The Ray 1

Sometimes when you interview a creator, you get the distinct impression that person would rather be promoting a new film or a new novel, anything but a comic book. Other times you are fortunate enough to talk to a creator like artist Jamal Igle who relishes his craft, loves comic books and is almost as much a booster of his fellow creators as the typical comic book fan. This Wednesday (December 14) marks the release of The Ray 1, the first installment of the four-issue DC miniseries by Igle with the writing team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. My thanks to Igle for the email interview. Once you’ve enjoyed this interview, be sure to check out CBR’s late November interview with Palmiotti and Gray, as well as the preview that CBR offered of issue 1.

Tim O’Shea: When the initial 52 DC Books were announced there was a great deal of displeasure voiced about the fact you were not on the list of creators. Two-fold question: How gratifying was it to see your fans support you so vocally on this front. Secondly, without going into details, were you offered a New 52 assignment and passed on it (please feel free to skip the first part and only answer the first part, if you prefer not to delve into it)

Jamal Igle: It was very flattering and humbling at the same time. It was a little difficult for me to respond to all of the inquiries, because I didn’t know, frankly, how to respond.  I was still working on Superman at the time, so I hadn’t been assigned anything. It was a really weird, with all of the assignments being announced, not being able to say anything. The offer for The Ray came just as I was finishing up Superman # 713, prepping #714 and getting ready for San Diego.

O’Shea: Does this mark the first time you have collaborated with the writing team of Palmiotti and Gray? What sold you on joining this miniseries and/or these creators in particular?

Igle: It is, which is really funny because I’ve known Jimmy for something like 14 years. In fact Jimmy and I have worked together as an art time a few times, but never with him as a writer. However, the opportunity of working with Jimmy and Justin was too good to pass up. I’ve read pretty much everything they’ve done from Powergirl, Jonah Hex, Freedom Fighters, The Twilight Experiment, so I knew what they were going to bring to the table. When I got the script, it was so tailor made that I knew I was going to have a blast doing it.

O’Shea: Are there certain aspects of Palmiotti and Gray’s writing that you find serve to compliment your approach to storytelling?

Igle: It’s a very open collaboration. The script is very straightforward, I think that comes from having an experienced artist as part of the writing team. They understand the limitations of the comic book page and what can be done within the page. There’s a clear sense of fun to their stories, particularly with this series. However there’s also such a breakneck pace to the story as well, and so many things thrown in, monsters, aliens, etc. All the things I love to design and rarely get a chance to do.

O’Shea: In a recent CBR interview, Palmiotti praised the dynamic nature of your work on this miniseries. Seeing the first issue preview, I was struck by the kineticism of the Ray’s powers even when he first gains them. How much experimenting with the layout did you do before you realized “hey he should bounce off a car, then off the belly of a plane and then back down to earth” (a great bit BTW)?

Igle: Well, how the actual layout came together just popped into my head as soon as I read the script. The thing about Lucien’s power set, is that in order to fly, he has to ricochet off reflective surfaces. As he’s doing it, he’s making hundreds of calculations in seconds. He can’t stop in mid-air like most fliers can and because he can move at the speed of light, he’s able to cover miles at a time then recalculate where he needs to go. So visually in some panels, it looks fairly random, but it creates such a unique visual effect, one that I’ve rarely seen done in comics.

O’Shea: What do you enjoy more on a project like this: designing the costume and the characters’ powers or building the look of the supporting cast?

Igle: Actually the costume was the last thing I designed. It was more important that we ground Lucien’s world and make it as “real” as possible. Every location is a real location, I went out of my way to get as much reference for San Diego as I could. Everything from the families houses, to the looks of Lucien’s parents, Darius, his girlfriend Chanti. I really went out of my way to design these characters as I saw them in my head as well as maintain the vision Jimmy and Justin had of each character. So all of the action scenes were drawn last, and then once those were done, we designed The Ray costume and went into the high octane stuff.

O’Shea: Can you talk about the benefits of your art being inked by Rich Perrota and colored by Guy Major?

Igle: Well, I’ve worked with Guy before so I had no issues with the coloring. What’s interesting is Rich Perotta. Rich and I worked together on Iron Fist and Wolverine: The Return of Kun Lun for Marvel 11 years ago. We were friends for a long time and lost touch with each other. Then a few years ago I ran into Rich at Heroescon. He had dropped out of comics for a few years and was just getting back into the business and had been doing really well. He was good then but his work has really gotten sharp. He’s an incredibly talented inker.

O’Shea: If response was strong enough to the miniseries, would you be game for an ongoing Ray series?

Igle: Of course I would. It’s a great premise and the characters are so rich. I could see myself having a nice run on The Ray, if it came to fruition.

O’Shea: I admire how much of a fan of comics you are, even after all these years in the industry, a quality that cannot be said about all industry veterans. With that in mind, I was curious which of the new DC 52 you are really enjoying these days (but maybe you think might be getting overlooked in the deluge of new titles)?

Igle: Well there are the obvious one’s Like Action Comics, Batman, Batwoman, Green Lantern and All Star Western (Moritat is kicking ass on that book). I’m also really digging OMAC and I didn’t think I would. I really like Hawk and Dove, Green Lantern Corps, Batwing is good, a very strong character piece. [Peter] Tomasi and [Patrick] Gleason on Batman and Robin was a no brainer for me. The Huntress miniseries is really good, between [Paul] Levitz, Marcus To and John Dell, you have a really good looking, well-written book . The surprises for me were Frankenstein and Swamp Thing. I was never a Swamp Thing fan but Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette are so good on it, and Jeff Lemire is so talented.

O’Shea: Is there anything about The Ray you would like to discuss that I neglected to ask you about? On the flipside, after answering all my queries, are there any questions you’d like to ask Robot 6 readers or a message you’d like to give to them?

Igle: It’s difficult for me to talk about the series without wanting to spoil things, so I hope people pick up the first issue and give it a try. It really has been a labor of love for me, putting the art for this book together. If you dig it, please contact me via Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (I’m easy to find) and let me know.

Google+

Publishing | Marvel and DC Comics are among the first companies to join Google+ as a part of the Google + Pages initiative, along with other early adopters like the WWE, Angry Birds, The Muppets and Pepsi. Companies that initially joined Google+ back when it first launched had their accounts shut down as Google worked on “building a similarly optimized business experience for Google+” like they had for individuals. Google+ Pages launched yesterday. [The Source, Marvel.com]

Creators | Cartoonist Susie Cagle shares her account of being arrested last week during Occupy Oakland. [AlterNet]

Digital | Digital comics distributor iVerse Media has received a $4 million private-equity investment for the expansion of marketing and product development for its Comics+ app. [TechCrunch]

Comics | They can’t call it The Avengers, because, well, you know, but BOOM! Studios is reprinting the Eclipse series Steed and Mrs. Peel, written by Grant Morrison. The original miniseries, which ran in the early 1990s, comprised three issues, but BOOM! will be splitting it into six, priced at $3.99 each. [Multiversity Comics]

Resurrection Man #3

Creators | Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning discuss their work on DC’s Resurrection Man. [USA Today]

Creators | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson and Anime News Network reporter Crystal Hodgkins interview Hiro Mashima, creator of the whimsical shonen manga Fairy Tail. [MTV Geek]

Retailers | Chris Sims tours the Marvel Retailer Resource Center, saying that it is “a neat idea with a lot of potential that could easily help retailers, with a few major bugs that still need to be fixed.” [ComicsAlliance]

Comics | Super Itch shows off some vintage issues of Stan Lee and Stan Goldberg’s teen comic Kathy the Teenage Tornado. [Super Itch]

Scene | Kevin Czap reports in on the comics scene in Cleveland, hometown to such legendary creators as Harvey Pekar, Bill Watterson, and Brian Michael Bendis, as well as a fresh crop of young artists and writers. [The Comics Journal]

Conventions | Margaret O’Connell takes the long view in her report on New York Comic Con, giving a good overall view of this year’s con and its evolution during its short life. [Sequential Tart]

While in the Bay Area a few weeks ago for WonderCon, Paul Levitz, former DC president and publisher and current Legion of Super-Heroes writer, headed down the peninsula to speak at Google’s offices in Mountain View as a part of their Authors@Google speaker series. It’s a lengthy video, but well worth the time to check it out.

(Hat tip: Tom Galloway)

To mark what would have been Will Eisner’s 94th birthday, Google is honoring him with a homepage “doodle” spotlighting The Spirit and the cartoonist’s imaginative blend of type and architecture. Scott McCloud, who helped design the piece, also writes a tribute to Eisner on the Official Google Blog: “For most of his career, Eisner was years, even decades, ahead of the curve. I saw him debating artists and editors half his age, and there was rarely any question who the youngest man in the room was. It helped that he never stood on ceremony. Everyone was his peer, regardless of age or status. None of us called him ‘Mr. Eisner.’ He was just “Will’.”

Welcome to J-Comi!

Manga creator Ken Akamatsu (Negima, Love Hina) has been pioneering an interesting business model: Putting out-of-print manga online, for free, as PDFs with no copy protection. The site, J-Comi, is supported by ads, and Akamatsu put his money where his mouth is by posting all 14 volumes of Love Hina on the site, which is still in beta.

Last week, Akamatsu announced that he is working with Google to develop a comics reader that will track readers’ location and interests and deliver targeted ads. That’s actually not such great news for readers—comics viewers seldom work as smoothly as a PDF, they won’t allow the comics to be downloaded to an iPad or other device, and everyone hates ads—but I guess you have to pay the bills somehow.

What makes this site a big deal is the names attached: Akamatsu has persuaded two of the biggest manga publishers in Japan, Kodansha and Shueisha, to play along. When the second beta test period begins, on January 11, the offerings will include Belmonde Le VisiteuR, from Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, which is also the home of the blockbusters Naruto and Bleach, as well as Hōkago Wedding (Afterschool Wedding), a previously unpublished 50-page story, and Kōtsū Jiko Kanteinin Tamaki Rinichirō (Rinichirō Tamaki, Traffic Accident Investigator), an older series from Shueisha’s Super Jump.

Akamatsu’s plans also include finding a way to allow readers to post comments alongside the comments (this sounds vaguely like Graphic.ly), which would allow fans to do their own translations right on the site.

Batman: The Return

Publishing | Following its grim snapshot of year-to-date dollar sales in the direct market, ICv2.com has released a dreary analysis of the November charts: For the third time in 2010, the top-selling title failed to crack the 100,000-copy mark. Batman: The Return, priced at $4.99, sold about 99,500 copies, compared to the 144,000 sold by November 2009′s top title, Blackest Night #5. According to the retail news and analysis site, 20 of the Top 25 titles experienced a drop last month. As ICv2 noted last week in its initial report, dollar sales of comics were down 10.2 percent when compared with November 2009, while graphic novels jumped 14.84 percent, tied to the release of the 13th volume of The Walking Dead (it sold more than 19,000 copies). [ICv2.com]

Digital publishing | Google on Monday unveiled Google eBooks, a web-based e-book platform/digital storefront that boasts “the world’s largest selection of ebooks.” Dan Vado offers brief commentary. [TechCrunch]

Barnes & Noble

Retailing | Activist investor William Ackman has offered to finance a $960 million bid by Border Groups to buy its smaller larger rival Barnes & Noble. Both chains have been struggling amid competition from online stores like Amazon.com and the increasing popularity of e-book readers. [The Detroit News]

Passings | Steve Bates, longtime manager of Ohio’s Bookery Fantasy and later a writer in the marketing department of Diamond Comic Distributors, passed away Dec. 3 from cancer. He was 48. [ICv2.com]

Best of the year | Katherine Dacey selects the best manga of 2010, including AX: A Collection of Alternative Manga, Black Blizzard, and A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. [The Manga Critic]

Comics | S.I. Rosenbaum rolls out a graphic novel gift guide. [The Boston Phoenix]

Frank Miller

Creators | Christopher Irving continues his profile of Frank Miller, this time focusing on The Dark Knight Strikes Again, All-Star Batman and Robin, The Spirit movie and more. [Graphic NYC]

Creators | Nathan Wilson continues his discussion with Paul Levitz about 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking. [TCJ.com]

Creators | Sarah Glidden discusses her memoir/travelogue How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less: “I don’t even think I believe in objectivity anymore. No matter how hard you try to gather facts, there’s always a motivation behind the reasons we choose one source over another, and our sources have prejudices and biases too. That stuff can really drive you crazy if you start thinking about it. As soon as I started doing research into the history of the Levant region and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I realized this. I was suspicious of pretty much everything I read. This book is kind of about my search for objective truths in a situation where that’s nearly impossible to find, so I knew that if I wanted to write about that I would have to go the route of extreme subjectivity.” [Bookslut]

Creators | Paul Tobin talks about Spider-Girl, Marvel Adventures and what he likes best about writing kids’ comics: “The freedom of being able to completely world-build. The all-ages material isn’t as bound by the Code of Continuity, so if I feel like bringing in some disparate elements, it’s all up to me.” [TFAW]

Doctor Strange: From the Marvel Vault

Creators | Tom Mason chats with Neil Vokes about his upcoming collaboration with Roger Stern Doctor Strange: From the Marvel Vault, which tells the story of the Sorcerer Supreme’s first night at at 177-A Bleecker Street. [Comix 411]

Comics | Tucker Stone offers tips for jump-starting a career in comics: “Don’t be that guy. You know which guy I’m talking about, the guy who is a walking PR kit. He never talks with you, he talks at you. This one dimensional persona pollutes the comics industry. If you have an idea for a project and you’re pretty excited about it, congratulations, but here’s a little secret: no one cares. If you insist on giving us lip service then please, I urge you to take a step outside yourself and imagine listening to your spiel about your ‘secret project’ or how ‘people would kill to work on the deal’ you just ‘scored’.” [comiXology]

The Thing

Publishing | Marvel reportedly has issued a round of Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices to Google in an effort targeting Blogger sites that serve as clearinghouses for links to pirated comics. (Blogger was purchased by Google in 2003.) One such blog, Comics Invasion, already has been shut down. [Bleeding Cool]

Passings | Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Paul Conrad passed away Saturday of natural causes. He was 86.  The winner of three Pulitzers, an achievement matched by just two other cartoonists in the post-World War II era, Conrad worked for the Los Angeles Times for nearly 30 years, and earned a place on President Nixon’s infamous “enemies list.” [Los Angeles Times, Comic Riffs]

DC Comics

Publishing | David Brothers considers the state of DC Comics: “DC is clearly trying to turn a corner and move away from their past in one way or another, and Diane Nelson seems to be encouraging that, judging by how DiDio describes her ‘Why not?’ philosophy. We’re still in the middle of the transition to a New DC, and while there are several new developments, we aren’t quite at the point where we can point what their new direction will be.” [Comics Alliance]

Publishing | David Wolkin crafts a timeline of Joe Quesada’s decade as editor-in-chief of Marvel. [Comics Alliance]

Crime | A suspected burglar, 28-year-old Robert Summers, was shot and killed early Wednesday in a confrontation with the owner of a Lancaster, California, store that’s been identified as Bases, Cards and Games. [Los Angeles Daily News, Bleeding Cool]

Crime | Adjeel J. Bartley, 21, was charged over the weekend with burglary, criminal mischief and giving false information to police after he allegedly broke in to The Comic Book Store in Glassboro, New Jersey. [Gloucester County Times]

Crime | Marc Rowland, 36, was convicted last week of burglary and resisting law enforcement in the attempted break-in at Castle Comics and Cards in Lafayette, Indiana, in June 2009. Rowland was wearing a black ninja outfit, and tossed away a vest containing carbon dioxide cylinders, throwing stars and a walkie-talkie as he attempted to escape police. [WLFI.com]

Dragon*Con

Conventions | Ann Hoevel and Barbara Vey report on Dragon*Con, which was held over the weekend in Atlanta. [CNN.com, Publishers Weekly]

Retailing | Profiles of Rock Bottom Comics in Columbia, Missouri, A&M Comics in Miami, and Astro-Zombies in Albuquerque, New Mexico. [MOVE Magazine, Miami New Times, Daily Lobo]

Creators | Legendary cartoonist Mort Walker, 86, talks about the 60th anniversary of his comic strip Beetle Bailey: “I don’t know how I’d be retired. I wake up every day with another idea.” [The Associated Press]

Spider-Man: Fever

Creators | Mark Kardwell interviews Brendan McCarthy about his Spider-Man: Fever miniseries — the collected edition hits shelves this week — which could just lead to another Marvel project: “… Another story has started to take shape, probably just starring Dr. Strange and Clea … I’m interested in different forms of magic and enchantment, not just that dark Aleister Crowley angle … Hollywood, for example, is certainly a place of magic: Enchantment by the manipulation of projected light. The name ‘Hollywood’ has a deeper esoteric meaning too. The wood of the Holly tree was used by Druids to make wands. I think Dr. Strange should get involved with The Light-masters of Hollywood. There’s some great online articles by Jay Weidner on the esoteric symbols concealed in corporate Hollywood movies.” [Bad Librarianship]

Creators | Johanna Draper Carlson talks to Colleen Doran about the business of freelancing and self-publishing. [Comics Worth Reading]

Creators | Posy Simmonds discusses the film adaptation of her comic Tamara Drewe. [The Scotsman]

Creators | Julianne Mattera spotlights John Ostrander, who held a writing workshop in Durand, Michigan. [The Argus-Press]

Creators | Writer Stuart C. Paul chats about his new Wildstorm series Ides of Blood. [Fangoria]

"The Walking Dead" Google Map, by Jason McDonald

A year ago, very nearly to the day, I wrote about Jason McDonald‘s then-new Google map tracing the events of The Walking Dead, the zombie/survivalist drama by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn. Given the enduring, or perhaps growing, popularity of the Image Comics series, and the Halloween debut of the television series, it seemed like a perfect time to revisit the map.

I’m pleased to see that McDonald has kept the project current, noting the location of virtually every story event — zombie attacks, first appearances, last appearances, sexual encounters — through Issue 76, which was released just two weeks ago.

If you’re not up to date on The Walking Dead, you may want to avoid the map for a while, as it chronicles the deaths of several key characters.

One Manga

One Manga, a scanlation website frequently at the center of discussions about online piracy, cracked Google’s newly released list of the world’s 1,000 most-visited websites.

Using data compiled from Google’s Doubleclick Ad Planner, the list places One Manga at No. 935 with 4.2 million unique visitors each month. The site, which illegally posts translated scans of hundreds of manga titles, ranks higher than Toysrus.com, Barbie.com, NFL.com and VirginMedia.com — and, well, countless thousands of others that didn’t make the list at all.

(via WebNewser)

Popeye Google Doodle

Google celebrates comics again today with a Doodle on its homepage marking what would’ve been the 115th birthday of Popeye creator E.C. Segar.

Born on Dec. 8, 1894, in Chester, Illinois, Elzie Crisler Segar worked as a drummer and film projectionist at a local theater while taking a correspondence course in cartooning. He eventually moved to Chicago, and was hired by the Chicago Herlad, which in March 1916 published Segar’s first (but short-lived) comic strip, Charlie Chaplin’s Comedy Capers.

After media mogul William Randolph Hearst bought and closed the Herald, Segar was sent to King Feature Syndicate in New York City, where he created Thimble Theatre, a strip starring a coy flapper named Olive Oyl, her fiance Harold Hamgravy and various members of the Oyl family.

The comic debuted on Dec. 19, 1919, in the New York Journal, but it would be another 10 years before the now-legendary Popeye would appear, initially only as a supporting character for one storyline. However, when the sailor bowed out on June 27, 1929, reader complaints poured in; a few weeks later, Popeye was back for good.

With the corncob pipe-chomping, spinach-eating “one-eyed runt” as the star, Thimble Theatre became one of the syndicate’s most popular strips during the 1930s. By the middle of the decade, Segar was earning a reported $100,000 a year.

The cartoonist died on Oct. 12, 1938, after a lengthy illness. He was 43.

This is at least the third time in recent months Google has showcased comics on its homepage. The Internet giant previously celebrated the 50th anniversary of Asterix, and marked the launch of its iGoogle comics themes with a DC Comics Doodle.

Flight Explorer, Vol. 1

Publishing | Retailer Christopher Butcher catches word that Flight Explorer, the younger-readers spinoff of the long-running Flight anthology, is without a publishing home. Although the first volume, published in March 2008 by Villard, reportedly sold through its 20,000-copy first printing, editor Kazu Kibuishi tweeted last week that “the project remains orphaned.” Butcher provides commentary on his blog. [Comics212]

Legal | Google and groups representing publishers and authors on Friday filed a revised settlement they hope will resolve a dispute over the Internet giant’s controversial plans to make millions of out-of-print books available online.

The original agreement, created to resolve a 2005 lawsuit, was opposed by parties ranging from DC Comics to the U.S. Justice Department to the governments of France and Germany, who argued that its terms could violate copyright law. The revisions address the handling of orphan works, restrict the Google database to books published in the United States, Britain, Canada or Australia, and allow other companies to license the digital catalog.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin is expected this week to set a date for a “fairness hearing” in which arguments about the settlements will be presented by b0th sides. [The New York Times]

Dragon Ball, Vol. 3

Publishing | More details have emerged on plans by Japanese publishing giant Shueisha to sell manga on mobile phones in 28 countries, including the United States, beginning in spring 2010. ICv2.com reports that Shueisha, co-owner of Viz Media, will launch the digital initiative with 20 to 30 titles, including Dragon Ball. [ICv2.com]

Publishing | A writer at Sankaku Complex examines the declining sales in Japan of manga magazines and tankobon, and declares that the country’s manga industry is in “dire straits.” [Sankaku Complex]

Internet | This morning Time.com launched Techland, a free-standing website devoted to “geek culture,” with coverage ranging from science-fiction movies and video games to gadgets and comic books. [Techland]

Female Force: Princess Diana

Publishing | Darren G. Davis, publisher of Bluewater Productions, responds to recent criticism in the U.K. of the company’s Female Force: Princess Diana biographical comic. [Hero Complex]

Publishing | James Hudnall takes a broad look at shifts in comics distribution channels, from the newsstand to the direct market to “the digital age.” [Big Hollywood]

Retailing | Here’s an odd article that’s part profile of newly opened comics store, part attempt at a snapshot of the marketplace. The assessment of the industry is a bit … rosy. [The Boston Globe]

Sales charts | R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated remains the No. 1 hardcover on The New York Times’ graphic books bestseller list as the eighth volume of Matsuri Hino’s Vampire Knight debuts as the top manga and Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth climbs to the top paperback slot. [The New York Times]

Events | Matthew Brady covers an appearance on Friday in Chicago by Dean Haspiel and Tim Hall for a screening of The Act-I-Vate Experience, a short documentary about the comics collective. [Warren Peace Sings the Blues]

Comics | Tim Macavoy counts down the Top 10 gay superheroes (though he ends up with more than 10). [Queer Sighted]

Google, meanwhile, isn’t working on a device, but they do plan to launch an e-book store in order to deliver electronic books to “any device with a web browser.” Time will tell what any of this means for the comic industry, but with a color tablet coming out soon, you can see the possibilities.

Webcomics | Writing for PBS’s Mediashift blog, Simon Owens writes about what newspaper cartoonists can learn from web cartoonists. He spoke with both Richard Stevens and Howard Tayler for the piece.

Digital comics | With the movie coming out soon, IDW has released a whole bunch of Astro Boy comics for the iPhone.

Digital comics | Alex De Campi shares her thoughts on the various digital comics applications that are out there.

Webcomics | Questionable Content creator Jeph Jacques offers up a State of the Webcomics Union, discussing what’s changed in online comics over the six years he’s been making them. (Via Scott McCloud)

Video games | OK, this probably isn’t the usual Slash Print material, but I’m kind of stoked about this Epic Mickey game that Disney is working on.

Walt Disney Studios

Business | Depending upon which source you believe, Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook either resigned, or was fired, from the company Friday afternoon after 38 years. Whichever is the case, the news took most everyone by surprise. No successor has been named.

Cook’s departure comes nearly three weeks after Disney announced its planned $4-billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment. The Wall Street Journal reports that “people close to Disney” claim Cook had complained Disney Studios wouldn’t have control of Marvel Studios under the terms of the deal — something Cook, through a spokeswoman, denies.

Others note a growing rift between Cook and Disney CEO Robert Iger, who in May publicly criticized the performance of the company’s film division.

Cook began his Disney career in 1970 as a ride operator at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, working his way through the company until 2002, when he was named chairman of Walt Disney Studios. [Los Angeles Times, Deadline Hollywood]

Jack Kirby

Legal | In its coverage of the efforts by heirs of Jack Kirby to reclaim copyrights to some Marvel characters, The New York Times’ DealBook blog notes: “Even before the Kirby family sent its notices, Disney was facing criticism from some Wall Street analysts who expressed concern that Marvel’s complex web of copyright agreements might prevent Disney from capitalizing on some Marvel assets.” [DealBook]

Legal | Google and its settlement partners — the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers — are rushing to modify the terms of an agreement to resolve a 2005 lawsuit accusing the Internet giant of infringing on copyrights by digitizing out-of-print books without permission. On Friday, the Justice Department filed documents urging a federal court not to approve the settlement without modifications that addressed legal concerns raised by numerous critics, including DC Comics and Microsoft. [The New York Times]

20th Century Boys, Vol. 3

Retailing | Deb Aoki talks to Meltdown Comics owner Gaston Dominguez-Letelier about the challenges he faces selling manga in the direct market: “That time (when we order any and all manga) has passed for us. We are left with 2,000 over-stocked books and we learned a lesson. We’ve since curbed our appetite for taking risks on unproven titles and are just stocking the greatest hits now. Nowadays for us, it’s all about getting books that appeal to the more sophisticated readers out there and figuring out how best to cater to them.” [About.com]

Retailing | Tate’s Comics in Lauderhill, Florida, winner of the 2009 Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award, is the subject of two more profiles. [Pembroke Pines, Sequential Tart]

Retailing | Brothers Jason and Nathan Hurley have opened Hurley’s Heroes in Joplin, Missouri. [The Joplin Globe]

Conventions | Judy Harrison and Kyle Kernan file reports on Saturday’s BangPop convention in Bangor, Maine, which drew more than 300 people to the Bangor Convention Center. [Bangor Daily News, The Maine Campus]

Blogosphere | Tom Spurgeon marks the fifth anniversary of The Comics Reporter with an interesting look at how the comics landscape has changed since 2004. [The Comics Reporter]

Howard the Duck #8

Creators | Marc-Oliver Frisch remembers Steve Gerber on what would have been the writer’s 62nd birthday. [Comiks Debris]

Creators | Cartoonist Art Spiegelman is the subject of a pair of profiles. [News-Journal, Orlando Sentinel]

Creators | The Surrogates creators Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele give separate interviews about their Top Shelf Productions comic series, whose move adaptation debuts on Friday. [The Sunday Paper, Great Falls Tribune]

Creators | Writer Vito Delsante talks about FCHS, his collaboration with artist Rachel Freire that he describes as “Love and Rockets meets American Pie.” [CosmicBookNews]

Creators | Pádraig Ó Méalóid interviews Garen Ewing, creator of the 1920s botanical-adventure web/print series The Rainbow Orchid. [Forbidden Planet International]

Weirdness | I’ll get this out of the way upfront: This link isn’t safe for work, or for several other locations. That said, I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve seen Peter Parker/Spider-Man used to explain fellatio techniques. I could be wrong, though. [The Daily Loaf]

DC Comics

Business | It should come as no surprise that the creation by Warner Bros. of DC Entertainment, and the resignation of Paul Levitz as president and publisher, dominates the news again this morning.

I’ll devote a separate post to that coverage, but there are a few links worth highlighting here: ICv2.com has a succinct timeline of Levitz’s career to date plus earlier comments by the industry veteran about having “one of the best jobs on the planet.” Kurt Busiek, Marv Wolfman and Rich Johnston offer solid tributes to Levitz and his accomplishments as head of DC Comics. And at Comic Book Resources, Kiel Phegley gathers reactions from industry figures. [Warner Bros. press release]

Legal | DC Comics is among the parties objecting to Google Inc.’s settlement with publishers designed to resolve a 2005 lawsuit accusing the Internet giant of infringing on copyrights by digitizing out-of-print books without permission. DC, Microsoft and the governments of France and Germany are among those who say the agreement — $125 million and a registry to identify and compensate copyright holders — violates international copyright law. [Bloomberg]

Disney World

Business | Meanwhile, Disney Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs told analysts the $4-billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment is unlikely to mean we’ll see that company’s superheroes at Walt Disney World. Existing licenses give Orlando exclusive rights to many of Marvel’s best-known characters in theme parks east of the Mississippi and, in the case of Spider-Man, in Japan. However, other regions may be be a different story: “”As we get outside of Orlando — and Spider-Man in Japan — we have an opportunity in theme parks and, over time, we’ll explore just how best to take advantage of that.” [Orlando Sentinel]

Retailing | Big Monkey Comics in Washington, D.C., will close at the end of the month, an apparent casualty of the recession. [DCist, via Journalista]

Publishing | Manga publisher Seven Seas will release some of its top-selling original titles on the Amazon Kindle and through the Kindle for iPhone application for $3.50 per volume. [press release]

The Drops of God, Vol. 1

Manga | Is there anything the international-sensation wine manga The Drops of God can’t do? [The Age]

Comics | Brian Gibson considers how comic books handle sex. “If people don’t think of sex when they think of comics, sadly they do think of sexism — the ridiculous super-heroine costumes, fighting crime in high-heels and spilling out of your top,” says Peter Birkemoe, owner of The Beguiling in Toronto. “More often than not, these criticisms are sadly justified.” [Vue Weekly]

Conventions | Stan Lee will be the guest of honor at Pittsburgh Comicon, which kicks off Friday at the New Monroeville Exposition Center in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. Other guests include Talent Caldwell, Danielle Corsetto, Ramona Fradon, Ron Frenz, Michael Golden, Mike Grell, Greg Horn, Adam Hughes, Jamal Igle, David Mack, Scott McDaniel, Mike McKone, Terry Moore, Tim Truman and Scott Wegener. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]

Popeye

Events | If you’re anywhere near Chester, Illinois — birthplace of cartoonist E.C. Segar — this weekend, they’re having the 30th annual Popeye Picnic, which will include the unveiling of a fifth statue along the Popeye Character Trail. [The Southern]

Creators | Christopher Irving profiles Brian Wood, touching upon his early career, his more recent work and the return of Demo: “The stories themselves are a little darker, with the notable exception of one. The inside joke is that I call that one the ‘Series One Love Story’, because it’s me trying to riff off some of the earlier Demos, the ones a lot of naysayers like to deride as ‘emo’. Which is a term I’ve come to embrace with the book. I guess I’m old enough to remember when emo was a good thing!” [Graphic NYC]

Creators | Molly Crabapple chats briefly about Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a drawing class with burlesque models, and her graphic novel Scarlett Takes Manhattan. [Digital City]

Creators | Hwan Cho discusses K.G.B., her newly launched webcomic collaboration with Becky Cloonan. [Reverse Direction]

Creators | John Hogan interviews Adam Rapp (Ball Peen Hammer) and Laurie Sandell (The Imposter’s Daughter). [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Creators | The University of Alberta’s student newspaper spotlights alumnus Robert Burke Richardson, whose webomic Absolute Magnitude won the August Zuda Comics competition. [The Gateway Online]

Crogan's Vengeance on iGoogle

Kevin previously mentioned the really cool Jim Lee Google logo displayed during Comic-Con, as well as the fact that iGoogle is now sporting many, many cool comic themes. I use iGoogle quite a bit, and shortly after they became available, I changed mine over to the Oni Press theme. It rotates through images from various Oni-published books like Crogan’s Vengeance by Chris Schweizer, North World by Lars Brown, Wasteland by Chris Mitten, Blue Monday by Chynna Clugston and Multiple Warheads by Brandon Graham.

There are a lot of other themes out there — Vertigo, Batman Reborn, Fables, Owly, Spider Woman, Jeffrey Brown …So did you change yours, and if so, what are you currently displaying?

DMZ on Google Maps

Internet | Brian Wood uses Google Maps to highlight key locations from his Vertigo series DMZ.

Social media | Twitter, apparently, has taken the place of message boards as the preferred arena for fights between comic pros and gossip columnists.

Last Friday, an online dust-up occurred between comics writer Mark Waid and former All the Rage columnist Rich Johnston. You can read their respective takes on it here and here.

It was certainly a lot easier to follow the back-and-forth flames in the old days of message boards. Kids and their crazy newfangled internet tools …

Digital comics | And now a look at the gentler side of Twitter … also on Friday, Johnston interviewed Ryan Penagos, aka Agent_M, about Marvel.com and Marvel’s Digital Comics Initiative. The interview took place on Twitter.

Internet | The New York Times talks to artists who were recently invited by Google to contribute artwork that would be used on their web browser, Google Chrome. Google asked them to do it for exposure rather than pay. (via)