Comic Book Resources

Slash Print | Following the digital evolution

Kindle DX

e-Devices | Amazon.com this week announced a larger version of their Kindle device, called the Kindle DX. The e-book reader is two-and-a-half times the size of the current Kindle and will retail for almost $500. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe, however, will offer "subsidized on-contract Kindles to customers who can't get at-home delivery when the DX ships this summer."

So, the natural question for comic fans -- is it big enough to show a comics page? Kelson at the Speed Force blog has the same question: "Unless I’ve got my numbers wrong, that makes it larger than the standard manga page, though not quite as big as the standard American comic book page," he said about the 9.7 inch screen. "And it’s only 1/3 of an inch thick, comparable to a typical trade paperback." The BBC has more on the specs.

Social media | Ypulse, a teen marketing blog, wonders if teens would follow Twitter feeds for characters from young adult novels. Apparently teens haven't embraced Twitter (which surprises me ... I figured they'd been using it and dropped it when all the old people showed up, kind of like Facebook), and the post wonders if they'd start using it if, say, the sparkling vampires from Twilight had their own feeds.

"Protagonists, antagonists and supporting characters (the latter might be especially intriguing) would continue to gain depth and dimension in the intermittent period between books and meanwhile, readers would feel more connected to the world that the author created," writes Meredith, who blogs for the site. "Or, as connected to them as they choose to be depending on whether they simply read the tweets or actually respond to them and engage in dialogue." She also notes that characters from Mad Men showed up on Twitter last year, which everyone assumed was a marketing ploy for the show, but turned out to be more along the lines of fan fiction.

BOOM! Studios recently launched a Twitter feed for one of their fictional characters, the talking teddy bear who thinks he's James Bond, Mister Stuffins. Is it a marketing ploy, an extension of the story, or maybe both? And would comic fans follow the Twitter feed for, say, Batman, Luke Cage or Scott Pilgrim, if their tweets were written by Grant Morrison, Brian Michael Bendis or Bryan Lee O'Malley, respectively?

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'Embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error' to blame for Amazon's weekend glitch

Amazon.com has issued a statement on the "glitch" that caused an uproar on blogs and Twitter over the weekend:

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

seattlepi.com's Andrea James spoke with an unnamed Amazon employee about the problem, which pulled several employees away from their Easter weekend:

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Amazon blames 'glitch' for delisted gay and lesbian themed books

Fun Home

Earlier today several folks on blogs and on Twitter began noting that books with gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual themes were removed from Amazon.com searches, sales-rank feature and bestseller lists, including the award-winning graphic novel Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.

According to a story on Publishers Weekly, this occurred due to a glitch in its sales ranking feature "that was in the process of being fixed." Fun Home's sales rank has returned, but many other books are still missing it.

Amazon also told PW that they didn't have an adult policy that led to the de-listings, which is contrary to the responses people have received from Amazon's customer-service department. Novelist Mark Probst first noted the removal on his blog, as he had contacted Amazon.com earlier this week when his books lost their sales ranks. A reply from Amazon read: "In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude 'adult' material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature."

Comics retailer Chris Butcher notes several books that are still being included in Amazon's rankings and searches, including Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds and the sexually explicit graphic novel Lost Girls. Meanwhile, non-explicit books with gay themes and historical non-fiction about homophobia lost their sales rankings. An online petition in protest of Amazon's adult policy has also been started.

Food or Comics | A roundup of money-related news

Comics Now! #3

• Comics Now!, a quarterly magazine launched early last year, has ceased publication. Issue 3, released in September, was the last. (via Johanna Draper Carlson)

• Amazon.com will close three distribution centers in Munster, Indiana, Red Rock, Nevada, and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, reportedly as part of a reorganization of the company's fulfillment network. The warehouses employ about 215 people.

This is the first closing of a warehouse by the online-retail giant since 2006.

• Lisa Lopacinski of Neptune Comics questions DC Comics' order requirement for retailers to receive the sketch variant edition of Batman and Robin #1: one variant for every 250 copies ordered of the standard edition.

"Now don't get me wrong," she writes. "I'm sure this will be a popular comic. Especially the first issue. But 250 copies?!? This promotion is clearly going to benefit about 10-15 of Diamond's largest customers in the U.S. who have a need to order that large of a quantity."

• Operation Comix Relief organizer Chris Tarbassian worries that higher shipping costs could cripple efforts to send comic books to U.S. soldiers serving overseas.

• The final issue of the U.K. comics anthology The DFC rolls out today. Richard Bruton pens a eulogy, and points out that some of the magazine's creators have launched a blog called Super Comics Adventure Squad.

• Comic-strip journalist Brenda Starr learned today she has lost her job because of staff cuts in the fictional newsroom of B. Babbitt Bottomline. The strip's writer, Mary Schmich, says Starr's life "is a fantasy with nuggets of reality tossed in. But even fantasies need some grounding in reality, and right now, economic crisis is the reality that colors everything else at pretty much every newspaper."

• At io9.com, Charlie Jane Anders wonders how the recession has affected the sales of science-fiction books.