How to use this Page

Tweet

§ Steve Bissette has begun writing a a history of WaP!, a pros-only newsletter from the 80s—spearheaded by Steven Grant and Frank Miller—that created quite a stir at the time. The history is tied up with much of the creator unrest of the era. The first chapter is much concerned with Dave Sim, Diamond and what would become Tundra Publishing, Kevin Eastman’s ambitious but disastrous publishing venture. Also mentioned, The Frying Pan, a pro APA that I was a member of during its run. Much of the history is convoluted and interconnected, but its definitely behind a lot of the thinking that went on among creators and self-publishers in an era when indie comics sold 30,000 copies with no sweat at all. It all reflects frustration with the comics industry’s inability to reach a wider audience and backsliding on creators rights that pretty much went into the hopper with the great crash of the 90s. Ancient history for many, but fascinating stuff.

§ New Yorker cartoonists Benjamin Schwartz and Liam Francis Walsh went to see the Harvey Kurtzman exhibit and made a comic about it.

§ Sean Kleefeld looks back on 2008, the year we “lost” Comic-Con.

§ Variety had a lengthy profile of new WB ceo Kevin Tsujihara which reveals he’s a nice guy who likes his family. Also what to do with the DC characters is a priority.

Among the priorities for the studio, which enjoys enviable market share in film and television, is finding fresh tentpole franchises now that the “Harry Potter” series has run its course; mining more content from the wealth of material in the DC Entertainment vault; and expanding WB’s activity in consumer products and international markets, in tandem with other Time Warner units, notably Turner Broadcasting.

§ You may have seen Peter Sanderson’s report on the Asbury Park Comicon’s panels, but here’s another excellent piece which surveys the cartoonists in attendance on the future of comics:

Artist Jay Lynch, an East Orange native, was part of the underground comics movement of the late 1960s. The irreverent, barrier-busting comics drawn by Lynch, Robert Crumb and others introduced sex, drugs and self-expression to the medium. Was it truly a movement? Or a bunch of unconnected artists who had the same idea at the same time? “Well,” Lynch said wryly, “I think it had to do with LSD.”

§ Don MacPhersonjumps into the digitla comics grey market:

I discovered a few months ago some folks sell these codes on eBay. The same is done by some people when it comes to digital copies of DVDs/Blu-Rays, so a similar development in the world of comics was a foreseeable development. The eBay practice isn’t something that seems to be curbed in any way, so I don’t know if it qualifies as a “grey market” for comics or not. There’s nothing overtly listed in the details outlined by Marvel that precludes the resale of the codes. The only real conditions mentioned on the page featuring the code are the following: “Digital copy requires purchase of a physical comic. Download code valid for one use only.” There’s no mention that the person who bought the comic is the only one who can use it, nor does Marvel state the code isn’t for resale.

§ Coming this summer, a debut novel called The Night Gwen Stacy Died by Sarah Bruni It’s described as “A debut novel and quirky love story about the adventures and mutual rescue of an Iowan girl and a mysterious stranger who begins to cast her in the image of Spider-Man’s first love.”

§ In case you missed David Brothers’ take on Alex Summers and “The M Word” here it is.

§ The Longbox Project aims to collect reminiscences of specific comics readers purchased as specific times in the past. I was going to say, whoo, I’ve had enugh of that, but the one I happened to click on mentioned Foodtown, and I was immediately swept back to the Foodtown in White House Station on Route 22 where I eagerly riffled through the shopworn racks in search of the new Master of Kung Fu. So yeah….Foodtown. Buying your comics in supermarkets. That was a time.

§ Scenes from a con:

A female fan asked why the DC 101 panel hadn’t highlighted any female-centric books and media. “Sometimes it feels like there’s a conspiracy like we don’t want any girls, but we actually love girls and would love girls to read the books, even the ‘Teen Wolf’ fans here,” Lobdell began, but was drowned out by shouts from an agitated group of “Teen Wolf” fans who had just enough of being mentioned by the writer. “If the point of this panel is to get new fans, why have you spent the entire panel alienating every single person waiting for the panel coming up?” a “Teen Wolf” fan in front yelled back at the two as the audience divided into boos and a smattering of applause. Cunningham and Lobdell both apologized for any hurt feelings for their “Teen Wolf” comments, telling the large “Teen Wolf” contingent it was not their intention to alienate them, though Lobdell was unable to resist jokingly ask the audience to show by raising their hands who felt alienated.

Tweet

We only had time to get partway through…

§ Ghostface Killah is doing one of those concept albums/comics/audios/thingamahoosits; it is called Twelve Reasons To Die.

This edition of the graphic novel was illustrated by Ronald Wimberly and written by Matthew Rosenberg and Patrick Kindlon, who say it was inspired by classic Spaghetti Western film scores. Those who’ve closely followed the audio narrative provided in “The Rise of the Ghostface Killah” and “The Sure Shot (Parts 1 and Part 2)” know it follows Tony Starks, who is a soldier for the 12 Delucas, a 1960s-era Italian crime family.

§ Jason Thompson presentA Quick and Dirty History of Manga in the US — the ending is a bit of a downer. =(

§ Speaking of manga, we haven’t been checking in as much as we should on the autopsies for Jmanga, the online manga portal that clsoed up over night, but here’s Lori Henderson’s take

So what went wrong? I know this will be discussed for the next few days and weeks. We will probably never know for sure considering how tight-lipped Japanese companies can be about failures. One thing we know for sure from a tweet from the @Jmanga_official account, is that they ran out of money. Some will say scanlations were the cause, I’ll agree with that, up to a point. I don’t think it was the scanlations that killed it, but that a lot of people probably didn’t know about the site in the first place. There have been plenty of examples of people asking publishers to license things that are already licensed, or that they have been publishing themselves! Awareness of ways to obtain legal manga still seems to be low. It’s not too surprising when a search on Google for a manga will result in the first page being almost all scanlation sites, and no sign of the legal publisher until the 2nd or even 3rd page in. Studies show most people won’t go past the first page, so this really hurts discovery of the publishers.

§ Grady Hendrix looks at the impact of MAd’s movie parodies, aka “It’s Mort Drucker’s world; we just laugh at it.”

Prior to the Seventies and the advent of Monty Python, Mel Brooks’s film send-ups, and the team of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, MAD were the only people parodying Hollywood sanctimony on a regular basis. Jack Clayton’s glossy version of The Great Gatsby might have been a profitable vehicle for Robert Redford, and it might have won two Academy Awards, but MAD saw right through it. Calling it The Great Gasbag, they lambasted its lacquered artificiality (“Gasbag thought of everything!” Nick Carrawayseed remarks at a supposedly wild party. “He even had the dancing choreographed!!”), bemoaned its monotony (“Why…? Why?!?” screams Nick after Myrtle is run over by a car. “Why didn’t they FILM the only scene with any action in this entire movie?!”), and revealed that Gatsby’s mysterious absences were due to the fact that Robert Redford is having secret meetings with his agent, begging to get out of the picture before it ruins his box-office clout.

§ Congoer experiences acute first world problems”

I have run into this problem more times than I like to admit. Too often have I bought a print from an artist I’m a huge fan of just to find out later that the print’s dimensions are not common premade frame sizes. I end up having to wait several months for an Aaron Brother 60% off custom framing coupon just to be able to pay 3 times more for the frame than I did for the print. Yes, I’ll take the gallery glass and quadruple matting…might as well at this point. I can’t skimp when it comes to a picture of Howard the Duck playing cards with the Avengers.

§ Famed novelist Junot Diaz discuses Superman’s immigration status with Stephen Colbert.

Tweet

§ J. Caleb Mozzocco looks at the remains of Wildstorm in the New 52 with a focus on Stormwatch, and he has some sharp words for the overall art style:

What I found most interesting in this portion of the book is how many artists were involved with these designs: Hamner (Jenny, Adam, Apollo, Midnighter, Jack), Lee (J’onn), Sepulveda (Engineer, Projectionist) and even Joe Prado (Eminence of Blades). Crazy Jane, a character featured rather prominently in Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrolrun, was apparently also considered for inclusion in the cast, and even designed. They apparently did a lot of work and had a lot of talented folks behind these designs, but when it came time to actually draw the comic, the designs are almost always buried by coloring effects or weird storytelling choices (The Eminence of Blades, for example, spends most of the first six issues wearing a space suit, so he just looks like a generic astronaut holding some glowing blue swords).

§ Brigid Alverson and Jesso Post discuss Why Children Aren’t Reading Digital Comics (And What Might Make Them Start)

You mentioned on your blog that digital is just a small slice of the kids’ comics market. Why do you think that is?

I think that was actually a stat about children’s’ publishing in general, but it certainly applies to comics. Kids like to show off their books, trade them with friends, bring them to school in their backpacks, draw in the margins, and file them away on a bookshelf. I’ve personally moved almost all of my music and movie library to digital because I’m satisfied with the abstract idea of owning a file stored in the cloud, but kids have a more tactile relationship with the stuff in their bedrooms, including books. When I worked for Disney Adventures, a kids’ entertainment magazine, I was always surprised by how much our readers valued physical aspects of the magazine, like its small trim size and the paper quality.

§ I did not know what to expect when I saw a story entitled The Women of St. Louis Comic Con — but, of course, it was cosplayers:

The stereotype of comic book readers as overweight, nerdy men has been pounded into bits since Comic Book Guy made his debut on The Simpsons more than twenty years ago. That much was evident this past weekend at the first-ever Wizard World St. Louis Comic Con, held at America’s Center (701 Convention Plaza). Jon Gitchoff brings back these photos of the women of Wizard World St. Louis Comic Con for the Riverfront Times.

There are 76 photos and some are spectacular and some are sexy and some are carrying knives and swords.

But of them all, it was Robin who made me say, “Hey now, what is happening here?”

§ Elsewhere, there was a night of comic book burlesque:

§ But this guy seemed to have a great time at the show proper.

§ Did we forget to mention that Lisa HAnawaltwas was nominated for a James Beard Award?

“I was super-surprised — I never realized that the Beard Awards had a category for ‘Journalism/Humor,’ and I’m just thrilled to be nominated alongside some of the chefs I illustrated,” Hanawalt, an Ignatz Award winner who will appear at this year’s Small Press Expo, tells Comic Riffs. “Now I’m trying to figure out how to get a Tony award via comics. … ”

§ Area man baffled by notoriously baffling comic book.

§ A grim day at Stately Beat Manor: There is ANOTHER Heidi MacDonald...and she can DRAW.

§ Graphic Classics is still turning out themed comics anthologies, and their new one is Native American Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 24, for which they hired as many actual Native American creators as possible:

Tweet

Let’s start out with Dylan Horrock’s drawing of Alan Moore. Because you can never have too much Alan Moore. Via Lulu Bonanza and Forbidden Planet

§ Acme Comics has opened a second store.

The 1,500-square-foot store features “geek culture” items ranging from clothing, original art prints and specialty items such as guitars and small tchotchkes featuring comic book heroes.

§ The Advocate profiles Julio’s Day by Gilbert Hernandez and its gay themes.

§ Two years later, Jason Snell revisits reading comics on tablets. Guess what — lots of people are soing it!

When the iPad was first released, I found it to be an excellent (albeit imperfect) comic-book reader. A few years of hardware and software iteration later, it’s a lot harder to spot imperfections. The only problem I have is that I’m now buying several comics a week on my iPad, with the credit card bill to prove it.

§ Something called Neurocomic will investigate brain functions.It comes with a video, above.

Artist Matteo Farinella is teaming up with neuroscientist Dr. Hana Ros to create a graphic novel called Neurocomic, which is aimed at teaching readers about how our minds really work. It’ll also feature giant squids and talking sea slugs, as well as famous neuroscientists.

§ Here’s the latest comprehensive update on Peter David’s condition. Although he’s still recovering from a stroe he suffered 10 weeks ago, he’s also bowling and taking Tai Chi classes. Here’san appreciation of his work.

§ Boing Boing’s monthly comics reviews.

§ Gene Luen Yang’s upcoming double header Graphic novel about the Boxer Rebellion is previewed and he talks about comics and education:

Yang: “Boxers and Saints” is fiction, but I did a lot of historical research. The Boxer Rebellion occurred in the year 1900. Back then, the Chinese government was incredibly weak and couldn’t defend China’s borders. It allowed the Western powers to go in and establish concessions — small communities of Westerners that basically functioned like colonies — in all the major cities. The poor, illiterate teenagers of the Chinese countryside were embarrassed by this, so they came up with this elaborate ritual where they would call Chinese gods from the heavens to possess them and give them superpowers. Then they marched across the land killing foreign missionaries, foreign merchants, foreign soldiers, and Chinese Christians — their fellow countrymen who had embraced foreign religion. Because their martial arts reminded the Europeans of boxing, these teenagers became known as the Boxers.

§ A good long interview with Bill Willingham by Alex Dueben, with a lot of information on the upcoming Fablescon:

Just like every cop who’s ever existed has always planned the perfect crime–thinking, if I was that guy I wouldn’t have confessed because we had nothing on him and that type of thing–I think every comics creator has their own secret idea of, if I was to ever be silly enough to do my own convention here’s what I would do. To a certain extent FablesCon reflects my perfect imagined convention. Now putting on a convention I found out is so much more work than one would think. There are compromises to be made and there are budgets that have to be adhered to so it’s not exactly the perfect convention. In the perfect convention, everyone I invite says yes. Every person who shows up is delighted to get there and be there. We have an unlimited budget. Unfortunately that doesn’t actually exist in the real world.

“There was me, Amanda, and there was Amanda’s TED speech.”

§ One winter afternoon in the early ’50s, two of my father’s sisters came to our suburban Chicago home on a rare visit. One bore a gift for me, perhaps from her son, my older cousin Billy. It was either a Tales From The Crypt or a Vault of Horror comic and featured a putrefying skull floating in a vermilion pool on its lurid cover.

Thus begins a chilling tale by Justin Green.

§ Another look at that new Al Capp book, this one by Michael Dooley. This is going to be the book everyone is talking about isn’t it?

No doubt about it: Al Capp engaged in depraved behavior. Most disgraceful was his attempted rape of a number of women, from college co-eds to Grace Kelly. And, as the interview below suggests, there may be more. Capp also created Li’l Abner, once one of America’s most acclaimed comic strips. It began in 1934, the Depression era, and was centered around the fictional, dirt-poor Appalachian town inhabited mostly by innocent yokels and conniving scoundrels. At its best, it ridiculed the powerful and pompous in politics and culture with shrewd insight, rollicking humor, and a distinctly lush, elegant drawing style.

§ Todd Allen looks at the resale of digital download codes.

As the world of physical content attempts to come to grips with the digital economy, bundling — adding a digital download code to a physical item, like an UltraViolet code with a Blu-ray disc or a Comixology code with a Marvel comic book — is one of the ways traditional media has attempted to cope. A possibly unintended consequence of this bundling is the creation of a secondary market for these digital codes.

Planet Notion » Inky Fingers #5: Penguin

undefined

Comic books’ real-life supervillain: psychiatrist Fredric Wertham – Boing Boing

undefined

Tweet

§ Wired talks to Shannon Wheeler and Jake Parker about Comixology’s new Submit program, where indie creators can submit their work to be carried on the app for a 50/50 revenue share.

GeekDad: For both of you, how does this compare to traditional print publishing of your comics? Jake, I know Missile Mouse was published by Scholastic’s Graphix imprint, but you decided to go the self-published route for Antler Boy. Did you prefer one experience over the other?

Parker: Self publishing has been an education. It made me fully appreciate everything a publisher does. There’s so much that goes on behind the scenes that you have to do as a self publisher that I never messed with when I worked with a publisher. That said, I still enjoy that side of things. From promotion to preparing files for the printer everything gets my personal attention. I also like that it’s all on me. If it fails I have no one to blame and if it succeeds I get all the credit. Comparing the printing of Antler Boy versus the digital publishing of Antler Boy there’s a huge imbalance of the amount of work and money involved. Printing and shipping a few thousand books can mean an upfront cost of tens of thousands of dollars. For digital publication there’s zero cost outside of the time you put into it. I can finish drawing it one day and have it available for reading the next.

Wheeler: With print it’s a dice roll. I color the comics on the computer and then wait weeks to see how they look in print. There are multiple variables that affect the final book. Originally, I colored the cartoons to be printed in color in the newspaper so I used full saturation (I call it coloring with a sledge hammer). A solid red on newsprint prints dull. The paper itself has a slight tone that helps tie the page together. When I reprinted the cartoons in comic books I used better paper and the colors popped. Reprinting them digitally is closest to what I see when I’m coloring them. The detail is shocking. Great sometimes and horrifying other times. It’s definitely interesting.

§ Everyone knows ARCHER is savage and brilliant, but did you know it is influenced by underground comix? I’m not sure this piece draws the necessary line between the two, but it’s a nice history of the underground movement.

§ A Warren Ellis FAQ: How I Came Up With Spider Jerusalem. The answer will STUN you! (not really.)

§ Kings in Disguise by James Vance and Dan E. Burr is a much admired comics classic that came out more than 20 year’s ago; and a now a sequel is out On The Ropes. David L. Ulin reviews it for the LA Times.

§ This isn’t really comics, but author Brad Meltzer and this Chris Eliopoulos will team for Ordinary People Change The World a series of biographical picture books profiling American heroes. First up: Amelia Earhary and Abraham Lincoln. Although the books will be out in 2014, there’s a website where you can buy some merch and make charitable contributions.

§ This is a nice write-up of Emerald City Comic-Con.

§ Arthur Suydam did a variant cover for The Walking Dead which will only be available at the Wizard World St. Louis Comic Con

§ This fellow is Kickstarting a movie about the Justice League in hopes of showing Warner Bros. how its done. I don’t get how you can make these copyright busting fan filmsbut if this floats your boat go and support it.

§ Someone is also kickstarting Robert A. Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy . That’s a page of the art by Steve Erwin.

§ But THIS Kickstarter rules all because it has a VOICE OVER BY BILL WATTERSON. I shit you not.

§ This comment by a cartoonist is the best explanation of why Seth MacFarlane’s Oscar boobs song was annoying I’ve yet seen.

§ I know you all saw this but Grant Morrison Was Right™: Astronaut poop will be used as a radiation shield.

Tweet

§ Well THIS is obscure and mysterious. A mere 34 miles north of San Diego lies the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, a 1500-seat amphitheater, conference center and museum. Apparently they just nailed down a budget and want to ramp up their events including a comics exhibit to draw hipsters crowd during Comic-Con:

Center officials announced last fall that another new event they’re planning is a comic book exhibit this summer during San Diego’s Comic-Con. Courtright predicted this week that the exhibit would help the center attract a younger crowd focused more on popular culture than typical visitors. On the long-term goals, Teeuwissen said he hopes to transform the former site of the center’s children’s museum into a “black box” theater.

§ Speaking of conventions, Tom Spurgeon has a novella-length report on Emerald City Comic Con and his other journeyings. It’s a picaresque tale of comics shops and Brandon Graham.

§ Jess Nevins, Alan Moore annotator extraordinaire, has posted his annotations to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo; he invites feedback.

§ ICv2 notes that the shutdown of the Megaupload site—where many pirated movies and other files were hosted—has resulted in higher sales for movies and other forms of entertainment. Huh, well how do you figure that?.

§ Larry Hama, the man who turned G.I. Joe from a doll with a funny hand into an adventurer with a vital mythology via his work on the Marvel comics, recently wrote on Facebook:

Never got an invite to the premiere of GI Joe Retaliation, but I bet the caterers and accountants did.

§ Cambridge University’s student newspaper tackles a thorny issue:THE FUTURE OF COMICS IS IN THE PAST — but those people at Cambrige are smart, right? So they should be able to figure this one out:

Even the terminology surrounding this question is fiercely debated. Whereas most like to refer to works such as Maus as ‘graphic novels’, the term seems to be a hopeful attempt to disassociate the new breed of ‘intelligent’ comics from tales of superheroes, making a clear distinction between comic- book-pulp-fiction and high-art -visual-narratives. Publisher Dan Franklin of Jonathan Cape chooses not to make a distinction between comic books and graphic novels, although he admits that, “because the books we publish are at the more literary end of the spectrum I’m probably inclined to think of them as graphic novelists first.” Comic book theorist Scott McCloud – at the forefront of the new ‘academicising’ movement – prefers to call them ‘sequential narratives.’ However, this term is yet to catch on in popular usage. Practitioner Nick Hayes, a former  student at Emmanuel College and author of acclaimed graphic novel The Rime of the Modern Mariner, is more relaxed about the matter: “people get all in a fluster about this. The most pretentious of the lot is Sequential Artist, but I think you may as well print up a T-shirt that proclaims your own self-esteem paranoia… I tend to change my job title to suit its audience.”

Louise Simonson and Ann Nocenti the following delightful exchange occured::

Nocenti: I have no idea, actually, because I don’t know what everyone else made! [Laughter] But the thing is, I got back into comics because of stereotypes. I think there was some big controversy in some convention — I wasn’t in the industry because I was off doing other things — about how there were no women in comics, and then I got a call, “We need women in comics.” So if I got back into the industry because I’m a token female, I say great! I’m all in!

Simonson: Also, Annie, they call you up because I think they like a female face on videos and things like that. I always get people asking me to do video interviews! [Laughs] It’s pretty funny!

Nocenti: They put me on “Green Arrow,” and I have to admit, I just didn’t get Green Arrow. I struggled with him. He was a rich playboy in an armored suit who was young. I liked the old Green Arrow, the wise guy who was stealthy and a social crusader — Denny O’Neil’s Green Arrow. This was a different Green Arrow and I didn’t connect with him. Now, doing “Katana” and “Catwoman,” I have no idea if there was a meeting where someone said, “Lets give the girl writer the girl books,” but I instantly related to those characters! It’s fun to write girls.

Simonson: I hear you, and I agree!

Tweet

Hooray for Spring! Now bring on the lamb of March.

§ Is the graphic novel-to movie deal option really slowing? Not for these guys.

When Stephen Stern and his business partner, Joseph Giovannetti, launched Storyboard Graphic Novelsin 2011, they knew they were offering a unique service to the Hollywood community but they had no idea how quickly it would catch on. Within weeks, they had clients that included screenwriters, producers and directors who wanted their screenplays adapted into graphic novels. And their client list quickly extended outside of Tinseltown, to such locations as the UK and India.

“We knew we were providing a service that didn’t exist, but was much needed by creators who wanted to separate their screenplays from the thousands of projects that make the rounds in Hollywood every day,” Stern said. “Not only is a graphic novel a veritable storyboard for a movie hence our company namebut films based on comic-books and GNs are among the surest bets for studios.”

§ Sometimes the creators actually get a break. When Random House introduced new digital only lines of SF and other genre novels — Hydra, Alibi, Loveswept and Flirt— writer John Scalzi noted that the contracts were terrible

* No advance.

* The author is charged “set-up costs” for editing, artwork, sale, marketing, publicity — i.e., all the costs a publisher is has been expected to bear. The “good news” is that the author is not charged up front for these; they’re taken out of the backend. If the book is ever published in paper, costs are deducted for those, too.

* The contract asks for primary and subsidiary rights for the term of copyright.

Sidenote: the original contract that Scalzi decried isn’t totally dissimilar from what’s considered the best contract in comics at Image WITH THESE IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES: Image is not a billion dollar international conglomerate like Bertelsmann, Random House’s parent company. AND at Image there is no question that the creator owns copyright all the way down the line. Scalzi is dubious about the “profit-sharing” model Random house is offering—again somewhat analogous to the “creator participation” model common in comics:

3. The no-advance “profit-sharing” set-up still concerns me as a slippery slope for all sorts of reasons but if the advance-offering option is equitable and reasonable and every author is offered it as a matter of course and there is no discrimination between how the two classes of authors are generally treated and serviced by the imprint, then offering a second, riskier option does not strike me as wholly predatory, as the author can turn it down and still publish with the imprint if such is her choice.

OTOH, as Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin proved yesterday, if you have enough of a fanbase you don’t need ay middlemen at all.

§ D&Q’s amazing fall list.

§ I love those guys at the Outhouse:DC Offices Host Wild Shindig After Young Justice Finale (SPOILERS)

Luckily, Johnston was able to think quickly. “I just yelled, ‘Oblivion for Cassandra Cain!’ and everyone went right back to celebrating the death of a beloved character, except Didio, who kept asking, ‘who?!’ It was a close one.”

§ Dara Naraghi speaks for many on the topic of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter

Are you kidding me? A major movie studio (Warner Bros.) basically asking their audience to fund their movie, to the tune of $2 million! Of course, fanboys/nerds/genre geeks (whatever you want to call them, and I do include myself in the group) being who they are, have gladly shelled over $3.5 million so far to fund a giant corporation’s movie. And there’s still 26 days to go, so who knows how many more millions they’ll fork over. OK, yes, I know it’s a democratic process and nobody is forcing these people to fund the project. They’re doing it because of their love of the property, and their desire to see more of it. I get that. But still, it feels very, very wrong to me. Crowd funding sites came about to help *CREATORS* fund their projects, not subsidize some multinational mega-corporation.

§ Indie book stores, like local comics shops, are not dying as quickly as expected:

While beloved bookstores still close down every year, sales at independent bookstores overall are rising, established independents are expanding, and new ones are popping up from Brooklyn to Big Stone Gap, Va. Bookstore owners credit the modest increases to everything from the shuttering of Borders to the rise of the “buy local” movement to a get-’er-done outlook among the indies that would shame Larry the Cable Guy. If they have to sell cheesecake or run a summer camp to survive, add it to the to-do list. “2012 was the year of the bookstore,” says Wendy Welch, co-owner of Tales of the Lonesome Pine in Virginia and author of the 2012 memoir “The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap.” In her memoir, she recounts how she and her husband, Jack Beck, created – sometimes despite themselves – a successful used-book store in a town that, by any business measure, is too small to support one.

§ Did you know St Patrick drove the lady comics creators out of Ireland?

§ Cartoonist Paul Conrad’s statue “Chain Reaction” is in the news again. The statue, which stands in front of the Santa Monica Civic Center, is much loved, but also unstable, as its fiberglass components have been deteriorating over the years. Now five former Santa Monica mayors have spoken out to save rather than move the statue:

Denny Zane, Michael Feinstein, Judy Abdo, Jim Conn, Paul Rosenstein and Nat Trives, whose careers collectively span more than three decades of Santa Monica politics, signed the letter to support efforts by the Conrad family to raise money to repair the sculpture which the City has said needs to be removed due to safety concerns. “We’re very appreciative,” said Dave Conrad, son of Paul Conrad. “It’s a huge vote of confidence from people who know how Santa Monica works and also know the history of Santa Monica and the valuable place in that history that Chain Reaction occupies.”

§ WNYC legend Leonard Lopate talks to comics legends Arnold Roth, Drew Friedman and Al Jaffee about Harvey Kurtzman. Go just to listen to the mellifluous tones of Al Jaffee. While you’re at it, listen to a look back at the Iraq War, one of the saddest darkest moments in US history. Never forget.

A kids comic roundtable, Gary Groth makes mighty return as a critic, successful webcomic Kickstarter and voice actor misdeeds.

§ Must Read: Tom Spurgeon catches up with First Second editor Calista Brill, whose essay on giving up on a comics career turned into a 10-alarm internet fire last week. Verbalizing these painful issues of a career in comics was something of a shock for many:

§ The 25 Comic Books You Need To Read Before You Die -- this piece should be called "The 25 Vertigo Comics you Need to Read Before Your Library Card Expires" but not a terrible list for what it is.

Freddy, Freddie, Winsor McKay, Rob Liefeld and everything in between.

From the highs of Matthew Inman to the lows of the cartoonist whose car got towed.

Reminder! Please keep the kibble flowing! send links and tips to comicsbeat at gmail dot com!

Tweet§ Via PW, Multimedia Authoring Platforms are all the rage! As described to PW by 10 companies offering a variety of platforms for producing multimedia-enhanced e-books of all kinds, digital publishing is about creating “enriched” e-books and mobile applications that, in the most basic terms, integrate text into a content ecosystem of audio, video, image, [...]

Some of the news that has been floating around this week.

§ Everyone is home safe and sound from the DC editorial retreat. Amazingly no one wandered off into the woods and didn't come back.

Rubert Grint to play a superhero, Orson Scott Card to play a supervillian.

Why does Japan love fax machines? Why does Russia love dash cams? Why does Warren Ellis love webcomics?

Today an EXTRA LONG installment of Kibbles 'n' Bits that literally spans the world of comics and art. There is something for EVERYONE here -- please join us on our journey of clicks. § Spotlight on comics in India! The third Indian Comic-Con wrapped up a few weeks ago, and left a brand new comics industry in its wake!

Tweet

§ One of the best spectator sports the last week or so has been the John McAfee story—basically, the guy who invented that anti-virus software that spammed you endlessly in the “cyber” era, is actually a paranoid oddball who has been living in Belize and has fled to the jungle after being accused of killing his neighbor. Whoa, buddy, that software was supposed to stamp out COMPUTER viruses, not NEIGHBORS! Even in the jungle, he managed to launch a blog defending himself. Also int he mix a bit is cartoonist Chad Essley, who, Aaron Colter at Wired tell us, was originally hired two years ago to make a comic for McAfee:

The relationship between the fugitive and the cartoonist began in 2010 on a private internet forum where an anonymous entrepreneur hired Essley to produce an animated web short for an antibiotic venture called Quorumex. The mysterious businessman soon revealed himself as McAfee, and the two struck up a friendship. When the news broke this April that a gang suppression unit had raided McAfee’s property in Belize, Essley was taken aback.

“I did it because I had the ability to do so for free, in a keystroke or two,” says Essley. Since then, he has kept McAfee’s often rambling personal blog WhoIsMcAfee.com up and running, and served as one of the only contacts to the millionaire fugitive, who is still on the run.

§ Speaking of Wired, former Comics Alliance e-i-c Laura Hudson is back as entertainment editor for Wired.com. Congrats! Life after blogging. Whoa.

§ J. Caleb Mozzocco looks at Fear Itself, and gives a nice overview of all the major Marvel “Events” Cnsluding that Fear Iself, by Fraction and Immonen, is one of the most readable, if transient in its effects:

Among the changes (or illusions of change) that occur in the series, the “The Marvel Universe Will Never Be The Same!” and the “long-term repercussions” bits, are the deaths of Bucky Barnes (which leads to Rogers resuming his old costume and codename) and of Thor, neither of which must have stuck very long, as they are both hale and hearty and starring in their own comics as I type this.

§ Best graphic novels of 2012 time at The Observer! Well, really it’s Rachel Cooke’s best of list, and an eclectic one mostly consisting of books published by mainstream publishing houses.

§ Continuing the trend of graphic novels being okay for everyone, it turns out they are now okay in Wales, too!

I’ve always loved comic books. As a young child, one of the highlights of the year was when a new Welsh-language translation of Asterix or Tintin would land in the shops. The thrill of reading Trysor y Rackam Goch for the first time came back to me recently when I read it with my five-year-old son.

§ I did not previously link to Giles Coren’s piece in the Spectator on graphic novels being okay, because it was written in this double negative way that made it sounds like he was heaping the hate on comics. I understand that Coren is a snarky food writer in Britain who specializes in writing shocking things, and this piece resulted in an epidemic of bunched panties around the world. A squad of comics-lovers thundered up on their white chargers in the comment section, and the piece was mostly kicked to bits with pointy knight shoes because it was lame. But a fellow Spectator writer with the unlikely name of Jack van Burholdbind defended the piece for being clever. It was surely clever to stir up all those panties and knights, so there is that. Bottom line? TEH COMICS RULLLEZ DUDE. Also, we get to repost the great illo above which the Spectator neglects to credit. Nice.

§ I did however bookmark THREE TIMES this look at BUILDING STORIES by Gabriel Winslow-Yost for The New York Review of Books because it is really well-written and does a good job of contextualizes Building Stories in terms of Chris Ware’s previous works. In other words, if you must read ONLY ONE piece about Building Stories…

Building Stories centers on a run-down Chicago apartment building, whose three floors form a kind of triptych of loneliness. The “old woman” (as she is referred to in passing—none of the four inhabitants is ever named, a much less noticeable decision in a comic than in a prose novel) on the ground floor, who owns the building and has lived in it her entire life, has settled into solitude for good; she doesn’t dream of companionship, but remembers the dreams of it she used to have, with a mix of regret and relief. The “married couple” on the second floor are lonely together, trapped in a cycle of fighting and apologizing so habitual it precludes any real contact between them. And the “girl” on the third floor—the book’s heroine, actually a young woman in her late twenties, a shy art school graduate with a prosthetic leg and a menial job at a flower shop—is lonely with a youthful, frenzied desperation, convinced she’ll be alone forever: “God…I can’t bear it…Am I really so awful? I must be…I must be…”

Tweet

§ FIRST UP, Julian Darius continues his examination of the Moore-Morrison feud with a timely look at their history with Vertigo and a look at the historical record from an outside perspective:

I should probably point out that it’s strange, in Moore’s recollection, that he’d mention Morrison at all. After all, Moore’s described Morrison as an “aspiring writer” who wanted to take over Marvelman. Moore seems to dismiss Morrison’s work in this period (if not later) as derivative. So why would he recommend Morrison to Karen Berger? The simplest answer is that Moore had read other Morrison work and liked it, or at the very least thought it showed promise or an interestingly different take.

To my knowledge, no one’s made this point. Moore suggesting Morrison makes Moore look like a good guy, the elder statesman who helps the young Turk catch a break. But if Moore did suggest Morrison, it very strongly suggests he had read and respected Morrison’s work. One can’t reasonably take credit for suggesting Morrison and also suggest that Morrison’s work is derivative rubbish.

§ J. Caleb Mozzocco reviews The Underwater Welder, Jeff Lemire’s eerie graphic novel about a man who finds himself in a very unexpected place.

§ A website has launched for Gun Machine, Warren Elli’s upcoming novel, which is due out in January.

§ In all this talk of DC, I like to link to the MAD blog once in a while, just to show that it has some amusing material for old farts of all ages.

§ An old one: it turns out Robert Kirkman and Neil Gaiman are powerful. Yet Emma Vieceli is remarkable.

More old things — Jesus where was I?– for those who have not had enough outrage yet, Top 5 Controversies That Will Be Rocking The Comics Industry Next, via MTV Geek.

§ Oh Julia Wertz, we just linked to her etsy and forgot this interview with the LA Times:

I’m struck by your use of the phrase “comic novellas” to describe the three long stories in “The Infinite Wait.”

I used that phrase in jest. I never meant for it to stick. I said it with the intention of making fun of myself and the various labels comics are given. It’s way too pretentious for me to use in earnest. I went with the theme of the title, which is also a joke. I was riffing on nonsense titles, which I define as any title that’s a turn of phrase, a cliché or a poetic coupling that tells the reader absolutely nothing about the content of the book. Patton Oswalt has a great bit about this, in which he claims “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” to be the best title ever since it tells you where, what and how. These vague titles are pretty common right now in the literary world, especially in New York, and I roll my eyes every time I see one. I wanted people to pull this book off the shelf, thinking it’d be one of those books and then get a comic book instead. So when I use a phrase like “comic novellas,” you have to imagine me saying it in a really high pitched, fancy voice. If it becomes a phrase that sticks, I will refuse all credit and denounce it profusely.

§ Muddy Colors is a blog for a bunch of illustrators, including Paolo Rivera, and it turns out the Artist of the Month is Wassily Kandinsky. That’s great, because he’s artist of the month year round here at SBM! If you dig through the blog you’ll also find lots and lots of groovy process posts like info on how to photograph your paintings, and Rivera on how he made this Captain America cover.

I got hung up on the anachronism of a modern Cap fighting WWII-era Germany and was at a loss for brief spell. Fortunately for me, my editor, Tom Brevoort, suggested the shells-as-metaphor solution which worked perfectly for the tone of the piece (and was a lot easier to draw). Pictured above is the digital composite that I penciled over, complete with perspective grid.

Tweet

§ For when you are feeling down in the dumps, Call Me Maybe – Telephones in Romance Comics!

§ Did you know that actress Geena Davis has an institute? In fact it’s the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. MENSA member Davis started the organization nearly a decade ago to investigate how the media treats girls, and they just received a $1.2 million grant from Google to further their study. Hopefully they’ll investigate why two girls aren’t allowed to talk to each other in movies and that kind of thing. The GDIGM also produced the rather charming animated video above. Among their recent findings:

Not only is the gender imbalance alive and well in entertainment targeting children under 11 (just 28% of characters in family feature films are female, 38.9% in prime time and 30.8% in kid’s shows), but what the Institute exposed about the glass ceiling of employment in the media is truly disturbing. Men dominate every sector, comprising  96.6% of family film characters employed in the C-Suite, 100% of chief justices, 95.5% of high level politicians, and 78.1% of doctors. Male actors play 100% of the fictional editors-in-chief in family films. STEM careers are just as glaring. Female actors portray just 26 of the 160 speaking roles where characters are employed in STEM fields.

§ John Walsh of the webcomic “Go Home Paddy” (Which was recently funded on Kickstarter) interviews Colleen Doran about her gn Gone to Amerikay.

Colleen Doran: Approval went pretty quickly, but the work took years. Research alone took months. And since I didn’t have a script yet, I spent all this time researching Ireland. When I got the script, it was almost all set in New York during three time periods! That was pretty funny, but I learned a lot anyway! Yes, I enjoyed [the research]. I’m one of those people who can get lost in it, though, and need to be reined in.  Sometimes it’s hard knowing when to quit and get on with it. For example, I recall spending over four hours trying to research a chair that appears on only three pages. Over two weeks trying to get the right color on a uniform that appears in two panels. You forget that old etchings you may use for reference are almost always going to be black and white. Most pages required research for each shot, which is grinding after awhile, because you just want to be able to draw. And so often it was stop and start, even when I thought I’d pinned down a scene weeks before starting the scene. Something always came up. And I hate making mistakes, so I kept out-thinking myself. It’s great having a job where you get to read wonderful books, though!

Lots of stuff so let's get to it! § Sometime Beat contributor Laura Sneddon looks at 2013 in Comics and even though this list is mostly front of the Diamond catalog, there's a lot to be excited about.