Amazing Spider-Man #666

Publishing | Sales of comic books and graphic novels in July fell 6.17 percent versus July 2010, with dollar sales of comic books sold through Diamond Comic Distributors falling 4.27 percent and graphic novels falling 10.10 percent year-over-year. Unit sales for comics were only down slightly, at .52 percent, which ICv2 points out “indicates that comic book cover prices have in fact declined. The problem is that circulation numbers have not risen enough to make up for the decline in revenue from lower cover prices.” Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man #666, which kicked off the “Spider-Island” event, was the best-selling comic of the month, while League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III Century #2 from Top Shelf topped the graphic novel chart. John Jackson Miller has commentary.

Marvel saw a slight increase in its dollar market share for July when compared to June, while DC’s jumped from 28.03 percent in June to 30.55 percent in July. IDW, the No. 5 publisher in terms of dollar share in June, moved to the No. 3 position in July. The top seven publishers were rounded out by Image, Dark Horse, Dynamite and BOOM! [ICv2]

Darkwing Duck #18

Publishing | BOOM!’s Disney comics officially end in October with the publication of DuckTales #6 and Darkwing Duck #18, for which the solicitation says, “This is it fans, the last Disney single issue from KABOOM! has arrived. It’s the end of an era as we say goodbye to Disney at KABOOM!” [Comics Continuum, via]

Conventions | The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York will hold the 10th annual MoCCA Fest on April 28-29, the same weekend the Stumptown Festival will occur in Portland, Ore. Heidi MacDonald has commentary. [Convention Scene]

Creators | Brian Heater talks to artist Joseph Remnant about illustrating Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland after Pekar passed away last year. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Comics | Robert Stanley Martin has posted the results of the Hooded Utilitarian’s International Best Comics Poll, which were voted on by 211 editors, journalists, academics and retailers (including Robot 6 contributors Sean T. Collins, Chris Mautner and Matt Seneca). Topping the list is Peanuts, followed by Krazy Kat, Calvin and Hobbes, Watchmen and Maus. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Organizations | Derek McCaw interviews Dr. Mauricio Heilbron, the Hero Initiative’s medical consultant. [Fanboy Planet]

FreakAngels

Webcomics | Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield’s long-running FreakAngels webcomic has reached its conclusion. [Warren Ellis]

Webcomics | Doug TenNapel has brought his webcomic Ratfist to an end after 150 episodes, and he reveals that a print version is in the works. [Ratfist]

Retailers | San Francisco-based toy and comics retailer Neon Monster will close down its brick-and-mortar shop on Aug. 7 and its online store on Aug. 14. [Neon Monster, via Twitter]

Reviews | Cartoon Brew rounds up commentary on BOOM!’s third DuckTales comic book in a post titled “Is This the Worst Disney Comic of All-Time?” Per CB poster Amid: “Panels are flipped and repeated, characters speak to other characters that aren’t even drawn into the comic, backgrounds appear to be drawn by a twelve-year-old in MS Paint, and even the cover is an uninspired swipe of an earlier Daan Jippes cover.” The comic even inspired one fan to write a song about it. [Cartoon Brew]

Manga | The four-woman manga supergroup CLAMP is resuming work on Legal Drug after an eight-year hiatus. The series was published in the U.S. by Tokyopop, and there is no word yet on whether the new volumes will be published here. [Anime News Network]

Comics | Sean Kleefeld shows off some new pieces of original comics art he just picked up. [Kleefeld on Comics]

Fandom | Chad Rouch remembers the day his brother tossed Captain America’s shield out of a moving car. [Orlando Sentinel]

You might be familiar with Rick Parker from his work on the Pekar Project, the Beavis and Butthead comics he did for MTV, or his comic Deadboy, but if you don’t have kids around the house, you might not know his most recent work, the parodies Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid, Harry Potty and the Deathly Boring, and Breaking Down, all done for NBM’s children’s comics imprint Papercutz.

If those all sound like updated Mad Magazine parodies, well, all I can say is check out the art. Like seminal Mad artist Will Elder, Parker likes to fill the backgrounds of his panels with lots of small, often hilarious details. (Finding the word “Potrzebie” in one of them convinced me that the similarity was intentional.) Like Mad, the humor in his books is juvenile and sophisticated at the same time.

I have seen Rick at cons, usually sitting at the Papercutz table sketching away, and at MoCCA I decided to say hi. My suspicions were immediately confirmed. “I saw Mad Magazine in 1957 or 1958, and it rocked my world,” he said, reeling off the names of Mad artists—Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Wally Wood. “I modeled myself after Will Elder,” he said. “I wanted to do that in the present day. I was the artist for Beavis and Butthead, and I tried to put some funny stuff in there.”

He pointed out a panel in Harry Potty that featured a room full of crystal balls bearing assorted faces. One had the face of Mad publisher William Gaines, and another featured the face of his editor at Papercutz, Jim Salicrup. “I should give out little magnifying glasses with Harry Potty,” he said.

“One of the great things about comics is that people don’t move on until they are ready,” he said. “I want to be able to squeeze as much juice out of the lemon as possible. If people are going to spend time on something I have done, I want them to enjoy it.”

“I just want to make people laugh.”

This is why I came to MoCCA!

With a cheerful crowd, a pleasant venue, and plenty of exciting creators and books, this year’s MoCCA seems to have been deemed a success. Both Christopher Mautner and I were there, and we decided that rather than write two separate blog posts, we would have a dialogue in which we contrast our impressions of the show. If you’re looking for a more comprehensive report on the show, check out the MoCCA report by our CBR colleague Alex Dueben as well as Tim Callahan’s writeup of his visit.

Chris: I’ll start: Was this your first time at a small-press comics show? I know you’ve gone to NYCC and several manga/anime related shows before, but I didn’t know if you’d been to something like MoCCA before? What was your general impression?

Brigid: This was my first time at MoCCA and my first time at a small-press comicsshow like this, although I have been to art shows with a similar feel.

First of all, I loved the locale. I actually used to live a few blocks away, so it was a bit of a homecoming for me to walk through Madison Square Park in the sunshine. The building itself had a nice, open, loft-like feel with plenty of rough edges—it felt artsy.

The show itself seemed like a giant, really good, Artists Alley. (I kept getting this feeling of deja vu because there were so many people I had just seen at C2E2.) The show definitely felt crowded, but never overwhelming. I made a pretty good circuit of the floor, but I felt like I missed as much as I saw, and I could easily have spent twice as much time there as I did.

It seems to me that MoCCA is a show that everyone loves to complain about—it was too hot, too crowded, the layout was weird and they totally missed half the tables. This year’s show looked pretty smooth to me—I experienced no lines, no hassles, and no discomfort other than sore feet.

Chris: From my vantage point, this year’s MoCCA seemed a lot more successful than last years—larger crowds and more exhibitors—last year had “open tables” to lay your stuff on if weary, a sign that they they didn’t get as many tables as they would have liked. Not so this year.

Julia Wertz

Brigid: I actually would have appreciated an open table, with a couple of chairs as well. But yes, it felt very full. I get the feeling this is a hometown show for New York-based artists, and I was delighted to meet Julia Wertz (and chagrined that I missed Kate Beaton). Yet people also traveled quite a ways–I talked to one creator who came out from Portland, Oregon, and he was heading back to go to Stumptown next weekend. The fact that someone would do that makes this show pretty special.

As someone who has obviously been to MoCCA before, how did this year compare with previous years?

Chris: Agreed on the “crowded but not overwhelming” aspect. It was nice to not constantly be bumping into people and getting hit by stray tote bags, like I usually am at these things.

Speaking of tote bags, was it just me or was every publisher and their red-headed stepchild giving away one of those things at the show? Even Picturebox had tote bags! I know it’s a handy bit of marketing and helps people lug around all their books, but its ubiquity tickled me for some reason.

But yeah, definitely one of the better MoCCAs I’ve been to in terms of crowd, access and just ease of getting around. I got to bump into lot of people I enjoy talking comics with, like Tucker Stone, Sean Witzke and Douglas Wolk, and put some new faces with names like Matthias Wivel and CBR’s Alex Deuben, so I was happy. These events tend to be socializing events as much as they are to get new comics. In fact, I wasn’t sure beforehand if there were that many books I was interested in picking up. Thankfully that proved not to be the case and I left wishing I had been able to shell out for a couple other titles that caught my eye.

Did you attend any of the panels? It took Jog and I about a good 2 1/2 hours just to make it around the room, and then we did a good bit of socializing, so we didn’t head downstairs to catch any of the talks. To be perfectly honest, there wasn’t much in that regard that caught my interest but perhaps you caught a good discussion?

Daniel Spottswood with his minicomics

Brigid: I saw some nice tote bags, but I managed to buy a small enough stack that I didn’t need one. Kate Dacey, who accompanied me, observed that there seemed to be a lot of variation in price, and she thought some of the handmade comics were overpriced. I know it’s your pride and joy, but if a comic is six or eight photocopied sheets stapled together, perhaps $10 to $20 is too high a price? On the other hand, I saw beautifully bound books with elaborate covers that seemed like a bargain. The best sort of purchase, I think, is a comic like the one I bought from Daniel Spottswood: It was a mini-comic, printed in color, with some pages that folded up into bigger comics. It felt handmade but polished at the same time, and it was only $3. And when I pulled it out, people said “Oh, cool!” That’s exactly what I was going to MoCCA to see.

And let me follow that up with a question for you—what was your best purchase at the show?

Chris: Well, obviously I haven’t gone through all of my haul yet, but certainly one of the books I’m most looking forward to reading is that huge, bright pink slab of a Finnish comics anthology that they were hawking over at the Scandinavian tables. I was really impressed with the offerings laid out along this area. The signal to noise ratio seemed to be higher there more than at just about any other exhibitor. One person I bought a book from took a picture of me (and other customers) to prove to his wife that he wasn’t just in New York on holiday. That made me extra happy I bought his book.

Another excited purchase of mine was Pinocchio by French cartoonist Winshluss, which Last Gasp had a nice, new English edition of. Mathias Wivel, who I met at the show (Hi Matthias!) warned me the book is a bit too “oh, I’m so daring and naughty” but it’s still a visual treat.

Other things I bought include Rubber Necker #5 by Nick Bertozzi, Farm 54, the new book from Fanfare/Ponent Mon, and, though everyone seemed excited that Pantheon had copies of Dan Clowes’ Mister Wonderful on hand, I opted to get Ben Katchor’s latest, The Cardboard Valise, signed by the author, natch.

What did you get at the show? What book or books did you hear people talking about or see folks clutching madly? More importantly, did you hear any good Brecht Evens stories? Just about everywhere I went, someone would say to me, “Have you met Brecht Evens yet?” and then launch into some fantabulous story about the artist. Apparently Brecht Evens is a magical, woodland sprite that greets every cartoonist he meets with giant embraces and affectionate kisses, macks on just about every pretty girl in his vicinity and almost got arrested for drinking in public. Apparently when he was ticketed by the police officer he immediately proceeded to paint a gorgeous watercolor drawing on the ticket and threw it back in the cop’s face saying “This is a picture of me having sex with your mother.” I may have made that last part up.

Rica Takashima with her manga and her special MoCCA doujinshi

Brigid: There were a few things that made me really happy. I got a signed mini-comic from Julia Wertz, who is one of my favorite cartoonists of all time—I think her Drinking at the Movies is brilliant. Like you, I picked up an advance copy of Area 54 at the Fanfare/Ponent Mon booth. I think the Rica ‘tte Kanji!? doujinshi is really special, though, because it’s such a unique comic, a yuri manga by a Japanese creator in a very unusual style. For five bucks, I got a really one-of-a-kind comic. I got some unusual mini-comics too, but I haven’t had time to look at them yet. I sort of focused on the comics that looked like they had a lot of handcrafting to them.

Chris: Yeah, I haven’t had much time to read any of the books I bought yet either. I did read the two volumes of From Eroica With Love that I picked up at Kinokuya Bookstore, which I stopped in before I headed to the show, something I recommend to any MoCCA attendee, if for no other reason that in addition to the untranslated manga they have a little cafe where you can get some sweet buns and Pocky before the show. Pocky!

You mentioned earlier how many of the books seem a tad overpriced. Indeed, there seemed to be a good deal mediocre or less inspired work, but despite this, and despite the fact that I didn’t check out any of the panels, I had a really good time at MoCCA, was supremely happy with most of the stuff I bought and ended up kicking myself on the train ride home for not picking up a half dozen or so other books as well. That’s the hallmark of a good show to me.

Dave Roman with an advance copy of Astronaut Academy and a soon-to-be-rare mini of Teen Boat

Spike, the creator of Templar, Arizona

Steve Vrattos shows off an advance copy of Farm 54 at the Fanfare/Ponent Mon table

Sorcery 101 creator Kel McDonald

One of the regular features of the new Comics Journal website is a diary comic by a different creator each week. They started off with Brandon Graham, and as this week’s diarist, Pascal Girard, notes, that’s a tough act to follow. Girard is off to a strong start though; his first comic chronicles the doings of Night Animals creator Brecht Evens, who is already becoming a bit of a MoCCA legend (see Peggy Burns’ epic MoCCA post at the Drawn and Quarterly blog for more). Stay tuned!

Our Hero: Superman on Earth

Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? Our special guest today is Nate Cosby, co-writer of the upcoming Image series Pigs and editor of the upcoming Jim Henson’s The Storyteller anthology, which will feature stories by an impressive group of talented creators.

To see what Nate and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below.

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Michael May

Black Widow and the Marvel Girls

It’s a fun coincidence that our guest this week is Nate Cosby because one of the books I read, Black Widow and the Marvel Girls was edited by him. I’m on a Marvel catch-up kick lately, finally reading a bunch of trades that I’d been waiting for. BWatMG is a fun one, written by Paul Tobin, exploring four different time periods in Black Widow’s career. The first story is from her time as a Russian spy, the second features her as a brand-new Avenger; then there’s one with her as a SHIELD agent and one from current continuity in which she’s a freelancer. As the title suggests, she works with a different Marvel heroine in each: Enchantress, the Wasp, Ms. Marvel and Storm, respectively.

Except for the Enchantress story (in which the guest-star is more or less superfluous), Tobin finds some really interesting things to do with the Marvel Girls. The Wasp story is really an Avengers story in which the Wasp and Black Widow are separated from the rest of the team during a mission in Latveria. The Wasp personifies the entire group as they’re still trying to figure out if they can trust their new member. Widow’s coolness (in both meanings of the word) isn’t helping. It was this story that made me realize that the superpowerless, but extremely well-trained and always-prepared Widow, is sort of the Batman of the Marvel Universe, if Batman wasn’t so one-dimensionally misanthropic. That goes a long way in explaining why I like Black Widow so much.

The SHIELD story turns the situation around since Black Widow’s assignment is to check out another new superhero on the block, Ms. Marvel. The Storm story is interesting because she and Black Widow team up with Mole Man to fight some renegade Moloids. And you know how Storm does underground. There’s also a reprint of Amazing Spider-Man #86, in which Black Widow tries to find some direction for herself by becoming a costumed adventurer. It’s also the first appearance of her catsuit costume.

from Shadowland

Other Marvel trades I caught up on are Heralds and Shadowland. Heralds is a fun, girl-power comic written by Kathryn Immonen, but it’s mostly focused on Emma Frost, Hellcat and a young woman with mysterious ties to Frankie Raye/Nova. I enjoyed the Nova character back in the day when she was dating Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four, so I liked checking in on her, but She-Hulk and Valkyrie (the reasons I was interested in the book in the first place) aren’t given a lot to do. Still, Immonen’s got a fun sense of humor and a knack for banter, so I enjoyed the book, even though it wasn’t exactly what I wanted.

I liked Shadowland even more than I thought I would. I bought it to check in on Shang Chi (and because I like Andy Diggle), but I’m not terribly into Daredevil. I like him in small doses, but have never been able to stay with his ongoing series for long. Casting him as the villain for some interesting street-level heroes to fight though was a brilliant move, and I especially enjoyed Diggle’s going back to the roots of the Hand organization in order to explain Daredevil’s actions. He also figured out exactly the right amount of Ghost Rider and Punisher the story needed, which has always seemed extremely difficult for a lot of writers.

Chris Mautner

My busy schedule has kept me from contributing to WAYR in awhile, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading anything. Here are some books that crossed my paths in the past few weeks:

Dungeon Quest Book Two by Joe Daly (Fantagraphics) — More stoner/fantasy silliness from Daly. There seems to be more of a focus on plot and creating lengthy action sequences than in previous. The jokes don’t seem as frequent, or at least are more subtle this time around. Perhaps its simply that I’ve become familiar with the “D&D by way of Seth Rogan” style that’s going on here. That’s not necessarily a complaint. Dungeon Quest Book Two is still a fun romp, especially if you’re at all familiar with the fantasy genre or role-playing games in particular. It’s just that this felt like a bit of a placeholder at times for the next chapter, where, hopefully, a nice left curve will be thrown.

5 Very Good Reasons ...

5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (and Other Useful Guides) by “The Oatmeal” (Andrews McMeel) — This is a collection of what is allegedly a rather popular webcomic, The Oatmeal, written and drawn by Matthew Inman. Inman riffs on various things that annoy him, like other people, and things that he loves, like coffee. It’s basically a foul-mouthed version of a bad stand-up routine, right down to the jokes about the obnoxious people that sit next to you on a plane and dealing with bad tech support. It doesn’t help that Inman can’t draw for beans, and that his over-reliance on Adobe Illustrator (or whatever computer program he uses) gives the whole thing a “PowerPoint presentation gone horribly wrong” feel. But hey, maybe that’s what he’s shooting for. If so, mission accomplished.

Empire State by Jason Shiga (Abrams) — Basically I agree with Tucker Stone here: Shiga is a man of considerable talents but this book seems like the same warmed over sad-sack, semi-autobiography, unrequited love story I’ve read a dozen times over. Part of me wonders if this isn’t a really subtle parody of Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings, but I think that’s just wishful thinking on my part.

Brigid Alverson

The Matter

Where to begin? I came back from MoCCA with a stack of interesting comics, and then had a crazy busy week and wasn’t able to get too far into it. I did start reading Farm 54, which is a trio of semi-autobiographical short stories about growing up in rural Israel (which, oddly, doesn’t look that different from rural Indiana). Gilad Seliktar’s art is spare but depicts its subject well—I could almost feel the dry grass crackle—and the story is told in a flat, almost distant voice. The first story seemed to sort of float along, and then it hit me with a twist so powerful I had to put the book down. I’ll pick it up again, but this is not an easy book to read. It’s sort of like one of those New Yorker short stories, where it seems like nothing happens but really everything happens.

I also got the first two issues of The Matter, an indie anthology that is probably the perfect MoCCA comic. It’s a mix of comics and illustrated prose fiction, and it’s all very literary, with lots of epiphanies and no car chases or kicks to the head. It is beautifully produced and printed, and the stories are short and tight (although each issue has one story in Somali, a language I can’t read). Overall, both issues have a hand-crafted feel but a high degree of polish, and I really felt they were as much objets d’art as comics.

Nathan Cosby

Leeeeeet’s see…Best thing I read this week was Wolves, a new mini-comic by the spectacular Becky Cloonan. I don’t think the book’s for sale yet, but Miss C hooked me up with an early copy. She took some old art she was using for something else, then switched it around, added pages, panels, and captions …but you’d never realize Wolves‘ patchwork history from reading it. Graphic, gritty, passionate and really interestingly paced, I thought I had a handle on what was going on, until I got to the last two pages, and the rug got pulled from under me. Becky’s an amazing artist, but she needs to write more if she’s capable of telling such a full, rich tale in 20 pages.

Also, making my way through Our Hero: Superman on Earth by Tom De Haven. Tom’s the author of the INCREDIBLE novel It’s Superman!, and this collection of essays covers all the nooks and crannies of how Superman was created, how he evolved, his effect on pop culture, etc. Strictly for Superman obsessives like myself…basically Krypto-Porn for me.

Lastly, there’s The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck. I didn’t read it all the way through this week (I’ve read it hundreds of times by now), but I keep a copy by my bed when I want something to read before sleep. L&T is my Comic Bible…I can flip to any page and find a chapter that sucks me in and reminds how masterfully Don Rosa told the tale of a full life, totally respectful to the work of Carl Barks, but completely accessible to even the most stoic anti-Disney reader.

If you’re in the New York City area and looking for something to do to get you into a MoCCA mood, Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn is holding a book launch/art show for “the awesome double-issue-flip-book anthology Rabid Rabbit #13 & C’est Bon Kultur #14.” The opening reception starts at 8 p.m. Eastern tonight. You can find all the details on the BSC site.

Cathy Leamy will be at the Boston Comics Roundtable table with her brand-new diary comic What’s the Word?, a collection of her diary comics from Metrokitty.

Neil Kleid will happily sign copies of his comics, mini-comics, and graphic novels (The Big Kahn, Brownsville), and anything else he has work in (including the Fraggle Rock anthology), but if you really want to make his day, bring him an obscure soda.

Stephanie Yue, who illustrates the Guinea Pig: Pet Shop Private Eye graphic novels (not just adorable, but funny for both adults and kids) will be there, as will her editor Carol Burrell, who draws SPQR Blues under the nickname Klio.

Rica Takashima will have a special doujinshi just for MoCCA. Rica is a yuri (lesbian) manga creator and the author of the much-acclaimed Rica ‘tte Kanji?, which Shaenon Garrity described, approvingly, as “as cute as a blender full of kittens.”

If your tastes tend more toward the retro-bizzare, check out Coin Op Studio, which will be debuting the charmingly titled Coin Op No. 3: Municipal Parking and Waterfall at the show.

Jeph Jacques shows off the print he will be selling (with a view of the preliminary drawing as well) at his Tumblr.

The Schulz Library blog is highlighting the MoCCA offerings of students, alumni, and faculty of the Center for Cartoon Studies, including the promising-looking anthology This Isn’t Working: Comics About Ex-Boyfriends, edited by Robyn Chapman, Colleen Frakes’s The Trials of Sir Christopher, and Andy Warner’s Behind the Stars.

Judging by its cover, Sundays 4 (Forever Changes) should be a beautiful book. The anthology, which includes contributions from the likes of Ed Piskor (Boingthump) and Warren Craghead III), debuts at MoCCA and will be available online after that, but they are only making 300 of these (hand-numbered) suckers, so MoCCA is the place to get ‘em.

Sparkplug comics will be debuting two new tites at the show, The Disgusting Room, by Austin English, and Reich #8, by Elijah Brubaker.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of Fay Ryu’s work, since her website shows her as an accomplished cartoonist in the cute-animals category (but with a nice, loose style) but it left me wanting more.

Strange Tales Party

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and The Beat are hosting a party in New York Saturday night featuring a wide array of guests who worked on Marvel’s Strange Tales anthologies, with proceeds benefiting the CBLDF. You can find complete details after the jump or in the above flyer by Paul Maybury.

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Marvel Comics’ Strange Tales I and II are finally complete and collected! To celebrate this amazing assortment of alternative and independent cartoonists, the CBLDF and THE BEAT are hosting a party for contributors and fans! DON’T MISS OUT on this rare opportunity to meet this wide variety of creators, all in one fun spot!

Nick Bertozzi
Kate Beaton
Chris Chua
Jim Campbell
Jacob Chabot
Becky Cloonan
Toby Cypress
Nick Gurewitch
Tim Hamilton
Dean Haspiel
Jillian Tamaki
Paul Horneschemier
Benjamin Marra
Alex Robinson

7-9- pm. Saturday April 9th
The Mad Hatter
360 Third Ave (at 26th St.)
New York, NY 10016
(212) 696-2122

Just around the Corner from MoCCA

Copies of STRANGE TALES I and II will be available at the party, donations benefiting the CBLDF.

Fantagraphics plans to have creators signing at their booth pretty much the whole time, with a roster that includes Kim Dietch, Peter Bagge, Dash Shaw, Michael Kupperman, Gahan Wilson, and others too numerous to mention—check out the full list at their blog. Their people are also going to be involved in a ton of panels, and with a four-table block (J1, J2, K1, K2), they should be hard to miss.

Abrams will have their usual crowd of A-list creators at their booth: Jerry Robinson, Michael Uslan, Chip Kidd, Al Jaffee, and Craig Yoe. Jaffee will receive the 2011 Klein Award for volunteer of the year, and Uslan and Robinson will be on the panel Batman, the Joker and Beyond on Sunday.

Top Shelf will be debuting two new books, Liar’s Kiss by Eric Skillman and Jhomar Soriano, and Night Animals, by Brecht Evens. Both Skillman and Evens will be there to show off their new books. Jess Fink will also be in attendance, although her Chester 5000 isn’t due out until May.

Evens will also be at the Drawn + Quarterly booth (B5, C5, C6) along with Joe Ollmann, Pascal Girard, Adrian Tomine, and Jillian Tamaki; check their blog for signing and panel times. They will be debuting three books at the show: Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, by Shigeru Mizuki; Reunion, by Pascal Girard; and The Klondike, by Zach Worton.

Fanfare UK will have advance copies of Farm 54 fresh from the printer—it’s not due out until May—so stop by booth K13 and take a look. Writer Galit Seliktar will be there on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to sign copies.

Creators at the First Second booth will include Nick Bertozzi (Lewis & Clark) and Nick Abadzis (Laika) on Saturday and Ben Hatke (Zita the Spacegirl) and Tracy White (How I Made It To Eighteen) on Sunday.

It doesn’t look like IDW will have a table of their own, but Craig Yoe will be there with his latest anthology, Archie: A Celebration of America’s Favorite Teenagers, published by IDW under their Yoe Books imprint.

MoCCA

The Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art in New York, or MoCCA, today announced they’ve hired two new staff to replace departing Museum Director Karl Erickson, who left late last year.

“During the search process, the Board of Trustees realized that the museum’s growth has made it necessary to fill a wide variety of skill sets in order to help MoCCA achieve its future goals,” said Museum President Ellen Abramowitz. “There was clearly a need to build greater leadership capacity at the staff level in order for us to continue growing. Sometimes when you have big shoes to fill, it makes more sense to add an extra set of feet.”

Cartoonist Doug Bratton will take on the role of museum manager/director of development, and Mell Scalzi has been hired to serve as registrar. Per a press release that you can find after the jump, both have worked with the museum in the past.

Both will work on the upcoming MoCCA Festival, set for April 9-10, as well as “a 10-Year Anniversary Celebration that will include the unveiling of future plans for a permanent, state-of-the-art facility.”

Check out the full press release after the jump.

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Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art Introduces New Staff Team

New York, New York—February 4, 2011—In just ten short years, the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art, -MoCCA, has carved out a place for itself in the lower Manhattan community. The museum gallery, located on Broadway just south of Houston Street, has managed to attract the works of some of the cartooning industry’s giants, including such icons as Charles Schulz, Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, Art Spiegelman, Will Eisner, David Mazzucchelli, Al Jaffee, Jules Feiffer, Stan Lee, Peter Arno, Syd Hoff, Trina Robbins, Ralph Bakshi, Todd McFarlane, Gary Baseman, Basil Wolverton, Bill Plympton, Peter Kuper, R. Sikoryak, Robert Crumb, Jamie Hernandez, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman and Maurice Sendak. The museum is currently planning its annual MoCCA Festival—one of the largest comic art festivals in the country, and MoCCA’s primary fundraiser—as well as a 10 Year Anniversary Celebration that will include the unveiling of future plans for a permanent, state-of-the-art facility.

Amidst these events, Museum President Ellen Abramowitz conducted a search for new staff leadership to replace their past Museum Director, who had recently moved on to another position. “During the search process, the Board of Trustees realized that the museum’s growth has made it necessary to fill a wide variety of skill sets in order to help MoCCA achieve its future goals,” said Abramowitz. “There was clearly a need to build greater leadership capacity at the staff level in order for us to continue growing. Sometimes when you have big shoes to fill, it makes more sense to add an extra set of feet.”

MoCCA has hired new staff to fill two leadership positions recently created by the museum. Doug Bratton will take on the role of Museum Manager/Director of Development, and Mell Scalzi has been hired to serve as Registrar. Both have a long history of involvement with MoCCA.

Doug Bratton is a cartoonist and author who serves as Chairman of the National Cartoonists Society’s New York Metro Chapter. He writes and draws a daily newspaper comic panel, and has contributed comics to Nickelodeon and MAD Magazine. A collection of his comics titled The Deranged Stalker’s Journal of Pop Culture Shock Therapy was recently published by Andrews McMeel Universal. In addition to his cartooning career, Bratton has worked in non-profit management for 15 years as a supervisor, trainer, program director, and grant writer.

Mell Scalzi has served as a volunteer at the museum for two years with MoCCA’s collections and archives department, and is a member of the Curatorial Committee. She has assisted with the curation on a number of MoCCA’s exhibits. Additionally, she co-curated exhibits at the Wallace Library at Wheaton College where she received a Bachelor of Arts, minoring in Art History with a focus on contemporary art and museum studies. She was a member of the Wheaton College Beard & Weil Galleries Curatorial Team, and also interned with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

The Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art is open to the public on Tuesdays-Sundays from noon to 5pm. It occasionally closes for exhibit installations, please call or check the website before visiting. Group and school tours are also available, please contact the museum at (212) 254-3511 and ask for group sales to schedule a tour. For any additional information about the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art, the MoCCA Festival, or to make a tax-deductible contribution, please contact Museum President Ellen Abramowitz at (212) 254-3511.

Sarah Glidden, as drawn by Sarah Glidden

When she set out for Israel, Sarah Glidden was carrying some baggage — strong opinions about the country and some suspicion about the sponsor of her tour, Birthright, which provides all-expenses-paid trips to Israel for young Jewish people. “How shall I put it? … When there is an expensive trip offered for free, there is always bound to be a downside to it,” she told the magazine Haaretz.

To keep her skeptical eye, Glidden decided to make a graphic novel about her trip, and the result is How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, which came out this week. Glidden shares her experiences in Israel, and discusses how she turned that into a graphic novel, in the Haaretz article, which is well worth a read. But this Horatio Alger aspect is what caught my eye:

Like many independent cartoonists, she rented a booth with several other cartoonists at the MoCCA Festival at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York, and sat down to sell her mini-comics to passersby. When a man wearing a badge identifying him as representing DC Comics, one of the giants of American comic-book publishing (owned by Time Warner ), showed interest in her mini-comics, she didn’t get excited.

“I thought there was no way DC Comics was going to be interested in someone like me. I’m a beginner; [I thought] they only publish comics about superheroes and fantasy. But I told him what it was all about and he bought a book and went away. Two days later, I got an e-mail saying that he was an editor at Vertigo publications [a division of DC specializing in comics for adults], and that they wanted to publish it. Only then did I realize that Vertigo does many things that are political. It was a dream come true.”

Tagged for greatness at her table at MoCCA. Who knew?

(PWCW just ran a preview, so you can see what all the fuss is about.)

Don't mess with Dharbin

“I can’t BELIEVE MoCCA’s table prices. They are drinking the same hubris Kool-Aid as SPX. Why are the charity shows always the cheekiest? I saw it and I was like *slaps head*. Although to be fair, I’ve never exhibited there, just been a crowded hot attendee. (I read some interviews with them after the super hot year, they were all like ‘hey listen, it’s summer, it gets hot.’) Not to mention how expensive NYC is in general! Just makes it easier to skip. Also today I got my acceptance letter (???) for APE, after applying 3 months ago. Due date for payment: 1 week from now. I had always heard about how well-run HeroesCon is from guests, but now I see why. Indie shows are organized like block parties. Except the kind of block parties where they charge you like $50 to come in, then charge you for beer too. ‘Dude it’s for charity!’ SPX is pretty fun, but TCAF is the best one easily–plus Toronto = my favorite city! Wait, please exclude TCAF from that mini-rant. TCAF is a dream, a dreammmm. Other shows take note! Okay back to lettering, sorry.”

—Cartoonist, Casanova letterer, and “nicest guy in comics” candidate Dustin Harbin has an uncharacteristically grumpy moment on Twitter over the prices that the MoCCA Art Festival is charging exhibitors, and the administration of indie/alt-comics shows generally (except TCAF, of course). It’s hard out there for a minicomics creator.

David Bowie by Niklas Asker

I’ve been collecting David Bowie sketches from comics artists at shows and cons since MoCCA 2007. What can I say? He’s my favorite superhero. In that time I’ve amassed drawings of the chameleonic musician from 97 different artists, and adding to the collection is always a high priority for me at every show. I had exceptionally good luck at this year’s MoCCA — you better hang on to yourself as we flip through this year’s haul!

Niklas Asker (above): Oh man, look at that, just look at it. How can a sketch be shiny? Niklas Asker pulled it off with maybe the most elegant and sexy Bowie of the batch–no surprise, if you’ve seen his graphic novel Second Thoughts.

Hope Larson: Hope actually turned me down for a sketch at MoCCA a few years back, though I did succeed in getting one from her husband Bryan Lee O’Malley. I’ve chatted with her a few times since then over Twitter, so this year I warned her in advance I was coming back for Round Two, and she graciously acquiesced. She knew exactly which era Bowie she wanted to draw — in fact, she wanted him from The Man Who Fell to Earth specifically. Bowie as lone wanderer.

Ken Dahl/Gabby Schulz: Under the nom de comics Ken Dahl, Gabby Schulz is the author of the autobiographical Monsters, chronicling his life with herpes. So this Aladdin Sane-era Bowie with a giant sore on his forehead in lieu of that circle is pretty much exactly what I hoped for.

Miss Lasko-Gross: Miss Lasko-Gross apologized to me midway through this sketch, explaining that just because I was wearing glasses and a Bowie t-shirt at the time didn’t mean this little man in glasses and a Bowie t-shirt she was drawing was me. Phew! I always enjoy it when people work Bowie into their sketches in unexpected ways.

Sara Edward-Corbett: I’ve known Sara since college, when she was part of a crew who consistently wowed me and my friends with their comics in one of the school papers. She’s been on my Bowie sketchbook hit list for a long time, and I finally cornered her. Woo!

Kolbeinn Karlsson: Kolbeinn is the author of The Troll King; I think his Bowie looks suitably fantastical. I wonder what he’s saying with that spiral?

Simon Gärdenfors: Simon immediately latched upon a picture of Bowie as a little kid in one of the books of photo reference I had with me. I promise you that if you’ve seen the photo, you’d see the resemblance here.

Jess Fink: Jess is no stranger to drawing Bowie, having done several little portraits on her website just for funzies, and since she’s dressed up like him for Halloween I think it’s fair to characterize her as a fellow superfan. Over Twitter she told me beforehand how excited she was to get a chance to contribute to my Bowie book, and she didn’t disappoint. I wish more people would draw different versions of Bowie interacting, in fact!

L. Nichols: L. had a tough act to follow, taking the sketchbook directly from her tablemate Jess Fink, but I think she pretty much killed it here. She sorta cut’n'pasted a Bowie photo that was very popular in this batch, blowing up his crossed hands and attaching them to the portrait like wings. Lovely colors too.

Isaac Moylan: Isaac drew the Bowie biography comic I wrote, The Side Effects of the Cocaine, so getting him into my sketchbook was a no brainer. Tired of drawing the Thin White Duke-era Bowie, he came gunning straight for the older, dare I say grizzled Bowie of the “I’m Afraid of Americans” video. Note Trent Reznor lurking in the background. Folks, when in doubt, going with stuff from this video will always make me happy.

Farel Dalrymple: I caught Farel while he was sketching at MoCCA’s fundraising table. Daunted by the prospect of contributing to the book, he simply chose to nail the Aladdin Sane cover as accurately as he could. Success!

Molly Colleen O’Connell: Ah, now this was cool: I handed my sketchbook to the entire Closed Caption Comics collective and let ‘em go nuts with it, thus netting myself sketches from Lane Milburn, Chris Day, Conor Stechschulte, Andrew Neyer, Zach Hazard Vaupen, and Molly Colleen O’Connell, who the group told me was the biggest Bowie fan in the bunch. I really like this piece because it comes as close as any of these sketches has to capturing the rainbow madness of some of Bowie’s Ziggy/Aladdin-era stage get-ups. Lady Stardust and Lady Gaga are not worlds apart. (PS: Noel Freibert and Erin Womack, I’ll get you next time!)

Zach Hazard Vaupen: In an act of creative repurposing, Zach Hazard found a blank page in the book and traced the Charles Burns sketch underneath it. I’ve heard from many people, including Charles himself, how much he hates the Bowie sketch he did for me (even though it’s one of my favorites), so I wonder how he’ll feel about having it sampled…

Chris Day: Chris captured Bowie from his days as a mime. I know mimes are like a big joke or whatever, but Bowie’s always been really open and insightful about how his training with mime guru Lindsay Kemp helped almost every aspect of his performances. What a great choice of an image to sketch.

Lane Milburn: Lane told me a story of how one of his art-school professors, Odd Nerdrum, painted a painting called “Dawn” that Bowie owns. That’s it hanging in the background. Where the tracksuit figures in I have no idea, but somehow it works. (PS: If I have a daughter, I’m toying with naming her Ashanti, fwiw.)

Andrew Neyer: Bowie the Imp! I am always down with Bowie sketches that make him look like some sort of mischievous fairy-tale creature.

Conor Stechschulte: I know exactly what photo Conor used as inspiration here. It wasn’t half so dramatically lit, I assure you. This is one of my favorites.

To see all of Sean’s David Bowie sketches, visit his Flickr gallery.

Sean's MoCCA 2010 loot

I came to shop.

Seriously, I was just about as excited for this past weekend’s MoCCA festival as I’ve ever been for any comic convention. And it wasn’t because of the guests or the panels or even getting to see so many of my friends and colleagues — it was because of the comics. The best thing about a small-press show is your ability to dig into the tables and come away with enough treasures to keep you reading happily for weeks. Proceeding from the top left of the picture above in as logical a fashion as I can manage, here’s a rundown of my personal treasure trove…

Cage Variations Vol. 1 by Sean T. Collins & Matt Rota and The Side Effects of the Cocaine by Sean T. Collins & Isaac Moylan: I apologize if it seems crass to include comics I myself wrote and helped sell at the show, but I assure you, these books were as new to me as they were to anyone else who bought them. As a mere writer (though I prefer the phrase “pure writer,” of course), my involvement in the production of actual books to contain the comics I’ve done is beyond minimal. I just bankrolled the print run for The Side Effects of the Cocaine (a David Bowie bio-comic), while the very existence of the Cage Variations mini (containing interlocking stories about a college kid who imprisons one of his fellow students in a cage in his basement) was unknown to me until Matt told me about it two days before the show. Isaac and Matt did all the hard work, and the result was as much of a discovery for me as anything else I bought. Thanks, guys, and thanks to the Partyka table for giving me the table space to sell these!

Jumbly Junkery #9 by L. Nichols: The latest installment of Nichols’s one-woman anthology minicomic series, featuring maybe the most striking cover of the lot. I’ve got a backlog of Nichols material I’m psyched to make my way through in the coming weeks.

The Troll King by Kolbeinn Karlsson, Alec: The Years Have Pants by Eddie Campbell, and Second Thoughts by Niklas Asker: The results of my raid on the Top Shelf table. The Troll King was the weirdest-looking book in the publisher’s so-called “Swedish Invasion,” a creepy-cute fairy-tale-lookin’ thing, right up my alley. Second Thoughts was published before the “Swedish Invasion” proper and I had a review copy, but I wanted the real thing, largely on the strength of Asker’s gorgeous Farel Dalrymple-meets-Adrian Tomine art. Finally, Eddie Campbell’s art has always impressed the pants off of me (no pun intended), but at the same time the writing of his autobio work hit me as off-puttingly knowing and arch. I’m excited to plow through his entire autobio oeuvre in one go to see what I really think.

Mr. Cellar’s Attic by Noel Freibert, Closed Caption Comics #8 by Closed Caption Comics, and Held Sinister by Conor Stechschulte: The latest bounty from the Closed Caption Comics collective, a squad of MICA grads who seem to grow more ambitious and prolific with each show they attend. There are so many CCC’ers, and they make so many comics, that it’s almost impossible to keep up with them, but I always come away from their table with two or three new gems. Any issue of their flagship self-titled anthology is a good place to start.

Monstrosity Mini by Jorge Diaz: I met Jorge because he was sharing a table with L. Nichols and Jess Fink, and he was kind enough to hand me a copy of his new minicomic, a tiny package that looks like it was loaded with its tiny nine-panel-grids by some kind of machine. He’s got some real control over his line, that’s for sure. I’m looking forward to giving this a read.

Studio Visit by James McShane: I liked McShane’s ambitiously constructed minicomic Archaeology a lot, which I suppose is what persuaded him to hand me a copy of his new one. Flipping through it, it looks like it’s staking out some of the same territory as its predecessor, dealing with the interaction of physical space and emotion, but in a much less minimalist style. Intriguing!

Snow Time by Nora Krug: Krug was my big discovery at last year’s MoCCA, thanks to her killer suite of interwoven books collectively called Red Riding Hood Redux. I’ll now pick up whatever she’s doing, as if the lovely blues of Snow Time weren’t enticement enough.

pood #1, edited by Geoff Grogan, Kevin Mutch, and Alex Rader: I’ve admitted my skepticism about newsprint, but taking a look at this impressive, giant-sized anthology, it’s easy to put those doubts to rest. (Besides, as Geoff Grogan told me, the paper stock was a question of economic necessity, not nostalgia.) From its striking Sara Edward-Corbett front page on down, this is a compelling collection of comics off-the-beaten-path creators both (relatively) well-known and obscure. I ought to cut quite the figure flipping through this gigantic thing on the Long Island Rail Road!

Wiegle for Tarzan by Matt Wiegle and The Numbers of the Beasts by Shawn Cheng: My ersatz tablemates from the Partyka collective are among the most acclaimed practitioners of the art of the minicomic around, and it seems that at every show they have some new marvel of comic efficiency to boast of. This time out, we’ve got one maybe Wiegle’s funniest effort yet — about his run for the oft-neglected office of New York State’s official Tarzan — and a child-style counting book from Cheng once again showcasing his love of mythological monsters from around the world. These guys can draw, and the production quality of their little books is second to none, especially considering the low low prices.

Dose #1-2, edited by Brendan McGinley: My former Wizard coworker Brendan gifted me copies of the first two installments of the humor anthology he helms. For what it’s worth, I think there were fully a dozen former Wizard staffers on hand, two of us as exhibitors. There’s probably a message of some kind there.

To Teach by Bill Ayers and Ryan Alexander-Tanner: This comics adaptation of educator, activist, and former Weatherman Bill Ayers’ memoir was pressed into my hands by NYC altcomix gadabout Jeff Newelt/Jah Furry, who’s apparently more down with pallin’ around with terr’ists than Sarah Palin was. I still think not getting Ayers on a panel with Frank Miller was a major dropped ball for the show.

Chiggers by Hope Larson: I used the occasion of getting a David Bowie sketch from Hope as an excuse to buy her young-adult summer-camp graphic novel. I’d never read it before but, after checking out her new book Mercury, I really wanted to.

Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso, Weathercraft by Jim Woodring, and Tales Designed to Thrizzle #6 by Michael Kupperman: These are three of the jaw-dropping 13 books Fantagraphics debuted at the show. Kelso’s Artichoke Tales has been almost a decade in the coming, Weathercraft is creepy-looking new tale from Woodring’s darkly psychedelic funny-animal Frank-verse, and Thrizzle is the latest installment in Kupperman’s killer humor series, now in full color. I already had copies of Tim Hensley’s Wally Gropius and Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches and Jaime Hernandez’s Penny Century and Gilbert Hernandez’s The High Soft Lisp or I doubtless would have picked those up, too. You could safely shop only from Fantagraphics and still experience a hella great comics industry in microcosm.

Trigger #1 by Mike Bertino and Shitbeams on the Loose #2, edited by Rusty Jordan and Dave Nuss: Look at those covers! I’d heard of and been intrigued by the Shitbeams anthology thanks to a Tom Spugeon review, but a Ron Rege Jr. cover is always gonna get me to pick something up sight-unseen; he’s one of the most fascinating, and graphically lovely, cartoonists in alternative comics. UPDATE: Ugh. After writing all that about how much I love Ron’s work, editor Dave Nuss informs me that isn’t Ron’s work, it’s Andy Rementer’s. Don’t I feel like a horse’s ass. Anyway, Trigger was sitting next to it on what I assume was the Revival House Press table, and got bought through a case of reverse-guilt by association. The contents aren’t as Providence-y as the cover might suggest, but Bertino’s style comes across like a greatest-hits tour of the past half-decade or so of altcomix, and I think it’ll be fun to discover if it reads as well as it looks. And the thrill of discovery is what a show like MoCCA is all about.

C2E2

Conventions | On the eve of the inaugural Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, the Chicago Reader examines the escalating competition between convention owner Reed Exhibitions and longtime Chicago Comic Con organizer Wizard Entertainment: “It’s but one battleground in a war the two powers are waging across the country — an epic struggle that some observers see as a contest between the forces of good and, well, not so good.”

Writer Deanna Isaacs touches upon the rise of Wizard’s Rosemont event to the second-largest comics convention in North America, and its more recent decline. She quotes a couple of local retailers who have become “disenchanted” with the show. But Wizard CEO Gareb Shamus shrugs off the complaints: “Everybody’s going to tell you this or that. You’re talking about one person. We have 1,000 vendors at our show in Chicago, and they make a lot of money.”

The Daily Herald interviews C2E2 show-runner Lance Fensterman, who says he expects between 35,000 and 40,000 attendees this weekend. The Chicago Tribune, meanwhile, offers its own preview, with eight “must-see” convention events, and brief Q&As with Alex Ross and Jeff Smith. [C2E2]

Mark Fiore cartoon

Digital comics | Mark Fiore, who earlier this week became the first editorial cartoonist to win the Pulitzer Prize exclusively for animated work, had his iPhone app rejected in December. Apple told Fiore that his NewsToons app, with its Flash-animated political satire, “contains content that ridicules public figures,” a violation of its iPhone Developer Program License Agreement.

As Laura McGann notes in her article, Fiore isn’t the first cartoonist to have difficulties with Apple: The Bobble Rep app, which uses caricatures by Tom Richmond, and Daryl Cagle both initially were rejected by Apple on the same grounds. [Nieman Journalism Labs, via Romenesko]

Digital comics | Brian Heater considers what Apple’s iPad could mean to independent comics. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Publishing | Tom Spurgeon, Sean T. Collins and Alan David Doane comment on March’s comics-price milestone as, for the first time, more comics in Diamond’s Top 300 were priced at $3.99 than at $2.99. [The Comics Reporter, Attentiondeficitdisorderly, Trouble with Comics]

Conventions | Rob Clough and Frank Santoro file reports from the MoCCA Festival, while Graphic NYC and Indie Spinner Rack team up for audio, transcript and photos from the panel “The Art of the Superhero: When Singular Vision Meets Popular Mythology.” [MoCCA Festival]

Conventions | A writer with Suffolk University’s student newspaper offers a dreary assessment of last weekend’s Boston Comic Con. [The Suffolk Voice]

Kick-Ass #1

Creators | Keith Phipps chats briefly with Mark Millar about Kick-Ass, creating his own properties, and his “knack for writing troubled, sensitive teens”: “The funny thing, actually, is that it seems to have become a little thing, like the way Stephen King always writes about writers from Maine. I think it’s totally a lack of imagination on my part. When I stop and look back, I think, ‘Shit, I’ve just done the same thing each time.’ [Laughs.] People say ‘Write what you know.’ And I suppose at that age, I was a kid obsessed with comic books. I just wrote from the heart, I suppose, what things were like for me at that point. I mean, Kick-Ass in particular is massively autobiographical, right down to things like Dave’s mom dying at the same age my mom died. Same name, same reason, all this kind of stuff. I didn’t even plan it out like that, I just found it pouring out once I was starting to write it. So yeah, I suppose I have to think up some new themes for new work.” [The A.V. Club]

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #156

Creators | Brian Truitt spotlights writer Larry Hama, who returns to the G.I. Joe franchise with a Free Comic Book Day issue and ongoing series from IDW Publishing: “It’s like coming home again. It’s comfortable and it’s like, hey, I know these guys. I don’t have to do tons of research and read tons of back issues.” [USA Today]

Creators | Grant Morrison launches an interview tour focusing on Batman and Robin and Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. [Comics Alliance, io9.com, Splash Page]

Creators | Matthew Meylikhov posts a video interview with artist Cameron Stewart from last weekend’s Boston Comic Con. [Multiversity Comics]

Education | A spotlight on Stanford University’s English 190G, known as “The Graphic Novel Class.” [The Stanford Daily]

Akira, Vol. 1

Publishing | When Japan’s largest publisher, Kodansha, set up shop in the United States last fall, many expected a major shake-up in the North American manga market. But so far, Kodansha USA Publishing and Kodansha Comics have been awfully quiet, re-releasing only the first volumes of Akira and Ghost in the Shell. So Gia Manry goes to the source, the general manager of Kodansha USA, and learns … not a whole lot, actually. Except that the manga giant plans to create a website. [Anime Vice]

Publishing | Comics publishers are generally tight-lipped when it comes to sales figures — unless, of course, those numbers are really, really impressive. That’s the case with the hardcover collection for Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s Kick-Ass, which Marvel reports has shipped nearly 100,000 copies since its release on Feb. 17. Almost 40 percent of those has gone to the direct market. [press release]

Random House

Publishing | Random House, the world’s largest trade publisher, has merged its Bantam Dell and Ballantine Books imprints. Libby McGuire, publisher of Ballantine since 2006, has been named senior vice president-publisher of the new Ballantine Bantam Dell division. It’s unclear how, or if, the consolidation will affect imprints like Villard and Del Rey (and its Del Rey Manga subsidiary). [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | Nick Nadel caught confirmation from Frank Miller at the MoCCA Festival that he’s no longer working on Holy Terror, Batman!, the graphic novel he’s had in development since 2006 at DC Comics. The much-discussed project was to have the Dark Knight battling Al-Qaeda. [Comics Alliance]

Digital comics | Looking at the Marvel Comics App for Apple’s iPad, Johanna Draper Carlson asks how much readers are willing to pay for digital comics. On a related note: Marvel has released 60 more comics through its iPad app, the most recent of which dates from 2007 2008. [Comics Worth Reading]

Wuvable Oaf

Awards | Prism Comics has announced the recipients of this year’s Queer Press Grant: Ed Luce for Wuvable Oaf, and Eric Orner for Storybox. [press release]

Conventions | Heidi MacDonald posts two reports from last weekend’s MoCCA Festival. [Publishers Weekly, The Beat]

Creators | FoxTrot cartoonist Bill Amend talks about the 23-year-old comic strip, his “geek tendencies,” and the character Jason: “Jason has also gotten to see every movie for the past 22 years at the child’s ticket price. We cartoonists have to watch our budgets, you know. One of the advantages comic strip kids have over, say, kids in TV sitcoms, is the actors don’t age and mess everything up. When I created FoxTrot, I picked the kids’ ages for specific reasons and to create specific dynamics between them. Aging the characters wouldn’t necessarily be ‘bad,’ but it would change everything, and I’m not inclined to do that. Besides, on a selfish level, I like getting to view the world through the excitable eyes of a nerdy 10-year-old as part of my job.” [GeekDad]

Creators | Ladane Nasseri profiles Amir, writer of the First Second Books web series Zahra’s Paradise. [Bloomberg.com]

Creators | Gabriel Ba relates how Image Comics changed his life. [Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba's blog]

"Other Lives"

Creators | Scott Thill chats briefly with cartoonist Peter Bagge about his new Vertigo graphic novel Other Lives. [Underwire]

Creators | Harvey Pekar is interviewed in advance of his Sunday appearance at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. [National Post]

Creators | Writer Cullen Bunn discusses The Damned, The Sixth Gun and collaborating with Brian Hurtt. [Broken Frontier]

History | Charles Hatfield discovers The Spinner Rack That Time Forgot, fully stocked with Issue 11 of DC’s Who’s Who (January 2006). [Thought Balloonists]

From left: Paul Pope, Dean Haspiel, Frank Miller, Jeff Newelt, Kyle Baker and Jaime Hernandez (photo by Seth Kushner)

If there were an award for best convention report, Seth Kushner would surely win with this series of portraits from last weekend’s MoCCA Festival featuring such notables as Bill Ayers, Kyle Baker, Gabrielle Bell, Dean Haspiel, Jaime Hernandez, Chip Kidd, David Mazzucchelli, Frank Miller, Paul Pope, Frank Santoro and Dash Shaw.

Blackest Night #8

Publishing | Helped by March’s five Wednesdays, sales of periodical comics jumped 20 percent last month, while graphic novels dropped 10 percent. Combined, sales were up 11 percent over March 2009.

The final issue of DC’s Blackest Night led Diamond’s Top 300, selling an estimated 135,000 copies, followed at No. 2 by Marvel’s Siege #3 with about 113,000. Retail news and analysis website ICv2.com notes that “publishers show no signs of being able to shake their addiction to the use of variant covers as their primary sales incentive,” as DC used 1-in-25 variants to increase sales of its Blackest Night and Rise and Fall tie-ins, while Marvel turned to 1-in-15 Deadpool variants to boost sales of its Siege books. Multiple covers also paid off for Dynamite Entertainment, whose Kevin’s Smith Green Hornet #1 landed on the chart at No. 20, with about 54,000 copies.

The graphic-novel chart was topped by Marvel/Icon’s Kick-Ass premiere hardcover, with about 7,200 copies, followed by the sixth volume of Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, with about 7,000. [ICv2.com]

From Fiore's Pulitzer entry

Awards | Political-cartoon animator Mark Fiore has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, becoming the first cartoonist to win exclusively for animated work. “It was surprise/shock,” Fiore tells The Washington Post’s Michael Cavna. “You obviously go over [winning a Pulitzer one day] in your head, but you try to push that out of your head as much as possible. So basically, I was shocked.” Fiore’s self-syndicated cartoons appear on SFGate.com, Slate.com, CBSNews.com, Motherjones.com and the NPR website. [The Daily Cartoonist, Comic Riffs]

Publishing | Christopher Butcher and Tom Spurgeon comment on Monday’s announcement that Marvel will switch from Diamond  to Hachette for its book-market distribution. [Comics212, The Comics Reporter]

Publishing | Andrew Bayer considers the pricing of digital comics offered through Marvel’s new comics application. [4thletter!]

Sami from "The 99"

Publishing | Teshkeel Publisher Naif al-Mutawa discusses The 99, his comic and soon-to-be animated TV series about Islamic superheroes. [The Atlantic]

Publishing | Tokyopop is searching for a marketing manager, web designer, staff accountant and junior graphic designer. [via Comix 411]

Conventions | Brian Heater, Rick Marshall and Rickey Purdin share reports from last weekend’s MoCCA Festival. [MoCCA Festival]

Conventions | Maddy Meyers explores last weekend’s Boston Comic Con. [The Boston Phoenix]

Creators | Matthew Meylikhov posts a video interview with artist J.H. Williams III conducted during last weekend’s Boston Comic Con. [Multiversity Comics]

Pop culture | Lon S. Cohen profiles retired Honolulu Police Detective Chris Duque who, after helping writer B. Clay Moore with some research, became a character in the Hawaiian Dick series. [The Huffington Post]

But the show had a pretty heavy hiccup last year. Its move from the much-beloved Puck Building to the 69th Regiment Armory seemed to flummox the organizers, who ended up stuck in traffic with a whole lot of books, leaving exhibitors with nothing to sell well into the initial afternoon and forcing attendees to wait in the sun. Meanwhile, broiling heat turned the venue into something approximating a pottery kiln, making every minute on the floor an endurance test. The MoCCA organization’s original response to complaints was on the lackluster side. Would they fare better the following year?

The answer is yes. For starters: It was cooler inside. Last year’s inferno was still very much on people’s minds–I heard publishers and visitors alike complaining about it, and one writer pointed out that the unpleasant conditions were a surefire way to keep casual fans from walking in the door. So the move to April was a smart one, and the gorgeous spring weather a lucky break, given that the city had hit 90 degrees earlier in the week. It still got a little sweaty in there by the end of each day, but that’s more or less par for the convention course.

Meanwhile, the doors opened close to on time, instead of the massive, line-around-the-block-causing delays that plagued the show last year. Books were brought over the night before, all the necessary materials were on hand, people seemed to know their way around the venue a lot better, bunting was brought in to lessen the institutional feel of the space. I’d always figured that many of the organizational issues could be chalked up to the show never having been done at the Armory before; a lot of the wrinkles were indeed smoothed out by experience.

The show was packed on Saturday, with lines out the door well after the opening and several rushes of business for retailers throughout the afternoon. Sunday was much less crowded–anecdotally, I bumped into something like 15 former coworkers there on Saturday, and zero on Sunday–but those who came apparently came to buy, because the publishers and creators I talked to were generally happy with their Sunday business as well.

But whether it was the cost of a table, lingering bad blood from last year’s troubled show, or the overall economy, this was the first time I can remember that the exhibition floor itself wasn’t totally booked up. MoCCA’s own signing table occupied an unnecessarily huge amount of space right at the entrance, while a large segment of the floor in the rear corner was simply given over to cocktail tables covered with freebies. This was a welcome development in a way, giving visitors a place to flip through their purchases or eat something without running the risk of getting ketchup on their wares, but the underlying problem was unmistakable. I’d gotten wind of the situation earlier in the week, when someone I spoke to who had barely heard of the show on Monday had successfully booked a table in a prominent location by Thursday. Meanwhile, AdHouse publisher Chris Pitzer was there personally, but AdHouse itself wasn’t. Vertigo didn’t return either, and the Act-I-Vate crew was scattered to the winds if they were there at all (correction: They had a table I missed — I saw the individual members all over the place, hence my confusion). I heard a lot of grumbling about the cost of exhibiting, the disorganization last year, even resentment that the money paid to MoCCA could go toward something like its Archie art exhibit, which took the dubious company line on the creation of its characters and didn’t credit the art on display, offered as reasons why people might have stayed away. And of course, there are more alternatives in the city now, which wasn’t the case when MoCCA started: the New York Comic Con, of course, but more to the point, the indie-friendly King Con and the (fairly spectacular) art-comics focused Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest, both of which got off the ground after last year’s problematic MoCCA.

But the major anchor presences were still there, and still doing well. Fantagraphics, which debuted a staggering 13 books at the show in addition to all its other recent releases and rarely had fewer than three creators signing at a time, sold through several new items by Saturday afternoon. Top Shelf sold out of its “Swedish Invasion” line of new releases, augmented by the importation of their creators as well. Pantheon and Abrams formed a little major-publisher altcomix enclave of their own, unveiling Dash Shaw’s gorgeous Body World and Dan Nadel’s eagerly anticipated Art in Time respectively; David Mazzuchelli was also on hand to sign Asterios Polyp and look cool in sunglasses. But my personal favorite find, at the busy Drawn & Quarterly booth, was PR honcho Peggy Burns, making her triumphant return to the con circuit after years in the Great White North.

Smaller publishers made impressive showings as well. The PictureBox table, featuring Frank Santoro’s irresistible back-issue longboxes, was perpetually lined end-to-end with customers. Down the row, the prints available at the Buenaventura Press table kept browsing brisk despite the Kramers Ergot publisher’s much smaller presence this year, and it seemed like the ever-growing onslaught of handmade minis at the Closed Caption Comics collective were awfully popular too. On the opposite side of the room, the Topatco mega-table, featuring a galaxy of webcomics stars, was never less than mobbed; the crowd around Kate Beaton alone looked four people deep at all times. It occurred to me that there’s really no reason why webcomics had to become a presence on the small-press con circuit; it’s wonderful that they did.

Other observations:

* Overall–and this could just be where I was looking–I saw less and less of the self-published genre-based material that used to be an almost coequal presence to traditional alternative and art comics during shows like MoCCA.

* Again, this could just be me, but I also saw a lot more Fort Thunder-indebted art-noise than the once-dominant lo-fi autobio material.

* The place was crawling with comics commentators. Tucker Stone, Nina Stone, Joe “Jog” McCulloch, Chris Mautner, Heidi MacDonald, Calvin Reid, Rob Clough, even the mysterious NeilAlien…I think the ratio of pundits to comics is higher here than at any other show.

* I was sort of dismayed by the cost of admission at the door–$20 for a weekend pass–but I’m not sure they ever actually charged that price. By Saturday afternoon at the very latest, the prices at the door were the same as the pre-paid tickets.

* My nine-year streak of not going to a single MoCCA panel remains unbroken.

* I worked the Partyka table for a while both days. It was interesting to see the way repeat customers can develop even for a small one-table handmade exhibitor like the Partyka crew: I would say maybe one out of every three customers said something about how they’d discovered the table at some past show and loved it.

* In the end, that’s what a show like MoCCA is about: the thrill of discovery. Whether you’re going because you love comics and want to check out something specific, or because you’re “comics-curious” and want to see what’s out there, half the fun is stumbling across something you’ve never seen before and bringing it home to explore. The fewer obstacles put in the path of that experience, the better; that’s what made this a better MoCCA than the last one.

From Wikipedia's lolicon entry

Legal | In what some have already dubbed “the next Christopher Handley case,” Wikipedia co-founder Lawrence Sanger has reported Wikimedia Commons to the FBI for “knowingly distributing child pornography” in violation of Section 1466A of the U.S. PROTECT Act. Sanger, who left Wikipedia in 2002 and four years later launched the rival Citizendium, specifically points to entries on pedophilia and lolicon.

Manga collector Christopher Handley was sentenced in February under the same federal statute for possessing “obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children and mailing obscene material.” [The Register, Icarus Publishing, Geekosystem]

Business | This profile of Walt Disney Company CEO Robert Iger suggests there’s already friction between Marvel’s Isaac Perlmutter and Disney’s consumer productions division: “Hollywood, familiar with Mr. Perlmutter’s penchant for ruling his roost, has started to whisper: Will he turn into Mr. Iger’s version of Harvey Weinstein, the hard-charging Miramax co-founder who caused Mr. Eisner so many headaches after Disney acquired the little studio?” [The New York Times]

"Flashlight," by Megan Baehr

Conventions | Gil Roth and Frank Santoro post brief reports from the MoCCA Festival, while the New York Daily News runs down the best comics from the show. [MoCCA Festival]

Awards | More commentary on this year’s Eisner nominees from David Welsh, Chris Allen and Alan David Doane, and David Harper and Walter Richardson. [2010 Eisner nominations]

Awards | Nominations are being accepted for the 2010 Eagle Awards. [The Eagle Awards]

Retailing | Kendall Swafford thinks comics retailers could learn a lot from the Apple stores: “With Apple stores, less is more. Clean, uncluttered, simple. Most comic book stores I visit are … very full. And then some. I realize we’re all aware of our cost per square foot, and we want to make every square inch count, but most comic stores have too much stuff. Maybe we’re afraid we’ll miss a sale, or we over-ordered (again) or we’re slow in marking down merchandise that’s been around too long, but whatever the reason, too many stores try to cram too much stuff into every nook and cranny of their stores, and it’s overwhelming. Once humans reach that level of visual over-stimulation, our brains only see a sea of stuff.” [ICv2.com]

Publishing | Matt Blind checks in on manga publisher Kodansha’s U.S. division and finds. [Rocket Bomber]

IDW's Library of American Comics

Publishing | IDW Publishing has launched a website for its Library of American Comics. [The Library of American Comics]

Publishing | Heidi MacDonald interviews Sparkplug Comics Books founder Dylan Williams. [The Beat]

Creators | Mark Waid discusses Irredeemable, 52 and BOOM! Studios. [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | Jeffery Klaehn talks with Ty Templeton. [POP]

Creators | Writers Anthony Del Col and Connor McCreery discuss their new IDW Publishing series Kill Shakespeare. [MONDOmagazine]

From "The Unwritten" #12

Creators | Vertigo spotlights artists Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon, who illustrate The Unwritten #12. [Graphic Content]

Manga | Yonago Airport in Sakaiminato, Japan, will receive the nickname “Yonago Kitaro Airport” after the character created by Sakaiminato native and manga artist Shigeru Mizuki. [The Mainichi Daily News]

Manhwa | Katherine Dacey names 10 must-read Korean comics. [The Manga Critic]

Pop culture | How Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle influenced Marvel’s Mighty Thor. [Los Angeles Times]