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What if the Tea Party took over the comics section?
Teanuts, by Ward Sutton
In a curious but somewhat-amusing turn, The Boston Globe had cartoonist Ward Sutton create a parody of what the comics section might look like if it were taken over by the Tea Party. What he comes up with are strips like B.P. (rather than B.C.), Dennis the IRS Menace, Nancy (Pelosi), Calvinist and Hobbes, and so on — 18 in all.
- September 27, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Piracy
Legal | A bill introduced this week in the U.S. Senate would allow the Justice Department to seek court orders against piracy websites located anywhere in the world. The bipartisan legislation, called the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, would permit the government to seek an injunction ordering a U.S. domain registrar or registry to stop resolving an infringing site’s domain names. That means a visitor attempting to access a targeted piracy site would instead get an error message. Domains outside of U.S. control could be blocked by Internet service providers upon a court order. [Threat Level, ICv2.com]
Business | Time Warner has extended the contract of Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Barry Meyer through December 2013 as part of a management restructuring that sees WB President and COO Alan Horn shifting from his current position into a consultancy role in six months. And in a move that may look vaguely familiar to watchers of DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. executives Jeff Robinov, Bruce Rosenblum and Kevin Tsujihara will share as part of a new Office of the President that will report directly to Meyer beginning in April. DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson reports to Robinov, currently president of Warner Bros. Picture Group; it’s unknown whether that will change in the new structure. [The Hollywood Reporter]
- September 23, 2010 @ 08:23 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Apple
Digital comics | Following more than two years of complaints, Apple has given developers the guidelines it uses to determine which programs can be sold through its App Store, and relaxed some restrictions on content and tools. The company recently was criticized for forcing the creators of a comic adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses to remove nonsexual nudity from some panels — Apple later changed its stance — and for initially rejecting an app from Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore because his animated political satire contained “content that ridicules public figures.” Alan Gardner notes that the revised guidelines specifically exempt “professional political satirists and humorists” from a clause prohibiting defamatory or offensive material. [The Associated Press]
Comic strips | After 60 years with United Feature Syndicate, Peanuts will move in February to Universal Uclick. The news isn’t totally unexpected, as Iconix Brand Group partnered with the heirs of Charles M. Schulz in April to buy the rights to the comic strip from United’s parent company E.W. Scripps. The $175 million deal was for the entire United Media Licensing division, which includes Dilbert. [Comic Riffs]
- September 10, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
It’s the hard-knock life for Little Orphan Annie as syndicate cancels strip
Annie and her pal Sandy
After more than 85 years, the sun will no longer come out for Little Orphan Annie, Harold Gray’s Depression Era comic about a red-haired waif and the kindly capitalist who gives her a home.
Although the strip, which debuted on Aug. 5, 1924 in the New York Daily News, once appeared in hundreds of newspapers, it now runs in fewer than 20. So Tribune Media Services has decided to cancel Annie with the June 13 installment — a cliffhanger, curiously enough.
The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal reports that Sunday strip will end with Daddy Warbucks uncertain of Annie’s fate after her latest run-in with the Butcher of the Balkans.
“Annie is definitely not dying,” Steve Tippie, TMS’ vice president of licensing, tells Rosenthal. He says that while “the daily newspaper strip will go away [...] that doesn’t mean that Annie won’t come back … whether it’s (in) comic books, graphic novels, in print, electronic. It’s just too rich a vein (not) to mine.”
Indeed, Little Orphan Annie inspired a long-running radio show, three motion pictures, a television movie, and a musical — the basis for one of those films — that ran for six years on Broadway and has since been staged countless times around the world.
IDW Publishing has released four volumes of The Complete Little Orphan Annie collection through its Library of American Comics imprint.
- May 13, 2010 @ 05:47 AM by Kevin Melrose
San Francisco Chronicle picks up Jon Adams’ Friendship Town
Welcome to Friendship Town
Truth Serum creator Jon Adams sent word about two piece sof news he has … first, he has a new weekly comic called Friendship Town that’s been picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle’s “96 Hours” weekend supplement. It will also appear on the newspaper’s website.
And second, tomorrow Adams is planning a special April Fool’s Day wedding strip for Truth Serum. Read the entire announcement and see Jon’s promo piece for the big wedding after the jump …
- March 31, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Kickstart my art | Diamond Comics #5 brings comics to Portland
Diamond Comics #4
The more I read about Portland, Ore. the more it sounds like some sort of comic book super city, where everyone is sitting around writing comics, or writing about comics, or talking about comics, or simply reading comics as they sip overpriced lattes out of recycled cups under giant Redwoods. Kind of like a mix of Hicksville and the Ewok village from Return of the Jedi. Anyway, I hope to go there someday*, but I don’t know if the real thing can live up to the image I’ve built up in my head.
I imagine, though, that Floating World Comics in Portland is probably cooler than the image I have in my head, if not for any other reason than they come up with cool projects like this.
- March 25, 2010 @ 01:38 PM by JK Parkin
Nominees announced for 2009 Reuben Awards
"Strange Adventures," by Paul Pope
The National Cartoonists Society has announced the nominees for the 64th annual Reuben Awards, which recognize outstanding achievement in cartooning.
It’s been known since late February that Stephen Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Dan Piraro (Bizarro) and Richard Thompson (Cul de Sac) would vie for the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year.
However, now we get the full list, which includes nominations in the comic book division for Terry Moore (Echo), Paul Pope (“Strange Adventures,” from Wednesday Comics) and J.H. Williams III (Detective Comics), and in the graphic novel division for David Mazzuchelli (Asterios Polyp), Seth (George Sprott) and David Small (Stitches).
The full list of nominees can be found after the break. Winners will be announced on May 29.
- March 19, 2010 @ 08:46 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Comic-Con
Conventions | The annual, and often-grueling, rite that is the race for Comic-Con International hotel rooms kicks off at 9 a.m. PST Thursday as Travel Planners begins taking reservations. The convention website helpfully cautions: “As everyone knows from the past few years, the discounted rate offered by Comic-Con on the rooms in our block means that they tend to sell out in the first few hours.” Details can be found here.
In other Comic-Con news, as of this morning Thursday memberships are 97-percent sold. Friday, Saturday and four-day passes went the way of the dodo long ago. [Comic-Con International]
Retailing | As the “buy” buttons for titles from Diamond Book Distributors slowly begin to reappear on Amazon.com, Simon Jones offers additional commentary on last week’s “price glitch” that affected both that online retailer and Barnes & Noble: “… Questions still remain: how did this happen in the first place, why was it almost allowed to happen again at Barnes & Noble, and whether any direct financial burden might be heaved upon publishers? It’s no exaggeration to say that DBD’s immediate outlook may depend on how satisfactorily it is able to address these quandaries when it meets with publishers this week. Rightly or not, there are some justifiable jitters among its clients. Assurances must be made, anxieties must be soothed.” [Icarus Publishing]
- March 15, 2010 @ 09:15 AM by Kevin Melrose
McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama comics section available for purchase
Back in December McSweeney’s released a “21st-century newspaper prototype” called San Francisco Panorama. Featuring 320 pages of original content, the broadsheet-format project contained investigative journalism, sports reporting, a book section and prose, with contributions from the likes of Stephen King, Michael Chabon, James Franco and Chip Kidd, among many others.
And, of course, it featured a comics section, with contributions from Erik Larsen, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Seth, Jessica Abel, Adrian Tomine, Kim Deitch, Ivan Brunetti, Gene Yang, Alison Bechdel, Jon Adams, Keith Knight and many more. The full issue can still be bought online for $16, but now McSweeney’s is also selling the comics section for $7. In addition to all the comics, it comes with a Chris Ware poster titled “Rocket Sam,” which features a build-it-yourself paper spacecraft, and accompanying scenery and characters.
(Hat tip: Jon Adams)
- February 16, 2010 @ 10:20 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Siege #1
Publishing | Sales of periodical comics in the direct market in January “inched up” 1 percent over the same month last year, while graphic novels continued their 10-month decline, ICv2.com reports. The retail news and analysis website notes that the total sales of single issues was the lowest since May.
Siege #1 and Green Lantern #50, which led Diamond’s Top 300, were the only titles to sell more than 100,000 copies. The 11th volume of The Walking Dead topped the graphic-novel chart with an estimated 16,900 copies, followed at a distant second by the first collection of The Unwritten. [ICv2.com]
Retailing | Simon Jones, Sean Kleefeld, Ralph Mathieu and Tom Spurgeon respond to retailer Brian Hibbs’ annual analysis of BookScan sales figures. Spurgeon details the “three big, sweeping problems to Hibbs’ general approach,” and goes on from there. [Tilting at Windmills]
- February 15, 2010 @ 09:31 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
The Storm in the Barn
Awards | Matt Phelan’s The Storm in the Barn last week became the first graphic novel to win the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. However, some are questioning whether the book, which contains a fantasy element, should qualify for the prize.
Established in 1982 by Scott O’Dell, author of Island of the Blue Dolphins, the $5,000 award is given to works of historical fiction for young people written by U.S. citizens, released by a U.S. publisher and set in South, Central or North America. [School Library Journal, Good Comics for Kids]
Publishing | Editor & Publisher, the venerable trade magazine of the newspaper industry, was purchased Thursday by Duncan McIntosh Co., and will resume publication online and in print. E&P and sibling magazine Kirkus Reviews were closed last month after former owner Nielsen Media Business failed to find buyers. [Editor & Publisher]
- January 15, 2010 @ 08:12 AM by Kevin Melrose
A roundup of end-of-the-year (and decade) pieces
Pluto, Vol. 2
• In case you missed it, over the weekend we marked the one-year anniversary of Robot 6 by unleashing a torrent of content, including several year- and decade-in-review lists and previews of 2010: our favorite comics of 2009; the 30 most important comics of the decade (Part 1, Part 2); the 50 best covers of 2009; and what industry figures are most looking forward to in 2010 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).
• Deb Aoki, Christopher Butcher and David Welsh consider the manga milestones of the past decade that changed the industry. Among them, Naruto‘s conquest of America, the licensing of Cardcaptor Sakura and the launch of DC Comics’ CMX imprint.
• Matthew Price, The Oklahoman’s features editor and comics blogger, names the top graphic novels of the decade, including Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series, James Sturm’s Golem’s Mighty Swing, and Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon’s Pride of Baghdad.
• The National Post names Chester Brown’s Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography among the best Canadian books of the decade, and gives honorable mentions to Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series and Seth’s George Sprott: 1894-1975. The newspaper also spotlights “the ascent of the graphic novel,” with nods to Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Jeff Lemire’s Essex County trilogy, among others.
• Tom Spurgeon continues his series of holiday interviews with critics discussing comics emblematic of the decade: Noah Berlatsky on the Elephant & Piggie series; Tucker Stone on Ganges; and Douglas Wolk on The Invincible Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted.
- January 4, 2010 @ 08:26 AM by Kevin Melrose
A roundup of best-of-the-year pieces
Captain Britain and MI13, Vol. 3
• The Oregonian’s Steve Duin names his Top 10 comics of 2009, including Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza, Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth, and Adam Rapp and George O’Connor’s Ball Peen Hammer.
• Joe Gross of the Austin American-Statesman lists his Top 13 comics of the year, including The Incredible Hercules, by Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak and others, and Wasteland: The Apocalyptic Edition, Vol. 1, by Antony Johnston and Christopher J. Mitten.
• Jerome Maida of the Philadelphia Daily News rolls out a curious, and DC Comics-dominated best-of list whose categories range from writer of the year to heroine of the year. DC/Vertigo’s Scalped gets top series honors.
• Greg Hatcher at sibling blog Comics Should Be Good! looks at the best reprint collections of 2009.
• David Allen Jones, aka Johnny Bacardi, names his favorite comics of 2009, including Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s Beasts of Burden, Adam Warren’s Empowered and Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe.
• At the Forbidden Planet International blog, writer Mike Carey and cartoonist David Baillie chat about comics (and other entertainment) of 2009.
• Dave Ferraro names the best superhero comics of the year, from Captain Britain and MI13 to Agents of Atlas to Batman and Robin.
• Tom Spurgeon continues his holiday interviews with writers discussing comics that are emblematic of the decade: Chris Allen on Powers; David Welsh on MW; and Robert Clough on ACME Novelty Library #19.
• Jason Yadao of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin looks back at the year in manga, and spotlights the growth of free online manga and Twitter.
- December 28, 2009 @ 06:48 AM by Kevin Melrose
Bye, bye, mince American pie
Olde-timey kids never passed up a chance to get their mince on
Thank God for slow Festivus news days. When else would we find the time to read a fascinating article on the rise and fall of the mince pie? The Chicago Reader‘s Cliff Doersken blows my pumpkin-loving mind with his eye-opening essay on what was once considered “the monarch of the pies.” A spiced beef-based concoction, mince pie was the holiday staple and home-cooked favorite of this great nation throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries — despite the fact that pretty much everyone admitted the ingredients were unhealthy, disgusting, and even psychologically damaging. I’m totally not kidding.
Best of all, for Robot 6′s purposes at least, the piece is accompanied by a selection of vintage newspaper comics that prove what a pop-cultural staple the mince pie once was. I’d say something about newspapers themselves following mince pie into the gullet of history, but that’s hardly in the holiday spirit, so I’ll just say the article’s a feast for those hungry for lost Americana and leave it at that.
(Hat tip: Matthew Perpetua)
- December 23, 2009 @ 08:50 AM by Sean T. Collins
Another roundup of best-of lists
Irredeemable, Vol. 1
You didn’t think everyone was finished with their best-of (and wort-of) lists, did you?
• David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp, R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated and Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou’s Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth all make the San Francisco Chronicle’s list of the best books of 2009.
• Writing for The Japan Times, critic David Cozy names Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life among the best books of the year.
• Matt Price, features editor and comics blogger for The Oklahoman, returns for a rundown of the best periodical comics of 2009. Among them: The Unwritten, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross; Irredeemable, by Mark Waid and Peter Krause; and Resurrection, by Marc Guggenheim and Justin Greenwood.
• At our sibling blog Comics Should Be Good, Brian Cronin picks his Top 10 comics of the year, including Roger Langridge’s The Muppet Show and Chris Onstad’s Achewood.
• At Forbidden Planet International, writer Paul Cornell and writer/editor David Bishop talk about their favorite comics (and other entertainment) of the year.
• At Reverse Direction, John Seven lists the best graphic novels of the decade, including Emmanuel Guibert’s Alan’s War, Jeff Lemire’s Essex County Trilogy and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.
• At io9.com, Graeme McMillan takes a year-by-year look at the most important comic-book events of the decade.
• Blogger David Harper casts a wide net for his best of 2009, covering categories like best cover, best webcomic, best story arc and best writer.
• Comics Alliance counts down the 15 worst comics of the decade.
• At Techland, Lev Grossman names the best characters of the decade, including Roast Beef from Achewood and Rick from The Walking Dead.
- December 21, 2009 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose