Bart Beaty In Angouleme 2009 -- 05 By Bart Beaty, Via Phone
In the end, we were saved by the sun. A beautiful day today drew some people from the tents. But the crowds were still ridiculous. The para-BD tent (toys, etc) had a wait to enter time of maybe half an hour. Also, the crowds were far worse in the small press tent than the main ones. The line to meet Zep was the longest of the weekend.
What else to say? Everyone is liking this year, but no one puts it in a "best ever" category. Personally, I am exhausted and the evening hasn't even begun. Seventeen hours until my train, then I can get some rest.
The top comics-related news stories from January 24 to January 30, 2009:
1. Two well-regarded alternativecomics series from two of the best cartoonists in the post-alternative generation announced as canceled by their creators. The culprit, or at least one of them: new minimum order expectations from Diamond.
3. Those still holding onto Stan Lee Media file a new suit against Stan Lee, Lee's family, Marvel and certain Marvel principals over their long-running public claim that Lee assigned rights to SLM upon its creation and never got them back, rendering his eventual deal with Marvel over movie profits moot and allowing SLM to press that claim for a more significant result.
Bart Beaty In Angouleme 2009 -- 04 By Bart Beaty, Via Phone
Dateline Mercure. Calmer than normal. You can reach the bar in less than 10 minutes. Where is everyone?
I caught the final exhibition and liked it a lot. The Flemmish showcased a ton of new artists in innovative ways. I went to buy some of their books, but many were already sold out. One great thing about Angou is the way entire scenes can come into focus, as this one did. Their party got lukewarm reviews though. No rival to the Finnish blowout of years past.
No clear consensus for book of the year yet. Maybe Winshluss' Pinocchio, which would also get most desired derivative toy.
I talked with Ruppert and Mulot, and it's true -- their show has come under criticism from the crew at Artemisia.
The good mood persists. Everyone is thinking that this is another really good festival. We drink until dawn and await the arrival of the crowds...
*****
Bonus: Photo by Charles Orr of our man Bart at Ruppert and Mulot's controversial "maison close."
Bart Beaty In Angouleme 2009 -- 03 By Bart Beaty, Via Phone
It's sunny and warm in Angouleme today, so the streets are more crowded than the tents. Which is crazy, because the tents are packed. I saw more than 50 people in line to meet Regis Loisel five minutes after the tent opened. How do they move so fast?
I've been to all but one of the exhibitions. The manga (Mizuki, Hirata, Nananan) underwhelmed. Dupuy-Berberian and Margerin are well worth the time. Winshluss went all out again. The Bitterkomix has stirred debate about the portrayal of sexually explicit material. I am told that the Ruppert and Mulot was criticized by a feminist arts organization, but I don't know if it is true.
Hard to get a sense of the Festival as a whole since everyone talks about how nice it is outside. Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson appeared (on video) to announce that the Tintin movie starts filming on Monday. No one seemed to much care, least of all the kids with their manga.
The writer and former Honorable Soldier of Wizard Kiel Phegley has posted a top ten list. That list includes:
10. Final Crisis, Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones and Carlos Pacheco and Various (DC)
9. Swallow Me Whole, Nate Powell (Top Shelf)
8. Too Cool To Be Forgotten, Alex Robinson (Top Shelf)
7. Love & Rockets: New Stories Vol. 1, Los Bros Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
6. The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard, Eddie Campbell and Dan Best (First Second)
5. Chiggers, Hope Larson (Simon & Schuster)
4. Kramers Ergot 7, Sammy Harkham and Various (Buenaventura Press)
3. RASL, Jeff Smith (Cartoon Books)
2. Batman, Grant Morrison and Tony Daniel and Various (DC)
1. Bottomless Belly Button, Dash Shaw (Fantagraphics)
1. Three Shadows, Cyril Pedrosa
2. The Alcoholic, Johathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
3. Army@Love: Generation Pwned, Rick Veitch and Gary Erskine
4. Jessica Farm, Josh Simmons
5. Petey and Pussy, John Kerschbaum
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* for some reason, the Chicago Tribune material doesn't show up on standard web searches as much as it should. It's better now that they're with the LA Times, but even then you tend to catch the reprint in the Times as opposed to the original publication. Anyway, there's a sort-of lengthy profile of Nicole Hollander in a recent issue, including I think the brave admission that Sylvia maxed out at 80 papers years ago and is now only in 17.
* there is as far I know almost no Jeff Smith original artwork out there, and I've spent the time rifling around his studio at 2 AM when he's out of the country to tell you that it's not for lack of people trying to get this stuff from the cartoonist. Kidding aside, Smith has a rare and nice-looking piece up to benefit the CBLDF, this one featuring RASL rather than Bone.
* speaking of Jeff Smith, there's a deservedly much linked-to and long post here about Smith's various craft chops on display in an early issue of Bone, involving things like how he uses framing and makes distinct tiers on the page. It's a good choice for analysis because looking back, I'm not sure any sequence sold the early Bone series more than that one.
* this is the first review of the newest, soon-to-be-released volume of the popular Scott Pilgrim series I can recall seeing.
* the writer and reviewer Sean T. Collins has a round-up of discussions surrounding Final Crisis #7, the last issue of DC's latest and delayed (by about three, three and half months) cosmic event mini-series. This includes an admission by Morrison that Wonder Woman doesn't get to do as much as Batman and Superman because he doesn't think as much of the character, or at least didn't at the time. A fine line of analysis from Collins himself comes in an earlier post where Collins discusses how reading something with an effect sinilar Grant Morrison's comics hit him when his life was most like a Grant Morrison comic. I've felt the same way, although maybe not about Morrison. I think most people relate to art in this way at some point.
* as pertains to my criticism of the YALSA lists for only noting writers as authors, I nearly forgot that Robin Brenner was nice enough to write in the same day as that post:
"I am the Chair this year, for this list, and I too noticed the lack of credit for artists. Originally we were restricted by the format YALSA requested we abide by, but I had contacted them to ask if we could include the artists in the credits for each title. They decided there was no reason not to (it's not like the Caldecott, where the award is only for art, for example).
"So, they are in the process of updating the list -- I know they were working on it this evening, but rna into some trouble with their web interface. They assured be it should be corrected by tomorrow morning."
That's good to hear.
* finally, there's a really solid post here from Garry Tyrrell on the subject of making a living through one's web site. Tyrrell reminds that publishing on-line is as much about a set of skill applied to the task and finding a successful way to present one's work as it is for any print publisher.
Bart Beaty In Angouleme 2009 -- 02 By Bart Beaty, Via Phone
If crowds are down due to the strike, you'd never know it. Readers are out in force and we're waiting to see if readers will turn into buyers. Consensus from publishers and retailers in many countries is that the downturn isn't being felt "at the moment."
Best booth -- hands down -- is the Flemmish booth, set up as a full-scale faux bar with wood paneling and beer taps.
I've seen 40 books I want and it's only part way through Day One. Overproduction and a weak dollar may be the death of me. Best book (so far) is the Nicholas Mahler superhero book from Pasteque. Close second is the Jens Harder from Actes Sud. But it's still early.
Bart Beaty In Angouleme 2009 -- 01 By Bart Beaty, Via Phone
Angouleme opens this morning looking to dodge its second bullet. Earlier this week a major storm did a lot of damage in Bordeaux, but left Angouleme largely untroubled. Today, France has a train strike that may curtail the arrival of visitors, but, hopefully, only for today. Weather forecasts are promising and the general mood is good.
The Dupuy-Berberian exhibition opened yesterday to the press and is a real stunner with almost 300 pieces, sculptures, artifacts and an enormous sculptural machine that has to be seen to be believed.
His designs were odd in that his characters had almost muppet-simple faces. He did a lot with body language. Use your scrolling to take in the interaction between Susie Derkins and Calvin without reading the word balloons. What fun.
Angouleme Festival 2009 Kicks Off With Publicity, Controversy and Dogged Hope
Today marks the first day of the Festival International de la Bande Dessinee, known to you and me and most folks, I think, by the French town in which it's held: "Angouleme," or "The Angouleme Festival." A number of North American cartoonists will be making appearances over there during the weekend, including James Kochalka, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware and Adrian Tomine. We should have a full preview up by Bart Beaty in a few minutes, as well as anything he sends me from the Festival on his cellphone that I'm around to receive.
I'm going to be speaking off the top of my head for a second in deference to Bart's more knowledgeable piece, but I think there are a few festival-type news stories to track. The health of the festival given a worldwide economic crisis should be an issue -- my guess is that the crowds will exceed the pessimists and everyone will appreciate the experience a bit more, but let's see. There was a general strike in France that may have an effect on first-day attendance and some of the pros getting from Paris to Angouleme. If I'm reading this correctly, there were a bit of controversy over what to show at the South African comics exhibit. I think there are also high expectations for the show given that Dupuy and Berberian are co-presidents and therefore had a hand in planning most of the exhibits. Their own exhibit should be awesome, too. The panels sound kind of awesome, with a lot of one-on-one interviews between cartoonists that I'd kill to see and I wish more people would emulate here.
To supplement our coverage, the main festival site is here. Here's a first report from ActuaBD.com. Best of all, perhaps is a YouTube Channel from FNAC devoted to the festival that's already stuffed with 17 videos.
Best Ongoing Series
1. The Incredible Hercules (issues #113-123)
2. Northlanders (issues #2-12)
3. Wasteland (issues #14-22)
4. Scalped (issues #13-23)
5. Young Liars (issues #1-10)
Best Mini-Series
1. The Boy Who Made Silence #1-6
2. I Kill Giants #1-7
3. Elephantmen: War Toys #1-3
4. Helen Killer #1-4
5. Atomic Robo: Dogs of War #1-5
Best Original Graphic Novel
1. Jeff Lemire's Essex County trilogy, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
2. Aetheric Mechanics, Warren Ellis and Gianluca Pagliarani (Avatar)
3. Swallow Me Whole, Nate Powell (Top Shelf)
4. Fishtown, Kevin Colden (IDW)
5. Three Shadows, Cyril Pedrosa (First Second)
1. Too Cool to Be Forgotten, Alex Robinson
2. Capacity, Theo Ellsworth
3. Skim, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki
4. Alan's War, Emmanuel Guibert
5. What It Is, Lynda Barry
* it looks like Deb Aoki is running the results of her reader-solicited best of the year lists. I'll probably forget to post about them when they're all done, so consider this your only notice and anything else a bonus.
* I know Brian Fies didn't intend for this post about editing to be seen this way, and the general impulse goes against everything I believe as an editor myself, but my first reaction upon reading the piece was that book publishers are going to have a hard time ever making comics that aren't by Ware, Spiegelman and Satrapi profitable if that many people work on them for that period of time.
* finally, one of the reasons I've found it so depressing when I read about political cartoonists complaining that it's hard to do cartoons about President Obama is that thesetwo well-publicized posts show that it's certainly possible to be funny with the President as a punchline. This makes me wonder after if the middle of political cartooning isn't a bit rigid in what they mean when they make these complaints, and that might contribute to them being vulnerable to obsolescence. I mean, not every cartoonist's relationship to a president has to be Oliphant's to Nixon, does it?
Sammy Harkham says his one-man anthology comics title will join D&Q stablemate Or Else on the scrapheap of history, although in his case he's more explicit in citing the raised minimums instituted by mega-distributor Diamond earlier this month. A third issue will come out in DIY form and then the future of the title is uncertain.
This is our clearinghouse for publishing news, particularly that which kind of randomly sifts to the surface without the oomph of a major press release. I'm always interested in although I can't always guarantee they'll get a mention in here.
"The next art book on my plate, by the way, is The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen, which is hugely exciting. Denis is primarily known, I think, as the publisher of Kitchen Sink Press, but people forget that he's an amazing cartoonist, one of the major figures of the underground comics movement -- well, I haven't forgotten, and 'Oddly' will collect most of Denis's comics art, including some really obscure pieces that you'd just never be able to find nowadays."
I like Denis' comics, and that should be a fun book.
* speaking of publishing news that came to my attention in an interview, Dean Mullaney announced a little more than two weeks ago that Rip Kirby will join the Library of American Comics series from IDW. Here's Mullaney on the general studios goings-on:
"Bruce Canwell and I are finishing up the final two Terry books, and working on the next few volumes of Little Orphan Annie. Then, I'm taking over as editor and designer of IDW's Dick Tracy with volume 7 -- just in time to play in the sandbox with BB Eyes, Pruneface, Flattop, Mrs. Pruneface, The Mole, and the heyday of Chester Gould's gallery of grotesque rogues. After that, I have The Complete Rip Kirby by Alex Raymond which we're shooting from syndicate proofs (!) and the official Bringing Up Father with the Sunday pages in color."
I'm guessing from it being posted in several places there has since been a formal press release, but that compact graph should give you a better overall idea of that group's plans -- for instance, I wasn't fully aware they were doing Bringing Up Father. Does everyone hate Cliff Sterrett now?
* I hadn't quite all the way, quiz me in public known there were new print books out for the Gunnerkrigg Court and Devil's Panties webcomics series, although it make total sense that they would have print iterations.
* I'm told they've started to get copies of that Humbug collection in the Fantagraphics offices. In fact, I put that here about seven days ago, so this thing should be imminent. Hooray!
* the cartoonist Nick Mullins wrote in to remind us that Dover has published Lynd Ward's Vertigo, which I totally missed.
* I suppose this is the place I should make note of the Uderzo family dispute arising from the sale to Hachette, which I suppose could have an effect on the future of the Asterix property.
* finally, some happy news: Darryl Cunningham is bringing back CR favorites Super-Sam and John of the Night in a new adventure, previewed here. That's a panel from the preview at the bottom of this post.
Missed It: Sine/Licra Trial Begins
I totally missed this yesterday, but the trial of cartoonist Maurice Sinet on charges of inciting racial hatred for a non-comics piece he put in Charlie Hebdo has begun in Lyon. After the publication and initial criticism, Sinet was subsequently dismissed by the magazine, started a satirical magazine of his own, was brought up on these charges, sued the journalist who originally reported on the matter for another, undisclosed reason. The charges were brought by the France-based LICRA group, an acronym roughly translated into the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism. The piece in question featured the son of the French president, whom I believe -- I'm not up on my French political social news -- is dating the daughter of a prominent Jewish family. To say Sine has aggressively fought both the general, public charge of anti-Semitism and apologizing in any way for the original article may be understating things.
I know this list is a great thing, but I find it hugely disappointing that where it applies both authors or all the authors aren't named in favor of the "writer" being listed as if they were sole author of the work. These aren't illustrated books: the drawing is authorship just as the scripting is authorship. In addition, I know on a least two of these works the creators made a point of talking about their organic creative process. I'm sure there's some library-listing reason for it, or something similar, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I think it gets reflected in the way so many books are marketed, too -- I'm not sure how many people out there aware of Cairo could tell you the name of its artist. Anyway, I'll try to restore the co-authors below, and I apologize if I missed anyone. Works on the top ten list were:
* Life Sucks, Jessica Abel and Gabriel Soria and Warren Pleece (First Second)
* Sand Chronicles Vols. 1-3, Hinako Ashihara (Viz)
* Atomic Robo: Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener and Ronda Pattison (Red Five Comics)
* Real Vols. 1-2, Takehiko Inoue (Viz)
* Uzumaki, Junji Ito (Viz)
* Pitch Black, Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton (Cinco Puntos Press)
* Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures In Japan, Aimee Major Steinberger (Go Comi)
* Skim, Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood)
* Umbrella Academy, Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba (Dark Horse)
* Cairo, G. Willow Wilson, MK Perker (Vertigo)
And They Will All Live Like Cartoonists: The US Economy And Comics, Post #15
* the cartoonist Kevin Huizenga wrote in this morning to say that Amazing Facts and Beyond With Leon Beyond, which I have called by many, mostly made-up name here on the site, has been suspended from the Riverfront Times through at least the first quarter of 2009. Huizenga, Ted May and Dan Zettwoch plan to continue doing the feature and putting them on-line. Since the strip wasn't a Village Voice Media network carry, that decision had to come from the paper itself -- although Kevin pointed out in a subsequent e-mail that it's almost impossible to tell where the budget imperatives might have come from, the paper on its own or in a directive from the home office, and he suspects the latter.
* speaking of the VVM purge of all cartoons from their publications network, Tom Tomorrow has a nice follow-up with reactions from cartoonists that were hit by the move.
* the manga- and anime-focused site Anime News Network has a concise Diamond minimums wrap up that notes both the re-emergence of Haven on a lot of people's horizons and the fact that Diamond will let some publishers secure a listing with a $1000 deposit. I would imagine we'll also hear more about some publishers buying/ordering their own comics through a store in order to get them into the marketplace. That's one of those things that happens that no one really brags about at the convention bar.
* the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com notes Diamond's recently announced layoffs were 1) solely at the Timonium offices rather than at the Memphis warehouse or a combination of the two, 2) came with pay cuts for other staffers, and 3) were only a small percentage of the people working in Timonium. I think that's worth noting because is smaller and more fragile than a lot of business, it also has yet to experience the kind of madcap firings that some other businesses have.
* a bunch of you e-mailed this post from self-publisher Rick Veitch on his backing away from immediately doing an expensive hardcover of his Brat Pack due to the general economic precariousness in which we all find ourselves right now. Softcover still a go. That's worth noting as it's the first time I've seen someone put something on hold for precisely that reason.
* I would think more of Steve Greenberg's analysis of why MAD is suffering if the publication already hadn't survived across a few generation. There's either something different about this generational -- which is certainly true, but I would have liked to have had that explicitly included -- or there are more factors involved.
* one of you e-mailed me this link to a story that indicates one newspaper company that has a not-horrifying debt situation: the Washington Post's corporation. Keeping things in a positive vein, E&P has a list of papers that have bucked recent, depressing trends.
* finally, via Dirk Deppey comes a twitter feed for your bookmarking pleasure that will likely not get the vote for "most hopeful place of 2009."
Although Fantagraphics' Mike Baehr says he wouldn't dare call this post a "Best Of" list, I have no such problem labeling it that way. My obsessive compulsive list-making wins over Baehr's modesty and, let's face it, everything. Here's what is on Baehr's list:
* Against Pain, Ron Rege Jr. (D&Q)
* Capacity, Theo Ellsworth (Secret Acres)
* Dead Ringer, Jason T. Miles (La Mano)
* Fight or Run: Shadow of the Chopper, Kevin Huizenga (Buenaventura)
* The Man Who Loved Breasts, Robert Goodin (Top Shelf)
* Trubble Club, Various (Self-Published)
* Welcome to the Dahl House, Ken Dahl (Microcosm)
* Renee French's blog, Renee French (Self-Published)
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has announced nominees for its 20th Annual Media Awards. As has been the case for a few years now, there is a category of comics. As has been the case for just about as long, it's dominated by mainstream or near-mainstream US comic book offerings to the exclusion of a lot of work that would seem to fit the bill not backed by a giant publisher. Their list below, to which try I'll restore all the creators because I'm having that kind of day:
* The Alcoholic, Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel (Vertigo/DC Comics)
* Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Drew Goddard and Jeph Loeb and Joss Whedon and George Jeanty and Jo Chen and Karl Moline and Eric Wight and Ethan Beavers and Adam Van Wyk and Farel Dalrymple and Andy Owens (Dark Horse Comics)
* Final Crisis: Revelations Greg Rucka and Philip Tan and Jeff de los Santos and Jonathan Glapion (DC Comics)
* Secret Six Gail Simone and Cliff Chiang and Nicola Scott and Doug Hazlewood and Andrew Robisnon and Carlos Rodriguez and Bitt (DC Comics)
* Young Avengers Presents, Ed Brubaker and Brian Reed and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Paul Cornell and Kevin Grevioux and Matt Fraction and Paco Medina and Harvey Tolibao and Alina Urusov and Mark Brooks and Mitch Breitweiser and Alan Davis (Marvel Comics)
1. Skyscrapers of the Midwest, Joshua Cotter
2. Swallow Me Whole, Nate Powell
3. Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story, Frederik Peeters
4. Capacity, Theo Ellsworth
5. Ochre Ellipse #2, Jonas Madden-Conner
* occasional CR correspondent Sean Collins points to this post where Curt Purcell reviews the crap out of Josh Simmons' House. His take on the subtle progressions in the relationship sub-plot put my own, entirely-too-facile reading to shame.
* in holy crap news, check out this list of comics folk scheduled to appear at Angouelme. Also, this article suggests that if you haven't already scheduled your train passage to the town, you should start thinking about taking a car. That's a story to watch, I think.
* this comics page survey results list reprinted by Alan Gardner really underlines the fact that a lot of the comics pages out there skew very, very old. At least I can't imagine a lot of twenty-somethings getting behind Hi and Lois; maybe I'm wrong. It's interesting to see another incident of a chilly reception afforded the once super-popular Cathy, although that feature could shed papers for the next ten years and have enough to make a more-than-decent living for its creator.
* there's a great historical post about Herbert Crowley over at the Comics Comics blog. Any biography that has two sentences like this next to one another
"Though he studied singing in Paris, he could never bring himself to face an audience. Then, while working in a mine, he discovered that he could draw."
is clearly a keeper.
* the writer J. Caleb Mozzocco has a long post up about pornographic comics in general and books by Colleen Coover and Brandon Graham specifically. I wasn't even aware the Graham book existed.
* here are a couple of great posts from Richard Thompson. In one of them, he spotlights an error that made it onto the comics page. I remember back when I was doing a strip we were really excited when this happened because it meant they trusted us not to watch us like hawks anymore. Of course, our strip didn't make it. The second post is one about pen nibs, the mere existence which will excite a small percentage of you way too much.
* finally, a last bit of not comics: the late comedian Bill Hicks has an enormous number of fans among comics people, or at least did in a specific period after his death when his work enjoyed a surge in popularity. Those people will know what I'm talking about when I point to Mark Evanier's post that says the excised David Letterman appearance will be played in full on the Late Show this Friday. That struck me as kind of interesting; I remember reading the Lahr article on the affair in a doctor's office in central Pennsylvania the summer before I moved to Seattle.
This Isn't A Library: New And Notable Releases To The Comics Direct Market
*****
Here are the books that make an impression on me staring at this week's largely accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the works listed here. I might not buy any. But were I in a comic book shop tomorrow I would more than likely pick up the following and look them over. And oh, oh, oh, my retailer might not like that.
*****
DEC084227 CAPACITY GN $15.00
I didn't see this on my first pass through the listings. It's a new book by Theo Ellsworth collecting a bunch of minis and it's very good. Definitely the pick of the week.
NOV084026 KASPAR GN (MR) $12.95
This sounds cool as crap and I don't know anything about it. Jog describes it better than I could here. I hate that Jog.
NOV080073 UMBRELLA ACADEMY DALLAS #3 (OF 6) $2.99 NOV080074 USAGI YOJIMBO #117 $3.50 NOV082383 MARVELS EYE OF CAMERA #3 (OF 6) $3.99 NOV082252 ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #12 (RES) $2.99
A few random comics in the "I would probably look at them" grouping. I think I'm only regularly buying Usagi, though.
NOV080064 MISTER X CONDEMNED #2 (OF 4) $3.50
Has anyone out there read this?
NOV082446 MARVEL 1985 PREM HC $24.99
NOV082447 MARVEL 1985 PREM HC DM ED $24.99
How about this?
NOV088149 FINAL CRISIS #6 (OF 7) 2ND PTG $3.99 NOV080123 FINAL CRISIS #7 (OF 7) $3.99
Like many summer romances, it ends in January at a point where I'm not sure I remember what I liked about it in the first place..
OCT082331 DRAGON PRINCE #4 JOHNSON CVR A $2.99 OCT082332 DRAGON PRINCE #4 SOOK CVR B $2.99
Why does this comic have two covers? I've read this comic, it's not the next Walking Dead.
NOV082366 CAPTAIN AMERICA #46 $2.99 NOV082430 CRIMINAL TP VOL 04 BAD NIGHT (MR) $14.99 NOV082370 DAREDEVIL #115 $2.99
Everything's coming up Brubaker! I like how all his books cluster together on the shipping list. Knowing Ed, there's a ten percent chance that's on purpose. Okay, not really. Still, his comics are generally fun. I can imagine much worse ways to spend a cold winter day than turning in early with a bunch of Ed Brubaker comic books to read.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics, can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry so your shop may not carry a specific publication. There are a lot of comics out there.
To find your local comic book store, check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, albeit a while back, try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock. Ordering through a direct market shop can be a frustrating experience, so if you have a direct line to something -- you know another shop has it, you know a bookstore has it -- I'd urge you to consider all of your options.
If I didn't list your comic... what? What? Yeah, I thought so.
So I'm Watching This Stan Lee Media Press Conference As I Type This...
The current Stan Lee Media people are having a video press conference as I type this featuring super-lawyer Martin Garbus giving a kind of basic facts presentation on their long-running dispute with Stan Lee. The fundamental argument Garbus presents seems to me to remain the same: that Stan Lee signed over all of his rights to all of his creative works to SLM upon that Internet company's creation. A specific legal construction regarding how Lee co-created his Marvel Comics they believe buttressed by facts relating to subsequent Stan Lee lawsuit-generated deals with Marvel gives them an interest in all the Marvel characters Lee co-created because Lee assigned that stuff to them. In other words, they feel Marvel agreed that Lee had profit participation in 2005 when wrapping up their dispute with Lee. They feel this is supported by the nature of the PR regarding that settlement and the construction of the settlement itself. Since they believe Stan had assigned those rights to SLM, he had no business making his deal with Marvel. SLM seeks a deal a lot better than what Stan got for himself.
The problem is, I'm not sure there's anything new here. It makes sense as an argument when they're talking to you and me. It always has. Well, it always made sense to me, anyway. As I've written several times on this site, their argument seems to make sense as an argument. If Martin Garbus were sitting across the table from me at dinner and told me this story, I would say, "Well, you certainly have quite an argument there, Mr. Garbus. It should be interesting to see how things turn out in court. Can you pass the butter?" While this stuff is fun to talk about, I'm not sure anything in the court of public opinion matters at this point. What matters is how it turns out in court. It's like someone making a case that the Arizona Cardinals are going to win the Super Bowl. Maybe so, but of infinitely greater importance is the game on Sunday. Right?
I guess there are some new tidbits. Garbus talks a lot about a November 1998 document between Lee and Marvel that they feel establishes a relationship between Lee and Marvel following the October 1998 assignation to SLM. They seem to be saying that that document is of interest 1) because it establishes some parameters on the Lee/Marvel relationship and 2) it may be evidence that Lee and Marvel were trying to subvert the October 1998 assignation in some way. I don't quite recall something that specific. As we get further on, Garbus drops the acronym "RICO" into the conversation -- abstractly, of course, but I guess that means they're really going to pursue that line of argument.
A much less compelling line of argumentation by Garbus is that SLM didn't assert its apparent ownership or control over these characters until this recent sea of suits because back in 1998 they didn't think they were worth very much, and Marvel was indeed bankrupt during the late 1990s so no one knew these characters' value. I find that not very compelling at all, and would advise anyone speaking on SLM's behalf to avoid that line of thinking entirely.
Apparently there's also a decision forthcoming from a special master on I think whether or not the company as it exists right now can continue to function in a way that would allow them to better pursue the current lawsuit. That might explain the timing of this press conference. Wait, duh, google: they've reinvigorated their fight with a new lawsuit recently filed. Marvel and its major agents are invited along for the ride as well. Mystery solved.
Something else that occurred to me -- as an historical issue, not a legal one -- is that part of the outside-in legal argument for Stan Lee as having an ownership interest depends on his having created the various Marvel characters as an outside agent away from his job at Marvel. I don't even know if that's historically accurate. All the talk about Lee working at home all the time mostly focuses on the pre-Marvel stuff, when he was really cranking stuff out for the monster books and such. I don't specifically know where and when Stan wrote during the Marvel superhero heyday -- I assume he was still writing at home, but I'm not going to court, either. It would be the greatest day of my life to win 50 percent control of Googam, Son Of Goom, but I can't imagine that's what SLM is in it for.
In the Q&A phase from which I was mostly bounced by the technology, someone asked what SLM would do with their interest in the characters, and Garbus spoke of making the characters more 21st Century by better exploiting them on the Internet, as was the general direction of the SLM in the first place. I have to say, I didn't find that to be very compelling, either. For one thing, SLM would be a partner in these characters, not a sole owner. This is also the first I've heard of anyone's dream to get that particular band back together, but only if they can use Spider-Man rather than the characters about which there's no dispute.
Your Prix BD des lecteurs du Parisien et d'Aujourd'hui Winner For 2008
Glenat's Vinci, l'ange brise, by Didier Convard and Gilles Chaillethas, has won this year's best album given out by the French daily newspaper Le Parisien to run in their national edition Aujourd'hui en France. Readers were apparently asked to pick among ten nominees, and that page also indicates there had been monthly winners named since March. Past winners of the yearly title include Zep, Joann Sfar and Nicolas de Crecy.
* not comics, but still: Neil Gaiman's prose work The Graveyard Book, featuring illustrations by Dave McKean, has won this year's Newbery Medal given out by the American Library Association. It goes to the "most distinguished American children's book published the previous year" and along with the Caldecott is probably the award in that arena of publishing that gets the most media play (it's been on the front page of NYTimes.com for the last 14 hours, initially on the initial, top part of the screen). It should make the book a library perennial, boost over the counter sales for several months, and add to Gaiman's growing reputation as a skilled practitioner in a variety of written forms. Past winners of the Newbery include works by Susan Cooper and Madeleine L'Engle. A bunch of the major awards in children's book publishing were announced, and you can read about them at any one of the news stories that resulted, like this one.
* one of the winners of one of those awards -- a Geisel honor book, the Geisels going to books for beginners -- was actually a comic: Eleanor Davis' Stinky, from the nascent Toon Book line. Davis is quite young, too, so the win is noteworthy for publisher and creator. As I recall, Francoise Mouly took the Toon project back into her own RAW set-up when she couldn't find a willing publishing partner for the line, so I can imagine honors like that being very important in terms of establishing the line.
* finally, a few of the news sites and your better class of blog noted that Jeff Smith has a book coming out from Toon this September, called Little Mouse Gets Ready. Smith is killing it right now. His first RASL collection is out, the serial comic version of that series continues this Spring, and perhaps most remarkably the last Scholastic color volume for Bone came out earlier this month, concluding that iteration of the series. That was a huge publishing project and one of historical importance both within comics and children's book publishing, and I hope that uneasy times won't keep it from being celebrated throughout comics as the model publishing journey it was. Also, considering that the work was not only originally intended for black and white publication, but actually appeared that way and was well-received as such, Steve Hamaker's coloring on the volumes has to be one of odder and effectively executed achievements in comics craft this decade.
Updates On Kevin Huizenga Ending His Or Else Series, VVM Killing Its Cartoons
* the cartoonist Kevin Huizenga told CR that as far as canceling his series Or Else with its fifth issue, a variety of factors came into play, including but not limited to Diamond's recent decision to raise minimums. "Obviously the Diamond thing plays into it, but it wasn't central... yet it kind of is. We could probably meet the minimum if we tried? But Love and Rockets becoming a book felt like, this is it, if there ever was any doubt. The comic book is a weird holdover, like a coelacanth. I guess if I do this right now I can always feel like it was my decision." He added, "I've been thinking about it for a while and now seems like a good time." He also suggested that maybe the traditional alt-comic, one-man-anthology format wasn't a particularly good one for him, either, "and probably not for comics in general, going forward."
For Huizenga, ending the series allows him to work towards the books more effectively. "I'm working on a lot of different things that don't all fit together. So let's just go book-by-book starting now. I'm in the middle of the Ganges series, and another Glenn Ganges story named Rumbling, the first part of which appeared in Or Else #5. So Ganges will still be coming out for a while and Rumbling will get serialized in some mini-comics (because I feel like that will help me get it done) until that's finished and ready to be a book." He also mentions that he'll be doing other 'zines in 2009, mentioning two by name: New Construction and Sermons. Gloriana may also be republished.
* this Minnesota Independent article confirms that the cartoons being dropped by Village Voice Media will be network-wide cartoons. This suggests that cartoons contracted by individual papers will be subject to individual scrutiny, which could also simply mean business continues as usual. Both Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch of Leon Beyond that runs in the VVM's River Front Times, did not receive any letter as to an interruption in sales, and Zettwoch in fact sent off a new installment Monday.
Print
1. All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
2. Scalped, Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera
3. The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard
4. Jonah Hex, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray
5. OMAC, Jack Kirby
On-Line
1. Loviathan, Mike Cavallaro
2. The Transmigration of Ultra-Lad, Joe Infurnari
3. Lilly MacKenzie, Simon Fraser
4. AD: New Orleans After the Deluge, Josh Neufeld
5. Panorama, Michel Fiffe
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* not comics: this was an encouraging article if you're an old-time newspaper fan, and I'm a great supporter in general of small-town newspapers (my father once owned a couple). I would imagine that if that model will continue to work they'll work from a combination of providing news as mentioned in the piece and the fact that they offer a stripped-down cost model that makes a lot more sense than the loaded-up newspapers you get further up the population chain. That's the major reason I would agree with this guy that a big magazine employing an on-line pay model using outdated technology is really doomed to fail: its costs too much for a big company like that to make something that will support itself, let alone support a magazine. It's not always about the impossibility of pay. (I'd also disagree with his assertion that no one holds onto material; my hunch is that a lot of specialty on-line sites and providers do this because they're wary of overwhelming their limited-time readerships -- it doesn't help to put a ton of content up if no one's willing to stay on your site -- and I'm certain other sites do this because they want to build an arrival expectation for a certain column or feature, like Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column at CNNSI.com.)
* finally, a reader whose name I can't make out writes in with a good question: "What is that weird, floating shape in Prickly City cartoons? I first noticed it when there was a skateboard that impacted against a stone wall. I thought it was a helmet or tennis shoe floating to earth. Then, today, I saw it in the sky where one would see the moon, with wolves howling at it. Trouble is... it doesn't look anything like a moon. It's weird. Take a look for yourself."
Westword (Denver), New Times (Phoenix), New Times Broward), The Pitch (Kansas City), SF Weekly (San Francisco), HoustonPress, Dallas Observer) New Times (Miami), Riverfront Times (St. Louis), Village Voice (New York), LA Weekly, City Pages (Minneapolis), Scene (Nashville), OC Weekly and Seattle Weekly.
I have no idea what this means in terms of individual strips. It could be that some of the papers have individual contracts that would not apply under what Tomorrow's saying, and I'm not sure how many of these publications actually carry comics. Apparently, the decision was communicated to cartoonists late last week.
Minnesota Independenthas reaction from one of the publication editors, including word that they may try to bring the comics back if the economy improves.
The move comes on the heels of the same company buying the social media site LikeMe.net, so this sounds more like strategy than a straight-up move made from necessity -- then again, firings and departures from the company's papers have been legion.
Tom Tomorrow; the news went out on a Daily Kos feed that Sean T. Collins saw. Thanks, Sean
It's Going To Be One Of Those Years
"Call me gullible or impressionable, but I'm actually feeling kind of hopeful this week." -- Sara Nelson, Editor-In-Chief, Publishers Weekly, posted this morning.
"Sara Nelson, the editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, the main trade magazine to the book industry, has been laid off in a restructuring by the publication's parent company, Reed Business Information." -- NYT Arts Beat, posted noonish.
Brian Kenney from School Library Journal will assume Nelson's duties. Nelson was an enthusiastic supporter of the book industry and a public editor, by which I mean she was active on panels and accessible in her role as industry advocate. She is the author of So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading (2004) and had been in her current position four years, during which the magazine greatly expanded its coverage of comics and graphic novels. The cuts come as part of a seven percent reduction at the company. Heidi MacDonald of PW's The Beat says that three other staffers were let go, but their names haven't been released yet.
David Rees concluded his successful run on Get Your War On about a week ago, something noted here as a thing about to happen but never a thing that happened. Thankfully, Richard Bruton provided this reminder. Get Your War On was one of the signature comics of the decade, notable for its focused subject matter, the manner in which it was presented, and the way it thundered onto the scene from what seemed out of nowhere. It was also one of the more consistent and significant expressions of an important aspect of post-9/11 culture. Click through the image for the last strip.
Go here for a free download of the first issue of Gerry Alanguilan's four-issue comic book series about chickens gaining sentience and speech. Even if you don't like it as much as I did there's a you may fall at least a little bit in love with how odd and deeply-felt a project Elmer is.
And They Will All Live Like Cartoonists: The US Economy And Comics, Post #14
Last week was a bad one for comics and the current downturn in the economy, in a way that underlines the unique problems facing comics: peripheral weaknesses, a rapidly transforming business model and outside pressures that inflict more pressure than many traditional, internal ones.
* a letter to freelancers then leaked brought word from several locations that MAD was being moved from monthly to quarterly publication and that the side-project magazines Mad Kids and Mad Classics would be cancelled. That news is alarming in terms of its general historical import: MAD is arguably the most popular comics publication of the last half-century. A move to quarterly publication sends a scary message, one that my gut tells me will be felt by the readership more in terms of its implications than in terms of a felt absence from the stands. For the professionals contributing to the well-liked recent iteration of the magazine, the blow is much more severe. This means less work in the immediate future for a lot of talented writers and artists. More from Mark Evanier, Tom Richmond and Evan Dorkin. Richmond's post indicates that MAD may go on-line in more significant fashion in the near future. Evanier echoes the likelihood for the continuation of the strong MAD brand in his post, which depending on your personal reaction to past attempts to do this kind of thing with MAD and others, might either encourage or depress the crap out of you. The switchover begins immediately.
* the PW comics and pop culture blogger Heidi MacDonald unearthed word last Friday that layoffs directed by Time Warner hit the DC Comics division after all -- there had been speculation they might pass by that division entirely. Included were several MAD staffers, subscription manager Christine Sawicki and editor Bob Schreck. That it was Schreck made the news additionally surprising, in the same way it was stunning when Jim Borgman took the Enquirer buyout. It's not like you can't see the future there, you just never entertained the possibility that things would go in this direction. Schreck seems generally well-liked, has a pedigree that stretches back to the early days of independent comics from which many of today's top creators sprung, and was a big factor in stabilizing DC's lackluster Batman books and acting a general conduit for that company to talent outside the general superhero mainstream. He was also the DC point person in working with Frank Miller, I believe. Schreck is the one recent departure with the track record and contacts that one can imagine landing any variety of places, even in economically chaotic times.
* MacDonald's excellent Friday continued when she brought word of staff cuts at Diamond. I would expect reaction to that news to break down along the same lines as the much more severe and passionate reaction to their raising sales miniums. On the one hand, staff cuts make sense for Diamond in a "they're changing things around fashion." On the other hand, the small drop in overall sales from last year's record-setting levels doesn't by itself sound like direct justification for the necessity of a round of cutbacks unless other factors are somehow involved. In other words, it's hard for me to believe a company that's been as successful for as long as Diamond would be that fragile. Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part, though.
* the Diamond news from about ten days ago now, that they were raising expectations of minimum wholesale amounts from $1500 to $2500, continues to be a hot topic of conversation. Here are two good ones from the UK: interested observer Richard Bruton and small press publisher Kenny Penman.
* things suck in magazine distribution, too. A few of you have mailed me a link to this article on Source Interlink joining Anderson News in demanding a new fee for magazines to be delivered to the newsstand regardless of number of copies that end up being sold. In a world where the magazine is spiraling downward as a reasonable way to deliver information content and where the economy is generally down, this is potential extinction-event news for a lot of companies and big names already teetering towards unprofitability. I don't know what comics companies would feel the impact and to what extent that impact would be felt if this becomes the norm and a new arrangement that avoids the additional fees isn't worked out, although it strikes me that this can't be welcome news at the magazine publisher Wizard, who don't look ready in any way to make a switch to an on-line identity and have done things like fire huge swaths of staff people and explore selling their building in a way that hints at their being a bit wobbly overall.
* and on to newspaper. Recently fired Ventura County Star cartoonist Steve Greenberg has landed on his feet at alt-weekly Ventura County Reporter. I can't tell if that's a staff position or an elaborate freelance deal, but it sounds firmer than a promise they'll look at his stuff if he submits. He details the spiraling decline of editorial cartooning, particularly staffed positions.
* did the announcement of a big sale of the Chicago Cubs for a shade under $1,000,000,000 have any effect with how financial folks perceive the Tribune Company's dire financial outlook? Not really. What about the New York Times? Was there a change in the general outlook for that company after they received more money from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu? Sort of, but in the wrong direction.
The cartoonist Kevin Huizenga has announced he'll no longer be doing his serial comic book, Or Else, five issues of which were published through Drawn and Quarterly. The above cover was to have been to issue #6; that project will not come out. Huizenga had high praise for publisher Drawn and Quarterly and says he will continue with his book and 'zine efforts. Huizenga initially came to the attention of publishers through a long-running handmade 'zine comic, Supermonster.
* Skim
* Rumble Strip
* Alan's War
* Ordinary Victories: What Is Precious
* Britten & Brülightly
* Aldebaran: Volume One The Catastrophe and Volume Two The Group
* Travel
* Freedom Comics
* Complete Little Orphan Annie Vol. 1
* Rick Random: Space Detective
* What It Is
* Monster
* Breakdowns
* Love & Rockets: New Stories Vol. 1
* Kramer's Ergot 7
* Acme Novelty Library #19
* Red Colored Elegy
* Criminal
* The DFC
* Swallow Me Whole
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the cartoonist Scott Adams is non-apologetic about promoting his business through his comic strip. Thirty years ago, my newspaperman father would have immediately canceled any strip that did this, even Peanuts, but we live in very different times now and I imagine there will be little fallout except for grousing. Needless to say, however, suggesting that comics have a commercial role within the newspaper to justify temporarily exploiting that platform on behalf of one's own business seems bizarre and almost hateful to me, but I have never made significant amounts of money so it's hard for me to criticize the strategies employed by someone that successful.
* at ActuaBD.com, David Taugis has a report on the comics at the Louvre show and a schedule for where the exhibit should appear over the next few years: Lausanne, Belo Horizonte, Montreal, Angouleme (for the 2010 festival), Brussels, and Tokyo.
* not comics: I take it back, please let the New York Times die. Note to editor: if you can imagine the article being introduced by Mary Hart, it's probably not worth publishing. I know this makes me sound a cranky old person, but that article made me feel horrible after reading it, like I'd just had my time wasted by someone's unpaid commercial in the guise of arts coverage.
* the New York Times might disappoint, but at least we can take comfort in the fact that the practitioners of the dying art of editorial cartooning are focused on the important things. You know, like Gordon Brown thinking they draw him too fat and the collective wail that President Obama isn't as easy to make fun of than the last guy who was president. Okay, never mind.
* hey, let's run a press release! I caught this in Buenaventura Press' news section:
Buenaventura Press with Chris Ware, Adrian Tomine, and Daniel Clowes at the Angouleme International Comics Festival, January 29 - February 1, 2009.
Next week we will be in France, exhibiting for our fourth consecutive year at the Angouleme International Comics Festival. We'll be traveling with the festival's special guests Chris Ware, Adrian Tomine, and Daniel Clowes, who have not appeared in Europe for over five years. Along with our own Buenaventura Press titles we'll have the latest by these celebrated cartoonists including: ACME Novelty Library #19 by Ware, Shortcomings by Tomine, and Ghost World: Special Edition and 20th Century Eightball by Clowes.
This also marks the final stop of the international tour for Kramers Ergot 7, the most acclaimed art comics anthology of the last two decades, and the following contributors will be signing copies throughout the festival:
Conrad Botes
Daniel Clowes
Joe Daly
Jerome Mulot
Florent Ruppert
Souther Salazar
Adrian Tomine
Chris Ware
Check back soon for our signing schedule, and look for us in the "Place New York."
That's as good a reminder as any that it's Angouleme time, and this year features what seems to me a more impressive American presence than usual, as well as a precarious economic backdrop. We'll have a preview of the festival on Thursday, and will comment on the bigger news throughout the weekend. Bart Beaty will be in attendance, which we hope will mean columns. If anyone else is going over there to set up for business,
* finally, Chris Sims draws attention to a portion of a fondly-remembered Despero plot-line from an issue of Justice League International. It's fun to see Adam Hughes' art at that early stage in his career. What I remember about re-reading a bunch of those comics a few years ago is that it was a fairly effective monster heel rampage plotline of the kind that superhero comics overuse now, or at least don't seem to be able to set up properly. The fact that JLI was kind of a jokey book gave this sudden appearance by a significant, scary bad-ass and the sight of him beating on things until they died a lot more oomph. You don't see those shifts in tone anymore, mostly because there's so much pressure to maximize sales on every single comic book. (thanks, Sean)
New York Comic-Con has a short but interesting history: seeing general success and support almost from the start, rallying from a first year of turning away people at the door that already paid, lurching back and forth between winter and spring, arguably settling into an identity that's a bit more traditional con and a bit less "focused BEA for comics people" than some hoped, and in terms of the convention scene overall providing what many saw as a pop in the nose to a Wizard Entertainment group that seemed for years to be heading towards a New York show themselves. I went to NYCC last year, and while I had a great time in New York and enjoyed the ICv2.com-sponsored conference the day before, I was somewhat underwhelmed by the show itself.
Still, and I think Fensterman is aware of this, it's a big comics show in New York City. The possibility of a self-sustaining convention of any non-horrible kind taking root in the publishing and media capital of the world is enticing enough you're going to let it sleep drunk on your couch and leave wet towels on your unvarnished coffee table for a lot more years than you'd allow a show anywhere else to do the same. And again, most people in attendance and many exhibitors seem to be moving towards the positive experience camp, if they're not already firmly there.
This year's edition of the show, once again at the Javitz Center, is February 6-8. The publication of the following represents a frighteningly quick turnaround, but I wanted to get it up today for few reasons. First, I wanted to give Fensterman a platform to talk about his show while people are still making attendance and coverage plans. Second, it looks like the show will be making announcements about its future between now and the convention's opening that could make this interview a bit less vital in terms of being up to date, which means I can take care of them in a news story rather than updating this more structurally complex piece. Third, I really dreaded writing another essay about the economy this morning, and I suspect you dreaded reading one.
I appreciate Fensterman's attention to what turned out to be a lot of questions. Beyond the economic impact points, there seems to me to be at least a couple of potential news stories germinating here. One is that Reed seems to be making plans to continue the show and is about to secure a settled date for the convention rather than wherever it fits on the Javits calendar. Another is that Fensterman refuses to deny or, really, the way I see it, speak in direct fashion to questions about Reed planning a proper comics show of this type for Chicago. I'm also relieved that someone at the show finally admits flitting around the calendar is weird. Thanks, Lance. -- Tom Spurgeon
*****
TOM SPURGEON: Lance, as I recall you came over to the show last year. Just to give me a sense of how you initially came to the show, can you talk about why you took it over, maybe what set of skills you hoped to bring to bear on the show, why you got that gig?
LANCE FENSTERMAN: You are correct sir, I was brought on in October of 07 to take the helm at NYCC. I was an independent bookseller before joining Reed to run BookExpo America, the big publishing show and apparently I didn't screw that up too much as they promoted me and asked me to run all of our publishing and pop culture events. I have experience in this space and a passion for it but I also bring some "non traditional" sensibilities to the table. I'm not a "trade show" guy like a lot of people in this building, so I think I was seen as being a fan, a guy who loves his customers and can relate to them and someone that would bring a different type of thinking to the event. I also have a pretty deep entrepreneurial background in my life and Reed really values that, especially on an event like NYCC and NYAF, we get to be inventors...
SPURGEON: A lot of what I read about last year's show was pretty immediate reaction, which is common for shows like these -- you interview the organizer in the glow of the con's success. I know that you guys have longer evaluative periods than that. Is there anything that came out of the show once you really examined it that was different or maybe had a greater emphasis than your initial take on 2008?
FENSTERMAN: Even in a longer view, I really feel like the '08 event was an arrival for the con as a true national event, which is extremely exciting. I tagged that event as the one that would really establish us as a "go to" and I think it did. Now, having said that, I also think we saw a lot of challenges come out of it like the constant shifting of dates that we've suffered through at the hands of Javits' lack of availability. Constantly shifting around on the calendar is a huge impediment to being a real anchor on the con calendar. The '08 event also reminded us that even though we have improved every year, we have to keep working on the fan experience in terms of logistics. I can't understate how much we have improved, but we have a long way to go -- but that's customer service in any arena, you can never rest on your laurels or take your customers for granted.
SPURGEON: To what degree and in what ways do you think you're still in a learning curve on this show. Like last year I know you had a concert -- it went well, reportedly, but I was thinking that might have been something slightly out of your comfort range in terms of organizing. Are there aspects of the show that are still kind of an adventure for you? Which ones?
FENSTERMAN: Like I said, we need to constantly be in learning curve mode to some degree. Once you think you know it all, you will start to take you customers and fans for granted. We did a series of "con fabs" this year which were really feedback sessions for fans to share with us what we did well and did not do well and we've employed all of those learning's into this years show. I'm really proud of that. This is the fans show, we just build it. You brought up the concert and I thought the T.M. Revolution concert was amazing. I was proud of it and I think it proved to ourselves and customers that we can pull of anything even an arena quality rock show complete with massive lighting rigs and fog machines. The rub with that one came when the bills arrived! I cannot tell you how much we spent to outfit that theatre for the screenings and concerts but it was an insane amount of money to assure the fan experience.
SPURGEON: I greatly liked the New York in Spring aspect of the show last year. This year it's in February. Is it common for your group's shows and/or shows at the Javits to move back and forth on dates like this one has? Why is that? I'd love to know if you think you'll one day be able to settle on a time for the show and what that time will be.
FENSTERMAN: It is not common at all. Almost all events that Reed runs have consistent dates, frankly its part of running a professional event. Unfortunately, we have had extreme difficulty in securing consistent dates from the Javits Center. This comes from the fact that the building is insanely busy (and we look three to four years out trying to find a consistent home), we need a lot of space for growth and for all of our fans and that the Javits did not know what to think of us for the first few years -- they were skeptical. The good news is that we've won the Javits over, they now see that NYCC is becoming a city wide cultural and media event -- Crane's Business named us the fourth largest event that takes place in NYC -- and we have been working with them to secure a consistent set of dates for the next four years. We'll be ready to announce that shortly, but Javits has really stepped up and even moved other shows to accommodate us. This is all another sign of NYCC's maturity in becoming a serious city wide and national event.
SPURGEON: I wanted to ask you a few questions about the economy in the hopes that you'll feel free to be expansive and specific in your answers. First, has there been, or do you foresee, any changes in plans regarding this year's show from any of your vendors or exhibitors? Has anyone canceled, changed the level of their presence, decided to bring fewer creators along…?
FENSTERMAN: I am knocking on wood as I type my answer here, but the answer, broadly speaking, is no. We've had a few exhibitors not come this year that have in the past due to the economy, but very few. We are poised for growth on the show floor and to date ticket sales are up 10-15% over this time last year. I have always maintained that if we create a kick ass con our fans will reward us by spending there stretched dollars with us. And if we offer value to our exhibitors they will see us as a help to there business and an event they can't afford not to come to. So far, we seem to be accomplishing those goals. The biggest challenge has been with toy companies as the Toy Fair event is immediately after us which has lead to attrition from toy companies. I was crunching some numbers last night and if had kept the same number of toy companies from last year we would have been on path for massive growth on the show floor once again.
SPURGEON: Second, how does your show planning take into account a less aggressively successful economy. Do you focus on local guests? Do you focus on more local advertising, say? Is your message different when you ask people to spend money right now? Do you emphasize different aspects of the show given that overall outlook for a lot of people out there?
FENSTERMAN: We focus on the same things we always do with perhaps a bit more urgency: Build an amazing event that will wow our fans and provide value and return on investment for our exhibitors. Really, that is it, it's a simple mantra, but it bears out. If we build something worthy of a fans price of admission, we believe they will reward us by choosing to come. Logistically we are working on some things to make exhibiting less expensive for our customers for next year's show. NYC is an expensive place to do business, that's a fact, so we are developing some plans and making some investments to try and ease that burden.
SPURGEON: What's different about your programming this year?
FENSTERMAN: There is slightly less of it. We felt that last year was a bit more than the facilities could handle and that resulted in some crowding issues that I was not pleased with. So we pulled back our number of panels about five to eight percent and staggered start times to assure that we did not have the same congestion problems in the panel area that we had last year. We also took out more space at the Javits to accommodate for the crowds. I'm also seeing a bigger push from TV this year than last and while I'm not certain, I think some of this is attributable to our position on the calendar before sweeps.
SPURGEON: Comics convention are odd beasts -- part industry get-together, part socializing hub, part public showcase. I think NYCC more than any other show kind of wears those various aspects out in the open. Do you think you have an identity now? I know for example it's a show that a lot of the book publishers seemed excited about, not just because it's in New York but because it's a format and approach that's more familiar to them than some of the other shows. What would you ideally like the show to be? Do you see that beginning to take shape?
FENSTERMAN: I think first and foremost NYCC is a New York show. Maybe that seems obvious, but so much of our identity is this city. It's the base of publishing -- both comics and traditional. Beyond that, I would like us to be viewed as an event where business gets done. We are strict about our professional/trade hours, we have strong trade programming, we have a business center on the show floor for meetings to be conducted all those factors are contributing to the business of rights, licensing and other pieces of the business of this business being done at the con. This is an aspect I would expect to see increase in future years -- not at the expense of the fans, but in addition to all that we do for the fans.
SPURGEON: How important is booth placement to you? I know that some exhibitors from 2008 feel they were stuffed into some odd locations, although at the same time it seems there's some thought given to spreading the bigger exhibitors around the main hall. Do you feel this is an area of improvement for 2009?
FENSTERMAN: I was overall pretty happy with the floor plan in '08, I felt that it had good flow and accommodated the 67,000 people that poured through the aisles. Now having said that, booth placement is a no win on any event of this size. We recognize that we will not please everyone, but we do our best. We try to spread the big booths out across the floor while accommodating everyone else as well, but with 500 or so exhibitors it gets tricky -- like a game a Tetris! Overall, I feel we succeed more than we fail in this area.
SPURGEON: I'd love to hear you talk as specifically as possible about any city or civic support the show receives. Is New York invested in the show to the extent you'd like to see that relationship developed?
FENSTERMAN: Simply put -- no. It's hard to make an impact on a city of this size and to date we have had no support of any kind from the city (with the exception of the Javits Center really working with us this year to find consistent dates). If we were in a smaller city or a smaller media city, we would own the city already, but NYC is hard city to own. Having said that, I did mention that after 3 years in existence, we are the 4th largest even in the entire city – that's no small impact to have made this quickly in a city of this size. We continue to work with the city on how we might better partner but they have a lot of big issues in front of them, like directing air traffic along the Hudson.
SPURGEON: I once heard a con person asked if the weekend of the con that you organize is like being the mayor of a small town and they suggested it was more like being that town's garbage man. What is the weekend of the show like for you? Is it constant troubleshooting, is it big picture stuff, is it doing following-through on media...? How do you feel those days?
FENSTERMAN: Hmmmmm, I don't know that I feel like a mayor or a garbage man. I think I feel like a kid whose parents are away for the weekend and I threw a party that is rapidly getting bigger and bigger! My job on site is to assure that everyone is having a good time and all is going smoothly. I do a lot of media, but I also spend a lot of time with fans. I'm typically the first person to the building every morning to meet the fans that are waiting and let them in. I meet with Public Safety to assure we have no crowding issues, I spend time in registration talking to fans, I have business meetings with my customers and make sure they are doing well, I check out the popular panels to assure they are well attended and running smoothly and I get to be a fan just a little and go see a few minutes of the stuff I am interested in. Really though, I run for four days straight doing my best to be a good host and assure everyone is having fun. It's tiring and that beer that arrives in our offices around 10 PM is about the best tasting beer I have all year.
SPURGEON: About once a month I hear a rumor that Reed is planning a Chicago show, sometimes with sub-rumors that it's to be held in downtown Chicago and that it's going to be scheduled during the second half of the calendar year. Can you confirm or deny that general rumor and/or the sub-rumors? Have there been discussions about Chicago? Beyond that specific pair of questions, is there a general desire to expand into another comics show? And has the economy changed any of these conversations?
FENSTERMAN: I would like to do a show in February in Florida. I could catch Twins spring training game, get away from the cold Northeast, now that would be nice! We are always looking at our options and where our customers tell us they feel there is a need. We are not in the business of expanding for our own desires to expand, that is not good business and we would not do it. Any moves we would make would be because our customers have told us they want what we have to offer in a given market. So this is to say that I don't have a driving desire to expand into more comics shows, but I do have a desire to meet customer and market needs where they might exist and if I feel what we do well can be applied and we can serve our fans and our customers. We are lucky at Reed in that we are allowed to run our businesses like small business with the resources behind us of a big business, so we have the ability to be nimble and react when the market conditions are right. Looking back in '06 we launched NYCC, in '07 the NY Anime Fest in '08 we entered into a relationship with Penny Arcade Expo, I think that pattern illustrates our ability to meet our customers needs, take risks, commit the dollars to creating great events and a pattern of being aggressive when the opportunities are there.
SPURGEON: So to be clear: Are there plans for a Chicago show? Have there been internal discussions about a Chicago show?
FENSTERMAN: No immediate plans are in place for any kind of event in a new market this year, but any time our customers tell us there is an opportunity in a market, no matter where that is (including internationally) we will conduct our due diligence to explore those opportunities.
SPURGEON: Something I found very interesting about NYCC is how large the single vendor table section is, those tables where you have one or two artists seated at chairs facing forward -- I don't know if you guys call it Artist Alley. Now with some shows, that section just as much about tradition and a certain way comics has always done things -- since you don't necessarily fall into either of those categories, I was wondering if you could talk about that part of the floor, in a business sense and in the sense of providing a certain kind of experience to attendees.
FENSTERMAN: The show is about artists and fans connecting and Artist Alley (yes we call it that) is the most focused expression of that connection. We feel as though it's an incredibly important aspect of NYCC. We have consultants who help us "curate" artist alley as we always have twice as many requests for space as we have space and we felt it important to have an independent voice guiding us on how the tables are distributed. I'll be frank, it is an immense amount of work, with virtually no financial gain for the con, but it is a critical part of the show for both the artists and the fans. I'm proud of what we've done with Artist Alley.
SPURGEON: According to what you might know from having heard back from vendors or surrounding business, or we comics people really as cheap as we're sometimes told?
FENSTERMAN: Ha! Let's see, how can I approach this one! In all genuineness, most people associated with the world of comics are small business owners and free lancers, if you are not creative in how you market and conduct your business, you will not have a business, I know this first hand from my own background, and I respect it. It was a learning curve for Reed in the first few years though. As a company Reed often deals with big companies that pay to have all of there materials sent to the convention center. On NYCC a huge percentage of our customers cart in there own materials. This created havoc with the unions at Javits as there are strict rules around such matters. Last year, we created a program and spent a large amount of many to hire union labor to help our exhibitors haul everything in. The meant the unions were happy (I have no interest in waking up under the new Jets stadium one day) and our customers got free labor and didn't have to break a sweat. So that's my way of saying that I don't think comic folks are cheap, but rather resourceful! And I'm proud of how we've tried to help them be resourceful out of respect to there business.
SPURGEON: How do you, personally, know if a show is successful? Is there a sign you look for, a certain level of buzz or a certain ferocity to the crowds? At what point do you take that first breath of air in knowing that things have gone well? Is that something you know at the show, going in, long afterwards...? What's your measure of success?
FENSTERMAN: I take a breath on Sunday night when the con is over and not until then. Seriously. We measure success a few different ways; ticket sales and crowds, we want the place jammed. Is it cool? The con has to be cool, fun, exciting, new and engaging. Media coverage as we want this event to raise the awareness and stature of the popular arts in culture at large. Did everything go relatively smoothly on site? The president of Reed joked with me that this is the only event Reed runs that one measure of success is if every customer actually got in and got in safely! Lastly we do in depth and intense satisfaction surveys after the event to all of our constituents (pros, fans, exhibitors) that give us pages and pages of data on which the event is rated. This is a process we take seriously as if the show was not well received and the fans and customers were not happy our compensation reflects that. I only point that out as it underscores a lot of my answers here -- our driving goal in all that we do is to promote a healthy growing industry, create an event that makes our fans happy and helps our customers business. This is at the core of all of our decisions and it's a blast every day to come to work and find ways to wow our fans and customers.
SPURGEON: Hey, before you go: Is there anything to be said about BEA 2009 and comics' place in it? Has comics settled into a groove at that show, or is there anything you'd like to see done that hasn't been done yet?
FENSTERMAN: BEA '09 is going to be an interesting event. The publishing world has been a tumultuous one this year and you are going to see a number of changes in how we do things at BEA this year. Does graphic literature have a larger place in those plans? I certainly think it does as graphic literature is one of the bright spots on publishing's sales lists right now. In an even broader sense though, I think the NYCC has a few things it can learn from BEA and BEA certainly has a some learning it can take from NYCC, that's what makes my role fun -- and maddening -- but mostly fun!
*****
* photos from my own trip last year; that's 2008 GOH Mo Willems (on the left) and Vito "I Am Comics In New York City" Delsante (on the right). I have no idea who those ladies at the booth might be, or who's in that signing.
* logos from the NYCC site
FFF Results Post #148 -- Scattered
On Friday, CR readers were asked to "Name Your Five Favorite Marvel or DC Comics Single Issues, Nothing From The Same Series Twice." This is how they responded.
*****
Frank Santoro
* Dark Knight #3
* Watchmen #11
* New Gods #7
* 2001 #5
* Tales to Astonish #82
* Ambush Bug Nothing Special #1
* Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21
* The Batman Adventures: Mad Love
* Marvel Tales #1 (I promise this isn't just a cop-out reprint of multiple issues...this was one of the first comics I ever had, and I read it literally to pieces)
* Captain America #250
*****
Uriel A. Duran
1) Justice League -- The New Frontier Special #1
2) Hitman #21
3) What If? #114
4) The Avengers #1 1/2
5) Legends Of The DC Universe #14
*****
Johnny Bacardi
1. Amazing Spider-Man #16
2. Strange Tales #131
3. Bat Lash #2
4. Amazing Adventures feat. War of the Worlds #28
5. The Shadow #2
*****
Michael Grabowski
* Amazing Adventures "featuring War of the Worlds" #39
* The Avengers #93
* Captain America #208
* Daredevil #177
* Saga of the Swamp Thing #21
* Batman #404
* Uncanny X-Men Annual #10
* All Star Superman #5
* Hellblazer #27
* Watchmen #1
*****
Tom Bondurant
1. Justice League of America Vol. 1 #144
2. New Teen Titans Vol. 1 #39
3. Detective Comics #500
4. 'Mazing Man #1
5. Green Lantern Vol. 2 #79
*****
Michael Aushenker
* Marvel Double Feature #11 -- First comic book I ever read: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby on "Captain America"; Lee and Gene Colan on "Iron Man." 'Nuff said!
* Amazing Fantasy #15 -- May not technically be one of the best Spider-Man stories, but it's definitely the most memorable.
* Ghost Rider #35 -- Creepy, chilling, haunting like a "Twilight Zone." Ghost Rider vs. The Grim Reaper! Had writer/artist Jim Starlin and inker Steve Leialoha stayed on the book, this may have been one of the greatest series from the 1970s, not just a B-level trashy pleasure.
* The Human Fly #8 - In which artist Frank Robbins goes to town, pitting the Fly against Copperhead at the Metropolitan Museum, and rendering the White Tiger in his inimitable style. Hey, how do you save a bunch of elementary kids in rising sewer water? You get them all into a rare giant vase and you surf it to safety, you idiot!
* Combat Kelly and the Deadly Dozen #9 -- What a finale! I've never, ever seen a series go out like this. Totally bad-ass. And one of the most brutal, twisted, sadistic issues ever to bear the Comics Code stamp of approval. Boy, were they asleep at the wheel on this one! Even though much of it was implied or off panel, I still can't believe what they got away with. Forget Combat Kelly: writer Gary Freidrich should've got a medal!
*****
Matthew Wave
1) DC Comic Presents #66*
2) Marvel Premiere #28**
3) Marvel Team-Up #74***
4) Wonder Woman Annual #2****
5) All Star Superman #3*****
* The only comic book to ever make me cry, totally divorced from its content (storyline/subject matter/theme), but instead merely from the sheer beauty of the art
**The Legion of Monsters!
***Spider-Man and The-Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players!
****Not many comic books feature both of my second-favorite cartoonists -- Ramona Fradon and Trina Robbins
*****Maayyybeee? Because it's my favorite issue of this great series?
1. Fantastic Four #27 -- Some of the funniest dialogue from the Thing. The Sub-Mariner always worked great as a guest star in the early Fantastic Four issues.
2. Avengers #56 -- Cap finally comes to terms with Bucky's death.
3. Daredevil #92 -- I liked the Daredevil issues with the Black Widow as co-star, illustrated by Gene Colan.
4. The Amazing Spider-Man #25
5. Savage Tales #2 -- Beautiful artwork by Barry Windsor-Smith
*****
Douglas Wolk
* Watchmen #5
* Warlock (1975) #11
* Legion of Super-Heroes (1989) #1
* All Star Superman #10
* Thriller #4
* Daredevil Special #1 (1967) "Electro and His Emissaries of Evil"
* Justice League of America #100 -- JLA/JSA team up
* Shazam #1
* DC Special #15 -- Jack Cole's Plastic Man reprints!
* 100-Page Super Spectacular DC #18 (1973) which reprinted "The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue"
A great topic and makes me want to pull all these out of their boxes and go back down memory lane.
*****
Russell Lissau
1. Uncanny X-Men #173
2. Astonishing X-Men #1
3. Batman #404
4. Vigilante #1 (1980s series)
5. Batman: The Long Halloween #1
*****
Sean T. Collins
* The Dark Knight Returns #4
* Seven Soldiers of Victory #1
* New Gods #6
* Legends of the Dark Knight #29
* New X-Men #114
*****
Mark Coale
1. Animal Man #5
2. Justice League of America #195
3. Avengers #224
4. Flash #179
5. Legion of Substitute Heroes Special #1
*****
Scott Cederlund
1) Avengers #200
2) Legion of Super-Heroes #297
3) Fantastic Four #236
4) Watchmen #5
5) Sandman #21
* Batman #393
* Daredevil #282
* Blade #2 (Guggenheim and Chaykin series)
* Wolverine #2 (Claremont and Miller series)
* Star Wars #38
*****
Will Pfeifer
1. Heckler #4 -- the Wile E. Coyote issue, as I like to call it
2. Flex Mentallo #4 -- Morrison and Quitely
3. All-Star Superman #10 -- More Morrison and Quitely
4. Daredevil #230 -- Matt Murdock gets up off the mat in the "Born Again" storyline
5. Superman Annual #11 -- "For the Man Who Has Everything" by Moore and Gibbons
*****
Andrew J. Mansell
1. Fantastic Four #77
2. Tales of Asgard #1
3. New Gods #7
4. Justice League of America #83 -- Best JLA/JSA team-up!
5. Batman #217 -- Frank Robbins sends Robin to college and ushers in a new era and freaks me out!!!
*****
Michael Ryan
* Metal Men # 3 -- the robots battle a mutant egg from space.
* Adventure #340 -- One of Triplicate Girl’s bodies is disintegrated by Computo.
* X-Men #10 -- Ka-Zar reappears in the Silver Age along with the coolest sabre-toothed tiger ever, ever: Zabu!
* Stalker #1 -- Steve Ditko & Wally Wood do Sword & Sorcery.
* Not Brand Echh! #6 -- if only for Marie Severin's drawing of "The Wisp" at the end of the Spider-man parody.
ICv2.com: Handley Trial Start Date Set
The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com notes that the jury trial for Christopher Handley, accused of possessing child pornography in the form of comics books, is scheduled to begin February 2. A favorable ruling was won last summer on parts of the indictment, but Handley still faces significant jail time if convicted.
This is shitty law applied in horrifying fashion in a way that has nothing to do with whether or not you support child pornography, in the same way that possessing Identity Crisis #1 doesn't make you a supporter of snuff films. I've worked with families destroyed by abuse, I don't own any of the kinds of manga supposedly involved and I'd probably punch you in the face if you tried to bring it into my house, but I sure as hell own a copy of R. Crumb's "Joe Blow" and I'd rather not go to jail for it, thanks.
While I was running interviews on this site and off helping Santa at the North Pole, this interview ran with CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein and a Child Protection Advocate about some of the issues involved. I don't remember seeing it linked up, although I'm sure it was.
Drawing Obama And Using Blue Lips I'm grateful to Daryl Cagle for talking about a cartoon from Patrick Corrigan at the Toronto Star being killed because the editor felt that drawing the president with blue lips is a racial stereotype. Unfortunately, this just leaves me more baffled than intellectually sated because I can't find 1) anything that indicates blue lips has ever been a racial stereotype, 2) any reason why you'd draw the president with blue lips. Two explanations asserted, that cartoonists in Canada draw everyone with blue lips and that blue lips are a sign the President has been sneaking smokes, aren't very compelling and compete in a way that makes the whole thing seem weird. I think everyone should just stop drawing President Obama this way and we should pretend it never happened.
A Quick Note On Sean Kleefeld's Long List Of "Lost" Editorial Cartoonists
Sean Kleefeld's list of editorial cartoonists being fired/being bought out/leaving is depressing all on its own, because it's so long and every single line represents someone whose life has changed and whose market is now worse for their absence. I'd argue there are factors that make it worse upon reconsideration.
One, this is a surprisingly lengthy list given these are cartoonists being asked to leave a specific type of professional ranks that was already lean from a couple of decades of slowly bleeding to death. It's not like you could point at editorial cartoonists back in January 2008 and think "Wow, they're everywhere! I bet they could lose a dozen or more of their best practitioners and no one would notice." Two, as Kleefeld notes, there are at least three cartoonists that could join this group in the next 60 days. Three, the list itself doesn't quite communicate the power from considering some of the individual names involved. In general, this isn't an NBA team cutting a back-up guard from Auburn you've never heard of. It's the Lakers, Spurs and Rockets parting ways with Kobe, Tim Duncan and Yao Ming. If David Horsey joins this group, Sean's list would have three of the five cartoonists (Horsey, Bok, Borgman, Toles, Oliphant) that I would have bet $10,000 two years ago would never be fired or let go or bought out or allowed to walk. That's astonishing.
The cartoonist Rich Tommaso sent CR a Best of 2008 list. It consists of the following:
* Gus, Christophe Blain (First Second)
* Haunted, Philippe Dupuy (Drawn And Quarterly)
* Blackjack, Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
* Or Else #5, Kevin Huizenga (Drawn And Quarterly)
* Acme Novelty Library #19, Chris Ware (Drawn And Quarterly)
* Love And Rockets New Stories, Los Bros Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
* Ordinary Victories Vol. 2, Manu Larcenet (NBM)
Bill Ayers: Friend of The President, Domestic Terrorist, Comic Book Critic
It's as good a single paragraph on the self-evident value of comics as you're likely to read, too.
* Stickleback, Ian Edgington and D'Israeli
* That Salty Air, Tim Sievert
* Too Cool to be Forgotten, Alex Robinson
* Swallow Me Whole, Nate Powell
* Absolute Sandman Volume 3, Neil Gaiman
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* one reason why Scott Adams is such a success is that he sees business opportunities in something as everyday-use based as the program by which he was uploading his files to the syndicate's service bureau.
* this piece of PR made the rounds yesterday evening: IDW is back with a fourth printing of their Barack Obama biography, which you may remember was paired with a John McCain biography during its initial launch. I liked the IDW project. Although I wouldn't be able to make the case that the comic is anything approaching a significant achievement in art, there was an effort to provide information not readily available in the campaign's controlled dialogue and there was a definite application of craft throughout in terms of how it was presented. I can't say the same for the other recent Obama comics, which seem to me more like commemorative plates clumsily folded into some clunky narrative, engineered in a cynical fashion that at least in the case of Marvel's case helped make a lot of well-meaning retailers look like douchebags.
* this sounds pretty reasonable except for the pay-for on-line stuff. Nobody's paying for stuff on-line.
* the blogger Dick Hyacinth has posted another round-up of Best Of Comics 2008 lists. A couple of you have asked after a CR list. I think I'm done reading comics from 2008, but I have yet to find the time to sit down and puzzle things through for a list that should still definitely arrive by Valentine's Day. It's not working in a foundry and it's not brain surgery, but making critical distinctions between comics is definitely more difficult now than it used to be. That's one of the reasons I always laugh at those ponytailed guys that used to write about comics in the 1980s when they assert that writers about comics were better 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago. It's one thing to make distinctions between Love & Rockets and the "Pegasus Project" storyline in Marvel Two-In-One, and quite another to make distinctions between Ordinary Victories and Haunted.
* not comics: this is cute. But that's all, really. Cute. I mean, it's a commercial.
* this note mentions how the Angouleme founders came to easy agreement on the culture-changing naming of Joann Sfar to a special festival prize in 2004. I like that comics is still an industry where three people sitting down for a meal can change the direction and perception of the entire art form.
* so I went to the comic book shop yesterday and the shop owner rubbed his hands with glee when talking of his sell-out on Final Crisis #6, some apparently at prices not the cover price. I just wanted to read the damn thing, as I've been following the series. Does anyone out there have an extra that they'd send me? We'll work something out. Update: Done. Thanks, everyone.
* also, when you're at the comic shop and across the store you hear one excited guy verbally walk another just-as-fired-up guy through the entire plot of the movie Bubba Ho-Tep, there's something charming and old-school about it. It's the kind of ridiculous, obsessive and harmless clubhouse chatter most of us have been hearing in comic book shops since the early '80s (when the movie would have been Buckaroo Banzai). However, when you hit the cash register and as you walk by them you see that the two guys having this largely inarticulate, giggly conversation are well into their 50s, and might have been the exact same guys you once heard enthuse about Perfect Tommy, it all becomes much less charming.
* I think the person that wrote this post knows the answer to why e-books are priced so high is likely that the industry that has traditionally dealt with such properties has a baseline, survival interest in keeping the prices high enough that they can stick around. What's interesting is that it seems to me both ends of the price spectrum can screw the talent, with low-price or free books providing greater benefit to the publisher that offers them (by drawing their income from a large number of books or through self-promotion of an individual or business model) than the authors.
* finally, one more not comics note: I loved National Football League history when I was a little kid, far before I had any comprehension exactly what I was reading and how to process it. I found other ways in. Sometimes I just fixated on a name: Bronco Nagurski, Whizzer White, Roman Gabriel... In that sense, there was never any better pair of appellations to fire the thoughts of a seven-year-old with comic books and the Mitchell Elementary playground as his main reference points than the wide receivers for the great Cleveland Browns teams of the 1940s-1950s: Mac Speedie and Dante Lavelli. Lavelli has just passed away.
Go, Read: Bill Schanes Interview On New Diamond Minimum Order Levels
I'm not prepared to comment as of yet, but if you're a follower of North American comics industry news you'll want to go read the interview Newsarama scored with Bill Schanes about the new minimum order numbers. I believe the only specific new news is when the new standards will go into effect: soon.
Claude Moliterni, 1932-2009 Claude Moliterni, a massively prolific writer, editor and critic who was one of the founders of the Angouleme Festival and a key player in the 20th Century's re-consideration of comics as a vital cultural and artistic force through his writing and exhibition organizing, died on Tuesday evening from a heart attack. He was 76 years old.
A writer of spy and crime prose books, Moliterni became an editor at Hachette in the mid-1950s. Most of his early work on behalf of comics came in the next decade. He became involved in France's influential comics-advocacy groups by becoming president of the Societe civile d'etudes et de recherches des litteratures dessinees (SOCERLID) in 1964, and founding the magazine Phenix in 1966, remaining its editor until it ended in 1977. In 1966 he joined the organizers of the Lucca Festival and in 1969 he founded la Convention de la bande dessinee a Paris. In 1967, Moliterni and Pierre Couperie organized the exhibition "Bande dessinee et figuration narrative" for the Musee des arts decoratifs de Paris, during a time his brief biography that comics were looked on with great suspicion in terms of their artistic value.
The 1970s saw Moliterni reach a position of influence that he utilized on comics behalf. Starting in 1973, Moliterni was editorial director at Editions Dargaud, serving in an supervisory capacity over a wide range of the most popular comics magazine such as Pilote and Luky Luke Magazine. He would love that position in 1989. Moliterni would move from there into a major position with Langereau Gautier, where he spent two years, and then Langereau Gautier, where he remained most of the 1990s. He had an extensive career as a comics scriptwriter, starting in 1965 with Scarlett Dream and encompassing a number of genres and collaborators.
Moliterni followed up on the success of the Musee des arts decoratifs show in two ways. The first is that he became one of the world's most active comics art show organizers. One source suggesting he may have helped put together more than 200 shows between 1968 and 2005. Among those receiving his attention through such an exhibition were giants like Will Eisner, Charles Schulz and, Hugo Pratt and Moebius. The second is as a writer. A book related to that art show (or the great coincidence of a book titled Bande dessinee et Figuration narrative) was the first of a long run of books of criticism and history including L'Histoire de la bande dessinee d'expression francaise (1972), two volumes of L'Encyclopedie de la bande dessinee (1974-1975), L'Histoire mondiale de la bande dessinee (1980) and a number of collaborations over the last two decades in print, on computer-ready formats and on-line.
Perhaps his great contribution during that full, flush period -- or at least the one for which he's best known -- is his role acting as one of the co-founders of the Festival International de la Bande Dessinee d'Angouleme, along with Jean Mardikian and Francis Groux. That show has become one of the world's two or three largest comics festivals and is arguably its most important, some believe by a wide, wide margin. It's a big enough show to be known by the name of its host city, and Angouleme the festival is certainly a giant presence to all European comics professionals and fans.
Claude Moliterni will be honored at the Festival's awards ceremony on February 1.
1. The Great Outdoor Fight,, Chris Onstad
2. Cat Eyed Boy,, Kazuo Umezu.
3. Willie and Joe: The WWII Years,, Bill Mauldin
4. Girl Genius,, Phil and Kaja Foglio
5. Family Man,, Dylan Meconis
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the former syndicated strip cartoonist Aaron McGruder issues a response to claims he said Barack Obama wasn't black because he wasn't a descendant of slaves.
* not comics: the read of the day is probably this passionate beatdown from Derek Kirk Kim directed at the producers of a movie version of a cartoon Airbender, The Last Avatar for casting as Caucasian a cast the cartoon would have you believe is Asian. I only know this movie as director M. Night Shyamalan's attempt to re-establish his career as an A-list hitmaker after punishing audiences with awful movies like that recent Marky Mark Vs. The Ents fiasco. So clearly this film should be destroyed. Seriously, though, the thoroughness of the casting decisions really makes it seem like some sort of conscious decision was made. If you're list-averse, like I am, Kim provides information through which you can object to this thing in more personal fashion.
* the writer Mark Evanier has an essay up about the 2005 passing of fan and artist Bernie Zuber. There's a link in Evanier's piece to a mental health-related site where Zuber opines about the similarities between the mentally ill and members of fandom.
* finally, I totally missed this depressing article that officials in the UK are moving to better establish drawn images of horrible, horrible things as against the law. I find this kind of thing to always be a bad idea, no matter how much people fume at me with all of the immense cultural and emotional power of tragic child abuse at their exposure when it comes to fueling their scowls.
This Isn't A Library: New And Notable Releases To The Comics Direct Market
*****
Here are the books that make an impression on me staring at this week's largely accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the works listed here. I might not buy any. But were I in a comic book shop tomorrow I would more than likely pick up the following and look them over. This might start a long dialogue between that person and myself that would likely end in tears.
*****
OCT080038 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS TP VOL 06 $24.95
NOV080052 CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #7 $2.99
A vicious brute with an unfortunate haircut laying waste to dozens of families' lives in service of a dubious-sounding destiny, and Conan.
NOV080122 FINAL CRISIS SUPERMAN BEYOND #2 (OF 2) $4.50
I would so buy this if I could still remember anything about the first one.
NOV080203 MYSTERIUS THE UNFATHOMABLE #1 (OF 6) $2.99
The latest probably pretty good, maybe not, sure to be totally doomed either way mini-series from Publishing List The Unfathomable. I like Jeff Parker.
NOV082395 RUINS #1 $4.99
The 1990s were so weird that we spent an entire day in the Journal offices debating whether this over the top superhero was a humor book or not (it was).
OCT080225 TOKYO DAYS BANGKOK NIGHTS TP (MR) $19.99
I'm all for the late Seth Fisher's lovely art (some of which the Tokyo half of this reprints). I'm also all for books that sound like softcore porn.
OCT084471 REAL GN VOL 03 $12.99
OCT080232 GON VOL 07 $5.99
NOV084305 TEZUKAS BLACK JACK TP VOL 03 $16.95
UG080080 GANTZ TP VOL 03 (MR) $12.95
SEP080074 PATH OF THE ASSASSIN TP VOL 14 BAD BLOOD (MR) $9.95
Ongoing manga series of interest;not exactly the most sophisticated, gentle and literary bunch of books.
OCT083918 FLAMING CARROT COLLECTED LTD HC VOL 01 $49.95
OCT082308 TED MCKEEVER LIBRARY HC VOL 02 EDDY CURRENT $34.99
Two giants of 1980s independent comics in big, fancy editions.
OCT084470 OISHINBO GN VOL 01 JAPANESE CUISINE $12.99
Celebrated food manga brought over to US shores for cherry picking and reassembly. I think.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics, can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry so your shop may not carry a specific publication. There are a lot of comics out there.
To find your local comic book store, check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, albeit a while back, try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock. Ordering through a direct market shop can be a frustrating experience, so if you have a direct line to something -- you know another shop has it, you know a bookstore has it -- I'd urge you to consider all of your options.
If I didn't list your comic, it's because I've vowed to stop you.
Chris Pitzer Clarifies On The Issue Of New Diamond Policy And AdHouse's Comic Books
A lot of the blogs and news sites have picked up on word from Publisher Chris Pitzer at AdHouse Books that the decision of Diamond Comics Distributor, Inc. to raise minimums on solicited material has forced him to cancel vague plans for a fourth issue of his Superior Showcase anthology.
"The first casualty that I claim is Superior Showcase #4," wrote Pitzer yesterday afternoon. "I was working on bringing a new issue out this summer that would have been filled with new talents that I've met over the last year. People whose voice may or may not have been heard before. But, I'm going to kill that issue now. Why? Well, at $2.95 there's no way I'd get orders to put it anywhere near the new threshold. Numbers for #3 were not that great, and I can't imagine #4 would improve."
This is an interesting announcement for several reasons. Pitzer is an established publisher and although the sales on Superior Showcase have obviously been low, it's a reasonably well-known title as far as titles like that go. It's also not a #1 issue, and as asserted here in an earlier entry, it's the later issues of a title that are likely to feel the greater pressure from the new minimums. This is due in part to the fact that a series with a few issues under its belt will have a track record for discerning whether or not it's making the grade, while there's always hope for a series that hasn't published yet. Also contributing is what some feel is an extremely unfortunate market mechanism by which most titles' numbers fade as a series moves forward. AdHouse is also a typical small publisher in that the bulk of what they've been doing already is original trades, so while this may hurt a series or two it doesn't seem like a severe blow. This highlights something many e-mailers have been saying to me: Diamond's announcement doesn't kill a thriving alt-comics scene as much as it puts pillows over several of the faces in a room full of sick projects.
I asked Chris for a clarification, both in terms of this specific title and other titles under the AdHouse umbrella, like the award-nominated Johnny Hiro. He began with a re-iteration. "At present we have no plans for new 'regular' comics to be distributed through Diamond."
Pitzer confirmed there would be no more Johnny Hiro comic books in the immediate future, with some of the forthcoming material folded over into a planned trade. "People will be getting more Johnny Hiro, though. We have plans to release a collection in June, which collect issues #1-3, while adding 'issues' #4-5. When/if we get around to issue #6, Fred and I will have to make a decision, as well as my consulting my Diamond rep.
Pitzer also stressed that the lower price point which may be lost in future years hadn't really paid off for the company. "In previous years I stressed a lower price point of our comics to try and compete with the market. The numbers never really rose, though, which caused our comics to break even, or lose money." He pointed towards two potential outcomes. "So, in the future we'll either create higher priced comics for Diamond, or not really distribute, a la the THB comic we did."
The publisher reiterated that a confluence of factors that caused him to rule out a forth issue of the Superior anthology, not just this well-publicized one. "It was just the final nail that made me decide to pull the plug on that issue. As I stated, that series never really made money. It was just fun to do."
15. An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories Vol. 2, Ivan Brunetti et al (Yale University Press)/Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!, Art Spiegelman (Pantheon)/Love & Rockets: New Stories #1, Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez (Fantagraphics)/ MOME Vols. 10-12, Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds and Various (Fantagraphics)/Nocturnal Conspiracies, David B. (NBM)/Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories, Jason (Fantagraphics)
14. Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4, Michael Kupperman (Fantagraphics)
13. The Mage's Tower, Lane Milburn (Closed Caption Comics)/Powr Mastrs Vol. 2, C.F. (PictureBox Inc.)
12. All Star Superman, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)/B.P.R.D. and related titles, Mike Mignola and John Arcudi et al (Dark Horse)/The Immortal Iron Fist, Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction and David Aja et al (Marvel)
11. Look Out!! Monsters (Geoff Grogan, (self-published)
10. Water Baby, Ross Campbell (DC/Minx)
9. I Live Here, Mia Kirshner et al (Pantheon)
8. Boy's Club 2, Matt Furie (Buenaventura Press)
7. Big Questions #11, Anders Nilsen (Drawn & Quarterly)
6. Kramers Ergot 7, Sammy Harkham et al (Buenaventura Press)
5. Capacity, Theo Ellsworth (Secret Acres)
4. Travel, Yuichi Yokoyama (PictureBox Inc.)
3. Final Crisis/Batman: R.I.P., Grant Morrison et al (DC)
2. Skyscrapers of the Midwest, Joshua W. Cotter (AdHouse)
1. ACME Novelty Library #19, Chris Ware (Acme Novelty Library/Drawn & Quarterly)
Suspect In April '08 Comic Book Store Shooting In Custody, Records Show
Jevon Marquis Sawyer, one of three men accused of shooting comic store owner David Pirkola in April 2008 has been found: he's in the system, showing up in a records search as being held in Will County's jail. One of the three men has already been sentenced to a minimum of seven years for his role in the crime, and he was the one that offered to give testimony against the other two.
10. Astonishing X-Men, Joss Whedon and John Cassaday (Marvel)
9. Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope, Emmanuel Guibert (First Second)
8. Ganges #2, Kevin Huizenga (Fantagraphics)
7. Black Jack, Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
6. Northlanders: Sven the Returned, Brian Wood and Davide Gianfelice (DC/Vertigo)
5. Essex County Volume 3: The Country Nurse, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
4. Scalped, Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera (DC/Vertigo)
3. The Punisher, Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov (Marvel)
2. Bottomless Belly Button, Dash Shaw (Fantagraphics)
1. All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC Comics)
And They Will All Live Like Cartoonists: The US Economy And Comics, Post #13
* I nearly missed this: Google is phasing out PrintAds on March 31. That's its ad service targeted to newspapers, with about 70 percent of the market participating. What I'm taking away from this is 1) it wasn't all that successful, and 2) it may be that the combination of rapid technological change and general economic instability is going to be way too much for anything resembling older systems supporting paid information to survive. I know that sounds dire, but things are dire.
* Jonah Weiland says he was misquoted in a recent LA Times article on the comics industry's struggles, and generally poops on the article. I agree with the broader complaints: as many potential problems as comics might have in the months ahead, it's done okay so far, and any intellectually honest article that pays more than five minutes' attention to the state of the industry would reflect that. This week's Diamond decision to raise minimums is the first big move that anyone has made that you could even chalk up to economic worry -- and even that comes long after more dramatic moves in other industries, like NBC's decision to put Jay Leno in primetime five days a week.
* two executives may be out at one of the Image-related studios.
* the best linkblogger going, Dirk Deppey, linked to this article this morning. I agree with the general message: you can't half-ass a commitment to an on-line effort, not at this stage in that arena's development. However, the substance of the article seemed to me made up of little more than a string of strong assertions and rhetorical buzz phrases and vague remedies (one graph seems to be saying "do something awesome like Apple did" -- yeah, I'll get on that) more than anything else. It also doesn't address some of the core difficulties about advocating for this kind of sea change in publishing strategies. For example it's all well and good to suggest that what people want is more options when it comes to choosing ways to aggregate existing news content, but if you're advocating that the structures that generate this content abandon their old ways of doing things to pursue this, pretty soon you're aggregating nothing. I'm also uncertain as to whether or not degree of commitment has anything to do with the New York Times problems, and that construction strikes me as problematic, too -- using the writer's same logic, it seems to me you could point to any company's most successful divisions at any time in their existence and say the less successful ones need to look all like the successful one immediately. I'd argue that that kind of collapse toward the most profitable element of a business endeavor is frequently what causes harm in the long-term.
* Burma Chronicles, Guy Delisle
* Three Shadows, Cyril Pedrosa
* Buddy Does Jersey, Peter Bagge
* All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
* Parade with Fireworks, Mike Cavallaro
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I just noticed this summary of the yearly BD market report. I'll wait for Bart Beaty to tell me what it all means, but for now it's enough to notice things like production in the French-language market seeming to be up (again) and translated works rebounding as a market presence.
* the last time I went looking for archived episodes of Leisure Town, I swear there weren't any. Granted, that question might have been asked a long, long time ago. There are certainly archives up now. That's a good thing, of course: I think it has a lot more in common with the idiosyncratic and popular webcomics of the present day than many of the significant on-line efforts of its era have in common with their modern equivalents. So while it's definitely not news, there it is.
* the review part of this article on Emmanuel Guibert's Japonais is little more than a description and calling it beautiful a couple of times, but I'm grateful to learn of its existence.
* some students and other attendees were apparently upset by a few of Aaron McGruder's statements at a speech he made on campus.
* word's going around that Shel Dorf is still in the ICU and while he can't receive phone calls would love to receive a fax from anyone who knows him and/or wishes him well: that number is 858-939-3272.
* finally, you can usually count on Sean Kleefeld to collect a bunch of historical instance cartoons into one place, and he did not disappoint yesterday. I also found myself wondering after the reaction of exactly two editorial cartoonists: Tom Toles and Pat Oliphant. Neither of those cartoons will go in either cartoonist's hall of fame slideshow (Toles is better today), but it strikes me that curiosity over how they might approach a specific moment in history is perhaps the best measure for an editorial cartoonist's value.
Boris Drucker, a prolific cartoonist whose clients included The New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post, Punch and Playboy, passed away last Thursday at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia. He was 88.
Drucker attended and graduated high school and college in Philadelphia, where he lived for the vast majority of his life. He served in World War II in the Chinese/Indian theater. After a significant post-war stint in advertising -- he would later return to this field as an element of, but not the entirety of, his professional output, concentrating on directly providing business with cartoon art -- Drucker began freelance cartooning with a sale to the Saturday Evening Post. He would upon moving to New York City and opening his own studio sell his first cartoon to The New Yorker in 1966, a professional high point. He would continue to contribute to that magazine and a growing client list over the next three decades. He also pursued comics syndication, including a panel in the 1960s called Future Boy.
Drucker's work, including several drawings and illustration he made while a soldier, are part of the holdings at Syracuse University. A book drawing on those cartoons, Don't Pay Any Attention to Him, He's 90% Water was put together by the cartoonist's daughter Johanna Drucker and published by Syracuse University Press in 2006. His work was shown at least once, in 2005. He contributed to at least one book, Henrietta in 1965.
Boris Drucker is survived by a wife, a son, a daughter, a sister, two stepchildren and a dozen grandchildren. A Memorial donations may be made to Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.
And They Will All Live Like Cartoonists: The US Economy And Comics, Post #12
One from the mainstream media on the declining fortune for American comic books and three from the last heaving gasps of newspapers department, an important carrier of comics and supporter of cartoonists since there have been comics as a commercial presence:
* I severely disliked this article in the LA Times on comics and the declining economy. There's too much in the way of anecdotal evidence standing in for national trends (a store closing in Virginia; a reader in an LA comics store standing if for all readers), too much straining to reinforce the article's main point (Barack Obama in Spider-Man), too much herding everything under the general economic malaise blanket whether it deserves to be there or not (Wizard World closing a show, which comes in a period of economic downturn and after about 24 months of Wizard Entertainment downturn). If you pair it with the recent article where it was made to look like a store had suffered massive sales declines when it really hadn't, it may be safe to say we're going to see a lot of articles talking about general economic downturns in comics whether or not they exist to the extent claimed.
* is it too early to identify this kind of thing, where the New York Times sells off percentages of itself to big-monied buyers, as a kind of parceling out of the newspaper's prestige? Not that their prestige goes away as they do this, but it always seems to me that investment like this is more for the name than for the opportunity.
* the prominent blogger Seth Godin's argument that what we really lose with newspapers is local, investigative news combines two of my favorite observations about the decline of newspapers: that wrapping itself in a package of features may not have been a good idea because those features can be assembled elsewhere, and some sort of doom was inevitable as it became more and more likely for readers to get what a newspaper gives you somewhere else. It's not quite the same argument, although it obviously overlaps. Comics are one of those things that Godin says are better to read on-line.
* Tucson will lose its long-running afternoon paper if no buyer is found; few expect a buyer to be found.
* Le Chasseur Deprime, Moebius
* Petey & Pussy, John Kerschbaum
* The Alcoholic, Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
* The Zombies that Ate the World (Les Zombies Qui Ont Mange le Monde; Tome 4: La Guerre des Papes), Jerry Frissen and domestic art god Guy Davis
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I totally missed this latest update from Steve Duin on the health of S. Clay Wilson. He's done a wonderful job tracking that.
* There's a ton of inauguration-related stuff up today. The cartoonist Richard Thompson says goodbye to outgoing president George W. Bush in the drawing reproduced in tiny form next to this entry. (Thompson always provides a huge jpeg so you can take a closer look at illustrations like this one.) JP Trostle has a mini-Bush installation going. The Cagle site has its usual round-up. I quite liked Daryl Cagle's personal walk through the Bush Years. Dan Clowes is among Bay Area authors that were asked to reflect on the inauguration; it's a strong piece.
* I enjoyed reading Sean Kleefeld's piece on racism in comics, although I think there have been a few major, recent comics works that have engaged racism in a way that didn't involve fistfights and laser beams, including off the top of my head Love and Rockets X, King, Satchel Paige, My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down, Berlin Vol. 2 and especially The Boondocks. Maybe I'm not getting him, though.
* finally, I guess some members of the European comics-interested press aren't very happy about the Festival at Angouleme pushing back its award ceremonies to a time by which many of them have traditionally already skedaddled. As I recall, even our own Bart Beaty was on a train by the time the Grand Prix winners were announced on Sunday, and as someone that bails out of San Diego Con on Saturday night or early Sunday morning about 80 percent of the time, I can even sympathize that way. Of course, they're not complaining about that -- "let us leave early" isn't much of a rallying cry -- but the communication to the press of the move given that travel plans are made well in advance.
* I missed that artist Ben Templesmith was doing some Dr. Who comics, but Warren Ellis did not. I guess that's another reason why he's Internet Jesus and I'm Internet Casimir Jagiellon.
Initial Reaction: DCD Raising Minimums, Ending Adult Previews' Print Iteration
Reports yet to be totally confirmed seeped onto the Internet late last week that Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., the primary company used for distribution into the Direct Market of hobby and comics shops, has taken its first major policy steps in light of increasing worldwide economic stress. First, Diamond will either eliminate or all but eliminate the Adult Previews catalog in favor of the use of PDFs. Second, and more alarmingly to many in terms of its implications for small-press publishing, the minimum orders will be raised to $2500 from $1500. Unable to reach confirmation on what's coming and when, I nonetheless spoke to a few publishers and some other industry folk about what this could mean. Most spoke on the record, but one or two went OTR on certain matters.
Most of the people to whom I spoke suggest that Diamond eliminating the Adult Previews supplement from their catalog offerings isn't as big of a deal as it might appear, even given Diamond's long-ago hesitancy to embrace some dirty comics in its first few years in business. Two factors play a role in mitigating the potential harm. The first is that in the age of Internet and instantly accessible pornography from comics to prose to video the reliance of some publishers on erotic material -- and it's suggested the reliance of the comics industry in total -- isn't quite what it used to be. "Eros still exists although we do maybe one item a month, if that," says Eric Reynolds, the Director of Publicity and Promotions for Fantagraphics. "To be honest, I don't think this will affect us at all and I can't really fault Diamond for any of it in this economy." That doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of publishers producing and profiting from such material, but that such material doesn't run through the lifeblood of other endeavors the way it used to, and may be less of a factor overall. The second factor is that there's a precedent for Diamond in moving to PDFs catalogs with Adult Previews in that Diamond Books already make significant use of PDF catalogs, Reynolds describing that format as the primary DBD catalog. One source noted a particular but perhaps curious potential outcome: a PDF catalog may or may not be as available to whatever members of the comics-buying public made a habit of using that publication to scope out purchases. CR columnist David Welsh assembles the most cogent criticism here.
It's clear, then, that most of the commentary and general anxiety at least so far has swirled around minimum orders going up. In his disquisition on the issue published at CR on Sunday, SLG Publisher Dan Vado laid out the general implications in terms that are easy to understand:
What that means is that every book needs to generate $2500 of revenue (that would mean a little over $6000 in sales at retail based on the discount we give to Diamond) in order to be listed with Diamond. That does not mean that Diamond is going to cancel or not carry books which appear in the Previews but do not reach that benchmark, but it does mean that if you have a line of books which consistently do not meet that mark, you will not be getting your books listed in the Previews for long.
Note that the number of copies involved depends on the discount and the price point of the book. Also, as in the past with other minimums, this doesn't mean Diamond will purge its catalog of every single thing that fails to meet that threshold, but will use that price point as a tool to decide what will and what won't be carried, a pressing standard rather than an absolute measure.
Still, Diamond's decision could have severe consequences in a lot of ways with a number of publishers. It should conceivably raise greater barriers for sustained entry from new companies and sideline comics efforts. It should also have an impact on companies with which we're all familiar. Although prominent art comics publishers D&Q and Fantagraphics say they don't have a lot of products that would come out on the bad side of such a formula were it applied; basically that rigid enforcement would have no effect on of the books part of their publishing efforts but might potentially hit some of lower-selling, lower-price point comic books. A smaller publisher of that type, PictureBox, describes much more dire consequences for books up and down their line. Publisher Dan Nadel: "If true, I'm fucked. Most of my books fall below a $2500 purchase order, meaning I'd lose the Diamond market for books like Powr Mastrs, Travel, Goddess of War, Cold Heat, and, um, any other $20-range graphic novel. That would be, as a wise man once said, 'a bummer'."
A broader effect would likely be seen in some companies' ability to re-list items, running the same solicitation in multiple catalogs for the increased exposure it gives certain title, and the ability it affords retailers to ease their way into comfortable levels with certain individual products. Successful, long-time self-publisher Rick Veitch of King Hell Press told CR that this move and previous maneuvers by Diamond to increase the difficulty of such re-lists would "pretty much put the kibosh on my re-lists." Vado agreed that it would have consequences for his company's extensive re-listing practices, adding that the inability to use that method to generate sales for issues past #1 might curtail the publication of #1 issues that would by themselves have no problem meeting the new threshold.
In its report today, Newsaramanotes that the last major change for threshold numbers took place in 2005.
The initial reports engendered among a measure of sympathy for Diamond in having to carry so many titles from so many publishers that fail to meet certain standards of business-like behavior. A few were intrigued by the fact that they hadn't been contacted yet -- whether the company hadn't gotten around to it yet or if they were being excluded -- while Vado was complimentary of Diamond representatives to step up and own the decision in their conversations with him. I heard from one or two people that hold out some measure hope that this might finally result in some form of third-party distribution, perhaps of the kind Vado discussed doing and potentially something with more investment. One commenter suggested that this could be a boon in terms of various publishers trying to figure out a more viable on-line distribution strategy, while another asked what this might mean in terms of the DM's overall ability to adapt and change and facilitate future growth from something other than already-established companies and titles. More should become clear as the vacation and inauguration days become regular work days later in the week. I'll keep an eye on things, and report back here.
Your 2009 Prix Jeune Talent de la BD Winner: Taiga Rouge
The Prix Jeune Talent de la BD has been awarded to artist Vincent Perriot and writer Arnaud Malherbe for their collaboration Taiga Rouge, which is described as a traditional adventure story that features some of today's less traditional adventure story art (in the story, they describe that general group of artists in terms of being comparable to art from Blutch, Blain and Sfar). The album, set in 1920 following the Russian Revolution, was published by Dupuis' Aire Libre imprint in June, and is the first of a planned series. I'm not sure how the honor is processed; the award is sponsored by Virgin, Le Figaro and dDB.
* Drie schimmen (aka Three Shadows), Cyril Pedrosa
* Boerke #4, Pieter de Poortere
* C'est le Jeu des Hirondelles, Je me Souviens... Beyrouth; Zeina Abirached
* Jamilti And Other Stories, Rutu Modan
* Een tweede jeugd, Rabate
* De aankomst (aka The Arrival), Shaun Tan
* Hunker Bunker, Reinhart Croon
* Kiekeboe 116: Boek.bv, Merho
* Good-Bye, Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Your 2009 Prix France Info de la BD d'actualite et de reportage Winner
A jury of reporters and journalists presided over by Patrick Roger has named Le Proces Colonna by Tignous and Dominique Paganelli the winner of the 15th Prix France Info de la Bande dessinee d'actualite et de reportage, a prize that goes to a comics work that represents some sort of reportage in comics form. Last year's winner was I believe Exit Wounds. Le Process Colonna was serialized in Charlie Hebdo and takes the reader through a murder trial process. It was collected last summer. You can see a bunch of the pages and get an idea of the authors' general approach here.
And They Will All Live Like Cartoonists: The US Economy And Comics, Post #11
* in declining newspaper fortunes, the Seattle P-I staffers are being asked to help visualize a possible on-line iteration of the publication. This would have to be the most fascinating reading ever, as on the one hand a staffer would have insights an outside consultant wouldn't and on the other hand there's such a huge chasm between what used to allow a newspaper to work and what allows an on-line publication to work that I can't imagine most newspaper employees fathom this deep down -- I can't imagine anyone constructing a future for a place of their employment without themselves in it somewhere. Also, I missed this blog posting that indicates that it may take longer for the P-I to shut the paper if as expected there's no buyer -- the paperwork isn't being filed.
* this is what I mean by the wide difference between the two models: the Star Tribune is a top 20 paper that's been cutting like mad and its value to buyers has still been cut in half over the last ten years with more to come. It also employs 1400 people. I found this story alarming, like reading that your super-healthy friend is experiencing cardiac failure when 95 percent of your social circle is 450 pounds and smokes too much.
* in declining book industry fortunes, Barnes & Noble laid off a bunch of people from corporate last week, while the rolling reorganization at Random House looks to have ended or at least reached a point of relative stability. The duties of former publisher Janice Goldklang at Pantheon looks like they will be split between Pat Johnson and Dan Frank. Upon Goldklang's dismissal, Frank was the person at the company cartoonists to whom I spoke cited as a recognizable, up-the-chain person with whom they could claim some sort of relationship. One admitted to having to go look to see who Goldklang even was.
* if I didn't link to this before, I should have, but retailer Chris Butcher offers his perspective on Deb Aoki's trends/questions article from a while back. It paints a fairly stark picture of the new manga market realities.
* Love and Rockets, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez
* Scalped, Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera
* A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, Josh Neufeld
* The Alcoholic, Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
* The Goddess of War, Lauren Weinstein
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* although it's not the main point of the piece, this article makes the case that David Rees was first out of the gate when it came to anti-Bush art-making in the wake of 9/11. I'm not informed enough in a way I could suggest otherwise, although I seem to remember the post-9/11 issue of The Onion being really funny and smart and a tonic to the initial wave of political maneuvering that followed that horrible event. Still, Rees' work really hit when people first became aware of it, and I think it's generally under appreciated.
* the arts-comics focused PictureBox Inc. is having another sale. I tend not to mention sales except at the publisher level like this one and then only rarely. But it's a good publisher, this is their second sale in as many months, and you can apparently get their astounding Gary Panter art book for a jaw-dropping $30. That's like seven Marvel comic books.
* I spent about a half-hour yesterday morning scanning through a German-based superhero blog, Tales From the Kryptonian. I couldn't tell you why, exactly.
* here's something you don't see as frequently as one might think you would: a project-specific blog, this one devoted to a series called Shadrach Stone.
* I was honored to be asked to interviewed for a Best of 2008 round-up at Inkstuds with Douglas Wolk and Paul Gravett. I'm completely inarticulate and insight-free, but you should listen to it for Paul and Douglas. Paul in particular goes after Chris Ware and Dash Shaw in an admirably focused, straight-forward way, however much I might disagree with the substance of what he says.
* I forget how I received this link, which eventually leads you to a site where a graduate student is assembling medical-related plots and elements in various comics.
* finally, two overheated comics Internet wars of words obliquely shine a light on a couple of interesting issues although maybe not the one of their primary intent. The feminism, definitional and even industry-critical portions of a back and forth between Johanna Draper Carlson and Valerie D'Orazio aren't as interesting as the notion of criticizing institutions while supporting them as a consumer. A battle between Erik Larsen and Steve Wacker, with Peter David commenting on the side, is a struggle over something that doesn't seem worth fighting over: how much Marvel's crass Obama commemoration resembles Larsen's crass Obama commemoration. The idea of what constitutes intellectual theft in industries that deal in multiple arenas of homage and frequent copying and which also traffic in some really rudimentary ideas may make it worth a glance for those of you who, like me, tend to think about these things way more than they deserve.
CR Sunday Feature: Dan Vado's Informal Letter On Diamond's Edicts
After asking out loud after news that Diamond was raising its minimum orders and eliminating the print iteration of its adult catalog, I received the following letter from SLG head honcho Dan Vado. I thought it was a perspective worth sharing through publication in whole on this site. Happily, Dan agreed. -- Tom Spurgeon
By Dan Vado
I saw your recent post about the new/old Diamond policies and I would like to confirm that these new policies are indeed true and confirm that they will have a chilling effect on the business as we know it.
Diamond has been busy contacting vendors all week to make them aware of the changes. None of this was good news, and I have to give Diamond credit for manning up and talking to everyone on the phone and not just issuing a press release and letting everyone fume and twist. Bad news is never easy to deliver and I have to say that the people at Diamond know and understand how badly this will effect people, especially the people who can least afford to be hurt right now. On a side note, I have never been one of those people to see Diamond as an evil empire, I never got the impression that the people who work there have ever wished that I would just go away and a lot of people have worked really hard to help us out. So, getting the bad news personally meant something to me. Others may (and probably do) feel differently, every one's mileage may vary.
So, to the brass tacks, the thing that slaps us up in the face most is the raising of the Purchase Order benchmark to $2500. What that means is that every book needs to generate $2500 of revenue (that would mean a little over $6000 in sales at retail based on the discount we give to Diamond) in order to be listed with Diamond. That does not mean that Diamond is going to cancel or not carry books which appear in the Previews but do not reach that benchmark, but it does mean that if you have a line of books which consistently do not meet that mark, you will not be getting your books listed in the Previews for long.
The average person reading this may not realize that most small press comics (and by that I mean floppies) do not meet that benchmark. I think if the average reader knew how lousy some of our sales were they would be stunned. I can't tell you how many times people have wandered into our booth at one convention or another and engaged me in conversation and walk out scratching their heads and reeling to find out that the comic or graphic novel they just love more than anything sold maybe 300 copies total.
The big short term effect of these benchmarks for SLG is in the area of offered again, or re-lists. Basically this is the practice of a publisher offering a previously published book for sale in the Previews a second, or third time in order to generate numbers for our backlists. It is a core part of our strategy as very few of the books SLG publishes sell at a break-even level on their initial orders. Historically our back list sales are stronger than the average company, or at least so I am told by Diamond, so losing the ability to offer titles again is going to hurt us in a very real and concrete way.
The other effect is that what few books we published as floppies will probably not ever see the light of day. While a first issue might sell well enough to meet the benchmark it is more than likely that everything from a second or third issue on will not. Again, I think your average reader might be shocked at how poorly some comics sell. So, if you're a small publisher or a self-publisher and your plan is to release a mini-series and then collect it as a trade, those plans might change.
It's a tough spot for everyone to be in. Diamond is in essence asking everyone to sell more in a recessionary environment or find themselves out of the catalog. Short term, a lot of publishers are going to find themselves with no distribution. While that might sound like I am angry with Diamond, I am not. I am unhappy, but the industry's current situation is one that has been coming for some time, recession or not. Some of the fundamental flaws in the industry and the way things sorted themselves out in the post Marvel/Heroes World debacle are coming to roost in a time when even the best run non-comic business is in danger of folding. The economic base for comics and the direct market is built on jelly. The number of people living hand-to-mouth in this business, from paycheck to paycheck, having to work two and three jobs is stunning and always has been.
Beyond the notion of benchmarks and new edicts from the industry's major, if not only, distributor is the fact that comics as an publishing industry perhaps has no economic basis for long-term survival beyond Marvel and DC. Almost everyone in this business started under capitalized and most smaller publishing houses are surviving based on one project or product that has been carrying them for years. Retailers start their businesses under-funded and oftentimes poorly prepared on how to run a business. I think almost every publisher fits that same bill. The next year or so are a critical time for the entire country and the comics business is not going to get out of this unscarred, lots of people, be they publishers, retailers or creators, who have been around for a long time are going to suddenly with no business left and no place to turn. People, and I mean everyone from fans to creators to publishers to retailers, need to use this as the last wake-up call after years of hitting the industrial snooze button and finally find a way to get together and address our common lifelong problems and find answers to them.
The situation is so dire that I almost don't want to risk trivializing it by using a sports metaphor, but in this case it applies. It's gut-check time and we all need to see if we can take something from this situation and build something new for the future of this business.
in the same note he acquiesced to having his e-mail published Vado wrote an addendum:
Yeah, sure. I might want to add, in that case, for emphasis that this is not a Diamond problem, it's an industry-wide crisis situation for which Diamond is not the cause.
People may not like Diamond, but I remember when distributors were melting down right and left that Diamond was the only company that paid its invoices not only on-time but early and helped a lot of people out just by being dependable. We used to call them The Bank of Diamond and they kept us going and helped us out a lot. I think Diamond is now doing what the rest of the world's business are doing, finding ways to get smaller, leaner and back to profitability. I may not like it, it may hurt us and even drive us out of the Previews, but that does not mean I don't get it.
On another side note, next month SLG was going to be rolling out a website for retailers only where they could reorder our books and get our vital info without sorting through all of the consumer crap on our regular site. I am going to be offering some publishers an opportunity to participate by listing their stuff on that site, in essence trying to become a distributor myself. There might be some opportunity to make money on that bottom half of the scale that Diamond cannot handle right now.
Things I've Found On My Computer
I have no idea who sent me a MPEG of Dan Clowes and Jonathan Lethem at MoCCA Festival 2005, and I have imagine that either this exact footage or footage like it is up somewhere on the Internet. However, since I'm really paranoid about deleting stuff, I slipped it onto my youtube account before I bounced it. If someone screams at me, I'll surely take it down.
FFF Results Post #147 -- Shut Up
On Friday, CR readers were asked to "Name Five Comics-Related Conversations You Never Want To Have Again." Here are their responses, and thanks to all that participated.
*****
Ben Schwartz
1. Stan Lee, hero or villain?
2. Jaime or Gilbert? Why is it a choice -- you can read both!
3. What's Dave Sim's damage (always heard after he writes a new editorial).
4. Ditko rumors of any sort! He never does anything, says anything, or appears anywhere!
5. Will they ever make a Watchmen movie?
*****
Tom Spurgeon
1. Why is there no real comics journalism?
2. How can we make comic books mainstream entertainment again?
3. How can the CBLDF support that awful person?
4. Why does anyone have any time for alternative comics, since all of them are about a bunch of sad-sack losers talking about their lives and sniffing flowers and masturbating into socks and crying about how they can't get dates?
5. What is the real mainstream -- alternative comics or superhero comics?
*****
Jeet Heer
1. Complaints about Chip Kidd's design.
2. Is Kramer's Ergot 7 Too Expensive?
3. Is Crumb a racist/sexist/pervert?
4. Should legacy Strips be Banned?
5. Was Wertham a good guy after all?
1. How can the Invisible Girl see if her retinas are transparent?
2. Is Luba a sex symbol or a sexist symbol?
3. Boy, I sure wish Jim Woodring/Art Spiegelman would write/draw a Superman/Batman story.
4. Pens are for pussies. No, brushes are for bastards. No, pens are for panty-waists. No, brushes are for Balrogs. Pens are for piss-whistlers. No, brushes...
5. Why can't we have great comics like when we were kids?
*****
1. Who will play [insert character] in [insert hypothetical movie and/or sequel]?
2. Who is the Red Hulk?
3. Debunking "Kirby sucks" claims.
4. Individual issues v.s. Paperbacks
5. Anything having to do with Diamond sales figures.
*****
Rick At Casablanca Comics
1) How much is this going to be worth?
2) Who would win in a fight between the Hulk and Superman?
3) Which Batman movie is best and why.
4) Why is (insert title) book late?
5) I do not want to hear how your mother threw away all of your comics.
*****
Sean T. Collins
1. There are aspects of superhero comics culture that are sexist and I am outraged/not outraged anew by the latest example of same
2. What's the big deal about Chris Ware anyway?
3. I think superhero comics are mostly stupid and spend most of my time talking about that in some way or other
4. Miscellaneous Man: The Movie made $500 million dollars on opening weekend but people still aren't buying Miscellaneous Man comics and here's what that proves
5. Hey, did you hear the controversial and stupid thing Creator X said? Let's talk about that for a week!
1. Any "Who would win in a fight" question. The answer to every one of these is always: "Depends on who's writing it."
2. "What's your least favorite issue of [insert title]?" I'd rather focus on the issues I like.
3. "If you had complete control of comicdom and could assign any creative team to any book..." This is so far beyond theoretical as to be absurd. My stock answer is: I pull out my bring-em-back-from-the-dead machine and have Kirby and Eisner do everything.
4. "I have this old comic; how much is it worth?" Especially irritating when it's sent via email and doesn't include any indication of the book's condition.
5. Any "Who would win in a fight" question. Yes, I know that I already listed that first, but I really, really, really don't ever want to have that discussion again. Ever.
[editor's note: I'm nearly 100 percent certain I'm allowed to use something from one of the Light photos if it goes back to that site; someone correct me if I'm mistaken]
*****
Buzz Dixon
1. I do not want to discuss Mighty Mouse vs Superman
2. I do not care to know which superheroines should be tied up more often
3. I do not believe it's okay to enjoy kiddee porn just because it's drawings, not photos
4. I was there so don't try to tell me what I saw or heard
5. Say X-Men just one more time, mutha... I dare you -- I DOUBLE dare you!
*****
1. No, just because they paid to publish it doesn't automatically make it work for hire.
2. No, you're not doing the rights owner a favor by usurping copyright to put something on the web.
3. No, the claim that you're unwilling to pay for something does not make it okay for you to take it for free.
4. No, Diamond is not evil. They make decisions for reasons of business.
5. I have no friggin' idea where Jim Lee is, or if he's even supposed to be at this convention.
*****
* "What comics can I use to convince my significant other to share my hobby?"
* Defenses of certain comics that conflate not liking them with not "getting" them
* "Manga is a fad, like Smurfs and Pogs"
* "The North American manga market will never mature"
* "Maybe the current crop of manga fans will grow up to like real comics"
1. "Howard the Duck? You mean that stupid movie?"
2. "Judge Dredd? You mean that stupid movie?"
3. The brief conversation I have every few months, confirming that Garth Ennis's final Hellblazer storyline is indeed still out of print for some insane reason.
4. The "I don't read comics, I just read manga" conversation, which admittedly I only ever had once, about four years ago, but it was enough to fill me.
5. Any conversation about how totally wicked awesome Mark Millar's comics are supposed to be. It usually invokes the "Do you think this A stands for France" line and eventually peters to an end with a feeble suggestion that I might want to try "Superman: Red Son," because I'm sure to like that one at least, if I gave it a try.
*****
Michael Grabowski
Webcomics rule/suck.
You should read these manga.
More superhero movies and who should direct or write or star in them.l
Spine vs. staple.
Dave Sim is/isn't a misogynist.
1) What books to give to people who don't read comics in order to "convert" them.
2) The conversation that starts like this: Q: "What do you do for a living?" A: "I'm a cartoonist," and ends with a discussion of the most recent Spider-man movie.
3) Whatever happened to Al Columbia?
4) The Old Funny Dan Clowes vs. the New Nabokov-esque Dan Clowes
5) How superheroes are "modern mythology."
1. Comics should go back to the newsstands and be cheap just like they were 25 years ago!
2. I hate Manga, everything looks the same!
3. Dave Sim, Cerebus & Misogomy.
4. DC buying Superman is like me buying a house. Why should the builder get anything after I bought it once?
5. Support comic books, stop buying trades, you're killing the industry!
*****
1) "So, wait, you mean they make comics for adults?"
2) "OK, in the next X-Men movie, who should play Dazzler?"
3) "Why do you like manga? I just don't get it."
4) "How much is your collection worth"
5) "I have a bunch of old comics. Do you think they're worth anything?"
*****
1. How can you still read superhero books?
2. How can you read those black and white books?
3. What does Dan Didio have against Young Justice and the Teen Titans?
4. Is buying this comic a good investment?
5. Why are you writing about sports on a comic book website?
1. Betty or Veronica? (...or Midge?)
2. Lois or Lana? (...or Lori?)
3. Gwen or Mary Jane? (...or Betty?)
4. Lulu or Gloria? (...or Annie?)
5. Barbarella or Vampirella? (...or Stripperella?)
*****
Michael Aushenker
1) Stan vs. Jack vs. Steve (who cares who did what or whatever the percentage, it took all of them to create those Marvel superheroes)
2) Whether or not I'm going to go see the new "Punisher" movie coming out (Enough already! I hope Hollywood has learned its lesson...)
3) How the economy will affect the comics industry
4) How the comics industry will affect the economy
5) Who is stronger: Superman or Hulk? (that conversation bit the dust by the 7th grade)
First Thought Of The Day
If you find yourself watching a movie and trying to figure out if a certain shot was a tribute to something in Purple Rain, you either a) watch too many movies, or b) need to watch more movies of a higher quality.
Quote Of The Week
"Faltinians, as energy beings, would seem to reproduce asexually, Sinifer is presumably the sole parent of Umar and Dormammu." -- from a random printout on my desk that I was using as research.
this week's imagery depicts the cover to an underground comic book
Diamond Ends Adult Previews Print Supplement; Raises Minimum From $1500 to $2500?
I've heard now from a pair of sources that Diamond is planning to raise its minimums from $1500 to $2500 and is ending the print iteration of its adult comics supplement. My only worry is that I can't get someone from Diamond to confirm this, so God knows if it's true, and additionally I'm not certain if this is a) brand-new brand-new or b) the conclusion of a string of events/announcement of an old policy that was set in motion last summer or even earlier.
If true and new, this could have a obvious negative effect on many small publishers, both the ones that make dirty comics and the ones that publish a variety of lower-selling titles that may have scraped by under the old system. A lot of the effects of the minimums being raised would be in how that policy would be executed, of course -- how much leeway might be afforded publishers to get orders to a certain point, or how much more quickly a lower-selling title might lose its exceptions given the higher hurdle to be cleared. It might also be a sign of a general tightening of belts to come.
30. Three Shadows, Cyril Pedrosa (First Second)
29. Wolverine: Origins #24, Daniel Way and Steve Dillon (Marvel Comics)
28. All Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder #9, Frank Miller and Jim Lee (DC Comics)
27. Lucky Volume 2, #2, Gabrielle Bell (Drawn and Quarterly)
26. Punisher: The Long Cold Dark, Garth Ennis, Goran Parlov and Howard Chaykin (Marvel Comics)
25. Nocturnal Conspiracies, David B (NBM/Comicslit)
24. Omega The Unknown #7, Jonathan Lethem, Gary Panter and Farel Dalyrmple (Marvel Comics)
23. RASL #2, Jeff Smith (Cartoon Books. (Which means published by Jeff Smith and his wife)
22. The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard, Eddie Campbell and Dan Best (First Second)
21. MOME #12, David B. and Al Columbia and Sophie Crumb and Sara Edward-Corbett and Ray Fenwick and Paul Hornschemeier and Tom Kaczynski and Killoffer and Nate Neal (Fantagraphics))
20. Paul Goes Fishing, Michel Rabagliati (First Second)
19. Injury #2, Ted May, M. Jason Robards and Jeff Wilson (Buenaventura Press)
18. B.P.R.D. 1946, Mike Mignola, Josh Dysart and Paul Azaceta (Dark Horse Comics)
17. Jessica Farm, Josh Simmons (Fantagraphics)
16. Drifting Classroom Vol. 10, Kazuo Umezu (Viz)
15. Angry Youth Comix #14, Johnny Ryan (Fantagraphics)
14. Core of Caligua, CF. Published Picturebox)
13. Nana Vol. 12, Ai Yazawa (Viz)
12. Travel, Yuichi Yokoyama (Picturebox)
11. Love and Rockets New Stories #1, Jamie, Gilbert and Mario Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
10. The Boys #19, Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson (Dynamite Entertainment)
9. All Star Superman #10, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC Comics)
8. Tales Designed To Thrizzle #4, Michael Kupperman (Fantagraphics)
7. Monster Men Bureiko Lullaby, Takashi Nemoto (PictureBox)
6. Criminal: A Wolf Among Wolves, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Icon/Marvel Comics)
5. Skyscrapers Of The Midwest, Joshua Cotter (Adhouse Books)
4. Acme Novelty Library #19, Chris Ware (Chris Ware)
3. Bottomless Belly Button, Dash Shaw (Fantagraphics)
2. Good-Bye, Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn and Quarterly)
1. Ganges #2, Kevin Huizenga (Fantagraphics)
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the deadline for the Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship rapidly approaches.
* I'm intrigued by the thought of Kyle Baker taking a crack at a biography of our soon-to-be president, and care not at all about whether or not the character makes an appearance in some superhero funnybook. I don't understand why stories like these always get put together: one is clearly more seriously-intended than the other. The former seems to me like conflating a well-funded documentary coming out from an established director with an Obama-like character being inserted into a pro-wrestling storyline.
* the prominent retailer Brian Hibbs provides commentary on recent mainstream comics publishing events; I agree with the majority of his sentiment and analysis. A couple of place I'd disagree with him. First, while it's clear that Marvel may feel emboldened in going to $3.99 comics because of the success $3.99 comics enjoyed at the top of the charts this year, that doesn't make it a better or more reasonable move and I think pointing out that part of it is more important than revealing Marvel's likely logic construction. Second, you can't argue that Marvel is making this kind of a move out of pure A leads to B logic and then suggest that Marvel or DC providing lousy solicitation is harming their overall brand when A has never, ever lead to B.
* finally, some not comics: the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com has a nice summary up of a recent magazine publishing news article, where the distribution company with about 1/5 of that market has announced a pair of attempts to pass certain costs back up to the suppliers. I don't think there's enough comics product pushed through that market for this to be a huge concern, but I can see it scuttling some arrangement should these things become industry-wide policy. Mostly, I see it as most people have seen it: a waved handkerchief from a guy standing on top of his car surrounded by water in the middle of a stream, another print industry in trouble.
So What's Up With The MoCCA Festival?
Over the last week I've received from several of you complaints/concerns about the 2009 edition of the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art Festival, scheduled for June 6-7, 2009. I may not have received all the complaints that are out there, but I heard enough of them I thought it worth tracking down what's going on through the site and also by speaking to the museum's director since September, Karl Erickson. Here's everything I know and what I found out.
* The show is still on, was never for one second in doubt, and according to Erickson the museum is moving full speed ahead on it with a high measure of enthusiasm. They look forward to seeing everyone in June.
* The web site has been, according to their own admission, behind the times -- a reflection of some sluggishness in their preparation overall. The 2008 page was up even this morning, I think, but is down now -- that's the one you get to on a google search, so that may have been the source of some confusion. There is a general coming soon page that you get to through the front page of the site that mentions the show. Erickson says the site is in the process of being updated with all due haste.
* Some of the old e-mail indicators have resulted in people sending e-mail to an address or addresses that are defunct, I believe primarily former festival co-organizer Derrick Kennelty-Cohen's. This has definitely been confusing for some people. Erickson asks that anyone wishing to contact the museum about the festival use the general contact e-mail address for the foreseeable future. It's
* On the subject of applications. Erickson told CR the museum is currently getting applications into the hands of those with museum memberships. They will then move to those without museum memberships that have exhibited in the past. They will then make sure the applications get into the hands of the general public. They hope to have all of this done by the end of this month.
* Despite some discussion in-house about dropping the practice, the museum will continue to assist certain exhibitors with getting their boxes to the site by giving them the option of sending them to the museum and having the museum take them over for a fee. Thi
By Bart Beaty, Via Phone
* there is as far I know almost no Jeff Smith original artwork out there, and I've spent the time rifling around his studio at 2 AM when he's out of the country to tell you that it's not for lack of people trying to get this stuff from the cartoonist. Kidding aside, 
I'm going to be speaking off the top of my head for a second in deference to Bart's more knowledgeable piece, but I think there are a few festival-type news stories to track. The health of the festival given a worldwide economic crisis should be an issue -- my guess is that the crowds will exceed the pessimists and everyone will appreciate the experience a bit more, but let's see. There was a general strike in France that may have an effect on first-day attendance and some of the pros getting from Paris to Angouleme. If I'm reading 
* the great Jim Blanchard 
* speaking of publishing news that came to my attention in an interview, Dean Mullaney 
* occasional CR correspondent Sean Collins points to 
* here are a couple of great posts from Richard Thompson. In one of them, he spotlights 
The problem is, I'm not sure there's anything new here. It makes sense as an argument when they're talking to you and me. It always has. Well, it always made sense to me, anyway. As I've written several times on this site, their argument seems to make sense as an argument. If Martin Garbus were sitting across the table from me at dinner and told me this story, I would say, "Well, you certainly have quite an argument there, Mr. Garbus. It should be interesting to see how things turn out in court. Can you pass the butter?" While this stuff is fun to talk about, I'm not sure anything in the court of public opinion matters at this point. What matters is how it turns out in court. It's like someone making a case that the Arizona Cardinals are going to win the Super Bowl. Maybe so, but of infinitely greater importance is the game on Sunday. Right?
For Huizenga, ending the series allows him to work towards the books more effectively. "I'm working on a lot of different things that don't all fit together. So let's just go book-by-book starting now. I'm in the middle of the Ganges series, and another Glenn Ganges story named Rumbling, the first part of which appeared in Or Else #5. So Ganges will still be coming out for a while and Rumbling will get serialized in some mini-comics (because I feel like that will help me get it done) until that's finished and ready to be a book." He also mentions that he'll be doing other 'zines in 2009, mentioning two by name: New Construction and Sermons. Gloriana may also be republished.
* at ActuaBD.com, David Taugis 
SPURGEON: To what degree and in what ways do you think you're still in a learning curve on this show. Like last year I know you had a concert -- it went well, reportedly, but I was thinking that might have been something slightly out of your comfort range in terms of organizing. Are there aspects of the show that are still kind of an adventure for you? Which ones?
SPURGEON: I wanted to ask you a few questions about the economy in the hopes that you'll feel free to be expansive and specific in your answers. First, has there been, or do you foresee, any changes in plans regarding this year's show from any of your vendors or exhibitors? Has anyone canceled, changed the level of their presence, decided to bring fewer creators along…?
FENSTERMAN: I would like to do a show in February in Florida. I could catch 
SPURGEON: How do you, personally, know if a show is successful? Is there a sign you look for, a certain level of buzz or a certain ferocity to the crowds? At what point do you take that first breath of air in knowing that things have gone well? Is that something you know at the show, going in, long afterwards...? What's your measure of success?
I'm grateful to Daryl Cagle for talking about 
* this piece of PR made the rounds yesterday evening: IDW 
* so I went to the comic book shop yesterday and the shop owner rubbed his hands with glee when talking of his 
Moliterni followed up on the success of the Musee des arts decoratifs show in two ways. The first is that he became one of the world's most active comics art show organizers. One source suggesting he may have helped put together more than 200 shows between 1968 and 2005. Among those receiving his attention through such an exhibition were giants like Will Eisner, Charles Schulz and, Hugo Pratt and Moebius. The second is as a writer. A book related to that art show (or the great coincidence of a book titled Bande dessinee et Figuration narrative) was the first of a long run of books of criticism and history including L'Histoire de la bande dessinee d'expression francaise (1972), two volumes of L'Encyclopedie de la bande dessinee (1974-1975), L'Histoire mondiale de la bande dessinee (1980) and a number of collaborations over the last two decades in print, on computer-ready formats and on-line.
* I did not know that in addition to doing his law-related comics, 
* the last time I went looking for archived episodes of Leisure Town, I swear there weren't any. Granted, that question might have been asked a long, long time ago. 
Drucker attended and graduated high school and college in Philadelphia, where he lived for the vast majority of his life. He served in World War II in the Chinese/Indian theater. After a significant post-war stint in advertising -- he would later return to this field as an element of, but not the entirety of, his professional output, concentrating on directly providing business with cartoon art -- Drucker began freelance cartooning with a sale to the Saturday Evening Post. He would upon moving to New York City and opening his own studio sell his first cartoon to The New Yorker in 1966, a professional high point. He would continue to contribute to that magazine and a growing client list over the next three decades. He also pursued comics syndication, including a panel in the 1960s called Future Boy.
* There's a ton of inauguration-related stuff up today. The cartoonist Richard Thompson 
* I missed that artist Ben Templesmith was doing some Dr. Who comics, but 
Most of the people to whom I spoke suggest that Diamond eliminating the Adult Previews supplement from their catalog offerings isn't as big of a deal as it might appear, even given Diamond's long-ago hesitancy to embrace some dirty comics in its first few years in business. Two factors play a role in mitigating the potential harm. The first is that in the age of Internet and instantly accessible pornography from comics to prose to video the reliance of some publishers on erotic material -- and it's suggested the reliance of the comics industry in total -- isn't quite what it used to be. "Eros still exists although we do maybe one item a month, if that," says Eric Reynolds, the Director of Publicity and Promotions for 
Still, Diamond's decision could have severe consequences in a lot of ways with a number of publishers. It should conceivably raise greater barriers for sustained entry from new companies and sideline comics efforts. It should also have an impact on companies with which we're all familiar. Although prominent art comics publishers 
* the arts-comics focused PictureBox Inc. 
By Dan Vado
Beyond the notion of benchmarks and new edicts from the industry's major, if not only, distributor is the fact that comics as an publishing industry perhaps has no economic basis for long-term survival beyond 
* I'm intrigued by the thought of Kyle Baker 
* The show is still on, was never for one second in doubt, and according to Erickson the museum is moving full speed ahead on it with a high measure of enthusiasm. They look forward to seeing everyone in June.
