2011 September
Quote of the day | DC’s John Rood on ‘Drawing the Line at $2.99′
“We’re of our word, in a day and age where not everyone is, we’re pretty proud of that. That doesn’t pay the bills and I had hoped, candidly, that there was going to be a commensurate growth in volume that made $2.99 undeniably wonderful as a business move but that has not yet been the case.”
– John Rood, DC Comics’ executive vice president-sales, marketing and business development, talking frankly with Comic Book Resources about the publisher’s “Drawing the Line at $2.99″ initiative
- September 2, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Ivan Camelo’s Final Kawaii-sis
I had an impossible time picking just two samples of Colombian artist Ivan Camelo’s kawaii versions of DC and Marvel superheroes. There are a little over three dozen of them and they’re all adorable. I want a cartoon featuring these designs right this second.
- September 2, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Michael May
Mike Maihack’s Supergirl/Batgirl sort of does happen
Kevin was right when he said that the world needs a Supergirl/Batgirl comic by Mike Maihack. Fortunately, Maihack’s been kind enough to oblige. Check out his blog for the last two panels of the story. It gets even more adorable.
Be warned, though: It’ll make you want more.
- September 2, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Michael May
Get a Parker prose novel for free!
If Darwyn Cooke’s award-winning IDW graphic novels Parker: The Hunter and Parker: The Outfit have piqued your curiosity about the original series of novels by Donald Westlake (who wrote them under the pseudonym Richard Stark), here’s a chance to check one out—for free.
Just in time for the long weekend, the University of Chicago Press is offering Westlakes’s The Score as a free e-book (it would set you back $14 in print) in a variety of formats: Adobe Digital Editions, Google Books, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, and Sony Reader. Since most of these readers can be installed on a PC or Mac as well as an iPad, iPhone, or Android device, this is pretty platform-independent.
If you like what you see, the publisher has 19 more Parker books for you, and they are offering a 30% discount on the e-books. Details are at the first link.
(via Teleread)
- September 2, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Trailer takes flight for DC’s Birds of Prey #1
David Macho wraps up a week of DC Comics-sanctioned trailers with a sneak peek at Birds of Prey #1, which relaunches the long-running title under the new creative team of Duane Swierczynski and Jesus Saiz.
One is wanted for a murder she didn’t commit. The other is on the run because she knows too much. They are Dinah Laurel Lance and Ev Crawford – a.k.a. Black Canary and Starling – and together, as Gotham City’s covert ops team, they’re taking down the villains other heroes can’t touch. But now they’ve attracted the attention of a grizzled newspaper reporter who wants to expose them, as well as a creepy, chameleon-like strike team that’s out to kill them.
Birds of Prey #1 goes on sale Sept. 21.
- September 2, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Daniel Clowes wins PEN Center USA Literary Award
Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes has won the PEN Center USA Literary Award for graphic literature, honoring an outstanding body of work that includes Ghost World, Eightball, David Boring, Wilson and Mr. Wonderful.
Presented by the California-based PEN Center USA, a nonprofit association dedicated to protecting the rights of writers and stimulating interest in the written word, the awards have since 1982 recognized literary excellence in categories ranging from fiction and children’s literature to journalism and graphic literature. Winners receive a $1,000 cash prize.
This is only the second year for the graphic literature category. Matt Fraction received the first award in 2010.
- September 2, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Magic: The Comic to debut this fall from IDW
It’s been a big week for the trading-card game Magic: The Gathering. Let’s recap:
On Monday, Gizmodo intern Alyssa Bereznak briefly took the crown as most despised person on Twitter when she revealed that she was matched up with Jon Finkel on a computer date and rejected him once she learned that he was a former M:TG world champion. This got Bereznak a ton of hate Tweets and Finkel a lot of sympathy on geek and mainstream blogs.
On Wednesday, Dark Horse released The Last Dragon, a truly gorgeous fairy tale-style fantasy illustrated by M:TG artist Rebecca Guay.
And Thursday, IDW Publishing announced it’s teaming up with Hasbro to launch a Magic: The Gathering comic book. It’s not the first M:TG comic (here’s a list), but it is the first in more than 10 years. The series launches with a four-issue miniseries about “a unique, new Planeswalker, a powerful mage with the ability to travel between worlds in the Magic Multiverse,” which of course allows for lots of flexibility when it comes to stories. Game designer Matt Forbeck is writing the comic, and Martín Cóccolo will handle the art. The comic will be available digitally as well as in print, and it will be collected into graphic novels. And naturally —y ou know they had to do this — it comes with “exclusive, playable, alternate-art cards for the MAGIC: THE GATHERING TCG,” in “select issues” of the comic.
Just … if you read it, be sure to mention that in your computer dating profile, or you might be accused of being a stealth geek. On the other hand, that apparently isn’t all bad.
- September 2, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
The Library of Congress wants your minicomic!
You know those ideas that you’d never think of yourself, but when you hear about them, they’re so brilliant and so obvious that you wonder how you couldn’t have thought of them? This is one of those ideas: The Library of Congress is creating The Small Press Expo Collection, with the intent of adding a gravely under-preserved area of comics to the permanent archives of the United States’ official storehouse of knowledge.
Spearheaded by SPX executive director and chairman of the board Warren Bernard, the Collection will serve multiple purposes. It will archive the ephemera of the Bethesda-based alt/indie comics convention itself, including the posters, badges, and programs created by cartoonists for the Expo, and even each year’s SPX website. It will also include every print comic nominated for the Expo’s festival award program, the Ignatz Awards. (For the time being, only the winner of the Best Webcomic Ignatz will be digitally archived.) And it will collect a selection of the comics that are available for purchase at each year’s show — a selection dominated by minicomics and other self-published works that are often difficult if not impossible to find once their tiny initial print runs have sold out.
As someone who’s gotten a lot out of SPX over the years, I think this is providing a vital service — a time capsule of the state of alternative and art comics, updated yearly. An Please read TCJ.com editor Dan Nadel’s entire interview with Bernard about this fascinating project. Then be sure to go to this year’s SPX next weekend, where my fellow Roboteer Chris Mautner and I will be hosting panels about the kinds of comics that will soon make the Library of Congress their permanent home.
- September 1, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Grumpy Old Fan | New 52, Prologue: This is the way the world begins
The Flash #139, the beginning of the end
I’m pretty sure every other DC-Comics blogger in the known universe will be doing this, but for me it is an imperative: from now through the end of the month, this space will give short, probably reactionary, and likely ill-considered reviews of all 52 new titles. Not surprisingly, then, this week is all Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1.
* * *
I liked Flashpoint #1 pretty well. I thought it was a promising start to a story that — in a daring departure for a big event — could stand on its own without universe-altering ramifications.
Of course, that was in early May, a lifetime ago.
While Flashpoint #5 finishes that story, it does so in a way that feels maddeningly hollow. Not the epilogue, mind you — that sequence just manages to avoid mawkishness, and is a well-done counterpoint to the end of issue #1. No, my problem with issue #5 (and to a lesser extent with the miniseries generally) is the way in which writer Geoff Johns apparently just decides he needs to wrap things up.
SPOILERS FOLLOW for Flashpoint #5, and later for Justice League #1 …
- September 1, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Brian Clevinger reveals his Firestorm story that will never be
Firestorm from Brightest Day
Before the New 52 created the need for an all-new Firestorm, Atomic Robo-writer Brian Clevinger was going to pick up the character where Brightest Day had left him. At the Atomic Robo blog, Clevinger talks about being approached by DC and working with them to come up with an initial six-issue story outline. He extensively covers not only his approach to the character, but an issue-by-issue look at the outline.
I don’t mention this in a “Boo Hoo! Why couldn’t we have had this?!” kind of way. In fact. Clevinger expresses nothing but well-wishes for Firestorm’s new creative team of Gail Simone, Ethan Van Sciver and Yildiray Cinar. But it is a fascinating look at the creative process and a fun peek at what might have been.
[Ronnie and Jason] are two guys who share something incredible. Something that can help to make the world a better place. But it’s something that would never exist without both of them. And they don’t necessarily agree on how to use it. They didn’t grow up together, they didn’t come into this as friends, it was pure random chance that it takes these two guys to make something amazing happen. I mean, maybe this is just me turning every conversation into something about Robo, but this sounds a lot like Scott Wegener, me, and Atomic Robo.
(Image via It’s a Dan’s World)
- September 1, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Michael May
Why can’t I be Jason?
Jason drew Robert Smith from The Cure. I just needed to point that out.
- September 1, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Michael May
comiXology glitch wasn’t source of pirated Justice League #1
From Justice League #1
ComiXology has confirmed it accidentally allowed a few users to purchase Justice League #1 on Monday and Tuesday, before the issue’s print or digital release. However, it appears the digital edition was not the source of pirated copies uploaded online as much as six hours before the official launch of DC Comics’ new flagship title.
While some commenters at Robot 6 and elsewhere on Tuesday pointed a finger at comiXology, Bleeding Cool conducted a side-by-side comparison of the digital edition and the pirated copy, and concluded that the source of the bootleg was the print version, which was slightly different from the digital release. ComiXology CEO David Steinberger had no explanation for the variation between print and digital editions, but he did say users who bought the comic Wednesday will be offered an update today to make the digital match the print copy. (If there were a way to re-sell digital comics, there would doubtless already be a robust market for the flawed early variant copy.)
Steinberger confirmed this morning to Robot 6 that three users purchased the comic early from comiXology, and that he had sent them the following e-mail:
- September 1, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Manga journalist explores quake aftermath
At The Comics Journal, Ryan Holmberg has a lengthy and intricate piece on the Japanese creator Suzuki Miso and his coverage, in manga form, of the effects of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami on the manga industry. There’s a lot to chew on here, and Holmberg casts a skeptical eye on some of Suzuki’s reporting, but there is also a fascinating description of how the Japanese comics market works and why the earthquake hit it so hard. One striking similarity between Japan and the United States is that while comics themselves are only a tiny part of the nation’s economy, they are fertile ground for properties that are developed in other media with much greater impact.
Of course, being part of a comic itself, Suzuki’s journalism was directly affected by the very factors he was writing about: The first chapter of his manga, “The Day Japan and I Shook,” appeared in Comic Ryū, but that magazine was forced to suspend publication shortly afterward. Since then Suzuki has been publishing it online, and it will pick up again in print in December, when Comic Ryū resumes print publication.
In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, many publishers put their manga magazines online for free. This was due to disruptions in the distribution chain as well as shortages of ink, paper, fuel and other supplies. While it was presented as a selfless gesture of help to those stricken by the earthquake, Holmberg points out that the earthquake victims were less likely to have internet than residents of Tokyo and other less affected areas. Furthermore, the big publishers resumed print publication and distribution as quickly as possible, suggesting that their benevolence was also good business sense: Posting the manga online kept readers in the loop while the physical comics were unavailable to them. This is, of course, exactly what Suzuki is doing.
At any rate, this is one comic I’d love to see translated. JManga, call your office!
- September 1, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Trailer arrives for DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes #1
David Macho rolls out his fourth trailer this week for DC Comics’ New 52, this time spotlighting Legion of Super-Heroes #1, by Paul Levitz and Francis Portela, one of two relaunch titles starring the teenagers from the future (the other is Legion Lost by Facian Nicieza and Pete Woods).
The Legion of Super-Heroes has been decimated by the worst disaster in its history. Now, the students of the Legion Academy must rise to the challenge of helping the team rebuild – but a threat of almost unstoppable power is rising at the edge of Dominator space, and if the new recruits fail, the Legion Espionage Squad may be the first casualties in a war that could split worlds in half!
Legion of Super-Heroes #1, which boasts a cover by Karl Kerschl, arrives on Sept. 21.
- September 1, 2011 @ 08:50 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M.| Retailers on print vs. digital; Yang on comics, Christianity
Justice League #1
Retailing | Sacramento, Calif.-area retailers are relatively unconcerned about DC Comics’ newly launched digital initiative or an immediate threat to their bottom lines from digital comics. “I just see it as another way of kind of expanding the whole readership,” says Dave Downey, who runs World’s Best Comics. “If you missed an issue of Spider-Man, and you can’t find it anywhere, you can always go online and read it that way.” However, Kenny Russell of Big Brother Comics sees a time, “years off,” when that will all change: “It’s inevitable, and this is kind of the first step. In no time, iPads are going to be good enough, and it’s going to be easy enough, and it’s going to come out the same day where people are going to just read their comics on their iPads.” [Sacramento News & Review]
Comics | Gene Luen Yang explores the tangled history of comics and Christianity, both of which, he points out, were started by a bunch of Jewish guys who loved a good story. (Good-sized excerpt at the link; full article requires free registration.) [Sojourners]
- September 1, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson