’re not going to let me destroy a multi-million dollar property.”
- March 11, 2010 @ 02:28 PM by JK Parkin
Apple’s iBookstore designates ‘Comics & Graphic Novels’ as top-tier category
iPad's iBookstore
When Apple’s much-anticipated iPad launches in the United States on April 3, the media slate’s highly organized e-book application will feature “Comics & Graphic Novels” among its top-tier categories, Forbes.com reports.
Citing findings by the Busted Loop mobile media research firm, the website states that Apple’s iBookstore will designate about 20 main categories, including “Fiction & Literature,” “Reference” and “Cookbooks.” Below those will be more than 150 sub-categories; “Manga” will fall under the comics section.
The iBookstore content sales and delivery system is viewed as a major selling point of the iPad, but until today it had been unclear how much an emphasis might be placed on comic books.
When the iPad was unveiled in January, Apple announced it had partnered with five publishers to produce content for the iBookstore: HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster. All of those houses have imprints that publish graphic novels or manga (for instance, Hachette’s Yen Press imprint publishes Twilight: The Graphic Novel and Yotsuba&!, while Penguin’s Puffin division produces a line of literary adaptations). Macmillan and Simon & Schuster are also major book-market distributors of graphic novels by other publishers but there’s been no mention of whether those agreements could extend to the iBookstore.
More publishing partners are expected to be added after next month’s launch.
(via AppleInsider)
- March 11, 2010 @ 01:59 PM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | Vampire Slayers United
Vampire Slayers United
Pinocchio Vampire Slayer artist Dustin Higgins, who is currently hard at work on the sequel, shares a sketch he did of the little wooden boy with another famous vampire slayer.
In terms of the follow-up to their 2009 graphic novel from SLG, Higgins says he and writer Van Jensen are filling it up with “more of everything (including pages!).”
“Amazingly, I’m nearing the halfway point in book pages, and they look fantastic,” he said. “Van and I are pretty psyched about the direction the story has taken. Be prepared for some teasers coming soon.”
- March 11, 2010 @ 01:12 PM by JK Parkin
This weekend, it’s Emerald City ComiCon
Emerald City ComiCon
Thousands of comics creators, celebrities and fans will descend on the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle on Saturday for the eighth annual Emerald City ComiCon.
The guest list is pretty impressive, with comic-book creators like Mike Allred, Laura Allred, Brian Azzarello, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Kurt Busiek, Jo Chen, Colleen Coover, Farel Dalrymple, Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen, Brandon Graham, David Hahn, Phil Hester, Geoff Johns, Joe Kelly, Matt Kindt, Scott Kurtz, John Layman, Jeff Lemire, Corey Lewis, Steve Lieber, Rob Liefeld, Kevin Maguire, Alex Maleev, Sean Murphy, Ryan Ottley, Jeff Parker, Jason Pearson, Joe Quesada, Darick Robertson, James Robinson, Jim Rugg, Andy Runton, Tim Sale, Dave Stewart, Ben Templesmith, Jill Thompson, Jhonen Vasquez, Mark Waid, J.H. Williams III, G. Willow Wilson and — well, it’s a long list.
“Media guests” include the likes of Leonard Nimoy, Wil Wheaton, Stan Lee and Thomas Jane.
Doors are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
- March 11, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | Roz Chast’s A-Z game
Roz Chast's A-Z
One of the sad consequences of having to let my New Yorker subscription run out (bad economy and all that) is that I’ve had to go through some serious Roz Chast withdrawl. Thankfully, the New York Times seems to be feeling my pain, as they recently enlisted Chaz to contribute to their ongoing look at insomnia:
One thing I do when I can’t sleep is play alphabet games. I try to list various things from A to Z: countries, rock groups, prescription drugs, movies, books, celebrities whose first and last names begin with the same letter… you get the idea. I don’t mind repeating categories from one night to another. Diseases might seem to be an unlikely insomnia game category, but for some reason, it’s one of my favorites.
(via)
- March 11, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Chris Mautner
A sneak peek at Ted Naifeh’s art for ‘The Coven’ co-feature
Art by Ted Naifeh
The DC Universe blog provides a first look at Ted Naifeh’s art from “The Coven,” the new co-feature that will undoubtedly lead me to buy Teen Titans for the first time in a few years.
I’ve been a fan of virtually everything Naifeh’s done — Gloomcookie, How Loathesome, Courtney Crumrin, Polly and the Pirates, Death Jr., The Good Neighbors — so I’m undeniably biased. Add to that a fondness for mystical characters in general, and Traci Thirteen and Zachary Zatara in particular, and I really have little choice but to pick up May’s Teen Titans #83.
At The Source, Editor Rachel Gluckstern chats briefly with Naifeh and writer Rex Ogle, who provide even more reason for giving the back-up series a try.
“… I love Traci 13 and Black Alice,” Ogle says. “Each is so intensely unique and powerful, and hello, witches! Both ladies and Zach Zatara have all this potential for great stories, but they’ve taken a backseat because I think it’s hard to write about magic. You want to say, ‘Aww, man, look, she’s a witch, so she can do anything,’ but what I want to do is teach these kids about what it means to play with the fabric of the universe. When it comes to magic, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
- March 11, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Your video of the day: Fallout trailer
Did someone tell me that the English producer/director Tupaq Felber is attempting to do a six-part adaptation of Peter Bagge’s Apocalypse Nerd for the BBC and I just conveniently forgot? Egad, I hope not. At any rate, above is the teaser trailer Felber put together. Hopefully the BBC will pick it up tout suite and BBC America (or some other Brit-loving American channel) will bring it stateside soon. (via)
- March 11, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the T | Joker meets the … Queen of England?
God Save the Villain
I’m not really sure what to think of this new T-shirt that went up on the T-shirt site Threadless today. Either it’s an odd Joker/Queen of England mash-up, or someone is just having a really bad make-up day.
- March 11, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Thank god for OfficeMax or the Fantastic Four would’ve never defeated Doom
Reed Richards snubs Staples
I always enjoy Cracked’s informative and sidesplitting lists on various historical and entertainment-related subjects, but their most recent effort bears mentioning here as it concerns “6 Hilarious Attempts at Brainwashing Kids with Comic Books”
The list, written by Rohan Ramakrishnan, focuses on six comics that attempt to covey a particular message (or hawk a product) in the most ham-fisted and clumsiest manner possible. Highlights include a Marvel/OfficeMax mash-up about how awesome teachers (and OfficeMax) are, a peculiar and far too over the top promotional comic for the Turbo-Graphix 16 and, my personal favorite, Liberality, the dared to ask the question, “What if Sean Hannity had a robotic arm?” Surely that’s a question that keeps us all up at night. (via)
- March 11, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Siege probably isn’t a bomb and Blackest Night probably isn’t a phenom
Siege #2
Marvel’s Siege #2 sold 108,429 copies in February, according to ICv2.com’s latest sales estimates. Remarkably, that’s only 55 copies fewer than the first issue sold in January.
This means one of two things: Either this is the most amazingly rock-solid issue-to-issue performance of an event comic ever or, more likely, as chartwatcher Marc-Oliver Frisch points out, Diamond knocked 20 percent of Siege #1′s sales off its January chart to account for returnability. Either way, it seems the earlier hue and cry that Siege is some kind of flop need to be significantly dialed down.
Look, I have no idea what Marvel’s internal sales expectations for Siege were or are. I know that the “seven years in the making” hype creates the sense that this was supposed to be the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and thus sales comfortably beneath those of a late-run Blackest Night issue give the impression of failure. But at the same time, Siege is way shorter than any of the other events Marvel has done in recent years, suggesting the company and creators had a different view of its structure and goal than, say, Secret Invasion. They also started promoting its follow-up, the line-wide “Heroic Age,” more or less concurrently with Siege itself, and in a way that pretty much assured readers of the outcome of the series — in other words, Siege has been treated as much as a means to the end of “The Heroic Age” as an end in itself. All in all, it comes across as a very different beast than Blackest Night does across town.
Meanwhile, Siege isn’t the only title with some mysterious sales-chart goings-on going on. Blackest Night #7′s 130,613 copies appears at first glance to represent an amazing 30-percent increase over Issue 6′s first-month sales of 100,651, and that’s pretty much how ICv2 reported it. But keep in mind Issue 6 was first sold during Diamond’s “skip week” between Christmas and New Year’s, meaning it actually shipped the week before it went on sale; retailers who failed to sign an embargo agreement received their copies the first week of January instead, and thus 35,344 copies’ worth of sales ended up showing up on the January charts rather than the December charts. Thus, Issue 7′s performance represents a drop of around 5,000 copies, not an increase of 30,000. Blackest Night is still the hottest thing in monthly comics these days by a long shot, but it’s not adding a third of its readership with its penultimate issue, any more than it lost a third of its readership in December.
- March 11, 2010 @ 08:52 AM by Sean T. Collins
Amazon no longer selling many graphic novels following price-glitch frenzy
Amazon.com has removed the “buy” button from all of the graphic novels it lists that are distributed by Diamond Book Distributors, including books from Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, IDW and many other publishers. Calvin Reid at Publishers Weekly reports this is apparently in response to last weekend’s pricing glitch, in which a variety of high-end books were erroneously marked at much lower prices. While the books are not available directly from Amazon, they can still be purchased on the website from third-party sellers.
Reid reports:
A source knowledgeable about the situation told PW that Amazon has been forced to temporarily take down buy buttons for all titles supplied by Diamond in order to correct the problem. According to the source, Amazon has to do an audit to figure out which customers got books and at what prices. While the situation is temporary, the source said, “there is no timetable for when this will be completed.” The buttons were still off Thursday morning.
Here’s a quick recap for anyone who was under a rock — or who, like me, missed all the excitement because they were sick in bed this weekend. On Sunday, Amazon was offering big discounts on all sorts of high-priced comics collections — everything from Marvel’s Omnibus line to the Bone: One Volume to The Complete Invincible Library Vol. 1 hardcover. Most of them dropped from their usual prices — those Omnibus editions retail for about $100 — to $14.99, with some falling to a little more than $8 as the day went on.
Fans and retailers went on a buying spree, and social-media sites like Twitter and Facebook were ablaze as creators pushed their own books and fans bragged about their purchases. But while some of the orders were filled and shipped, many of them were canceled, with customers receiving $25 credits for their trouble.
- March 11, 2010 @ 07:48 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Blackest Night #7
Publishing | The penultimate issue of DC Comics’ Blackest Night miniseries led a weak February in the direct market, which saw comic-book sales slip 3 percent from the same month a year ago. Sales of graphic novels, on the other hand, actually rose 1 percent — the category’s first increase since March 2009 — which the retail news and analysis website ICv2.com notes is “somewhat remarkable given that over 12,000 copies of Watchmen were sold in February 2009, over 10 times the number sold in February of 2010.”
Blackest Night #7 sold more than 130,000 copies, followed at No. 2 by Marvel’s Siege #2, with about 108,400. They were the only titles to break 100,000 in February. ICv2 notes that sales of Blackest Night increased some 30 percent from the previous issue’s first month while those of Siege were virtually unchanged. That seems like an impressive performance for both titles.
The 13th volume of Vertigo’s Fables topped the graphic-novel chart with sales just shy of 12,000, followed by the Kick-Ass Premiere Hardcover with just over 9,000. [ICv2.com]
- March 11, 2010 @ 06:57 AM by Kevin Melrose
Disney announces Destination D event, confirms date for next D23 Expo
Destination D: Disneyland '55
Disney officially announced today that its D23 Expo will be a biennial event, alternating years with Destination D, a smaller event exclusively for members of the D23 fan community.
News that the second D23 Expo won’t be held until 2011 leaked out last week, but it wasn’t known until today what, if anything, Disney had planned for this year.
The inaugural Destination D, with a theme of “Disneyland ’55,” will be held Sept. 24-25 in the Grand Ballroom of the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. Presentations and screenings will center on the 55th anniversary of the theme park.
Disney also set Aug. 19-21, 2011, as the dates for the next D23 Expo, viewed as Comic-Con for Disney fans. Tickets go on sale Aug. 19, 2010. The debut event drew a reported 40,000 fans to Anaheim for presentations on Disney’s film slates, appearances by stars like Johnny Depp and John Travolta, and displays by Disney divisions and licensees.
- March 10, 2010 @ 03:30 PM by Kevin Melrose
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Shelf Porn isn’t always pretty. Sometimes, bad things happen to shelf porn. Bad things like earthquakes. Today we’ve got a very special but sad episode of Send Us Your Shelf Porn to share, courtesy of Mr. Maxwell Yezpitelok, who hails from Chile.
If you’ve read or seen the news at all lately, you know that Chile’s suffered a horrible 8.8 earthquake recently. As you might well imagine, Maxwell’s comics collection was not immune to the forces of nature. Today, he — in a rather good-natured and tongue-in-cheek fashion — surveys the damage for us.
- March 10, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by Chris Mautner
A first look at Pride and Prejudice and Zombies graphic novel
From "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel"
USA Today’s Whitney Matheson has a first brief preview of Del Rey’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Graham-Smith’s bestselling twist on the Jane Austen classic that led a bit of a mash-up trend (Graham-Smith’s followup, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, was released earlier this month).
The graphic novel, by Tony Lee and Cliff Richards, will arrive in stores in May.
- March 10, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by Kevin Melrose