Valiant Entertainment

Retailing | Former retailer Atom! Freeman, now sales manager for the revived Valiant Entertainment, has set out to contact every comics retailer in the direct market to promote the publisher’s upcoming superhero line. What has he learned? Retailers are divided on the importance of variant covers, and they don’t place a high value on returnability, but they care a lot about timeliness: “I try to ask every retailer I speak with what his or her biggest concern is in dealing with a new publisher. The number one answer I get is timeliness. Retailers want to know that they will have a consistent product shipped on a consistent schedule.” [ICv2]

Retailing | Todd Allen’s survey of readers of The Beat, admittedly a specialized audience, reveals that more than two-thirds use pre-ordering as their primary method of buying comics, although many will pick up a few off the rack as well. [The Beat]

Awards | Paul Register, founder and organizer of the Stan Lee Excelsior Awards, writes about how the awards, which are selected by 11- to 16-year-olds in the U.K., came to be and why they are important: “In a system that rarely studies complete texts and doesn’t overtly place a huge importance on the clear benefits of children reading outside the classroom, comics have become marginalised in schools at a time when their potential for raising literacy standards amongst teenagers has arguably never been greater. The Excelsior Award is an attempt to give children the opportunity to take ownership of their own reading and to feel that reading books that they actually want to read – as opposed to being told to read – is not a waste of time.” [Comics Forum]

Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes

Publishing | Fantagraphics President Gary Groth comments on Matthias Wivel’s review of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, adding some insight with regard to re-coloring the comics, numbering the volumes, the order of the stories, and the shortcomings of earlier reprint editions. [The Comics Journal]

Digital comics | Webcomics creator R. Stevens used iBooks Author to compile a collected edition of the December Diesel Sweeties comics, and just a week later, he reckons that 10,000 people have downloaded the free e-book. He discusses the pros and cons of the system, as well as distribution (he chose to use Dropbox rather than the iBooks store) and sees it as a serious strategy for the future. [Diesel Sweeties]

Creators | Alex Berry talks to Zegas creator Michael Fiffe about making comics and writing about them: “Well, I’m a cartoonist first and foremost. All the other stuff is just a way of sorting through my own interests and learning curves. The first interview I conducted was based on a personal need to find something out. I had tracked down the cartoonist Trevor Von Eeden and wanted to know what he was up to and how his career developed. You know, basic interview stuff, except it didn’t exist for him, so I sought it out myself. From that, I learned to somewhat voice my own views and approaches to comics.” [Spandexless]

Sugar Falls: A Residential School Story

Creators | David Robertson talks briefly about his graphic novel Sugar Falls: A Residential School Story, which tells the true story of a Native American girl who was sent away to a boarding school and subjected to abuse and discrimination. There is a short preview at the site as well. [CBC Manitoba]

Comics | Ben Morse celebrates the exploits of The Ray, a superhero who didn’t quite make the big time. [The Cool Kids Table]

Comics | Tom Gill takes a long look at the work of Garo manga artist Yoshiharu Tsuge, with particular attention to his classic work The Incident at Nishibeta Village. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist

It’s time once again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for cool, new comics. As usual, we’re focusing on graphic novels, collected volumes and first issues so that we don’t have to come up with a new way to say, “Batwoman is still awesome!” every month. And we’ll continue letting Tom and Carla do the heavy lifting in regards to DC and Marvel’s solicitations.

One cool change this month and for the foreseeable future: I’m joined by Graeme McMillan who’ll also be pointing out his favorites.

Finally, please feel free to play along in the comments. Tell us what we missed that you’re looking forward to or – if you’re a comics creator – mention your own stuff.

Abrams Comicarts

The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist – I admit, I tend to run hot and cold on Clowes’ output, but I’m a sucker for coffee-table career retrospectives, so the idea of taking 224 pages to look back at his career to date (with, of course, the traditional little-seen artwork and commentary) seems like a must-look at the very least. [Graeme]

Abstract Studios

Rachel Rising, Volume 1: The Shadow of Death – Terry Moore’s latest series gets its first collection and I love the premise of a woman’s waking up in a shallow grave with no memory of how she got there and needing to figure out who tried to kill to her. [Michael]

Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom

Arcana

Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom – I don’t know enough about Lovecraft, but man I love me some undersea kingdoms. [Michael]

Archaia

Cow Boy – As much as I don’t want to stick writer Nate Cosby in an all-ages box, I’m eager to read his and Chris Eliopoulos’ story of a kid bounty hunter trying to bring in his family of outlaws. [Michael]

If nothing else, Nate Cosby’s Twitter feed made me curious about checking out his western collaboration with Eliopoulos, but finding out that Roger Langridge and Colleen Coover were also contributing pushed me over the edge. [Graeme]

I’m Not A Plastic Bag – Color me skeptical but hopeful about Rachel Hope Allison’s ecological debut, even if that title makes me a little nervous. [Graeme]

Archie

Archie #631 – Picks up on that story where Archie and Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats hook up. Look, Archie’s going nowhere with either Betty or Veronica, so I’m rooting for the furry. [Michael]

Stan Lee’s Mighty 7 #1 – At first, finding out that this comic was actually by Tony Blake and Alex Saviuk without Lee was a letdown; until I found out that the comic is actually about Stan Lee, which pushes it into the “This will either be horrendous or bizarrely enjoyable” category. [Graeme]

I’m not sure that I’ve ever unreservedly enjoyed a comic that Stan Lee wrote, much less just came up with the idea for, but I love his persona and putting him in the comic with some superheroes is so crazy it just might work. [Michael]

Crossed: Badlands #1

Avatar Press

Crossed: Badlands #1 and 2 – I’m definitely not a horror fan, but the idea of Garth Ennis’ writing an ongoing biweekly series feels like it’s as good a lure to get me to pick this up as anything else. (I think the plan is to have creators alternate on arcs, with Si Spurrier and David Lapham as part of the alternate writers on the book. That’s a pretty impressive line-up.) [Graeme]

Boom!

Exile on the Planet of the Apes #1 – I’m all for another Planet of the Apes comic from Boom!. [Michael]

More Apes by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman (art by Marc Laming)? This can only be a good thing. [Graeme]

Supurbia #1 – I feel like we’ve seen a few of these “what if superheroes and reality shows were mashed together?” series, but here’s the first of four issues of another one written by former Marvel staffer Grace Randolph. [Graeme]

Kitchen Sink Press: The First 25 Years – Remember what I said about being a sucker for coffee table retrospectives above? That goes double for this one, which has the added benefits of being both cheap (only $15!) and having contributions from Alan Moore and other creators from Denis Kitchen’s vast address book. [Graeme]

Dark Horse

BPRD: Hell on Earth – The Pickens County Horror #1 – I’m all for new BPRD comics, but it’s getting more and more difficult to keep track of everything. Still, I’ll buy a Scott Allie Mignolaverse story any day. [Michael]

Abe Sapien, Volume 2: The Devil Does Not Jest and Other Stories

Abe Sapien, Volume 2: The Devil Does Not Jest and Other Stories - Abe’s my favorite BPRD character, so I feel like this the way I do the previous item: grateful, but also a little saturated. [Michael]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8, Volume 1 – The first ten issues – or two trades, if that’s how your brain works – of the Joss Whedon-led series get an oversized hardcover edition. [Graeme]

Channel Zero – Brian Wood’s breakthrough book comes back into print with this collection of the original series, the Becky Cloonan-illustrated follow-up and material from the awesome Public Domain design book. Jonathan Hickman fans, you should really pick this up. [Graeme]

Manara Erotica, Vol. 1: Click! and Other Stories – Yes, it’s comic porn. But unlike Lost Girls, this is actually sexy comic porn. [Graeme]

Ragemoor #1 – If they hadn’t got me with Richard Corben, they certainly would have with “living castle nurtured on pagan blood.” [Michael]

Avatar: The Last Airbender, Volume 2 – The Promise, Part 2 – Yikes, what a title. I’m still missing Avatar: The Last Airbender though, so this is welcome. [Michael]

Empowered, Volume 7 – Why haven’t I started reading this critical darling yet? I do not know. [Michael]

DC

Batman: Death by Design - Chip Kidd’s writing a Batman book and it’s a real-live, honest-to-goodness superhero adventure. What’s more awesome is that the concept of design plays a large role in the story in the form of a massive reconstruction project in Gotham City. [Michael]

Saucer Country #1

Saucer Country #1 – Paul Cornell + Ryan Kelly + saucer aliens = SOLD. [Michael]

Fairest #1 – Bill Willingham launches a new series about the women of Fables and makes me even less interested in everyone else’s modern updates of fairy tales. [Michael]

New Deadwardians #1 – The solicit opens, “Another vampire/zombie comic? Really, Vertigo?” My sentiments exactly and yet, this one’s illustrated by INJ Culbard whose work I’ve loved on the Sherlock Holmes adaptations he’s done with Ian Edginton. [Michael]

Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child #1 – It would be redundant to mention that the cover to this is both “striking” and “by Rafael Grampá,” so I’ll just mention the concept, which is also eye-catching. It’s the story of a grad student who also happens to be heir to the Voodoo Queenship of the most haunted city in America, and someone is killing off the royal family. Vertigo was created for stuff like this. [Michael]

Dynamite

Bionic Woman #1 – I had the deepest crush on Jaime Sommers as an 11-year-old. My current crush on Paul Tobin’s writing is slightly less deep, but still significant enough to make me want to read this. [Michael]

I’ve been following Dynamite’s Bionic Man series and surprising myself by digging the hell out’ve it; seeing that this spin-off is being written by the insanely-underrated Paul Tobin was all I needed to convince me to read this. [Graeme]

George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1 – For the fantasy fan (or HBO subscriber) in your life, here’s the first quarter of Dynamite’s adaptation of the not-so-cult-anymore novel. [Graeme]

Vampirella: The Red Room #1

Vampirella: The Red Room #1: On the one hand, it’s “monster vs. human cage matches.” On the other, it’s written by Dan Brereton, so it’s probably going to be good fun… [Graeme]

Fantagraphics

Angelman – I’ve not read much by Austrian cartoonist Nicolas Mahler, but I think I’m won over just by the idea of his new book, which satirizes not just superheroes, but the business behind them. [Graeme]

Interiorae – Lovely, lovely art by Gabriella Giandelli in this collection of his Ignatz series. (It’s also in full-color, unlike the original serialization, which is another win.) [Graeme]

I don’t know why it’s taken this long for Fantagraphics to collect the comics that got their cool Ignatz format a few years ago, but I’ll shut up and be grateful. I greatly enjoyed Giandelli’s creepy tale of an apartment building, its residents, the large rabbit who roams its halls, and the creature the rabbit seems to serve. What’s also exciting though is that this means Richard Sala’s Delphine will get a collection too. [Michael]

Humanoids

Monsieur Jean: The Singles Theory – So, so excited for this new book by Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian, making its English language debut in this edition. [Graeme]

IDW

Berkeley Breathed’s Outland: The Complete Collection Sunday Comics, 1989-1995 – The star of this collection of Breathed’s Bloom County follow-up isn’t the title strip, but the reprints of his early, college-era work that’ll accompany them. [Graeme]

Funny Stuff

Funny Stuff By Frank Frazetta – It makes me a bad nerd to admit that I don’t think I’ve ever seen Frazetta’s legendary early comics work, so I’m pretty excited for this oversized hardcover collection, especially to see just how much he… homaged other, more famous strips. [Graeme]

Rocketeer Adventures 2 #1 – Featuring work by Stan Sakai, Bill Sienkiewicz, Marc Guggenheim, Peter David, and Sandy Plunkett. Plus covers and pin-ups by Dave Stevens, Darwyn Cooke, and Art Adams. [Michael]

The first series of anthology tributes to Dave Stevens and his retro creation worked so much more than I’d expected, so I’m definitely up for a second go-’round. [Graeme]

Smoke And Mirrors #1: Mike Costa’s been winning me over every month with his Cobra series, so I’m looking forward to this creator-owned book he’s co-writing about a stage magician who gets trapped in a world where magic has taken the place of science. [Graeme]

Star Trek, Volume 1 – Dear all fellow Trekkies/Trekkers/whatever you want to call yourselves: If you liked the original TV show and also the JJ Abrams movie reboot, you owe it to yourself to check out this monthly series, so grab this collection of the first issues and dig in. [Graeme]

Will Eisner’s The Spirit: Artist’s Edition – Of all the IDW “Artists Edition” books to date, this is the one that just feels like a must-have. Eisner’s Spirit pages as they appeared on his drafting table? I cannot wait to see these. [Graeme]

IDW probably explained the “Artist’s Edition” concept before and I just wasn’t paying attention, but I am now and I finally get why it’s cool to have COLOR scans of original-size black-and-white art so you can see blue pencils, art corrections, editorial notes, and stuff like that. Especially for someone as legendary as Will Eisner.  [Michael]

Saga

Image

Saga #1 – New Brian K. Vaughan. Does anything else need to be said? Oh, alright: FIona Staples on art. Seriously, you guys. [Graeme]

I’d buy a Fiona Staple fantasy epic anyway. That Brian K Vaughan is writing it makes me sigh like a Belieber. [Michael]

Hell Yeah #1: There’s something weirdly fitting about reading a series about the generation who’s grown up with super-heroes that’s created by someone like Joe Keatinge, who’s been around in comics for a long time, and Andre Szymanowicz’ art looks good as well… [Graeme]

The Manhattan Projects #1 – Jonathan Hickman returns to indie roots with the true story behind the atomic bomb. Turns out, Oppenheimer created this rocket ship, but forgot to shield it against cosmic rays… [Graeme]

Mad scientists! By Jonathan Hickman! [Michael]

’68, Volume 1: Better Run Through the Jungle – Mark Kidwell, Nat Jones, and Jay Fotos’ Vietnam War/zombie series is collected. [Michael]

The Walking Dead: Cutting Room Floor – I’m very, very curious about this collection of Robert Kirkman’s handwritten notes about the creation of his hit series. It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? But it could very well be awesome… [Graeme]

Marvel

Avengers Academy #27 – Guest-starring the Runaways, ya’ll! And Bruiser’s totally punching Mettle cross-eyed on the cover. [Michael]

Savage Beauty

Moonstone

Savage Beauty Limited Edition Hardcover – I’m really curious to see how Mike Bullock’s contemporary, political jungle-girl story turns out. [Michael]

Oni

The Coldest City - If Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy taught me anything, it’s that I’m really not done with Cold War spy stories just yet. This one’s set in Berlin, which is even cooler. [Michael]

I’ve already read this one in galley format, and it is really, really good for those who like the spy stuff (Queen and Country fans, it’s written by Antony Johnston, so you know that it’s great; the art by Sam Hart follows Steve Yeowell’s lead from his early Zenith days, and for those who know my love for that series, there are few higher compliments I can offer). [Graeme]

The Secret History of DB Cooper #1 – Beyond “colorful weirdness and conspiracy-laden Americana,” I have no idea what to expect from Brian Churilla’s new series, and that just makes me look forward to it all the more. [Graeme]

I can’t wait to find out once and for all if Mr James is Doobie Keebler. [Michael]

Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures

Red 5

Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures #1 – Eep! An Atomic Robo anthology! Great news for a series whose back-up stories have always been just as entertaining as its lead feature. [Michael]

Atomic Robo returns with an all-new ongoing series?!? Surely this means that Christmas is either not over, or coming early or… well, you know what I mean. Good stuff. [Graeme]

Top Shelf

Blue – I’ve never heard of Pat Grant, the creator of this OGN, but Craig Thompson calls him “the Australian Mark Twain,” which is good enough for me. [Graeme]

Zenescope

The Jungle Book #1: Zenescope get around to “updating” the classic and well-loved story, which is more than likely going to mean adding more cleavage than you would’ve thought appropriate. Welcome to the year 20BOOB, everyone. [Graeme]

Action! Mystery! Thrills!

Action! Mystery! Thrills!: Comic Book Covers of the Golden Ages, 1933-1945
Edited by Greg Sadowski
Fantagraphics Books, 208 pages, $29.99

Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 1
Edited by Blake Bell
Fantagraphics Books, 224 pages, $39.99

Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics
Edited by Michael Gagne
Fantagraphics Books, 200 pages, $29.99

Our current publishing era has been dubbed the Golden Age of Reprints by a number of online pundits, myself included, and it’s not too hard to see why. Classic comics that fans and scholars never thought would make it to the bookbinders, let alone be available in an affordable version, are now coming off the presses at a staggering rate.

One of the benefits of this plethora of reprint projects is it allows us to re-examine certain noteworthy periods of comics history, help us discover long ignored artists and fully consider cartoonists who, though their names might have been recognizable, have largely been unappreciated except by a few. The alleged Golden Age of comics in particular has benefited from this scrutiny, not only  in illuminating people like Fletcher Hanks but in showcasing work by folks like Jack Cole and Bill Everett.

One of the people leading the way in this specific endeavor is editor Greg Sadowski, who, in anthologies like Supermen! and Four Color Fear, has given average readers access to comics from well-covered eras (i.e. the early superhero and horror trends) merely by republishing stories that didn’t come from Marvel (or whatever it was called at the time), EC or DC.

Sadowski’s latest book, Action! Mystery! Thrills! has a somewhat even narrower focus, dealing entirely with comic book covers from the Golden era. It makes a certain amount of sense. While covers are still an integral part of marketing and selling a comic, they were even more essential back in those early, heady days, when you competed with hundreds of other titles and an eye-catching cover could mean the difference between profit and cancellation (or at least that’s what many editors and publishers of the time felt).

If you’ve read any of Sadowski’s collections before, you should be familiar with the format by now. A short introduction or forward, followed by the work in question, uninterrupted by commentary, which is usually saved in the back of the book in some sort of “notes” section.

That’s certainly the case here as Sadowski peels through an assortment of covers, both notable for their historical significance as well as their aesthetic traits. A number of well-known artists are featured prominently here, including Will Eisner, Walt Kelly, Jack Cole, Lou Fine, Mac Raboy and Charles Biro. He seems to have a special fondness for the work of Alex Schomburg, a Timely/Marvel artist whose work mainly consisted of heroes leaping into action just as the barely dressed damsel (and perhaps a sidekick or two) was about to some horrible violent fate, usually involving elabore machinery and/or knives, from a gang of hooded evil-doers.

Honestly, while I can see the appeal in Schomburg’s frantic, almost cartoonish designs, I found myself preferring Cole’s elegant compositions or Raboy’s stately, illustrative offerings to Schomburg’s overly busy, cluttered covers, where it seems something had to be happening in every single corner lest the eye have a moment to rest.

And while I enjoyed Thrills (I’m especially grateful for being exposed to the neon-color stylings of L.B. Cole, who seems to prefigure the era of black velvet paintings), it’s definitely the slightest — the most coffee tableish — of Sadowski’s books so far. It feels like a book designed more to flip through than to mull over. Even Sadowski’s notes seem less considered and more perfunctory than before. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — there’s certainly pleasures to be had in re-examining these covers, as garish as some of them are — but it does make it a lesser star in the reprint galaxy.

Amazing Mysteries

As one of the pioneers of the comic book format, naturally Bill Everett is featured prominently in Thrills. He takes the starring role, however, for the Blake Bell-edited Amazing Mysteries, the first in what I assume is to be a multi-volume collection of the Sub-Mariner creator’s non-Marvel work, much in the same way Bell has been collecting and packaging Steve Ditko’s early material.

Bell keeps things in mostly chronological order here, although he does organizes the “chapters” according to the different characters Everett created, like Music Master, Hydroman and the disturbingly androgynous Dirk the Demon.

What’s exciting for me about this book is watching Everett develop as an artist and storyteller and figure out the medium in relatively rapid fashion. His lettering, clunky and stylized in his initial Skyrocket Steele story, quickly more straightforward and easier to read. His composition becomes more assured and dramatic. He clearly starts thinking of the page as a unit and not a bunch of unrelated panels as they stories start to seem less cluttered and more refined.

The heroes themselves seem an odd mish-mash that belong more to the “maybe this will sell” school than anything else. Everett rarely spends more than a story or two on any particular character, jumping from the generic spaceman Steele to the generic cowboy Bullseye Bill to the oddly dressed but still generic superhero The Conqueror, with little seeming thought between the various adventures except how best to depict the action.

Everett’s interest clearly lied with some of his more eccentric creations. Hydroman, for instance, is a obvious favorite. As a precursor to the Sub-Mariner, he’s certainly a figure many historians draw attention towards (apparently Everett had a thing about water). Dressed in a bulletproof cellophane outfit, Everett clearly got a kick out of depicting Hydroman in a variety of aqua-based scenarios —  a glass of water here, an ocean liner there — and and frequently draws him in in the middle of a transformation as he rushes out to surprise and subdue the bad guys, the rough water lines literally and figuratively coalescing in the panel to form a human figure.

That fluidity also graces Music Master, a hero who can transform himself into literal sound waves, with a string of notes trailing behind where the lower half of his body should be. Perhaps the oddest creation, though, is Amazing-Man a seemingly invulnerable (and at times invisible) character who gets his powers from an unnamed Eastern cult who goes from battling whip-wielding criminals to an entire (presumably German) army. The stop and go nature of these tales, combined with the Everett’s attempt at creating a continuing story arc, give the run a dream-like, off-kilter feel.

The material in Amazing in no way represents Everett’s strongest work, though they do point to his potential — those thrilling Sub Mariner stories were just around the corner. What you see  here are the glimmers of an artist struggling to comprehend the potential of this relatively new medium how he can push it to match his own interests.

Young Romance

Two artists that certainly knew something superheroes were Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. As interest in that genre faded with the end of World War II, however, the pair found themselves looking for other material to publish and quickly hit upon the idea of romance comics, with great success.

It’s a body of work that, though it took up a little over a decade, has been largely glossed over by fans in favor of focusing instead on all the musclemen in the gaudy outfits. Young Romance seeks to rectify that oversight, providing a “best of” collection from that lengthy run.

As you might expect, most of the stories in Romance rely deeply on hackneyed melodrama, clumsy coincidences and last minute changes of heart. What separates Simon and Kirby’s work from their later imitators, at least at first, is that they don’t feel the need to force a happy ending, and are even willing to delve into dark areas if need be. The opening story concerns a “boy-crazy” teen who falls madly in love with her aunt’s suitor, only to lose him at the end because of her flightiness. A young woman in post-war Germany falls in love with an American G.I. only to realize she can’t quite renounce Hitler. A woman behaves monstrously towards her mother in an effort to nab a husband from a higher social caste. And in perhaps the bleakest story in the bunch, a young woman attempts suicide when her lover is accused of a crime he didn’t commit and is given the death penalty.

The book is divided into pre-Code and post-Code and there’s no questions about which section is better. The latter stories are clearly scrubbed clean of anything that might give offense, and the gender roles more clearly defined, with all the women eager to become happy housewives. Even the art, rough and thick initially, gets cleaned up in the post-Code era, lest young readers be freaked out by, I dunno, too much cross-hatching.

Though modern readers may wince at some of the sexual stereotypes on display, not to mention the occasional forced happy ending, Young Romance underscores Simon and Kirby’s keen storytelling skills. Adhering to a mostly six-panel grid, the duo manage to produce work that is  visually arresting and dramatic, despite the fact that the violence is usually contained to the characters’ inner emotions. It’s also worth mentioning that editor Michael Gange’s reproduction work is stellar and apparently painstaking, as he demonstrates in an appendix at the end of the book.

Kirby, teaming up with Stan Lee, would eventually take the skills he learned from these making these romance comics — the over-the-top emotions, the dramatic plot reversals — and apply them with great success to the superhero genre. Young Romance helps show how that transition took place. For Kirby fans and those who just love to explore comics from generations past, it’s a rather essential read.

Justice League #4

Publishing | Number-crunching the direct-market charts, John Jackson Miller determines that sales of comics ranking in Diamond’s Top 300 increased by more than 3 million copies in 2011, bringing the total to 72.13 million. Dollar sales, too, rose by nearly $3 million, even as the average price of comic dropped by about a dime, from $3.58 to $3.49. [The Comichron]

Creators | Artist Fiona Staples has responded to Dave Dorman’s objection to her cover for Saga #1, which shows a woman breastfeeding an infant: “I find it a little hard to fathom why anyone would object to a depiction of breastfeeding, even if it were on a kids’ comic, which it isn’t. I have yet to hear a line of reasoning that makes sense to me. That said, anyone who wants to be grossed out by our comic is of course free to do so. I’m just going to fixate on the part where a master painter called me a ‘gifted artist.’” [ComicsAlliance]

ComicsPRO

Awards | The retailers association ComicsPRO has announced the nominees for its Industry Appreciation Award and the Industry Appreciation Memorial Award, which recognize individuals who have contributed to the success of the direct market: Cindy Fournier, David Gabriel, Robert Kirkman, Eric Stephenson and Bob Wayne. [press release]

Publishing | Valiant Entertainment, which in July announced the return of Valiant Comics, has signed an exclusive worldwide distribution deal with Diamond Comic Distributors and Diamond Book Distributors. [press release]

Creators | Kaiser Health News interviews MIT economist Jonathan Gruber — wait, why is this in Comics A.M.? Oh, yeah, because Gruber is the writer of the graphic novel Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works, which is that rare book that spoils the ending in the title. Artwork by Nathan Schreiber gives it some serious comics cred. [Kaiser Health News]

Creators | Lauren Davis has a fascinating interview with Achewood creator Chris Onstad, who recently brought his webcomic back from hiatus, about burnout, haters and the new things he has been trying lately, including a larger format to fit the new storyline. [Comics Alliance]

Gladstone's School for World Conquerors #1

Creators | David Harper talks to Mark Andrew Smith, writer of Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors, about his inspirations for the comic. I think Smith nails one of the best features of the book when he says, “I just like moments like these where we see supervillains being real people and doing things that normal people would do that we don’t get to see supervillains doing in other books. It’s great to pull back the curtain and see those moments of humanity there.” [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | This article on Kickstarter includes an interview with John Walsh, who recently raised $5,800 to support his webcomic Go Home Paddy. [Boston Herald]

Review | Larry Cruz reviews the intriguing webcomic Power Nap, about a future society in which drugs have eliminated the need for sleep — except for the one guy who is allergic to them. [The Webcomic Overlook]

The Institute for Liberty, an opponent of healthcare reform that characterizes itself as “an aggressive defender of the rights of individuals to pursue the American dream,” has launched a television ad called “Disney’s Dark Side” that accuses the company of hypocrisy: Although the House of Mouse contends it’s “protecting Florida’s family-friendly image,” IFL argues it’s more concerned with these resorts encroaching on Walt Disney World’s market share.

“The truth?” the TV spot’s narrator says. “Disney’s so-called family-friendly image includes profiting from licensing comic book characters to online casinos.”

That’s certainly true. An online search for “Marvel casino slots” brings up countless results — including, plainly enough, Marvel Slots, which provides information on games featuring Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, Captain America, Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four. Blade, Daredevil and Elektra also have their own slots (as you can see in the image above). Of course, it’s not only Marvel: Warner Bros.-owned DC Comics has a deal with Cryptologic for online slots featuring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Sandman, Watchmen and Green Lantern, among others. There’s also one based on Mike Mignola’s Hellboy.

But neither Warner Bros. nor Dark Horse has a dog, or a resort, in the South Florida casino fight. You can watch the TV spot below.

“DISNEY’S DARK SIDE”: New TV Ad Exposes Disney’s Hypocrisy on Gaming, Doubletalk on Family Values

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6, 2012 — The Institute for Liberty (IFL), a Washington-based advocacy organization, today launched “Disney’s Dark Side,” a television advertisement highlighting the company’s hypocrisy in opposing legislation currently under consideration in the state legislature that would allow for the construction of destination resorts in South Florida while bringing important reforms to Florida gaming laws.

“Disney has taken the public position of being morally opposed to gaming, while quietly profiting from the licensing of cartoon characters to online casinos,” said Andrew Langer, president of The Institute for Liberty. “Disney’s opposition to the construction of new, job-creating destination resorts has nothing to do with protecting Florida’s family-friendly image, and everything to do with protecting its own bottom line and stomping out any potential competition. That goes against the basic principles of free markets.”

Langer continued, “Disney recently laid off 1,400 Florida workers, but is earning billions in profits. Now it’s spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby against job-creating private investments, at a time when nearly one million Floridians are out of work.”

“Disney’s Dark Side” Script:

Why is Disney opposed to a $6 billion investment to help jumpstart Florida’s economy?

They say they’re protecting Florida’s family-friendly image.

The truth? Disney’s so-called family-friendly image includes profiting from licensing comic book characters to online casinos.

And while Disney’s shareholders rake in the profits, they’ve cut 1,400 Florida jobs.

Disney isn’t protecting Florida. They’re protecting their bottom line.

Let’s jumpstart Florida’s economy creating tens of thousands of jobs by allowing destination resorts.

The Institute for Liberty is a non-profit policy organization, involved in grassroots activism. It focuses on small business, entrepreneurship, and federal public policy. You can find out more on the web at http://www.instituteforliberty.org and www.disneydarkside.com.

Justice League #4

Publishing | John Jackson Miller takes apart the December sales numbers and finds that while comics were up for the month, graphic novel sales fell just enough to prevent the direct market from having its first up year since 2008. In fact, trades are down 16 percent from December 2010, and Miller spends some time discussing why that might be — and why next year might be different. [The Comichron]

Publishing | Houghton Mifflin has high hopes for Are You My Mother?, the new graphic novel from Fun Home author Alison Bechdel: The publisher plans a first printing of 100,000 copies. [Publishers Weekly]

Retailing | Diamond’s Retailer Summit will be held the two days before the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, with attendees receiving free admission to the April 13-15 convention. [ICv2]

Saga #1

Creators | Brian K. Vaughan speaks briefly about Saga, his March-debuting collaboration with Fiona Staples that promises “a nice mixture of some bounty hunters, monsters and all sorts of lovely threats.” [USA Today]

Creators | Joe Keatinge (Hell Yeah, Glory) writes about the immutability of Big Two superhero comics and the freedom that independent publishers like Image have to throw dramatic twists into their stories—and make them stick. [Image Comics blog]

Digital | Letterer Todd Klein reads Green Lantern #1 on his iPhone and finds the experience different, but enjoyable. [Todd's Blog]

Graphicly

Digital | HTML5 is in, Windows 7 phones are out: Micah Laaker reviews the past year for digital distribution service Graphicly and hints a bit at what the future may bring. [Graphicly Blog]

Digital | Which platform will survive? Matt Alexander speculates that as tablets get better and cheaper, dedicated e-readers will become a thing of the past. Ironic, no? [The Loop]

Cosplay | Hana, a Muslim anime blogger, discusses the complications of finding characters to cosplay while observing the rules of modest dress: “Clearly, some of you might be wondering what all the fuss was about, and I’m not saying that all Muslim hijab-wearing females are anything as habitually neurotic as I am. However, think of it more as an illustration of how my faith is the filter through which I experience the fandom and everything else. For me, it’s an entire lifestyle that affects everything I do, rather than just being a set of beliefs.” [Beneath the Tangles]

Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors does for super villains what Harry Potter did for magicians—throws them together into an elite boarding school and lets the dynamics of the schoolyard take over, with a bit of intervention from the adults. The first six-issue arc, published by Image, was very well received, and writer Mark Andrew Smith announced yesterday that the next six-issue series, Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors: The Battle of the Superhero Archives, has been written and the first three issues are drawn. Artist Matthew Weldon, who illustrated Smith’s The New Brighton Archeological Society, is taking over the art chores from Armand Villavert for this arc.

Smith isn’t letting any grass grow under his feet: “I’m starting writing on series three and hope that the third series can be drawn while the second one is being created,” he writes. It’s worth noting that Gladstone actually was published on a monthly schedule; the fact that Smith works with a generous buffer may have a lot to do with that.

CBLDF

Organizations | The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has named Alex Cox as its deputy director, responsible for oversight of the organization’s home office and fundraising program. Cox, who came to the CBLDF in 2010, previously served as development manager. [CBLDF]

Publishing | Marvel Talent Coordinator Bon Alimagno is leaving the publisher for a position at San Francisco-based software company The Apollo Group. Previously editor of Harris Comics, Alimagno handled freelance scheduling at Marvel, working with David Bogart, the publisher’s senior vice president of business affairs and talent management. [The Beat]

Graphic novels | The Texas Library Association posts its 2012 Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List of recommendations for tweens and teens. [Texas Library Association]

Conventions | Michael Dooley styles his article about Long Beach Comic Con as a look at The Other Comic Con — the one that caters to, you know, comics readers. [Salon]

Festival International de la Bande Dessinée

Conventions | The 2012 Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in Angouleme, France, will include an Art Spiegelman retrospective, a star-studded list of spotlight panels, and a composer-in-residence who will create a symphony to be performed at the festival. [The Comics Reporter]

Conventions | Kevin Czap has the lowdown on last weekend’s Genghis Con in Cleveland, which featured underground and indy comics. [Comix Cube]

Creators | Eastyn Cazin talks to Elephantmen and Northlanders artist Marian Churchland. [Panel Bound]

Manga | NBM Publishing notes that its first manga, Stargazing Dog, has gone back to press, and the publisher has fixed some of the typos that reviewers (ahem) complained about in the first edition. [NBM Blog]

Cartoons | A 1927 Disney cartoon, previously thought to be lost, has turned up in the U.K. and will go on the auction block in LA later this month. The star of this cartoon is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a precursor to Mickey Mouse. [Reuters]

Americus

Reviews | Johanna Draper Carlson looks at Americus, M.K. Reed and Jonathan Hill’s story of a book controversy in a small town, and finds an uncomfortable tang of reality: “Throughout, there’s an undercurrent of suspicion of the educated. Those who read books are perceived to be thinking themselves superior to those who don’t. The only book they need is the Bible, they claim (not realizing that being able to read the Bible themselves in a translation for the common people required the kind of fight Neil and his friends are waging). Throughout, they’re arguing against something they aren’t even familiar with, and when their ignorance is pointed out to them, it just makes them meaner.” [Comics Worth Reading]

Reviews | Robin Brenner and Esther Keller discuss Barry Deutsch’s Hereville, a graphic novel about an Orthodox Jewish girl, and the larger question of whether a creator can depict a lifestyle outside his own experience. [Good Comics for Kids]

Analysis | Noah Berlatsky reviews Ben Saunders’s book Do the Gods Wear Capes? Spirituality, Fantasy, and Superheroes: “People often argue that superheroes are dumb because they’re simplistic; because they create a bone-headed binary between good and evil. Ben’s argument is that, in fact, Superman stories have traditionally not so much asserted as investigated this binary. In the light of late modernity, as religion has faded, Superman asks ‘how can human beings be good?’” [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Fandom | Heidi MacDonald does her annual purge and reorganization and has some practical tips and deeper thoughts about managing the physical presence of comics in our lives. [The Beat]

If the rapid approach of the holidays has pushed you into panic mode, just relax, because you’ve already found the perfect gift for the superhero-comics fan in your life (or, y’know, yourself): a superhero Snuggie, or as the trademark sticklers prefer to call it, a “Comfy Throw Blanket With Sleeves”!

If you can’t fight crime like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman or Spider-Man, you can at least look like them — well, kind of? — while remaining toasty in the comfort of your own beige living room, while sitting on your own beige sofa and watching your own (probably) beige television. Hey, I’m only going by the product photos, which do a better job of advertising furniture than selling one-size-fits-all Snuggies Comfy Throw Blankets With Sleeves using two models and Photoshop.

Batman is out of stock, but you can still get Superman ($30.97), Wonder Woman ($25.99) and Spider-Man ($24.95) while supplies last! Act now and you’ll get … I don’t know, peace of mind? The satisfaction of seeing your loved one smile uncomfortably while modeling, and pretending to appreciate, a garish, yet comfy, fleece shroud? Yeah, probably that.

(via Geekologie)

Mark Andrew Smith has posted the first issue of Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors on his Tumblr for free. Featuring art by Armand Villavert, Gladstone’s School is an all-ages comic that has in-jokes to entertain adult comics fans and plenty of superhero action to engage the kids, so it really does work for all ages. The first volume of the collected edition came out on Wednesday.

Tumblr is an awkward platform for previews—the last page of the comic appears at the top of the site, and you have to scroll down to get to the beginning—but in this case it’s worth it because Smith has annotated the pages, so it’s bit like getting the director’s commentary.

"Peter Parker," by Simon Monk

Daily Design Discoveries spotlights Secret Identity, “an ongoing series of paintings” by U.K. artist Simon Monk featuring plastic figures of superheroes in clear polythene bags.

Monk explains on his website: “Superheroes are icons of male power and potency whose comic book and film adventures see them engaged in epic battles across the universe, yet these mythic figures have another life as consumer objects to be found in commercial and domestic contexts. Placed in carrier bags and hung on a hook in a domestic space they become recently purchased objects, robbed of the enormous power they wield in their narratives, their dynamic energy stymied. Despite this reduction they remain irresistible in their cartoonish rage and pride.”

Check out more from Secret Identity below, and on Monk’s website.

"Clark Kent," by Simon Monk

"Donald Blake," by Simon Monk

Krug Man, possibly the first superhero inspired by a New York Times columnist

No matter how nuanced current superhero comics may be, to the general public they are still fairly simple. Superheroes are the good guys, supervillians are the bad guys, and it’s easy to see who is who. That’s why kids like to dress up as superheroes on Halloween — and why should they have all the fun?

Yesterday the Occupy Wall Street folks staged an event called “Superheroes versus Economic Supervillains,” featuring Gan Golan, creator of The Adventures of Unemployed Man, playing his own superhero. Golan orchestrated the event and created the other characters as well, including working-mom superhero Wonder Mother (at last!), a huge slot machine that stands in for the New York Stock Exchange, and my favorite, Krug Man, a superhero version of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. It’s all in good fun, but it’s also publicity for the book. Indeed, Golan’s rich imagination seems to be his most valuable asset; he is working on another book and a possible animated version of The Adventures of Unemployed Man.

Betsy Richards as Wonder Mother (photo by Bryan Derballa/Wired.com)

Gan Golan, left, as Unemployed Man (photo by Bryan Derballa/Wired.com)

Alan Yang as Captain Generica (photo by Bryan Derballa/Wired.com)

Michael George

Legal | The fate of Michael George was placed in the hands of the jury Thursday after closing arguments in the trial of the former retailer and convention organizer accused of the 1990 murder of his first wife Barbara in their Clinton Township, Michigan, comic store. Although a comic collector places George in the shop around the time of the shooting, George’s mother insists he was asleep on her sofa. The jury deliberated for about two hours Thursday, and is expected to continue this morning. [Detroit Free Press]

Legal | Manga blogger Melinda Beasi contemplates the larger implications of the arrest of Brandon X for bringing manga into Canada that authorities deemed to be child pornography: “What terrifies me about Brandon’s case is that each time we allow our courts or communities (any courts or communities) to criminalize comics (any comics), we are inviting them to criminalize our own.” [CBLDF]

Marvel

Publishing | Heidi MacDonald comments on the layoff of Marvel Chief Operating Officer Jim “Ski” Sokolowski: “Now, this is where we will speculate a bit: you don’t have to be a genius to see that letting go of two high-ranking execs and several other people who all worked on magazine distribution means that you aren’t much interested in the magazine distribution business any more. One thing that is known, anyone at Marvel who was trying to expand Marvel’s non-DM efforts soon ran afoul of owner Ike Perlmutter, whose commitment to saving a penny to make a dime is well known. Ike has categorically forbidden any holding of inventory on books, a policy which is behind Marvel’s habitual inability to keep books in print. It also explains their anemic showings — relative to their size in the DM — on the BookScan market and lack of any kind of backlist. In order to have a backlist, you need to have books sitting around ready to be ordered, and Ike’s policies forbid that no matter how much of a sure thing the sales are. Inventory isn’t the kind of thing that you can somehow sneak into a different bottom line, either. One bookselling executive at Marvel once quipped that if he kept any inventory around, he’d get fired.” [The Beat]

Creators | Talk of the Nation discusses MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic with its creator, Art Spiegelman. [NPR]

Malinky Robot

Creators | The Malaysian Star profiles Malinky Robot creator Sonny Liew. [The Malaysian Star]

Creators | Gene Golan, one of the creators of The Adventures of Unemployed Man, wore a superhero costume to a panel discussion on the use of art and culture in activism to make the point that cultural content can make political messages more powerful and spread them more widely: “Golan said CNN anchors were caught off guard when what they thought was a light-hearted interview with guys dressed in costumes turned into a devastating economic critique.” [Campus Progress]

Superheroes | Virginia Postrel looks at the exhibit of Alex Ross’s superhero art at the Warhol Museum. [Business Week]

Manga | Jason Thompson pens a fond tribute to Azumanga Daioh, the four-panel manga that more or less started the craze for four-koma manga about wacky schoolgirls. [Anime News Network]

Graphic novels | Following up on Nadim Damluji’s critique of Craig Thompson’s Habibi as a work of Orientalism, Noah Berlatsky looks at Neil Gaiman’s Ramadan through the same lens and finds that while he successfully separated fact from fantasy, Gaiman still presented readers with an outsider’s version of that fantasy. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Graphic novels | Paste Magazine rounds up the most interesting graphic novels of the week, with commentary. [Paste]

Color is so important to comics that most teams have a separate colorist, yet how much do we think about the significance of a particular palette? Darius A. Monsef IV, chief blogger at COLOURlovers, has spent quite a bit of time thinking about it, and he has produced a large infographic that compares the color schemes of good versus evil, both in costumes and in overall coloring. Some of the factoids are obvious (white for good characters, darker colors for evil, green for radioactivity), some are surprising (apparently orange and purple, paired with white and gray, signify neutral characters in the comics world). Also, the good guys are usually clad in primary colors and villains in secondary colors. And the analysis of the colors used by DC and Marvel is fascinating (in a color-nerd sort of way)—DC uses way more black, while Marvel skews red. The infographic also has a handy chart of costume color changes over the years.

Eleven Fine Art in London kicks off an exhibit called “Supermen- An Exhibition of Heroes” Sept. 16, which features collages of real-life heroes made from fragments of comic books.

In honor of the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11, Ben Turnbull’s collages “celebrates the real life heroes, the firemen, and policemen who protect us everyday, in iconic new images meticulously constructed from fragments of fictional superheroes including Captain America, Daredevil, and The Fantastic Four as well as Batman, Spiderman (sic), and the Hulk,” according to the gallery’s website.

“The life-changing events of 9/11 led us all to believe in the need for real life superheroes,” Turnbull said on the site. “Superman didn’t fly down to save the falling buildings, there was no Caped Crusader ready to do battle with the arch-enemy and Spidey didn’t spin his web. Without the need of a phone-booth or a revolving door these true patriots donned their iconic costumes and sacrificed life and limb for what they believed in. With every cut-comic hero and dialogue I hope to bring out the true merits of the Brave and the Bold in their fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way.”

You can check out more of the artwork here. The exhibit runs through Oct. 22.

Usually this feature highlights webcomics that have just gotten started and have a small archive, but today’s choice is a little different: You should start reading Chris and Kyle Bolton’s Smash now so you will be up to speed when Season 2 debuts on Aug. 25. Briefly, it’s the story of a 10-year-old boy who inherits superpowers —a nd the great responsibility that comes with them — when his local superhero bites the dust. The opening chapters are notable for some very funny sequences in which Andrew, our hero, has to master his superpowers; there’s a lot of slapstick, and it turns out the ability to fly is a mixed blessing if you’re afraid of heights. Candlewick will publish the first season in book form, which is another reason to read it online now, as comics have a tendency to disappear from the web once they are published in print.

Robert Crumb

Creators | Robert Crumb pens a letter to The Sydney Morning Herald, explaining why he pulled out of the Graphic 2011 festival: “I was quite alarmed when I read the article in the Sunday Telegraph. I showed it to my wife, Aline, who said, ‘That’s it, you’re not going.’ She got a very bad feeling from the article. She feared I might be attacked physically by some angry, outraged person who simply saw red at the mention of child molesters. She remarked she’d never seen any article about me as nasty as this one.” Sunday Telegraph staff writer Claire Harvey, meanwhile, responds to Crumb’s comments and criticisms lobbed at the newspaper: “Crumb seems to be living in fear of the reaction he once sought to provoke. It seems a sad place for any artist to be.” [The Sydney Morning Herald]

Passings | Kim Thompson eulogizes Argentina cartoonist Francisco Solano López, who passed away on Friday. [The Comics Journal]

Conventions | Reporting from this weekend’s Wizard World Chicago, the Chicago Tribune talks to former comic shop owner Gary Colabuono, who displayed rare ashcan editions of comics from the 1930s and 1940s featuring Superman, Superwoman, Superboy and Supergirl at the show. Blogger Matthew J. Brady has pictures of the ashcans, as well as a report from the show. [Chicago Tribune]

Comics | The Portland Press Herald profiles Renae de Liz, who’s coordinating the Womanthology charity anthology. Dan Nadel, meanwhile, calls the project “the most expensive comics anthology I’ve ever heard of.” [Portland Press Herald]

Creators | Brian Truitt talks to Michael Coulthard, a.k.a. Shaky Kane, about the November re-release of his “graphic road movie,” Monster Truck, by Image Comics. [USA Today]

Watchmen

Comics | NPR revealed the results from their Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy survey, which saw 60,000 people vote. Watchmen and Sandman made the list, coming in at No. 15 and No. 29 respectively, while several of Neil Gaiman’s prose books also made the list. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien topped the list. [NPR]

Comics | John Parker looks back at Peter David’s long run on The Incredible Hulk. [ComicsAlliance]

Creators | Paul Gravett posts an appreciation of Marjane Satrapi, whose first book, Persepolis, was inspired in part by Art Spiegelman’s Maus: “I realised that comics is not a genre, it is just a way of telling a story where I could feel exactly what was going on. Drawing is much closer to a human being than a photo, because you create the world in your own image, it’s very personal, it’s an international language. Before humans started talking, first they started drawing.”. [Paul Gravett]

Manga | Manga bloggers are celebrating Fumi Yoshinaga in this month’s Manga Moveable Feast, a sort of bloggers’ round robin, and David Welsh kicks things off with a review of a yaoi manga that avoids most of the pitfalls of the genre, Yoshnaga’s Ichigenme: The First Course Is Civil Law. [The Manga Curmudgeon]

Publishing | Bikya Masr profiles Marwan Imam and Division Publishing, “the Middle East’s first true comic book publisher.” [Bikya Masr]

Reviews | J.L. Bell reviews Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes, 1936-1941, which takes a look at the dead branches on the evolutionary tree of comics, superheroes who for one reason or another didn’t make it. [Oz and Ends]

Analysis | Daniel BT looks at cases where artists have reused the same scene in different panels, not cut-and-pasted but completely redrawn. [Sunday Comics Debt]

Events | Montpelier, Vermont’s City Hall will host a 24-Hour Comics Day event Oct. 1. [Times Argus]

Conventions | Perhaps as a result of the March earthquake, attendance at this year’s summer Comic Market (Comiket) was down by 20,000 compared to last year. [Anime News Network]

Fandom | “Whoever knows fear burns at the touch of …  hey, get off my lawn!” [Eye on Comics]

In case you missed it in the rush of SDCC news, Dark Horse is now releasing Star Wars comics on its digital app, and they are posting Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #1 and Star Wars: The Clone Wars #1 for free to celebrate.

New free comics on comiXology include (links are to the comics on their web reader): Batman: Gotham Knights #1, Impulse #1, Robin #1, Titanium Rain #1, and a bunch of previews. And there’s the third chapter of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes prequel from BOOM! Studios—the whole thing is free, so you might as well go back and get the earlier chapters as well.

Free comics on Graphicly include Carpe Chaos: Rising Up #1, The Devil Died Different #1, and a preview of Eye Witness, which “combines a Biblical adaptation, with a modern day action-thriller.”

Here’s another SDCC announcement you might have missed: Square Enix, publisher of such fine manga as Black Butler, Fullmetal Alchemist, Higurashi When They Cry, and Soul Eater, is offering one free volume 1 through August 10. The details are here.

If you’re in the mood for some Deep Thoughts, Wiley is offering the book Superheroes: The Best of Philosophy and Pop Culture as a free e-book on a number of different platforms, including iTunes, Nook, and Kindle.

Finally, here are a couple of SDCC manga deals that will be running out soon: Viz is taking 40% off its volume 1s to celebrate the rollout of its web app, and Yen Press is offering volume 1s of its manga, including Yotsuba&!, Maximum Ride, and Highschool of the Dead, on its iOS apps for $2.99

Chris Evans, star of Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger, appeared last night on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman to deliver the list of “Top Ten Things Never Before Said by a Superhero.” I won’t ruin it for you, but I will say that Aquaman still can’t get any love, even with the impending DC relaunch.

Captain America: The First Avenger opens July 22 nationwide.

Darwyn Cooke's superheroes with personalities

The latest round of conversation about women in comics was sparked by Adam P. Knave’s piece bemoaning the lack of women creators in the comics field (which he defines as monthly comics, obviously dominated by superheroes). Adam believes the root cause is that superhero comics have made themselves unattractive to women by portraying women solely as sex objects or targets of abuse. This led Heidi MacDonald to point out that there are plenty of women in the rest of comics, just not at DC and Marvel. And they are doing quite well, too.

Danielle Corsetto, for example. The Girls with Slingshots creator was interviewed by Carl Watkins of Guerilla Geek, and he asked her if she thought it was easier for women to break into webcomics than “traditional” comics. Her answer is revealing:

Yes, although I think it has more to do with the genre than the medium. Most comic books are aimed at boys, are serious, and have a focus on superpowers. Most popular webcomics are character-driven and have to do with the characters’ lifestyles, or observations about science or philosophy, and almost all of them could be clumped into the broad category of “humor.” While I know plenty of women who genuinely love to read about superheroes, I think that, generally, most women prefer to read (and write) about how characters interact with one another, and not how they’re gonna pulverize each other.

So perhaps it’s not just the terrible portrayals of women but also the type of story that’s being told? Saying “women like this, men like that” is a sure way to get yourself called an idiot on the Internet, and certainly there are plenty of women superhero fans, but I can see her point. There’s a coldness to superhero comics that I find off-putting, and they often bore me in the same way battle-action manga do. That sounds like a value judgment, but it isn’t: The people who read Twilight and Vampire Knight are mostly female, so it cuts both ways.

On the other hand, perhaps if more women were writing superhero comics, there would be more superhero comics that women would want to read.

In her latest column at comiXology, Shaenon Garrity has two suggestions for getting more women into the field: Start interviewing women for jobs (she invokes something called the Rooney Rule here) and hire editors — just one editor, really — who will encourage women. Her exhibit A is shoujo manga, and it’s an example that American comics publishers would do well to study:

You know why, over in Japan, there are so many women drawing manga? Because in the 1970s, an editor named Junya Yamamoto decided that his girls’ manga might sell better if they were drawn by young women rather than middle-aged men, so he hired a bunch of young female artists. Okay, that wasn’t the only reason women took over shojo manga. The other reason was that these women were all totally awesome at drawing manga. But if Yamamoto hadn’t been there to scoop up their work, they probably would have drawn less, or focused on the small-press world rather than the big publishers, or given up on comics. Instead, the manga industry got amazing artists like Moto Hagio, Keiko Takemiya, Riyoko Ikeda, and Yasuko Aoike.

Those artists revolutionized the field. Suppose the big publishers were to hire women who write and draw superhero comics that, while true to the genre, have more female appeal: More conversations, less punching, fewer dead-eyed females and brokeback poses. Throw in more accessible art and less complicated continuity (something like Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier), and you could still make some nice solid comics that would appeal to readers like Danielle. Going back to Japan for a minute, a substantial portion of the readers of shonen manga are female, and I think that’s because shonen manga is usually more than just battles — they also flesh out their characters with relationships and personalities. The publishers know this, and they have tweaked the books a bit to make them more attractive to girls.

Why would American publishers do this? To avoid leaving money on the table. As Heidi ably pointed out, there are lots of women making comics, and they are doing pretty well (the top-selling graphic novels last year were The Dork Diaries and Twilight, both by women). Comics sales surged in the early 2000s because someone (manga publishers) finally started making comics for girls, and the girls loved them.

Recently a bunch of women creators, many of them already successful, have been drawing their own powerful female superheroes (check out Carly Monardo’s Tumblr for a good selection, and here’s Kate Beaton’s take, which has already been linked all over the Internet, including here). Like all important movements, they have their own Twitter hashtag. But these are standalone drawings and fanart, not complete stories, and they are really just critiquing one aspect of superhero comics. Developing a full suite of characters, a universe, and a story takes time, and without publishers making an investment, it’s not likely to happen. Marketing to customers who have been turned off by the product in a big way is also a challenge, as Adam points out. But the customers are out there, and the creators are working hard to satisfy them; the question isn’t whether women will make and read comics any more, it’s whether the Big Two will be left behind.

(Image source: Comicbookbrain.com)