American Booksellers Association

Retailing | The American Booksellers Association has asked the Department of Justice to investigate the online price war being waged by Wal-Mart, Amazon and Target. The trade group says that by selling advance-order hardcovers at deep discounts the three retail giants are engaging in "illegal predatory pricing" and making it impossible for smaller stores to compete.

Ron Catapano of Ron's Comic World in Mount Holly, New Jersey, asserts that direct-market retailers face a similar scenario: "I hope the comic publishers are paying attention. When the Watchmen movie came out and Amazon was selling the Watchmen trade paperback for less than I could get the book from Diamond Comic Distributors (including shipping cost), I complained and nobody cared. For most discounters, these books are not a significant part of their business, they are just something to make a few extra dollars on." [ICv2.com]

ChuChu

Publishing | Japanese publishing giant Shogakukan plans to close three of its magazines, including the shojo manga monthly ChuChu. The magazine debuted in December 2005 with a print run of 180,000, but more recently sales have hovered around 50,000 copies. [Anime News Network]

Libraries | The New Jersey State Library has awarded $3,000 grants to 14 libraries to help them establish and expand graphic-novel collections. The State Library also conducted workshops about developing collections, and furnished librarians with "a core graphic novel bibliography" to help them with their purchases. [NJ.com]

Publishing | A new teen survey by Teenreads.com revealed that of the respondents who read graphic novels or manga, 51 percent enjoy the romance drama, followed by humor (45 percent), mystery (33 percent), sci-fi/fantasy (31 percent) and action/superhero (26 percent). [Publishers Weekly]

Ministry of Defense comic

Publishing | Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense has created a comic-book version of its latest white paper as part of an effort to attract young people to military service. The ministry has published 10,000 copies of the comic, which targets junior-high students. [Taiwan News]

Conventions | This weekend's Boston Comic Con reportedly drew about 3,000 people. [The Daily Free Press]

Business | Your Spider-Man musical vague update of the day: A spokesman for the financially troubled Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark says, “A lot of progress has been made on the show. It is going to happen.” So, there. [ArtsBeat]

Stan Lee at the Scream Awards

Creators | Stan Lee talks about receiving the Comic-Con Icon Award at Spike TV's 2009 Scream Awards, digital comics and the proper pronunciation of "Magneto." [GeekDad]

Creators | Brian Fees discuss his graphic novels Mom's Cancer and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? [Sequential Tart]

Creators | Tom Spurgeon interviews Will Dinski, winner of this year's Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics. [The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Bestselling author, and former Saturday Night Live writer, Max Brooks chats about his graphic novel Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks: "Don't be proactive: If you see someone stumbling and moaning across the quad (especially on a Saturday night), do not chop their head off!" [Times Union]

Creators | Liz Conley talks about comics, bookbinding and the Couscous Collective. [Sequential Tart]

Creators | Malaysian artist Zint (aka Lu Wun Khang) talks briefly about his work. [The Star]

Blackest Night: Titans #1

Comics | Graeme McMillan gives four reasons why zombies and superheroes don't really mix: "The dead being brought back as pawns to use against our brave heroes? Old hat for superhero comics - In fact, Marvel even has multiple characters based around this concept (the Grim Reaper, the Black Talon ... You could even argue that Brother -- now Doctor -- Voodoo would have some familiarity on the subject). The only thing that's new about this latest wave is the overwhelming scale of the risings ... which is one of the few things legitimately taken from zombie culture." [io9.com]

Comics | The Sequential Tart crew discuss comics that "go bump in the night." [Sequential Tart]

Fandom | U.K. comedian Phill Jupitus writes about his longtime love of comics: "It was Billy Bragg who got me into some of the more serious comics. He told me about Forbidden Planet, a tiny basement comics shop among all the guitar stores on London's 'Tin Pan Alley', Denmark Street, near Soho. He showed me something called V For Vendetta when I was 22 that blew me away." [Mail Online]

Hall Hassi's "ke7 zine"

Standing nearly two feet tall, boasting over 50 contributors (including Matt Groening, Chris Ware, Jaime Hernandez, Daniel Clowes, and Adrian Tomine), and costing $125, Kramers Ergot 7 -- the latest installment of the avant-garde anthology series from editor Sammy Harkham and publisher Alvin Buenaventura -- was a famously, even infamously, grand production. And now...it's a minicomic?

Artist Hall Hassi has created what she calls a "ke7 zine" -- a 96-page, 8.5" x 5.5", black-and-white xeroxed version of the massive full-color hardcover. Pictures of the finished product can be found at the blog of artist Blaise Larmee, who notes that "sometimes the text is entirely legible. sometimes not at all." God only knows what kind of Kinko's kung fu had to be applied to even get the book to fit on a photocopier, so not being able to read some of it seems like a small price to pay.

Email Hassi if you're interested in purchasing one -- unless you're Sammy Harkham himself, who's still waiting to find out when he can expect a contributor copy.

(Via Kramers contributor James McShane.)

Some of my APE purchases

I probably spent more at the Alternative Press Expo this year than I have in previous years. It's probably my favorite show of the ones I've been hitting regularly since moving to California a few years back, if only because at just about every single table in the place you have the opportunity to discover a comic you've never seen before. Although living in the Bay Area I have access to shops that not only carry independent stuff, but in some cases also have minicomics, it's nice to have a venue like this where you can find such a wide range of books and talk to the creators directly.

So here's what I came home with ...

Heirophany by Rebecca "Bex" Freund: Bex is a student at the California College of Arts in San Francisco; her instructor, Matt Silady, introduced me to her. She has the distinction of being the first student at the school to have one of their comics appear in the school's literary journal, which she had on hand, along with a huge 11 by 17 version of the story that she was selling. It's a dreamlike, surreal horror story; one of the coolest sequences in the book has the main character getting yelled at by his boss, and the boss is represented by a body with a television for a head. Each panel featuring the TV has a different set of lips that appear to be yelling at the character, with no dialogue ... Bex is deaf, and Matt said that's what people look like to her when they're talking. Overall it's nicely done and kind of disturbing ... I hope to see more from her in the future.

Carnivale: A Kit Kaleidoscope Story by Nick Mullins: I bought all three of Nick Mullins' wordless mincomics set in New Orleans. I glanced at them as I was walking by his table and the art really jumped out at me. I haven't had a chance to dive into them yet, but you can check them out online.

Karaoke Comics #1 by Russ Kazmierczak: This is a really fun minicomic about the author's love of karaoke, which apparently came about after being bitten by a radioactive Michael Bolton CD (among other theories). It chronicles a couple of awkward moments he's experienced at karaoke bars. It's fairly short; the comics take up six pages, plus he reviews The Mint, a San Francisco karaoke bar. It's a fun concept that I bet he could do a lot more with, both in terms of fleshing out the two stories here and adding some others.

Whirlwind Wonderland by Rina Ayuyang: This one, I believe debuted at the show; published by Sparkplug and Tugboat Pres, it collects several stories that have appeared elsewhere. Another one I haven't had time to read yet, but I bought it based on Ayuyang's work in A Girls' Guide to Guy's Stuff.

Dog and Mouse by Marian Churchland: You might recognize Marian Churchland's name from the recent Elephantman arc she did, or from her upcoming graphic novel from Image, Beast, which I also picked up at the show. She only had 15 copies of Dog and Mouse, and each came wrapped in tissue paper for protection. I haven't actually gotten up the nerve to open it yet; it's very delicate, I guess is the right term, and I'm afraid of hurting it when I take it apart to get to the story. Soon, though, I'll work up to it.

North Country by Shane White: White was on hand mainly to sell his newest book, Things Undone by NBM, but he also had copies of North Country, which NBM published in 2005. I read Things Undone last Friday night and really dug it, so I added this one to my buy list when I realized he was going to be there. I haven't read North Country yet, but it looks like a very different book from Things Undone, at least in terms of artistic style. White said that the two books are part of a trilogy, with NC being the first book and Undone being the third, and both are based on his own personal experiences. He said the second part of the trilogy he's being very careful with, as it's about a time in his life and people he really respects, and he wants to make sure he gets them right.

Princess Witch Boy by Storm: I put this after my North Country write-up on purpose, as it shares a similar trait to White's Things Undone book -- both use the fantastic to tell very personal stories. In Things Undone, which a lot of people probably think is a zombie story based on the cover and the press leading up to it, White is telling a semi-autobiographical tale that uses a zombie metaphor to show how the main character is basically falling apart in both his work life and personal life. Princess Witch Boy, subtitled "A Fantasy Memoir," is about a boy who, at least in his head, can shape shift into various female forms -- a princess, a djinn, a supermodel sorceress -- to escape from the real world. This first minicomic is pretty much the set up, a glimpse at a bigger story; Storm said he plans to make the next issue longer than the 16 we have here. But he does some nice things here, particularly on the first page, which is a text piece called "Sissy" that lists "advice" on how to be more manly -- don't play with dolls, make a fist when you check your watch, etc. It does feel like we're only getting a small piece of what this will ultimately be, but I'm looking forward to seeing what it turns into.

Anthology Anthology by Jon Adams: Jon Adams is the mad genius behind Truth Serum, which you can read for free on the web. This is a collection of strips that appeared in various anthologies he's contributed to (hence the title). I find these all very funny ... my favorite in this collection is probably the one about two stormtroopers who discover Darth Vader's secret journal and read it in the breakroom over lunch.

Comic Diorama by Grant Reynolds: Another one I haven't had time to read yet; this one is a collection of short stories published by Top Shelf. I believe it comes out this Wednesday.

Dogtown, Book One by Brent Otey: Another one I haven't read yet; it's a mash-up of anthropomorphic animals, the Old West and science fiction, so you have a dog sheriff riding around on some sort of hoverbike. But a couple of things I like about it: first up, the art is really nice, esp. the full color cover, and second, it contains some fun "back matter" in the forms of classified ads and a map of the world where this is set. What I don't like is the printing; I don't know exactly what's off about it, but the word balloons are harder to read than they should be. But I won't let that stop me from reading it ...

Covered in Confusion

Will Dinski's Covered in Confusion took home the Isotope Award for Excellence in Minicomics last night. The award was presented during Isotope's annual APE Aftermath party. If you'd like to see the book, Dinski has a video of it up on his website, where you can also purchase it.

The Cowl

The Cowl
Written by Brian Azzarello; Illustrated by Benito Gallego
Based on characters created by Joseph Finder
JosephFinder.com; Free

One of the few highlights of this year's WizardWorld Chicago Comic-Con was Crimespree Magazine's booth and the focus on crime comics that it brought to the show. On one of my many trips to the booth I got handed a superhero mini-comic called The Cowl that was written by Brian Azzarello. The connection to crime fiction - other than Azarrello - is that it's a tie-in to Joseph Finder's most recent thriller, Vanished. Not an adaptation of Vanished, but a real version of a fictional comic created by one of the novel's characters.

It's only eight pages and mostly a teaser, so it's tough to review, but it serves it's function as a teaser very well. In some of the material that came with the comic, Finder talks about how he came up with the idea and asked a friend at DC for artist recommendations. After describing the style of art he wanted, Finder learned that he was looking for a modern-day John Buscema and was directed towards Benito Gallego. It was a good lead. I don't know if Gallego's intentionally trying to evoke Buscema for this project or if that's his usual style, but he does a fine job in the way he draws anatomy, poses his characters, and delivers action.

Even though the comic is essentially an ad for Vanished, Azzarello isn't wasted on it. The Cowl could have been - probably should have been, by all rights - a disposable superhero cliché. Certainly his costume is uninspired. But Azzarello gives him a couple of moments that are so cool - and a villain who's so immediately wicked and horrifying - that you can't help but hope to see him succeed. Only that's when you hit the cliffhanger and realize you're gonna have to read the novel. Nicely done.

Super Maxi-Pad Girl and Rooster Jack await you after the break.

Super Maxi-Pad Girl

Super Maxi-Pad Girl #1-2
Written by Daniel J Olson and AJ Niehaus; Illustrated by Daniel J Olson
Bewildered Kid Comics; $4.00 each

I didn't get these at a convention - they were mailed to me - but I did see them at FallCon last weekend and it reminded me that I needed to read them.

The title of the book makes you wonder how Olson's going to get more than one joke out of the concept, let alone fill two issues with material, but he actually pulls it off. Or, let's say he fills two issues with material. Whether or not he gets more than one joke out of it is debatable. The surprising bit is that he's able to retell that one joke with enough variation that it doesn't lose whatever humor you found in it the first time.

I'm being careful with my words here because Super Maxi-Pad Girl is either uncomfortably funny or just plain offensive depending on your perspective. More often than not, it was both at the same time for me. Olson's created a superpowered conflict out of the menstruation cycle, so your opinion of the book depends entirely on the amount of humor you're able to find in that specific physical process. The evil Period operates out of his secret Uterine Fortress with his minions Cramps and Bloating. About once a month the trio emerge from hiding - sometimes accompanied by Migrane and Acne - to menace women everywhere with the battle cry, "Make blood flow through the streets!" Defending the female population are Super Maxi-Pad Girl and the other members of the League of Feminine Products.

Olson's art is crude (in more ways than one), but effective. You can't always tell what's going on and he's unsubtle as hell, but there's obvious joy in what he's doing and if you're at all open to laughing about the subject matter, it's kind of contagious. There are parts that make you grin and parts that are even sort of touching, but Olson never lets you get too comfortable with any of it. As soon as you think, "Oh, that's kind of sweet. The mom used superhero metaphors to help her daughter understand menstruation," the daughter goes to school and hits a bully in the face with a used pad. Let's just say that I'm very glad the book's in black-and-white.

The Visible Rooster Jack

The Visible Rooster Jack
Written by Adam Hansen; Illustrated by Ben Zmith and Sara Witty
Space Race Comics; $4.00

I picked up Adam Hansen and Ben Zmith's first Rooster Jack comic at the Twin Cities' MicroCon last Spring and loved it. Checking out the sequel was one of the thing's I was looking forward to at FallCon. It wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be - no flying whales or clockwork city yet - but in several ways it's better than I'd hoped for.

The immediately noticeable improvements are the quality of the art and the overall production of the book. Not that Zmith's art was bad on The Sad State of Affairs of Rooster Jack. On the contrary, it was very effective in making me chuckle. But even though there were 3D glasses and some fun activities, I commented at the time that there was a crudeness to it. It was a very funny book, but it was undeniably homemade. For Visible, Zmith has Sara Witty helping out and the result is a sleeker, polished look with some at times downright gorgeous gray-scaling that loses none of Zmith's humor. Add to that the nicer paper it's printed on and The Visible Rooster Jack is a damn attractive mini-comic.

By mini-comic though, I mean only it's dimensions. It's small in your hand, but there are 36 pages, all telling a single, self-contained story. That's another way in which it's nicer than I expected. If I understand correctly, Hansen's original plan was to make his comics more serialized with cliffhangers at the end of each, but Visible is a complete tale. It's open-ended in the sense that there are obviously more adventures to come, but it wraps up in a satisfying way.

The storytelling's way stronger on Visible than it was on Sad State of Affairs too. Sad State of Affairs was all about the gags as it introduced you to Rooster Jack and his cohorts. Visible is still quite funny (it can't help but be with these characters), but the jokes serve the story this time rather than the other way around. I don't mean that to sound negative about the first book, because I laughed and laughed at it. It totally did it's job. I'm just impressed that Hansen didn't decide to go for more of the same. He stretched out and told a real story and it's a good one. There may not be any flying whales, but there are goat-people and a crazy, old peasant woman who'd make Monty Python proud.

APE Aftermath

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, will take place the weekend of Oct. 17-18 at The Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco. Next week I plan to put together a preview post or two, so if you're exhibiting, please feel free to send me information on your plans -- what you'll be selling, where you'll be ... that sort of stuff.

Also, if you're going to APE and looking for something to do before the show starts or after hours on Saturday, Isotope Comics on Fell Street has events planned both Friday and Saturday night. APE special guest Dean Haspiel will sign copies of the ACT-I-VATE Primer at the store on Friday, while Saturday brings the annual APE Aftermath party and the presentation of the Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics. Add'em to your calendar!

Ignatz Awards

The winners of the Ignatz Awards were announced yesterday during a ceremony at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland.

Named in honor of the brick-wielding mouse in George Herriman's Krazy Kat strip, the awards recognize achievement in comics and cartooning. Nominees are selected by a panel of five cartoonists and then voted on by SPX attendees.

The winners of the 2009 Ignatz Awards are:

Outstanding Artist: Nate Powell, Swallow Me Whole (Top Shelf)
Outstanding Anthology or Collection: Kramer’s Ergot #7, edited by Sammy Harkham (Buenaventura)
Outstanding Graphic Novel: Acme Novelty Library #19, Chris Ware (Drawn & Quarterly)
Outstanding Story: “Willy,” Papercutter #10, Damien Jay (Tugboat)
Promising New Talent: Colleen Frakes, Woman King (self-published)
Outstanding Series: Uptight, Jordan Crane (Fantagraphics)
Outstanding Comic: Uptight #3, Jordan Crane (Fantagraphics)
Outstanding Mini-Comic: Stay Away From Other People, Lisa Hanawalt
Outstanding Online Comic: Year of the Rat, Cayetano Garza

Congratulations to all of the winners. The complete list of nominees can be found here.

From Miller and Mazzucchelli's 'Born Again

If Bendis and Maleev's take on Daredevil falters at times in its disregard for the formal properties of comics, it is also guilty of rolling out age old tropes for the "revival" of superhero titles. One is left with the impression that mainstream comics writing has not only stagnated but in all likelihood regressed in the last decade becoming competent yet mediocre.

Lots more good stuff at the link.

• Abhay Khosla declares the "3 Jacks" story from Daredevil #500 "pretty much the best Marvel comic of the year so far, right?"

• Jog looks at Jacques Tardi's West Coast Blues and compares/contrasts its noirist tendencies to Darwyn Cooke's recent Parker adaptation: "Both books contain framing images of Our Man on the road, a socio-economic subtext, and a dénouement that nod toward the inscrutability of these hard men and their achievements. You'd swear this was a response to Cooke's book, if you didn't know it was an English translation of a French album from 2005."

• The Comics Comics site has really been busting the mad skillz lately. Here's what went down over the weekend: Jeet Heer examined John Stanley's influence on Seth, among other things; and Dan Nadel raves about the new Prince Valiant collection.

• David Welsh examines the tricky business of translating a culture-specific manga like Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking: "Depending on the translator's thirst for a challenge, it sounds like either a dream job or a nightmare."

• Shaenon Garrity uses the upcoming release of issue #300 of the Comics Journal to muse on the magazine's history:

The Internet has, alas, killed off one of the other reliable sources of entertainment in TCJ, the "Blood and Thunder" letters column. Seen today, the old "Blood and Thunder"s form a near-complete record of everyone remotely interesting in comics for the last thirty years. Some great arguments raged in the dawn times. My personal favorite remains the long-running battle, waged over months of columns, between Harvey Pekar and everyone else. Pekar ultimately won, in my opinion, by arguing that modern indie comics would be better if cartoonists had taken their inspiration from Spain rather than Robert Crumb. He was right. Imagine how much less annoyingly emo everything would be, and how much more fun Seth would be at conventions.

• Rob Clough priases the Ed Emberly-themed anthology, Emberly Galaxy: "Even those unfamiliar with the artist will find something to enjoy."

• Derik Badman recommends the comics of Aidan Koch.

• Katherine Dacey rounds up the manga of note, while Tucker Stone just ... rounds 'em up. Then shoots 'em.

Hellboy: Seed of Destruction

• Pop Matters has an interesting essay comparing Mike Mignola's Hellboy series with the similarly themed Italian comic Dylan Dog.

As characters, they could be satanic siblings, or infernal in-laws: Hellboy, the Hades-born offspring of a witch and a demon; and Dylan Dog, in love with an undead woman who was likely his mother, and battling his nemesis, the devil, who could be his father. Despite their fantastic and often horrific circumstances, at heart each character is a working-class hero, just trying to get the job done.

• Sean Collins grapples with All-Star Batman and Robin: "The thing really is (to quote Grant Morrison's Mad Hatter) very much cleverer than its rep as a goddamn-Batman meme generator would indicate."

• Curt Purcell continues his ongoing look at the Blackest Night series and superhero decadence in general.

• Matthew Brady enjoyed Lamar Abrams' Remake: "It's pretty ridiculous stuff, but always funny."

• Greg McElhatton declares Neil Kleid's The Big Kahn "easily Kleid’s best work to date as a writer."

• Brian Hibbs was shocked — shocked I tell you — to discover that Archie #600 was a fun read: "I mean, I'm certainly a "Betty Man", and that makes a lot more sense to me than Veronica, but Mike Uslan's script here is remarkably crisp, as well as filled with real drama and pathos."

• Katherine Dacey on Ooku: The Inner Chamber: "For all its dramatic and socio-political ambitions, volume one isn’t nearly as daring or weird or pointed as it might have been. If anything, it reminds me of a BBC miniseries: it’s tasteful, meticulously researched, and a little too high-minded to be truly compelling."

• Kinukitty reads the yaoi manga Black Sun and says "I can't even think about this title without kind of flapping my hands and sputtering a bit."

• Rob Clough reads and reviews more minicomics, something we all should do more of.

• The Daily Cross Hatch on Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit: "True enjoyment of this volumes ultimately seems to fall on a willingness to embrace the complementary sensibilities of 'aw, fucking gross' and 'oh, fucking sweet,' ”

• KC Carlson reviews Looking for Calvin and Hobbes by Nevin Martel, a book I was completely unaware of until now.

• Finally, Tim O'Neil has some thoughts on what makes The Thing so awesome.

Isotope Award

James Sime, owner of Isotope Comics in San Francisco, has put out the call for submissions for the 2009 Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics. Submissions are due Oct. 1 and will be presented at Isotope's annual APE Aftermath bash on Oct. 17, in conjunction with the Alternative Press Expo.

"It's our seventh annual award, and I've got a feeling we're going to be especially lucky and help discover an amazing new talent this year," Sime said. "In 2009 one mini-comic creator's career will be forever changed, so fire up your xerox machines and get ready to submit your minis."

Judges for this year's competition include Sime, Top Shelf co-publisher (and usually the guest bartender at the Aftermath party) Brett Warnock, comics journalist/critic Tom Spurgeon, librarian and former Eisner judge Eva Volan, and comics writer/retailer/librarian Kirsten Baldock.

Entry to this competition is five copies of your mini-comic sent to Isotope's address -- 326 Fell St., San Francisco, CA 94102 -- before the Oct. 1 deadline. The winner will be contacted in advance and must be present at the Isotope at 9 P.M. on Saturday, Oct. 17 for the award presentation ceremony.

"I consider each year's winner of this award to be the Isotope's Miss America for the year and always love helping to get their work under the noses of the entire industry," Sime said. "Oh... and speaking of which, don't forget to place your pre-orders for two previous winners of this award, who both have new original graphic novels coming out this September, Danica Novgorodoff's Refresh, Refresh from First Second and Joshua Cotter's Driven By Lemons from AdHouse Books."

Other previous winners of the award include Rob Osborne, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Jonas Madden-Conner and Max Riffner.