comic conventions
Lucasfilm and Nerdist team for lightsaber relay before Comic-Con
George Lucas is partnering with Nerdist Industries for “Course of the Force,” a 136-mile lightsaber relay beginning July 7 in Santa Monica and ending July 11 at Comic-Con International in San Diego to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. It will be officially announced tonight on NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.
The brainchild of Nerdist’s Peter Levin and Chris Hardwick, Variety reports the Star Wars-themed event will feature 500 participants walking or running quarter-mile legs, passing a Lucasfilm-produced “Course of the Force” lightsaber rather than the traditional torch or baton. Octagon and Machinima are co-producing the relay.
Participants are encouraged to come dressed in their best Star Wars or pop culture-themed running gear — Drew Carey and Jim Gaffigan have already committed to wearing costumes — for a chance to win prizes along the route. The conclusion of the relay in San Diego in the hours before Comic-Con’s Preview Night will be marked by a party and live podcast at the Balboa Theater.
All proceeds, generated through sponsorships, will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation. For more information, or to register for the relay, visit the “Course of the Force” website.
- February 9, 2012 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Neil Gaiman comments on end of Spawn dispute
Spawn #26
Legal | Neil Gaiman comments briefly on the settlement agreement that ends his decade-long legal dispute with Todd McFarlane over Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cogliostro, and a handful of derivative characters: “The main thing is, I feel like an awful lot of good things have come out of it. … I think the various decisions, particularly the [Judge] Posner decision, were huge in terms of what the nature of dual copyright in comics is. What is copyrightable in comics is now something that there is a definite legal precedent for. There were a lot of things that were … misty in copyright [law] that are now much clearer. And it’s of benefit to the creator.”
While the details of the settlement are confidential, it’s known that Gaiman and McFarlane now share ownership of Spawn #9 and #26, as well as the first three issues of an Angela spin-off series. [Comic Riffs]
- January 31, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Guy Delisle, Jim Woodring win Angoulême honors
Jerusalem
Awards | The gold medal for Best Graphic Album at the Angoulême International Comics Festival went to Guy Delisle for Jerusalem, and the jury awarded a Special Prize to Jim Woodring for his Congress of the Animals. Veteran French creator Jean-Claude Denis was awarded the Grand Prix de la ville d’Angoulême, so he will preside over next year’s festival, as Art Spiegelman did this year. Two manga won awards as well: Kaoru Mori’s A Bride’s Story won the Intergenerational Award, and Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s autobiographical A Drifting Life received the World Outlook Award. The Heritage Award went to Glenat’s edition of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck. [Paris Match]
Conventions | New Orleans Comic Con, held over the weekend, receives plenty of coverage, with spotlights on Stan Lee’s panel, aspiring creators and cosplayers. [Reuters, The Times-Picayune]
- January 30, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | San Diego Convention Center plan advances
San Diego Convention Center
Conventions | San Diego City Council on Tuesday approved the basic funding plan for the proposed $500 million expansion of the San Diego Convention Center, home to Comic-Con International. At the center of the financing scheme is an assessment district that adds between between 1 cents and 3 cents per dollar to room taxes of 224 hotels with more than 30 rooms. Those hotels closest to the convention center would be assessed an extra 3 cents per dollar, and those farthest away could be charged an extra penny per dollar.
The expansion plan has a ticking clock, as Comic-Con has signed a deal to remain in San Diego through 2015, but larger venues in Las Vegas and Anaheim have been lobbying organizers to look elsewhere. [NBC San Diego]
- January 25, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Toronto Comic Arts Festival announces 2012 lineup
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, one of the high points of the indy comics year, has announced the first round of guests for this year. It doesn’t seem to be up on the TCAF site just yet, but Tom Spurgeon has the rundown at The Comics Reporter, and it’s an impressive list: Jeff Smith, Alison Bechdel, Guy Delisle, and Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon are the headliners. Smith will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Bone, while Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? and Delisle’s Jerusalem are both due out shortly before the show.
But wait! There’s more! Kate Beaton, German creator Arne Bellstorf, Scottish creator Tom Gauld (whose Goliath is due out soon from Drawn and Quarterly) Gabriella Giandelli, Jennifer and Matt Holm (Babymouse), Jason, Kazu Kibuishi (creator of Amulet and editor of the Flight anthologies), Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim), Gary Panter, Michel Rabagliati, Andy Runton (Owly), Olivier Schrauwen, and Adam Warren (Empowered) will also be gracing the halls of the Toronto Reference Library this May. That’s an amazingly eclectic and talented group. If you have been thinking “Some day I’ll make it to TCAF,” this should probably be the year.
- January 23, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Pre-registration opens for Comic-Con International
Comic-Con International has opened pre-registration for those hoping to attend the July 12-15 convention. That’s right, pre-registration.
Seeking to ease the online process for purchasing badges, organizers this year are requiring prospective attendees to sign up for a free Comic-Con Member ID that they will use to log into the system once registration actually opens.
Having a Member ID doesn’t ensure your entry into Comic-Con; anyone with a valid and unique email address can get one. However, everyone — attendee, volunteer, professional or press — who intends to purchase or apply for a convention badge must first have a Member ID.
More information can be found on the Comic-Con website. You can sign up for a Member ID here; the video below will walk you through the process.
- January 11, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Watch amazing time-lapse video of crowd control at Comiket
Crowd control at comic conventions can be generally, if not creatively, described as “organized chaos” — emphasis more often that not on the latter — as thousands of fans determined to lay their hands on that special sketch, autograph or issue are poured into narrow entry points like so many grains of sand in an hourglass.
If you’ve attended Comic-Con International or New York Comic Con, or even read the tweets, blog entries and forum posts from those who have, what a delicate, frustrating and, yes, frequently sweaty and smelly dance that crowd flow can be, with one untied shoe, inconsiderate mid-aisle conversation or loud protest over access botching the choreography and sending everything into a horrible, grumbling snarl.
But at Tokyo’s Comiket, the world’s largest self-published comics fair, organizers have transformed crowd control into an artform.
- January 6, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Adi Granov covers the Emerald City Comicon’s Monsters & Dames charity book
The Emerald City Comicon has released the cover for the 2012 edition of their annual Monsters & Dames art book. Marvel cover artist Adi Granov provided the cover, seen above.
The 80-page book is limited to 1,150 copies and proceeds go to the Seattle Children’s Hospital. “We’ve created not only a unique collectible that spotlights our show’s amazing and diverse roster of artists, animators and illustrators,” said ECCC Convention Director Jim Demonakos in a press release, “but also something that allows us to give back to our local community by raising thousands of dollars each year for Seattle Children’s Hospital. It’s pretty special.”
The 2012 edition features contributions from Bill Sienkiewicz, Camilla D’Erricco, Louie Del Carmen, Kevin Nowlan, Tony Moore, Bruce Timm, Katie Cook, Francis Manapul & Agnes Garbowska, Mikeatron!, Scott Morse, Phil Noto, Mike Allred, Paul Guinan, Brandon Graham, Daniel Davis, Lar DeSouza, Marcus To, David Petersen, Moritat, Tony Parker, Dustin Nguyen, Jeremy Haun, Nat Jones and more. Several artists have posted their contributions online, including Ron Chan, Corey Lewis, Tom Fowler, Aaron McConnell and Randy Kintz.
- January 3, 2012 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | St. Trinian’s cartoonist Ronald Searle passes away
Ronald Searle
Passings | British cartoonist Ronald Searle, best known as the creator of the fictional St. Trinian’s School, passed away Friday at a hospital near his home in southeastern France. He was 91. His spiky drawings of the wicked pupils of the girls school debuted in 1941 in Lilliput magazine, leading to five books and seven films. Searle, a Cambridge native, also co-authored (with Geoffrey Willans) the Molesworth book series. [Reuters]
Conventions | Four-day passes for New York Comic Con go on sale for $85 today at noon ET/9 a.m. PT. The event will be held Oct. 11-14 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. [press release]
Conventions | Comiket, the world’s largest self-published comic book fair, drew a total of 500,000 people for its winter convention, held Thursday through Saturday at the Tokyo Big Sight in Japan. Held twice a year, in August and December, the event doesn’t use turnstiles or unique passes, so a visitor who attends all three days would be counted each time. [Anime News Network]
- January 3, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | More on Stuck in the Middle library challenge
Stuck in the Middle
Libraries | An editorial in the Lewiston, Maine, newspaper praises a local school board’s decision last week to leave the 2007 comics anthology Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age in the Buckfield Junior-Senior High School library following a parent’s complaints about “objectionable sexual and language references”: “American culture can be graphically sexual and explicitly foul and it’s important that young people learn how to navigate that world in a responsible way. The best possible way, of course, is for parents to steer their children through that process, but not every parent does and many children are left adrift. So, the next-better place to learn is the school library, where a responsible adult can help educate children about their hormone-charged emerging feelings in a confusingly sensual culture.” [Sun Journal]
Business | Wizard magazine founder Gareb Shamus, who resigned earlier this month as president and chief executive officer of Wizard World Inc., will sell most of his shares in the company to his successor, who’s expected to be named next month. [Bleeding Cool]
- December 19, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Wizard tries to ‘reach out’; Image Expo adds creators
Wizard
Conventions | Wizard’s executive chairman Mike Mathews tells Heidi MacDonald that after the resignation of former CEO Gareb Shamus, the company wants to be “a Switzerland of entertainment” and mend fences with members of the industry: “Gareb is one of these types of personalities who has taken strong positions over the years with various people in the industry and brands. And that kind of hurt us because of where we are trying to go — we’re trying to be a Switzerland of entertainment and we want to try to try to reach out to brands.” MacDonald notes the company is offering a $100 credit toward Wizard conventions to former Wizard subscribers whose subscriptions abruptly ended when the magazine was shut down. A new CEO is expected to be named early next month. [The Beat]
Conventions | Image Comics announced several more guests for the Image Expo, scheduled for Feb. 24-26 in Oakland, California. The lineup now includes Blair Butler, John Layman, Rob Guillory, Nick Spencer, Joshua Fialkov, Joe Keatinge, Jim McCann and Jim Zubkavich, among many others. [press release]
Organizations | The Associação da Luta Contra o Cancer is running an awareness campaign in Mozambique featuring images drawn by artist Maisa Chaves of Wonder Woman, Catwoman, She-Hulk and Storm checking their breasts for lumps. [Daily Mail]
- December 16, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
The only con that matters*: Thoughts on BCGF 2011
Frank Santoro, Dan Nadel, and Dash Shaw with the book of the hour, Kramers Ergot 8
I bought many, many books at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival this past Saturday; I won’t be showing them to you in this report. This is because I’m actually, actively embarrassed by just how big my haul really was. I spent so much money at this show that I’m ashamed to even obliquely reveal it. Eighteen years from now, when I’m complaining about the cost of sending my daughter to college, the last thing I need is for her to dig through the Robot 6 archives, find my BCGF 2011 haul, and say “Oh really?”
But whatever it means for my finances, the surfeit of compelling new comics at BCGF can only mean great things for the show. As I told nearly everyone I encountered there — and I encountered more friendly critics and creators here than at any other show I can think of, often in marathon back-to-back-to-back meet-and-greet encounters that would slowly choke off an aisle as more and more people stopped to say hello — BCGF is my favorite comics show, hands down. I’d go so far as to say that it’s the best comics show, in fact, in that its relentless, carefully curated focus on the cutting edge gives it a sense of cohesion, purpose, and excitement that’s all but unmatched.
- December 9, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Comics A.M. | Angoulême Official Selections; cartoonist suspended
Angoulême International Comics Festival
Conventions | The Angoulême International Comics Festival has announced the Official Selections for the 2012 festival, which will be held Jan. 26-29 in Angoulême, France. Eddie Campbell’s Alec, Craig Thompson’s Habibi and Daniel Clowes’ Mister Wonderful are among the almost 60 graphic novels on the list. [Angoulême]
Editorial cartoons | The Columbus Dispatch suspended political cartoonist Jeff Stahler after finding that his Monday cartoon was too similar to a New Yorker cartoon published in 2009. At The Daily Cartoonist, Alan Gardner posts several of Stahler’s cartoons alongside earlier pieces with similar punchlines. While one can debate whether Stahler lifted his ideas from the older cartoons, it’s obvious that he drew them in his own style, unlike David Simpson, who was recently accused of copying Jeff McNally’s cartoons. [Comic Riffs]
Crime | Several pieces of original artwork, among other items, were stolen from the car of AdHouse Publisher Chris Pitzer while he was in New York City last weekend for the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. Pitzer is offering a reward for any information leading to the recovery of the artwork. [AdHouse]
- December 7, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
A quick Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival photo diary
The main entrance to the Festival
Photo time once again! I had a marvelous time this past Saturday at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival and thought I’d share some pictures I snapped of the proceedings during my brief time there. Click on the jump link to see the whole shebang.
- December 5, 2011 @ 02:30 PM by Chris Mautner
Gareb Shamus resigns from Wizard World
Gareb Shamus
Gareb Shamus, divisive founder of the once-influential Wizard magazine, has resigned as president and chief executive officer of Wizard World Inc.
The publicly traded company announced the move in documents filed Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “The resignation is not the result of any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices,” Shamus wrote in his two-sentence letter of resignation.
Michael Mathews, the former CEO of interclick inc. who joined Wizard World in March as chairman, will oversee the day-to-day operations of the company until Shamus’ replacement can be found.
Shamus founded Wizard: The Guide to Comics in 1991, overseeing the rise of a magazine whose prosperity was inextricably tied to the speculator boom it helped fuel with its price guides, creator hot lists and enthusiastic coverage of new publishers like Image Comics and Valiant. By 1997, Wizard Entertainment had added Inquest Gamer and ToyFare magazines and extended its reach with the purchase of Chicago Comicon, later rebranded Wizard World Chicago, setting the company on its long, and occasionally rough, path to becoming a major organizer of regional conventions (earlier this year Wizard World briefly trumpeted 12 cities before slashing that number to eight).
However, the following decade wasn’t as kind to Wizard or the comics industry, with the magazine seeing its circulation dwindle to about 17,000 copies by December 2010. A month later, Shamus abruptly announced the closing of Wizard and ToyFare, the company’s last remaining magazines, and the subsequent launch of an online magazine, a move he later characterized as “the smartest business decision I’ve made in years.”
But about two weeks ago, the digital magazine that Shamus had boasted reached “millions of people” apparently disappeared from the Internet, just about the time that its founder launched a blog on the Wizard World site. Now that, too, is gone. His new Twitter account remains — although he hasn’t written an update since Nov. 28.
Wizard World hopes to have Shamus’ successor in place by Jan. 15.
- December 5, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose