Asterix
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Tales of the TMNT #55
Publishing | Following the purchase last week of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property by Viacom/Nickelodeon, Mirage Studios announced it will publish Tales of the TMNT at least through May 2010.
On the official website, cartoonist Dan Berger writes that co-creator Peter Laird retained an option to publish up to 18 TMNT comics a year. Elsewhere, writer Tristan Jones notes that the agreement only covers single issues “based on the current Mirage Universe stuff (eg: a continuation/conclusion to Volume 4).”
However, judging by comments made yesterday afternoon by Laird, it seems unlikely he will invoke that option in the near future: “One thing that is becoming clear to me is that, right now, I need to really step back from Turtle stuff. I am feeling strongly that I need to distance myself from the TMNT to truly grasp what has happened, and become accustomed to it. With that in mind, I have to say that it is likely that any new TMNT comics coming from me/Mirage (under the ‘reserved rights’ clause negotiated in the sale) are probably not going to be seen anytime soon. Although I do have the right to publish up to eighteen issues of TMNT comics per year, it is highly unlikely that I will do that right away. In all honesty, the idea of doing ANY new Turtle stuff right now leaves me cold.” [NinjaTurtles.com]
Legal | A court has ordered South Korean cartoonist Choi to pay $17,000 to settle a dispute with Wonju City over a cartoon that included offensive words about President Lee Myung-bak. The city recalled about 20,000 copies of the promotional paper after readers discovered the hidden message. [The Korea Times]
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Legal
Legal | Twin brothers in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, have been sentenced to three months in jail for possessing anime- and manga-style images depicting children in sexual situations.
David Scott Hammond and James Cory Hammond, 20, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography after police discovered the images downloaded on their home computer last November. Although David Hammond’s attorney said his client didn’t realize it was illegal to download cartoon pornographic images of children, the prosecutor asserted that, “Every one of these images involves the victimization of children. The victimization wouldn’t happen in the first place if there weren’t people there to look at this material.”
Earlier this month, lawmakers in Alaska began considering a bill that would expand the state’s child-pornography laws to include cartoons. And in June a U.S. appeals court upheld the conviction of a Virginia man who was prosecuted, in part, under a 2003 federal statute outlawing possession of cartoon images depicting the sexual abuse of children. [The Chronicle Herald]
Viz Media
Publishing | The San Francisco headquarters of Viz Media was closed for two days this week after an unexpected downpour on Monday caused storm drains to overflow, flooding parts of the city. [Anime News Network]
Publishing | Just last week we were reporting that Villard had acquired the rights to Fated, a graphic novel written by Michael Jackson and Gotham Chopra. Now comes word that the Random House imprint paid $800,000 for it. Illustrated by Mukesh Singh, artist of Virgin Comics titles Gamekeeper, Devi and Jenna Jameson’s Shadow Hunter, the black-and-white book is due out in June. [Crain's New York Business]
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Longbox
Digital comics | Technology columnist Andy Ihnatko spotlights LongBox Digital, the much-anticipated “iTunes for comics,” and claims he’s “pretty sure” the company is entering into a “formal alliance” with Apple: “Comic-industry cluelessness and their inability to unite towards a common, mutual good are the two main reasons why we haven’t seen anything like LongBox before. But they probably haven’t been as serious a roadblock as the simple lack of any portable device that’s perfectly-suited to reading digital comics. This is a form of storytelling that needs a tablet. A big, page-sized color screen with lots of resolution and a touch interface for turning pages and navigating from panel to panel. Apple is rumored to be making one of those things. And they’re also rumored to be speaking with a great many high-profile print publishers about bringing their content to this new device.” LongBox CEO Rantz Hoseley wouldn’t confirm Ihnatko’s Apple assertion. [Chicago Sun-Times]
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Iron Man #18
Creators | Tom Spurgeon has word from a former George Tuska spokesman that the longtime Iron Man artist has passed away. He was 93.
Tuska began his career in 1939 as an assistant on Scorchy Smith, and worked for the comic “packaging” studio owned by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger. He later drew for Fawcett and Quality, and then moved to Marvel in the 1960s, where he penciled such titles as Daredevil, Ghost Rider and The X-Men before beginning a decade-long run on Iron Man. Tuska left Marvel in the late 1970s for DC Comics and in 1978 helped launch a new Superman daily comic strip, on which he worked until 1993.
Tuska is survived by his wife of 61 years Dorothy, their three children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. [The Comics Reporter, Tony Isabella]
Big Apple Comic Con
Conventions | As Big Apple Comic Con — “the New York area’s largest pop culture festival” — opens, Variety and the Los Angeles Times spotlight the official launch today of GeekChicDaily, the new e-newsletter founded by Wizard Entertainment CEO Gareb Shamus, movie producer Peter Guber and digital entertainment entrepreneur Peter Levin.
Meanwhile, comics and TV writer Paul Cornell explains why he won’t be attending the convention: “The guy who originally invited me was made redundant the day after he did so. Which doesn’t fill one with confidence. But, sure enough, his boss was kind enough to honour the commitment. And there was some communication on that score. However, by the start of this week, I’d noticed that days were ticking by without any actual arrangements being made. So I finally said that if they’d already bought the air ticket, then of course I’d come, because I didn’t want them to lose out financially because of me, but if they hadn’t, then not to worry about it. Which resulted in… absolute silence. So when I say I’m not going to New York… well, that’s my best guess as we speak.”
Heidi MacDonald reported earlier this week that “several announced guests” hadn’t received their travel arrangements, “and several others who were invited pulled out when such arrangements were not forthcoming.” [Big Apple Comic Con]
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Legal | Anime producer and distributor Funimation Entertainment issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice to the webhost of AnimesFree demanding that the fansub site remove more than 1,000 infringing episodes of more than 40 series. The site’s administrator complied, and then complained about the company enforcing its copyrights: “AnimesFree.com will continue just as STRONGLY as it has been these past three months. Meeting everyone new on the website was great and I don’t intend for it to stop anytime soon. So we’re not going to quit just because of a few dozen series. There’s two things that you can do when a bully pushes you down. You either stay down and cower, or you stand back up and fight until you can’t walk anymore. There are just some things that the ‘Anime’ corporate giants will never understand about how people rely on online Anime communities.” The commenters on the post aren’t particularly sympathetic to the administrator’s plight. [AnimesFree, via Deb Aoki]
Rich Hafstead
Retailing | Heidi MacDonald reports that Rich Hafstead, partner in the Jim Hanley’s Universe chain in New York City, passed away Oct. 9. He had been semi-retired since suffering a heart attack in 2006. [The Beat]
Retailing | A 10-year-old girl is in a coma after she was trapped Tuesday under shelves that collapsed in a bookstore in Sapporo, Japan. The girl’s 14-year-old sister also was injured. The store, Daily Books, sells secondhand manga and video games. [The Japan Times, The Mainichi Daily News]
Legal | In light of recent legal moves by the heirs of Jerry Siegel and Jack Kirby, Christopher Murray and Paul Iannicelli consider the termination provisions of the 1976 Copyright Act. [ Mondaq]
Family fight erupts over the future of Asterix
Asterix and Obelix
The daughter of Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo is publicly criticizing her father for selling his stake in the books’ publisher to Hachette Livre, and authorizing the company to continue the series after his death.
“Today, I’m rebelling,” Sylvie Uderzo wrote in the French newspaper Le Monde. “Why? Because Asterix is my paper brother. I find myself entering into battle against, perhaps, Asterix’s worst enemies — the men of industry and finance.”
Albert Uderzo, now 81, created the enormously popular Asterix in 1959 with the late writer Rene Goscinny. Editions Albert Rene was founded in 1979, two years after Goscinny’s death.
The sale last month to Hachette, approved by Goscinny’s daughter Anne, gives the French publishing giant a 60-percent stake in Asterix. The remaining 40 percent remains with Sylvie Uderzo, who claims her father previously had intended the comic to end once he dies.
She blames her father’s advisers for pushing him into a “180 degree turn.”
The Asterix albums have been translated into 107 languages, and have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide.
