Angoulême

Conventions | Wim Lockefeer lines up the exhibits he’s looking forward to at the 39th Angoulême International Comics Festival, which begins today in Angoulême, France. [The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log]

Legal | Cartoonist Albert Lekgaba was sketching the proceedings of the Botswana Court of Appeal when security officers asked to step out of the courtroom, confiscated his work, and told him he could not draw in court, “especially if the judges were present.” When the judges learned of this, however, they informed the court registrar that sketching is indeed allowed, and they ordered that Lekgaba be readmitted to the courtroom and his sketches returned to him. [The Botswana Gazette]

Passings | California newspaper cartoonist John Lara has died at age 56. [Coastline Pilot]

Creators | Heidi MacDonald sums up a number of recent posts on piracy and the creative life in one mega-post, and a lively discussion follows in the comments section. [The Beat]

Eisner Awards

Creators | Tom Spurgeon cast his votes for the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame, and he urges other readers who are qualified (or who think they may be qualified) to do so as well: “The way I look at it, a Hall of Fame is a cultural document that has a chance of surviving decades into the future when things like our on-line text jeremiads and late-night hotel room conversations about what’s valuable in the medium will have long faded from memory. It’s worth having whatever small input one can have on something like that, particularly as time will also drive any objections we have from relevance.” [The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Frank Cho is so busy these days that he has decided to postpone the release of his miniseries Guns & Dinos: “I want to apologize to all my fans out there who were eagerly waiting for this book. But with only half the book done and no time to complete it, it’s only fair to reschedule the release date when the mini-series is completely finished. Fear not, I’m planning on releasing it before the year is out.” [Apes and Babes]

Retailing | Retailer Chris Brady, owner of 4 Color Fantasies in Rancho Cucamonga, California, explains why he embraces digital comics: It brings new readers to the medium, and his comiXology storefront pays him 15 to 30 percent of cover price without much effort on his part. [The Press-Enterprise]

Daredevil #8

Comics | Colin Smith sees Mark Waid’s Spider-Man/Daredevil crossover as everything a good comic should be — smartly written, accessible to new readers and grounded in reality despite the fantasy elements: “Waid’s super-people are always individuals before they’re crime-fighters, and for all the fun of the roof-running and the holographic illusions, it’s the moments of betrayal and sadness and self-deception which stay with the reader after the comics have been put away.” [Too Busy Thinking About My Comics]

Comics | Warren Ellis gets an advance copy of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga #1 — yes, the one with the breastfeeding on the cover — and finds it good. However, he also worries that the market may not be mature enough for the book, both because of its length and its juxtaposition of different types of elements. [Warren Ellis]

Creators | Sean T. Collins interviews horror comic creator Julia Gfrörer: “I’m most interested in making art about feelings and experiences that are hidden or obscure, uncomfortable to talk about, frightening to even think of. It should be challenging for me to create, and for you to consume. I guess that it often comes off as overwrought and melodramatic, but like the song says, I can’t come through half-stepping.” [The Comics Journal]

Comics | Larry Cruz celebrates Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, which he admits has a “stodgy” feel but nonetheless boasts glorious art and a gripping story in an unusual format. [The Webcomic Overlook]

Review | Matthias Wivel takes a look at the Fantagraphics edition of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes. [The Comics Journal]

Review | Philip Shropshire reviews the second volume of Ed Piskor’s phone-hacker comic Wizzywig, which takes the protagonist on a through-the-looking-glass trip through the criminal justice system. [Comics Forge]

The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist

It’s time once again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for cool, new comics. As usual, we’re focusing on graphic novels, collected volumes and first issues so that we don’t have to come up with a new way to say, “Batwoman is still awesome!” every month. And we’ll continue letting Tom and Carla do the heavy lifting in regards to DC and Marvel’s solicitations.

One cool change this month and for the foreseeable future: I’m joined by Graeme McMillan who’ll also be pointing out his favorites.

Finally, please feel free to play along in the comments. Tell us what we missed that you’re looking forward to or – if you’re a comics creator – mention your own stuff.

Abrams Comicarts

The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist – I admit, I tend to run hot and cold on Clowes’ output, but I’m a sucker for coffee-table career retrospectives, so the idea of taking 224 pages to look back at his career to date (with, of course, the traditional little-seen artwork and commentary) seems like a must-look at the very least. [Graeme]

Abstract Studios

Rachel Rising, Volume 1: The Shadow of Death – Terry Moore’s latest series gets its first collection and I love the premise of a woman’s waking up in a shallow grave with no memory of how she got there and needing to figure out who tried to kill to her. [Michael]

Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom

Arcana

Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom – I don’t know enough about Lovecraft, but man I love me some undersea kingdoms. [Michael]

Archaia

Cow Boy – As much as I don’t want to stick writer Nate Cosby in an all-ages box, I’m eager to read his and Chris Eliopoulos’ story of a kid bounty hunter trying to bring in his family of outlaws. [Michael]

If nothing else, Nate Cosby’s Twitter feed made me curious about checking out his western collaboration with Eliopoulos, but finding out that Roger Langridge and Colleen Coover were also contributing pushed me over the edge. [Graeme]

I’m Not A Plastic Bag – Color me skeptical but hopeful about Rachel Hope Allison’s ecological debut, even if that title makes me a little nervous. [Graeme]

Archie

Archie #631 – Picks up on that story where Archie and Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats hook up. Look, Archie’s going nowhere with either Betty or Veronica, so I’m rooting for the furry. [Michael]

Stan Lee’s Mighty 7 #1 – At first, finding out that this comic was actually by Tony Blake and Alex Saviuk without Lee was a letdown; until I found out that the comic is actually about Stan Lee, which pushes it into the “This will either be horrendous or bizarrely enjoyable” category. [Graeme]

I’m not sure that I’ve ever unreservedly enjoyed a comic that Stan Lee wrote, much less just came up with the idea for, but I love his persona and putting him in the comic with some superheroes is so crazy it just might work. [Michael]

Crossed: Badlands #1

Avatar Press

Crossed: Badlands #1 and 2 – I’m definitely not a horror fan, but the idea of Garth Ennis’ writing an ongoing biweekly series feels like it’s as good a lure to get me to pick this up as anything else. (I think the plan is to have creators alternate on arcs, with Si Spurrier and David Lapham as part of the alternate writers on the book. That’s a pretty impressive line-up.) [Graeme]

Boom!

Exile on the Planet of the Apes #1 – I’m all for another Planet of the Apes comic from Boom!. [Michael]

More Apes by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman (art by Marc Laming)? This can only be a good thing. [Graeme]

Supurbia #1 – I feel like we’ve seen a few of these “what if superheroes and reality shows were mashed together?” series, but here’s the first of four issues of another one written by former Marvel staffer Grace Randolph. [Graeme]

Kitchen Sink Press: The First 25 Years – Remember what I said about being a sucker for coffee table retrospectives above? That goes double for this one, which has the added benefits of being both cheap (only $15!) and having contributions from Alan Moore and other creators from Denis Kitchen’s vast address book. [Graeme]

Dark Horse

BPRD: Hell on Earth – The Pickens County Horror #1 – I’m all for new BPRD comics, but it’s getting more and more difficult to keep track of everything. Still, I’ll buy a Scott Allie Mignolaverse story any day. [Michael]

Abe Sapien, Volume 2: The Devil Does Not Jest and Other Stories

Abe Sapien, Volume 2: The Devil Does Not Jest and Other Stories - Abe’s my favorite BPRD character, so I feel like this the way I do the previous item: grateful, but also a little saturated. [Michael]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8, Volume 1 – The first ten issues – or two trades, if that’s how your brain works – of the Joss Whedon-led series get an oversized hardcover edition. [Graeme]

Channel Zero – Brian Wood’s breakthrough book comes back into print with this collection of the original series, the Becky Cloonan-illustrated follow-up and material from the awesome Public Domain design book. Jonathan Hickman fans, you should really pick this up. [Graeme]

Manara Erotica, Vol. 1: Click! and Other Stories – Yes, it’s comic porn. But unlike Lost Girls, this is actually sexy comic porn. [Graeme]

Ragemoor #1 – If they hadn’t got me with Richard Corben, they certainly would have with “living castle nurtured on pagan blood.” [Michael]

Avatar: The Last Airbender, Volume 2 – The Promise, Part 2 – Yikes, what a title. I’m still missing Avatar: The Last Airbender though, so this is welcome. [Michael]

Empowered, Volume 7 – Why haven’t I started reading this critical darling yet? I do not know. [Michael]

DC

Batman: Death by Design - Chip Kidd’s writing a Batman book and it’s a real-live, honest-to-goodness superhero adventure. What’s more awesome is that the concept of design plays a large role in the story in the form of a massive reconstruction project in Gotham City. [Michael]

Saucer Country #1

Saucer Country #1 – Paul Cornell + Ryan Kelly + saucer aliens = SOLD. [Michael]

Fairest #1 – Bill Willingham launches a new series about the women of Fables and makes me even less interested in everyone else’s modern updates of fairy tales. [Michael]

New Deadwardians #1 – The solicit opens, “Another vampire/zombie comic? Really, Vertigo?” My sentiments exactly and yet, this one’s illustrated by INJ Culbard whose work I’ve loved on the Sherlock Holmes adaptations he’s done with Ian Edginton. [Michael]

Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child #1 – It would be redundant to mention that the cover to this is both “striking” and “by Rafael Grampá,” so I’ll just mention the concept, which is also eye-catching. It’s the story of a grad student who also happens to be heir to the Voodoo Queenship of the most haunted city in America, and someone is killing off the royal family. Vertigo was created for stuff like this. [Michael]

Dynamite

Bionic Woman #1 – I had the deepest crush on Jaime Sommers as an 11-year-old. My current crush on Paul Tobin’s writing is slightly less deep, but still significant enough to make me want to read this. [Michael]

I’ve been following Dynamite’s Bionic Man series and surprising myself by digging the hell out’ve it; seeing that this spin-off is being written by the insanely-underrated Paul Tobin was all I needed to convince me to read this. [Graeme]

George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1 – For the fantasy fan (or HBO subscriber) in your life, here’s the first quarter of Dynamite’s adaptation of the not-so-cult-anymore novel. [Graeme]

Vampirella: The Red Room #1

Vampirella: The Red Room #1: On the one hand, it’s “monster vs. human cage matches.” On the other, it’s written by Dan Brereton, so it’s probably going to be good fun… [Graeme]

Fantagraphics

Angelman – I’ve not read much by Austrian cartoonist Nicolas Mahler, but I think I’m won over just by the idea of his new book, which satirizes not just superheroes, but the business behind them. [Graeme]

Interiorae – Lovely, lovely art by Gabriella Giandelli in this collection of his Ignatz series. (It’s also in full-color, unlike the original serialization, which is another win.) [Graeme]

I don’t know why it’s taken this long for Fantagraphics to collect the comics that got their cool Ignatz format a few years ago, but I’ll shut up and be grateful. I greatly enjoyed Giandelli’s creepy tale of an apartment building, its residents, the large rabbit who roams its halls, and the creature the rabbit seems to serve. What’s also exciting though is that this means Richard Sala’s Delphine will get a collection too. [Michael]

Humanoids

Monsieur Jean: The Singles Theory – So, so excited for this new book by Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian, making its English language debut in this edition. [Graeme]

IDW

Berkeley Breathed’s Outland: The Complete Collection Sunday Comics, 1989-1995 – The star of this collection of Breathed’s Bloom County follow-up isn’t the title strip, but the reprints of his early, college-era work that’ll accompany them. [Graeme]

Funny Stuff

Funny Stuff By Frank Frazetta – It makes me a bad nerd to admit that I don’t think I’ve ever seen Frazetta’s legendary early comics work, so I’m pretty excited for this oversized hardcover collection, especially to see just how much he… homaged other, more famous strips. [Graeme]

Rocketeer Adventures 2 #1 – Featuring work by Stan Sakai, Bill Sienkiewicz, Marc Guggenheim, Peter David, and Sandy Plunkett. Plus covers and pin-ups by Dave Stevens, Darwyn Cooke, and Art Adams. [Michael]

The first series of anthology tributes to Dave Stevens and his retro creation worked so much more than I’d expected, so I’m definitely up for a second go-’round. [Graeme]

Smoke And Mirrors #1: Mike Costa’s been winning me over every month with his Cobra series, so I’m looking forward to this creator-owned book he’s co-writing about a stage magician who gets trapped in a world where magic has taken the place of science. [Graeme]

Star Trek, Volume 1 – Dear all fellow Trekkies/Trekkers/whatever you want to call yourselves: If you liked the original TV show and also the JJ Abrams movie reboot, you owe it to yourself to check out this monthly series, so grab this collection of the first issues and dig in. [Graeme]

Will Eisner’s The Spirit: Artist’s Edition – Of all the IDW “Artists Edition” books to date, this is the one that just feels like a must-have. Eisner’s Spirit pages as they appeared on his drafting table? I cannot wait to see these. [Graeme]

IDW probably explained the “Artist’s Edition” concept before and I just wasn’t paying attention, but I am now and I finally get why it’s cool to have COLOR scans of original-size black-and-white art so you can see blue pencils, art corrections, editorial notes, and stuff like that. Especially for someone as legendary as Will Eisner.  [Michael]

Saga

Image

Saga #1 – New Brian K. Vaughan. Does anything else need to be said? Oh, alright: FIona Staples on art. Seriously, you guys. [Graeme]

I’d buy a Fiona Staple fantasy epic anyway. That Brian K Vaughan is writing it makes me sigh like a Belieber. [Michael]

Hell Yeah #1: There’s something weirdly fitting about reading a series about the generation who’s grown up with super-heroes that’s created by someone like Joe Keatinge, who’s been around in comics for a long time, and Andre Szymanowicz’ art looks good as well… [Graeme]

The Manhattan Projects #1 – Jonathan Hickman returns to indie roots with the true story behind the atomic bomb. Turns out, Oppenheimer created this rocket ship, but forgot to shield it against cosmic rays… [Graeme]

Mad scientists! By Jonathan Hickman! [Michael]

’68, Volume 1: Better Run Through the Jungle – Mark Kidwell, Nat Jones, and Jay Fotos’ Vietnam War/zombie series is collected. [Michael]

The Walking Dead: Cutting Room Floor – I’m very, very curious about this collection of Robert Kirkman’s handwritten notes about the creation of his hit series. It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? But it could very well be awesome… [Graeme]

Marvel

Avengers Academy #27 – Guest-starring the Runaways, ya’ll! And Bruiser’s totally punching Mettle cross-eyed on the cover. [Michael]

Savage Beauty

Moonstone

Savage Beauty Limited Edition Hardcover – I’m really curious to see how Mike Bullock’s contemporary, political jungle-girl story turns out. [Michael]

Oni

The Coldest City - If Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy taught me anything, it’s that I’m really not done with Cold War spy stories just yet. This one’s set in Berlin, which is even cooler. [Michael]

I’ve already read this one in galley format, and it is really, really good for those who like the spy stuff (Queen and Country fans, it’s written by Antony Johnston, so you know that it’s great; the art by Sam Hart follows Steve Yeowell’s lead from his early Zenith days, and for those who know my love for that series, there are few higher compliments I can offer). [Graeme]

The Secret History of DB Cooper #1 – Beyond “colorful weirdness and conspiracy-laden Americana,” I have no idea what to expect from Brian Churilla’s new series, and that just makes me look forward to it all the more. [Graeme]

I can’t wait to find out once and for all if Mr James is Doobie Keebler. [Michael]

Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures

Red 5

Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures #1 – Eep! An Atomic Robo anthology! Great news for a series whose back-up stories have always been just as entertaining as its lead feature. [Michael]

Atomic Robo returns with an all-new ongoing series?!? Surely this means that Christmas is either not over, or coming early or… well, you know what I mean. Good stuff. [Graeme]

Top Shelf

Blue – I’ve never heard of Pat Grant, the creator of this OGN, but Craig Thompson calls him “the Australian Mark Twain,” which is good enough for me. [Graeme]

Zenescope

The Jungle Book #1: Zenescope get around to “updating” the classic and well-loved story, which is more than likely going to mean adding more cleavage than you would’ve thought appropriate. Welcome to the year 20BOOB, everyone. [Graeme]

Justice League #4

Publishing | Number-crunching the direct-market charts, John Jackson Miller determines that sales of comics ranking in Diamond’s Top 300 increased by more than 3 million copies in 2011, bringing the total to 72.13 million. Dollar sales, too, rose by nearly $3 million, even as the average price of comic dropped by about a dime, from $3.58 to $3.49. [The Comichron]

Creators | Artist Fiona Staples has responded to Dave Dorman’s objection to her cover for Saga #1, which shows a woman breastfeeding an infant: “I find it a little hard to fathom why anyone would object to a depiction of breastfeeding, even if it were on a kids’ comic, which it isn’t. I have yet to hear a line of reasoning that makes sense to me. That said, anyone who wants to be grossed out by our comic is of course free to do so. I’m just going to fixate on the part where a master painter called me a ‘gifted artist.’” [ComicsAlliance]

ComicsPRO

Awards | The retailers association ComicsPRO has announced the nominees for its Industry Appreciation Award and the Industry Appreciation Memorial Award, which recognize individuals who have contributed to the success of the direct market: Cindy Fournier, David Gabriel, Robert Kirkman, Eric Stephenson and Bob Wayne. [press release]

Publishing | Valiant Entertainment, which in July announced the return of Valiant Comics, has signed an exclusive worldwide distribution deal with Diamond Comic Distributors and Diamond Book Distributors. [press release]

Creators | Kaiser Health News interviews MIT economist Jonathan Gruber — wait, why is this in Comics A.M.? Oh, yeah, because Gruber is the writer of the graphic novel Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works, which is that rare book that spoils the ending in the title. Artwork by Nathan Schreiber gives it some serious comics cred. [Kaiser Health News]

Creators | Lauren Davis has a fascinating interview with Achewood creator Chris Onstad, who recently brought his webcomic back from hiatus, about burnout, haters and the new things he has been trying lately, including a larger format to fit the new storyline. [Comics Alliance]

Gladstone's School for World Conquerors #1

Creators | David Harper talks to Mark Andrew Smith, writer of Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors, about his inspirations for the comic. I think Smith nails one of the best features of the book when he says, “I just like moments like these where we see supervillains being real people and doing things that normal people would do that we don’t get to see supervillains doing in other books. It’s great to pull back the curtain and see those moments of humanity there.” [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | This article on Kickstarter includes an interview with John Walsh, who recently raised $5,800 to support his webcomic Go Home Paddy. [Boston Herald]

Review | Larry Cruz reviews the intriguing webcomic Power Nap, about a future society in which drugs have eliminated the need for sleep — except for the one guy who is allergic to them. [The Webcomic Overlook]

Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

“It seems that in today’s desperate-for-sales comic book market, nothing is sacred. In the midst of world-saving adventures, today’s modern heroine breast feeds her child with zero modesty. Talk about work-life balance! It hearkens back to those Enjoli fragrance TV ads of the ’70s — I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never, never let you forget you’re a man…”  I’m just so impressed with this I-can-have-it-all super heroine. I had to wonder, did La Leche League (or as my wife took to calling them after she delivered our son,  ‘The Breast Milk Mafia’) pay big-time sponsorship money for this cover? What a wholesome, family-friendly image!

I find this image offensive, not only for promotion of a comic book, but specifically for a comic that Brian clearly states that he would like to see today’s younger generation pick up and read as he did when he was kid. Rather than a family-friendly heroic saga, this promo art is telegraphing to the world that it’s a series I cannot share with my 7-year-old son. Is the comics industry really so dead that they have to stretch to these desperate, shock value measures to incur readers? Really?”

– artist David Dorman, attempting to explain “Why Dave Dorman Finds New Image Comic Saga Offensive,” but not exactly succeeding. While he has insisted on Twitter (three times now) that he isn’t offended by breastfeeding, nor it turns out by “boobs” — “I paint boobs on canvas for a living” — Dorman has yet to elaborate on what makes the above promotional image for Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ mature readers sci-fi/fantasy epic offensive, unwholesome, or emblematic of “desperate, shock value measures” used to rope in readers.

There’s nothing titillating about Staples’ image; for all its fantasy trappings, it’s incredibly understated … casual, even. To be honest, it didn’t even register with me that it depicted breastfeeding until I read Dorman’s rant. Heck, ram’s horns and gossamer wings aside, I’ve encountered virtually identical scenes in cafes, movie theaters and public parks — all with minimal offense.

Justice League #4

Publishing | John Jackson Miller takes apart the December sales numbers and finds that while comics were up for the month, graphic novel sales fell just enough to prevent the direct market from having its first up year since 2008. In fact, trades are down 16 percent from December 2010, and Miller spends some time discussing why that might be — and why next year might be different. [The Comichron]

Publishing | Houghton Mifflin has high hopes for Are You My Mother?, the new graphic novel from Fun Home author Alison Bechdel: The publisher plans a first printing of 100,000 copies. [Publishers Weekly]

Retailing | Diamond’s Retailer Summit will be held the two days before the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, with attendees receiving free admission to the April 13-15 convention. [ICv2]

Saga #1

Creators | Brian K. Vaughan speaks briefly about Saga, his March-debuting collaboration with Fiona Staples that promises “a nice mixture of some bounty hunters, monsters and all sorts of lovely threats.” [USA Today]

Creators | Joe Keatinge (Hell Yeah, Glory) writes about the immutability of Big Two superhero comics and the freedom that independent publishers like Image have to throw dramatic twists into their stories—and make them stick. [Image Comics blog]

Digital | Letterer Todd Klein reads Green Lantern #1 on his iPhone and finds the experience different, but enjoyable. [Todd's Blog]

Graphicly

Digital | HTML5 is in, Windows 7 phones are out: Micah Laaker reviews the past year for digital distribution service Graphicly and hints a bit at what the future may bring. [Graphicly Blog]

Digital | Which platform will survive? Matt Alexander speculates that as tablets get better and cheaper, dedicated e-readers will become a thing of the past. Ironic, no? [The Loop]

Cosplay | Hana, a Muslim anime blogger, discusses the complications of finding characters to cosplay while observing the rules of modest dress: “Clearly, some of you might be wondering what all the fuss was about, and I’m not saying that all Muslim hijab-wearing females are anything as habitually neurotic as I am. However, think of it more as an illustration of how my faith is the filter through which I experience the fandom and everything else. For me, it’s an entire lifestyle that affects everything I do, rather than just being a set of beliefs.” [Beneath the Tangles]

Eric Stephenson

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Image Comics, the company formed by a group of artists who left the security of work-for-hire comics to create and own their own comics. It’s been 20 years of ups and downs, but one thing that has remained consistent is a focus on creator-owned work.

With 2011 in the history books and their big anniversary kicking off with the first Image Expo, a new ad campaign and high-profile series by big-name creators like Brian K. Vaughan, Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer and many more, I thought it was a good time to chat with Publisher Eric Stephenson about the state of the company, the year that was, their upcoming plans and anything else he was willing to talk about. My thanks to Eric for taking the time to answer my questions.

JK Parkin: Thanks for agreeing to do this interview, Eric. Incidentally, another feature we’re running as a part of our anniversary bash is one where we asked various comic industry folks about what they’re looking forward to in 2012. I got one back yesterday where the answer was basically “everything from Image Comics.” I find that interesting, because there’s a lot of diversity in Image’s line and although I think you guys probably publish something for every kind of taste, I wouldn’t think that every title would appeal to every comic reader. And yet I also find myself checking out at least the first issue of everything you guys have done lately. So from your perspective, what’s the unifying factor (or factors) right now among your titles, if there is one?

Stephenson: I think the main thing is that we’re moving forward and creating new things. We’re not content to just recycle the same old ideas month in and month out and then market it all as brand new. If this was another publisher, we’d be debuting our latest spin-off of The Walking Dead in March, but instead, we’re launching a new series by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, a new series by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra, a new series by Joe Keatinge and Andre Szymanowicz, and so on. For 20 years, Image has put its faith in creative people, and it’s the power of their imagination that links all our titles together, now more than ever.

Parkin: Back in 2008, when you took your current job, you told CBR that one of your goals was “to make more people aware of some of the great comics Image is putting out, getting our books in front of more eyes.” From your perspective, are you meeting this goal? And what’s changed in this regard over the last three years?

Stephenson: I don’t know if you’re familiar with the fast food chain Hardee’s, but they’re a hamburger chain out in the Midwest and thereabouts. They were bought by the company that owns Carl’s Jr. here in California toward the end of the ’90s, but in the period leading up to that sale, they were kind of horrible. They developed a really bad reputation. After the takeover, they did some amusingly blunt ads that basically said, “We don’t suck anymore,” that attracted a bit of attention, but ultimately, the thing that turned their business around–and along with Carl’s Jr., they’re one of the top fast food chains in the country today–is that they started making better burgers. They stopped sucking, basically, and I think the message there is pretty simple: Quality never goes out of style.

Hardee's old logo

Using that as kind of a point of reference, I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn by saying Image has produced its fair share of shit over the years. You win some, you lose some, right? Well, I think we got to a point a while back where the losses were outnumbering the wins, and regardless of whether it’s right or wrong, reputations are based on things like that. And that affects everything: How retailers order the books, how people perceive the books when they see them on the stands, how creators weigh their publishing options. I don’t think we were ever in as dire shape as Hardee’s, but our reputation had definitely suffered, and I think the main thing that’s changed over the last three years is that Image is perceived in a much different–and much better–light.

It’s an ongoing process, though. I don’t think the work of making readers and retailers more aware of what we do ever really ends, regardless of the level of success. For every great new series we launch, there’s always going to be someone pointing at one of our missteps from the past. It’s that old “fool me once” thing–some people, especially retailers, remain skeptical. It’s a trust issue, basically, and ultimately, the only way you earn that trust–or earn that trust back, if that’s the case–is to keep producing the best work possible. Things are looking good on that front.

Parkin: 2011 was an “up” year for you guys, in terms of overall sales, on top of an already strong 2010. Looking back, what factors do you think led to this success?

Stephenson: I don’t mean to sound repetitive, but I do think a lot of it has to do with not running on the spot. We’ve continued to move forward, you know? It hasn’t hurt that The Walking Dead is a tremendously successful television show, but let’s be clear–if we were just pushing out spin-offs of The Walking Dead and publishing a bunch of crap alongside that, our situation would be much different right now. We got a bit lucky in terms of the timing, I think. The Walking Dead show on AMC came at a time when we were actually ready to capitalize on it.

Parkin: As far as digital goes–I don’t think I can do an interview anymore without asking a “digital” question–I believe most, if not all, of your books are coming out digitally on the same day the print version hits comic shops. What kind of affect has going “same day digital” had on digital sales? Have print sales been affected? What plans do you have next year to get digital comics in particular in front of more people’s eyes?

Stephenson: Same day as print for digital has helped, definitely. There’s been no negative impact on print sales so far, at least nothing that’s particularly quantifiable anyway. Something I rail on about from time to time is that it’s not necessarily the same audience, and I think that’s kind of the beauty of it all. Having digital sales as an option broadens our reach. It broadens everybody’s reach.

I think people spend too much time hemming and hawing over format, really, and with that in mind, our plans for 2012 are less about just narrowing our focus on digital, and more on reaching out to more readers across the board. We’re going to do everything we can to raise awareness of Image in general, which serves the purpose of exposing more people to our comics, whether the format is digital or print.

One of Image's new print ads

Parkin: Speaking of raising Image’s profile, you sent over a sample from an upcoming ad campaign. Can you talk a little bit about the concept behind it? And where will it be appearing?

Stephenson: Yeah, that ad will start running online and in most of our comics this week. We’re doing one of these a week over the course of the year, each focusing on a different creator, and there will be some video components to the campaign as well.

The message is pretty simple: Our business thrives on creativity.

Everyone else throws their weight behind characters, behind IP. We put ours behind the people create those characters and develop that IP. The men and women who write and draw comics are Image’s–and this industry’s–most valuable resource. It takes a certain amount of bravery to create something of your own and share it with the world. We support those people, and we salute them.

Parkin: You guys put out a lot of new books in 2011 that shined the light on several new creators. Were there one or two projects you personally were particularly proud of in this regard?

Stephenson: The Strange Talent of Luther Strode is something I’m specifically proud of. I think Justin Jordan and Tradd Moore are doing great work with that, and it’s been a real pleasure to see that book do as well as it has. Witch Doctor is a similar story–Robert found Brandon and Lukas and they’ve done some amazing work on that book. I think it’s cool when someone kind of comes out of nowhere like that and just immediately start producing these great new comics. There’s also Kurtis Wiebe and Scott Kowalchuk on The Intrepids. That book flew a bit under the radar for a lot of people, I think, but Kurtis and Scott are both tremendous talents that I think people need to pay more attention to.

The Activity #2

Oh, and man – Nathan Edmondson! I really can’t say enough about Nathan. Nathan did a book for us with Christian Ward called Olympus a while back, but as good as that was, it didn’t quite prepare me for Who Is Jake Ellis? or The Activity. There’s more where that came from, and I really couldn’t be happier to have him here at Image.

Parkin: One Image book that had a lot of good buzz going this past year was Nonplayer #1, which came out early in the year and while initially under-ordered, seemed to do well in its second printing. Nate Simpson went on to win the Russ Manning Award at the Eisners this year. But then Simpson posted on his blog that he was involved in a bicycle accident that left him in a sling. Can you give us an update on how Nate is doing?

Stephenson: Well, Nate’s finally drawing again, which was welcome news to receive. The original plan was to get Nonplayer out twice a year, and I hope we’ll get back on that kind of schedule at some point in the future. It’s too early to say just yet, though, and really I’m just happy Nate wasn’t more seriously injured and that he’s on the mend. We should have the second issue out sometime around the middle of the year.

Parkin: It also seemed to be a good year for older Image properties as well. Witchblade hit its 150th issue, Walking Dead is on its way to issue #100 and was a constant on the New York Times bestseller list. I think you guys published, what, 15 issues of Spawn this past year? And Savage Dragon doesn’t seem to ever miss a beat. How do you keep the creative momentum going on long-running titles, and how do you get new readers to check them out?

Stephenson: It’s not always easy, especially with something like Savage Dragon. Erik and I actually talk about this a lot, because he’s been doing Savage Dragon for 20 years, and he is the sole creator. He writes it. He draws it. We can’t spike sales with a new writer. We can’t promote a new artist. It will always be Erik Larsen. No one other than Dave Sim has committed to the kind of undertaking Erik is engaged in with Savage Dragon, but longevity isn’t something that’s necessarily rewarded these days. Erik provides a unique comics reading experience with the book, though, and ultimately, I think that becomes a selling point of its own. Erik has his own sensibilities and there’s just no other comic like Savage Dragon.

Witchblade #151

On the other hand, we’ve got things like Witchblade or The Darkness, which is rapidly closing in on its 100th issue, and they do undergo changes in their creative teams. Tim Seeley is taking over Witchblade with #151 – I just got a printed copy of that today, actually – and I think people are really going to like what he’s doing with that. It’s a new beginning for the character and whether you’re a fan of Tim’s or a fan of the character, it’s great work. David Hine and Jeremy Haun take over The Darkness with issue #101 and that’s going to be a great jumping on point for that book, too. We could have relaunched that with a new number one, but you know – that’s been done before. It’s been done to death, in fact. There has never been a Darkness #101 before. There actually haven’t been a lot of #101s where independent comics are concerned. There’s like a handful and Spawn, Savage Dragon, Witchblade and The Darkness are amongst them. I think that’s something to be proud of, frankly.

And you’re right, there were 15 issues of Spawn during 2011, and that’s something to be proud of, too. Todd and his team took that book from being months behind and got it back on track, and better yet, did so not only without sacrificing quality, but by upping their game. That book is currently the best it’s been in years and years, and I think it’s really cool that with everything else he does, Todd was able to kind of regroup and infuse the book with some new energy.

Parkin: Speaking of older properties, Extreme is back, and it’s where you got your start in the industry. Now that you’re seeing new kids playing in the sandbox you helped create back in the 1990s, is there any urge on your part to jump back in on the creative side and work on any of the titles?

New Men

Stephenson: Rob and I have talked a bit about adding New Men to the line-up, so that’s kind of a possibility, but I don’t know. We’d have to find the right artist, especially given that the previous artists on that title–first Jeff Matsuda, then Todd Nauck and then Chris Sprouse–were such amazing talents. I kind of think of Todd as the definitive New Men artist, because he and I worked really closely on the book and did all but what?–nine of the issues together. But he’s busy with a new project, and I don’t think he’s sitting around thinking of ways to eliminate all his free time by taking on another series. I always liked those characters, though, and under the right circumstances, it would be fun to revisit them. I’d have to have time, too, because I have a couple projects of my own that are moving along at a dreadfully slow pace. I have the first issue of a new series sitting here that is completely drawn, colored and lettered, but no one’s going to see a page of it until I’m certain it can come out regularly, and there are a lot of other factors involved in making that happen. My absolute first priority is Image Comics and whatever creative work I do comes well behind that.

Parkin: Looking at 2012, it’s the 20th anniversary of Image, and you’ve announced several new projects by big-name creators (like Fatale and Saga), as well as the Image Expo in Oakland this spring. What else does Image have planned to celebrate the big anniversary?

Stephenson: Our primary focus over 2012 is to publish great new comics. We got a little lucky in that we have some outstanding work by some truly brilliant writers and artists on tap for our anniversary, and I think that’s the best way to celebrate 20 years of creativity. We hit the ground running this week with Ed and Sean’s Fatale #1 and we’re just going to keep going from there. Every single one of our 2012 books is going to be worth watching.

We have a couple of fun retrospective things we’re doing–there’s going to be a series of tribute cover variants by a single artist. I know some people groan at the merest mention of variants, but these are done out of fun and they’ll make a nice little set when they’re all out. There will be a couple other things like that, but really, we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary by being at our all-time best.

Parkin: Do you have specific goals set out for Image to achieve in 2012? What do you think will be the biggest challenges for Image in 2012?

Stephenson: I think the biggest challenge is pretty much the same as it’s been the last few years, because I think we all know there are segments of this industry that take almost a strange kind of pride in complacency. There’s a growing aversion to new ideas that I find really puzzling, because this entire business was built on new ideas. It’s self-sabotaging, and it gets a bit depressing, really, because it reduces this business to… Have you seen Midnight In Paris? Owen Wilson’s character in that, he’s writing this novel about a guy who owns a nostalgia shop, a shop where people can kind of wallow in the ephemera of the past. If all we’re going to do as an industry or even as a readership is cling to the past, then that’s what the direct market will become: a dwindling handful of nostalgia shops catering to the narrow interests of a greying market that collects the same thing month in and month out, out of habit or misty-eyed sentimentality. Because that’s the crossroads we’re at: We can either move forward and support the kind of unbridled imagination that has fueled this industry since it began, or we keep rummaging about in the same old bag of tricks until it’s finally empty.

Savage Dragon #177

So that’s the challenge. And it’s a big challenge, but our goal at Image, going into 2012, is to remind everyone that creativity is the lifeblood of this industry. Creativity gave us Superman. It gave us Batman. It gave us The Spirit. The Fantastic Four. Spider-Man. Cerebus. Maus. Watchmen. Sandman. Sin City. Spawn. Savage Dragon. Hellboy. Bone. Stray Bullets. The Invisibles. Transmetropolitan. Y: The Last Man. The Walking Dead. Scott Pilgrim. The Umbrella Academy. Kick Ass. Every great success this industry has ever known is the result of creativity.

And creativity doesn’t come from playing it safe, and it doesn’t come out of nowhere. It starts with people, and over the course of the next year, Image Comics is going to shine a light on all the wonderful creative people we work with, because if creativity is the lifeblood of this industry, then creators are its heart. We’ve been behind the men and women who enrich our lives with the fruits of their imaginations for 20 years, and this year, it’s our mission to make that commitment clearer than ever.

Parkin: As far as projects go, we’ve heard about comics like Fatale, Saga and Thief of Thieves by big-name folks, but Image is also really good at finding unknown or new talent. Is there a particular project coming up in 2012 by someone we may not have heard about that has you particularly excited?

Stephenson: Yes.

Parkin: What’s the status of Image United?

Stephenson: Me sobbing uncontrollably in the bathtub? (laughs)

Seriously, it’s being worked on. Slower than we would all like, for sure, but it’s coming along. The unfortunate reality of the situation is that not finishing it sooner complicated things more than it should have. With six different artists all working on almost every page, once things started to run off the rails, we began running into scheduling conflicts that became more and more unavoidable. The good news–or the better than completely fucking terrible news, really–is that the fourth issue is very close to being finished. At this point, the goal is to complete the remaining three issues and release them monthly sometime in 2012.

Parkin: DC and Marvel seem to always be under the gun to produce books with female lead and/or female creators. How is Image doing on the female lead and female creators front?

Stephenson: That’s a tricky question, because there’s a very profound difference between Image and DC/Marvel and that’s that we don’t dictate who our creators are or what they do. If female creators don’t pitch projects to us, then we don’t have projects by female creators, and we don’t receive that many pitches from women. Blair Butler brought us Heart, though, and Emi Lenox did EmiTown here. Marian Churchland won a Russ Manning award for her graphic novel Beast, and she’s done some great work on Elephantmen. Half the staff here in the Image office are women.

Saga

You just noted that Witchblade recently hit #150–it’s the longest running independent comic with a female lead. Glory, Hack/Slash, Avengelyne and Shinku all feature female leads, and while I realize the politically incorrect satire of Bomb Queen may not be for everyone, the title character is definitely a woman. One of the biggest books we’re putting out this year is Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga, and one of the main characters in that is female. Alpha Girl seems pretty self-explanatory. Next month, we’re publishing more work by Emi, along with a new autobio book by Natalie Nourigat. Blair is putting together another project for us, and those are just the things I’m at liberty to discuss right now. Every now and then we’ll reach out to someone specific – I’d love it if we were working with Marjorie Liu, for instance, and getting Pia Guerra to do something here would be a dream come true, and the same goes for Chynna Clugston – but ultimately, it all comes down to when people are available and whether they actually have something they want to do.

Or to put it another way: If you’re a female writer or artist with an awesome creator-owned project you’d like to get off the ground, send me an email. Even if you’re just thinking about it and you have some questions about how Image works or whatever – send me an email. If I get eight killer proposals, then that’s eight new Image books by female talent. It’s that simple.

Parkin: Speaking of pitches, how many do you receive via email in a given week? And how many of the blind ones go on to become comics?

Stephenson: Dozens. I get dozens of proposals every week, but very few are accepted. In the 10 years I’ve been on staff at Image, I think we’ve accepted fewer than 10.

Parkin: On your personal blog, where you occasionally talk about Image and the industry and what not, you also spend a lot of time talking about music. As we move into the new year, what’s on your playlist right now?

Stephenson: You know, it’s a funny thing with my blog. When I first started it, I was really reluctant to focus too much on the industry or comics at all. I was mainly doing it for my own edification, just keeping a journal about things that caught my attention, but the comics stuff slowly crept in. It’s hard not to comment on certain things, whether it’s something I’m excited about or something that rubs me the wrong way. Usually, though, I’m waxing enthusiastic about the things I love, and a great deal of the time, that’s music. I’m pretty sure I would fade from existence without music, it’s such a vital part of my life.

Future of the Left: Polymers are Forever

Playlist-wise… I listen almost exclusively to vinyl at home, and I’m always on the hunt for more – I just picked up albums by Horace Silver, the Detroit Emeralds, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell, Fairport Convention, David Bowie and the Swingle Singers, and then there was that big Smiths box set with all the remastered albums. There’s just so much great music out there, and it’s fun to kind of connect the dots between different things.

Probably the thing I’ve been listening to most frequently over the last couple weeks, though, is this EP by Future of the Left called Polymers Are Forever. That made me go back to the band that Future of the Left grew out of, Mclusky, and start listening to those albums again, which I hadn’t done in quite a while. Both bands are so loud and angry, but not necessarily in the way you might expect. A good touchstone might be Big Black, or maybe Shellac. There’s a lot of dark humor to their lyrics and that always appeals to me. They have a full album coming fairly soon called The Plot Against Common Sense and I’m looking forward to that. I’ve really been enjoying this album by a guy called Jonathan Wilson, too. It’s called Gentle Spirit and it has a very Laurel Canyon in the early ’70s kind of vibe about it, if you know what I mean. I have the same sort of outlook to music that I have towards comics, or anything, really–I like discovering new stuff. Like everyone, I have my old favorites, but there’s nothing quite like the experience of coming across something new.

Life with Archie #16

Comics | CNN covers the upcoming wedding of Archie Comics’ Kevin Keller, who will get married to another man in Life with Archie #16. Keller was injured while serving in the military in Iraq and Clay Walker, his groom-to-be, was his physical therapist. “Riverdale is this picturesque vision of American life, and when you see yourself reflected in that, you have a role in even the most idealized version of the reality you live in,” said Matt Kane, associate director of entertainment media for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “That’s the difference between feeling like a rejected outsider and feeling like you’re a part of something.” [CNN]

Comics | Jim Caple worries that viewers of the Tintin movie won’t appreciate it the way he does, comparing old-school Tintin fans to old-school Boston Red Sox or Seattle Mariners fans: “That’s what I worry about. I worry there will be all these Tintin wannabes who only know the character from the movie, who don’t appreciate Herge’s genius, who don’t know what it was like to wait a month for the next 10-page installment or when you had to special order the few books made available in America. Fans who didn’t earn this movie.” [ESPN]

Creators | Kurt Busiek discusses his work on Dracula: The Company of Monsters, which returned from cancellation as a webcomic, as well as digital comics in general: “I’ve been interested in the possibilities of online distribution for a long time, and even pitched an idea for an online strip a decade or more ago, but my collaborators and I couldn’t afford to do it on our own back then, and we didn’t find any takers who wanted to back it. And there are stories I’d love to do online, and ways I’d like to try taking advantage of the online interface, instead of print, that I’m eager to try — but between deadlines on existing projects and my health issues, I haven’t been able to launch an online series yet.” [Biff Bam Pop!]

"Saga," from Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Creators | Fiona Staples talks with her local newspaper about her upcoming project with Brian K. Vaughan, the eagerly anticipated Image Comics series Saga. [Calgary Herald]

Creators | Sweets creator Kody Chamberlain gets the spotlight ahead of a book signing with Chew artist Rob Guillory. [The Times]

Creators | Here’s a heartwarming story for the holidays: A historian found some old comics about Saginaw, Michigan, in the local library and tracked down the artist, Vincent Faletti, whose work was published in The New Yorker and other magazines. It turns out that Faletti is alive and still cracking jokes at 95. [MLive.com]

Comics | The first issue of IDW’s Magic: The Gathering comic, originally scheduled to be released next week, has been pushed back to Feb. 1 due to “unforeseen printing challenges.” [ICv2]

Crime | Victoria, British Columbia, police have recovered a cache of stolen goods worth more than $10,000 — $8,500 of which was a comic book collection taken from an apartment storage locker. Police are returning the collection to its owner. [Victoria Times Colonist]

Fandom | Ology spotlights the marriage proposal of David Salomon, who proposed with a homemade take on an issue of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. “What is it about the gamers, the comic book Ologists, the sci-fi fans and the zombie slayers that makes them the kings and queens of romance?” [Ology]

Legal

Legal | Jury selection is set to begin today in Mount Clemens, Michigan, in the second trial of former retailer Michael George, charged with first-degree murder in the 1990 shooting death of his first wife Barbara in their Clinton Township comic store. George, 51, was convicted in 2008, but later that year a judge set aside the conviction, citing prosecutorial misconduct and the emergence of new evidence that might have resulted in a different verdict. [The Detroit News]

Retailing | Retailer Mike Sterling answers questions about DC’s relaunch, noting his store saw an uptick in sales before the relaunch: “In our case, comic sales have been increasing … slowly, but steadily. And judging by demand for the new Justice League #1 and the interest we’ve seen in DC’s next batch of first issues, we’re expecting a bit of a bump in sales over the next few weeks. Whether that bump sticks, even as a slight net gain after the initial excitement over the new launches peters out and we see what the sales levels on these titles will actually be, remains to be seen. But I’m optimistic. My fear was that our upward store sales trend may have been derailed by DC cancelling everything and starting again, alienating the readership we were building, but for the most part that doesn’t seem to be happening. But, you know, in six months or a year or so, we’ll know for sure.” [Progressive Ruin]

Retailing | Eric Levin, owner of Atlanta’s Criminal Records and co-founder of the Free Comic Book Day-inspired Record Store Day, may have to close his shop by Nov. 1. “We’ve been underwater ever since the economy became distressed,” he says. “We’ve been on a rescue mission for three years. I’m done paying for it by myself.” The store, which marked its 20th anniversary last month, does “above par” business selling CDs, records, comics, graphic novels and magazines. However, that hasn’t been enough to make up for the costs of moving to a larger space and hosting live music events, combined with the recession, a “miserable” holiday season and a market shift to digital music. Tom Spurgeon rounds up reactions from some publishers and cartoonists. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Dark Horse

Publishing | Officials in Milwaukie, Oregon, are negotiating with Dark Horse to move 20 of its 130 employees to the second floor of one of the company’s buildings in hopes of freeing valuable storefront real estate on Main Street to lease to retailers. [Oregon City News]

Creators | Brian K. Vaughan discusses his upcoming Image Comics sci-fi/fantasy series Saga. [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | J.H. Williams III talks about Batwoman, and the media firestorm surrounding the introduction of a lesbian Kate Kane in 2006: “The way DC announced the character way back when put people on their heels a little bit. There wasn’t any solid plan behind the character yet, so some took it as a publicity stunt—and it wasn’t at all. As people started to see there was potential for this character as a deep-rooted one you can believe in, some of that hubbub went away. She’s a legitimate character people can find things to relate with. We’re not being exploitative with her being a lesbian. We’re treating it as with any other character regardless of what their sexual orientation is—that’s a small part of who they are as a person. It’s not all about her being a lesbian and I think that’s made her a bit of a beacon for people to get behind the character instead of it being a publicity grab or something that doesn’t sit as a three-dimensional person.” [FrontiersLA, via J.H. Williams III]

Creators | Craig Thompson chats briefly about his new graphic novel Habibi. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | The works of Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are on display in Shanghai, China, as part of the traveling IllustraBrazil exhibition. [The Wall Street Journal]

Comics | Brendan Wright looks at last week’s Justice League #1 in the context of Grant Morrison and Howard Porter’s JLA #1 from 1996. [The Wright Opinion]

Saga

Three down, one to go … here’s a list of the major comics-related announcements made at Comic-Con International in San Diego on Saturday:

• A number of new projects were announced or promoted at Image’s Creator-Owned Comics panel, not the least of which is the return of Brian K. Vaughan to comic books. Vaughan will write a book called Saga, which is co-created and drawn by Fiona Staples. Vaughan told CBR that the book is “an epic drama chronicling the life and times of one young family fighting to survive a never-ending war. 100 percent creator-owned. Ongoing. Monthly. Fiona and I are banking issues now.”

• Image also announced that Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman is collaborating with Charlie Adlard on a new series of graphic novels called Album. The books will be released roughly 18 months apart, 60 pages long, with different themes each year, with the first being Passenger. It’s co-published with Delcourt in France and will be available simultaneously in English and France.

• Jonathan Hickman and Nicky Pitarra will team up for The Manhattan Projects at Image. Hickman is also doing a book called Secret with artist Ryan Godenheim.

• Joe Keatinge and Frank Cho are teaming for a new comic called Brutal. The book stars Stone, a mysterious super-assassin who kills superheroes.

• Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards will team up again for Golden Age, an ongoing comic about retired superheroes. Matthew Vaughn is attached to a film version adapting the first six issues. Ross is also working on a “reverse Superman” project called Home Life, about an Earth baby sent to another planet.

• Howard Chaykin’s Black Kiss will return to comics with a new miniseries at Image.

• Fantagraphics announced two major archival collections, the complete Zap Comics and the EC Comics Library.

Cable

• Marvel announced the return of Cable by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness. “Those of you that are longtime X-Men fans – who I have tremendous respect for – when I first started at Marvel back when they were on paper was Cable,” Loeb said at the Cup O’ Joe panel. “He is a character that I love, and like all of you was absolutely shocked and terrified when he went down in Messiah CompleX and the Second Coming storyline.”

• Marvel also announced that their “Point One” issues in November will be stand-alone entry points, but will also set the stage for the next major crossover event next year.

• At the Vertigo: Fables panel, Bill Willingham announced a new Fables spinoff, Fairest. The creative team for the first arc, which will feature Sleeping Beauty, will be Willingham and artist Phil Jimenez.

• Justice League writer Geoff Johns revealed that the League’s mystery lady is Lady Luck.

• The protest against DC’s upcoming relaunch drew very few actual protestors. ComicsAlliance reports only a dozen or so protestors, mostly dressed as the Joker and Harlequin, showed up.

• Legendary Comics announced two projects, a new edition of Paul Pope’s Pulp Hope and a new series by Matt Wagner, The Tower Chronicles.

• Marvel is developing a live-action Mockingbird television series for ABC Family.

• Top Cow chief Marc Silvestri teased a possible Darkness origin story movie.

• The Amazing Spider-Man‘s Rhys Ifans, who plays Dr. Curt Connors, was issued a citation backstage after some sort of incident. Police said it was a “non-custodial misdemeanor arrest.” The movie’s star, Andrew Garfield, popped up at the microphone in the crowd dressed in a store-bought Spider-Man costume.

• Twentieth Century Fox is developing an animated feature based on the Mutts comic strip by Patrick McDonnell.

• Capcom confirmed the characters that were accidentally leaked on one of their servers will indeed be playable characters on the upcoming Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 game. On the Marvel side, the list includes Iron Fist, Ghost Rider, Dr. Strange, Nova, Hawkeye and Rocket Raccoon. On the Capcom side, it includes Strider, Firebrand, Vergil, Frank West, Nemesis and Phoenix Wright.

• Speaking of Marvel vs. Capcom, Udon announced they will create a “book of design and production artwork, as well as all new art pieces” based on the game. They also announced artbooks for the Sengoku Basara game franchise, the Valkyria Chronicles 2 game, and Persona designer Shigenori Soejima. Udon will also publish a two-volume manga for Sengoku Basara.

Brian K. Vaughan

Writer Brian K. Vaughan has been added to an Image Comics panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego, igniting speculation that the acclaimed co-creator of Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina will announce a new title.

The news came Monday from Image Publisher Eric Stephenson, who revealed on his personal blog that Vaughan will be among the special guests on the “Creator-Owned Comics With Robert Kirkman” panel, scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday. “You’ll want to go to this panel,” Stephenson wrote. “Why? Well, we’ve roped Brian K. Vaughan into attending, along with some other great guests, so … yeah. Be there.”

It’s been nearly a year since the conclusion of Ex Machina at WildStorm, and more than three years since Y: The Last Man wrapped up its 60-issue run at Vertigo. Since then, there have been few clues as to what the Eisner Award-winning writer had planned next — a return to creator-owned comics or a continued focus on film and television projects. But this news certainly suggests we’ll be seeing a new book from Vaughan in the near future. As Ryan K. Lindsay writes, “Why else would BKV be there except to announce something new?”

Read the panel description after the break, and follow Robot 6 and Comic Book Resources for any developments on Saturday.

SATURDAY, JULY 23 – ROOM 7AB
3:00 – 4:00 PM CREATOR-OWNED COMICS WITH ROBERT KIRKMAN

Image Comics partner and best selling writer Robert Kirkman (THE WALKING DEAD) is joined by Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson and some very special guests to discuss the exciting present and future possibilities of creator-owned comics. Be one of the first to hear some major announcements from the leading publisher of creator-owned comics. Plus: exclusive print for first 100 attendees!

(via The Weekly Crisis)

Kirby: Genesis

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 a “Splurge” item.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting.

Chris Arrant

If I had $15 this week, I’d start it off by buying Kirby Genesis #0 (Dynamite, $1); I love the idea of world-building from older characters, and Jack Kirby left a treasure trove of ideas even he couldn’t get a handle on completely. I’m interested to see where Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross take this, and I hope with Busiek’s addition it can be more tantalizing than Project: Superpowers was. Second up, I would get the penultimate Secret Warriors #27 (Marvel, $2.99); when this series started I was an ardent reader, but it lost me along the way. For some work-related research I caught up with the series, and since the last Howling Commandos story it’s been going great; I hope Hickman can stick the landing. Third I would get Vertigo’s new anthology Strange Adventures #1 (DC/Vertigo, $7.99); a pricey experiment, but I’m in the mood to get blown away. Lastly would be FF #4 (Marvel, $2.99) – I’m really enjoying what Hickman and Epting have done in the new simply titled series.

If I had $30, I’d double back and get the floppy reprint of DC Comics Presents Green Lantern: Willworld (DC, $7.99); this is an awesome price for a underrated story, even if it’s Seth Fisher’s art carrying the weight. Second up would be Kieron Gillen and Terry Dodson’s Uncanny X-Men #537 (Marvel, $3.99); I still feel Gillen is trying to find himself in this story, but I love Dodson’s work and Gillen’s showing glimpses of the greatest I’ve known him for in other books. Lastly would be American Vampire #15 (DC/Vertigo, $2.99); like Secret Warriors I lost my way a couple issues into the series, but with the news Sean Murphy is doing a spin-off miniseries based on AmVamp I’m hurriedly catching up -– and I’ve not been disappointed.

For my splurge this week, I would pick up Anthology Project Vol. 2 ($29.95). I was impressed with the first volume, and this new tome looks to continue that.

Brigid Alverson

Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maiden

If I had $15…

I’d shop around a bit, because the book I want most this week is Kaoru Mori’s A Bride’s Story, and the list price is $16.99. Mori is the creator of Emma, the atmospheric if somewhat slow-moving story of the love between a maid and a wealthy man in 19th century England. This is another period piece, but it’s set in 19th-century Asia. Mori’s art is beautiful, and the story looks like something really different, so I’ll find a way to get this manga.

If I had $30…

The second manga on my list would be a toss-up between vol. 2 of Arisa, a clever school mystery by Kitchen Princess creator Natsumi Ando, and the first volume of Kannagi, a boy-meets-god comedy that created a bit of a stir in Japan when it was hinted that the heroine wasn’t a virgin. Having already been hooked by the storyline of Arisa, I’ll take that one and put Kannagi on my splurge list.

Splurge…

My big splurge of the week, though, would be Al Capp’s Complete Shmoo vol. 2, from Dark Horse, because there’s nothing I love more than a thick book of classic newspaper strips, and Al Capp is a creator I’d like to read more of.

Michael May

Secret Avengers

If I had $15, I’d grab a mitt full of single issues as usual. What makes the cut this week are Xombi #3 ($2.99), Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #3 ($3.99), Planet of the Apes #2 ($3.99), and Secret Avengers #13 ($3.99). Actually, “makes the cut” is insulting, so I don’t mean that. These are all awesome comics that I actively look forward to.

If I had $30, I’d put back Secret Avengers (trade-waiting) and add Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom ($17.99) because of Tom Strong. And robots. Of doom.

My splurge item for the week is a tougher pick. I’m very interested in Steve Niles and Berni Wrightson’s Doc Macabre hardcover ($17.99), but I’d also like to get Chaos War: Alpha Flight out of my comic boxes and onto my bookshelf. Chaos War: X-Men ($15.99) is the way to do that. And then there’s the Mystique by Brian K Vaughan Ultimate Collection ($24.99), which proves Vaughan’s awesomeness by turning Mystique into Xavier’s personal secret agent and making me give a damn about her (something that no one else has been able to do ever). All else being equal though, Doc Macabre is the only of those that I haven’t already read, so that’s where my money would go.

Graeme McMillan

GI Joe: Cobra #1

This is a really odd week – If I had $15, I’d end up spending a dollar on my most eagerly anticipated book (Dynamite’s Kirby: Genesis #0, which I admit I’ve already read), $3.99 on another debut I’ve managed to read early (GI Joe: Cobra #1 from IDW), and the rest on books I normally pick up quietly (Xombi #3 – DC, $2.99- and Dungeons and Dragons #7 – IDW, $3.99). It’s just one of those quiet weeks, I guess.

If I had $30, I just might put Cobra #1 back on the shelf – I’ve already read it, after all – and grab the Captain America: Man Out of Time Premiere HC (Marvel, $19.99), because I do like Mark Waid stuff, and have a soft spot for Steve Rogers, when he’s done well. What can I say? I love my adopted country.

Splurge-wise, I’m saving my money – Surprisingly, there’s nothing out there in the range of expensive books that I really find myself wanting this week. I’d worry that this means that I love comics just a little less than usual, but I fully expect next week to bankrupt me and then some, just to make up for things.

Chris Mautner

If I had $15:

I’d get one of two books out this week from NBM: either the latest Smurfs book, Vol. 6, the Smurfs and the Howlibird ($5.99) or Vol. 4 of the Dungeon Monstres series, Night of the Ladykiller. The Monstres series of the Dungeon saga focuses on various supporting members of the cast, in this case the vulture sorcerer Horus and the Grogro, the big, not too bright, hairy monster. The Monstres series is also notable for featuring art from little known (in the U.S. at any rate) cartoonists. This time out we get J-E. Vermot-Desroches and Yoann, about whom I know nothing, but I look forward to finding out more.

If I had $30:

Another tough decision. On the one hand there’s the new Yeah! book, collecting the short-lived all ages series that Peter Bagge and Gilbert Hernandez collaborated on, about an all-girl rock group that’s popular throughout the galaxy, but not at home ($18.99). On the other hand there’s Take a Joke!, the latest and arguable greatest (and also last) collection of material taken from Johnny Ryan’s finished-for-now series, Angry Youth Comix.

Splurge:

I’d get all of the above, and throw in Approximate Continuum Comics, a new English translation of Lewis Trondheim’s seminal autobiographical graphic novel, which finds the then-rising star at a bit of a crossroads as marriage, fatherhood and the chance to earn gobs of money selling out to the Japanese appears. It’s a great little book, sharp and witty, and a good place for Trondheim newbies to dive in.

Mike Zeck drawing Nick Fury sporting Gucci for UK fashion mag "Arena"

If you’ve been a comic fan for any length of time, you’ve come to appreciate the talent and skills of certain creators. Whether they be mainstream heavyweights to cult-favorite indie cartoonists, they’re a big draw for you as a reader — and someone whose work you’d buy, sight unseen, based on their previous work you’ve loved. But just like childhood friends and lovers, sometimes they disappear, and a small piece of you longs to see them again.

Without getting too sentimental, here’s a list of some comic creators I’ve grown to love over the years that have (unfortunately) dropped off the American comics scene by-and-large. If you know them, tell them I’d raid my bank account for new work by them!

Brian K. Vaughan: Arguably one of the 21st century’s most successful creator-owned comic creators outside of Robert Kirkman, Brian K. Vaughan worked through the ranks at Marvel and DC to do both great company-owned superheroes like Runaways and The Hood, and his own inventions. After signing on to the TV series Lost, Vaughan has slowly drifted away from comics with his last series Ex Machina ending last year. DC just put out a collection of his Batman work, but no new work has been formally announced. In Vaughan’s last major recent interview, the writer states that while he’s become embroiled in movies and television, he “craves comics.” Among several television and movie projects in the works, Vaughan says that he has new comics stuff “percolating in the background.”

Darko Macan: I came to know this Croatian writer’s work through Marvel’s under-rated Cable revamp series Soldier X with Igor Kordey. Macan did a handful of other work for Dark Horse’s Star Wars titles and DC’s Hellblazer, but largely dropped off the American scene in favor of European comics work. He’s become a big pillar of comics in his native Croatia with a slew of comics, books about comics, and acting as editor-in-chief of of the Q-Strip comics magazine. I wish someone would import and translate some of his books back to the States.

John Cassaday: John Cassaday was part of an informal trio of superstar artists that sprang out of Wildstorm in the late 90s and early 2000s to big success at Marvel. With Bryan Hitch and Frank Quitely, he became a go-to guy and someone closely associated with the Captain America character for years. But after the long-overdue conclusion of the Planetary series in 2010, Cassaday’s only work in comics has been covers on titles like Superman and Shadowland. Last spring I interviewed Cassaday about the end of Planetary over at Newsarama.com, where he said in addition to the cover work he’s doing he’s also writing a project of his own that has yet to be announced. He also directed one of the final episodes of the Dollhouse TV series and was attached as a director of his European series I am Legion at one point, so who knows where John will pop up next.

R. Kikuo Johnson: Cartoonist R. Kikuo Johnson burst onto the scene in 2006 with the Fantagraphics graphic novel Night Fisher. The East Coast-based artist followed that up with some smaller work in anthologies such as Marvel’s Strange Tales, but has yet to really hit the industry with a big project like his debut. The most recent place I saw his work as doing an illustration for The New Yorker on the TV series Boardwalk Empire.

Mike Zeck: In the 1980s, Mike Zeck became a go-to guy for Marvel with the artist drawing Secret Wars, Punisher and the epic “Kraven’s Last Hunt” storyline in the Spider-Man titles. Lately, Zeck has been the defacto comics ambassador in the world of licensing for both DC and Marvel, including style guides for the animated series Batman: The Brave & The Bold, licensing work for the upcoming Green Lantern movie and a Nick Fury illustration for the UK fashion mag Arena. A recent post on Zeck’s website gives this fan a racing heart at the idea of the artist returning to do a comic book focused on Captain America. Details are next to nil, but I’m reading between the lines the best I can.

Barry Windsor-Smith: BWS is many things to many people — the Conan artist, the guy who made Wolverine cool with the Weapon X storyline, or one of the top artist of Valiant Comics in the 90s. With the recent Wolverine movie owing much to his work, the comic industry seems primed for BWS to return on the scene in some capacity — but unfortunately, he hasn’t popped up. He has scores of announced but unreleased projects floating around, from a Thing graphic novel at Marvel to a 300-page tome called Monsters for Vertigo. DC reportedly even has a fully penciled BWS Superman story that’s been sitting on the shelve for 12 years.

Damion Scott: Damion Scott made a big impact in comics with his work on the DC series Batgirl in the early 2000s. He was one of the artists chosen to get an issue of the prestigious Solo series, becoming the youngest and newest of the pack and did a series based on the Teen Titans character Raven a few years back… but after that, he vanished. He popped his head up for a small 8 page story in Marvel’s 2009 Deadpool Team-Up #900 but nothing else has been seen. He’s reportedly moved to Japan and set-up an art studio. He’s one of those guys that if they came back to comics full-time would be a major force in the industry.

I could go on for hours and drop named like Khari Evans, Andrew Robinson and even Bill Watterson but instead I’ll stop here and ask you — who do you miss doing comics?

Superman

Legal | A federal judge has lifted the delay in the ferocious legal battle over the rights to Superman, allowing attorneys for Warner Bros. to proceed with deposition of the families of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright issued the stay last month while he considered an appeal on a procedural ruling, but on Tuesday he modified the order, permitting the studio to “proceed with full discovery of [heirs] Joanne Siegel, Laura Siegel Larson, Jean Peavy and Mark Peavy.” The depositions are expected to begin immediately. [THR, Esq.]

Retailing | Bookstores had their worst month of the year in September as sales slipped 7.7 percent, to $1.51 billion. [Publishers Weekly]

Piracy | Colleen Doran argues that it’s the middle-class artist, not the rich corporations, who are the real victims of digital piracy. [The Hill]

Crime | Houston police have arrested two people believed to be responsible for stealing thousands of dollars worth of comics from stores around the city. Bedrock City Comic Company was hit at least four times. [My Fox Houston]

The Tikitis

Publishing | Calvin Reid looks at the latest attempt by Humanoids to gain a foothold in the U.S. market. “Our approach has changed,” says Bob Silva, editor-in-chief of the new Humanoids U.S. Office. “We’re set up to be more efficient. We’ve learned a lot from the previous experiences here.” [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | Former Marvel editor Nate Cosby pulls back the curtain on superhero-comics solicitations: “Superhero comics have been an event culture for a long time. The big difference now, in my opinion, is that the companies lost patience with waiting for infrequent events to pad the bottom line, and decided to program them non-stop (the equivalent of putting nothing but Bruckheimer movies out every week of the year, instead of holding them for the summer and holidays). When the returns started diminishing, the companies tried going back to focusing on individual ongoing titles, but marketed each book as if they were all huge events (again, to pad the bottom line). This creates confusion in the marketplace. It’s easy math: Huge Event x Huge Marketing Push = Huge Sales Huge Marketing Push / 30 Mini-Events = So-So Sales & Lack Of Event Individuality” [NateCosBOOM]

X-Men #1

Publishing | John Jackson Miller compares sales of X-Men #1 — recognized by Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single comic book — to those of One Piece and finds that, well, they’re really difficult to compare: “I think the takeaway is that One Piece, as a tankouban, stands a good chance to be the international record-holder when it comes to bound-edition bookshelf comics (without undertaking an exhaustive survey of all European and Japanese comics, I can’t go farther than that), while X-Men Vol. 2, #1 very likely holds the worldwide title when it comes to periodical newsrack comics with staples.” [The Comichron]

Publishing | Marvel teamed with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media to produce an eight-page Spider-Man comic that spotlights job growth in the city. The comic, by Warren Simons and Todd Nauck, was distributed in Tuesday’s edition of the New York Daily News, is available as a free download using the Marvel App. Mayor Mike Bloomberg liked Phil Jimenez’s depiction of him on the cover so much that he’s adopted it as his Twitter profile picture. [New York Daily News, Marvel]

Creators | Paul Levitz talks about his return to writing, Taschen Books’ 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, and his tenure as president and publisher of DC. [Publishers Weekly]

Brian K. Vaughan

Creators | Brian K. Vaughan discusses the end of Ex Machina, the planned movie adaptations of Y: The Last Man and Runaways, and his television work: “… This is the first time in 10 years that I haven’t had some kind of major comic-book deadlines, so it’s been nice that my sellout television day job has afforded me the opportunity to sit back and decide what I really care about before having to write something just to keep the lights on.” [The A.V. Club]

Creators | Brian Heater kicks off a two-part interview with Roger Langridge. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Manga | Carl Horn and Kristy Valenti delve into one of my favorite series, Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki’s The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. [comiXology]

Comics | David Brothers recommends five comics for die-hard Harry Potter fans. [Moviefone]

Politics | TV’s Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, has swapped his tattered denim pants for a badge, joining an armed volunteer posse formed by controversial Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio to target smugglers and businesses in Maricopa County suspected of employing illegal immigrants. Update: Ferrigno’s wife Carla Ferrigno asserts that her husband wasn’t sworn in as a member of the posse and that his quotes were taken out of context. [Reuters, via Gawker]

Sleeper #1

After 18 years, former Image studio and current DC Comics imprint WildStorm is shutting down this December. And as many have noted already, the house that Jim built has produced many awesome, memorable and even game-changing (to steal a phrase from Rob Liefeld) works in the last two decades.

Here are six of them that we found to be particularly awesome; let us know what we missed in the comments section.

1. Sleeper: There have been many comics that mash up superheroes with down-and-dirty genres like crime and espionage over the past decade; this may just be the best. The high concept is a gripping one: Super-spy Holden Carver is so deep undercover in an international super-criminal organization that when his one contact is placed in a coma, literally no one knows he’s secretly on the side of the angels. Carver’s predicament, the way he plays and gets played by both sides, his growing unwillingness or inability to draw the ethical lines needed to save his soul, if not his life–such is the stuff of a great crime drama. Superstar in the making Ed Brubaker brings all his talents and obsessions to the table here: his knack for crafting morally compromised characters while neither romanticizing their misdeeds nor softening them up, his recurring theme of how the secrets and sins of our pasts never truly leave us, his belief that damaged people seek out other damaged people to repair that damage, his eye for and ability to work with strong visual stylists. In this case that meant Sean Phillips, never better in his ability to believably root spectacular action and super-powers in a naturalist-noir milieu. All of this in a WildC.A.T.s spinoff, proving just how wild WildStorm was once willing to go.

Even its relatively short run redounds to its benefit: The complete story of Holden Carver is yours to own inexpensively, read easily, and ponder at your leisure. (Sean T. Collins)

2. Astro City: For 15 years, and despite all manner of extracurricular difficulties, Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, Will Blyberg, Alex Sinclair, and Alex Ross (not to mention the good folks at Comicraft) have produced one of the greatest odes to superheroes ever committed to paper. On its face, Astro City may look like a mash-up of the DC and Marvel universes – a place where the truly-super Samaritan can rub elbows with the fantastic First Family – but like the decades of superhero stories it evokes, it’s not quite that simple. See, everyone in Astro City has a tale to tell, whether it involves horror or crime, romance or even funny animals. It’s Exhibit A for folks who believe that superheroes can be used to relate all kinds of stories. Sure, there are the requisite number of cosmic calamities, villainous capers, and existential threats to civilization, but they’re not really the point. Whether they’re about teenage sidekicks, time-lost crusaders, or a man robbed of love by a literal twist of fate, the best Astro City stories make those very personal connections in a way that makes the reader feel like part of the place’s history. You come to Astro City for the pastiche, but you stay for the people. (Tom Bondurant)

The Authority

3. & 4. Planetary/Authority: All right, I’m going to cheat here a little bit and talk about two titles at once. And while the Authority certainly had life afterward, especially when Mark Millar and Frank Quitely got their hands on them, for the purpose of this exercise I’m going to be talking about the first 12 issues, by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch. Spinning out of his work on Stormwatch, Ellis and Hitch assembled a team of ultra-powerful, bad ass heroes, The Authority, who promised to make the world a better place by any means necessary. Around the same time, Ellis and artist John Cassaday created Planetary,which focused on three super-powered individuals aimed at discovering the secret history of the WildStorm universe — a history shaped by everyone from Sherlock Holmes, the Lone Ranger and Count Dracula to an evil version of the Fantastic Four.

Both of these books debuted in 1999, right before the turn of the century, a time of anxiety and uncertainty in the world at large. The comic industry itself had survived the 1990s, the speculation fallout and, let’s face it … it really just needed someone to light a fire, someone who was willing to push storytelling forward into the new century. Both of these comics did that; while Planetary did it by challenging the notions of the past and everything we know about fictional characters, Authority did it by defining “widescreen” comics, with bold plots and concepts, and a grand visual style. They changed a lot of notions people had about comics and set a high bar for the medium in this century. (JK Parkin)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

5. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Anyone could have had the idea for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It’s such a simple concept: The Justice League of America for Victorian literature. But it wasn’t just anyone, it was Alan Moore. That meant that it included not just main characters like Mina Murray and Captain Nemo, but also cameo and guest appearances by John Carter of Mars, Fu Manchu, and obscure folk like Inspector Donovan and Miss Coote. It wasn’t just a nineteenth century JLA, it was a bona fide and thorough exploration of the Wold Newton Universe. It was also the flagship for an entire imprint-within-an-imprint at WildStorm. Though relations were still unpleasant between DC and Alan Moore, WildStorm was able to serve as a buffer for a while and America’s Best Comics lived up to its name, publishing such awesomeness as Tom Strong, Top 10, and Promethea. (Michael May)

6. Ex Machina: I still remember the day I bought this at the local comic shop. One of the employees and I, both being fans of Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man, had been eagerly awaiting it for months. He handed me my weekly stash, which had Ex Machina on top, and said, “Wait until you read the last page.” Vaughan and artist Tony Harris went where I never expected them to on that last page, just as they did in every subsequent issue. Was this a superhero title? Sometimes I forgot, because it was the characters, politics and philosophical/moral debates that were featured in every issue that really connected me to the work. Although I lament the end of the title and the imprint that spawned it, it is somewhat fitting that it’s one of the last exclamation marks WildStorm will leave in the comics world. (JK Parkin)

Brightest Day #7 (August's top-selling comic)

Retailing | Laura Hudson surveys a handful of retailers about what part higher cover prices may have played in August’s plummeting comics sales. “This summer has underperformed, and I think [the $3.99 price point] is a big part of it,” says Chris Rosa of Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles, “but also I think the lack of an event and the fact that the big books at both [companies] are extended denouements to events. There’s nothing really inspiring people to run out to the stores. People are tired of buying four Avengers titles at $3.99 a pop.” [Comics Alliance]

Publishing | Tom Mason looks at the return of Atlas Comics: “If you were 13 years-old in 1975 when the original books were out, you’d be 48 today. In other words, the age of the average direct market fanboy. But in order for these new books to succeed, they’d have to appeal beyond nostalgia because with most Marvel and DC comics at $4.00 a pop, you’ve got to have something special and excellent to lure some of those buyers into your own circus tent.” [Comix 411]

Retailing | Johanna Draper Carlson offers advice for aspiring comics retailers. [Comics Worth Reading]

Detective Comics #871

Creators | Scott Snyder discusses American Vampire and his upcoming run on Detective Comics in an interview from Comic-Con International: “… I want it to be back to basics and have it be anchored in Gotham. Batman solving mysteries as the greatest detective in the world. I wanted it to be street level crime, a couple new villains that are a little bit above the sidewalk level, but at the same time, it’s going to focus on Batman solving crime in Gotham using new tech. It will be old fashioned in terms of its format, but high tech in terms of his gadgets for a new twist.” [AICN]

Creators | Alex Deuben interviews Dame Darcy and Dan Goldman. [Suicide Girls]

Creators | Gerard Way talks briefly about The Umbrella Academy. [The Star]

Tintin

Comics | Claudia Massie details why she loves Hergé: “The visual style of the Tintin books is one that looks enormously simple: it is rather muted in colour; the black lines are neat and constant. The predominant tones are those of the up-market paint company Farrow & Ball and dominated by gentle browns, yellows, blues and greens. Most frames restrict their colour spectrum to just two or three different tones and. unlike some other comic styles, much importance is given to empty space, meaning Hergé is happy to offer a blank sky or wall as a backdrop to a small detail of action or expression. Not for Tintin the graphic pyrotechnics of Marvel Comics; our Belgian boy hero operates against a tranquil canvas of meticulous order.” [The Spectator]

Comics | Author David Lipsky sings the praises of Runaways, Vol. 1, by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona: “… I bear the books a grudge. Marvel collected them — because their biggest fans were female teenagers — in tiny digests with girlish covers that were intensely embarrassing to read on the subway. I kept locking eyes with people I could swear had just shaken their heads. And, alright, I fell a little in love with one of the female leads: the great flying beauty Karolina Dean. Who turned out to be gay. A hardship I’d steered clear of in real life, and there I was stumbling into it in a damned graphic novel (OK, comic book). Runaways — while a consistently brilliant reading experience — has been an embarrassment festival. Way beyond a guilty pleasure. It has been a fount of guilt, awkwardness and grave personal doubts. Which is to say, it turned me teenaged again.” [NPR]

Back in 2004, James Sime of the San Francisco-based comic shop Isotope Comics teamed up with Ex Machina’s Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris for a voter registration drive where they gave away free copies of the comic and, of course, encouraged people to register to vote for that year’s election. They followed that up with an Election Day party in November, where they gave away an Ex Machina “virtual Criterion Collection styled DVD extras disc, autographed by the creators and jam-packed full of goodness,” Sime said.

Teaming up with Darren and Michelle Murata, co-founders of San Francisco’s celebrated Technology Think Tank & Digital Design Bureau ComradeAgency.com we made something truly beautiful. Packed with pages upon pages of Brian’s never before seen scripts and Tony’s production artwork from start to finish, thisDeconstructing the Machine disc took viewers on a personal tour behind the wizard’s curtain in a way nothing else ever had before. And we gave them away for free to each and every person who attended our event. And also to 100 lucky fans across the nation.

With Ex Machina‘s last issue hitting stores today, Sime has taken the contents of the DVD and put them on his website. It includes interviews with the creators, behind-the-scenes tours of Jolly Rogers Studios, production artwork and lots more. Check out the site here.

Afrodisiac cover

Welcome once again to What Are You Reading? Our guest this week is Van Jensen, writer of Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and the Great Puppet Theater. To see what Van and the rest of the Robot 6 crew are reading, click below.

*****

Sean T. Collins

Ex Machina

I burned my way through a minicomic and a couple of lengthy runs this week. Click the links for reviews:

Ex Machina Vols. 1-9 by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris: Ambition trumps awkwardness in this slow-burning superhero tragedy.

Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka by Naoki Urasawa: Nakedly emotional science fiction from Japan’s grandmaster. The ending doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the early going, but that’s almost beside the point.

Studio Visit by James McShane: A portrait of the artist as an artist. A slight but solid minicomic.

Michael May

I finished the Adventures of Red Sonja reprints with Volume 3. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this volume as much as the other two. The Marvel series took a nasty dip around issue 8 that lasted through issue 13. It was this too-long saga that involved crazy – even by Hyperborian standards – sorcery and a nonsensical quest through goofy settings for generic fantasy items that are always proclaimed to be vital at the time, but are discarded as irrelevant in the following issue. It’s taxing to read. The reason that sorcery works in the REH stories is that Conan hates it and avoids it when possible, so it’s used very sparingly. Claire Noto and Roy Thomas over-indulged themselves for six issues and it’s no wonder that the series was canceled two issues after that. Which was kind of a shame, because those last two issues got back to Sonja’s wandering mercenary concept and were a lot of fun.

Even more fun though was my re-reading the first Atomic Robo volume. I will never ever get tired of “I just used my violence on them.”

I also checked out the first issue of Joe the Barbarian, which I picked up for free at C2E2. I was pretty sure I wanted to get the collected volume when it comes out, but now I’m positive. Sean Murphy’s art is awesome and Morrison’s set-up is much less like Life on Mars than I feared it would be.

Chris Mautner

Garo Manga: The First Decade, 1964-1973

Jog was kind enough to loan me the new catalog for the Garo Manga: The First Decade, 1964-1973, now on exhibit at the Center for Book Arts in New York City. For those who don’t know, Garo was the leading alternative manga anthology for decades, highlighting works by singular, idiosyncratic artists like Yoshihiro Tatsumi. A lot of Westerners (alright, just me) tend to compare the series to Zap or some other alt-comic equivalent, but curator and catalog author Ryan Holmberg argues that is completely not the case.

Holmberg’s main thrust of his essay is that Garo, at least in its early days, was driven by an interest in left-wing politics and social change much more than any sort of interest in alternate forms of visual expression in manga. Co-creator Sanpei Shirato was much more interested in giving readers (especially young readers) an antiwar, pro-democracy, pro-working class point of view via his classic series, The Legend of Kamuy, than in making any sort of attempt at avant-garde self-expression or testing the limits of the medium. In fact, he argues, many of the contributors during this period were attempting to come to terms with the still relatively new, post-war Japan and underscore a distrust with the new, modern world and their role in it, especially when it comes to sexual relations.

Holmberg’s essay is succinct and revelatory. He provides a knowledge and perspective about not only Garo, but Japan itself, that is severely lacking among most manga critics these days (myself included). His thoughts on Yoshiharu Tsuge’s work, particularly “Screw Style” is nothing short of fascinating (I would have never made the connection between the war dead had he not pointed it out). As Jog put it, the thing it really underscores is that we need more critics who can actually read Japanese.

If you’re interested at all in manga or good criticism in general, I urge you to go online and buy a copy ($20), as I likely will once I return this copy to its rightful owner. It’s one of the best critical pieces I’ve read all year and I can easily see myself using it as a reference again and again.

You can read more of Holmberg’s thoughts on the subject here.

Brigid Alverson

Smile

I’m going to be interviewing Raina Telgemeier onstage at the American Library Association annual meeting next weekend, so I re-read Smile this week in preparation. The first time I read it, I was absorbed in the story and the atmosphere of it; this time I could pull back a bit and look at how she does it. Telgemeier interweaves the story of her dental problems with a narrative of growing up in a happy, middle-class family; there are no earth-shattering events (except for the San Francisco earthquake, and that’s only earth-shattering in the literal sense). The thing that sticks out for me is that Raina really remembers what it feels like to be a middle-schooler. She notes the little awkward and ambiguous moments that might be glossed over by an adult writing for kids. I’m really glad to have read it again. Also, I went over some of Raina’s earlier work and was reminded of this wonderful little webcomic, Beginnings, and how in three pages Raina sketches a whole family and brings her main character to an epiphany—about comic books, no less.

Tim O’Shea

My pal Dugan Trodglen was kind enough to give me a copy of The Comics Journal 293. I really wanted to read it as it had an interview with S. Clay Wilson from 2008 prior to his November 2008 severe brain injury. It’s a fascinating interview and painful juxtaposition to the recent update that his companion Lorraine Chamberlain provided (thanks to Tom Spurgeon for making me aware of it). Consider this observation from Chamberlain:

“I have put together a Special Needs Trust for him, since he is no longer capable of earning a living. He receives Social Security and Disability benefits which barely cover expenses. This Trust gives him a little security for his future needs, although it is not growing very quickly. This gifted artist who has worked as hard as he partied is now in need of everyone’s generous help. He is still capable of worrying about the future even though he does not fully understand what has happened to alter it.”

Please read the Wilson update and consider donating to the Trust.

Marvel has finally gotten the right team to do a Black Cat miniseries. Unlike some artists who have drawn the character as damn close to a porn star (really some of the folks that drew Black Cat seemed to forget she was supposed to be a cat burglar…). But fortunately Javier Pulido is perfectly suited to convey the acrobatic nature of the character. In the first issue (in a four-part miniseries) writer Jen Van Meter gives folks a dash of Spider-Man and a healthy supporting cast.

Van Jensen

For the most part, I’ve been trying to find time to read everything I picked up at HeroesCon. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but the hardcover Afrodisiac collection earns that nod. I’m a big fan of blaxploitation films, and Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca take that framework and inject their overabundant creativity and energy. The humor shines through in the dialogue and bizarre situations, Rugg draws the finest ladies this side of Rob Ullman and the packaging is ridiculous. Every page reveals how much thought and love went into the book.

Midnight Sun

I also picked up the historical fiction one-two punch of Ben Towle’s Midnight Sun and Chris Schweizer’s Crogan’s March. Both books are smart, informative and enjoyable yarns. Schweizer, in addition to growing a hell of a mustache, is one of the most talented artists with a brush and ink. He’s also one of the greats when it comes to character design.

Heroes was a stellar show for mini comics as well. Dustin Harbin’s newsprint Enquirer was the steal of the show at a dollar apiece, even if the stories are online for free. Brad McGinty’s two new minis are hilarious (of course), as is Josh Latta’s latest, A Rabbit in King Arthur’s Court. Then I had to pick up everything Joseph Lambert brought down from Vermont. That dude is insane. I always come away from his work jealous of both the skill he exhibits and the uniqueness of his stories. I really recommend Food/Fall and Turtle, Keep It Steady!, but you honestly can’t go wrong.

I also just finally got through the December 2010 issue of Fierro, an Argentinian comics anthology that I picked up on a trip to Buenos Aires. Argentina has an amazing tradition of cartoonists, but it has a lot of new talent as well. I’d wager we’ll start to hear more from the country in the coming years. And it’s not comics, but the novel The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman is an amazing book, especially for a former newspaper guy like myself.

Brian K. Vaughan

With news breaking that Brian K. Vaughan was leaving überhit television series Lost, Robot 6 contacted the multiple Eisner Award-winning writer to ask one question: “Why?”

In an email response tagged with the subject, “My only official statement,” Vaughan said simply: “I can confirm that I left Lost to become best friends with Olivia Munn.”

He then linked back to an item posted this morning by Munn, co-host of G4’s Attack of the Show!

In the piece, Munn revealed that Lost show-runner Damon Lindelof publicly stated Vaughan had left the show for “greener pastures.” Lindelof made the announcement during a DocArzt Lost podcast posted on July 4.

In the piece, Munn shared that Lost show-runner Damon Lindelof publicly stated Vaughan had left the show for “greener pastures” during a Q&A session presented by Curzon Cinemas on July 3.

DocArzt & Friends Lost Blog posted the transcript the following day.

Munn goes on to theorize that the move might have been made so Vaughan can begin work on one of his movie projects that are in various stages of development: Ex Machina at BenderSpink, Y: The Last Man at New Line/Warner Bros. and his King Arthur movie Roundtable at Dreamworks.

Update: Corrected the source.