How to use this Page

The Bride of Frankenstein was a monster, but she had her cute 'n' sassy side.

--chickpea

§ Johanna looks at Voices of Love, a “passionate” josei titles from Luv Luv Press, an imprint of Aurora Publishing

This volume contains five love stories that don’t shy away from nudity and sex scenes. (That explains the Mature 18+ rating.) When I first read them, I thought, “This is just what I’ve been looking for: yaoi, only girl/boy.” Then I realized just what that said about how my brain has been warped by manga expectations. These stories are yaoi-like in that the boys are slender and attractive, but they’re more like Harlequin romance novels in their wish fulfillment of finding rescuing love.

§ Beth Davies-Stofka interviews Craig Yoeon his Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings book :

Well, these nudes were certainly a fun rebellious release for the ink-slingers but, sure, many cartoonists got involved in other “after hours” subjects. For instance Chuck Jones (who’s in the book), visited my home when he did art for my book The Art of Barbie. He was surprised and delighted that I pulled out old copies of a square dancing magazine that he did wonderful illustrations for. He and his first wife were really into square dancing and I’m sure he did the illustrations more for love than money. Though isn’t dancing a vertical expression of a horizontal desire?

§ Marvel Studios has named former Sony Pictures executive Geoffrey Ammer as president of worldwide marketing.

§ Roling Stone liked the Brub’s Captain America

§ Veteran Wizard watchers will find a line or two amusing in this profile of ROBOT CHICKEN creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich

“It’s all the jokes you talk about with your friends,” Senreich confirms. “We have a group of people with the same sensibility who sit around the table talking about what we think is funny.” They have a team of 80, scripting, sculpting and minutely manipulating, filming and adapting 120 new toys a week for the rigorous demands of stop-motion animation. After 62 12-minute episodes, they’re preparing to write season four. “It’s light-hearted,” says Green, “but every joke is made with love. There is a degree of reverence (for the characters). There’s never anything mean-spirited, it’s just sort of silly. I think that’s our success: not being mean.”

§ Congrats to the awesome Brigid Alverson on MangaBlog’s third anniversary.

§ Alert Michael Chabon! This pizza delivery outfit dresses up as superheroes:

Each new employee develops an alter ego - there’s Captain Awesome, Captain Organic, Flying Squirrel, General Statement, Italian Scallion, Merman, Pink Thunder, and Weather Man - and then designs a costume that Bonahoom has custom-made by a local seamstress.

§ Chris Mautner interviews Alison Bechdel:

It’s a little disturbing to be institutionalized. But of course I’m immensely grateful for it. I think of people being forced to read my work and I don’t like that. I just got an email from a kid — I have to read this to you: “I just read Fun Home in an English class Intro to the graphic novel. Initially I thought it would be an angry story about the struggles that a homosexual American faces, but I’ve got to say that I was wrong and I really enjoyed it.” That’s pretty touching, but I do feel that it’s getting shoved down some people’s throats. That’s a little disturbing.

§ You will feel you were at S.P.A.C.E. after you read huck Moore’s report at Comic Related. [h/t Blog@]

§ The comics loving New York Times gets even more comics-crazy with a piece on the new issue of BUFFY, which would have a been a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE if it had been on TV.

§ ICV2 begins a run down on the comics and-or licensing themed movies opening this summer.

§ This Chris Butcher post looks at the economics of giving things away for free on the net .It also includes anecdotes from Neil Gaiman that back up the fact that indie book store owners are often as “eccentric” as comics shop owners.

§ Ongoing message board discussion of how to spruce up Zuda, DC’s webcomics site.

§ Tom Spurgeon looks back at 25 big stories of 2007

§ David Paggi and Kiel Phegley how have a blog called Indie Jones at the Wizard Website.

§ Brian Hibbs wanders around his store for 31 days and along the way hopes to list “31 classic graphic novels.” First up: Alan Moore’s SWAMP THING.

§ Another Zuda profile! This one spotlights Jeremy Love of Bayou fame:

“I was just trying to come up with a story that compelled me, that I always wanted to read,” Love says. “I’ve always found something haunting about the South. Every time I’d go back and visit, it just seemed like there was something underneath the surface that was intangible. I really wanted to explore that and give the South and American culture a fantasy epic similar to ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ I wanted to give us something that tapped into our folklore.”

§ Manga museums now a popular destination for foreign tourists in Japan:

Foreign visitors have always flocked to old tourist spots in Japan, such as Kyoto, the Sapporo Snow Festival, hot-springs baths and Mount Fuji. But these days, they’re also checking out new offbeat ways to experience Japan, such as ninja classes, a geeky pop culture in Tokyo’s Akihabara gadget district and animation museums displaying manga, or Japanese-style cartoons. And they’re coming in record numbers — many of them from elsewhere in Asia. Last year, an all-time high 8.34 million foreign tourists visited Japan, up 14 percent from the previous year.

§ Is Djimon Hounsou going to play the Black Panther? At a junket he says he signed for a dream comics character but doesn’t say who. Publicity ploy or…

§ Is Cleveland Brown set to be the star of a FAMILY GUY spin-off?

§ Mr. Skin interviews Joe Matt

Do you have any groupies that want to have sex with you just to see how you’ll draw them in a comic?

Whenever I deal with fans some other part of me turns off. I just go into this mode where I’m trying to be gregarious and friendly. I’m very uncomfortable with the whole interaction between men and women. I really feel that if there’s anyone out there for me it’s going to be really hard to find her. I have my eyes open, but I don’t have any hope. The last girl I pursued was an autobiographical cartoonist. I thought she’d be perfect. She does exactly what I do. I thought it’d work out because we both have a shared occupation. It was disastrous. I made assumptions she’d be just like me and she wasn’t. I’ll probably write about that in my next book.

Technorati Tags: Jeremy Love, Joe Matt, Jeremy Love, Wimpy Kid

§ Johnny Bacardi presents an entire Warren story by Archie Goodwin and Steve Ditko.

§ We had previously blanked on this fine report by Mike Cavallaro on life at the Deep Six Studio:

The studio makes falling off somewhat difficult. Checking your email is likely to produce a sarcastic, “how’s that page comin’?” from across the room. Obsessively over-noodling will cause a roomful of verbal whips to crack. For as much goofing around that goes on there, you’re still more likely to get work done than you are to doze off (Dean’s music insures against the latter, anyway).

§ Tim Broderick tries to categorize comics in a more useful way than the whole indie/mainstream/superhero thing we’ve been going on about for days.

Here’s what I mean. You, as a comics creator, are an independent agent. You need to approach all this as a business and you need to protect your own interests. You also need to figure out who your market is and the best way to get your work in front of those people.

Unless you choose the self-publishing route, that means you need a business partner in the form of a publisher of some sort. Forget superhero and art comics - I wish we would just get rid of those terms all together. Here’s the terms I use, and they’re not a label for me or my work. They describe who I might do business with

§ Our big-ass Dave Sim post drew many responses across the ‘net, of which perhaps the best were Leigh Walton, Tom Spurgeon and Valerie D’
Orazio. Val’s was actually a response here on the post, but we wanted to draw attention to it. Actually, thanks to everyone for the almost uniformly high-level discussion that took place here.

Webcomicker Rachel Nabors (Rachel the Great, Crow Princess) reports that she needs $25,000 worth of dental surgery and orthodontics. She’s a freelancer with no health insurance. But she does have a Paypal button.

§ Everyone is talking about Destination: Blog!

§ Author and comics scholar Dr. Kent Worcester gets the local paper treatment

§ Dan Vado is grumpy but also reveals a bunch of new projects from SLG in this panel report.

§ Oh no they ditn’t! Someone goes there and wonders if William Blake might have been a pioneer of the graphic novel:

There is also a corner of the exhibition devoted to pop culture tie-ins including an interview with Patti Smith, the chance to listen to four different versions of Jerusalem, and a clip of Gus Van Sant’s Last Days (2004) with its half-Blake, half-Kurt Cobain central figure. But could there also be something to say about the links between Blake’s experiments in integrating word and image and graphic novels or comic artwork?

§ Matt High runs down the Post-Modern Garfield, including Garfield without Garfield, which results in the dark night of the soul kind of stuff you see above.

§ Val runs down the ever-diminishing chances of ever seeing a Batwoman comic.

§ T Campbell is interviewed at COMIXTALK

§ Jog and Leigh Walton talk about Sam & Max: Surfin’ the Highway.

§ Matthias Wivel has the “Hitler cartoons” which were recently “discovered”.

And if you believe that, I have this nice bridge to sell you.

§ Christopher Priest returns with a prose back up in Boom’s GUNPLAY.

§ The Foo Fighters are suing Marvel, because Marvel used two of their songs in promos for the upcoming animated Wolverine and X-Men series without permission. That is a big no-no.

§ The Wall Street Journal reviews and excerpts Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front, the bio of the famed editorial cartoonist whose WWII cartoons captured the life of the common soldier.

§ Ben Katchor has written another musical

§ Vanity Fair hosts a cartoon by Peter Bagge and Dana Gould spotlighting the Oscars.

The above video features the kind of music Chris Ware like to work to, and some of Ware’s art.

Catch-up from all over :

§ “recently released, incredibly popular and critically acclaimed” — yep it’s the weekly Adrian Tomine interview!

“He’ll be presenting a slide show that confronts his critics who accused him of ‘hiding’ his racial identity behind his glasses.” Huh?

“Ha ha! It’s because for a long time when I used to draw autobiographical stories and I used to draw myself as a character, I’d draw myself with glasses that were just sort of opaque, empty and white”, he says. “There was a lot of silly conjecture that I was maybe trying to disguise my own features. So in the slide show I go through a history of that in cartooning, going all the way back to Robert Crumb and even Charles Schultz - when he drew this character Marcie she just had these opaque little round glasses. That’s just a starting point.”

§ Dick Hyacinth branches into interviews with Mark Andrew Smith and Paul Maybury of Aqua Leung:

MARK: I think readers will be taken by Aqua Leung and it’s got a wide range of emotion, moods, and tones throughout the work. It’s definitely an action adventure comic in every sense of the word. But also there’s a lot of our own personalities and humor that you can usually expect from us throughout the story. I think it’s okay to just do full on action and let loose. The style and the material is also something that’s very attractive. So I think it will defy all reader expectations in many ways but then satisfy them in many other ways.

§ Van Jensen yaks with Tony Millionaire at CBR:

What are some of your favorite strips collected in “The Maakies with the Wrinkled Knees?”

Where is that damn book? The thing that’s been happening lately… when I first started doing this shit, I was doing really depressing, nihilistic [things]– drinking just for killing yourself. Since my life’s gotten to be kind of deader, I’ve got a nice house with a garden, so my mind’s not as focused on blowing my brains out. It’s focused more on absurd humor. I sometimes feel that I’m losing it, that I’m not putting enough effort into it, but then I look back and say, wow, I’m improving. The more you do it… after a certain time, it starts to deteriorate. I’m always waiting for that to happen. You have to keep your eye on your work. I see plenty of cartoonists who peak and then got lazy and started drifting off.

§ The Daily Cross Hatch’s Brian Heater talks accidents wih Julia Wertz:

You got hit by a car? You weren’t lying in the street, were you?

No. I got knocked off the bike, but I didn’t get hurt. I just realized that if I’m going to be losing my health insurance in five months, it isn’t worth the five dollars an hour.

As someone who does autobiographical strips, are you thinking about how you might spin this into a book?

I don’t know. Everyone keeps saying, “It’s good material, right?” As if I’m going to stick with a shitty job because it’s good material. It’s not good material.

§ Finally, Andy Khouri at CBR talks to Boom! Studios’ Chip Mosher about their very controversial North Wind MySpace promotion. According to Mosher, despite some retailers crying foul and pledging never to order a Boom Studios comics again, the unthinkable happened, and orders went up for issue #4:

“We did see a bump [in sales for ‘North Wind’ #4],” Chip Mosher told CBR News. “But let me put this in perspective for you. We usually see a dip of 10% or more between issues #3 and #4 for any of our series. That said, we saw nearly a 20% increase in orders between issue #3 and #4 of ‘North Wind.’ An increase like this has never happened in the history of our company. Never. Bottom line - we are talking about a total 30% increase over the norm.”

As some comics readers may know, orders for issue #4 of a new title are generally submitted by direct market retailers a short time after issue #1 of said series goes on sale. As such, “North Wind” #2 and #3 were ordered before the MySpace promotion was announced and before issue #1 was delivered to stores. The 30% increase reflects the initial orders for “North Wind” #4, not readjustments.

§ The Eagle Awards Nominations are online, although a technical glitch means that your vote may not be counted. Welcome, Florida!

§ The Daily Cross Hatch is one year old. Belated congrats to Brian Heater and his whole great staff.

§ Steve Bissette has posted the Dave McKean cover to Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman a book on you-know-who by Bissette, Chris Golden and Hank Wagner.

§ While we were out of town, the Staying in San Diego blog addressed what went wrong on Hoteloween :

We should point out that Travel Planners made significant upgrades and improvements to their system after 2007, both online and in their phone system. Comic-Con thought that the upgrade would be sufficient. Clearly, this was not the case.

Travel Planners told us that in the first five seconds of the site going live on Wednesday, they experienced three times the number of people requesting rooms as they had last year.

Also in the first five seconds, the site had the same number of people requesting a room as there were rooms available. So, while we were prepared for more people, we were not prepared for three times as many people and were certainly not prepared for as many people to call/log on as there were rooms available.

§ io9 asks Is Sky Doll Too Hot For America? Apparently the French BD approach to the story of a doll designed to serve the “state’s needs” is just as sexy as you’d imagine a French comic about a pleasure bot to be. What will Marvel do?

§ Peter David has started a crusade to make sure New York gets its due in international Monopoly sets:

While attending Toyfair, I found out that Hasbro is putting together an international version of Monopoly, and instead of street names on the board, there will be city names. The color coding remains the same: The most valuable real estate will be on blue spots, for instance (normally occupied by Broadway and Park Place), and then green, yellow and so on. There is currently a vote going on that is open to anyone in the world with a computer, and you can vote once a day for up to ten cities. The top vote getters will be on Broadway and Park Place, and the rest will be apportioned to the remainder of the real estate.

Now how, you may ask, is the United States faring in this international voting? The answer: Miserably.

§ Those who were around in comics in the 80s will recognize a familiar name from this story of online suicide cults.

§ Cult movie fans will enjoy this interview with Alex Cox about the now-a-graphic-novel sequel to ‘Repo Man, above.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was the genesis of Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday?
ALEX COX: In ‘94-’95, I wrote it as a film script and gave it to Peter McCarthy, who was one of the original producers of Repo Man. And he showed it to Jonathan Wacks, who was the other original producer, and they said, ‘’Let’s take it to [ex-Monkee and Repo Man executive producer] Michael Nesmith and have him present it to Universal officially.'’ We all came down for the meeting at Universal, and the executive that we had been delegated to meet was, like, 21 years old and had never seen the original Repo Man. [Laughs] And so it was an absurd meeting of these four old men and this sprightly individual who just didn’t know what we were doing in his office. Nothing came of it. Then we thought, Well, we’ll try to make it independently. So Peter really did try and raise the money in the independent sphere by attaching cast and that kind of thing.

§ Mark Evanier gets his first copy of his Kirby book:

Anyway, the book finally exists and I’ll play humble here and not tell you how proud I am of it. I wish I’d had more pages because Jack is such a vast and important subject, and I know I’ve already angered a few folks by telling them that their favorite Kirby creation got either short shrift or no shrift at all. A much longer, detailed biography of the man will follow in a couple of years and will probably err in the other direction, telling you more than you want to know.

§ At Publishers Weekly, Calvin Reid covers religious publisher Thomas Nelcon’s plans to out out 20 graphic novels over the next two years:

Thomas Nelson is making a serious commitment to the graphic novel category with plans to publish adaptations of the prose novels of bestselling author Ted Dekker as well as a variety of manga-styled series aimed at teens, especially girls. While some of these graphic novels reflect the publisher’s religious mission, most of the new works do not have overt religious content and are aimed at the growing secular book market for graphic novels.

Technorati Tags: David Cronenberg, puppy, puppy, puppy, Thomas Nelson

§ Laurel Maury reviewed the final issue of Y THE LAST MAN for the Los Angeles Times. It’s the first time the paper has ever reviewed a single issue of a comic.

§ Mat Johnson and his INCOGNEGRO graphic novel are the subjects of a nice wire story:

But the roots of “Incognegro” also lie in Johnson’s own childhood. Johnson, who is of Irish and black descent, grew up in a predominately black neighborhood in Philadelphia at the height of the black power movement. As a black boy who looked white, he and his cousin would fantasize about going undercover, or “incognegro,” as race spies in a war against white supremacy.

The plot of “Incognegro” came together with the birth of Johnson’s twins two years ago - one with pale skin and red hair, the other with darker skin and black Afro hair.

“Then I just got the idea for dealing with two twins, who in part because of their appearance have led dramatically different lives,” Johnson said. “And that’s when it just started building from there.”

§ We don’t recall seeing secretary-turned-stripper-turned-screenwriting sensation Diablo Cody being signed up to write comics books yet but it would seem to be inevitable.

“I was reared on Marvel comics, so I’ve always been obsessed with writing a comicbook movie with a decidedly girlie bent. I would have to develop some chops at writing action sequences, but it would be a passion project.”

Then there’s the horror movie she wants to direct, having already written one set to go before the cameras after the strike. But when it comes to horror, “I’ve got a few more in me,” she says.

§ Image gallery for the Y: The Last Party auction. Left, Cameron Stewart.

§ San Diego’s David Glanzer talks to ICv2 about WonderCon, and San Diego.

§ Josh Neufeld promotes AD on the Huffington Post

§ Colleen Doran recalls the ups and downs of the Self-publishing era:

Contrast the solitary, long hours we spent drawing comics in our homes and studios with the swarms of attention and loud parties of the convention scene - I’m surprised we didn’t all end up in the loony bin. We lived like rock stars on the road, and then went back home and, in my case, slept in my only real piece of furniture - a chair. People assumed we were all filthy rich, and while there was money coming in, it went out just as fast, reinvested into new books, inventory, and promotion.

§ A new comics shop is to open in hipster heaven Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

§ Junior comics editor is born.

§ Editors will queue up to work on this book:

Jaime King says she’s a little obsessed with comic books. The 28-year-old actress, who starred in the 2005 film version of the graphic novel “Sin City,” says she’s writing one with Kimberly Cox, girlfriend of “Sin City” writer Frank Miller. “It’s a take on various fairy tales,” said King, who attended the Badgley Mischka and Monique Lhuillier shows at New York Fashion Week. When she was growing up in Omaha, Neb., King said, she could often be found in the library poring over comics — “Calvin and Hobbes” was a particular favorite. “I just find it such a great medium because you can take a character and then spin it off into its own series or whatever. And it helps that my husband is completely obsessed with them,” she said, referring to “Fanboys” director Kyle Newman.

§ Neil Gaiman’s fashion sense analyzed in watch magazine.

§ Headline of the day: Corrections officer also a cartoonist

§ Paul Gravett’s Angoulême photos. [Via Forbidden Planet]

§ Tom Brevoort presents the Golden Loeb Award winners.

§ Dutch comics coloring analysed (Thanks JP!)

§ The First Second Spring 08 catalog is up. Left, DRAWING WORDS & WRITING PICTURES Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond by JESSICA ABEL & MATT MADDEN.

§ Librarian/conference-goer Karen Green discovers that the American Philological Association has discovered the graphic novels:

At the APA, I discovered that one of the things people are working on is comics. There was an entire panel devoted to comics, and the response to the organizers’ call for papers was so overwhelming that they’re planning a book. George Kovacs of the University of Toronto and Professor C.W. “Toph” Marshall of the University of British Columbia collaborated on this panel with the APA Outreach Committee, whose goal is to bring in attendees from outside the classicists’ world. Marshall, himself one of the panelists, is a scholar of ancient Greek performance and stagecraft, who studies how an audience approaches a text.

§ Another short stint on a comic as Sean McKeever leaves BIRDS OF PREY.

§ The Onion presents a surprisingly wide list of 20 pop-cultural obsessions even geekier than Monty Python. Stalwarts such as Rocky Horror and Star Trek are joined by fantasy sports leagues!

§ In Germany, a comic by Dutch cartoonist Eric Heuvel will be distributed to school kids to teach them about the Holocaust.

§ Maggie Thompson remembers Gus Arriola with a bibliography.

§ Anthony Lappe teases a SHOOTING WAR tv show?

§ Just what the world needs, a Venom movie.

§ Newly declassified papers show that in the twilight of his term, Winston Churchill’s government fretted about the dangers of horror comics. How close did we come to Winston Wertham?

§ Y assault continues unabated: CBR visits Pia Guerra’s studio. Zack Smith interviews Guerra. BKV in WSJ.. LA City Beat has a story on the Y The Last Party benefit for the CBLDF. Whew.

§ In other major media comics news, the AP story on the New Cap hits everywhere.

§ Neil Kleid points out that this year’s New York Comic-COn takes place over Passover, and he isn’t happy. [Thanks, Lea.]

§ The PLAIN Janes by Castellucci and Rugg has won a spot on the 2008 Amelia Bloomer List of recommended feminist books for young readers.

§ David Chelsea writes to alert us that his 9th 24 Hour Comic has been posted online:

l have finally stuck a toe into the 21st Century by posting a comic online myself….There are still a few glitches- l think the slideshow plays backwards- but if all works well I may post some other unpublished comics to the site. If anyone’s counting, this is my ninth 24 Hour Comic- a World Record until someone tells me different.

§ If you are a friend of Bob Greenberger, you will probably want to read this.
§ Warners reacts to Heath Ledger’s death.

§ What WILL Matt Maxwell do? One very small self publisher ponders the realiies of today’s market.

Let’s be real. I’m a new publisher, with a first book and not a ton of advertising behind it in the DM. I am actually paying to have an insert put into all Diamond account invoices this week to advertise the book. Yes, you can do that. It’s pretty reasonably priced. My account rep at Diamond was able to secure a “Spotlight On” box for the PREVIEWS that S:MM solicited in (the current issue, check page 299). I’m getting the word out as best I can through my vast network of bloggers, etc. I’ve done some things to raise visibility, and I’ve passed on others (no PREVIEWS ad – it seemed like a lot of money for real estate in part of the magazine that a lot of retailers never get to)

We’re like, wayyyyy behind in our email linkage, so if we haven’t got to your link yet, we’re sorry. Please keep sending us tips and links. We obviously need all the help we can get. Plus. it’s like super cold and the heat isn’t reaching this part of the manor.

§ Arnold Fenner writes to tell us that the deadline for submissions to Spectrum #15 is this Friday, January 25th. Spectrum is an annual collection of the vest in fantasy cover illustration, concept art and comics.

We generally don’t get anywhere near the comics entries that we could or should (and get plenty of things that we shouldn’t). The Society of Illustrators has a “Sequential” category, but that includes art for children’s books and multiple editorial illustrations along with comics, so Spectrum is still the only annual with a purely “Comics” category.

Many people, Welborn said, still think the entire comics medium is a single genre - “men in tights.” But Hub Comics, which he hopes to open this weekend, will stock “lots of really interesting stuff that shows people there’s more of an art form there than you might expect.”

§ Brad Bird on an NPR quiz show. Talking about Dennis Kucinich. AND he answers the Ayn Rand question about THE INCREDIBLES!

§ One last kids comics are a teaching tool link, as Francoise Mouly was on the Brian Lehrer show on NPR yesterday talking about that very topic.

More links:
You have subscribed to Torchbearers, right?

Valerie D’Orazio interviews Martha Thomases on the Friends of Lulu blog about her history in comics, Dakota North, ComicsMix and so on:

It was harder to be taken seriously as someone who knew comics. I remember during my first year, when I insisted that Clark Kent getting engaged to Lois Lane was a bigger story than a new costume for Robin (both stories were being released on the same day), everyone dismissed my opinion because a new costume was so much more collectible.

§ Speaking of Val, she discusses the revelation that naked Wonder Woman Tiffany Fallon is actually a big fan of the character.

As women, do we want to point a finger and say that a certain woman can’t play a superheroine because she’s “bad” for having posed nude? Are we doing this because as women we feel that she has betrayed us, that she has contributed to a perceived degradation of our gender? How much of it comes from a Judeo-Christian “nudity is sinful” perspective? If as women we operate from the “sexuality is bad” perspective, are we unwittingly buying in to a mentality where the “sinful nudity” parts are intertwined with “women are essentially sinful” parts?

§ Greg Burgas’s Best of ‘07 list.

§ At CBR, George Khoury summarizes the history of comics in the direct sales era. Clip and save!

“Nobody was happy about that, I guess,” Steve Geppi recalled about the Marvel/Heroes World era, “Especially the way it was communicated, or it wasn’t communicated. We found out kind of covertly. But that said, you could argue that in my particular case, although I would have not planned on it, it worked out, because their mistake led to a lot of other things happening that led to our position today… they had no capability. With due respect to Ivan Snyder (head of Heroes World), who was a friend of mine, there was a double mistake that Marvel made. Number one, if they were going to buy a distributor, they bought the wrong one. Mainly because, no disrespect to Ivan, he was a very good, small, regional distributor, but the capabilities you need to do it nationally, they didn’t have that infrastructure. And then secondly, when they announced they were only going to carry their own product and nobody else’s, it was a mistake, because even all of Marvel’s volume isn’t enough to justify a nationwide distributor.”

§ Also at CBR, Todd Allen looks at libraries, and branding and pokes around in more of Platinum’s public filings.

§ Pittsburgh Live profiles artist Ed Piskor
“I just sort of like the Robin Hood aspect of it,” Piskor says. “Living in my head all the time, I develop a romantic vision of things. I’m sure it’s not exactly the way it really is. But I see these guys as evening the scale when it comes to treating people like consumers. These guys can see what’s behind the crap. It’s a prankster-ish kind of thing that I find appealing, because I have no respect for authority in a lot of ways.”

§ Across the ocean, Malaysian artist Milx profiled.

§ Race and printing in PEANUTS

§ Ouch! Dan Nadel lays the smack down on Shooting War.

§ Area artists spotlighted:

Tony Harris stood outside the room in the Museum of Arts and Sciences where his work as a comic book artist was being set up for display.

He wanted to describe what it means to have an exhibition called “The Art of Macon Comics,” featuring his work and that of fellow local artists Craig Hamilton and Ray Snyder, but the right word escaped him.

Finally, he found the right word.

“Validation!” he said. “That’s the word I was looking for.”

§ Old Man Musings on Stan Lee art opening:

Stan Lee arrived at 6:30 pm to get a glimpse of all the artwork and meet many of the artists. (If you ever meet him, you’d notice that he’s really down to earth.) When making his way around the gallery he’d look at each piece with a big smile and give a big thanks to the artist, if they were there. We’d never been in that close of proximity to him before, as we were last night. He’s a really good guy and very appreciative to all his fans. He really enjoyed chatting and discussing the artwork so much that he had a hard time making it through the whole gallery before the doors were to open.

§
Platinum Studios has officially gone public
Steven Grant looks at 2008 for Marvel and DC:

It might be a make or break year for both Marvel and DC; lately they’ve both taken to dumping their eggs into shaky baskets. Given that both, especially Marvel, have been riding a wave of steady sales increases it would seem both are now more secure than they’ve been for many years, but 2008 may be a make or break year for both of them, and for the DC universe in particular.

§ Candy Helm’s Deep

§ This is very funny. So is the above photo.

We had actually had an even LONGER list of links here, but accidentally deleted half of it so…well…it wasn’t meant to be.

§ The LA TImes on the end of the Marvel/Universal character pact:

Universal’s contract with Marvel expired at the end of 2007, meaning the superhero characters will no longer pose for photos with visitors or appear on T-shirts and other souvenirs sold inside the movie theme park. In recent months, Universal added Simpsons and Scooby-Doo walk-around characters in anticipation of Spidey’s ignoble departure.

§ You will hardly need to read Kirby: King of Comics after Peter Sanderson’s exhaustive review of the book — he’s only up to part 2!!!

This week I pick up Kirby’s story in the year 1938, when he entered the comic book business by going to work for the studio jointly run by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger. As Evanier explains, earlier in the 1930s comic books had consisted of reprints of newspaper comic strips. “No one had yet really thought how to design a comic book page in any way other than to replicate the reconfigured newspaper reprints,” comments Evanier. “But then, Jack Kirby hadn’t started drawing comic books yet” (Evanier, Kirby: King of Comics, p. 40).

§ Johnny Bacardi really pulled a Ric Flair on us, didn’t he?

§ Ian Brill is back:

I think it’s sad that she’s letting these idiotic phenomena make her feel bad. Perhaps she shouldn’t have faith in youth culture in the first place, calling MTV “my generation’s salvation.” When Pastorek was my age, circa 1999, the network couldn’t get enough of Limp Bizkit and Korn. Some salvation. She’s taking all this trash far too seriously, more seriously than those thriving on it. When it comes to reality TV and viral videos most people know how bad it is. The fans of such shit just use it as a chance to gain an empty sense of superiority by seeing the worst modern America has to offer and saying to themselves “better him than me.” It’s to Pastorek’s credit that she does not succumb to such a sentiment although I wonder how much better this alternative is.

§ Steve Bissette has a lengthy - and that can be mighty lengthy– review of various versions of TWIN PEAKS

Die-hard Peaks fan that I am (through two marriages, and both wives are fans, too!), I’ve bought ‘em all along the line: the meager and infuriating vhs releases (see below), the glorious and crystal-clear laserdisc boxed sets, and the 21st Century DVD releases. This isn’t out of the bent collector’s genetic makeup I no doubt harbor, but from a craving to relive the series as it was originally experienced — and better, given the superior sound and image quality of the disc format(s). Coincidentally, not knowing of the impending Definitive Gold Box Edition release, Marge and I savored a complete home retrospective this summer and early fall via the previous DVD editions — cited below, broadcast pilot included — but this new release trumps ‘em all.

§ –Brenner lists The Best Manga of All Time!!!!

§ Apparently, John Ridley is the screenwriter who is leaving the WGA to go it alone. But what about his graphic novels?

§ LOST GIRLS is now available in the UK and the Scotsman reports on a new round of controversy:

Sandra Affleck, a historian who leads Barrie themed tours in his hometown of Kirriemuir, was appalled by the idea of a pornographic Peter Pan.

She said: “This book sounds horrific. It is the complete antithesis of what Barrie thought and put on paper.

“Barrie’s work is all about the magic of childhood and this new book is a pollution of that.

“I would support any measures which would stop it appearing on shelves.”

§Mike Carey’s Best of 2007 list, at Forbidden Planet

§ Deb Aoki’s best of the year’s manga and looks ahead to 2008’s most eagerly awaited manga.

§ Gilbert A. Bouchard at the Edmonton Journal interviews Joe Sacco and charts the history of non-fiction and war comics.

§ Daniel Clowes is interviewed at the Onion

AVC: How does the serial format change how you can tell the story?

DC: You have to keep it simple, so if a reader misses a couple installments, they can still follow along. I can’t tell if that’s happening. It’s hard to tell if anyone’s interested in reading a serialized story. But it’s interesting to put in a cliffhanger each week. That was popular in old comic strips. They’d write a weekend story different from the daily strip. So people follow one story day to day, and a separate story on weekends. If you read them, you think “I’ll read two more.” Then you’re like “I gotta find out!” And you read 500 more.

§ 10 Zen Monkeys interviews Nick Guwewitch and reveals more of the hit sales figures for the PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP collection:

25-year-old cartoonist Nicholas Gurewitch watched as the pre-order sales climbed past $300,000 for The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories. Close to 27,000 copies were sold even before the collection of comic strips had its official release in November and crashed into Amazon’s top 250. “It bounces off and on Amazon’s best-seller lists all the time,” Gurewitch told me, jokingly searching for an explanation. “Nifty cover? I’m not sure.”

In December the cartoonist’s site warned that only 3,000 copies remained, and now copies are “in short supply,” Nick says. (The book’s first printing had some errors which required a second printing to fully meet the demand, and Gurewitch confirms that “We are indeed gearing up for a third printing.”)

§ It seems that 2007 is STILL winding up, as CBR looked at the big trends of last year including crossovers, and Andy Khouri sums things up:

We observed this Crossover Event trend last year, and I think the reason our observations of 2007 are so similar to those of 2006 is because most of the stories began last year really haven’t fucking ended yet.

“The Sinestro Corps War” - did Geoff Johns perfect the Crossover Event in 2007?
That’s pretty much all I have to say about the Crossover Event trend, except to add that the “Sinestro Corps War” situation is incredibly damning for the superhero publishers. Geoff Johns’ storyline achieved in just eleven issues of two existing titles a complete story, a staggeringly high level of reader satisfaction, anticipation for more, and, arguably, a genre-redefining level of creative achievement that “Civil War,” “World War Hulk,” “Countdown,” etc. have never come close to.

§ Savage Critic link #1: Why everyone loves Jog.

§ Laura Hudson has her mom review Best American Comics 2007:

“You gave me some pretty weird comics to read, Laura.

§ Believe it or not, someone at CBR is actually going in and counting all the adds and friends on various comics-related MySpace pages Is this actually a satire of some sort? Anyway here’s the Top Comics CReators on MySpace, as ranked by Friends:

TOP CREATORS (Total friends, monthly shift)
1. Tara McPherson: 26,613 (+2,126)
2. Warren Ellis: 19,844 (+413)
3. Jim Lee: 18,200 (+893)
4. Brian K. Vaughan: 16,207 (+227)
5. Roman Dirge: 14,759 (+191)
6. Brian Michael Bendis: 13,524 (+322)
7. Brad Meltzer: 10,820 (+202)
8. Steve Niles: 10,649 (+194)
9. Geoff Johns: 9,829 (+118)
10. Ed Brubaker: 8,582 (+160)

§ Another Savage Critic Link, as Brian Hibbs charts his best selling comics of 2007 from August to December.:

1 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 6
2 Dollar Book
3 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 7
4 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 8
5 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 9
6 ASTONISHING X-MEN 22
7 ALL STAR SUPERMAN 9
8 ASTONISHING X-MEN 23
9 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 5
10 Quarter Book - Single
11 Quarter Book - 10 for a Buck
12 WORLD WAR HULK 4
WORLD WAR HULK 3
14 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 12
15 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL 1
16 DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN 7
17 NEW AVENGERS 35
JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA 8
BRAVE AND THE BOLD 6
20 NEW AVENGERS 34

§ Steve Higgins best of 2007 list.

§ See The Beat spout off about 2007 at the Daily Cross Hatch!

There were more mountain peaks, but 2007 had a higher over all batting average, to wildly mix metaphors. There were more solid base hits up the middle in 2007.

§ Cory Doctorow is not as nerdy as you thought.

§