Comic Book Resources

Oooh, a sale! TWO sales!

Milk & Cheese #2, from SLG Publishing

Kramers Ergot 7, from Buenaventura Press

Unholster your credit cards, comics fans: Two publishers are currently holding nigh-irresistible sales in their webstores.

As we've reported, cartoonist Evan Dorkin notes that indie-comics stalwart SLG Publishing -- home of comics by Dorkin, Jhonen Vasquez, Jim Rugg, James Turner and more -- is slashing prices on its entire library by 40%. Meanwhile, art-comics trailblazer Buenaventura Press -- the outfit behind books by Johnny Ryan, Jerry Moriarty, Lisa Hannawalt, and Matt Furie, not to mention Kramers Ergot -- has announced that they're offering an across-the-board 20% off sale. Both sales are designed to help their respective publishers weather these still-nightmarish financial times, so not only would taking advantage of them help score you some sweet deals, it'd be a mitzvah as well.

But these prices aren't sticking around forever, so you've gotta act now. And if you're ;ooking for a guide to help you do so, The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon has recommendations for both the SLG and Buenaventura sales, as well as a smidge of analysis as to what it all means. Beyond "great deals," that is.

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Black Dossier

Libraries | The library board in Jessamine County, Kentucky, heard public comment last night about acquisition and borrowing policies and the recent firings of two employees who kept a copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier out of circulation. The hourlong meeting was marked by shouting, crying and the presentation of petitions, including one that called for the removal of two books and two DVDs -- Black Dossier among them -- from county library shelves. No action was taken by the board. [Lexington Herald-Leader]

Awards | A controversy emerged just a day before the National Book Awards ceremony as author/blogger Janice Harayda suggested that Kathi Appelt, a judge in the Young People''s category, should recuse herself because finalist David Small had illustrated her novel. In her response Appelt was cryptic, at best, saying that as committee deliberations are private, "I or any other judge might well have excused ourselves from voting on any particular book, if conflict of interest were an issue.” In the end, Small's celebrated graphic memoir Stiches didn't win last night; Phillip Hoose's Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice did. [ArtsBeat, Jacket Copy]

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Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up

Little Nothings Vol. 3

• NBM announced over the weekend they will release a third volume in Lewis Trondheim's autobiographical Little Nothings series. You can read samples of the work on the company's blog.

• The University Press of Mississippi will be publishing My Life With Charlie Brown in April. It's a collection of essays, lectures and articles by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. If April seems to far away for you, this book is coming out next month.

• Fantagraphics unveils the covers for their next Krazy and Ignatz book (designed by Chris Ware), as well as the second volume of Prison Pit.

• Van Jensen gives readers the scoop on the upcoming book tour for Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and announces plans for a sequel in winter of next year.

• Speaking of SLG, they will be releasing an omnibus collection of Gene Yang's early work, entitled Animal Crackers, in January.

• The Kingdom of New York is a new book featuring essays and articles from the New York Observer magazine. It also sports a spiffy cover and interior art by Drew Friedman. And apparently Fantagraphics will be releasing a collection of Friedman's celebrity portraits in summer of 2010.

• I don't know if we caught this on the blog yet, but apparently Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz are forming a publishing company devoted to historical comics.

• Dash Shaw, who has redesigned his Web site, apparently completely reworked his 2006 book the Mother's Mouth, cutting out pages and changing colors. The alternations are only for the French and Spanish editions, however, which seems a shame.

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves | A publishing news roundup

The Original Johnson

• IDW has announced the street dates for a couple of publishing ventures recently, including the their two Archie collections. The Best of Dan DeCarlo Vol. 1 will hit stores in May, while The Classic Newspaper Comics Vol. 1 will arrive in June.

More notably, the company also announced they would be collecting and releasing Trevor Von Eeden's The Original Johnson, about the life of boxer Jack Johnson, in December. In his recent interview with The Comics Journal, Von Eeden had discussed contract disputes he had been having with co-publisher ComicMix about the work so it's nice to book being completed and in print form.

• According to a press release that seems to be going around town, Fantagraphics and Supermen! editor (and former Fanta employee) Greg Sadowski will be working together on a series of seven collections of Golden Age comics. They are: Setting The Standard: Alex Toth at Standard Comics 1952-54, The Road To Plastic Man: The Golden Age Comics of Jack Cole 1937-41, Away From Home: EC Artists at Other Companies, Creeping Death From Neptune: Basil Wolverton’s Sci-Fi and Horror Comics 1938-55 and The Comic Book Frankenstein: The Monster According to Dick Briefer. That's a pretty amazing line-up. I'm especially excited for that Briefer book.

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

The Pirate Bay

Legal | A new study claim the shutdown two months ago of file-trading site The Pirate Bay by Swedish authorities "significantly, if temporarily, disrupted" the illegal trafficking of digital files worldwide. The emphasis is on temporarily. The white paper, released by anti-piracy company DtecNet, found the closing forced traffic to flood other BitTorrent trackers, "causing temporary secondary outages" for several days.

The study finds that BitTorrent traffic is soon expected to return to levels seen before the shutdown, with relatively new website OpenBitTorrent emerging as the successor to The Pirate Bay. [The Live Feed]

Sales charts | R. Crumb's much-publicized adaptation of The Book of Genesis debuts at No. 8 on USA Today's bestseller list. Meanwhile, the 46th volume of Masashi Kishimoto's popular shonen series Naruto inches up three spaces to No. 136. [USA Today]

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Robot 666: Van Jensen reluctantly rides the vampire wave

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

Editor's Note: With Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer from SLG Publishing hitting comic shops this week, we asked writer Van Jensen to share his thoughts on vampires in this guest post for Robot 666 week.

by Van Jensen

This past weekend, I was a guest at the Vampire Film Festival in New Orleans, a fitting enough setting with my first book -- Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer -- coming out this week. With vampires in books (Twilight), TV (True Blood and Vampire Diaries) and movies (Twilight and The Vampire's Apprentice) exhibiting unrivaled pop cultural dominance at the moment, it's a good time to be aboard the bloodsucker bandwagon.

But I have to confide a secret: I don't like vampires.

It's not that the concept is a bad one. Immortal, undead, shape-shifting, bloodsucking monsters of the night? I can get behind that. But the execution almost always leaves so much to be desired. Twilight is the obvious punching bag, with its ridiculous additions to the mythology (sparkle, anyone?), disturbing sexual commentary and milquetoast vampires. Grady Hendrix already perfectly explained the disappointment of these sissified vampires whose chief concern is how not to bite anyone, so I don't need to elaborate.

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APE '09 | Jamaica Dyer's con report ... in comic form

Jamaica Dyer's APE comic

Over at her blog, Weird Fishes creator Jamaica Dyer shares a report from this weekend's Alternative Press Expo in the form of a comic. The comic covers Saturday, and she says Sunday is coming soon ... and not to spoil the Sunday one, but I hear that Weird Fishes sold out at the show.

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves | A publishing news round-up

The Losers

• In case you missed it earlier this week: Vertigo will reprint two books that tie into two of their upcoming media properties. First up, they're collecting the first 12 issues of The Losers into one large paperback that'll come out in January, three months before the movie adaptation arrives in theaters. They're also collecting the Peter Milligan/Edvin Biukovic Human Target miniseries, along with the Milligan/Javier Pulido Human Target: The Final Cut original graphic novel into one volume, just in time for the premiere of the Human Target show on Fox in January.

• SLG Publishing is collecting a couple of Gene Yang's previous books, Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks and Loyola Chin and the San Peligran Order, into a single volume called Animal Crackers. It'll include a new 12-page story by Yang, which he previews here.

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APE '09 | Exhibit A, NBM, SLG and more

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, is coming up this weekend at The Concourse in San Francisco. The show runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Special guests include Jamaica Dyer, Phoebe Gloeckner, Dean Haspiel, Batton Lash, Lark Pien, Dash Shaw and Jeff Smith. I'll be there covering the show, while Matt Maxwell will have a table to sell copies of Strangeways.

And over the next couple days, I'll be posting what various companies and creators have planned for the show. If you'd like to be included, drop me the details on where you'll be, what you'll be selling and all that good stuff.

Exhibit A Press | Jackie Estrada dropped us a note about what Exhibit A Press (table 312) will have at the show, where special guest Batton Lash will be celebrating 30 years of Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre.

"He’ll be signing the limited-edition Supernatural Law Tales from the Vault Anniversary Special as well as comics and trades," she writes. "We’ll also have Batton’s 'monster cameos,' one-of-a-kind hand-painted miniatures of everyone’s favorite monsters. Plus: new Graphitti Designs Supernatural Law T-shirt!"

More info at www.exhibitapress.com/pages/index.php

SLG Publishing | Jennifer de Guzman sent over an update on SLG's plans for the show. "Jamaica Dyer will be a special guest, so we will have plenty of copies of her new book Weird Fishes," she writes. "Jamaica will also be on the panel Personal Stories on Saturday at 5 p.m. with Dean Haspiel, Phoebe Glockner, and Dash Shaw. I'll be moderating her spotlight panel on Sunday at 12 p.m."

Things Undone

NBM | Ted Rall and Shane White will be at APE; Rall will have a few copies of The Year of Loving Dangerously, while White will sign copies of the recent release Things Undone (which is sitting on my dresser in my "to read" pile; I should read it before this weekend).

Top Shelf | Brett Warnock posts on his blog that Nate Powell, Grant Reynolds and Jeremy Tinder will be at their booth, along with himself and Leigh Walton. And as always, he'll be at the Isotope party Saturday night.

Creators | Scott Morse will be on hand doing commissions and selling the last few remaining copies he has of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science.

Manga | Deb Aoki rounds up what various manga publishers are doing at the show.

Meet Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer in Baltimore this weekend

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

Van Jensen, writer of the upcoming SLG graphic novel Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer, sent over a couple of pictures of the "real-life Pinocchio" you can meet in Baltimore this weekend. "I called in a favor to my uncle, who makes all kinds of cool stuff, and he put together a 3-foot-tall functioning Pinocchio puppet," Jensen said in his email.

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

Slash Print | Following the digital evolution

Internet radio | SLG Publishing is testing out an internet radio call-in show, where fans can call in and ask Dan Vado questions about their titles or the comic industry in general. If you've ever attended one of SLG's panels, you know Dan has a lot to say, so this should be worth checking out.

Tablets | Although the Apple tablet I mentioned a few days ago hasn't even been officially announced yet, this Ad Age story says traditional publishers are already talking about ways to bypass iTunes and offer "an industry-wide digital storefront where tablet users could buy digital issues or subscriptions without going through iTunes or the App Store."

Tablets | Speaking of tablets (and SLG, for that matter), SLG chief Jennifer de Guzman talks about digital comics in her latest column for Publisher's Weekly, noting the difficulties that come with trying to make comics for Amazon's Kindle.

"To be acceptable to Amazon's Kindle store, a comic needs to be 'reflowed,' which means breaking each page into individual panels and saving each as a separate file," she writes. "This is a process that could take hours for every graphic novel—and that means additional costs for a publisher."

Digital Comics | If you missed part one of the Brian Michael Bendis interview I linked to earlier because you were too busy checking out what he had to say about Avengers, he talks with Blair Butler about the Spider Woman Motion Comic and the future of digital comics.

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Disney and Marvel

Retailing | Could Disney's planned $4-billion purchase of Marvel signal the return comic books to the mass market? "I see the Marvel acquisition by Disney helping to expand the genre of comic books and remove it from the dusty basement of the world," says direct-market retailer Creswell. "I do see Disney stepping in and offering retailers outside of the direct comic book market incentives for selling Marvel products," Creswell said. [Reuters]

Publishing | Long-struggling e-book site Wowio reportedly has informed publishers that payments for the second quarter of 2008 will be made by Nov. 15. Wowio, which was purchased last year by Platinum Studios, was sold in July to a holding company formed by Platinum President and COO Brian Altounian. [Bleeding Cool]

Long Beach Comic Con

Conventions | The inaugural Long Beach Comic Con kicks off today at the Long Beach Convention Center in California. Guests include Berkeley Breathed, Stan Lee, Tim Bradstreet, J. Scott Campbell, Amanda Conner, Geoff Johns, Dave Johnson, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Scott Lobdell, Dustin Nguyen, Darick Robertson and Mark Waid. The Long Beach Post and Gazettes Town-News have previews. [Long Beach Comic Con]

Events | 24-Hour Comics Day will be held Saturday at locations around the world. [24-Hour Comics Day]

Conventions | Heidi MacDonald posts her Small Press Expo round-up/wrap-up/photo parade. [The Beat]

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Doris Danger to fight monsters at SLG this November

Doris Danger Giant Monster Adventures

SLG announced earlier this month that they will publish Chris Wisnia's Doris Danger: Giant Monster Stories in November. As you can probably guess from the title and the images above, the book features a lot of Kirby-inspired giant monsters.

“I made this book for people like me -- people who love Jack Kirby, robots, low-budget 1950's sci-fi films; realistic, somewhat non-stop army, secret society, AND spaceship action, absurd conspiracy theories, romance, bad dialogue, ridiculous plot lines, seventh grade humor, kitsch, and of course...GIANT MONSTERS!" Wisnia said.

If you'd like to get a sense of what to expect, check out Wisnia's website, where you can buy some of his previous monster comics.

Tell a lie, win a prize

Dustin Higgins and Van Jensen's eagerly awaited Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer comes out next month, and they're holding a contest to help promote it. All you have to do is lie:

Liar

Hypothetical question time. What if you were a magically sentient wooden puppet? And what if whenever you told a lie, your magically sentient wooden nose would grow suddenly? And what if you suddenly were confronted by a gang of bloodsucking vampires, and you needed to snap off a shank of magically sentient wooden nose to kill the undead? Hypothetically speaking, what lie would you tell?

If you can come up with a funny, creative lie, you could win some serious swag from the upcoming Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer graphic novel. The book, created by Dustin Higgins and Van Jensen, will be released by SLG Publishing on Sept. 30. All you have to do is post your best lie at the Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer Facebook group or send one by e-mail to pinocchiovampireslayer@gmail.com. All entries must be received by Sept. 23.

The best lie, as chosen by Dustin and Van, will receive a signed copy of the book and a page of Dustin's original artwork. Two runners up will both receive signed copies of the book.

Mark Twain may have said "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes," but it can also help rid the world of vampires. So get creative! Get hypothetical! Get lying!

Disclaimer: The creators of Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer are not liable if a submitted lie appears in the current or any future Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer book. Dozens of lies appear in the book, and any submitted lie matching one in the book is purely coincidental.

ComicsLive | A guide to upcoming comic-related events

Welcome once again to ComicsLive, a guide to upcoming signings, conventions and other comic-related events. Information on submitting your event can be found at the bottom of this post.

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.

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