webcomics
R. Stevens takes a bold approach on Kickstarter
The Diesel Sweeties eBook-Stravaganza 3000 is a cut above the average Kickstarter campaign, both in the breadth of the project being considered and the originality of the prizes being offered.
The Kickstarter drive (which has already garnered over $10,000 worth of pledges, over three times its original goal) will pay for Stevens to compile a downloadable e-book of all his Diesel Sweeties strips. While the strip is a free webcomic, and Stevens has made smaller collected editions in a variety of formats, this would be a 3,000-page book that would include every strip; Stevens plans to correct typos and other errors, do some minor editing, and index them—in other words, this would be the definitive edition of Diesel Sweeties.
- February 9, 2012 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Digital comics market triples to $25 million
DC Comics app
Digital comics | ICv2 estimates the total value of the digital comics market in 2011 as $25 million, triple the 2010 figure, and boldly predicts that digital will account for 10 percent of the entire comics market in 2012. Digital sales grew faster in the second half of the year, which ICv2 attributes to three factors: DC’s decision to release its New 52 comics digitally the same day as print, the industry-wide trend toward same-day print and digital releases, and the proliferation of different platforms on which to read digital comics. As for digital taking away from print, the publishing executives ICv2 has spoken to over the past few months don’t seem to think that is happening. [ICv2]
Retailing | Retailer and journalist Matt Price takes the temperature at the ComicsPRO Annual Members Meeting, which kicks off today in Dallas, noting that members remain interested in DC’s publishing plans, and report “very strong sales” for Image’s Fatale and Thief of Thieves. [Nerdage]
- February 9, 2012 @ 07:15 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | James Sturm on why he’s boycotting The Avengers
Artwork by James Sturm
Creators | Market Day creator James Sturm explains he’ll be boycotting The Avengers movie because he believes Jack Kirby, co-creator of many of Marvel’s longest-lasting characters, “got a raw deal”: “What makes this situation especially hard to stomach is that Marvel’s media empire was built on the backs of characters whose defining trait as superheroes is the willingness to fight for what is right. It takes a lot of corporate moxie to put Thor and Captain America on the big screen and have them battle for honor and justice when behind the scenes the parent company acts like a cold-blooded supervillain. As Stan Lee famously wrote, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’” Tom Spurgeon notes the position seems to mark a shift for Sturm, who wrote the Eisner-winning 2003 miniseries Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules for Marvel. [Slate, The Comics Reporter]
- February 8, 2012 @ 07:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Is Amazon planning its own brick-and-mortar chain?
Amazon
Retailing | Rumors have begun to swirl that online retail giant Amazon plans to open a brick-and-mortar store in Seattle within the next few months to help gauge the profitability of a chain. The store reportedly won’t just sell e-readers and tablets, but also books from Amazon’s newly launched publishing division. [Good E-Reader, Gawker]
Publishing | Japanese publisher Shueisha Inc. released the 65th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s pirate manga One Piece last week with a first printing of 4 million copies, tying the record set in November by the previous volume. [The Mainichi Daily News]
Retailing | Howard Ackler writes about the final days of Dragon Lady Comics, the Toronto retailer that closed last week after 33 years in business. [National Post]
- February 7, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Direct market experiences best January since 2008
Justice League #5
Sales | Sales of comic books and graphic novels to comic books stores through Diamond Comic Distributors increased 27.5 percent in January compared to the same month in 2011. Comics were up 32 percent while graphic novels were up 18 percent compared to 2011. DC Comics dominated all 10 spots at the top of the chart, with Justice League #5 coming in at No. 1. Batman: Through the Looking Glass was the top graphic novel for the month. [ICv2]
Passings | British comics artist Mike White, who illustrated Alan Moore’s The Twisted Man and numerous other stories for 2000AD, Lion, Valiant, Action and Score ‘n’ Roar, has passed away after a long illness. [Blimey!]
Publishing | Because the world demanded it, apparently, Random House plans to publish e-books of all the collected editions of Garfield newspaper comics. [Down the Tubes]
- February 6, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Start Reading Now | King of RPGs webcomic
Gamers and global manga fans are already familiar with King of RPGs, a graphic novel about, well, RPGs, by Jason Thompson and Victor Hao. (Thompson is well known in the manga community as a former editor and the writer of Manga: The Complete Guide.)
Now they are taking a new tack, extending their story on the web via a King of RPGs webcomic. It’s a nice brand extension, as the webcomic looks like it will be accessible to readers who aren’t familiar with the books as well as those who are longtime fans. Thompson and Hao have added plenty of bonus content to the site, including the original story pitch, and they plan on updating the webcomic two or three times a week.
- February 3, 2012 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Now Read This | ‘Darkness’ by Boulet
from Darkness
This one has been making the rounds; I think I saw it first on Kate Beaton’s Tumblr, which I linked to earlier this week.
French cartoonist Boulet, who has worked on Dungeon with Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar, participated in a 24 Hour Comics event during the Angouleme Festival and came away with a delightful story called “Darkness,” which is kind of what it might be like to be roomies with Morpheus or Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance or the brooding elf from Dragon Age 2 or some other dark, mysterious, handsome stranger that can make the girls swoon just by the way he walks into the room. Boulet nails it perfectly and sticks the landing on a fun story.
- February 2, 2012 @ 04:03 PM by JK Parkin
Ryan Kelly teases a tasty new webcomic called Cocotte
Cocotte
Ryan Kelly, artist of Local and the upcoming Saucer Country, has posted a teaser on his blog for a new webcomic he’s doing with writer/chef Kat Vapid. Titled Cocotte, a word with a double meaning, Kelly describes it as a “frank, humorous, and often soul-crushing look into the world of cuisine and the professional kitchen environment, as well as a love letter to life in Minneapolis.” No word yet on when it launches, but we’ll keep you posted.
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- February 2, 2012 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Battlepug brings the cute side of darkness to Dark Horse
It was, gee, just about a year ago when we posted the news that Mike Norton was turning his Conan-meets-canine T-shirt design Battlepug into a webcomic. It’s been a great year for the comic, which uses the framing tale of a naked lady telling a bedtime story to her two dogs as a starting point for a hilariously imaginative tale of a warrior bent on revenge and his two traveling companions, a lunatic and a giant pug. It’s completely incongruous, but it also makes perfect sense, in a weird sort of way: Norton didn’t just throw together a couple of disparate elements, he integrated them into a real story, using the tropes of fantasy literature but pitting his hero against cute characters gone bad, including a giant baby seal, gophers who unite to form a mega-gopher, and an evil Santa figure. A parody would have worn thin pretty quickly; with Battlepug, you keep reading just to see what crazy creature Norton is going to come up with next.
And now it’s coming to print: Dark Horse announced yesterday that they are collecting the story into a print edition, with volume 1 due on July 4. That’s pretty much it for details, but as Norton says, “When I first made the Battlepug T-shirt, people kept asking when the comic was coming out. So, I put out the webcomic and now everybody wants to know when the book is coming out! I guess now people will want to know when the movie is happening?” Not soon enough, Mike. Not soon enough.
- February 2, 2012 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Batmobile covered by copyright; more on Archie feud
A Batmobile replica from Gotham Garage
Legal | A judge refused to dismiss DC Comics’ lawsuit against Gotham Garage, a manufacturer of custom-made Batmobiles, ruling that the design of Batman’s vehicle is indeed copyrightable. DC sued the California company in May for copyright and trademark infringement, claiming Gotham Garage is confusing the public into thinking the cars are authorized products. The manufacturer asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the U.S. Copyright Act affords no protection to “useful articles.” The judge disagreed, ruling that Gotham Garage “ignores the exception to the ‘useful article’ rule, which grants copyright protection to nonfunctional, artistic elements of an automobile design that can be physically or conceptually separated from the automobile.” [The Hollywood Reporter]
Legal | Nancy Hass provides a broad overview of the legal battle at Archie Comics that pits Co-CEOs Jon Goldwater and Nancy Silberkleit against each other for control of the 73-year-old company. Silberkleit, who spoke briefly to Hass before a New York judge issued a temporary restraining order last month, called claims that she’s threatened and harassed the publisher’s employees and vendors “completely untrue.” [The Daily Beast]
- February 2, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Quote of the day #2 | Kate Beaton on pursuing new opportunities
“This is a funny job. Webcomics are often cited as the future of comics and the internet and I don’t know what else, but the fact that no one has retired from them yet means that I, at least, rest a little uneasy in these shoes sometimes if only for the lack of having a dependable compass by which to steer the ship. I just want to make the best decisions I can, so that I will be around longer, making drawings and comics and writing and other things that I hope people will enjoy. I’m not sure what will work out with these opportunities that have come my way, and I guess I can’t really say much about them, but I think I’d be a fool if I didn’t give them a try. So I am going to! Whatever I can let you know, I will.”
-Hark! A Vagrant creator Kate Beaton, explaining how the success of her webcomic and the subsequent print collection has brought a lot of offers her way, “from children’s books to television work,” which she plans to pursue. Which is good news for her, but the bad news is it means she won’t be updating her site with new comics as frequently. She has started a Tumblr where she’ll post sketches and other stuff in the meantime.
- February 1, 2012 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Ross Campbell to post sixth Wet Moon online before October release
Wet Moon Vol. 6
Wet Moon creator Ross Campbell has been posting pages from the sixth volume of his series of graphic novels online for awhile now, which isn’t due out from Oni Press until October. However, the always busy artist, whose work can also be found in Extreme’s Glory revival, Shadoweyes and his Mountain Girl minicomics, announced that he will begin syndicating pages from the book on the web. He also plans to post “other Wet Moon-related stuff” on the blog, like “maybe in-progress drawings, process notes, stuff about volume 7, maybe some History of Wet Moon type stuff like the pre-comic origins of the series …” Look for pages to start appearing Feb. 4.
- February 1, 2012 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Thief steals all 64 volumes of One Piece
One Piece, Vol. 46
Crime | An energetic thief stole all 64 volumes of One Piece from a Japanese bookstore by stuffing 10 volumes at a time in his duffel bag. As One Piece is the most popular manga in Japan, he could have gotten a good price for his booty at a used manga store, had the forces of law not intervened. [Kotaku]
Legal | Michael Cavna talks with cartoonist Susie Cagle about being taken into custody again over the weekend during Occupy Oakland protests. [Comic Riffs]
Creators | Kiss member Gene Simmons still remembers the postcard he got from Stan Lee as a kid. [Noisecreep]
Comics | Jeff Parker and Erica Moen’s webcomic Bucko has reached its last panel, but Parker says a book is on the way, and there will be “exciting news” at Emerald City Comic Con. [Parkerspace]
- February 1, 2012 @ 07:10 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Neil Gaiman comments on end of Spawn dispute
Spawn #26
Legal | Neil Gaiman comments briefly on the settlement agreement that ends his decade-long legal dispute with Todd McFarlane over Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cogliostro, and a handful of derivative characters: “The main thing is, I feel like an awful lot of good things have come out of it. … I think the various decisions, particularly the [Judge] Posner decision, were huge in terms of what the nature of dual copyright in comics is. What is copyrightable in comics is now something that there is a definite legal precedent for. There were a lot of things that were … misty in copyright [law] that are now much clearer. And it’s of benefit to the creator.”
While the details of the settlement are confidential, it’s known that Gaiman and McFarlane now share ownership of Spawn #9 and #26, as well as the first three issues of an Angela spin-off series. [Comic Riffs]
- January 31, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
What Are You Reading? with Ao Meng
The Silence of Our Friends
Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? This week our special guest is Ao Meng, who writes about comics for the Daily Texan, the University of Texas newspaper, as well as Novi Magazine.
To see what Ao and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below …
- January 29, 2012 @ 01:44 PM by JK Parkin