2010 June
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Iron Man on the iPad
Publishing | Within a day of DC Comics’ entry into digital distribution, one commentator declares that “DC and Marvel Are Killing Digital Comics.” Aaron Ting points to pricing, the lack of “3D page-turning interactivity,” and the use of separate applications: “There should be one unified store, like iTunes or iBooks. Having separate digital stores makes sense if you’re just trying to reach your individual loyal fans — they’ll download anything you ask them to. But digital comics needs to be about reaching out to people who don’t currently read print comics, and those people aren’t going to intuitively know that they should download an app put out by this ‘DC’ company — even if that company owns Batman and Superman.” [WordsFinest]
Retailing | A bailiff changed the locks on Toronto independent bookstore This Ain’t the Rosedale Library on Friday because the store’s owners owe their landlord more than $40,000. Owners Jesse and Charlie Huisken explain their situation, and ask for donations, at the store’s blog. Chris Oliveros comments on the store’s early support of Drawn & Quarterly, and stresses the importance of independent booksellers. [The Globe and Mail, via Rory Seydel]
- June 24, 2010 @ 08:54 AM by Kevin Melrose
Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs | Solomon’s Thieves
Solomon's Thieves, Book One
Solomon’s Thieves
Written by Jordan Mechner; Illustrated by LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland
First Second; $12.99
There’s no Book 1 printed anywhere on the cover of Solomon’s Thieves, but there should be. It’s the first story in a planned trilogy, but I didn’t know that until I got to the author’s afterword. (Jordan Mechner writes really useful afterwords, by the way. I found both this one and the one in Prince of Persia full of great information about the development of their stories.) Had I known that the story wasn’t going to wrap up at the end of this volume, I wouldn’t have gotten so nervous about two-thirds through.
The title of the book refers to the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, aka the Knights Templar. In the afterword, Mechner describes learning about the dissolution of the Templars by King Philip IV of France who – according to my Wikipedia research anyway – was in deep financial debt to the order. Philip was able to use public fears to his advantage and forced Pope Clement to support him in his Inquisition against the Templars. Which led Mechner to sympathize with the rank-and-file knights of the order who found themselves “pawns in a political chess game their simple ideals of chivalry and brotherhood hadn’t equipped them for.”
That became the seed of his story, the works of Alexandre Dumas became the format, and Mechner crafted a loving tribute to both these nameless knights and the father of the historical swashbuckler. Solomon’s Thieves does indeed read like a Dumas novel. It focuses on the personal lives of a few fictional characters who end up brushing elbows and crossing swords with some notorious, non-fictional people in order to affect actual, historical events.
- June 23, 2010 @ 08:35 PM by Michael May
Trailer for Red hits the web
The trailer for Red, the adaptation of Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner’s mini-series that was published by Wildstorm, has hit the web:
The movie stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and Mary-Louise Parker, and hits theaters Oct. 15.
- June 23, 2010 @ 05:56 PM by JK Parkin
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Welcome once again to Shelf Porn, where we get to play voyeur every week with somebody’s comic collection. This week’s contribution comes from Van Jensen, writer of Pinocchio Vampire Slayer and its upcoming sequel, as he shows us where the nose-growing, vampire-slaying magic happens.
Without further ado, let’s hear from Van …
- June 23, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by JK Parkin
A roundup of reactions to DC’s newly launched comics app
DC Comics App on the iPad
It’s little surprise that discussion has been dominated today by DC Comics’ move into digital distribution with the launch of the comiXology-developed DC Comics App and the availability of titles via PlayStation Digital Comics. (As an aside: It’s already ranked #11 on the list of free apps available for the iPad.) Here’s a selection of reactions to the announcement from comics creators and commentators:
David Brothers, at Comics Alliance: “While their first stab at day and date releases is promising, it is also going to force Marvel to make a play. The relationship between DC and Marvel in the direct market has largely been one of constant and desperate one-upmanship. This Let’s Be Friends Again strip is pretty close to accurately depicting their relationship. Now that DC has one-upped Marvel’s digital comics strategy by going further with day and date and pricing, Marvel is going to have to rise to the challenge. It may be a month from now, it may be around the time New York Comic-Con begins in the fall, or it may be the top of next year, but it’s soon.”
Augie De Blieck, Jr., at Comic Book Resources: “Out of the gate, the DC app follows the pattern of digital comics publishing admirably. Their selection is an interesting modern cross-section of popular titles, particularly ones related to recent movies (Jonah Hex and The Losers are both in there). There’s nothing out of the deep back catalog here, but the inclusion of a day-and-date series is exciting and more palatable than the one Marvel is offering in coming weeks. It’s a good start.”
Douglas Wolk, at Techland: “If you had to pick one DC title to be sold simultaneously in print and digitally… it might not occur to you to pick a biweekly miniseries whose fourth issue comes out this week. But this is actually a reasonable trial balloon: it’s safe to assume that anyone buying JL:GL [Justice League: Generation Lost] is also buying Brightest Day, so while it’s a popular enough title to gauge interest in day-and-date distribution, it’s not going to be the only thing someone goes to a brick-and-mortar comics store for.”
- June 23, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Megan Kelso talks turkey about the Times
from "Watergate Sue" by Megan Kelso
There’s much to chew on in writer/artist Megan Kelso’s interview with CBR’s Alex Dueben, from the history of her decade-in-the-making fantasy graphic novel Artichoke Tales for Fantagraphics to the reason for her current hiatus from active comics-making. But I was particularly struck by her observations regarding “Watergate Sue,” the strip she did for The New York Times Magazine‘s “Funny Pages” comics section.
Serializing the story one page a week is a very different beast from telling a story in comic books or serializing a story that way.
Yeah, and I don’t know about you, but I had a really hard time following other peoples’ stories. I became a loyal reader, but it was not easy. Even if I really liked the story, that week to week thing was just really hard going for the readers. They had to be really motivated to read it every week and remember what happened last week. I just think it asked a tremendous lot from the readers to read comics in that form. They were doing the prose stories at the same time, and those people got a few pages, so what they were able to cover in their episodes was so much more than what the cartoonist was able to do. I just think that, as cool as it was that the “New York Times” did that, and they did it for many years, they had a serious commitment to it, but I still think it was a flawed experiment. I’m glad they did it, but I just think it was hard for the cartoonist, and it was hard for the readers, to do comics in that form and to read comics in that form.
Kelso has a lot more to say on the subject: about being the first woman cartoonist to contribute comics to the Times, about how Seth’s strip for the paper showed her what not to do, about stepping in only after Marjane Satrapi turned the gig down, about being too “headstrong” and not tailoring her strip to the paper…like I said, much to chew on.
- June 23, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Bruce Timm: ‘Bottom line: the DCU films are definitely continuing’
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Coming out of the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo in April, there were reports that the DC Universe Original Animated Movies might be in trouble. An “exclusive interview” with Bruce Timm (that Timm says was no such thing but the author says was) and subsequent pick-up of it by other outlets kind of left an impression that the movies weren’t doing so well.
Today Warner Home Video sent out a Q&A with Timm on their next film, Batman: Under the Red Hood, which included some clarification about the future of the movies:
QUESTION: There’s been a lot of internet banter regarding the discontinuation of the DCU series based on quotes attributed to an interview in Calgary with you. True or false?
BRUCE TIMM: Kinda false. First of all, it wasn’t an actual one-on-one interview — quotes were taken out of context from longer answers I gave on a panel at the Expo. Bottom line: the DCU films are definitely continuing. We’ve got projects lined up for the next two years at the very least – lots of films in different stages of development and production. I know there are a lot of rumors circulating about future films. Some are true, some are not. I’ll tell you this much – anyone at our DCU/Batman: Under the Red Hood panel at Comic-Con will walk away with a very clear picture of the direction we’re taking the DCU animated movies in the coming year.
- June 23, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Scanlation update: The land of lost manga
Your manga is being served... on the iPod
It looks like the first round in the scanlation wars has gone to the publishers, but appearances can be deceiving.
Shortly after several publishers announced that they had formed a coalition to fight manga piracy, a number of the most popular scan sites removed scans of series that had been licensed in the U.S. Or did they? As a blogger named Kimi-chan explained a few days ago, the site admins at two sites, Mangafox and Animea, merely disabled the links from the home page. If a user had bookmarked the series, however, the bookmark would still work, and Google searches still turn up valid links for these series.
Kimi-chan’s post has been up for about a week, and when manga blogger Deb Aoki tried the tactic with a number of Viz titles on MangaFox, she found that they truly were gone. But that made me curious about something else.
A few months ago, I downloaded an iPod app that pulls manga scans from the Onemanga database—it’s one of several free or cheap apps that do that. I opened it up for the first time since April, apparently, and it immediately updated the list of available titles. Sure enough, all the Viz manga were gone from the list. There were a scattering of Del Rey, Tokyopop, and Vertical series, though, and a number from Yen Press.
- June 23, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Quote of the day | Cameron Stewart on Marvel vs. DC
Catwoman by Cameron Stewart
“Sometimes (all times) I wish Marvel and DC weren’t so goddamned catty with each other.”
–Cameron Stewart, artist of Batman & Robin, Seaguy and many other great comic books, on the ongoing war of words between the comic industry’s two giants.
- June 23, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
My fantasy comics store: A girl can dream, can’t she?
Love & Rockets: Not good enough for the guys in some basement comics store in Brooklyn
At Publishers Weekly, Jennifer de Guzman tells one of those creeps-in-a-comics-store stories that are familiar to so many of us female types, and she wonders why, in this day and age, so many women still feel uncomfortable in comics stores.
I have had a few of those experiences myself—in fact, I quit buying comics in 1986 because I was fed up with the way I was treated in my local comics store, and I didn’t go back for almost 20 years. But I also know it doesn’t have to be that way—I am fortunate to live close to two excellent, and very female-friendly, comics stores, Comicopia and Hub Comics, both of which come close to the ideal I sketch out below. So I’m not here to complain.
No, I’m here to dream. It’s one thing to have a comics store where women feel welcome; it’s another to design one with them in mind. Well, OK, maybe just with me in mind, but I’m guessing I’m fairly typical. Here’s what my ideal woman-friendly comics store would be like:
A clean, well-lighted place: You can tell most comics stores (and liquor stores, for that matter) are guy hangouts by the utter lack of comfort. Fluorescent lights, wire shelves, grey indoor-outdoor carpet, cinderblock walls. We women like things nice: Real wallboard on the walls, natural light, eye-pleasing colors, somewhere to sit. Maybe even a plant or two. And…
- June 23, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Take a tour of the new DC Comics App
Comic Book Resources has a brief-yet-handy demonstration of the newly announced DC Comics App for the Apple iPad.
- June 23, 2010 @ 09:36 AM by Kevin Melrose
PlayStation Digital Comics trumpets arrival of DC
DC Comics on PlayStation Digital Comics for PSP
On the heels of DC Comics’ big announcement this morning, Sony has issued its own release emphasizing the availability of the publisher’s titles on the PlayStation Digital Comics service for PlayStation Portable.
Launched in December 2009, the PlayStation upgraded its digital comics reader just this week with features that include collection browsing, an Autoflow Viewer and left-to-right reading for manga.
In addition to many of the initial offerings available through Apple’s iTunes App Store, PlayStation Digital Comics carries PlayStation Network-exclusive titles like Free Realms, God of War, Resistance and Superman/Batman.
Watch the PlayStation-produced trailer trumpeting the arrival of DC Comics here, and read the press release after the break. The PlayStation blog has additional details.
- June 23, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
All-Star Superman #1
Publishing | The big news of the day, obviously, is DC Comics’ entry into the digital-distribution arena with its comiXology-developed application for the iPad, iPhone and iPad Touch. CBR’s Kiel Phegley gets the details from Co-Publisher Jim Lee and John Rood, executive vice president of sales, marketing and business development. (ComiXology is already updating the app to fix a bug that apparently caused early iPhones and iPods to crash.)
David Brothers has early analysis, looking as day-and-date digital release for Justice League: Generation Lost, and a tiered pricing structure. Meanwhile, Matthew Maxwell writes: “… This does mean that both of the Big Two are now officially putting pinkie toes, if not entire feet into the pool. But who will jump in along with them?” We’ll round up more reactions later today. [Comic Book Resources]
Organizations | Mark Waid has joined the board of directors of The Hero Initiative, replacing Guillermo del Toro. [press release]
- June 23, 2010 @ 07:52 AM by Kevin Melrose
The Middle Ground #9: How Would I Know, Why Should I Care?
One of the truly heartbreaking things about comics that aren’t published by The Big Two is the number of amazing books, series or sometimes even careers that just seem to… well, disappear, really. There’s no one reason behind it – books can go out of print because of low sales, rights can lapse, publishers can fold, whatever – and, unless creators are dogged, determined and/or very lucky (I’d claim that Eddie Campbell is the former two, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he claimed an element of the latter, as well, in the continual presence of his Alec series in bookstores throughout the years and various publishers, whether they be Escape, Acme, self-published or Top Shelf), really great books can disappear in the process.
- June 22, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Graeme McMillan
Paul Cornell goes exclusive with DC Comics
Orange Lantern Lex Luthor
DC’s The Source blog announced today that writer Paul Cornell has signed an exclusive contract with the publisher. I guess this means I can finally take down my “Bring back Captain Britain and MI13” petition page, heavy sigh.
Cornell was named the writer of Action Comics back in April, and in yesterday’s interview with CBR, Dan Didio said “…even though he’s not new to comics but new to DC, Paul Cornell is a guy who we see an expanded role for in the DCU as well.” So it’s probably no surprise that he’s signed on with them for two years.
“…I’m a couple of issues into one title you haven’t heard about yet,” Cornell said on his blog. “I couldn’t be happier, or feel more welcomed, in my new playground.”
Cornell’s run on Action Comics starts at the end of this month with issue #890. Cornell shared his plans for the book with the Source:
- June 22, 2010 @ 02:52 PM by JK Parkin