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]

Diary of a Zombie Kid

Legal | Antarctic Press has agreed to stop selling Diary of a Zombie Kid and Diary of a Zombie Kid: Rotten Rules under the terms of a temporary restraining order issued Wednesday by a federal court. Wimpy Kid Inc. is suing Antarctic for trademark infringement, among other things, claiming that its Diary of a Wimpy Kid parodies are too close to the real thing. Antarctic CEO Joe Dunn signed the temporary restraining order, signifying that Antarctic agreed to it; the two companies are negotiating a settlement, according to court papers. One interesting tidbit: Diary of a Zombie Kid sold all of 850 copies in comics shops in August, while the first printing on the latest Wimpy Kid book was 6 million. [ICv2]

Retailing | The auction for the inventory of Arizona retail chain Atomic Comics announced last week has been moved to Jan. 10. [Sierra Auction Management]

Comics | Bayou Arcana is a new anthology of Southern Gothic horror comics with a gender twist: All the comics are written by men and illustrated by women. There are some pretty broad generalizations in this article — “There is a certain sensitivity that you find in women’s art that just does not appear in a lot of guys’ work,” says the project editor, James Pearson — but the project itself sounds interesting. [The Guardian]

Publishing | Jim Salicrup, editor-in-chief of Papercutz, discusses the publisher’s line of all-ages comics: “If the Big Two say that the audience for all-ages comics isn’t there in the comic book stores, they may be right, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be created. As I said, some stores are very interested in developing this market, and certainly there is more material (mostly graphic novels) now available than there has been in many years. Papercutz, which was started by publisher Terry Nantier and me, has now been around for seven years, and although it has been a major struggle at times, there seems to be more and more openness to comics for all ages. You may wonder why stores would be reluctant to attract new customers, but in these difficult times, trying to simply survive may distract many a store.” [Bleeding Cool]

Steve Niles

Creators | LA Weekly has a lengthy profile of 30 Days of Night creator Steve Niles: “I don’t know why I like horror. Everyone always asks me that. I think it’s a big release. We work out our fears by being scared. Horror guys, we work out a lot.” [LA Weekly]

Creators | Kurtis J. Wiebe and Riley Rossmo discuss their Image Comics horror series Green Wake. [Fangoria]

Creators | The local newspaper profiles Kennebunk, Maine, creator Sarah Searle, who incorporated real events and people into her graphic novel Under the Apple Tree, which is set in Kennebunk in 1943. [Seacoast Online]

Creators | Richard Bruton interviews mother-and-son comics team John and Patrice Aggs about their latest graphic novel The Boss. [Forbidden Planet blog]

Comics | Robot 6 contributor J. Caleb Mozzocco questions the wisdom of DC Comics developing new properties based on Alan Moore and David Gibbons’ Watchmen, given the reluctance of readers to embrace characters outside the DC Universe. [Every Day Is Like Wednesday]

Smile

Graphic novels | Librarian Robin Brenner runs the numbers to see which graphic novels circulated the most in her library over the past year; some of the results surprised her. Library circulations are an interesting contrast to sales charts, and I suspect they are a truer reflection of what children and teens are reading as kids generally don’t have a lot of money to spend on comics. [Good Comics for Kids]

Retailing | The Newark Post profiles local comic shop Captain Blue Hen, which has a “pay for A’s” incentive for school kids: Earn a dollar credit at the store for every A on your report card. [Newark Post]

Sales charts | John Jackson Miller has posted the last 20 years’ worth of Diamond end-of-year lists on his site, chronicling the best-selling comics for each year. He’s also set up a page with just the No. 1 best-selling comic and graphic novel for each of those 20 years. [Comichron]

Cosplay | HBO reality TV star and brothel owner Dennis Hof plans to open a brothel outside Las Vegas with a science fiction theme. The “alien cathouse” is expected to open early next year, and Hof has recruited Heidi Fleiss, former Hollywood madame and a reality star herself, to plan the costumes and decor, calling her his “chief alien design queen.” [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

One of the reasons that the digital comics distributor comiXology has done so well is that it syncs well across a number of platforms, including iOS, Android and the web. Their web store is convenient for those who prefer browsing and buying on their computer, but the Flash-based interface is a bit buggy—it never scrolled properly in my Safari browser, for instance—so I was happy to hear that they have relaunched the web store using HTML5 for the browsing and buying interface.

They also redesigned it, which is a relief; if I have one complaint about comiXology, it’s their tendency to throw a bewildering array of comics onto the screen all at once. The original webstore put a ton of comics on the front page (a page that didn’t scroll properly, remember), while this new one mirrors the design of their iPad app, with a smaller selection and tabs to allow the reader to go deeper. Navigation is pretty straightforward—the site is a little slow, but it is still in beta. The comics reader is still in Flash for now.

ComiXology CEO David Steinberger has more details at the comiXology blog, and I spoke to him about the new storefront yesterday. While the iOS app remains the most popular channel, he said, “More and more people actually use our website, once they discover it, to shop and buy, and I hope with the HTML5 release, more will do that.” One of the new features of the web store is that users can gift a cart, rather than just a single comic. “Right now we are going to finish releasing all of Bone, so you will be able to add the whole Bone series to your card and gift it to somebody,” Steinberger said. “We have Sandman at a very competitive price to the paperback. Comics people create more comics people by getting in tune with their friends and gifting them comics.”

Also, if you pay full price at comiXology, you’re not paying attention; they run different sales all week long, and at the moment they have three different holiday sales going on: A Batman 201 sale, a Marvel Major Players sale, and a Holiday Sale featuring indy publishers Oni Press, BOOM! Studios, Image, Dynamite, and IDW. Lots of good stuff here: The Sixth Gun, Robert Kirkman’s Super Dinosaur, Doctor Who, Mark Waid’s Irredeemable, and one of my favorite comics of the year, Spontaneous (the first issue is free, so you can now pick up the whole five-issue arc for four bucks).

Batwoman #7

Amy Reeder, who takes over the art duties on Batwoman with issue #6 with Richard Friend, shows off process artwork for the cover of Batwoman #7 on her Facebook page.

You probably saw the finished version in the recently released DC solicitations for March, but she has the pencils and inks up there too for those of you who like to see all stages of the process. Also, remember those variant covers that weren’t going to be used? Well, as you may know by now, the first one is being used for Batwoman #6, so hopefully the others will see print as well.

Remember that unpublished cover Geof Darrow drew for J. Michael Straczynski’s “Grounded” arc on Superman that we posted the other day? Remember Darrow saying to Inkstuds’ Robin McConnell that it never ran as a cover and that “it’ll never see the light of day” despite his “really nice guy” editor’s assurances to the contrary? Good news, Darrow fans: Both Darrow and DC confirm that the finished cover will appear in Superman: Grounded Vol. 2, on sale this Wednesday, Dec. 7. The crazy cat lady will get her time in the sun at last!

“We had a record amount of entries from publishers this year with more than forty-five different titles” said FCBD spokesperson Leslie Jackson. “Retailers on the committee had a tough time deciding on which titles to choose for Gold sponsorship, but we’re sure fans will be pleased with the line-up for next year.”

While the choices may have been difficult, it’s hard to imagine that someone couldn’t come up with something more enticing than what Image has to offer: “An anthology featuring all-new stories with a mix of Image’s old and new best loved characters!” Could you possibly get any vaguer than that? They don’t even have a cover design. If my comic got bumped for that, I’d be steaming. On the other hand, Archaia’s 48-page hardcover, featuring new material (not reprints or bits of something to come) looks mighty sweet, all the more so because they name names: A Mouse Guard story from David Petersen, a Jim Henson’s Labyrinth story by Ted Naifeh and Cory Godbey, a side story from Royden Lepp’s new graphic novel Rust, a Cursed Pirate Girl story from Jeremy Bastian, a Cow Boy story by Chris Eliopoulos and Nate Crosby, and a Dapper Men tale from Jim McCann and Janet Lee. There’s this year’s wow factor.

The line-up actually seemed pretty obvious to me, so I went back and looked at the Gold Sponsors for the past five years. Sure enough, six of the publishers are there every year: Archie, Dark Horse, DC, IDW, Image, Marvel. Since five of these are also Diamond’s premier publishers, and Archie is a newsstand juggernaut, there’s no surprise there. BOOM! Studios has been a Gold Sponsor for the past four years and Archaia for the past three. The other slots vary: Ape Entertainment was a Gold Sponsor in 2011 and 2010 but is missing this year, and Bongo and Oni are back after a two-year absence. Others who have popped up once or twice in the past five years: NBM/Papercutz (2011), Drawn & Quarterly (2010), Viz (2008 and 2009), Dynamite (2008), Virgin (2008), Gemstone (2007), and Tokyopop (2007).

There’s more to come: The Silver Sponsors will be announced next week.

DC Comics Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Business Development John Rood and Senior Vice President of Sales Bob Wayne try not to gloat too much as they discuss DC’s October sales numbers over at ICv2. (Actually, ICv2 did the gloating for them with the headline “DC Crushes Marvel.”) Thanks to strong sales of the New 52 line, DC took over 42% of the dollar share and 51% of the unit share in the direct market, pushing Marvel down to about 30% in both measures. And the pie got bigger: Single-issue sales were up 24% compared to October 2010. “We’re excited to see the reports from Diamond that we’ve won the month in dollar share and in unit share,” Rood told ICv2. “I consider that ironic as hell, since we don’t price our comics to win any dollar share battles, and we don’t pump out a lot of inventory to win any unit share battles. So the fact that this is happening accidentally just speaks to the readership of the New 52, and the support from our retailers, which we’re so appreciative of.”

In Part 2 of the interview, Rood says that he sees the sales increase coming from new and returning readers, who are in it for the long haul, as opposed to speculators buying issue #1s in the hope that they will become valuable collectors’ items.

He was a bit less forthcoming on the details of DC’s deal to put their graphic novels on Amazon’s Kindle Fire e-reader, refusing to discuss how long the exclusive agreement would last and whether DC was aware that Amazon would price Alan Moore’s Watchmen at $9.99, half the price of the print version.

As for the trade collections of the New 52, the chief difference that readers will see, Wayne said, is a more unified trade dress; the graphic novels are definitely being presented as a jumping-on point for new readers. As to quantity and schedule, he said that the graphic novel releases will be spread out a bit, compared to the fairly concentrated launch of the monthly comics. While DC is publishing fewer comics titles than last year, the number of graphic novels will remain the same because they will be reaching into the vaults to publish older material, and movie tie-ins, in graphic novel form.

I’m biased: 12 percent of the titles that they’ve physically removed were written by me. From my perspective, it’s a ridiculous overreaction [by Barnes & Noble]. The idea that these people [Amazon] have a digital exclusive, therefore [B&N] will give them a physical exclusive, too — I’m not sure it’s a sane business practice.

If you force publishers to decide between the Amazon tablet and the Barnes & Noble Nook, some of them may come down on the Amazon side.

Creator Neil Gaiman on Barnes & Noble’s removal of DC’s graphic novels from its shelves after Amazon announced DC’s graphic novels would be exclusive on the Kindle Fire e-reader for a limited time. Gaiman’s comment is a reminder that this action affects real people—and carries a certain amount of risk for both creators and publishers.

Noted in passing: I was in my local Barnes & Noble over the weekend, and while the graphic novel section has shrunk way down (to a single six-bay bookcase), there were plenty of DC graphic novels on the shelf.

"Superman: Earth One" on the Kindle Fire

“regardless of the publisher, we will not stock physical books in our stores if we are not offered the available digital format…To sell and promote the physical book in our store showrooms, and not have the eBook available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime.”

—Jaime Carey, chief merchant at Barnes & Noble

Well, those DC graphic novels that are going to be exclusive on the Amazon Kindle Fire color e-reader are really going to be exclusive now that Barnes & Noble is pulling them from the shelves in their brick-and-mortar stores.

We heard some unofficial mentions of this earlier this week, and today Publishers Weekly’s Calvin Reid got some Barnes & Noble reps to talk on the record and admit that they are pulling the bookstore equivalent of taking their bat and their ball and going home.

The LA Times is reporting that Amazon’s exclusive is only for four months, starting on November 15, which clouds the picture a little more. Will Barnes & Noble put those graphic novels back on the shelves next March? What will they do with them in the meantime? Return them to the publisher? Store them in a warehouse? Oh, wait, they will still sell them via their online store, so they probably won’t just toss them in a dumpster and set them on fire.

It seems a little silly, as the main effect of this is going to be to slightly reduce sales at Barnes & Noble’s own stores. On the other hand, given that B&N is in the business of making money, my guess is that these books weren’t selling particularly well to begin with and taking them off the sales floor is a cheap way to make a statement. If they were selling like gangbusters, the guys in the suits would probably find some other way to protest.

Color is so important to comics that most teams have a separate colorist, yet how much do we think about the significance of a particular palette? Darius A. Monsef IV, chief blogger at COLOURlovers, has spent quite a bit of time thinking about it, and he has produced a large infographic that compares the color schemes of good versus evil, both in costumes and in overall coloring. Some of the factoids are obvious (white for good characters, darker colors for evil, green for radioactivity), some are surprising (apparently orange and purple, paired with white and gray, signify neutral characters in the comics world). Also, the good guys are usually clad in primary colors and villains in secondary colors. And the analysis of the colors used by DC and Marvel is fascinating (in a color-nerd sort of way)—DC uses way more black, while Marvel skews red. The infographic also has a handy chart of costume color changes over the years.

Ziggy

Passings | Tom Wilson Sr., creator of the long-running comic strip Ziggy, passed away Sept. 16. According to a press release from Universal Uclick, Wilson, 80, had suffered from a long illness and died in his sleep. For more than 35 years, Wilson served as a creative director at American Greetings. Wilson first published Ziggy in the 1969 cartoon collection When You’re Not Around. The Ziggy comic panel, syndicated by Universal Uclick (formerly Universal Press Syndicate), launched in 15 newspapers in June 1971. It now appears in more than 500 daily and Sunday newspapers and has been featured in best-selling books, calendars and greeting cards. Wilson’s son, Tom Wilson Jr., took over the strip in 1987. [Universal Uclick]

Awards | The Chill by Jason Star and Mick Bertilorenzi won an Anthony Award this weekend at Bouchercon, the annual mystery convention. The Vertigo Crime selection won in the Best Graphic Novel category, while Birds of Prey writer Duane Swierczynski took the Best Original Paperback category with his novel Expiration Date. [Examiner]

Comic strips | Ken Paulson, president of the First Amendment Center, comments on last week’s choice by The Chicago Tribune and other papers to not run a series of Doonesbury strips that featured excerpts from author Joe McGinniss’ upcoming biography of Sarah Palin. “The First Amendment guarantees that a newspaper can decide what to publish — or not publish. The Tribune is entirely within its rights, but it’s certainly an uncomfortable position for any news organization that aspires to reflect the full marketplace of ideas.” [First Amendment Center]

MetaMaus

Creators | The Montreal Gazette profiles Maus creator Art Spiegelman, covering the upcoming MetaMaus, his stint at the New Yorker and the state of the comic book industry. [Montreal Gazette]

Creators | Terry Moore discusses his latest comic Rachel Rising. [Suicide Girls]

Creators | Box Brown talks about his new publishing venture Retrofit Comics. [The Morton Report]

History | E. L. Bell explores the sources for the giant typewriters, cash registers, and other huge props that used to pop up in Batman comics (particularly those written by Bill Finger). [Oz and Ends]

History | Letterer Todd Klein looks back at a 1950s Famous Artists College cartooning lesson, specifically the chapter on lettering. [Todd's Blog]

Conventions | Sean Kleefeld recounts his adventures at the Cincinnati Comic Expo, including meeting Jim Steranko and chatting with a retailer who is concerned that sales of DC’s new 52 comics will plunge in January, when the story arcs all slow down at the same time. [Kleefeld on Comics]

I might still like to do the Atom. I think there’s something great to be done with the Atom that hasn’t been done yet…I like the idea of doing an Atom story where he can only shrink to a certain size for each episode. One of the things I felt didn’t work about the Atom was that he was up and down [in height] and could do anything. I thought it would be really good to do stories of a guy who has so much power to shrink that he does it for missions when he’s brought in. So it’s slightly more Indiana Jones, where this guy works as a professor during the day, but sometimes he’ll get a call from the President — “There’s monsters in the White House carpet” kinda stuff. — and he comes in and deals with that. But in another episode he might just shrink to six inches and be chased around a room by bad guys and cats and dogs, like Incredible Shrinking Man stuff. I thought there’s a sci-fi series in there, where each issue is him at a different scale. In some he could be trapped at a molecular scale, and in other ones he’s one inch and trapped in the garden.

–Action Comics and Supergods writer and superhero-revamper extraordinaire Grant Morrison in conversation with CBR’s Jonah Weiland, who asked him what B-list characters he’d still like to take a crack at. And hey, Morrison’s proven his proficiency with sprawling supporting-player revamps in the past with projects like Seven Soldiers (not to mention the upcoming Multiversity, which he says will have a similar focus on DC’s deep bench), so would it be out of the question for him to throw a Ryan Choi: Rebirth and Atom Incorporated into the mix? For now, I’ll file this with his much-discussed desire to write Wonder Woman under projects we’ll hopefully get to see one day.

Watch the entire video above for more Morrison commentary on the Lois & Clark marriage, Superman’s costume, Action Comics, New X-Men, Supergods, Sinatoro and more.

Marvel’s done this before: Last year, they offered a J. Scott Campbell Deadpool variant of Siege #3 in exchange not just for unsold Blackest Night “power ring” tie-ins the from DC, but for unsold Siege and X-Men: Second Coming tie-ins as well. A copy of that comic [UPDATE: a signed, CGC-graded one, which I'm told makes a difference] recently sold on eBay for $625 (via ComicsAlliance commenter Tom). I’m curious as to whether Marvel will eventually make its own books eligible for this trade-in, too. (I’m also curious as to whether some other country will provide us with a functioning legislature in exchange for every 50 House GOP members we send them if we default on our debt, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there.)

It was the shout heard ’round the world. In the opening minutes of DC’s very first daily “New 52″ panel at the San Diego Comic-Con last Thursday, when Co-Publisher Dan DiDio turned to the audience and asked what DC would have to do to change the minds of those skittish about the impending relaunch, one man yelled “Hire women!” The number of women creators working on the DC Universe, he added after audience applause, had dropped with the relaunch from 12% of the total to just 1% (i.e. Gail Simone, and Amy Reeder if you count the later Batwoman launch). DiDio’s response was to turn the question back on the questioner and ask him whom he thinks DC should hire. The move raised some eyebrows, to be sure, given that an audience member isn’t in the kind of position to assess all the professional comics talent available to be hired that the brass at a major publisher would be in. Still — and I’ll just quote myself here from another time this topic came up — “I think it behooves those of us who argue for the inclusion of non-white non-straight non-male people in a creative team or superhero team or panel or article or exhibit to have candidates ready to hand,” so turnabout is fair play, I suppose.

But when you actually hear the exchange, which you can do by clicking on this mp3 (right-click to save), things sure sound more heated than just a matter of tossing the question back to the audience. DiDio repeatedly asks the audience member what the statistics he cited mean to him, and his call for names of female creators DC should have hired sounds less like a request and more like a challenge, as he says “tell me right now” over the audience member’s seemingly struggling attempts to respond.

Now, DiDio is an ebullient panel presence who simply has a booming voice — witness his enthusiasm when another audience member suggests artist Nicola Scott as a potential woman creator: “You’re damn right we’d hire Nicola Scott!” — so some of this is just how he always sounds when commanding a room at a show. But it’s hard not to hear an edge to the way he says “Thank you, sir” to the questioner, and first-hand reports from the audience say the exchange was an awkward one. The audio adds a context to it that panel reports can’t convey.

I first heard the clip (after many, many reblogs) at Do You Fondue?, but its origin appears to be this lengthy DC Women Kicking Ass interview with Batgirl cosplayer Kyrax2 — an omnipresent figure at DC’s panels this year whose indefatigable focus on the number of women characters and creators at DC led to several uncomfortable moments with the panelists and audience members. “Batgirl” ended up interacting, on panels or in person, with a wide range of DC staff and talent, including DiDio, Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, Grant Morrison, Paul Cornell, and Gail Simone. Take her assessment of those interactions with the grains of salt necessary to season the recollections of a person with agenda when you read it, of course, but do read it. And for even fuller context, listen to the panels in their entirety at DC’s SDCC podcast site.

And while you’re at it, why not take a stab at answering DiDio’s question in the comments below. When it comes to women creators, who should DC be hiring?

Superheroes are coming to the world of LEGO, as the Danish toy company signed deals with DC Comics and Marvel Entertainment this month that will allow their characters to be used in a LEGO Super Heroes line. Lego already has a Batman line, but the deal with DC gives them access to every character in the DC canon, including Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. The Marvel line will focus on the Avengers, the X-Men and Spider-Man, and it will launch in May 2012, at the same time The Avengers movie opens. Both the Marvel and the DC line will include both minifigures and buildable figures.

Update: JK Parkin returns from Comic-Con with pictures from the LEGO booth! Check’em out after the jump.

*****

Kids love LEGOS!

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

Spontaneous #1

Graeme McMillan

If I had $15 this week, the first thing I’d grab would be a complete nostalgia-buy: DC Retroactive: Justice League of America – The 70s #1 (DC, $4.99), because I am a complete and utter sucker for JLA stories, and grew up reading old back issues of the title I found at used bookstores. This would be worth it for the reprint at the back alone, never mind the new story by Cary Bates that looks like it’s playing around with the multiverse one more time. To accompany that, I’d also pick up the first two issues of Joe Harris and Brett Weldele’s Spontaneous (both $3.99), because – even though I missed the Free Comic Book Day release of the debut – I’m a fan of Harris’ Ghost Projekt and Weldele’s work on The Surrogates, and curious to see just where a book about spontaneous human combustion can actually go.

If I had $30 this week, I’d add Kirby: Genesis #2 (Dynamite, $3.99) and Captain America & Bucky #620 (Marvel, $2.99) to my pile, each one taking on Kirby characters in their own way – I really loved the first two issues of Kirby: Genesis, and Chris Samnee’s art alone makes Cap/Bucky a must-read. I’d also get another Dynamite book, the first issue of Terminator/Robocop: Kill Human ($3.99), because I’m hoping that Brit writer Rob Williams brings the 2000AD feel that the cyborg cop vs. killer robot high concept really deserves. Finally, I admit that I’m unable to resist Amazing Spider-Man #666 (Marvel, $3.99), just to see what Spider Island is like in person, as sad as I am that they didn’t go for the more obvious Spider-Manhattan pun for the title…

When it comes to splurging this week, I’m sticking with ol’ webhead: Essential Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Vol. 5 (Marvel, $19.99) collects all manner of classic issues from my youth, including the original Sin-Eater saga, and resisting that just isn’t going to happen anytime soon, I’m afraid. Make mine late 1980s Marvel!

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 3: Century #2 - 1969

Chris Mautner

If I had $15:

Wow. It’s a really strong week. There’s a new issue of Glamourpuss ($3.99) out, so that’s probably my first buy. There’s also a new Smurfs book, The Astro-Smurf ($5.99) out as well, but I think I’ll hold off on that for now and go instead with the second chapter of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 3: Century ($9.95), which I’ve been rather anxiously anticipating.

If I had $30:

I love learning about classic Eurocomics, so my next purchase would be one of two new books from Fantagraphics: either Gil Jordan: Murder by High Tide ($18.99) or Sibyl-Anne Vs. Ratticus ($16.99). I know nothing about either book or the creators (M. Tillieux and R. Macherot, respectively) and am eager to be schooled.

Splurge:

Oh my goodness, where to begin? There’s the new Alex Toth collection, Setting the Standard ($39.00), also from Fanta. There’s also a fourth volume of Alex Raymond’s Rip Kirby ($49.99) out. There’s a interesting looking collaboration between Lou Reed and Mattotti on Poe’s The Raven ($22.99), Rick Geary has a new Murder volume out, this time on Sacco and Vanzetti ($15.99), George O’Connor’s latest retelling of classic Greek myths, Hera ($9.99) arrives, Grant Morrison’s examination of the cape and cowl genre, Supergods ($28.00) is out and Gary Spencer Millidge’s biography of Alan Moore ($45.00) is here. I’ll take it all please.

Olympians, Volume 3: Hera - The Goddess and Her Glory

Brigid Alverson

So many choices! If I had $15, the first $10.99 of it would go to vol. 8 of Twin Spica. This is a great series about a girl who aspires to be an astronaut, and while it definitely favors human drama over sci-fi, there’s a bit of both. That leaves me four bucks, so I can buy one comic. I see a lot of temptations, but there’s no way I’m missing The Sixth Gun #13 ($3.99) so that gets the nod.

It doesn’t get any easier at the $30 level. I’m tempted by the newest volume in George O’Connor’s beautifully drawn Olympians series Hera: The Goddess and her Glory ($9.99), but an odd little comic called Seeds ($10.99) is pulling me away with the promise of family drama in a detached indy style. OK, I’ll go with that, and then add Spontaneous #1 ($3.99) to the pile, because who can resist a comic about spontaneous human combustion?

My splurge is all over the place. I’ll take the second issue of Spontaneous, for starters, as Oni seems to be releasing them simultaneously. Toss in Ape’s latest Richie Rich comic as well. The serious splurge begins with Abrams’ Krazy Kat and the Art of George Herriman: A Celebration ($29.95). As much as I love old comics, I love oddball memorabilia even more, and Craig Yoe always finds some interesting ephemera to add to his collections of classic comic strips. I’ll take that Olympians book now, and add the second volume of Defiance ($16.99), also from First Second, because I think the first volume was my favorite of last spring’s books and that’s saying a lot when you’re talking about First Second. And finally, because even splurges have their limits, Atomic Robo: The Deadly Art of Science, the fifth collection of this series and one of my favorites. There. Done. Hold my calls, I’m reading comics.

Flashpoint: Project Superman #2

Chris Arrant

If I only had $15, it would be a tough week for me; I count 14 titles I’d easily spend my money on. Narrowing it down to $15, I’d spend the bulk of it on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III: Century #2 (Top Shelf, $9.95). If anyone’s deserved my money sight unseen it’s Alan Moore, and that goes double after reading the first issue of this series. Second up would be Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips’ Criminal: Last of the Innocent #2. This one seems to recapture some of the first series’ magic after going a bit wild in subsequent installments.

If I had $30, I’d double back and get Flashpoint: Project Superman #2 (DC, $2.99) if for nothing else than to see more of Gene Ha. After his debacle with IDW and Bill Willingham, I’m glad to see him back on shelves – although I kind of wish he’d been given a more prominent series at Marvel or DC. Next up would be a trio of Marvel titles: X-Men Schism #2 (Marvel, $3.99), Uncanny X-Force #12 (Marvel, $3.99) and Secret Warriors #28 (Marvel, $2.99).

If I had money to splurge, I’d give it up for the second Metal Hurlant Collection (Humanoids, $29.95). I have some of these stories in their
original magazine format, but this would fill out my collection and let me give away those singles to someone deserving.

Atomic Robo, Volume 5: The Deadly Art of Science

Michael May

If I had $15, I’d load up on floppies, as usual, starting with a couple of series I’m following faithfully. Xombi got recent praise from both Jeff Lemire and Grant Morrison, so don’t take just my word for how good it is. Issue #5 ($2.99) of course makes my pile. Also, I just finished watching the live-action Planet of the Apes TV show and loved it, but watching the cartoon series that followed it is a real buzz-kill. I need some good Planet of the Apes again and the fourth issue of Boom’s series ($3.99) is just the ticket. Rounding off the pile are Image’s undersea-treasure-hunt-gone-horribly-wrong story The Vault #1 ($3.50) and IDW’s Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #5 ($3.99). I’m going to miss Phil Hester’s art on Godzilla, but am excited at the same time about Victor Santos’ (who takes over starting with this issue) work on it.

If I had $30, I’d trade-wait Godzilla and Planet of the Apes to save enough money for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III: Century #2 ($9.95) and Olympians, Volume 3: Hera – The Goddess and Her Glory ($9.99).

As some of the guys said above, it really is a busy week, so I’m also splurging like crazy on four different books. Like Brigid, I loved Carla Jablonski and Leland Purvis’ Resistance, Volume 1 and can’t wait for this new installment, Defiance ($16.99). I’m also looking forward to Keith Champagne and Shawn Moll’s league of extraordinary cowboys in Death Valley ($17.99), Phil Hester and David Marquez’ follow-up to Days Missing with Volume 2: Kestus ($24.95), and of course Atomic Robo, Volume 5: Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science ($19.95). It’s not even fair to call Atomic Robo a splurge item. Really more of a necessity.

Collen Doran's Wonder Woman

When J. Michael Straczynski was still the writer of Wonder Woman, he approached Colleen Doran about developing a new, “fantasy-oriented” look for her. He’s given Doran permission to share what she came up with, which she’s done on her blog.

She clarifies a couple of things in the comments section of her post. First, that she wasn’t hired to draw the actual comic; just to design the look. But more importantly, that this look would’ve been for a story after the one in which Wonder Woman wore Jim Lee’s controversial redesign.

The Incal

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. JK Parkin is off in San Diego trying to get that Elvis Stormtrooper’s autograph, so I’ll be your host today. Our special guest this week is George O’Connor.

O’Connor is probably best known as the author of the ongoing Olympians series of graphic novels, which attempt to retell classic Greek myths (the latest, Hera, just came out from First Second). He’s also the author of such books as Journey Into Mowhawk Country and the children’s picture book Kapow, as well as the artist of Ball Peen Hammer, which was written by Adam Rapp.

To see what George and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading …

Chris Mautner: Dustin Harbin is quickly becoming one of my favorite cartoonists, at least among the under-35 crowd. I love the amount of detail he throws into his drawings, even the tiny ones; his gift for caricature and goofy faces; and his genuine wit.

Thankfully, Koyama Press has two new books out from Harbin right now: The second volume of his Diary Comics, now published in a (perhaps more appropriate) mini-comic size; and Dharbin!, a collection of his first two self-published comics, most of which contain simple one or tw0-page jokes or stories. OK, so it’s not all entirely new material, but it is quite good. Harbin is a born raconteur, and he has a gift for making even simple events like hanging out with friends or working late at night seem special or revealing. Plus, he’s a really funny guy.

Daredevil #1

Tim O’Shea: How happy am I after reading Daredevil 1 by Mark Waid along with artists Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin? After finishing the issue I felt as hopeful and engaged as I did in the early 1980s after reading Walt Simonson’s Thor 337 (the first issue in his epic run). Now while I sincerely doubt that I will get a three-issue run from this creative team, I am hopeful that I will least get a year. It was interesting to see how both artists experiment with how to convey DD’s radar sense. Of the two styles, I find myself partial to RIvera’s approach. Also Riviera does nice little details to his story, such as when Murdoch is going through a metal detector and has to take off his trademark ”blind” glasses. And I have to quote and agree with Michael May from this week’s Food or Comics?, who wrote: “Mark Waid fills me with confidence about every Marvel or DC series he writes, but I’m just happy to see a superhero smiling”.

Hated seeing the six-issue Vertigo miniseries Cinderella: Fables are Forever, by writer Chris Roberson and artist Shawn McManus, end this week. Of the Fables (hell Vetigo) universe, CInderella has become my favorite character.

Judging by the female empowerment speech that Matthew Sturges gives Power Girl to say in  the opening of Power Girl 26, I find myself hoping that in the coming days of the new 52 DC Comics the writer finds himself an assignment. He’s a solid writer who should have been on one of the creative teams in the first place (instead of some of the questionable creators that garnered assignments instead).

Archie & Friends 156

Brigid Alverson: I have been reading a lot of Archie comics lately. I don’t think I would have picked up Jughead at all if it wasn’t for the much-praised Jughead #200, written by Robot Chicken creator Tom Root, but it’s actually one of the more interesting comics in the Archie line. In Jughead #207 and #208, written by Craig Boldman and illustrated by Rex Lindsey, Jughead actually leaves home after a blowup with his father. First he settles at Archie’s house (having discovered that he and Archie are distant cousins), then he moves to Ethel’s for a spell. I particularly liked the first story, as it showed a bit more depth than your typical Archie comic; the parents get involved in the situation, for instance, and Jughead shows a remarkable (for him) capacity for introspection. The story isn’t over yet, and I’m more than mildly curious to see what happens next.

Of course, it’s all in good fun, and so is Archie & Friends #156, which is set at Riverdale Comic Con. The script is by Archie Comics publicity director Alex Segura, who knows a thing or two about cons (he came to Archie from DC Comics), with pencils by longtime pro Bill Galvan. The whole gang shows up in costume, and they are followed by a mysterious but obnoxious robot as they sample the delights of the con and compete in a costume contest (with real-life movie producer JJ Abrams as the judge). It’s a very Archie plot, complete with an itching-powder double-cross (who carries itching powder any more?), but Segura and Galvan toss in some sly insider references, both verbal and visual (Archie dresses as Pureheart the Powerful, the gang heads to the MLJ Comics booth to see Dan Parent, and Archie is searching for a back issue of The Shield, a character he replaced in Pep Comics). Incorporating current pop culture into a comic is risky, but Segura and Galvan pull it off nicely.

Finally, let’s talk about Kevin Keller, who gets his own series next year. Kevin Keller #1 (actually Veronica #207) is scripted and penciled by Kevin creator Dan Parent, who gives the characters a smoother, simpler look than the traditional Archie style‹he eschews those two parallel lines across the bridge of the nose that are such an Archie trademark, for instance, and his Veronica doesn’t have bangs, which really changes her look. The basic conflict is a contest again (they seem to have a lot of those in Riverdale); this time, it’s Jughead versus Kevin in a pie-eating contest. The story includes a flashback into Kevin’s past as a nerdy kid with braces who rescues a friend from a mean trick, and it introduces Kevin’s father, Col. Tom Keller. Yes, Kevin is an army brat, and he wants to go into the service himself someday, which is just fine with everybody (well, Veronica worries that he will get wounded somehow, but Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell doesn’t merit a mention). We even get to see Kevin come out to his parents. But the place where the story really breaks new ground is with the pie-eating contest, because (spoiler alert!) Veronica has left the cream pies in an overheated car, a fact that Kevin and Jughead learn only after eating six apiece. I believe this is the first time anyone has ever vomited in an Archie comic, although of course we don’t see the actual act. Anyway, the comic has a lot of backstory and goes a long way toward establishing Kevin’s personality. If he has one flaw, it’s that everyone likes him too much (apart from the central-casting bullies in middle school). I’d like to see Reggie pull some pranks on him and Veronica give him the frosty treatment‹then we will really know he is one of the gang.

George O’Connor: Wow, thank god you’re asking me this while I’m actually reading some interesting things.

The Incal Classic Collection, by Alexandro Jodorowsky and Moebius.. I finally picked this up, because (A) I just don’t have enough Moebius in my collection and (B) a couple of my studiomates (cartoonists Jason Little and Joe Infurnari, to be specific) are huuuge fans of Jodorowsky and so I figured, hey, I really ought to check this guy out. Story-wise, I have to admit it’s not particularly gripping me. It reads easy enough, but the characters slip out of their humanity and into being these, I don’t know, super-evolved avatars a bit too often, and kind of fly around delivering exposition. That said, Jodorowsky does an even better job of pulling out crazy ideas that Grant Morrison, and the artwork by Moebius—wow.  If you too do not have enough artwork by Moebius, get some. He’s incredible. In this collection in particular I can see his influence on such masters as Dave Gibbons and P. Craig Russell.

The Mighty Thor Omnibus by Walter Simonson and Sal Buscema. Simonson’s run on the Mighty Thor was largely responsible for turning me into the comics fan (and pro) I am today. This absolute cinder block of a book has been sitting on my nightstand table for a month now as I slowly but surely wade through its contents, which is the entirety of Simonson’s 1980s run on the Mighty Thor book, as well as the Balder the Brave miniseries.  A lot of this I hadn’t read since high school, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how well it holds up. The new coloring is actually quite nice too. My one complaint is the enormous dent it’s putting in my sternum as I read this thing.  Seriously, it must weigh 25 lbs.

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White, by Taiyo Matsumoto. My girlfriend and I had seen the anime made from this previously and LOVED IT, so I finally got around to picking up the original Manga.  I’m actually lying a little bit when I said I’m reading this now—it would be more accurate to say I was reading it, but my girlfriend has now absconded with it and now she’s reading it. My impression: the story is very familiar to what I’ve seen in the anime, but there’s a rougher edge to the artwork by Matsumoto that I’m really digging. Strangely, publisher Viz Media opted to print this western-style, so the book is read from left to right., as opposed to traditional Japanese right  to left.  To accomplish this, Viz must have reversed all of the artwork, which, in my experience, must have distorted it somewhat. I’m going to have to track down a Japanese version one of these days just to see the art how Matsumoto intended.

Fear Itself by Matt Fraction, Stuart Immonen, and Wade von Grawbadger. Normally, I’m one of those guys who grumbles about crossover series like this, but I love Stuart Immonen’s work and had to pick this up. Now that I’m looking at them all together, I seem to be missing one of the issues, but writer Fraction does a very good job of moving the story along at all the points it needs to hit, and man, Immonen can draw.  Von Grawbadger is his best inker, and the whole team has created the perfect comic-book equivalent of a popcorn flick, at least so far. Sometimes these things fall apart in the climax, you know?

Finally, the last book I’m reading is a bit of a cheat, as I’m included in it, but I literally only drew one page. Twisted Savage Dragon Funnies, featuring the work of 31 different cartoonists and edited by Michel Fiffe, is an anthology book featuring twisted takes on Erik Larsen’s venerable Savage Dragon and his supporting cast. The contributors are almost exclusively “indie” cartoonists, and they each bring their own idiosyncratic takes to their short tales of the Dragonverse. Some standouts so far are Kat Roberts “2000 Light Years from Home”, Chris Sinderson’s “Vicious Circle Therapy Group” and the aforementioned Mr Fiffe’s “The Date”, featuring a rotting character with the awesome name of Abner Cadaver. My own contribution was part of a short story ‘jam’ written by Joe Keating, and featuring artwork by my studiomates Simon Fraser, Tim Hamilton, Mike Cavallaro, Joe Infurnari and Dean Haspiel, with bookends by Mr Larsen himself.

• Announcements at the Marvel panel included Jeff Parker and Patrick Zircher’s Hulk of Arabia arc, a new Deadpool arc, an Avengers Academy recruitment drive and Villains for Hire, a new spin on the Heroes for Hire concept. Also in the works: A series of Avengers Origins one-shots.

• T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is coming back in November; the new comics will be written by Nick Spencer and drawn by Wes Craig.

• At the Marvel Digital panel, Marvel senior vice president of publishing David Gabriel announced that Marvel will begin simultaneous print and digital release of its Spider-Man and X-Men comics, starting next week with Amazing Spider-Man #666 and Spider Island line.

• DC released art for several of their New 52 comics. They also revealed Lois Lane’s new boyfriend.

• At the Vertigo panel, Executive Editor Karen Berger announced a new graphic novel called Marzi that would ba marketed to both young and old readers. She also said that Vertigo will launch a new Halloween anthology in October and a totally new series later this year.

• Writer Tim Seely (Hack/Slash) and artist Victor Drujiniu will collaborate on a four-issue The Occultist miniseries for Dark Horse.

• Following up on yesterday’s announcement of a Wally Wood collection, IDW announced John Romita, Sr.’s Amazing Spider-Man: Artist’s Edition. Also, IDW also announced that it is teaming up with DC to create the crossover Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes. Chris Roberson will write the comic, which will be published by IDW.

• In one of Riverdale’s unlikelier pairings, the Archie gang will meet KISS. Archie Comics and IDW share the KISS license now; IDW’s KISS series will launch next year.

• Drawn & Quarterly announced Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, the latest in cartoonist Guy Delisle’s graphic memoirs-slash-travelogues.

• Van Jensen and Dusty Higgins announced a third volume of Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer.

• Anime Diet liveblogged the Stan Lee/Yoshiki and “Manga: Lost in Translation” panels.

• The Japanese publisher Square Enix is offering a free first volume of any of its 15 online manga, including Fullmetal Alchemist and Black Butler, for con-goers and Facebook fans, through August 10.

• Director Robert Rodriguez said he is still working with Frank Miller on the script for a Sin City 2 movie, but he plans to make it this year.

• Hugh Jackman confirmed that he will fight the Silver Samurai in Fox’s The Wolverine.

Therefore, Oklahoma City University professor Marc DiPaolo’s War, Politics and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film is probably going to be something you’ll enjoy curling up with or reading on the beach, even if it is a college textbook with the words “politics” and “ethics” right there in the title. (And, if you’re already pretty conversant in superheroes, it’s worth noting that DiPaolo never talks down to readers, so his work is easy to engage with even if a Superhero and Politics 101 book seems like something you’re well beyond).

DiPaolo defines “superhero” rather widely, including not only the capes and codenames crowd popularized by DC and Marvel, but also Captain Kirk, James Bond, Dr. Who, Rambo, Xena and Jack Bauer and other such idealized heroic figures from genre entertainment. His cast assembled, his book contains a series of chapter-length essays, each dealing with a particular character or group of characters and various political readings of their various adventures.

Broadly, the thesis is that superhero adventures comment on, react to and even shape American public opinion and government policy, a discussion largely divorced from the opinions or intentions of their creators (With a few obvious exceptions, like the way the various worldviews of Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and John Romita shaped the original Spider-Man comics).

The chapters can sound a little heady. Here, for example, are a few of the titles: “Batman as Terrorist, Technocrat and Feudal Lord,” “Spider-Man as Benedict Arnold, Objectivist, and Class Warrior,” “The Punisher as Murderous Immigration Officer and Vietnam War Veteran” and “The Special Relationship: Britain and America in James Bond, Doctor Who, and Hellblazer.”

But the arguments DiPaolo makes, and the examples he cites, are of the sort you’ve been reading on comics blogs and message boards for years, albeit more elegantly written, more reasonably argued and a good fifty pages longer.

The book’s greatest value is probably in its systemization, the way DiPaolo manages to boil certain aspects of certain characters and franchises down into bullet-points, organize them and set up a reasonable way of looking at the characters and their adventures in a new way.

In the introduction, “Are Superheroes Republicans?”, for example,  he lays out four stages of narrative development that most long-lasting fictional characters go through:

1.) A passionate creator designs a superhero character for a publisher on a work-for-hire basis, putting a lot of work and creative energy in and infusing it with his or her personal beliefs.

2.) The original creator stops working on the character, and the replacements work o mimic the previous run, but generally watering down due to lack of passion and investment.

3.) The publisher notices this watering down, and allows a new writer to come on board “to provide a radical, deconstructionist take on the character.”

4.) At a loss, the publisher turns to “Fan writers, who grew up reading the characters and know by heart all of the adventures produced during stages one through three, and have a complete vision of the character as it was originally intended to be, as it was mass-marketed to parents and children, and as it was psychoanalyzed, killed and dissected during the 1980s.”(DiPaolo cites the likes of Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek here, and mentions “greatest hits” versions of the character).

You can probably plug any superhero that’s been around long enough into that system and find plenty of examples to support such a reading, and that is what makes this book rather useful to people who talk about superheroes. Beyond the specific points or arguments made, beyond the history offered (which is thorough and valuable, although because its secondary to the function of the book, there’s better books on different bits of history), I think perhaps the greatest value in the book is that it helps give us new ways to think about and talk about superheroes.

In that same chapter DiPaolo also defines three broad categories for politically-themed superhero adventures (establishment, anti-establishment and colonial), and the different ways in which ideology and subtext can be recognized and processed.

The main focus of the book is the millennial and 21st century boom in superhero entertainment, including the ongoing, second wave of superhero movies and the comics from that period, but the parameters are pretty wide, stretching back to the birth of Superman all the way up until Blackest Night and the then imminent release of the Green Lantern and X-Men: First Class movies.

It’s hard to get much more timely and relevant than that—at least in a book published on paper.

**************************

Before class lets out, let’s review some discussion questions that will be on the test:

—Was Zack Snyder’s 2009 Watchmen adaptation a “masterpiece,” as DiPaolo says, and did Roger Ebert “rightly” declare it one of the best superhero films ever made? Should DiPaolo’s high opinion of the film call into question his judgment on other matters?

—In his discussion of the history of Wonder Woman, DiPaolo notes that, “Since the dominant cultural mood of the McCarthy-era 1950s suggested that it was not possible to be both a progressive and a patriot, Diana chose patriotism over feminism and socialism. She fell silent on political issues and became more of a fickle flirt.” If this is true, which post-war villain is more responsible for ruining Wonder Woman, Fredric Wertham or Joe McCarthy?

—In the sub-chapter “Where are All the Black Superheroes?”, DiPaolo discusses Green Lantern John Stewart’s brief tenure as the Green Lantern of public consciousness in the first decade of the 21st century, and then writes this: “While Hal Jordan was written out of the Green Lantern comics for years, giving Stewart and Metrosexual Green Lantern Kyle Rayner the spotlight, Jordan’s return to prominence as the central Green Lantern in the DC universe in 2004 took much of the attention away from Stewart.”  Is Kyle Rayner really metrosexual? His creation and heyday predate the existence of the term, and have you seen what he used to wear when not in costume? His closet is half t shirt and half flannel!

In the endnotes referencing chapter two, “Wonder Woman as World War II Veteran, Feminist Icon, and Sex Symbol,” DiPaolo mentions Donna Troy:

Some stories—in comics and in the 1970s television series—have featured Donna Troy, who is sometimes presented as Diana’s sister…but not always. The explanation for Donna’s presence has changed repeatedly and is, frankly, confusing beyond belief. In any event, the character more often appears outside of Wonder Woman comic books (as a major figure in the pages of The Teen Titans, for example) than she does in the Wonder Woman title proper, so I like to disregard her presence when I can.

Is this funny, and, if so, why? Will Donna’s existence be less confusing or more confusing after September, when DC kinda sorta reboots their comic book universe?

War, Politics and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film by Marc DiPaolo, McFarland & Company, 330 pages, $45

This concludes the inaugural edition of “Balloonless,” my new books-about-comics review column, which will stick around if you guys like it. Publishers and authors can contact me regarding covering their books at jcalebmozzocco@gmail.com; readers can also feel free to make suggestions for books to cover.