Comic Book Resources

Comics Cavalcade: Mannequins and mental disorders

Downloading Optimism by Lucy Kinsley

Continue Reading »

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Weekly Astro Boy Magazine

Publishing | Tezuka Productions and D-Arc Inc. has launched Weekly Astro Boy Magazine, a service that delivers manga by Osamu Tezuka to iPhones and iPods in the United States. Announced last month, it's the first English-language manga service for mobile devices.

If I'm reading the site correctly, the premier "edition" of Weekly Astro Boy Magazine offers the first volume of Astro Boy for free. Subsequent volumes of that title, and other Tezuka classics like Phoenix, Dororo, Black Jack and Buddha, cost 99 cents each, and are available in weekly installments. [Weekly Astro Boy Magazine]

Education | Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza, creators of the webcomic Least I Could Do, have established The Rayne Summers Webcomic Scholarship at The Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. Named for the protagonist of their nearly seven-year-old comic, the scholarship will cover tuition for one student each year who is working toward a career in webcomics. [Least I Could Do, via The Daily Cartoonist]

Continue Reading »

Comics Cavalcade: Goofy and Gossip Girlz

King Aroo by Jack Kent

Continue Reading »

Straight for the art | Seth's new Nancy design

Nancy and Oona Goosepimple, by Seth

Man, that's a knockout, huh? Feast your eyes on George Sprott author (and all-around Dapper Dan) Seth's design for Nancy, Vol. 2, the forthcoming installment of Drawn & Quarterly's gorgeous John Stanley Library.

The image hails from this post by D&Q's Rebecca Rosen, which you really ought to read if the cult of Nancy has been a bit inscrutable to you like it has been to me. Just for example, the above image is a Seth drawing ... which graces a book containing the adventures of a character created by, and best known through the work of, Ernie Bushmiller ... but D&Q's Nancy books collect John Stanley's run on the character from her comic books, as opposed to Bushmiller's newspaper strips ... but those books were actually drawn by Dan Gormley, working off Stanley's storyboard-format scripts. Phew! And then there's the role that Mark Newgarden's abstractified tribute to Bushmiller's Nancy, "Love's Savage Fury," played in the character's popularity with cartoonists...and ditto Newgarden and Paul Karasik's landmark essay "How to Read Nancy" ... ah, let Rebecca explain it to you, and why it all matters.

Reader scandalized by exposure to naked Zits

One of the "Zits" strips in question

You have to hand it to readers of the incredibly shrinking comics section: Many of them have a clear vision for those pages, even if most newspaper editors don't.

The funnies largely go ignored in newsrooms, at least until word comes down that pages must be axed or, else, there's a once-in-a-blue-moon announcement that a cartoonist or syndicate is ending a strip. But those readers who turn to Cathy or Hagar or Rex Morgan each day know exactly what they want (usually that's for the page to look the same as it always has).

Take, for instance, Ted Trump of Orleans, Massachusetts. When he opens the Cape Cod Times, he expects to be entertained by Zits -- not to be confronted with the type of scandalous nudity that's been the trademark of Love Is ... for the past four decades.

Continue Reading »

Comics Cavalcade: Tarzan and Twinkies

The Evil Stranger and Horror in the House

Continue Reading »

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Stuck in the Middle

Libraries | There's still more follow-up to the removal this week of Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age from two middle-school libraries in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Teachers still have access to the anthology -- it depicts language and sexual reference that at least one parent found objectionable -- and may use it in class.

An editorial in the Argus Leader calls the school board's decision "a reasonable approach that balances the need to provide suitable guidance for kids when dealing with sensitive topics without falling prey to censorship." CBS affiliate KELO, meanwhile, continues its coverage of the story with a look at how books are selected for libraries. Tom Spurgeon also has reaction from two of the anthology's contributors. [Argus Leader, KELOLAND.com]

Creators | Jeet Heer digs up writings by a young Dave Sim expressing, in no uncertain terms, his disdain for the work of Jack Kirby. [Comics Comics]

Continue Reading »

Comics Cavalcade: Hollywood Husbands and Mexican wrestlers

Hollywood Husbands by Jefferson Machamer

Continue Reading »

Robot reviews: Bloom County and Family Circus

Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 1 hardcover

Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. One: 1980-1982
by Berkeley Breathed
IDW, 288 pages, $39.99.

The Family Circus Library, Vol. 1: 1960-61
by Bil Keane
IDW, 240 pages, $39.99

As more and more publishers realize that comic fans are interested in rummaging though the works of yesteryear, more and more of them are releasing sizable hardcover collections of allegedly classic comics at a breakneck pace. Some of those releases may cause question marks to rise above the heads of persnickety collectors. Take IDW's new volumes focusing on Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County and Bil Keane's Family Circus. Isn't the former readily available in easy-to-find collections in libraries and used bookstores across the country? Isn't the latter rather, well, overly precious and saccharine? Does this material really need to be reprinted in such lavish volumes? The answer, surprisingly, is yes and yes.

Continue Reading »

Comics Time: Giants and Pooches

Love Punishes the Guilty by Tim Hensley

Continue Reading »

Dana Simpson wins Amazon's Comic Strip Superstar contest

From "Girl," by Dana Simpson

Cartoonist Dana Simpson, creator of the webcomic Ozy and Millie, has won Amazon.com's first Comic Strip Superstar competition, beating out nine other finalists. Her entry, Girl, centers on an awkward child who feels at ease in the forest with her animal friends.

Simpson, who lives in Kent, Washington, will receive a publishing contract with Andrews McMeel Publishing, a development contract with Universal Uclick and syndication on Gocomics.com.

You can view Girl and the other finalists here.

(via ComixTalk)

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Google

Legal | Google and a group of authors and publishers have until Friday to revise a proposed settlement over the Internet giant's plans to make millions of out-of-print books available online. They originally were given a deadline of Nov. 9. DC Comics is among the parties that objected to the terms of the agreement -- -- $125 million and a registry to identify and compensate copyright holders -- arguing that it violates international copyright law. [Bloomberg News, Media Decoder]

Legal | The sentencing of Christopher Handley, the 39-year-old Iowa man who in May pleaded guilty to possessing manga depicting children in sexual situations, is scheduled for Jan. 25. He faces up to 15 years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release. [ICv2.com]

Continue Reading »

Video of the day: Matt Groening and Lynda Barry

Groening and Barry recite a rather amusing Life in Hell cartoon in this clip (via Mike Lynch).

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Green Lantern Corps #41

Publishing | Buoyed by its Blackest Night miniseries and tie-in books, DC Comics claimed the first six slots on Diamond Comic Distributors' Top 300 list of books sold to the direct market in October.

It's a rare occurrence, to be sure, but just how rare? Charts-watcher John Jackson Miller contends we have to travel back more than 40 years, to a time well before the direct market, to find when DC last had the six best-selling comics (as sold to retailers). Yes, 1968. The closest DC came in the direct-market era, according to Miller, was in April 1993, when the publisher held the top five positions.

But back to October 2009, when DC also narrowed the market gap with Marvel to the closest margin in some time: The competitors were separated by just 2.43 percent in unit share, and 2.68 percent in dollar share. [Diamond Comic Distributors, The Comics Chronicles]

Retailing | Borders Group announced Thursday it will close about 200 of its Waldenbooks, Borders Express and Borders Outlet stores in January. The retail chain has been steadily closing mall-based stores in its Waldenbooks Specialty Retail division since 2001. About 130 mall stores will remain once the downsizing is complete. [Publishers Weekly]

Continue Reading »

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

The Book of Genesis Illustrated

Sales charts | R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis Illustrated climbs seven spots to No. 2 in its second month on BookScan's list of top-selling adult graphic novels in bookstores. It's bested, as most are, by the latest volume of Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto. But it's another story on USA Today's bestseller chart, where Crumb's book drops 49 places in its second week to No. 129. [ICv2.com, USA Today]

Passings | Tom Spurgeon, NPR's Mark Memmott and Ina Jaffe, and Michael Cieply of The New York Times have obituaries for Comic-Con co-founder Shel Dorf, who passed away on Nov. 3 at the age of 76.

Libraries | The Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library of Manga and Subculture opened over the weekend at Meiji University's Surugadai campus in Tokyo. Users can become one-day members of the library, where they can have access to about half of the 140,000 manga for about $1.10 per copy. The books can't be removed from the library. [The Japan Times]

Internet | Tom Spurgeon points out that the review blog Guttergeek will move to the expanded TCJ.com, joining a stable of hosted blogs that will include The Hooded Utilitarian. [Guttergeek]

Continue Reading »