2011 March
Comics A.M. | Archie #1 sets auction record; more bookstore layoffs
Archie Comics #1
Comics | A copy of Archie Comics #1, published in winter 1942, sold at auction last week for $167,300, setting a world record for an Archie title and a non-superhero comic. “Archie may have a ways to go to catch the likes of Superman and Batman, his Golden Age counterparts,” said Lon Allen, managing director of comics for Heritage Auctions, “but you can bet that collectors sat up and took notice when this comic brought that price. This amount exceeds the priciest of Spidey and Hulk comic books we’ve sold, which brought in excess of $125,000 each.” [Luxist]
Retailing | REDgroup Retail, which owns the Australian booksellers Borders and Angus & Robertson, has laid off 321 employees at the two chains following the closing of 38 stores. The company entered into administration last month. [ABC News]
Retailing | Borders Group has asked a bankruptcy judge for more time to decide whether to assume or reject its 681 leases, including those for 674 stores. If granted, the extension would give the company until Jan. 12, 2012, to deal with its leases. [Detroit Free Press]
- March 3, 2011 @ 06:52 AM by Kevin Melrose
Creator Spotlight #3 by Steve Niles
One of things I love most about creator-owned books are the range of subjects and genres that creators can explore. Within the creator-owned world you can find your superhero books as well as horror, sci-fi, slice-of-life, humor, westerns, historical drama and all the sub-genres in between.
I’m a huge fan of historical-based action and drama stories. I usually find them in books and films, but even those can be hard to come by. Especially when it comes to stories about Vikings, movies often fall short. They just seem to miss the point, oftentimes trying to make these plunderers a likable lot, when in truth they could be pretty nasty and that’s kinda what was great about them. Well, stories about them.
- March 2, 2011 @ 04:51 PM by JK Parkin
Missing Dwayne McDuffie
Dwayne McDuffie
Tom’s already written a great tribute to Dwayne McDuffie, but I need to write something too. And I don’t use the word “need” lightly there.
Typically, when I hear about the death of someone in the comics industry, I feel sad for that person’s family and friends, perhaps think a little about my own connection to the person’s work, and that’s about it. I don’t know that I’ve ever written a personal memorial about anyone. Dwayne McDuffie is different. I met him once, but didn’t know him outside of his work. Still, I’m feeling his death like I don’t feel comics industry deaths and this column’s going to be a bit selfish as I get this out.
Like Tom, my connection with McDuffie began with Milestone. I grew up in the South where…I guess the polite way of saying it is that racial diversity was prevalent, but that doesn’t do justice to the situation. It makes it sound almost utopian, which is ridiculous. Anyone who’s spent much time in the South (or really just seen a lot of movies set there) knows how complicated and heart-breakingly frustrating it can be. But one thing that I’ll always be thankful for is that I got to know a lot of people outside of my own race. Enough so that I took it for granted.
After college I moved north to look for work and landed in a suburb that was much less diverse than where I’d grown up. Like before, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about this. I didn’t “miss” being around people unlike myself anymore than I actively enjoyed being surrounded by folks just like me, racially and culturally speaking. The issue just wasn’t on my radar.
What was on my radar was getting back into comics. I’d gone to school in a small town with no comic shop and was thrilled to live in a metropolitan area with many different places to buy comics. I dived right in and it was only a couple of years later that Dwayne McDuffie and Friends launched Milestone.
- March 2, 2011 @ 03:05 PM by Michael May
Carlos Pacheco designs ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ figures for Geek Toys
Gluttony by Carlos Pacheco
The collectible toy company Geek Toys is working on a line of action figures based on the Seven Deadly Sins that are being designed by a familiar name to comic fans — artist Carlos Pacheco, whose work can be found in various Ultimate Comics of late. According to Geek Toys, Pacheco is a personal friend of the company’s president, Antonio Barranco, and has been involved in creating the figures from developing the concept to overseeing the sculpting.
The company also announced this week that Pacheco’s concept art (above is Gluttony) will be included with the figures when they are released. The first two figures, Gluttony and Pride, are due in May.
- March 2, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Bone: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume debuts in San Diego
Bone: Full Color One Volume Collector's Box Set
I know what I’ll be saving my “splurge” money from our weekly Food or Comics? column for … Jeff Smith announced today full details on the Bone: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume he’s planning for this year to celebrate, obviously, the 20th anniversary of the first issue of Bone.
There will actually be three different versions:
–Shipping this summer just in time for the San Diego Comic Con is the Bone: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume Collector’s Box Set. It includes a hardcover collection of the series, a signed art print, pewter figures of the three Bone cousins, a miniature facsimile of Bone #1, a new essay by Smith, an expanded Cover Gallery of the Bone comic books and graphic novels, an illustrated 20-year timeline, a copy of the DVD The Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, BONE, and the Changing Face of Comics and a 22k gold-plated coin with Phoney Bone’s head on one side, and Fone Bone on the reverse giving the dates of Bone #1 July 1991, and the 20th Anniversary July 2011. It will come in a red box, is limited to 2,000 copies and will cost $350.
–Also shipping in time for SDCC is a version of the above that, instead of the art print, includes an original piece of art by Smith and hand watercolored by Steve Hamaker. These are limited to 50 copies and cost $1,000.
–Finally, a $150 version of the hardcover that includes the timeline and cover gallery will ship in November. It comes in a slipcase.
And if you’re worried about how many trees this will cost the world, don’t worry –Smith says they’ll plant a tree through American Forests.org for every one they sell.
- March 2, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by JK Parkin
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark cast performs on Letterman
Reeve Carney on "Late Show with David Letterman"
It was a busy Tuesday for the cast and crew of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark that began with an upbeat appearance by the stars on CBS’s Early Show and ended with a subdued performance on the Late Show with David Letterman. In between, Bono was expected to tell producers whether he thinks the troubled $65-million musical is ready for its scheduled March 15 opening.
On The Early Show, stars Reeve Carney, Jennifer Damiano and T.V. Carpio brushed aside the production’s largely negative reviews, even one saying that Spider-Man ranks among the worst musicals in Broadway history. “Everyone has a right to their opinion,” said Carney, who stars as Peter Parker. “If anything, maybe thanks for — in some ways, we kind of get a kick out of the negativity, just because (of) that whole thing — ‘any press is good press’ is not entirely true, but you have to have a good sense of humor about yourself, as well. We’re just trying to make the best show we can. So it’s one person’s opinion, and I think the audience reaction is so positive every night that that’s kind of what we’re focused on, just trying to please the audience.”
Likewise, Carpio downplayed the show’s injuries, pointing out she received a concussion while performing in Rent. “Not to minimize what has happened in our show,” she said, “but there’s no flying in Rent and these things happened and nobody heard about it.” (That said, Spider-Man producers can’t be pleased by the headline on The Early Show website: “Spider-Man stars rationalize injuries.”)
On David Letterman, it was all about the music, with the trio performing the obviously Bono-penned ballad “Rise Above” (watch the video below). They might’ve been better-served by something a little more pulse-pounding, but what do I know? How about Carney’s Spider-Man jacket, though? I’d buy one of those from the gift shop (which will be stocked with merchandise sporting Greg Horn artwork).
- March 2, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Comic Industry Job Board
In the wide world of comics there’s always a needed for talented people — and not just for creating the comics. The comics you read everyday are supported by an immense infrastructure of editors, publishers, designers, distributors and retailers that make American comics what it is today. And despite the frail economy, the comics industry is always looking for employees.
We’ve compiled a list of all the openings in the comics industry for non-creative office positions and put it all into one place. It’s a good resource if you’re looking to work in comics, and also for armchair speculators seeing what companies are looking to do by seeing what positions they’re hiring for. We accumulated these by looking on publisher websites and job boards — if you know of a job not listed here, let us know!
- March 2, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Northlanders cover artist Massimo Carnevale goes to the movies
Best known for his covers for Brian Wood’s Northlanders series, painter Massimo Carnevale has blown my socks and shoes off these last few weeks with his unique paintings based on popular movies over at his blog. There’s numerous stand-outs, including the Toy Story 3 piece at the right, so it’s definitely worth your time.
Massimo has been doing covers across the industry the past few years, including work on Del Rey’s The Talisman, Y: The Last Man, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer Season 8 and two Terminator series for Dark Horse. He comes to us by way of Italy, where it’s reported he’s even done interior comics work as well. While I couldn’t find any that I could buy, I found an interesting artbook called Icon Artbook Vol. 3: Massimo Carnevale available as an import from Forbidden Planet that looks enticing.
- March 2, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Raising Crazy: Cartoonist Mike Hawthorne’s webcomic on his son
For months, cartoonist Mike Hawthorne delighted — and scared — his Twitter followers with outtakes and excerpts from being the parent of a precocious young boy, and now he’s taken to the comics medium to tell the full story.
In his new webcomic Raising Crazy, Hawthorne is chronicling his son’s adventures with a new story three times a week, with plans to collect the strip into a physical book later on. All proceeds from the comic are going toward his son’s education.
Hawthorne is a busy artist these days — in addition to doing a monthly Conan series for Dark Horse with Roy Thomas and helping out on the end of Fear Agent, he also is a founder of the website artjam ComicTwart.com.
- March 2, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Tokyopop lays off senior editors [UPDATED]
Last one left at Tokyopop, turn off the lights.
The news that Tokyopop has laid off senior editor Lillian Diaz-Pryzybl, editor Troy Lewter and manga line editor Asako Suzuki means that the beleaguered company, which has already risen from a near-death state once, is eating its seed corn. Diaz-Pryzybl was in large part responsible for the company’s most recent comeback (as was marketing director Marco Pavia, who was laid off in an earlier wave), and Suzuki’s hand could already be seen in an unusually strong March lineup of new manga.
Meanwhile, just yesterday Tokyopop Stu Levy blithely Tweeted:
Wow #GDC2011 [Game Developers Conference] is blowing my mind. Why have I been stuck in such an old-school, out-of-touch industry for so long?! (yes I mean books!)
To which one is tempted to reply, “I dunno, Stu. Why don’t you just leave?”
Not only does his tweet show an appalling lack of tact, but Levy’s ADD has always been the biggest obstacle to Tokyopop’s success. To give him his due, he comes up with great ideas — Tokyopop was way ahead of the curve on many things, from unflipped manga to the iPhone — but he seldom sticks with them long enough to bring them to fruition. It’s been obvious for years that he is bored with books; I remember watching him at NYAF a few years ago, dashing around with a film crew, making a mockumentary about cons. Remember that movie? No? Me either. This past summer, he sunk what must have been a boatload of cash into a bus that he (or someone) drove around the country with a bunch of college interns, promoting his America’s Greatest Otaku “reality show” (currently running on Hulu). Then he lays off one of his most experienced editors. The short-sightedness of this is mind-boggling. To make money, you have to sell something people want to buy. Tokyopop has teetered on the edge of irrelevancy for a long time, but good editors and marketers keep pulling it back. And then they lay off the editors and marketers.
- March 2, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Dark Horse CEO on state of industry; BOOM! changes
Mike Richardson
Publishing | In a wide-ranging interview with retail news and analysis site ICv2, Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson discusses the state of the market, the potential impact of Borders’ bankruptcy, digital comics, the decline in manga sales, the success of Troublemaker and more. Of particular note is Richardson’s confirmation that Apple’s stricter enforcement of a prohibition on in-app purchases outside the iTunes store was behind the delay of the planned January launch of Dark Horse’s digital comics program. He also says that Frank Miller is working on the third issue of his 300 prequel Xerxes, which is expected to be “roughly six issues, but he hasn’t exactly decided yet.” [ICv2.com]
Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson provides an overview of recent changes to BOOM! Studios’ kids’ line, from the loss of the Pixar licenses to a new imprint name — changed from BOOM! Kids to kaboom! — to the announcement this week of a Peanuts original graphic novel. “BOOM Kids! was designed to publish children’s comics — kaboom! is designed to be a true all-ages imprint, and for that reason Peanuts is the perfect launch title, the sort of material that adults and kids read alike,” CEO Ross Ritchie said. “Roger Langridge’s Snarked! is along these lines, as is Space Warped and Word Girl. I put the Word Girl announcement on my wall on Facebook and immediately there were a zillion adults commenting, ‘My child loves this show but I’m buying this comic book for myself!’ The title mix will be broader for kaboom! than it was for BOOM Kids!” [Publishers Weekly]
- March 2, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Illustrated poem by Gaiman, Lee and Klein available digitally
100 Words
Last year comic writer and author Neil Gaiman, artist and DC Comics Co-Publisher Jim Lee and letterer Todd Klein collaborated on an illustrated poem called “100 Words” that appeared in the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s Liberty Comics anthology and is also available as a limited edition print from Neil Gaiman’s NeverWear site. Today DC Comics announced that the seven-page poem is now available via its digital apps and its website.
It’s available for 99 cents, and DC is donating their proceeds from it to the CBLDF — making it a very easy and inexpensive way to benefit a good cause.
- March 2, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by JK Parkin
The Middle Ground #44: Space Is The Place
I’ve been going back and forth, trying to work out exactly what it is that I love so much about Dave Roman’s upcoming graphic novel, Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity, because the way that I end up describing it to people so far – “It’s like Scott Pilgrim, but for kids!” – seems curiously unsatisfying, even if it feels entirely honest. Continue Reading »
- March 1, 2011 @ 05:30 PM by Graeme McMillan
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Joe the Barbarian #8
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy on Wednesday based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on what we call our “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Chris Arrant
$15:
This week’s a big week for me, so with only $15 I’d have to leave a lot of things back and make some hard choices. My five under $15 would start with Joe The Barbarian #8 (DC/Vertigo, $3.99) by Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy. I’m a big fan of both guys, but I have to admit the story went over my head the same way The Filth did in serialization. Be that as it may, I’ve kept buying the issues just to amaze myself with Murphy’s art. Now that the complete series is out, I’ll re-read it all in one sitting and hope for the best. Second would be the fourth issue of Incognito: Bad Influences (Marvel/Icon, $3.50) because, well, Brubaker and Phillips can do no wrong. After that I’d get Secret Warriors #25 (Marvel, $3.99) because Hickman’s writing here plays up to all the things I like — espionage, secrets, and overly-complicated story arcs. Over on the DC side I would pick up Brightest Day #21 (DC, $2.99). This series has ebbed and flowed for me, depending on which story arcs are brought to the fore in each issue… but I’m excited to see what happens and that’s what it should be about, right? My last pick is a cheat — I only have some change left, but thankfully the Fear Itself Sketchbook (Marvel) coming out is a free promotional item. I’ll take Stuart Immonen sketches any day!
- March 1, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by JK Parkin
Quote of the day | Tom Brevoort on day-and-date digital releases
One of Marvel's day-and-date digital releases
[Reader question:] How far away are we from seeing the entire Marvel line being released digitally day and date? I’m ready. There are a few titles I would still get hard copies of, but a lot of titles I just want to read and not have to deal with storing/saving.
[Brevoort:] It’s in the future–just how far in the future I can’t even guess at this point.
–Marvel Senior Vice President of Publishing Tom Brevoort, on when we might see all of Marvel’s releases debuting digitally on the same day they come out in comic shops. I know this is mixing my fortune-telling-tchotchke metaphors a bit, but it’s kind of like he gazed into his crystal ball and saw the phrase “Reply hazy, ask again later.”
Which reminds me: Digital comics readers, how have your experiences with Marvel’s current day-and-date titles been? I’ve read that these releases — mostly concentrated in Marvel’s Ultimate line — sometimes fail to actually make their digital debuts on the same day that the print versions come out. Has that been your experience, or have things been smooth for you thus far?
- March 1, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by Sean T. Collins