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

John Romita's The Amazing Spider-man: Artist's Edition

Graeme McMillan

Congratulations, Dark Horse: You pretty much own my first $15 for the week, with Dark Horse Presents #8 ($7.99) and Star Wars: Dawn of The Jedi #0 ($3.50) both being my go-to new releases for the week. DHP has the new Brian Wood/Kristian Donaldson series The Massive launching, as well as more Beasts of Burden by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson and new Skeleton Key by Andi Watson, which is a pretty spectacular line-up, and the new Star Wars book coincides with the latest flare up of my irregular longing to check up on that whole universe’s goings-on. Apparently, I’m keeping it local this week, who knew?

If I had $30, I’d add Action Comics #6 (DC Comics, $3.99) and OMAC #6 (DC Comics, $2.99) to that pile — I’m particularly treasuring the latter before it goes away, although I have to admit that the time-jumping nature of these Action fill-ins has gotten me more excited than I should ‘fess up to — as well as a couple of Ed Brubaker books, Winter Soldier #1 (Marvel, $2.99) and Fatale #2 (Image Comics, $3.50). I wasn’t bowled over by Fatale‘s debut, but it intrigued me enough to want to give it another go, while the noir + super spy sales pitch for the new Marvel series pretty much guarantees my checking the first issue out at the very least.

When it comes to splurging, there is nothing I would buy – were I rich enough — more quickly than IDW’s John Romita Sr. Amazing Spider-Man Artist Edition HC ($100), because … well, it’s classic Romita as the pages originally looked on his drawing board. How anyone can resist that (other than the price point), I don’t know.

Action! Mystery! Thrills!

Chris Mautner

There’s not much I’m interested in at the $15 level this week, so I’ll likely keep it to the issue #63 of The Boys.

If I had $30, I’d put that issue of The Boys back on the shelf and pick up Action! Mystery! Thrills!, a colorful collection of comic book covers from the Golden Age edited by Greg Sadowski. It’s not as insightful as some of Sadowski’s other books like Supermen!, but it’s still a clever pop-candy tour through comics’ yesteryear.

Almost defining the term splurge this week is the Madman 20th Anniversary Monster, a $100 tribute to Mike Allred’s creation featuring new work by folks like Kyle Baker, Peter Milligan, Peter Bagge, Dave Cooper, Dean Haspiel, Paul Pope, Craig Thompson and many more. And a new Madman story from Allred. I doubt in reality I have the cash to justify this sort of purchase, but hey, I’m splurging, right?

Cross Game, Volume 6

Brigid Alverson

If I had $15, all but a penny of it would go to one book, vol. 6 of Cross Game ($14.99). Viz is releasing this baseball/drama series in delicious, double-sized volumes and the sweet story and easy-to-digest artwork make it one of my favorites.

If I had $30, I’d mix it up a bit with a stack of floppies: Ice Age: Iced In ($3.99), a lighthearted, all-ages comic from KaBoom; Sergio Aragones Funnies #7 ($3.50), because someone was just commenting on how funny Aragones is; Terry Moore’s Rachel Rising #5 ($3.99); and with what I have left, I’ll try out Dynamite’s Lone Ranger #2 ($3.99), which looks kind of cool. That’s a little over budget, but maybe I’ll get a deal on one of these.

Usually the splurge category is where I go for thick, colorful books of classic comics, and while that fourth volume of Dark Horse’s Archie Archives is calling out to me, this looks like a Fantagraphics week, with two compilations that span opposite ends of the love spectrum: Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics ($29.99), and The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat ($19.99). That’s a whole lotta reading for $50.

Magic: The Gathering #1

Michael May

If I had $15, I’d start with a series I’m following that has a new issue this week, Fear Itself: The Fearless #8 ($2.99) and then I’d add some new things I want to try. I’ve said before that Winter Soldier #1 ($2.99) is the closest thing we’re going to get to a Black Widow series for a while, so — while that’s sad — I’ll take it. I’m also cautiously curious about Image’s nasty-sounding Alpha Girl #1 ($2.99) and Zenescope’s Jurassic Strike Force 5 #1 ($2.99). I don’t have a lot of confidence in Zenescope’s brand, but dino-soldiers from space need looking into.

If I had $30, I’d add some more expensive comics to that pile, starting with Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes #4 ($3.99). I’m also looking forward to seeing if IDW can do the same thing with Magic: The Gathering #1 ($3.99) that they did with their Dungeons & Dragons comics (ie make it really good). Then I’d circle back to the Boom rack for Ice Age: Iced In ($3.99) – because my son loves those movies and will love that comic – and check out Dynamite’s John Carter/Gullivar Jones mash-up, Warriors of Mars #1 ($3.99).

If I’m able to splurge, I’m always interested in the new Dark Horse Presents ($7.99), but especially when it has new BPRD and Beasts of Burden stories. And since that’s not a huge splurge, I’d also grab the Xombi collection ($14.99), which coincidentally comes out the same day as Static Shock #6.

Conan the Barbarian meets his dumber alter ego in April when Dark Horse presents a four-issue Conan/Groo the Wanderer crossover. While Conan is clearly the brainier of the two mighty warriors, Groo creators Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier are scripting the comic, so Groo will have the home-team advantage. Thomas Yeates is handling the art and Tom Luth the colors. Yeates has penciled other Conan comics as well as Dark Horse’s adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Outlaw Prince.

While April 1 would be a logical release date for a book like this, the chances are that no one would believe it, so it’s due out on April 18.

Amazing Fantasy #15

Crime | A man in Lincoln, Nebraska, told police that a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, valued at $15,000, disappeared from his home sometime between Oct. 27 and Monday morning. The 1962 issue was kept with other comics, but the man claims several people had been in and out of his home since he last saw it. A near-mint copy of the comic, which features the first appearance of Spider-Man, sold at auction in March for $1.1 million. [Lincoln Journal Star]

Creators | Writer Greg Pak has set up a page to take donations for former comics writer Bill Mantlo, whose tragic situation was detailed in an article last week. “Bill Mantlo has had a huge influence on me as a writer and reader,” Pak said. “His Micronauts stories blew my mind as a kid and his Incredible Hulk run laid the groundwork for the themes I explored my five-and-a-half year run with the character.” Money donated through the site goes directly to Mike Mantlo, Bill’s brother, for Bill’s ongoing care. [Greg Pak]

Conventions | Joe Keatinge and Pollyanne Birge have been confirmed as president and secretary, respectively, of Portland, Oregon’s Stumptown Comics Fest. Keatinge is the writer of the upcoming series Brutal, Hell Yeah and Glory, and executive editor of Image’s PopGun anthology. Birge has worked with the City of Portland on arts and culture policy under Mayor Sam Adams and is currently the vice-chair of Portland’s Independent Publishing Resource Center. The organization is accepting applications for additional board members. [Stumptown Comics Fest]

Any Empire

Creators | Nate Powell discusses his graphic novel Any Empire, which takes place in the same fictional town as his previous graphic novel, Swallow Me Whole: “I didn’t intend on Any Empire’s placement in Wormwood, but at a certain point, I realized I was narrating it within the same fictionalized version of Little Rock present in Swallow Me Whole. After asking myself ‘why not?’ the possibilities of weaving these tales into the same town seemed really exciting! I’ve really enjoyed the character cameos and figuring what certain characters would be like at certain times, but I envision the town as a quasi-magical nexus wherein each tale can float around pretty freely. Swallow Me Whole’s Wormwood contains a little bit of Richmond, Virginia, as well, and Any Empire’s Wormwood has a little bit of Montgomery, Alabama, where I spent some of my elementary school years, but Little Rock remains the general template.” [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Creators | MAD Magazine‘s Sergio Aragones is the latest creator to contribute art to the Team Cul de Sac Parkinson’s Disease fund-raiser. [Comic Riffs]

Creators | Jeff Kinney admits he thinks of himself as “a cartoonist who couldn’t crack into newspapers.” That was Kinney’s dream job, but when he realized he would never make it in the newspaper field, he created Diary of a Wimpy Kid and settled for success, popular acclaim, and riches instead. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

Reviews | David Anderson reviews Merik Tadros and Greg Houston’s self-published comic River Jordan, a drama set among Arab Christians in Jordan. [Spandexless]

Chris Claremont

Creators | Longtime Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont is donating his archives to Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The collection includes materials for all of his major writing projects over the past 40 years, notebooks with story ideas, drafts of short stories, plays, novels and comic books, and materials from his early training in the theater and his career as an actor. “We hope this is the first of more comics papers to come to the University,” said Karen Green, Columbia University’s ancient/medieval studies librarian and graphic novel librarian. “We want it to be a magnet for these kinds of archives in New York City, where the comics medium was born.” [Publishers Weekly]

Awards | USA Network and DC Comics’ Burn Notice webcomic has won a Media Vanguard Award from Advertising Age. [Advertising Age]

Creators | Michael Cavna talks to two comics creators with very different takes on Occupy Wall Street, sequential journalist Susie Cagle, who was arrested as part of the Occupy Oakland protests, and conservative editorial cartoonist Nate Beeler, who walks past the Occupy D.C. site every day and regards it as “quaint,” smelly, and out of step with the rest of the country.” [Comic Riffs]

Bleach, Vol. 49

Publishing | Viz Media prepares for its digital relaunch of Shonen Jump, which will feature near-simultaneous releases of Naruto, Bleach and four other series with their Japanese counterparts, by speeding up its digital releases of Bleach — and skipping ahead to the next story arc. [About.com]

Creators | Eight veteran MAD Magazine creators, including Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragones and Jack Davis (whose work appeared in the very first issue) got together in Georgia recently to talk over old times. Jaffee and Aragones are still going strong, but Davis quit the magazine 20 years ago. He explained, “I like all the guys up there a lot, but I felt like it kind of got a little raunchy.” [The Associated Press]
Retailers | Ralph Gardner Jr., revisits St. Marks Comics after 20 years away and finds it still going strong. [The Wall Street Journal]

Habibi

Commentary | Jonathan Liu looks at Craig Thompson’s Habibi. [GeekDad]

Commentary | Just call them comics, says Dave Scheidt, who decries the blurring of the distinction between comics and graphic novels: “A graphic novel in the purest definition is a front to back story in which told in a single volume most usually self-contained, and not a collected edition of numerous single issues, even if they are apart of an ongoing story. If it were just released as volumes and never single issues, ding ding! Graphic novel.” [The Huffington Post]

"I throw him a growl I've brought all the way from Africa"

I was going to open with some snotty Wow, the holidays went by super-quickly! comment, but then I read the first issue of Justice League in seven weeks. Sometimes DC gets ahead of itself; sometimes it’s a little behind.  Happens to the best of us — sometimes you do two solicitation roundups in three weeks….

Anyway, with the January solicitations, the New-52 books each turn five issues old. Series wrapping up their first arcs this month include Blackhawks, Batwoman, Animal Man, and the Deadman feature in DC Universe Presents.  (Not to worry about the latter, because there is a lot of Deadman in these solicits.)  I’m not sure why five issues is such a wonky number for story arcs — there are five-issue miniseries all the time and they collect just fine. Still, I expected most of the New-52 books to take six issues for their introductory stories, and most of them may yet do that. Only a few books look to finish their first arcs after December’s issue #4s (Hawkman and Frankenstein, probably OMAC, maybe Batgirl), and those plus this month’s are barely an eighth of the relaunched line. It makes next month’s solicits more intriguing, I suppose.

Regardless, we live in the now (as it were…) so — onward to January!

JUSTICE LEAGUES

When I saw the solicit for Justice League #5, I thought it was another indication that Geoff Johns and Jim Lee were telling a more decompressed story, as issue #1 threatened. Accordingly, I imagined that Cyborg would be ready to go at the end of the issue, with the big Darkseid battle taking up an oversized issue #6. However, I was pleasantly surprised that issue #2 was such an improvement over #1. It moved more quickly, it brought together more of the future Leaguers, it kicked off Cyborg’s origin in earnest, and it teased another big Parademon fight. Plus it worked in a Gorilla Grodd reference, which I wouldn’t have expected so soon in the New-52 DCU. So now my mood has swung more to the manic side, and I am expecting the big fight to start in #5.

When a solicitation threatens that “[o]ne of these heroes will not make it out alive,” as Justice League Dark #5′s does, normally you think it’d be Mindwarp, the least familiar of the group. However, I then realized it could be a trick question, since that group includes Deadman — who’s not going into whatever-it-is alive….

CREATIVE TEAM SHUFFLING

I know that Tony Akins’ two-issue fill-in on Wonder Woman was planned, in order to give Cliff Chiang some flexibility, but the solicitation copy makes it sound like the issues come at least at the end (if not in the middle) of WW’s first arc. Maybe there’s some shift in the story’s tone which a different artist might help reinforce. By the same token, I can’t wait to see Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone’s guest-shot on The Shade #4.

Part of me is ready to give Green Arrow another shot, what with the three issues from Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens and the upcoming Ann Nocenti Era, but part of me just thinks that this version of Ollie is almost too boring to fix. If anyone needed to lose his fortune, stop shaving, and go all #OccupyStarCity, it’s him.

Static Shock #5 is the first written entirely by Scott McDaniel, following the mysterious (but apparently amicable) departure of John Rozum. Walt Simonson pencils Legion of Super-Heroes #5, and contributes to THUNDER Agents #3.

THIS AND THAT

“Aquaman stranded in the desert” was actually a cliffhanger from 1985′s DC Challenge miniseries, and I want to say Aquaman killed a bird and drank its blood in order to get the liquid he needed to stay alive. Or maybe that was Watchmen; I always get those two confused. (They were both twelve issues….) Still, I bet the All-New, All-Hardcore Aquaman would totally rip out a bird’s throat with his teeth.

Considering he’s not part of the Doom Patrol, and his assistant is apparently a New-52 reworking of an old DP enemy, Robotman’s New-52 origin (as revealed in My Greatest Adventure #4) probably won’t feature the classic team. In fact, from what I saw of the New-52 Robotman in MGA #1, it looks like the Doom Patrol has gone the way of the original Teen Titans. Maybe the MGA feature is testing the waters for yet another Doom Patrol revival?

The “seduction of Damian” subplot described in the solicit for Batman And Robin #5 sounds good, although it seems like Grant Morrison covered similar ground when Damian faced his mother and the rest of the League of Assassins back around issue #12 of the previous series. Likewise, I look forward to Gail Simone’s Batgirl take on the old “female hero fights female villain who controls men’s minds” story, but I kinda want her to drop in a reference to Marsha, Queen of Diamonds.

SYNERGY

There have been plenty of guest appearances so far, but is the OMAC/Frankenstein intertitle crossover the first for the New 52? It may depend on how you categorize the connections between Superman and Stormwatch and/or Stormwatch and Demon Knights.

Speaking of which, only Hawkman can see “horrifying visions of the dead,” and so he “question[s] his own sanity?” Maybe he should talk to Grifter about that.

The solicitation for I, Vampire #5 — featuring a Batman appearance — makes me think I was right about the series’ vampires-vs.-superheroes aspect. That’s not a bad thing (apparently the original character met Batman in the pages of Brave and the Bold, as discussed below) but I wonder how much the series will go to that well.

I was surprised (synergy again!) to see Deadman figuring prominently into Hawk & Dove #5.  While they all were introduced in the late 1960s, I always associated Deadman and Hawk & Dove with different generations.  See, I keep forgetting that Hawk and the late Dove were teenagers back then, and adjunct members of the Teen Titans as well. And not to digress, but I have been thinking about the ways in which that generation of characters has been taken out of the New 52.  While I never put Hawk in that group (or the new Dove either, but I’m not sure how old she’s supposed to be), he should be there. Thus, DC hasn’t completely eliminated the Original-Titans generation from the New 52, because there’s Nightwing, Hawk, and Red Arrow. I should be satisfied with that, right?

(Again, not to digress.)

COLLECTIONS

Prior to the new I, Vampire series, the only exposure I had to this character was in the good-natured mockery of Tales of the Unexpected’s “Architecture & Mortality.” However, I have to say, I am totally ready for the omnibus I, Vampire paperback, reprinting the serial from House Of Mystery and Brave and the Bold vol. 1 #195. Ironically, while I am most interested in it as a rare example of main-line ‘80s DC doing a non-superhero story, I’m very curious to see the Batman team-up….

Hardly surprising considering the artist’s role in the New-52 relaunch, DC collects the original Karl & Barbara Kesel/Rob Liefeld Hawk & Dove miniseries (5 issues!). I didn’t read the miniseries when it came out (and still haven’t), but now I am curious to see what a strong inker like Karl Kesel did with a relatively-new penciller like Liefeld. I do remember thinking that regular-series penciller Greg Guler meshed with Kesel better.

For those who might have missed it the first time around, the Batman: Year One hardcover is well worth getting. Even if you have the original issues or an earlier collection, the hardcover (and maybe a 2007 paperback, but I’m not sure) features new coloring by Richmond Lewis which really makes David Mazzucchelli’s work pop even more. Plus, the hardcover is more durable, and you will want to look at this book a lot.

The Batman Vs. Bane paperback is a curious thing to me. The Bane of the Demon miniseries was better as a Bane story than as a Bruce-vs.-Bane rematch, mostly because it introduced Bane to Rā’s and Talia al-Ghūl, and (shall we say) gave them some non-Batman options. I don’t remember much about the Batman/Bane special except that it was a tie-in to the infamous Batman And Robin movie, and as such probably confused the heck out of anyone who might have known the character only from that. I understand that (as it happens) this paperback is meant to tie into The Dark Knight Rises, so DC is interested in the more villainous side of Bane, but it might also consider collecting “Tabula Rasa,” a nice little arc from Batman: Gotham Knights #s 33-36. Written by Scott Beatty and drawn by Mike Collins & Bill Sienkiewicz and Roger Robinson & John Floyd, it features Bane’s uneasy alliance with, and unexpected connection to, the Darknight Detective.

This month’s pleasant reprint surprise is Showcase Presents Young Love Volume 1 — more to come, I presume! — which I feel somewhat obligated to buy considering I have dinged DC previously for not reprinting its romance books. Still, I would probably have bought it anyway, just to see some non-superhero work from artists more closely identified with the caped crowd. No doubt some of the stories will be “so bad they’re good,” but on the whole it should be a fun read.

Here’s hoping that sales of the Xombi paperback — a bargain at $14.99, cheaper than the individual issues’ retail prices — are enough to make DC want more elegantly-crafted goodness from John Rozum and Frazer Irving. Xombi was just getting started when the New-52 came along, and I don’t want Rozum to have left Static Shock in vain.

AND FINALLY…

The “Batman: Black & White” line of statues has been pretty appealing so far, even if most of them are outside my price range. However, it’s going to be hard to turn down the Sergio Aragones one. What a great expression!

* * *

Well, that’s what jumped out at me this month. What looks good to you?

Warner Bros. and video game studio Monolith are working on a new downloadable, multiplayer, first-person shooter Batman game called Gotham City Imposters. The game will let everyone can be Batman, or at least “a Batman.” According to Destructoid:

The idea is this: regular, everyday folks — bored with their decidedly average vanilla lives — have decided to take things into their own hands. On one side, you have folks dressed like Bats, personalized variations of the Gotham’s crime fighting Dark Knight. On the flip side, you have the Jokerz, mischievous citizens who’ve identified themselves more with the Clown Prince of Crime himself, The Joker.

That underlying narrative lends itself to Gotham City Impostors’ reason for existing: team versus team online multiplayer shooting. It’s also a great setup for allowing a wide range of player customization, which will allow players to carve their owner Jokerz/Bats identity online.

I call dibs on this guy:

Batman by Sergio Aragones statue

(You can find the Sergio Aragones Batman statue in the DC solicitations from earlier this week).

Back in January, Bongo head honcho Bill Morrison talked to CBR about it briefly, saying:

Sergio Aragonés’ “Funnies” is a new ongoing series that not many people may know about, but it’s coming from Bongo Comics this year and will most likely premiere at Comic-Con International San Diego. As the book’s editor, I hope I’m not coming off as self-serving by mentioning it here, but I’d be talking about it anyway, just as a Sergio fan! This book will be completely written and drawn by Sergio and will be unrelated to “The Simpsons.” He’ll continue to write and draw Simpsons stories as well, but this will just be Sergio doing what he does best; drawing the funniest cartoons in the universe!

But this isn’t Aragonés’ first stint in The Simpsons creator Matt Groening’s comic line — Sergio started contributing to the publisher’s line back in 2009 beginning with Bart Simpson #50. Aragonés continued as a regular contributor to Bart Simpson, even starting an ongoing feature called “Maggie’s Crib.”

Although Bongo might be defined in readers’ minds as The Simpsons comics, it’s wholly owned and operated by Matt Groening outside of the framework of Fox and the The Simpsons animated series. In addition to hosting Aragonés’ work in various series, Bongo has also run stories by another comics funnyman, Evan Dorkin, for years.

Green Hornet

Publishing | Dynamite Entertainment CEO Nick Barrucci talks frankly about the state of the marketplace, digital comics, and his company’s plans. He also acknowledges some missteps: “Green Hornet was a license we paid a lot of attention to last year, probably too much attention. Going back to what we were talking about earlier, putting out too much product, we put out too much Green Hornet product. Part of it is that we wanted to get trade paperback collections out in time for the movie, and we did that, we succeeded. We built up our market share and we generated more revenue for us and the retailers. I’m going off on a tangent here, so I apologize, but we took that money and reinvested into projects like Vampirella, like Warlord of Mars, like the upcoming Kirby: Genesis. But we overdid it, and that we realize, which is why you don’t see us doing four Vampirella titles and four Warlord of Mars titles.” [ICv2.com]

Creators | For its annual Comics Issue, the Village Voice takes a fascinating, lengthy and very depressing look at the often-grim financial reality faced by cartoonists — an environment to which, it turns out, the Village Voice contributed. “I’m not sure how much you’ll be allowed to write about this,” says Dan Perkins (Tom Tomorrow), “but of course the Village Voice Media chain is one of the major culprits in this  —their decision to ‘suspend’ cartoons [in 15 papers in 2009] dealt a serious blow to the struggling subgenre of alt-weekly cartoons.” It’s noted parenthetically that Tom Tomorrow will return to the paper “within a few months,” and that “many of the artists in this issue aren’t getting paid, but have contributed work for the exposure.” [Village Voice]

Geronimo Stilton #7

Publishing | Papercutz reveals that sales of its Geronimo Stilton graphic novels have exceeded 350,000 copies. The seventh volume was released in January. [ICv2.com]

Conventions | Heidi MacDonald wraps up last weekend’s WonderCon in San Francisco: “While WonderCon has long been seen as the smaller, more laid back cousin of the pop culture behemoth known as Comic-Con, there were some signs that the show is getting big and crazy as well—the line to get into the Green Lantern panel stretched halfway around the convention center, a smaller version of the all-day line to get into San Diego’s Hall H.” [Publishers Weekly]

Conventions | In the final run-up to this weekend’s inaugural Kapow! Comic Con in London, rival MCM Expo has announced it’s set a record for advanced sales for its May event. Rich Johnston notes the competition is again heating up between the two conventions, a la the Wizard World-Reed Exhibitions rivalry. [MCV, Bleeding Cool]

Conventions | Victoria Hungerford covers the “Indy Marketing 101″ panel at last weekend’s WonderCon. [The Bottom Line]

Incredible Change-Bots 2

Creators | Jeffrey Brown talks about moving to Chicago, his process, the new Incredible Change-Bots sequel and more: “I grew up watching the original Transformers cartoons, playing with the toys, reading the Marvel comic books. In high school I had the cassette soundtrack to the Transformers animated film and some friends were making fun of me, saying, ‘What’s on that tape? Sixty minutes of chee-choo-chee-chook?’ And so years later I was doodling in my sketchbook and came up with the Incredible Change-Bots, making fun of that aspect, and later just everything I found amusing and lovable about those old cartoons. The first book had more straightforward parallels to the Transformers, but after that I worked with the characters more and they became something more of their own thing. The first book was well received, and I enjoyed drawing the Change-Bots, and had an idea for what the sequel would be about, so I went ahead and did it. It’s more about drawing things I enjoy, and following my own muse, so don’t be surprised if I keep drawing them until I get sick of it.” [Chicagoist]

Creators | Sergio Aragones is interviewed at WonderCon. [San Francisco Chronicle]

Creators | Phil Jimenez chats briefly about his influences, his approach to writing and drawing, and being an openly gay creator. [Pink Kryptonite]

Creators | Georges Jeanty discusses Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and what drew him back for the upcoming Season 9: “As any fan will tell you it’s the characters. You feel so much for these characters that it was really a joy to come back. It wasn’t a chore. It’s funny because I did have a conversation with Joss [Whedon]. And I sort of asked him, ‘Are you coming back?’ He said, ‘Well, are you coming back?’ I was like, ‘I’ll come back if you come back.’ And he was like, ‘Alright, that makes me feel better about coming on then.’ It sort of went like that. I was like, ‘Yeah, if we can keep the quality level of what we were doing before, I would love to keep doing this.’ And, heaven help me, they’ve got me for another twenty-five issues.” [FEARnet]

Art Spiegelman

Awards | Art Spiegelman on Sunday won the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, marking only the third time an American has received the honor (the other two were Will Eisner and Robert Crumb). “Considering my poor skills, I’m looking a little like the president Obama receiving the Nobel Peace prize,” he told the festival by telephone from the United States. Spiegelman will serve as the grand marshal for next year’s event.

Other winners at the four-day festival, which drew an estimated 200,000 visitors, include David Mazzuchelli for Asterios Polyp (Grand Jury Prize), and Naoki Urasawa and the late Osamu Tezuka for Pluto (Intergenerational Award). The full list of winners can be found here. [Agence France-Presse]

Retailing | The beleaguered Borders Group announced on Sunday that it’s delaying January payments to vendors and landlords in an effort to save cash while it tries to complete a debt restructuring. This marks the second round of delays for the bookseller, which has been pressuring large publishers and distributors to agree by Feb. 1 to convert late payments into $125 million in loans. The bookstore chain announced just last week that it secured a $550 million credit line from G.E. Capital, but only if several tough conditions were met — including an unlikely agreement from publishers. [The Wall Street Journal]

Jeff Alexander

Passings | Mike Rhode reports that Jeff Alexander, a former executive director of the Small Press Expo and coordinator of the Ignatz Awards, passed away over the weekend, apparently of a heart attack. The SPX website and Greg McElhatton have tributes. [ComicsDC]

Publishing | Dark Horse has announced it’s delaying the planned January launch of its proprietary platform for distributing digital comics, stating only that “factors beyond our control have impacted our plans and we are working to address these new developments.” [Dark Horse]

Publishing | Rich Johnston reports on rumors that Marvel will experiment with a 20-page/$2.99 price point approach for some of its books. [Bleeding Cool]

Legal | A Swedish appeals court on Friday upheld the conviction of a manga translator for possessing 39 drawings that violated the country’s child-pornography laws. It did, however, reduce the fine imposed on Simon Lundström from about $3,866 to $864. [The Local]

Conventions | Kari Dequine reports on last weekend’s Wizard World New Orleans Comic Con, which was expected to draw 10,000 attendees. There’s a related photo gallery. [Times Picayune]

Tokyo International Anime Fair

Conventions | Ninety-one exhibitors now have withdrawn from the upcoming Tokyo International Anime Fair following increased restrictions by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on the sale of manga and anime containing “extreme” depictions of sexual acts. Organizers of the March event acknowledge that there will be just 153 exhibitors. [The Independent]

Creators | Matthias Wivel posts the first part of a transcribed interview with Chris Ware conducted in May at the Copenhagen International Comics Festival. [TCJ.com]

Creators | Matthew Price interviews legendary MAD cartoonist Sergio Aragones. [The Oklahoman]

Comics | Ben Morse explains why super speed is better than flight. [The Cool Kids Table]

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

Broadway | A fourth actor was injured Monday night during a performance of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the $65-million musical that’s been plagued by delays and technical mishaps. Aerialist Christopher Tierney, who serves as a stunt double for Spider-Man and the villains Meeks and Kraven, fell about 30 feet when the cable to his harness snapped during the closing minutes of the show. Some equipment reportedly dropped into the audience as well. The performance was put on hold and then canceled as an ambulance arrived at the Foxwoods Theatre to take Tierney to Bellevue Hospital. Tierney is in stable condition, but no further information has been released. [BroadwayWorld, The Associated Press, CNN]

Publishing | Fantagraphics has laid off Dirk Deppey,The Comics Journal‘s online editor, former managing editor, and longtime writer of the Journalista! blog. His final day is Wednesday: “No regrets: The last ten years have kicked ass. I’ve done great things and meet interesting people, and was paid it. How great is that?” [Twitter]

Mark Waid

Publishing | Mark Waid, departing chief creative officer of BOOM! Studios, talks at length about digital comics, the direct market, attracting new readers, piracy and more: “Boom is not set up as a company to do Creative Commons works. It doesn’t fit their business model. I can’t do something for Boom and then announce to the world that they’re free to download it all they want. As a corporate entity, they understandably cannot sanction that. But I really want to do the next round of things that I do digitally, and I have plans to experiment with a bunch of different things. I want to experiment with free. I want to experiment with Creative Commons. I want to experiment with limited copyright. I want to experiment with no copyright. It costs me virtually nothing as long as I’m writing it, except what I have to pay an artist or writer, which is the grand scheme of things is negligible, since I don’t have to pay for physical printing. It’s not that expensive to dabble in that stuff. Ultimately, what you do is follow Warren [Ellis's] Freakangels model, where you produce enough content you’ve given away for free that you have a trade paperback worth of stuff, and then you contact retailers and tell them you have something to sell. Because there will always be people who want a hard copy.” [Comics Alliance]

Pat Lee

Publishing | Rich Johnston talks with Pat Lee about the Dreamwave bankruptcy, the opening and closing of Dream Engine, unpaid creators, and his use of ghost artists. [Bleeding Cool]

Publishing | DC Comics is searching for an editor for its DC Universe line. [Comix 411]

Retailing | Chicago’s Brainstorm Movies, Comics & Gaming is up for sale. [Bleeding Cool]

Best of the year | Brian Heater rounds up more than two dozen artists, including Jeffrey Brown, Shaenon Garrity and Julia Wertz, to name their favorite comics of the year. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Best of the year | MTV’s Splash Page and The Weekly Crisis select the best of 2010. [Splash Page, The Weekly Crisis]

Crime | Three Japanese boys on the island of Izu Oshima who called themselves the “Phantom Thief Kids in Oshima” — named after the Phantom Thief character in the popular Detective Conan (aka Case Closed) manga and anime — have been arrested for committing about 20 thefts during the past year. The total damages from the crimes, which they’ve confessed to, come to about $8,000. [CNNGo]

Creators | Sergio Aragonés is briefly interviewed about his career and the new book  Sergio Aragonés: Five Decades of His Finest Work. [Afterword]

Thor: The Mighty Avenger #8

Creators | Artist Chris Samnee chats about Thor: The Mighty Avenger, and what’s on his “to-do” list: “There’s a list as long as my arm of characters I’d like to draw one day. At the top of my list is Batman or any of Batman’s supporting cast, like Commissioner Gordon and Alfred. I’d love to do a book starring Lois Lane and/or Jimmy Olsen. Apparently I have a thing for supporting characters. At the end of the day, though, as exciting as it is to draw characters that I grew up reading, I’d really like to do something creator owned. Something that I can call my own. That’s a big one for me.” [TFAW.com]

Creators | John Layman discusses Chew, his award-winning collaboration with Rob Guillory. [MTV Geek]

Blogosphere | John Schwartz spotlights the new blog Law and the Multiverse: Superheroes, Supervillains and the Law, and chats with its creators, lawyers James Daily and Ryan Davidson. [The New York Times]

Broadway | Peter David and Kathleen David review Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. [PeterDavid.net, No Strings Attached]

Lolicon

Legal | The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly is resurrecting a revised bill to tighten regulations on the sexual depictions of minors in manga, anime and video games. An earlier version of the controversial proposal was voted down in mid-June. The new bill removes vague defining terms like “nonexistent youth” and reportedly avoids references to “characters younger than 18,” increasing the likelihood that the proposed legislation will pass. [Anime News Network]

Retailing | As the small independent retail chain Joseph-Beth Booksellers files for bankruptcy protection, its president warns of even tougher times ahead for bookstores. “I think in the next three to five years, you’ll see half the bookstores in this country close,” Neil Van Uum says. [Lexington Herald-Leader, via ICv2.com]

Awards | The Webcomics List Awards is accepting nominations until Dec. 20. Winners will be announced on Jan. 31. [via Forbidden Planet International]

Conventions | A solid report from this year’s King Con, held Nov. 6-7 in Brooklyn, N.Y. [Secret Acres News]

L.A. Diary

Best of the year | Frank Santoro names his favorite comics of 2010, from Gabrielle Bell’s L.A. Diary to Daniel Clowes’ Wilson to Brandon Graham’s King City. [Comics Comics]

Creators | Sam Adams talks to Sergio Aragonés about his influences, his first exposure to Mad, his work process, Groo and more: “When I’m doing Groo, and suddenly there’s a double-page spread that takes a lot of cartoons, I have to do at least a page a day for Groo. So when my telephone rings, I put it aside and take this massive drawing and start adding things to it. After the conversation, I take the massive drawing and put it aside. So any breaks I take, I start adding things. So that page will take probably the whole month to draw. They say, “How can you do that?” They think of it as a one-pager or a two-pager. But it’s not true, that page took so long to draw because it’s not a regular page. It becomes natural.” [The A.V. Club]

Creators | Brian Heater continues his multi-part Q&A with Jaime Hernandez. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Creators | Jeff Greenfield profiles cartoonist Garry Trudeau as Doonesbury turns 40. [CBS Sunday Morning]

Fishtown

Creators | Kevin Colden discusses Fishtown, and the pitfalls he experienced serializing the comic online before collecting it in print: “I spent so much effort promoting the serialized version of the book, that by the time it hit print, I think it was old news and had worn out its welcome. Also, the book was released at the end of 2008, and the economy had just shit the bed. In my decidedly biased opinion, as a book with as much buzz as it had, that won the Xeric and later went on to garner an Eisner Award nomination (Best Reality-Based Work), it had all the makings of a massive hit. There may have been a lot of people reading it online, or borrowing copies, or reading library copies; I don’t actually know! That might be the big negative.” [Go Home Paddy]

Creators | Robot 6 contributor Chris Mautner talks to Jerry Robinson about his sale of Fred Ray’s original art for the cover of Superman #14. [Patriot-News]

Creators | Writer Brandon Montclare chats about Marvel’s Chaos War: Chaos King #1. [Cosmic Book News]

Comics | Douglas Wolk sifts through 33 years of Spider-Women and Spider-Girls. [Techland]

Comic-Con International

Comic-Con | A reminder: Four-day and single-day passes for Comic-Con International go on sale Monday at 9 a.m. PT. Note, though, that four-day memberships with Preview Night sold out on the last day of this year’s convention (more could be released later, depending on returns and cancellations). Prices have increased oh so slightly, from $100 to $105 for four-day memberships and from $35 to $37 for single-day passes.

Convention organizers also announced the first 20 special guests for the 2011 event, including Jordi Bernet, Jo Chen, Alan Davis, David Finch, Dave Gibbons, Jonathan Hickman, Jamal Igle, Mark Tatulli and Roy Thomas. [Comic-Con International]

Legal | A federal judge on Wednesday blocked a new Massachusetts Internet law designed to protect children from sexually explicit material, say the legislation was so broad that it would criminalize legitimate websites and electronic communication. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit opposing the statute. [The Boston Globe]

Apex Novelties

Passings | Tom Spurgeon has word that pioneering underground-comics publisher Don Donahue has died. No further details were available.  [The Comics Reporter]

Conventions | Ty Buttars is posting from the Lucca Comics and Games Festival in Italy. [Doing the Batusi]

Publishing | Here’s the official lowdown on interning for Marvel. [Marvel.com]

Creators | Cartoonist Joshua Cotter‘s apartment in Chicago was damaged by fire, apparently caused by a candle a neighbor left burning. The AdHouse Books e-newsletter reports: “While certain items were damaged by either the flames, smoke or water, most of their belongings were spared. Also, everyone, including their cats survived and are healthy. Josh did NOT have renter’s insurance, so things are a bit tough for him right now. In the coming weeks we’ll announce how you might help Josh during this tough spot. But for now, just thank your sequential gods that he came out of this as best as he, his girlfriend, and his cats could.” [AdHouse Books]

Creators | Michael Cavna interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore about his NewsToons app, the midterm elections and more. [Comic Riffs]

Sergio Aragonés

Creators | Sergio Aragonés chats briefly about the new retrospective collection MAD’s Greatest Artists: Sergio Aragonés: Five Decades of His Finest Works: “I see something I drew 40 years ago and I don’t remember it — it’s like someone told me a new cartoon!” [The Huffington Post]

Creators | Jill Thompson discusses Scary Godmother, bullying, Halloween and why kids enjoy being scared. [GeekMom]

Creators | Bryan Lee O’Malley answers questions about his work process. [Livejournal]

Creators | Kelly Sue DeConnick talks about her Osborn miniseries, her work process and more. [The Weekly Crisis]

Creators | Mike Rhode chats with brothers Joshua and Jonathan Luna, creators of Ultra, Girls and The Sword. [Washington City Paper]

To hear Waid tell it in his intro to the CBR post, a combination of nervousness and not hitting certain points hard and often enough led some in the audience — including Sergio Aragonés, who confronted Waid about it — to believe Waid was attacking the very notion of creator ownership of art and defending illegal downloads. In reality, the speech was not nearly as radical, and a great deal more interesting. The most thought-provoking part of it, to my eyes, is the passage in which Waid argues that Internet culture, with the premium it places on distributing content people enjoy to as many other people as possible, has actually reinvigorated the notion that art has inherent value, in cultural terms if not financial ones:

And I’ll tell you why. It’s not because people “like stealing.” It’s because the greatest societal change in the last five years is that we are entering an era of sharing. Twitter and YouTube and Facebook–they’re all about sharing. Sharing links, sharing photographs, sending some video of some cat doing something stupid–that’s the era we’re entering. And whether or not you’re sharing things that technically aren’t yours to share, whether or not you’re angry because you see this as a “generation of entitlement,” that’s not the issue–the issue is, it’s happening, and the internet’s ability to reward sharing has reignited this concept that the public domain has cultural value.

Waid and his audience didn’t have the luxury you currently have, of being able to go through the speech at your leisure when you’re not reaching the end of a long convention day with a few vodkas under your belt. Take advantage, read the whole thing, and let us know what you think.

If you’re a member of an industry that let Dave Cockrum die in a VA hospital after helping give us most of the X-Men characters that comprised three blockbuster films and you get pissy about what Mark Waid said, then you deserve to remain on this sinking ship.

When Diamond Comics can’t make money despite being a monopoly, it’s time to start listening to people like Mark Waid.

Half of the people he delivered his speech to were over the age of 50, currently not working on a project in comics, and are most likely without health insurance, retirement or savings accounts.

Mark Waid had the audacity to warn a group of people he cares about, that nobody is putting the internet in a god damn DeLorean and driving it 88mph towards the twin pines mall. And for that he got dressed down by Santa Claus in front of his peers.

That’s how scared people are right now.

And the bottom line of it all is that in about 5 years, a lot of people are going to owe Mark Waid a fucking apology.

–PVP writer/artist and Harvey Awards emcee Scott Kurtz reacts with characteristic, shall we say, candor to Mark Waid’s keynote address on copyright and piracy and white-beardedGroo cartoonist Sergio Aragonés’ heatedly negative reaction thereto.

(via Joe Keatinge)

From her account, Waid’s speech was about the importance of having a public domain, and his point was that, originally, copyright existed to give creators an exclusive right to their work for a reasonable time and then release it to the public domain. “No one would argue that the world isn’t better by being able to see a Renoir for free,” MacDonald quoted Waid as saying, adding, “Now big corporations use copyright extended under the illusion it helps us all. Giving back to public domain helps culture, says Waid.” As for file sharing, Waid says, it’s “legit” to worry about it but “it isn’t going away. We can’t stop it and we’re entering the sharing era.” (All quotes drawn from MacDonald’s tweets.)

After the ceremony, MacDonald reported, Waid and cartoonist Sergio Aragones had some sort of heated discussion, although it ended in a hug. She caught up with Aragones after everyone was thrown out of the bar and did a quick interview:

Paraphrasing here a bit, but Sergio was advocating more for the idea that the spread of free content has devalued content, making it harder for people to make a living at it. He said a couple of things that I tried to jot down, one that (I’m paraphrasing) “quality has to be considered again” and the one I tweeted “If you give everything away for free, you have ruined everything.”

My own take is that they are both right. Technology and the Internet make it easier than ever before to reproduce and share content and, right or wrong, people are going to do it. And revisions to the copyright law have given not just creators but their descendants and faceless corporations the exclusive right to use content for longer and longer terms, a situation that benefits a few at the expense of the rest of us. At the same time, as Aragones points out, taking away the financial reward makes people less inclined to create and sets up a marketplace of the lowest common denominator. The key to the dilemma is that the internet is not quite as flat as people make it out to be; in general, higher quality work attracts a bigger audience, and the more successful creators have managed to monetize that. Dean Haspiel sums it up neatly in the comments to MacDonald’s post:

I’ve been giving away my comix [for free] since 2006 when I launched ACT-I-VATE.com.

I didn’t make a steady living with the stuff I gave away for free but it absolutely helped brand and market my sensibilities and got me paying gigs.

Tokyopop CEO Stu Levy addressed the topic on a more pragmatic level in an interview with Ishaan at Siliconera. He sketched out a pragmatic strategy for pirates that relies on both vigorous defense of property rights and simply making a product that is more appealing than the free stuff online.

We have to provide significant value. That could be in the overall experience — or it could be in some sort of incremental value that is only found in the legal version. Some people suggest that could be “better translations” but I’m not so sure. I think it has to be the overall experience — which is challenging because currently the online scanlation experiences are very nice.

However, they are so flagrant that most likely those sites will have a tough time surviving as-is. The pirates will need to go further underground — and fans may still prefer their versions. But if the legal versions are very easy to use and affordable then hopefully many fans will support the creators by going that route.

And like all publishers in the real world, he picks his battles:

Most music and video piracy is through torrent and other sites which take time and patience. Manga piracy is currently flagrant — you just go to a website and click away. That’s so disrespectful of the creators that, frankly, it’s rude. That’s why legal action needed to be taken.

(Image from the ill-fated Captain Copyright comic; ironically, I can’t find any copyright information or I would cheerfully give proper credit.)

Today

Cleveland | Claudio Sanchez of the band Coheed and Cambria and writer of Amory Wars and the upcoming Kill Audio will sign at Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop from 2 to 3 p.m.

Los Angeles | Nick Simmons will sign copies of Incarnate #1 at Golden Apple Comics from 1 to 3 p.m.

Ojai, Calif. | Opening reception for the Sergio Aragones art exhibit at the Ojai Valley Museum. This event is sold out, but the art exhibit runs through Oct. 4.

Orlando | The Mini MegaCon kicks off at 10 .m. and runs through Sunday. Guests include Darwyn Cooke, Jeff Parker, Chuck Dixon, Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, Dick Giordano and many more.

Pittsfield, Mass. | The Storefront Artist Project hosts Todd Dezago from noon to 2 p.m. for a class on “Story Structure and the Language of Comics,” followed by a signing at 3p.m. by Howard Cruse.

San Francisco | The San Francisco Zine Fest kicks off at 11 a.m. and runs through tomorrow at the County Fair Building.

Sunday

Atlanta | The Atlanta Comic Convention runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Marriott Atlanta Century Center. Guests include Heidi Arnhold, Bobby Nash and more.

Wednesday

San Jose, Calif. | A zombie crawl, art show and food drive kicks off at the SLG Art Boutiki at 577 S. Market Street and continues into the streets of San Jose.

More August

Aug. 28 | X-Men Misfits release party in Brooklyn

Aug. 28-30 | Fan Expo Canada in Toronto

September

Sept. 4-7 | AnimeFest in Dallas

Sept. 4-7 | Dragon*Con in Atlanta

Sept. 19 | Week Three Comics Fest in San Jose, Calif.

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If you’d like to submit an event for inclusion, please email them directly to JK Parkin. Please include the venue, city and state, start time, event details and any related websites where we can send folks for more information. Virtual events, like online creator chats, are also welcome.