DC Comics app

Digital comics | ICv2 estimates the total value of the digital comics market in 2011 as $25 million, triple the 2010 figure, and boldly predicts that digital will account for 10 percent of the entire comics market in 2012. Digital sales grew faster in the second half of the year, which ICv2 attributes to three factors: DC’s decision to release its New 52 comics digitally the same day as print, the industry-wide trend toward same-day print and digital releases, and the proliferation of different platforms on which to read digital comics. As for digital taking away from print, the publishing executives ICv2 has spoken to over the past few months don’t seem to think that is happening. [ICv2]

Retailing | Retailer and journalist Matt Price takes the temperature at the ComicsPRO Annual Members Meeting, which kicks off today in Dallas, noting that members remain interested in DC’s publishing plans, and report “very strong sales” for Image’s Fatale and Thief of Thieves. [Nerdage]

comiXology

Digital comics | ComiXology CEO David Steinberger talks about how comiXology got started (he was trying to figure out how to catalog his comic collection), his first comic book and what comic art he would most like to own. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Comics | Heritage Auctions will sell 12 “ashcan” comic books created in the 1930s and ’40s for trademark purposes, including one of three Action Funnies known to exist. [Art Daily]

Creators | Japanese creator Takehiko Inoue has resumed work on his long-running series Vagabond, after taking a lengthy break, first for health reasons and then because he lost interest in it. He told fans he wouldn’t go back to work on the series, which is serialized in Kodansha’s Morning magazine, until he regained his enthusiasm for it. That seems to have happened, and the new chapter is being colored. Vagabond is published in North America by Viz Media. [Anime News Network]

Saucer Country #1

Creators | Paul Cornell discusses his upcoming Vertigo series Saucer Country, which combines his love of UFOs with politics: “I don’t like stories about stupid politicians, I like stories about politicians who show skill and daring, and by the end of the first arc, Arcadia’s used her political instincts to get her and her team out of an immediate danger, and on the way to being able to use the powers of a candidate to start investigating what happened to her.” [USA Today]

Creators | Amy Reeder talks about her new gig as the interior artist for Batwoman: “What I like about Kate is that she’s so subtle for a lead character … like she says very little and our job is to read behind the lines, which makes it impossible not to feel invested and empathetic towards her. She’s got a little of the edgy in her. She’s a nuanced balance between feminine and masculine, which is tough to pin down.” [DC Women Kicking Ass]

Creators | Yuko Shimizu, cover artist for Vertigo’s The Unwritten, discusses her process, influences and career. [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | Noelene Clark talks with artist I.N.J. Culbard about his upcoming Vertigo series The New Deadwardians, and adapting H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. [Hero Complex]

Friends With Boys

Creators | Eva Volin chats with Faith Erin Hicks about her upcoming graphic novel Friends With Boys, fantasy, young-adult comics, and keeping motivated while struggling with the creation process: “I started doing online comics years and years ago, and even though comics are really hard to create, I fell in love with making them. With comics you have to learn how to draw everything really well. It’s not just drawing people, comics are backgrounds and props and cars and animals and learning to draw these things from all angles and in a style that is appealing and fresh. It’s a constant struggle to update and improve my skills. But even though it’s a struggle, it’s something I really love to do. A well made comic is my favourite thing in the world, and I want to someday be the person who makes that comic and gives a reader enjoyment.  It’s like that completely annoying saying: Nothing worth doing is easy to do. Besides, someone has to make comics about flying unicorns and puppies … (Disclaimer: I have not made this graphic novel yet and probably never will. Apologies to 11 year old me.)” [Good Comics for Kids]

Creators | Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa guests on the comiXologist podcast to talk about his work on the graphic novel Fantastic Four: Season One, and other matters. [comiXology Blog]

Creators | Ryan North answers questions from the public about his upcoming Aventure Time comic. [The BOOM!Pen]

Creators | Katie Monnin interviews Star Wars comics writer John Jackson Miller. Fun fact: He has a master’s degree in Soviet studies. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Amazon

Retailing | Rumors have begun to swirl that online retail giant Amazon plans to open a brick-and-mortar store in Seattle within the next few months to help gauge the profitability of a chain. The store reportedly won’t just sell e-readers and tablets, but also books from Amazon’s newly launched publishing division. [Good E-Reader, Gawker]

Publishing | Japanese publisher Shueisha Inc. released the 65th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s pirate manga One Piece last week with a first printing of 4 million copies, tying the record set in November by the previous volume. [The Mainichi Daily News]

Retailing | Howard Ackler writes about the final days of Dragon Lady Comics, the Toronto retailer that closed last week after 33 years in business. [National Post]

Garry Trudeau

Creators | Garry Trudeau reacts to The Chicago Tribune’s refusal to run last Friday’s Doonesbury strip because it included a QR code that led readers to the charity DonorsChoose. The Trib ran a note that said it does not allow comics creators to “promote their self-interests.” Trudeau said, “I’m not sure ‘self-interest’ quite applies, since (a) DonorsChoose is a charity, and (b) I have no formal connection to it,” and he pointed out that the paper ran Thursday’s comic, which included a QR code that directed readers to Trudeau’s own website — “which actually was in my self-interest.” [Comic Riffs]

Creators | J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman discuss their approach to DC Comics’ Batwoman title: “We keep using this mantra of there’s no status quo in the book, and we want everything to continue moving forward and never have an issue where you read it and go, ‘Oh. Tomorrow everything can be back to normal.’ There is no normal,” Blackman said. [USA Today]

Creators | Jeff Parker has begun to post some of his comics scripts on his website, starting with several Marvel Adventures scripts. [Parkerspace]

Creators | J.M. DeMatteis shares an introduction he wrote for a Modern Masters edition focused on his Abadazad collaborator Mike Ploog. [J.M. DeMatteis's Creation Point]

Oyster War

Creators | Panel Bound talks to Ben Towle, illustrator of Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean and creator of the webcomic Oyster War: “I run into a lot of people who have ideas for this and ideas for that, but look: ideas are a dime a dozen. ‘A school for wizards.’ That’s a great idea. Lots of people have had that idea. Only one, though, had the perseverance to write Harry Potter while her mother died and her marriage collapsed—and then stick with it after seeing it rejected by twelve publishers.” [Panel Bound]

Commentary | Joy Kim ponders the difference between teams and team-ups. In a team story, such as the pirates of One Piece, the members work together and character development occurs in that context. “In contrast, in a team-up story, the individual characters always trump the idea of the team. While there’s a certain amount of entertainment value in watching the various members of the Justice League react to each other’s styles, that’s also often all there is to the story. The character-changing moments for the members happen, for the most part, within their own monthly titles, not in Justice League; even when they do happen outside the character’s main title (usually as part of some big crossover event), they are more about the character as an individual than about the team as a unit.” [Joy Kim]

Digital comics | Ryan Penagos, editorial director for Marvel Digital Media Group and Marvel.com, discusses Marvel’s digital strategy with host Peter Biddle in a recent episode of MashUp Radio. [MashUp Radio]

Digital comics | Sean Kleefeld sets out to review digital-first comics and finds the pickings are slim; almost all digital comics have a print version as well. So he takes a broader look at the state of digital comics and sees a market that is still in flux. [The Comic Book Bin]

Reviews | Paul Gravett posts a generously illustrated review of James Chapman’s British Comics: A Cultural History. [Paul Gravett]

Spawn #26

Legal | Neil Gaiman comments briefly on the settlement agreement that ends his decade-long legal dispute with Todd McFarlane over Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cogliostro, and a handful of derivative characters: “The main thing is, I feel like an awful lot of good things have come out of it. … I think the various decisions, particularly the [Judge] Posner decision, were huge in terms of what the nature of dual copyright in comics is. What is copyrightable in comics is now something that there is a definite legal precedent for. There were a lot of things that were … misty in copyright [law] that are now much clearer. And it’s of benefit to the creator.”

While the details of the settlement are confidential, it’s known that Gaiman and McFarlane now share ownership of Spawn #9 and #26, as well as the first three issues of an Angela spin-off series. [Comic Riffs]

Susie Cagle

Legal | Cartoonist Susie Cagle, who has been covering the Occupy movement, was arrested again over the weekend and subsequently “unarrested” during protests in Oakland, California. Cagle wrote on Twitter that an Oakland police officer “charged and grabbed my arm, threw me so hard it was numb for 5 minutes.” She said she was also told by an officer her release was a “favor.” [The Daily Cartoonist]

Conventions | Comic-Con International has released its complete special guest list for the 2012 convention, which takes place July 12-15 in San Diego. The list includes Mark Waid, John Romita Jr., James Robinson, the Hernandez Bros., Paul Levitz, Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, Nate Powell and Becky Cloonan, among others. [Comic-Con]

Creators | Writer Jim Zubkavich says that in its first week as a webcomic, Skullkickers had more unique visits “than all three printings of Skullkickers #1 combined.” He says he hopes that “a combination of web page view ad payouts, print comic sales, digital comic sales, trade sales and convention sales will work together to keep the series running strong so I can tell the entire story I have planned.” [Fleen]

A.D.D.

Creators | New-media expert Douglas Rushkoff discusses his graphic novel A.D.D., a cautionary tale about the importance of media literacy: “The whole trick in turning something from non-fiction to fiction seems to be less about predicting imaginary scenarios than it is about making the unseen reality visible. So really, what you need to do is come up with visual, identifiable characters and circumstances that depict what’s actually going on in a way that we can see it.” [The Huffington Post]

Creators | Girls co-creator Joshua Luna discusses his new comic, Whispers. [Biff Bam Pop]

Creators | Peter Milligan talks about Red Lanterns and the introduction of a human character to their ranks: “He’s an important new character shot through with pathos, one whose vestigial humanity — and unusual powers — will be key when Atrocitus is trying to save the Red Lantern Corps from destruction.” [USA Today]

Scam #1

Creators | Joe Mulvey talks about his new comic Scam, the trials of being a solo creator, and promoting an indy title. [Graphicly]

Creators | Although there is no official word on the topic, speculation is running wild in New Jersey that 19th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast has been denied admission to the New Jersey Hall of Fame for the third year in a row due to objections to his anti-Catholic cartoons and crude caricatures of Irish immigrants. [NJ.com]

Review | Ron Richards takes an advance look at Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. [iFanboy]

Review | Rob McMonigal gives us the birds-eye lowdown on The Show Must Go On, a collection of Roger Langridge’s pre-Muppets work. [Panel Patter]

Manga | While a manga’s popularity on 4chan might not be a selling point in the United States, a Japanese author is touting her manga (which is scanlated over here) as “a smash hit on the overseas version of 2chan!!” [Kotaku]

Jerusalem

Awards | The gold medal for Best Graphic Album at the Angoulême International Comics Festival went to Guy Delisle for Jerusalem, and the jury awarded a Special Prize to Jim Woodring for his Congress of the Animals. Veteran French creator Jean-Claude Denis was awarded the Grand Prix de la ville d’Angoulême, so he will preside over next year’s festival, as Art Spiegelman did this year. Two manga won awards as well: Kaoru Mori’s A Bride’s Story won the Intergenerational Award, and Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s autobiographical A Drifting Life received the World Outlook Award. The Heritage Award went to Glenat’s edition of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck. [Paris Match]

Conventions | New Orleans Comic Con, held over the weekend, receives plenty of coverage, with spotlights on Stan Lee’s panel, aspiring creators and cosplayers. [Reuters, The Times-Picayune]

Creators | Paul Hornschemeier has received the first graphic novel residency from the Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art and Thurber House. The three-week residency, designed to help graphic creators develop a work in progress, includes a stipend and housing in an apartment near the boyhood home of James Thurber. [press release, via Comics Worth Reading]

Creators | Garth Ennis gives a brief interview on his plans for The Shadow, which he promises will continue to be “set firmly in 1938.” [ICv2]

Hell Yeah #1

Creators | Brian Truitt talks to Joe Keatinge about Hell Yeah, his new series about a world where ordinary mortals and superheroes live side by side; Truitt calls it “Keatinge’s blender of awesomeness, taking everything he loves about the medium and turning it up to 11.” [USA Today]

Creators | Gene Luen Yang pays a visit to a manga club at a Gainesville, Florida, middle school [The Gainesville Sun]

Retailing | The local paper peers inside the door of Salinas, California, comic shop Current Comics and chats with the staff a bit. [The Salinas Californian]

Comics | Five artists give their take on superheroes in an art exhibit located, appropriately, in Riverdale, New York. [New York Daily News]

Comics | Joey Manley confesses that he took up cigar smoking at least in part because of the influence of comics. [Mr. Manley]

Merchandising | We had heard about the Wonder Woman lipstick, but it turns out that Smurfette and Hello Kitty have inspired lines of cosmetics as well. [The New York Times]

Hello and welcome to Shelf Porn, where fans show us their collections. Today’s submission comes from Victor Liew in Edmonton, Alberta Canada.

If you’d like to see your collection right here on Robot 6, just send me a write-up and some jpgs, and we’ll make it happen!

Now let’s hear from Victor.

*****

I began officially collecting comic books with Alpha Flight 1 by John Byrne, which led to his Fantastic Four run, which led to Uncanny X-Men, which led to New Teen Titans, and so on. So far, I’ve managed to confine my hobby to one basement room in the house. The highlights include a complete run of Miracleman 1-24 and to date I am three issues away from completing the 300-issue run of Cerebus – unfortunately I require 1, 3, and 4 which are pretty difficult to find at an affordable price.

Although my comics are in long boxes, I keep my graphic novels, hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and collectibles on shelves. Most of the Star Wars toys are original to my childhood. Luckily I was not one of those kids whose parents threw out their toys. I managed to keep mine in pretty good shape for the most part. Other items I was able to reacquire as I got older, got a job and actually had some cash to buy.

The shelf with the Lone Wolf and Cub/Samurai Executioner/Path of the Assasin manga digests also holds most of my Star Wars swag. On the top shelf is a Dark Knight promotional vacuform (although it’s a little beat up) plus the LP for the original Star Wars record album.

The manga spin rack that holds the Archie digests was retrieved from a “dumpster dive” from a local comic shop that threw it out. It was perfectly fine so I pulled it out of the garbage, threw it in my car and drove off before too many people noticed what I was doing.

I went on an Absolute edition binge, much to the detriment of my wallet. The Battlestar Galactica Viper on the shelf is an original toy from 1979 . I also have a Cylon raider on the adjacent shelf. In both cases, they shoot out small red missiles but this was changed due to safety concerns as kids were getting nailed in the eyes with the missiles. Later versions of the viper and raider had missiles but they did not detach from the ships.

The room has original artwork from Steve Rolston on Queen and Country, a Darick Robertson head sketch of Billy Butcher from The Boys, and a Steve McNiven Nemesis sketch. The Batman Earth One print was signed by Gary Frank at Fan Expo in Toronto 2010.

Hope you like what you see. I love looking at other collector rooms so hopefully my room is worthy of inclusion. Happy New Year!

Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Vol. 1

The American Library Association’s Young Adult Library Services Association has unveiled its annual list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens. The 56 titles come from 24 publishers, led by First Second Books with nine and Marvel/Icon with seven.

Chosen by the Great Graphic Novels for Teens Committee from among 78 official nominations, the books are recommended for readers age 12 to 18 as meeting “the criteria of both good quality literature and appealing reading for teens.” In addition, the committee singled out 10 titles “that exemplify the quality and range of graphic novels appropriate for teen audiences”:

• Zahra’s Paradise, by Amir and Khalil (First Second)
• Scarlet, by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (Marvel/Icon)
• Anya’s Ghost, by Vera Brosgal (First Second)
• The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, by Brooke Gladstone, Josh Neufeld and others (W.W. Norton and Company)
• Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Vols. 1 and 2, by Roger Langridge, Chris Samnee and others (Marvel)
• Infinite Kung Fu, by Kagan McLeod (Top Shelf Productions)
• A Bride’s Story, Vol. 1, by Kaoru Mori (Yen Press)
• Axe Cop, Vol. 1, by Malachai Nicolle and Ethan Nicolle (Dark Horse)
• Daybreak, by Brian Ralph (Drawn and Quarterly)
• Wandering Son, Vol. 1, by Takako Shimuro (Fantagraphics Books)

The complete list of the 2012 Great Graphic Novels for Teens can be found at the YALSA website.

Lucky Star

Publishing | Longtime industry hand Jason Thompson has written a thoughtful essay on why the manga industry is in trouble, going beyond the American scene to point out structural problems in the Japanese market: An aging readership, the decline of print and the reluctance of Japanese publishers to embrace digital publishing in any coherent way. “Perhaps wary of creating an iTunes-like behemoth which could drive prices down,” Thompson writes, “publishers haven’t united in any reasonable way to create a consistent digital newsstand/bookstore format for their titles.” This, of course, has just made life easier for the scanlators. He also points to a shift toward the individual creator — it’s the big publishers who are hurting, while self-published and indy manga are on the rise. All this may sound familiar to American comics fans, but Thompson’s prescriptions for the future — more gag manga, simpler art, more color, and motion comics — don’t seem like convincing ways to rescue the industry. An iTunes-like behemoth is probably the way to go. [io9]

Awards | The Horror Writers Association has released the preliminary ballot for the 2011 Bram Stoker Awards, which includes a graphic novel category. [Horror Writers Association]

Awards | The Japanese publisher Shogakukan has announced its 57th annual manga awards. [Crunchyroll]

Retailing | The comics business is booming in Johnson City, Tennessee, and the retailers are giving a lot of credit to DC’s New 52. [Johnson City Press]

Fukitor

Creators | Jim Rugg interviews Jason Karns, the creator of Fukitor. Don’t feel bad if you have never heard of Fukitor, but do check out the article: Rugg starts out by explaining why the comic is important — and why he thinks it is deserving of greater renown. [The Comics Journal]

Creators | This interview with Caleb Melby, writer of The Zen of Steve Jobs, makes some interesting points about journalism and, in particular, journalism that uses the graphic novel medium. However, it’s hard to get past the fact that Forbes assigned Melby to write the Jobs book when he was an intern at the magazine, just out of college. [@PSFK]

From The Sixth Gun #5

Creators | Cullen Bunn walks through his process for writing an issue of The Sixth Gun. [CullenBunn.com]

Creators | Lunch Lady creator Jarrett Krosoczka hands out some solid advice to elementary school students about drawing comics and perseverance: “I tell the kids to write for the love of coming up with stories. I try to show them what I did as a child and show them it doesn’t have to be great … The main thing is they use their imagination. Writing is using your imagination on paper.” [The Press of Atlantic City]

Comics | Paul Gravett treats us to a brief survey of comics creators in the Middle East, an area where sequential art seems to be flourishing right now. [Paul Gravett]

Comics | An exhibit in New York looks at the way comics have portrayed Tibet over the past six decades. [PRI's The World]

Megaupload

Legal | The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI on Thursday shut down the popular file-sharing site Megaupload, seized $50 million in assets and charged its founder and six others with running an international enterprise based on Internet piracy that’s cost copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. The FBI has begun extradition proceedings in New Zealand to bring company founder Kim Schmitz, aka Kim DotCom, to the United States. He and three other associates are being held without bail until Monday, when they’ll receive a new hearing. Three others remain at large. They face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

News of the shutdown was met with retaliation by the hacker collective Anonymous, which attacked the websites of the Justice Department and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Founded in 2005, Megaupload allowed users to anonymously transfer files like movies and music and, certainly on a much smaller scale, comic books. The Hong Kong-based company, which reportedly employed as many as 155 people, is said to have made $175 million from ads and premium subscriptions. According to the indictment, DotCom, whose assets apparently include a fleet of cars, took in $42 million from the operation in 2010.

Before Megaupload was taken down, the company posted a statement on its website claiming that allegations it facilitated massive breaches of copyright are “vastly overblown”: “The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch.” [USA Today, The New York Times, CNET]

J.M. DeMatteis

Piracy | In response to recent conversations about the Stop Online Piracy Act, comics writer J.M. DeMatteis shares his thoughts on comic book piracy: “The bottom line — my bottom line, anyway — is this: If you’re enthusiastic about a particular creator, buy his or her work and then let others know about it. If you spread the word via file-sharing, it’s not much different than loaning a friend one of your books or CDs. Just as I once became an obsessive fan after taping my friends’ vinyl albums, many of your friends will become fans who’ll spend their hard-earned money on actively supporting that creator’s work.” [Creation Point]

Creators | Lynda Barry will be the spring artist in residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [University of Wisconsin-Madison News]

Creators | Movie producer and former Marvel Studios President Avi Arad chats briefly about his new manga The Innocent: “I’ve been in the world of comics all my life, and specifically into Japanese comics in the early days, before manga attempted to penetrate this market. I wanted to do The Innocent a long time ago. It stayed with me quite a while. Once I got out of Marvel Comics, it was one of the things on my bucket list to do a manga. I had an idea and I followed it, and here we are.” [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Dancer #1

Creators | Nathan Edmondson discusses Dancer, his upcoming Image Comics miniseries with artist Nic Klein about a retired assassin and his ballerina companion on the run from a sniper in Milan. [USA Today]

Creators | Jennifer Anderson spotlights Oil & Water, the new Fantagraphics graphic novel by Steve Duin and Shannon Wheeler that examines the impact of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf. [Beaverton Valley Times]

Creators | Collaborators Kurtis J. Wiebe and Tyler Jenkins talking about their upcoming Image/Shadowline series Peter Panzerfaust, which reimagines Peter Pan and the Lost Boys as Nazi resisters during World War II. [USA Today]

Publishing | Dave Ferraro and Patrick Markfort discuss the small publisher Sparkplug in their latest podcast. [Comics-and-More]

The Art of Brett Ewins

Creators | Former Judge Dredd artist Brett Ewins suffered serious head injuries Saturday after he allegedly stabbed a police officer who responded to complaints about a man shouting throughout the night. Police say when they arrived the 56-year-old Ewins attacked them with a knife. One of the officers received minor wounds during the struggle, but Ewins was hospitalized, where he remains in serious condition. The newspaper report asserts the artist, best known for his work on Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper for 2000AD, has a history of mental-health problems. [Ealing Gazette]

Digital | Salon staff writer Andrew Leonard relates his son’s disappointment upon learning that Viz Media was turning Shonen Jump magazine into an online publication: “The older we are the less we like change. But for every grumbling codger who departs this mortal coil there’s a new baby born who seems to know how to do a two-finger swipe on an iPhone touch screen right out of the womb. And yet here was a clear example of a bond with the printed word, the material object, that transcended generational divisions. Eli told me to he wanted me to sign him up for Shonen Jump Alpha, but he didn’t seem enthused by the prospect of reading the latest installments of his favorite manga on the flat screen. If my 14-year-old could be transformed into a crotchety old codger, then maybe, just maybe, the culture really is losing something valuable as everything goes virtual.” [Salon]

Golgo 13, Vol. 1

Creators | The Sankei Shimbun newspaper profiles Takao Saito, the 75-year-old creator of Golgo 13, who reveals he’s planning the ending for his long-running action manga. Golgo 13, which follows the global exploits of an assassin for hire, debuted in November 1968. [Anime News Network]

Creators | Greg Pak discusses his new Aspen Comics/Valhalla Entertainment miniseries Dead Man’s Run. [USA Today]

Creators | Brian Truitt spotlights Guillaume Bianco, whose graphic novel Billy Fog and the Gift of Trouble Sight was recently released in North America by Archaia. [USA Today]

Creators | Texas artist Trent Westbrook talks about the local success of his comic Corpus Christi. [Caller-Times]

Whether the book will actually be published is no longer in question — the campaign reached its goal last week. The question is whether this is how comics publishers should be doing business.

On the one hand, you can argue that Barbara is a book that would be difficult to publish in English by the traditional means. It is one of Tezuka’s more outré books, with adult content that will make it hard to place in the usual channels. Here’s the blurb:

Wandering the packed tunnels of Shinjuku Station, famous author Yosuke Mikura makes a strange discovery: a seemingly homeless drunk woman who can quote French poetry. Her name is Barbara. He takes her home for a bath and a drink, and before long Barbara has made herself into Mikura’s shadow, saving him from egotistical delusions and jealous enemies. But just as Mikura is no saint, Barbara is no benevolent guardian angel, and Mikura grows obsessed with discovering her secrets, tangling with thugs, sadists, magical curses and mythical beings – all the while wondering whether he himself is still sane.

At Manga Widget, Alex Hoffman argues that this is essentially the readers commissioning a book, as a patron might commission a painting from an artist. “Commissions are what works for microniche consumer materials,” Hoffman argues, adding,

We are at a place in the anime and manga industry that is stressful for publishers, because one flop, like Bandai’s overproduction of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya product, could lead to the failure of that company. DMP is readjusting its game plan to determine what markets will bear prior to taking the intial risk by asking consumers – something that no manga publisher has truly done before. This is a smart business move.

In the opposite corner, Lissa Pattillo of Kuriousity sees a number of problems with this approach. “There is a difference between empowering a consumer and passing off the responsibility to them,” she argues. She is concerned that Digital is telling readers that if Barbara isn’t published, it will be their fault, and at the same time, the company is asking people to pledge a lot of money sight unseen. On a more philosophical level, she sees Digital shirking the duty of a publisher:

I believe a company holds the key responsibility for marketing, distributing and promoting their own product. It not only defines their role traditionally but also defines a great bulk of their purpose. Of course in this age of internet and social media, word of mouth is going to play a role but a company shouldn’t expect this to be the entire push process. It’s the companies’ job to determine interest, to fund their work and to put it out there.

And then there is the question of what happens if something goes wrong. Traditional manga fall through all the time, and Digital will only get the license to Barbara if the fund-raiser succeeds (now a moot point).

Digital marketer Ben Applegate actually responds in comments to several of Lissa’s points, including the license issue, and he says that they will likely post the first chapter at the Kickstarter page soon.

As Lissa says, the ideal solution would be to publish Barbara in digital format first, but the rights holders won’t allow that, so this is the next best thing. In Digital’s defense, they offered some pretty good deals for pledgers, including bundles of their print and digital books, so readers are getting a good deal, even before they get their copies of the book.

Here are a few more links, for those who are interested: Deb Aoki gives some background and asks readers to suggest what books they would like to see Kickstarted next; Johanna Draper Carlson shares her thoughts at Comics Worth Reading; and Lissa and Alex discuss the question directly, with Ed Sizemore and Johanna, in the latest Manga Out Loud podcast.

Are You My Mother?

With 2012 still fresh and new, it seems like as good a time as any to look at various publishing companies’ plans for the year ahead and pick out what looks good, or at least interesting. Because the year looks to be filled with so many delights, I decided to double down and offer not just six but 12 comics I’m really looking forward to reading. Obviously this list is reflective of my own, indie-slanted interests, so feel free in the comments section to tell me what a dope I am for forgetting about Book X by Artist Y.

1. Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin). With a planned initial print run of 100,000 copies, there’s little doubt that Houghton Mifflin is expecting big things from Bechdel’s follow-up to her hugely acclaimed graphic novel Fun Home. Whereas that book dealt mainly with Bechdel’s relationship with her dad, this one focuses on her mom (in case you didn’t grab that from the title). A touchy subject, to be sure, but Bechdel’s proven she can handle such difficult, personal material with considerable aplomb.

Mastering Comics

2. Mastering Comics by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden (First Second). Abel and Madden’s Drawing Words and Writing Pictures was one of the best “how-to” guides comics has ever seen. I’m anxious to see what they’ll do for an encore.

3. Sammy the Mouse Vol. 2 by Zak Sally (La Mano). Volume One of Sally’s surreal, anthropomorphic saga just came out, collecting the first three issues of the Ignatz series. As good news as this is, what I’m excited about is Sally’s plans to have Volume 2, featuring all-new material, out by the end of the year. Sammy was one of the best books in the Ignatz line, and I’m eager to see the story continue.

4. Best of Enemies: A History of the Middle East Relations, Part One by Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B (Abrams). Funny the things you find out when you start strolling through a company’s online catalog. Did you know that Abrams is kickstarting another graphic novel imprint this year? With a heavy focus on Eurocomics? I sure as hell didn’t. One of the more notable releases is an English edition of the award-winning Kiki de Montparnasse. What I’m really curious about, however, is this historical project by the always interesting David B. and friend on the history of the Middle East.

5. Ed the Happy Clown by Chester Brown (Drawn and Quarterly). How long has it been since a collected version of Ed has been available? It’s been a long time. Long enough for me to note that it’s one of the few books by Brown that I haven’t read (other than pieces here and there — it’s shameful, I know). This is definitely going to be one of the big reprint projects of the year.

6. The Strange Tale of Paranorma Island by Suehiro Maruo (Last Gasp). This was initially promised to come out last year but apparently got delayed. Let’s hope we’re able to see a release in 2012. Maruo’s work is rarely for the squeamish or easily offended, but his comics have a haunting, lush quality that makes them worth checking out.

7. Barnaby Vol. 1 by Crockett Johnson (Fantagraphics). Here’s the other big reprint project of the year. Johnson’s wonderful, vastly underrated comic strip about a little boy and his underperforming fairy godfather is finally, finally being collected. Can’t wait.

8. Rohan at the Louvre by Hirohiko Araki (NBM). OK, so NBM has been publishing these graphic novels about the Louvre museum in Paris, and for the most part they’ve all been pretty good. This one, however, looks really interesting as it’s by the creator of the manga series Jo Jo’s Bizarre Adventures and stars one of the characters from that series. Chris Butcher talks a bit about it and offers up a preview over at his site.

9. Skippy Vol. 1 by Percy Crosby (IDW). OK, this is the other other big reprint project of the year. Even more than Barnaby, Skippy has largely been forgotten by a lot of comic readers, even though it heavily influenced works like Peanuts. But it’s a thoroughly charming, thoughtful strip that I expect will find a new appreciation with the release of this book.

The Lovely, Horrible Stuff

10. The Lovely Horrible Stuff by Eddie Campbell (Top Shelf). A new book from Eddie Campbell is always cause for celebration. This one deals with money and mankind’s general relationship toward it, with lots of personal anecdotes provided by the author, no doubt.

11. Lose #4 by Michael DeForge (Koyama Press). Oh, yeah, boy, more DeForge. What’s not to like?

12. Spirit World by Jack Kirby (DC). I didn’t even know this work existed until DC announced the collection earlier this year — that’s how poor a Kirby scholar I am. Still, it’s nice to see DC make a concerted effort to get as much of the King’s work out there as possible and I’m excited to see what this collection — mainly collecting horror/supernatural-style magazine stories if I’m correct — holds.

Just a week after Bandai Entertainment announced it would stop releasing new material — and laid off three of its five employees — another anime and manga publisher looks like it is hitting the shoals. Media Blasters announced yesterday it’s laying off 60 percent of its staff, although there is no plan to cut the catalog.

Media Blasters is chiefly an anime publisher, although it does have a small line of manga, under both its own name and in its adult line Kitty Media. This 2007 Publishers Weekly article mentions the company had a catalog of about 20 yaoi titles and was planning a shift from shonen to yaoi. Three years later, it canceled most of those titles. Blogger Lissa Pattillo commented back then that quality had slipped quite a bit:

Pick up a book from MB in 2004 and you had a professional looking package – pick up a book from MB (boys’ love in particular) after 2007 and yikes. Crimson Spell and Yokai’s Hunger, both popluar series with high-profile creators amidst genre fans, had some pretty shoddy treatment in regards to lettering and adaptation, especially comparatively to their older books. It’s a real shame.

It sounds like Media Blaster’s marketing wasn’t up to snuff either. As Lissa points out, the company hasn’t been updating its website or Twitter account; its website takes visitors straight to Facebook (memo to publishers: Facebook is not a substitute for a proper website).

What I found particularly disturbing was this comment in the Anime News Network article from CEO John Sirabella regarding the employees who were laid off:

He noted that the company will ask former staff members to continue to work on a freelance basis, but he does not expect all of the laid-off employees to agree to this. Sirabella also stated, “All of the small publishers are going through this sort of thing right now. Not just anime. Everyone’s transitioning from full-time staff to freelancers.”

That may be true — Tokyopop did it, too — but it’s a terrible trend. Basically, publishers are converting solid, well-paying jobs with benefits to lower-paid, less-secure jobs with no benefits. This is not only disrespectful and downright harmful to the employees, who are now being paid less to do the same work, it is also shortsighted. Exploiting your staff is not the road to a quality product.

We just had a long discussion about the structural problems of the anime market, and I won’t rehash that. Media Blasters is very different from Bandai, and it looks as if the company was having issues for quite a while. For the moment, at least, Media Blasters isn’t shutting down, and anime fans can relax in the knowledge that Squid Girl is on the way. It’s depressing to see the company join the race to the bottom in terms of the way it treats employees, though, and I hope this isn’t just one more loop on a downward spiral.

The big news in anime and manga circles last week was the announcement that Bandai Entertainment will stop releasing new anime and manga. The current catalog will stay in print, and the company will focus on licensing its products to other companies, but three of its five employees have been laid off.

Like manga, the anime industry in the U.S. has been troubled for a long time, and it’s tempting to blame this on piracy. Indeed, that’s exactly what Charles Maib of Kotaku did. Maib admits he doesn’t follow the anime and manga scene much any more, but that doesn’t stop him from delivering some strong opinions. What Maib does know is what it was like to be an old-time otaku, when you made your own fansubs with love and VHS tapes and chewing gum and chicken wire (which may have been technically illegal but wasn’t harming the industry at all), and also how much work it is to make your own content. Maib himself is a content creator, and he has a long paragraph where he explains all the steps you have to go through to make an animated cartoon.

And nobody seems to care. “Consumers have become selfish monsters who are strangling an industry that is already on its knees,” he says, and he points the finger squarely at fansubbers and other pirates, and those who avail themselves of their services:

We created the beast, and we continue to feed it. We’ve reached the point that it’s not uncommon for major websites to publish links to pirated content. Pirating has gone mainstream, and unless we as consumers have the fortitude to reverse our actions, allow the market to work as it should, and develop the patience to wait for new products to become available in our region, or even not become available, the face of the internet and digital media will change. It’s inevitable.

First of all, this is not true, as those of us who have followed the anime and manga industry are well aware. Piracy has not gone mainstream. It exists, true, but it is not mainstream. In fact, the only major website I have seen that has knowingly published a link to pirated content is Kotaku itself, where another writer posted some scanlations of Skyward Sword—no, I’m not going to link to it—and got scolded it for it in the comments section. People do read scanlations, but as I pointed out a few days ago, they prefer not to, and if they really like the book, they buy it.

Also, I like how Maib thinks fans of a property should “develop the patience for new products to become available in our region.” Sorry, the days of clipper ships are over, and anyone who thinks they can enforce regional controls is a chump. Anime blogger Justin of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses sums up neatly the reality that anime distributors ignore at their peril:

For better or worse, we’ve been moving in a “We must get it now” mode for the past couple years, and the days where we A)patiently wait for titles to come for us and B)buy actual copies of series despite their price are over.

If it’s out there, and people want it, they will get it, from the publishers or from the pirates. Instead of blaming the consumer, publishers should be blaming themselves for not making the material available.

Over at Anime Diet, Michael Olivarez has a radically different take, and one that I think makes a lot more sense: The problem is structural. It’s a long and eloquently written argument, but here’s the gist: Most anime isn’t good enough to justify the cost of distributing it via DVD and Blu-Ray:

Thus comes the fatal flaw in the anime as a hard media commodity scheme. The very idea that we [as] consumers are asked to pony up roughly 4-6 dollars per episode for a show that may not be worth a second viewing comes at odds with the movie collector’s mentality. The people ultimately know what they want, and will pay for it. The problem comes when we are inundated with the latest, and are essentially given no choice in between. When this happens, and our homes are buried with bricks of material that we cannot even give away- it presents a serious problem.

Olivarez is talking about anime here, but the same is most definitely true of manga. Back in the boom days, there were a lot of titles that simply weren’t worth ten bucks, or the space they take up on the shelf. For a representative sampling, check out all the manga that are selling for a penny on Amazon.

Olivarez also mentions the choice of material, a point amplified by Rob Bricken of Topless Robot, who says that parent company Bandai Japan not only forced Bandai Entertainment to market 20-year-old Gundam anime, they forced BE to pay Cartoon Network to run it. That certainly rings true; much of that penny manga I just mentioned was translated not because the localizers were stupid but because the Japanese licensors forced them to take it—if you want this, then you must take that. Furthermore, the license-holders frowned on not finishing a series, even if it was tanking. One doesn’t hear as much about this any more, so either the licensors aren’t doing it as much or the U.S. publishers, of whom there are fewer now anyway, have stopped complaining about it.

While most manga publishers are independent companies, and can walk away from a license if it has too many conditions, Bandai Entertainment had to take orders from its Japanese parent company, Namco Bandai. Anime News Network interviewed Bandai Entertainment CEO Ken Iyadomi, who was clearly frustrated with the decisions coming from the home office:

“The pricing range for our products kept dropping in Western countries, and people tended only to buy sets with very reasonable prices, which we understand is what fans want, but it lead us to a different strategy than what Japanese licensors wanted,” he remarked. “So we always had a problem [with licensors wanting something different than what consumers wanted].”

What it comes down to is this: It doesn’t matter how much it costs you to make a product; you can only charge what the market will bear. The way out of this is to offer the iffy manga and anime at a low cost, which generally means digitally, and put the premium content onto physical media at a premium price. If people just want to get their weekly fix of some second-rate anime, but don’t want a special edition to treasure forever, well, let them watch it via streaming media, sell some ads, and make some money you wouldn’t have otherwise. This also solves the other structural problem in the anime industry, the delay in getting shows to foreign markets, because digital is obviously faster than physical distribution. Just as water seeks its own level, consumers will find what they want. The only question is whether they get it from publishers or pirates, and publishers have a lot more choice than they realize. Most of the people watching bootleg anime won’t pay $30 for it anyway—that’s not a lost sale. But put it online, throw in some ads, maybe paid memberships for the hard-core fans who want higher quality and fresher content, and now that anime is making money from new viewers.

Smart localizers are catching on. Crunchyroll, a former pirate site that has gone mainstream in the sense of going legit and paying its content providers, seems to be doing quite well with streaming anime. Digital Manga has formed the Digital Manga Guild, which publishes enjoyably trashy yaoi manga digitally for less than the cost of a print volume and keeps prices low by using amateur translators. Viz is making the boldest move of all, putting Shonen Jump magazine online at a relatively low price and posting episodes of the top six series in within two weeks of their Japanese debut. The speed scanners will still beat them to it—for now—but despite what Maib seems to think, manga and anime fans are basically decent and like to support the creators. Given a legitimate, inexpensive alternative, and a bit of education, many if not most will do the right thing.

Go back and look at that Tokyopop Facebook page I linked, and read the comments. There is a lot of tension between digital (by which they all mean bootleg) manga and physical copies. Readers use digital to read manga they can’t afford or that is not available in their country. Often if they like a series, they will buy it in print. This is exactly how people consume media nowadays. They sample, then buy. They don’t buy everything they sample, but if the samples are cut off, they won’t buy any more—and they might buy less. This is the new reality, and all the scoldings in the world won’t bring back the good old days. By ignoring this, and by charging champagne prices for a beer product, anime and manga companies are sinking their own ship, and they don’t need the pirates to do it for them.

Salvatore Vol. 2

It’s time once again for our annual look at six books that were, for whatever reason, unjustly ignored by the public and critical cognoscenti at large. With all the titles that are published lately, it’s no real surprise that some books fall through the cracks, though in certain cases it seems grossly unwarranted.

After the jump are six books that, while they may not have made my “best of 2011″ list, I think got nowhere near the amount of attention they deserved. There are lots more that I could include if I had the time. I’m sure there are books you read this year that you don’t think got enough praise either. Be sure to let me know what they are in the comments section.

1. Salvatore by Nicholas De Crecy (NBM). Although highly acclaimed on the other side of the Atlantic, De Crecy is one of those many, many European cartoonists that remains persona non grata here in the U.S. Only three of De Crecy’s books have been translated for American audiences so far: the Louvre-themed Glacial Period and two volumes of Salvatore, the second of which came out this year with barely a peep from critics or readers. That’s a shame as Salvatore is a charmingly absurd anthropomorphic tale involving a philosophizing dog mechanic who, along with his silent, minuscule, bald servent — sets off for South America in a ridiculous contraption of an automobile in search of his true love. As that description suggests, Salvatore is a rather complicated farce, with lots of side stories and supporting characters, including a near-sighted mama pig who searches in vain for a lost child while the rest of her brood becomes ecological entrepreneurs. De Crecy applies an arch, overly formal writing style here that, combined with his rough, detailed art, gives the story an off-kilter, almost grotesque feel that makes it seem both otherworldly and a sly satire of modern foibles, cultures and attitudes. Certainly there’s nothing quite like it being published right now.

King of Flies Vol. 2

2. Pure Pajamas by Marc Bell (D&Q). I have no evidence backing this up, but I suspect Bell is an artist that confounds a number of people. He adopts a big-foot, potato-nose visual style in the best comic strip tradition, and his world is a friendly, anthropomorphic fantasia where everything, from your breakfast food on down is eager to wish you well. On the other hand, his stories lean towards the distressingly surreal, cute characters can easily come to violent ends and things can go bizarrely awry for the most absurd reasons. Myself, I find that tension between the rubbery cute and off-kilter savagery to be one of Bell’s strengths. Pure Pajamas, which collects various strips and stories Bell has done for various media over the years, is about as good an example of those strengths as you’re likely to find.

3. King of the Flies Vol. 2: The Origin of the World by Mezzo and Pirus (Fantagraphics). I suspect a number of potential readers flipped through King of the Flies (either online or in stores) and dismissed it quickly as an obvious Charles Burns rip-off. That’s somewhat understandable. After all, Mezzo and Pirus do wear their influences on their sleeves. Not just Burns, but other artistic lodestones like Quentin Tarintino, David Lynch and Jim Thompson haunt this three-part saga as much as one recently deceased character does. But this dark, disjointed story about an assortment of misfit suburban characters plagued by bad luck and their own poor choices is a compelling, bitterly funny read nevertheless. Despite its obvious influences King never feels like a pale imitation, especially in the second volume, where the ante is upped considerably, both on an aesthetic and narrative level. Don’t let your initial impressions keep you from checking it out.

4. Everything Vol. 1: Blabber, Blabber, Blabber by Lynda Barry (D&Q). It seems odd that a Lynda Barry book should make this list after the deserved acclaim that greeted her last two books, Picture This and What It Is. Yet aside from a review at the AV Club and a New York Times profile (which admittedly is nothing to sneeze at) I’m not sure anyone talked about this new collection of some very early work other than to acknowledge its existence. It certainly seemed to slip off a lot of people’s radar (including my own) when it came time to make a “best of” list. Yet Blabber offers a fascinating look at Barry’s early development as a cartoonist, as she moves from the delicate, oddball Ernie Pook to the rawer, more emotionally savage material of “Boys and Girls.” There’s a lot here for Barry fans, and fans of good comics in general, to chew on.

The Man Who Grew His Beard

5. The Man Who Grew His Beard by Olivier Schrauwen (Fantagraphics). Color Engineering author Yuichi Yokoyama got all the attention this year, but to my eyes Schrauwen is just as innovative and wholly original a cartoonist as Yokoyama. The main difference between the two is that where Yokoyama is focused on expressing motion, machinery and discovery, Schrauwen prefers to explore differences in perception, especially between reality and that of the imagination. Many of the characters in Schrauwen’s collection of short stories (many of which appeared previously in Mome) are mentally disturbed or disabled in some fashion and attempt to reshape what they see in order to compensate for their liabilities. None of this is explicit however; it’s often up to the reader to determine where truth and subjectivity begin and end (though he does frequently drop hints). Incredibly inventive and at times darkly funny, Beard is the work of a master cartoonist worth more attention.

6. Tank Tankuro by Gajo Sakamoto (PressPop). Japanese comics are generally thought to have begun with the end of World War II, but of course that isn’t the case, as this impressive book, lovingly designed by Chris Ware, proves. The Tank in question is an overly exuberant robot warrior/superhero whose metal ball body not only protects him from gunfire but can help produce airplane wings, a drill or even smaller clones of himself — whatever’s needed to get him out of a particular jam. Though decidedly militaristic and nationalistic (Tank is perhaps a bit too eager for war) Sakamoto’s comics from the 1930s are irrepressibly buoyant and loopy enough to delight even the most ardent pacifist. In a golden age of reprints where tons of lesser works are getting dragged back out for a glossy-page omnibus, here’s a little known gem that really deserves a spot in the limelight.

Crowd control at comic conventions can be generally, if not creatively, described as “organized chaos” — emphasis more often that not on the latter — as thousands of fans determined to lay their hands on that special sketch, autograph or issue are poured into narrow entry points like so many grains of sand in an hourglass.

If you’ve attended Comic-Con International or New York Comic Con, or even read the tweets, blog entries and forum posts from those who have, what a delicate, frustrating and, yes, frequently sweaty and smelly dance that crowd flow can be, with one untied shoe, inconsiderate mid-aisle conversation or loud protest over access botching the choreography and sending everything into a horrible, grumbling snarl.

But at Tokyo’s Comiket, the world’s largest self-published comics fair, organizers have transformed crowd control into an artform.

The twice-yearly event, held in August and December, drew more than 500,000 people over three days last week to the Tokyo Big Sight; that breaks down to somewhere around 166,000 people per day. Now witness the time-lapse video below, filmed over the course of 13 hours, showing convention staff masterfully conducting the mass of attendees as it waits for the doors to open.

You can’t see much of anything until the 1:25 mark, but everything after that is pretty incredible. It should be set to music.

(via RocketNews24)

Justice League #1

Publishing | Four months in, the DC Comics relaunch seems to be a success. The most recent sales figures show Justice League #1 selling more than 360,000 copies since August, and Batman #1 and Action Comics #1 selling more than 250,000. By contrast, Marvel’s strongest seller was Ultimate Spider-Man #160, which was in the 160,000-copy neighborhood. These figures seem to reflect sales in the direct market only; it would be interesting to see how many digital copies have been sold. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Awards | Nominations are open for this year’s Eagle Awards. [Eagle Awards]

Retailing | San Francisco retailer Brian Hibbs shares the top-selling graphic novels in his store for 2011, by units and by dollars. [Savage Critics]

Retailing | Christopher Butcher looks back on the events of the past year in the comics store he manages, Toronto’s The Beguiling. [The Beguiling blog]

Commentary | Mike Gold explains why the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a terrible idea. [ComicMix]

Comics | Enough with the best-of lists: Ron Richards presents his lovingly compiled list of the worst things in comics in 2011. His No. 1 point stands in stark contrast to The Hollywood Reporter piece: Overall, sales are dropping. [iFanboy]

Gingerbread Girl

Comics | Tom Spurgeon continues his holiday interview series, talking to Rina Piccolo, Steve Bissette, Colleen Coover, Todd DePastino and Robot 6′s own Chris Mautner. [The Comics Reporter]

Comics | The Houston Chronicle covers the arrival of its own local superhero, the Scarlet Spider. [Houston Chronicle]

Publishing | Jim Shooter recounts his time at Broadway Comics, as well as dealings he had with the World Wrestling Federation when Valiant had the rights to produce wrestling comics: “VALIANT, as you may know, was forced into a license to do WWF comics by my corrupt partner Steve Massarsky, who represented both Leisure Concepts International (the WWF’s licensing agency) and VALIANT. Can you say ‘conflict of interest?’ Massarsky made a ton of money personally by making a deal with himself with utter disregard for what made sense for VALIANT, and I was stuck with actually producing WWF comics.” [Jim Shooter]

Creators | Christopher Irving and Seth Kushner profile Legion of Super-Heroes writer and former DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz. [Graphic NYC]

Brilliant #1

Creators | This profile of Mark Bagley covers his entry into comics and his collaborations with Brian Michael Bendis on Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble and their own Brilliant. [Creative Loafing]

Creators | Ron Marz reports he raised $500 last month for Toys for Tots by selling signed comics to fans. [Messages from Marz]

Creators | Guest-blogging for Whitney Matheson, Grace Bello interviews Tony Millionaire. [Pop Candy]

Creators | Kurtis Wiebe discusses Green Wake, The Intrepids and his new series Peter Panzerfaust. [The Outhouse]

Craft | Colorist Matt Wilson explains how he went about coloring a page of Wonder Woman #4 that presented some challenges. [SeeEmWhyKay, via Blog@Newsarama]

Commentary | Filmmaker and blogger Becki Burrows interviews Paul Gravett, author of many books on comics and graphic novels, most recently, 1001 Comics to Read Before You Die. [Paul Gravett]

Commentary | David Uzumeri makes the case for why The Flash is “the most visually inventive book of the [DC Comics] relaunch”: “The first hint of this came when DC began promoting the first issue’s title page the promotional rounds, an absolutely gorgeous piece of work that integrated the design sense of the logo into not only the artwork but the actual storytelling. Manapul drew Barry Allen disarming an army of mysterious sci-fi marines in a breathtaking clockwise sequence that was immediately readable despite its complexity, guiding the eye in a circle across a sequence where the Flash basically hands all of these dudes their butts in a series of small panels within the letters of his own name. Then it kept getting better.” [ComicsAlliance]

Commentary | Sean Kleefeld examines the world view of One Piece and wonders if some of the folks at the Occupy protests were there because of Luffy and the Straw Hats. [Kleefeld on Comics]

Review | Rob Clough reads Seth’s The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists. [The Comics Journal]

Bandai Entertainment

Publishing | The anime and manga company Bandai Entertainment will stop distributing new products in February, although its existing catalog will continue to be available until the licenses expire. The company will shift its focus to licensing its properties for digital distribution and merchandising. President and CEO Ken Iyadomi said the decision to shut down new-product operations was made by the Japanese parent company without his input, and he strongly implied the underlying problem was that the corporate parent wanted to charge more for its anime than the current market will bear. Bandai published the Lucky Star, Kannagi and Eureka Seven manga, among others; all new manga volumes have been canceled, which means Kannagi will be left incomplete, at least for now. [Anime News Network]

Awards | The finalists for the Cybils, the blogger’s literary awards for children’s and YA books, have been posted, and they include five nominations each in the children’s and YA graphic novel categories. [Cybils Awards]

Fatale #1

Creators | Frequent collaborators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips discuss their new horror-noir series Fatale, which debuts today. “You can scare people with a movie because you’re in control a lot more,” Brubaker says. “In a book, you’re making them imagine pictures, and it’s a different amount of control. With a comic book, it’s very hard to write something that puts people on edge. That’s an important thing: Let people know they have no idea what’s coming in this story and no idea what anything is going to be.” [USA Today]

Creators | Paul Grist digs into his new Image Comics series Mudman, whose fictional setting is inspired by his own town on the southwest coast of England. [USA Today]

Creators | King City writer and artist Brandon Graham talks about getting published, and names his favorite comics creators in an interview with David Harper. [Multiversity Comics]

Jerusalem

Creators | A Lebanese newspaper profiles cartoonist Guy Delisle, creator of Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City. [The Daily Star]

Comics | Larry Cruz takes an affectionate look at Golden Age vamp Phantom Lady, a creation of the Eisner-Iger studio. [The Webcomic Overlook]

Commentary | Alan David Doane argues that Alan Moore’s veto of a reprint of 1963 is an argument for, not against, creator-owned comics. “But Moore, as an individual and as a comics creator, has more than earned the right to associate with, both personally and professionally, only those he chooses to associate with. He should not be forced into business contracts or personal relationships he does not wish to be a part of, and we should respect that.” [Trouble With Comics]

Critique | Domingos Isabelinho discusses the decision to re-color Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, as well as some of the tropes that were left untouched. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Fatale

Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item.

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

Chris Mautner

If I had $15: I’d be all over Fatale #1, as I’ll grab anything Brubaker and Phillips do together. I’d go out on a limb and say that’s one of the best and consistently stellar collaborations in comics going on right now. I’d probably get the latest issue of The Boys as well, because that’s what I do.

If I had $30: Well, I haven’t read the first volume yet, but everyone says that the transgender manga series Wandering Son is stellar so I’d at least give it a look through, and perhaps nab volume one as my splurge for the week.

Splurge: Then again, I’m a big Larry Gonick fan and I see where is latest book, the Cartoon Guide to Calculus, is out this week. I have zero interest or aptitude for math, but Gonick knows how to make even the dullest and fear-inducing subjects seem fun.

Graeme McMillan

If I had $15 this week, I’d get my year started on the right foot with 2000AD Prog 2012 (Rebellion, $10.00), the annual extra-sized holiday issue of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, and the first one I’ll have picked up in quite some time. I’ve been looking for an excuse to check out some new 2000AD for awhile, and this oversized issue provides me with all the reason I need. Zarjaz! There’s also Fatale #1 (Image, $3.50), the new horror noir by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips, and who could really pass that up?

If I had $30, I’d add OMAC #5 (DC, $2.99), which continues to be a guilty pleasure every month, as well as Marvel’s Defenders #2 ($3.99)–I was ambivalent-towards-positive about the first issue, enough that I’m curious enough to pick up the second–and Uncanny X-Force #19.1 ($2.99), based almost entirely on the critical plaudits the book’s recent “Dark Angel Saga” received; I tried out the first trade and didn’t fall in love, but we’ll see whether or not I get won over by this jumping-on point. Curiosity also draws me towards Atlas Unified #1 (Ardden, $2.99); I don’t have any great love for the Atlas characters, but I do like Tom Peyer’s writing a lot, so I’m optimistic about what I’ll find.

When it comes to splurging, I’m going for a possibly unexpected pick of Avengers Academy Vol. 2 trade paperback (Marvel, $19.99); I really enjoyed the first collection, and have been eagerly awaiting this second volume.

Chris Arrant

Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha and Omega

If I had $15, I’d get two #1′s and two #5′s (ok, dump joke). My two #1s would be Fatale #1 (Image, $3.50) and Wolverine & the X-Men: Alpha & Omega #1 (Marvel, $3.99). I’ve got a lifelong subscription in my mind to anything teaming up Brubaker and Phillips, and Fatale is no different; seeing them melding crime plus horror plus time travel will be interesting to see, plus I just want to see Phillips draw some monstrous creatures. For the other book, I’m getting it for Brian Wood & Quentin Quire – both underrated by Marvel standards, and I’m excited to see what they can accomplish. My #5s would be Action Comics #5 (DC, $3.99) and Animal Man #5 (DC, $2.99). It’ll be interesting to see how Morrison retells Superman’s origin here; the only thing more I would have asked for is a different artist; last time Andy Kubert did an origin (Wolverine’s), it didn’t turn out so well. As for Animal Man, Lemire and Foreman are really showing what they can do with an off-kilter superhero.

If I had $30, I’d go from the Rot to the Green and pick up Swamp Thing #5 (DC, $2.99). No slight against Victor Ibanez, but I’m glad to see Yanick Paquette is back on with this issue; like Animal Man, it’s the artist that are turning it from a greatly written book to just a plain great book. After that I’d pick up the lucky 13th issue of Artifacts #13 (Image/Top Cow, $3.99). Seeing new work by Dale Keown is a rare treat, and after being recently won over to the Artifacts series it’s a crossroads of personal interest for me. The last two books I’d get would both be Marvel: Uncanny X-Force #19.1 (Marvel, $2.99) and Avengers: X-Sanction #2 (Marvel, $3.99). I’ve never really been interested in Age of Apocalypse, but Remender hooked me in with his previous issues of Uncanny X-Force so I’ll give him one chance to wow me here. Last up would be Cable’s one-man war on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes; Loeb’s doing some really decompressed storytelling with I’m on the fence about, but Ed McGuinness’ art continues to make this a must-buy for me.

If I could splurge, I’d splurge for 2000AD Prog 2012 (Rebellion, $10). This is the 2000AD equivalent to Marvel’s recent Point One, with the first part of eight new serials with everything from classics like Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog and more recent hits. I’d reluctantly admit I’ve missed a couple issues of 2000AD in the past, but this should set me straight.

JK Parkin

Mudman

If I had $15, I’d start with two from Image Comics–Mudman #2 and Fatale #1, each $3.50. The first issue of Paul Grist’s latest, Mudman, was loads of fun, and I’m not sure what else I can add to my colleagues’ thoughts on Fatale besides “Yes, please.” I’d also get Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha and Omega ($3.99), the new X-miniseries by Brian Wood, Roland Boschi and Mark Brooks. And finally, I’d get the second issue of X-Club after the better-than-I-expected first issue. I wasn’t even planning on getting this until I saw the good reviews of it.

If I had $30, I’d also get Avengers Annual #1 ($4.99), which continues the Wonder Man story that started in New Avengers Annual #1. I love the concept of an annual, at least as I was first introduced to them–that big, special story that may have included some fun guest stars or wrapped up a storyline introduced in the regular book or took the characters to somewhere exotic. New Avengers Annual contained two of those three elements, so if this one takes everyone to the Savage Land or the Blue Area of the Moon or Asgard, it will have scored a trifecta. Mostly, though, I hope we get some of the back story around why these anti-heroes came together to take out the Avengers. Moving on, that would leave me with about $10, so I’d also pick up Dynamite’s new Lone Ranger #1 ($3.99), which should provide a nice jumping on point if you’ve never read their Lone Ranger comics before, as well as the second issue of Defenders ($3.99).

For my splurge item, in all honesty I’d probably spend any extra monthlies I skipped over, stuff like Swamp Thing and OMAC and iZombie and The Punisher. There was a lot this week I would have gotten for a few dollars more …

Brigid Alverson

Psyren

If I had $15: I’d probably grab vol. 2 of Psyren ($9.99), which is one of those survival-in-the-desert manga from Viz. This one put a few cute twists on the standard plot in volume 1, and I’d like to see where it’s going. Viz manga are reasonably priced, so that leaves me enough for a floppy; I’d go for issue #4 of Terry Moore’s Rachel Rising ($3.99)

If I had $30: I’d keep Rachel but shift the rest of my dollars to Archaia, which has been producing a bumper crop of beautiful books lately. I’m tempted by Billy Fog: The Gift of Trouble Sight ($24.95), which is storybook/comic hybrid with a Lemony Snicket vibe, but I’m drawn by the color art in their first volume of Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: The Creation Myths ($19.99), a prequel to the movie, so I’ll grab that one.

Splurge: Chris already picked up on vol. 2 of Wandering Son, which is pricey at $19.99 for a volume of manga (even a hardcover) but definitely a good splurge.

So when whoever posts as Tokyopop asked, “How do you read manga — digitally or as a physical copy? Which do you prefer and why?” I was interested enough to tally up the answers. The responses were almost comically lopsided, with only 18 out of more than 250 commenters preferring digital; some said both, but the vast majority, almost 200, said they liked to read their manga on paper, not pixels.

Of course, what they mean by “digital” is online manga sites, almost all of which are bootleg. People read manga online because it is free and because it’s the only way to read series that haven’t been licensed in English. But they don’t like it very much. Complaints about digital included eyestrain, slow load times, and that you can’t keep the manga or take it with you. Many commenters simply said they liked the feeling of a book in their hands.

It’s hard to tell from the comments whether the readers are reading manga on a computer (which is definitely uncomfortable, especially for long-form stories) or smartphones. Comments about not seeing the fine detail in digital suggest that a lot of manga is being read on small screens; one of the nice things about the iPad is that it is bigger than a standard manga page, so the art looks really good. One thing comes through loud and clear, though: There is widespread dissatisfaction with the current product, even if readers are getting it for free.

Manga publishers have done a pretty good job of offering legitimate digital choices — almost every publisher has some sort of digital presence now — but judging from the responses to the Tokyopop query, readers see digital manga, whether bootleg or legit, as a way to sample and read new series. When it comes to the comics they want to own, paper still trumps pixels almost every time.

Ronald Searle

Passings | British cartoonist Ronald Searle, best known as the creator of the fictional St. Trinian’s School, passed away Friday at a hospital near his home in southeastern France. He was 91. His spiky drawings of the wicked pupils of the girls school debuted in 1941 in Lilliput magazine, leading to five books and seven films. Searle, a Cambridge native, also co-authored (with Geoffrey Willans) the Molesworth book series. [Reuters]

Conventions | Four-day passes for New York Comic Con go on sale for $85 today at noon ET/9 a.m. PT. The event will be held Oct. 11-14 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. [press release]

Conventions | Comiket, the world’s largest self-published comic book fair, drew a total of 500,000 people for its winter convention, held Thursday through Saturday at the Tokyo Big Sight in Japan. Held twice a year, in August and December, the event doesn’t use turnstiles or unique passes, so a visitor who attends all three days would be counted each time. [Anime News Network]

Graphic novels | Writing for Newsweek, Maya Jaggi offers a broad overview of “the graphic novel renaissance,” highlighting such works as Zahra’s Paradise, Habibi and Logicomix. [The Daily Beast]

Tintin

Comics | Using Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin as a springboard, Charles McGrath examines Hergé and his beloved boy reporter. [The New York Times]

Publishing | A pair of articles take a look at the growing Indian comics industry. [The Times of India, Daily News & Analysis]

Creators | Who Is Jake Ellis? writer Nathan Edmondson is spotlighted during a signing in Medford, Oregon. [Mail Tribune]

Creators | The Grant MacEwan University newspaper profiles local writer Robert Burke Richardson. [West Edmonton Local]