2011 October
NYCC | DC’s New 52 sells 5 million comics in just six weeks
DC Comics has sold more than 5 million comics in the first six weeks of its line-wide relaunch, the publisher trumpeted this morning, saying the company “is experiencing its best comic books sales in more than 20 years.”
That figure includes more than 250,000 copies of Justice League #1, whose debut on Aug. 31 kicked off the New 52. According to DC, Action Comics #1 and Batman #1 — the top-selling comics in the direct market in September — have each moved more than 200,000 copies, while the first issues of Detective Comics, The Flash, Green Lantern and Superman have all sold more than 150,000.
In addition, the debuts of Aquaman, Batgirl, Batman and Robin, Batman: The Dark Knight, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians and Wonder Woman have all surpassed 100,000 copies.
“We are thrilled by the overwhelmingly positive response from retailers, fans and the creative community to DC Comics — The New 52,” DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson said in the press release. “This was a bold publishing initiative that is reinvigorating and growing the industry and medium we love.”
“People are buying, reading and talking about a line of comic books in a way they haven’t in years,” added Co-Publisher Dan DiDio. “We’re thrilled to see the passionate response fans have had, but this is just Step One for us. Now our plan is to keep the momentum and enthusiasm going.”
Read the full announcement below:
- October 13, 2011 @ 04:23 AM by Kevin Melrose
NYCC | Marc Bernardin to write DC’s Static Shock
DC Comics has selected Marc Bernardin as the new writer of Static Shock, replacing John Rozum, who announced his departure from the relaunched title last month.
Bernardin, a former senior editor for Entertainment Weekly who co-wrote The Highwaymen and The Authority for DC, will join current artist/co-writer Scott McDaniel with March’s Issue 7.
“As a Black comic book fan and as a father of Black children, it’s really important that people see themselves reflected in a media they like,” Bernardin tells BET.com. “I remember growing up and looking at the Cosby Show for the first time and getting to look at people who were like me and doing things like I did, people who were my age going to college and studying for exams. I think for a long time, a Black kid picking up a comic book never got the chance to see himself, so I think that characters like Static are incredibly important.”
Static Shock #2, by Rozum, McDaniel and Andy Owens, was released last week.
Update: Comic Book Resources talks with Bernardin about his plans for Static Shock.
- October 12, 2011 @ 06:51 PM by Kevin Melrose
Like a zombie it will dig itself back up again: Is TOKYOPOP returning?
TOKYOPOP email newsletter
Former manga publisher TOKYOPOP and the pop culture e-newsletter GeekChicDaily announced today that they’re teaming up to launch a new email newsletter, called TOKYOPOP, that will focus on “the hottest Asian pop culture news and trends.”
So, yeah … it’s a little confusing, if you only knew TOKYOPOP as the manga publisher that went under earlier this year, but TOKYOPOP founder Stu Levy explains why it isn’t completely out of left field.
“Back in 2000, TOKYOPOP magazine introduced all aspects of Asian Pop Culture to the English-speaking world,” said Levy in an open letter. “Over the past decade, the print magazine gave way to other endeavors, but I am excited that through a new partnership with our friends at GeekChicDaily, the original TOKYOPOP magazine concept can be revived and refreshed – rebooted actually – in a much more modern, exciting, and accessible format.”
- October 12, 2011 @ 06:50 PM by JK Parkin
Your Wednesday Sequence 28 | Al Columbia
Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days (2009), page 23. Al Columbia.
Of course, no matter how realistically drawn or meticulously framed they get, no comics can even come close to accurately depicting reality; or even approximating it, really. When the human eye takes in the work of comics’ great photorealists — Alex Raymond, Neal Adams, Alex Ross — the message it sends to the brain speaks of a certain closeness to the look of the real, but the first thing it tells us is always that we’re looking at a drawing. This is why comics seem somehow lacking whenever they position themselves in competition with film: what that medium depicts is reality, stripped of a third dimension and re-presented at a later date. Comics, which can never escape their fundamental identity as works produced by human hands, are a medium of approximation, forever suggesting the existence of their content, never crossing the line into literal reproduction of anything that’s actually happened in the real world.
- October 12, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Matt Seneca
New 52 Pickup | Week 7
It’s Week 2 of the No. 2s, and whether you’re big into the Bat-family or raring to go for Resurrection Man, there’s a lot on the pull list to enjoy. If you’re into other new No. 1 titles, Shade, by James Robinson and Cully Hamner, and My Greatest Adventure, by Aaron Lopresti, Kevin Maguire, Matt Ryan and Scott Kolins, arrived for a bit more variety.
This week also has your wildcard pick, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. Did a second issue turn the book around for me? Read on for this and more!
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
Batgirl
Written by Gail Simone with art by Ardian Syaf
Picking up right where Issue 1 left off, Gail Simone delves a little deeper into the mystery of the Mirror and his list while providing some much-needed evaluation of Batgirl’s combat skills. This installment definitely provides more focus on Batgirl as a returned hero as opposed to her life and personal relationships outside of the mask. Simone does an excellent job of driving the plot forward, giving a good amount of answers to questions from the first issue and creating a real sense of urgency with a great cliffhanger. Issue 2 also highlights Ardian Syaf’s skills with Batgirl’s acrobatics and combat prowess.
- October 12, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Steve Sunu
IDW Publishing library comes to comiXology
IDW Publishing and comiXology have partnered to make the publisher’s complete library available digitally across all comiXology platforms — iOS, the Android and the Web.
Beginning today, the entire Transformers line, previously sold only through comiXology’s Android app or online store, will also be available through comiXology’s apps for the various Apple devices. Several new IDW titles, including the first issue of the new Star Trek ongoing, the first two issues of Locke & Key: Clockworks and the first six issues of G.I. Joe, will also appear starting today. More comics will be added later.
Previously IDW’s comics were only available on Apple’s iOS through iVerse and the various iVerse-created IDW apps.
“ComiXology customers have asked for IDW to be part of the Comics by comiXology lineup for some time, and we’re thrilled to bring our catalog to those readers,” Jeff Webber, IDW’s director of ePublishing, said in a statement. “We’ve always been impressed with comiXology’s strength in offering comics across multiple platforms, including Apple iOS, Android and the Web. David and his team have put together an awesome offering. ComiXology has established a huge audience — I know we’re going to make a lot of IDW fans happy this week.”
- October 12, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
NYCC | Jim McCann teases his next project
The Return of the Dapper Men and Hawkeye: Blindspot writer Jim McCann appears to have some news breaking about a new project at the New York Comic Con, and he’s not waiting for the weekend to share artwork from it. He shared the above image on Twitter without any additional hints. So, what could it be? I guess we’ll find out in New York.
- October 12, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Books-A-Million also pulls DC graphic novels over Kindle Fire deal
"Superman: Earth One" on the Kindle Fire
Retail chain Books-A-Million has followed the lead of Barnes & Noble, pulling from its shelves the 100 graphic novels DC Comics plans to sell exclusively on Amazon’s new Kindle Fire.
Barnes & Noble, the largest bookstore chain in the United States, removed the top-selling titles late last week — they include The Sandman, Fables, Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns — citing a policy “that unless we receive all formats of a title to make available to our customers, we will not sell those physical titles in our stores.”
Publishers Weekly reports that Books-A-Million, which operates 211 stores in 23 states, has taken the same position, with CEO Terrance Finley saying in a press release that supporting a publisher that “selectively limits distribution of their content” isn’t in the best interest of the store’s customers.
“We will not promote titles in our stores showrooms if publishers choose to pursue these exclusive arrangements that create an uneven playing field in the marketplace,” he continued.
DC’s deal with Amazon apparently only lasts for four months, beginning Nov. 15, so it remains to be seen whether Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million will return the graphic novels to their shelves when the exclusive arrangement lapses in mid-March.
- October 12, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
The Sequential Goose | A chat with Aaron Renier
All this week at Robot 6 we’re interviewing some of the many contributors to First Second’s new anthology, Nursery Rhyme Comics. Today, Michael May talks to cartoonist Aaron Renier.
Aaron Renier first came to comics fans’ attention with his childlike, but suspenseful Spiral-Bound, a Top Shelf graphic novel that earned him the Eisner for Talent Deserving Wider Recognition in 2006. Last year, he gained some of that recognition with his adventurous and spooky The Unsinkable Walker Bean from First Second. This year finds him still with First Second illustrating one of the more obscure (to me, anyway; Lewis Carroll fans will undoubtedly recognize it) nursery rhymes in their collection.
Michael May: For those who aren’t familiar with “The Lion and Unicorn,” can you explain the history behind it?
Aaron Renier: Sure. The history behind it is that in the early 17th Century, England and Scotland became unified and they needed a new coat of arms. So they took one of the two lions from the English coat of arms and one of the two unicorns from the Scottish coat of arms. One lion and one unicorn to symbolize the unity for the new British coat of arms. But when I read the poem I saw it as something much stranger, and colorful. So I tried to ignore that knowledge.
- October 12, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Michael May
Sparkly Vampires vs. Lego Ninjas
Among the deluge of pre-NYCC press releases was one from Papercutz that really grabbed my attention: According to publisher Terry Nantier (who also helms parent company NBM), pre-orders of their Ninjago graphic novel have topped 170,000 copies. That’s a pretty impressive number.
The graphic novel is based on Lego’s ninja-themed Ninjago playsets, which have already spawned a couple of made-for-TV movies, and there’s a cartoon series in the works. Plus, people really like Lego, so it’s logical that it would do well.
Still, numbers like that put Ninjago in rarefied company. The first printing of Scott Pilgrim (which admittedly wasn’t a slam dunk) was about 10,000, if memory serves. Potential blockbusters justify greater risk: Yen Press announced an initial printing of 350,000 copies of the first Twilight graphic novel, and over 168,000 copies were sold in stores monitored by BookScan (which includes sales from bookstores only, and not all of those) last year.
There aren’t many books that do that well, though. Dork Diaries, which is a prose-graphic novel hybrid, actually topped Twilight on the BookScan charts, and The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung Fu Cave, by Captain Underpants creator Dav Pilkey, came in a very close third. But only those three topped 100,000 copies; Scott Pilgrim filled slots 4 through 9 on the chart, with sales ranging from 90,000 to almost 60,00, and the number 10 book was a volume of Naruto that moved about 53,000 copies.
That effect was even more pronounced in 2009, when BookScan’s top seller Watchmen, dwarfed the ninjas and the vampires with sales of well over 400,000 copies. The second best-selling book that year was Dork Diaries (again!) with sales of over 68,000, a considerable dropoff from the top spot. With graphic novels, it seems you can’t count on volume—unless you have Lego ninjas on your side.
- October 12, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Digital comics by the numbers
Earlier this year, Mia Weisner, a graduate student at the University of Applied Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, asked readers of the webcomics news site Fleen to help out with her doctoral research by answering a survey on digital comics. Fleen’s Gary Tyrrell posted the results this week, and they make for interesting reading.
Of the 572 people who responded, only half said they read superhero comics. Action/adventure, humor/comedy and science fiction were the top genres, with over 60 percent each. Of course, this wasn’t a random sample (you can tell from the very first number: 98.6 percent were comics readers), and the preferred genres may reflect the sorts of things people come to Fleen to read about in the first place.
Still, these are the folks who are most likely to read digital comics, so the numbers paint an interesting picture. Some of the highlights:
- October 12, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Sparkplug to continue; Michael George in jail
Sparkplug Books
Publishing | Emily Nilsson, wife of Sparkplug Books publisher Dylan Williams, said she plans to continue running the publishing company after the death of her husband. “We need your support now as much as ever,” she said in a post on the Sparkplug blog. “We are grieving at the same time as we are trying to keep business afloat, and trying not to overstrain ourselves. We want to publish again soon but that is a step we will consider more once we get through the next few months.” Nilsson, Virginia Paine and Tom Neely will continue to run Sparkplug, with plans to continue online sales and attend conventions like the upcoming MIX in Minneapolis next month and the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival in December. Williams passed away in September due to complications from cancer. [Sparkplug]
Legal | Michael George, the former comics retailer found guilty of murder for the second time, is in the Macomb County (Mich.) jail after his bond was revoked following Tuesday’s verdict. George was found guilty of murdering his first wife Barbara in the back of their comic book store in 1990. “The family’s ecstatic,” said Barbara’s brother Joe Kowynia. “There’s no way a jury is going to get this wrong twice. I feel sorry for my nieces, this is long overdue. Now that this is over, Barb can rest in peace. And we can move on and he can rot in jail.” [Detroit Free Press]
- October 12, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by JK Parkin
The Middle Ground #73 | Kindly Sign Me Up?
To absolutely no-one’s surprise, I keep circling around Archie Comics’ announcement of their revival of their Red Circle characters in something approaching a mix of confusion and awe. There’s something there that seems compelling, but I’m not quite sure if I can work out what it is, just yet. Instead, I’m just thinking in bullet points. Continue Reading »
- October 11, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Graeme McMillan
Buy Frank Santoro’s Storeyville, shipped direct from his dad’s house!
Okay, not exactly — they’ll be shipped from Pittsburgh’s Copacetic Comics. But still, the source of this secret stash of Frank Santoro’s long-out-of-print newspaper-format comic about a young man’s journey through the down-and-out America of the early 20th century was a long-forgotten box found in his dad’s house.
“All the others were destroyed in the fire at my mom’s house. No joke,” Santoro writes of the discovery.
So once this box is gone, so too is your opportunity to read a pretty stunning comic in its original format. Santoro’s visual shifts between realism and impressionism, and what they say about his protagonist Will’s tormented mental state, are a master class in establishing and controlling tone in comics. Order now, but if you miss out, don’t worry — you can always spring for the hardcover edition from PictureBox.
- October 11, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Rafael Grampá’s grenade-wielding, high-flying Batman
Batman by Rafael Grampa
I may not understand what the text says, but there’s one thing I did take away from this blog post by artist Rafael Grampa — his Batman, like his Wolverine and Madman, is truly awesome. The image appears to be something he’s created for the RioComicon 2011, coming up Oct. 20-23 in Brazil.
- October 11, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin