Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
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]
SDCC ’09 | What’s your iGoogle theme?
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?
Slash Print | Following the digital evolution
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)
