ICv2.com: Central Park Media Files Chapter Seven Bankruptcy Last Friday
The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com notes that Central Park Media filed chapter seven bankruptcy last Friday. According to a knowledge of bankruptcy law gleaned on the back of cereal boxes, chapter seven is the liquidation one as opposed to the reorganization that is a part of a chapter eleven filing. The article makes the failure of the anime and yaoi manga pioneer sound like an issue of markets in which it excelled drying up, as debts accrued seem primarily focused on reach-out business that tend to get involved during a business slowdown -- a bank and a law firm. CPM had been in a diminished-employment half-state for a few years now.
Hearing The Adults Argue Late At Night
If I'm reading it correctly, a piece at ActuaBD.com hypes a forthcoming Nick Rodwell interview in the magazine Trends-Tendances about the relatively choppy waters in which rests the relationship between publisher Casterman and the organization that looks after the interests of Herge and his great creation Tintin, Moulinsart. Not only do I not have a dog in this fight, it's always hard to tell with certain ActuaBD.com articles who exactly believes what and what's exactly at stake -- the prose tends to get weirdly elliptical. Still, I think it's worth noting for a couple of reasons: someone believes there's a publishing arrangement which lasts until 2053, which I like because that's The Future, I'm mentally bookmarking the notion that Tintin hasn't enjoyed enough success in the international markets it's pursued, and I imagine you're going to see an increasing number of fissures between companies and rights-holders like this as the potency of certain licenses fades.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* I'm not sure that I linked to this part of Anders Fogh Rasmussen becoming head of NATO despite objections from Turkey that included but certainly were not limited to that the prime minister's conduct during the Danish Cartoons Controversy was suspect: President Obama's role in Rasmussen getting the position and some of the promises made for it to happen.
* here's a breakdown of a recent poll of attitudes held by Danish Muslims. I don't know the players to speak the accuracy of the polls, nor am I one to shake my fist at people who come at certain issues from a completely different worldview than I have, but I figure the more information the better.
* finally, more from Flemming Rose on the necessity that newspaper be allowed to publish things like the Muhammed cartoons. I agree with that principle, and we hosted those images on CR in order to fulfill our mandate as a news organization. I remain convinced, however, that the reason someone publishes upsetting imagery can be called into question, particularly when that something breaks with the primary role of the institution involved.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* all-around swell guy Batton Lash's The Soddyssey, And Other Tales of Supernatural Law has been nominated for something called a Benjamin Franklin Award; you can read all about it and find appropriate links here.
* following up on their good news regarding their doing a book with Imiri Sakabashira, Drawn and Quarterly runs a bit of work from another forthcoming translation, Susumu Katsumata's Red Snow.
* the critic Tucker Stone profiles Cold Heat by talking to Frank Santoro and making sure there's adequate focus on the contributions of Ben Jones.
* I never link to Mike Sterling's walks through the goofier, junkier aspects of Diamond's Previews catalog, but they're always fairly entertaining. Right now you could contend that there's a bit of edge to such posts in that Diamond has minimums for comics content but seems to find space for all sorts of bizarre crap, most of it related to superhero ephemera. That's not to say that these items don't have to play by the same rules, but that it might be worth noting every now and then that the DM as a whole finds more value in Batroc busts than in Sammy Harkham comics.
* finally, speaking of comics snapshots, here's a line from a Dan DiDio interview that stuck with me mostly because it likely won't stick at all with the hardcore fans now used to this kind of routinely weird stuff: "Aquaman died in the Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis series after he had been transformed into the squid-faced mentor of the new Aquaman." Come to think of it, it's also pretty funny if Aquaman being alive or dead is a not-always-known thing among superhero comics fans so hardcore they're pestering Dan DiDio. Shouldn't he have enough market presence people know if the guy is alive or not? Maybe someone needs to do a site like this one for the Sea King.
Oh, THAT Cartoon Of The Statue Of Liberty Holding A Big Ol' Whip
It was an illustration of this Frank Rich column, not a proper editorial cartoon, that gave conservative pundits a chance to fill air time earlier this week. Andrew Horton found it because apparently I sport the investigative capabilities of an addled lemur. The bonus is that it's by Barry "New Yorker cover of terrorist Obamas doing White House fist bump" Blitt.
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, after which it's on.
*****
DEC080161 ABSOLUTE SUPERMAN FOR TOMORROW HC $75.00
I always make a point to go look up the first time a prestige line publishes something where I have no idea what it is. The is the Brian Azzarello/Jim Lee Superman thing that was an unofficial follow-up to the Hush storyline over in the Batman books. All the exclamation points in the description make it fun to read out loud.
OCT080095 FINAL CRISIS LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #4 (OF 5) $3.99
I can't wait to see how Final Crisis turns out.
MAR098081 MUPPET SHOW #2 (OF 4) $2.99
This is the Roger Langridge muppet book and might be a hit so cross your fingers. Although I am reminded of that nursery rhyme that comes up when publishers keep claiming stuff gets sold out: "Sell out once, shame on the DM; sell out twice, marketing BM."
JAN090249 MAD MAGAZINE #500 $5.99
All hail the fifth 100th issue of the greatest comics series of them all. Look for one at your grocery store this week, if not your comics shop.
MAR094222 COLLECTED DOUG WRIGHT CANADAS MASTER CARTOONIST HC VOL 01 $39.99
Gorgeous book, gorgeous cartooning. Look at this PDF. To die for. Prestige purchase of the week, by a wide margin.
JAN094086 RASL #4 (MR) $3.50
As many books as I list up here as being in the Direct Market, and as much as I truly use comic shops to look at stuff they have that I'm not sure they want, this is the kind of book that makes the difference between a good trip and a great one. I really like Smith's book, have no idea where it's going, and am willing for him to take me wherever he wants.
*****
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, that's because now it's personal.
Vote Early, Vote Often, Vote Eisners
Eligible voters have until June 15 to vote in the 2009 Eisner Awards. More information, including directions to vote on-line, go here. The winners will be announced the Friday at Comic-Con International in a lavish ceremony to include a brief cameo by my Buffalo Bills face.
* Tom Devlin at Drawn and Quarterly talked a bit about their planned childrens' book line on their blog. It's to be called D+Q Enfant, and given their art direction standards and general, displayed line-wide quality in the realm of comics, should be something to keep an eye on. That's going to be one of their offerings above.
* everybody gets excited about new book lines, but Devlin dropped another bomb yesterday afternoon, at least one I wasn't aware of. D&Q is doing a book with Imiri Sakabashira called The Box Man. Holy crap. I'll put one of the images at the bottom of this post so you can go "Holy Crap," too. I don't follow manga closely enough to declare with authority this is the first Sakabashira comic published in North America since a short story popped up in Sake Jock, but that would be my hunch.
* the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com had a bunch of single-project publishing announcements on their site in the lat few days. The Del Rey and Cartoon Network alliance will result in comics featuring The Secret Saturdays. Last Gasp will be releasing a Junko Mizuno book with the awesome title of Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu Vol. 1. IDW will be taking another stab at re-launching Fallen Angel.
* the emerging webcomics cartoonist Kate Beaton has a book now; there's a photo of it and everything. I thought it interesting that she may not have been keeping files when she first started. Anyway, you should buy one.
* I received a press release earlier today that said BrokenFrontier.com has relaunched with a new design and a focus on Web 2.0 capabilities. It didn't give the URL, but it wasn't tough to figure that out. The site looks nice. I don't really understand what the web 2.0 stuff means, but I never do. I didn't know that site was headquartered in Brussels, or I did know and forgot.
* finally, Brian Cronin's book from Penguin on various comics industry legends and rumors has reached the preview stage.
DCD Not To Carry Classics Illustrated? According to this press release by the people holding the Classics Illustrated license and releasing some of the previous iterations of the work in new formats, Diamond won't be carrying the resulting works because of what sounds like those books' performance vis-a-vis their new benchmarks for carrying material. Between this and MAD going quarterly, it's been a tough year for classic comics series brands.
Jacob Zuma Win Brings Press Fears
This article in the Globe and Mail says just about everything I was bookmarking articles to string together: Jacob Zuma's big political victory doesn't mean his press opponents are likely to back down -- check out April from Zapiro -- but does raise fears of more aggressive actions against the press.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* publisher Archaia Studios Press seems to be hiring for stability these days. Marvel adds Alan Fine to its Chief Executive Office team, which sounds like the entertainment company's version of that comic they do with Professor X, Black Bolt and Namor whose name I can't remember. As always, I'm a little nervous when Marvel makes another move up top because it seems like the vast majority of Marvel's post-bankruptcy success has been funneled to powerful men in suits rather than rank-and-file comics makers or those books' original creators.
* here's something I thought we might see sooner: Scott McCloud's reemergence as a more frequent blogger leading to an exploration of the state of the more experimental webcomics that the cartoonist championed during his first sustained foray into the on-line world.
* I'm a little confused by articles castigating the New York Times for running a cartoon showing the Statue Of Liberty with a whip. For one thing, the fact that anyone would get worked up about something like that makes me want to go to bed for the rest of my life. More importantly, I'm confused in that the Times rarely runs comics, certainly doesn't have a cartoonist of their own, the cartoonist is never mentioned, and I can't find it.
* a few of you have e-mailed me the link to this follow-up on the changes at BEA, from the publishing arm of the convention organizer. I also found this article kind of confusing. First of all, it seems to me either the Macmillan representative or Lance Fensterman isn't telling the whole truth about Macmillan not having a floor presence at this year's big book trade show: two entities not being able to come to a satisfactory arrangement really isn't the same thing as one of them deciding to do something different with their marketing money. It's one member of a couple saying "we had differences about the wedding" and the other saying "I decided I want to sleep with Tony from work from now on." Those statements look really odd in paragraphs right next to one another in an article about those decisions. Second, I honestly don't know what it means for Random House to change its booth space to feature authors more directly. I never had a problem finding authors at any booth during the BEAs I attended -- they were always right there.
* finally, Ted Rall would like to remind you that Ted Rall is awesome. (I enjoy Ted's writing and admire the uncompromising nature of his cartoons, but that first line cracked me up more than any cartoon I read this morning.)
Michael George Bail Set At $2.5M
Macomb Circuit Judge James M. Biernat has set bail in the case of accused murderer and Michael George: $2.5 million. George's attorneys say the once-prominent Pennsylvania comics retailer and convention organizer can't post it.
Other conditions would include George -- convicted in March 2008 for murdering his then-wife in their comic book store in 1990 but then saw his request for a new trial granted in September -- wearing a tether, being confined to his mother's house, and traveling only to the doctor and to consult with attorneys.
Another Staffer Leaves Wizard?
I'm told that Wizard Conventions Programming Director Adam Tracey quit yesterday, effective immediately. Same sources as before. It happened quickly enough that I wonder if some time would have to pass before we can say it actually took, but I imagine there will be confirmation one way or another by later today.
Noel Murray Posts On CR Series List
I'm flattered that Noel Murray of the AV Club took a few moments yesterday to respond to and comment on the CR Sunday Feature on all-time series. What's great about the responses there is that folks seemed to come at the list by suggesting I need to add one thing after another I love and value in comics, from Zot! to Bone to Usagi Yojimbo to daily comic strips. Even if I don't think they should go on that list, I'm very glad those things are valued by those comics readers as much as I value them. My thanks to Mr. Murray and the thread participants for the pleasure of reading their commentary.
I wanted to mention I'm in general agreement with Murray about what Love & Rockets to read first and how to read Cerebus without necessarily plunging into some of the more controversial aspects of the work right away.
In terms of L&R, starting reading it with later issues has practical applications but also replicates the way a lot of fans first got into the Hernandez Brothers -- by catching up with the series after it had been going a while. Most of the people I know that are huge Love & Rockets fans started reading the book because the Comics Journal made them feel like they should or they responded to some surface aspect of it. Then, at some point during the initial stretch of issues they read, something clicked into place and they became totally obsessed with it. That was true for me, too. I started reading it because I liked Jaime's art in the color comics reprint Mechanics. The story in the magazine that captured my attention for good was "For The Love of Carmen."
When people talk about ways to explore Cerebus -- I'm a "go with High Society" guy, personally -- I think of a friend of mine who maintains for his own purposes that Cerebus died in issue #150. He bases this in part on simply not caring for what followed but also in that he believed the character had died in that issue back when it was initially serialized and that Sim was going to re-boot the series with a female aardvark in #151. I have no idea why he thought this; maybe Sim had said something about the male/female split in the series and my friend took him literally? I prefer to think he just made it up. I've never asked, and I hope he doesn't e-mail. The funny thing is you can certainly read Cerebus in that truncated way and have it work, although certainly not as the author intended. Cerebus dies after being awakened to something deep within his heart and then rashly committing a violent act in a world set against him sounds like the ending I would have written for the character at a certain age, that's for sure.
In terms of those responding to the list on CR, I think the one I should have considered to greater extent was American Splendor. It didn't even come to mind. This may have been my brain protecting me, because I'm not sure I even know what I think about AS right now. As I get older, I find myself liking Harvey Pekar's comics a lot when he was working with a really good artist, and not liking at all some of the other comics he's done, almost always with less significant artists. I know that one of the two respondents put a later Pekar work on an all-time great comics list; that work failed to make my top 25 for the year it came out. This is worrisome if not outright problematic when it comes to assigning Pekar a place in my personal pantheon. I'm clearly overdue figuring out what I think of the writer, whose place in comics history is assured. I should re-read his works as time becomes available.
Go, Read: Lushly-Illustrated Article On Fleming and Von Eeden's Thriller
Thriller was one of DC's oddest contributions to the early days of the Direct Market. I've had two different pros tell me in the last year that it was important in part because there was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff on it at the time, which made it something wannabe pros could follow in that way as well.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* drop whatever you're doing and go read this fantastically entertaining Mark Waid interview, if only to hear him talk about former employers."[Crossgen Founder Mark] Alessi was a spoiled eight-year-old with a checkbook, and he was the biggest bully I've ever met in my life -- and, coming from a lifelong comic book geek, that's one hell of an indictment." That's like the 20th best line in the piece. Too funny. (via)
* the phrase "Smurfs in Vietnam" may make most of us think of some unaired, early-'80s sketch comedy bit, but in this case it's just that the popular Peyo exhibit that ran at the Centre Belge de Bande Dessine to record-setting audience has moved on to Ha Noi after a stopover in Romania. The article breaks down the simple and logical way the exhibit is organized.
* for that matter, Malaysia certainly loves Lat, and there's a flurry of articles about a release of early work from the great cartoonist. The ones I had bookmarked are gone now, but this one comes up on a google news search. In addition to the absolutely awesome photos, I like how the cartoonist is up front about the nostalgia-buy aspect of having that book done.
* finally, anyone who's ever wanted to be a comics retailer and order all that fine product for your store should read Chris Butcher's two-part piece on going through the ordering catalog in real time. People who like funny stuff should read it, too. There's also some industry commentary worth noting. Butcher's indictment of a 1 in 250 special issue ordering incentive for retailers seems to me and my outsider's perspective as spot on. Moreover, that seems another clear piece of evidence that the bigger companies simply aren't thinking enough about these down economic times when deciding how to approach their markets.
DC Out Of BEA; Expectations Down PW comics culture blogger Heidi MacDonald caught something in one of that entity's newsletters which I'm grateful to have brought to my attention: BEA is shrinking in terms of exhibitors and attendees. That makes sense: the industry is shrinking, we live in a Internet-connected world that obviates the need for a lot of initial face-to-face meetings, and the religion of marketing has pretty much trumped any remaining belief in the industry structure, closed-door and personal connection idols of a previous civilization. Reviving useful structure would take way more work than one trade show is ever going to be able to muster, and might be a doomed game to begin with, so bringing on booth bunnies, cosplay and Colbert makes a kind of twisted sense.
The one thing I'd question is that BEA as currently constituted plays a significant role in building buzz, it's just that it's more the "Leonard Nimoy shows up in Austin to screen Star Trek" kind of buzz as opposed to the "people in the big exhibit hall going nuts at Comic-Con" kind of buzz. I'm not sure you can do both kinds under the same roof, and I'm not sure there's any way to replace the former once it's gone. It seems to me there's a sort of buzz that serves a book like Liar's Poker and a sort of buzz that serves Twilight, but I have to say "seems" because I don't have any qualifications to speak to those matters directly.
Maybe the silver lining is that in a few years I'll no longer have to read that same post every year from people that stuff themselves full of book industry freebies like a high school football team hitting the potato bar at Golden Corral, all in the service of feeding eBay and their own general acquisitiveness. Instead we'll get posts about how long the lines are and the way things were in the good old days.
Go, Read: Involved Comics Fans Bailing On Some Of Their Serial Comics Buys
There was a post last Friday about comic book buying habits and the economy on Blog@Newsarama that's worth your time if you like to think about the state of the Direct Market of comics and hobby shops. A sequel about the sames kinds of fans adding to their buying patterns can be found here.
You can't pull too much out of a collection of testimony like that one: the kind of fan that jumps on-line to talk about their buying habits at a place like Newsarama's blog probably isn't a typical fan, no matter how much they assert to the contrary. There are also any number of factors that may keep anyone wishing to follow up from quantifying any anecdotal trend: the fact that comic shops mitigate any drop in interest by buying their books non-returnable is one huge factor; there are also statistical anomalies that can play havoc with gleaning some sort of meaning from overall numbers, like this year's Spidey/Obama comic and Watchmen sales must be huge factors on their respective categories' bottom line.
I think what's clear, however, is that there's a potential weakness in the shape of the current comics market in that it depends on making a lot of money from a relatively small number of buyers, as opposed to a market that wants to make a few dollars here and there from a much more significant number of buyers. That's a pretty sweet set-up when it's working, but when it's not all that healthy someone else is going to suffer. I'd suggest the dominant actors in the Direct Market aren't that interested in overall market health except where it conflates with individual corporate goals.
Any forthcoming restriction of the comics market now seems clearly tied into the overall health of the economy -- not on a one-on-one basis, and perhaps there's a limit as to how far down the hole comics will follow general economic fact, but the relationship is there. Even if things never get worse than they are this morning, we need to recognize that comics' major players didn't do much of anything to reach out to its business partners and perhaps nothing at all to make things easier for its fans. Instead, they raised prices to meet budget shortfalls, helped Diamond further restrict access to the marketplace, kept the same haphazard release schedules, and continued to limit the options of competitors in ways that further their stranglehold on this still-lucrative DM pie.
Go, Read: Dave Stevens & Nostalgia Dan Nadel has a short and fairly fascinating piece up at Comics Comics on his experiences reading Brush With Passion: The Life & Art Of Dave Stevens. Nadel seems intrigued by the late Stevens' apparent unhappiness with his artistic development, and what that means as expressed by an artist with his legacy, inclinations and place in a very specific sub-culture. It rattles apart fairly quickly, I think due to some specific ideological constructs Nadel brings to his portrait of those overlapping sub-cultures, a sweeping set of claims and emphases that I'm not sure he all-the-way earns. Even if you disagree with Nadel on specifics, I think there's something to be said for the example he provides in stepping back and realizing that so many artists with an interest in comics remain unfulfilled and that the culture that surrounds comics might play a role in enabling this long-lingering hopelessness.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* in a move that I'm sure is in some way meant to provoke an all-out nerd war with McGill, Brad Mackay notes that, "Harvard University's Department of History of Art & Architecture has agreed to fund the 2009 Doug Wright Awards so that we can offer free admission to our May 9th ceremony at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Until last night, we were charging $5.00." So that's nice.
* Chris Butcher suggests that Buenaventura Press print up Kramers Ergot Vol. 7 as three normal-sized comic books that together would cost $12. Hey, why not?
* an on-line comic soon to be a print comic is giving its readers one more chance to see the whole thing for free before the site shifts into preview mode.
* when you're late to a signing, Fantagraphics makes you carry around a giant placard of your comic art all day.
It's a safe bet that the Kindle is unlikely to attract people who seldom pick up a book or, on the other end of the spectrum, people who prowl antiquarian book fairs for first editions. But for the purpose of sizing up a stranger from afar, perhaps the biggest problem with Kindle or its kin is the camouflage factor: when no one can tell what you're reading, how can you make it clear that you're poring over the new Lincoln biography as opposed to, say, "He's Just Not That Into You"?
I'm thinking another problem with the Kindle is that if I read something on the device that achingly stupid and react by barfing, I may damage expensive equipment as opposed to something I can pitch and replace.
* not comics: one would imagine it's harder to get upset about the seedy-looking comics adaptation when there has already been a full-on porn adaptation. As I recall, that was a semi-musical starring one of the girls from Meatballs. (Meatballs was a Bill Murray movie, not another porno.)
Here are my Sunday-Morning choices for the ten best comics series of all time. A lot of this is by caffeine-fueled feel. I'm not sure that I can present a clear list of criteria employed. I find myself wanting to work with long-time series, so that meant a baseline of more than 10 years publishing. I'm staying in North America -- no Spirou, no Garo -- although I was tempted to fake it. I looked at artistic achievement and historical impact as equally important factors and then worked from there in terms of folding in lesser factors like influence and uniqueness. This isn't a best-works list. I think more of Weirdo, for example, than I do six works that made this top ten. It's also not divorced from artistic considerations, so it's definitely not an industry-oriented list. Action Comics would have to be on that kind of list, and it's not on this one. I also wanted to have the list entire cover a great deal of aesthetic and historical ground, or at least as much as that would be possible as a later consideration.
Basically, I just wanted a nice snapshot of what comics series have meant to the art form and to those who enjoyed comics that way. What follows isn't perfect and may not even be defensible, but these kinds of exercises can't be the former and sometimes work better as the latter. I hope you enjoy it. -- Tom Spurgeon
*****
1. MAD (1952-present)
The legendary magazine and cultural touchstone brought satirical comedy of the "Everyone is Lying to You" variety to the masses, and hit a generation of media-savvy children right between the eyes. They then executed the crap out of that basic formula for decades, broadening slightly in terms of approach and sentiment but never straying far from what they do best. The initial run of Harvey Kurtzman-edited comics are as deliciously weird and inventive as their reputation, and the Al Feldstein era with its murderer's row of great comics craftsmen is as vastly underrated as any comic ever. At the height of its influence, MAD was The Simpsons, The Daily Show and The Onion combined. Three generations of American adults not only read some excellent comics in this magazine, they saw a great deal of an age-stratified pop culture through its lenses.
*****
2. Love and Rockets, Vol. 1 (1981-1996)
The best long-running and organic artistic achievement in serial comic book form, the magazine-formatted Love and Rockets spanned the lifetime of comics' growth as an art form from debates over whether anyone would read a comic that was more than 50 pages long to the first major book distribution deals. The Hernandez Brothers inspired and outworked a greatest generation of comics auteurs. Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez are each among that handful of artists who must be given serious consideration when talking about the best cartoonists working. In Love & Rockets each created fictional worlds for the ages and used them as a vehicle for enormous artistic development, lapping the majority of their peer group. One so inclined could argue with seriousness a top 25 of American graphic novels where 1/3 of the titles listed came from this series.
*****
3. Walt Disney's Comics & Stories (1940-1962)
I believe this was the most popular of the Disney titles. Choosing just one of the Disney series according to artistic impact is difficult considering there were great works spread out over a few of those titles. I'm told a lot of where you stand comes down to how what weight you give which works by Carl Barks. Walt Disney Comics & Stories featured a significant number of contributions from Barks (originals which I believe would continue for a half-decade into the series second iteration at Gold Key) focusing on the sublime Donald Duck ten-pagers, early cover work from Walt Kelly, reprints from Floyd Gottfredson, and Mickey Mouse stories by Paul Murry. The 20th Century was the comic book century and it was the Walt Disney century, and the combination of the two gave us some of the best expressions of both.
*****
4. RAW (1980-1991)
The standard-bearer for adult expression in comics in the 1980s, RAW is clearly responsible for several subsequent developments within the art form. This includes but is not limited to 1) nurturing an important generation of artists that would become American alt-comix mainstays, 2) providing a first home for co-editor Art Spiegelman's foundational Maus, 3) bringing to American shores and putting in front of American eyes many of the best European cartoonists of two generations, 4) furiously messing with format to a liberating degree and, perhaps most importantly, 5) investing the entire enterprise with a sense of artistic legitimacy that could stand up to the most withering skepticism.
*****
5. Zap (1968-2005) Zap was the best-known comic series of the underground comix, and published heavy-hitters such as Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Gilbert Shelton, Rick Griffin and Robert Williams. You don't really need to say anything else. All of those cartoonists are great, Crumb in particular is a giant, and no anthology has No comic series better encapsulated a quality of expression one can earmark as belonging to a specific time. It's amazing how playful the comics in Zap could be, and how important some of the more ragged contributions and jam comics feel plopped into the middle of various quality short stories. There's going to come a point in the next 25 years where those paying attention to comics are going to have to decide how good and vital the best underground comix were as they begin to become untethered from living history and the weight they've been given as social agents backed by the self-flattery of a myopic yet statistically significant generation. My guess is we'll start that process with Crumb and Zap, and continue with the rest of that comic's line-up and on from there into that entire period of fertile expression.
*****
6. Four-Color Comics (1939-1962)
This was to my mind the most mainstream of all mainstream North American comic books, from a time when comic books were very, very mainstream. Four-Color makes the list for the way it was set up to launch any number of titles, its success in doing so (including several Disney features) and its prodigious output. It is one hundred and eighty degrees removed from comic books as we understand and value them now: it published up to twice a week, it shifted features, it favored no particular kind of comic over another, and it went right after popular tastes like so many fast zombies loping behind a bus full of schoolchildren. It's the only comic book where looking at the covers feels like flipping through the channels on your grandmother's Philco, although its basic operation was so relatively inscrutable that a line in a wikipedia entry suggests that a crucial task of 1960s super-fans Don and Maggie Thompson was simply figuring out who did what in Four-Color and when, reverse-engineering a comic book TV guide. If it were around today I'm imagining a May 2009 where we might see comics on that singing woman, Somali Pirates, The Mentalist and LeBron James. But it isn't around today. It couldn't be.
*****
7. Amazing Spider-Man (1962-present)
What would become Marvel's enormous influence seems to my eye better encapsulated in short bursts of creativity on specific titles and the relentless quality of its line in the mid-1960s than it does any of its long-running series. That said, Amazing Spider-Man was the Marvel comic that felt like an original Marvel comic book for the longest time. Crucially, its initial burst of creativity wasn't limited to a single run by Marvel art powerhouse Jack Kirby but instead saw three sustained, compelling periods: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's clever capsizing of the superhero genre, Stan Lee and John Romita's romance comic-influenced take on the personal woes emphasized in the original formula that attracted so many readers to its core ideas of responsibility and emotional investment, and the first significant riffs on the Marvel formula by creators including Romita, Gerry Conway and Gil Kane, where Spider-Man became a kind of issues-oriented soap opera focused on running commentary about superheroes and self-actualization in stories where, say, Gwen Stacy dies and then comes back to life in cloned form. It hasn't been as significant since, nor has it enjoyed recurring quality runs like Marvel's Daredevil series has, but Spider-Man's initial series of achievements is enough to earn it a place here.
*****
8. ACME Novelty Library (1993-present)
We're at a point in comics history enough time has passed that people forget what a mind-bending achievement Chris Ware's one-man showcase series ACME Novelty Library was when it first debuted. Even its approach to format felt radical. If RAW played around with presentation, ACME punched right in the scrotum the notion that every issue of a single comic book series had to look like the others. The dozens of cartoonists following his lead is the title's most obvious contribution, but hardly its greatest. Its primary value is that it presented Ware's giant talent to enough of an audience to bring him thousands of hardcore fans. ACME also played with what people might conceive of when they thought of a serial title -- some issues of ACME ran a continuing serial, some published gathered-together gags, and the issues that come out today look like a book more than any comic book. Perhaps the most telling thing about ACME is that in the midst of serializing what should be another mighty collection one day, Ware can dream up a single-page that if it were the only thing he ever published people might still know his name.
*****
9. King-Cat Comics and Stories (1989-present) John Porcellino's mini-comic is beautiful and perfect just the way it is, and what that is is the greatest artistic achievement in the vast universe of handmade comics. It's basically one man's life story as told to an audience assembled by the whims of a crumbling, ephemeral marketplace, but it's also elegant, insightful comics.
*****
10. Cerebus (1977-2004)
Although few comics readers know quite what to do with the content and themes of the book as they developed in its second half, Dave Sim's 300-issue achievement remains monumental in terms of scope and personal ambition, and is also noteworthy for the craft chops and unique storytelling solutions frequently on display. It's probably the most fascinating object among the great comic book series, by which I mean it's the only comic on this list I can imagine people wanting to read a collection of its letters pages or its editorials or its back-up features in addition to the several collections featuring the comics narrative. Cerebus served quite effectively as a vehicle for Sim's personal views and as a platform for the gospel of self-publishing as a viable business choice in the Direct Market-dominant 1980s and 1990s. I don't know yet what I think of it as an artistic achievement, but I greatly enjoyed huge swaths of it. The further away from its published conclusion I get the more I'm convinced that it's something special in terms of comics history, and the further along I get in my own artistic journey the more I'm certain that even if he doesn't realize it, Dave won.
*****
I also considered the following great series: Weirdo, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Sandman, Hate, Eightball, Bone, Frontline Combat, Optic Nerve, Fantastic Four, Action Comics, Detective Comics, Daredevil, The Spirit, Donald Duck Adventures, Yummy Fur, Classic Comics, Monster and Shonen Jump. No doubt I've completely spaced on a half-dozen mighty achievements of this type.
*****
Michael Grabowski
I would add American Splendor to your list. I don't think I've ever read a review that articulates precisely why Pekar's comics work, and the movie doesn't get this across either, and I sure can't explain it but there it is. He took the vision of underground comics and stripped it of its sensationalism and shock value but somehow he and his collaborators figured out how to make the absolutely mundane interesting to look at and read. Still. A lot of the artists usually work in a much less restrained fashion and it's been interesting and affecting to see what guys like Crumb, Stack, Sacco, & Haspiel can do when illustrating work that's outside their normal approach.
Pekar's publishing history has to say something positive about the book & comics publishing industry. His first Doubleday collection came out the same year at Pantheon's 1st edition of Maus, which means it was probably prepared completely independently rather than as a response to any trend. That he's enjoyed apparently good publishing relationships with a number of publishers in a few different formats suggests some kind of marketability that he has achieved for his work. The intersection between wider pop culture and Pekar's work (David Letterman and Paul Giamatti at one end, the odd play or opera at the other) has been interesting to see take place as at it all seems to have taken place on Pekar's terms (and produced its own entertaining sub-genre in Pekar's comics). Hopefully this is all another piece in the growth of comics as an accepted, expected mode of artistic expression for all manner of themes and styles.
*****
Ethan Heitner
My vote for inclusion on that list would be World War 3 Illustrated. While having only 40-odd issues out (39) makes it seem less impressive than the runs of hundreds your list includes, I would argue that WW3 very simply provides a home for comics that could not find a home anywhere else in the North American comics scene. I am continually curious why WW3 doesn't get more attention from the comics blogosphere.
*****
Mark Coale
I don't know if the runs are long enough, but how about: Morrison's Doom Patrol, American Flagg vols 1 and 2, Waid's Flash run, Rucka's Queen and Country, Wolfman/Colan Tomb of Dracula, Moore/Veitch Swamp Thing. Would you lump all the Grendels together as one big project?
*****
Buzz Dixon
It's hard/bordering impossible to argue against any of your choices, so I'll say I wish the list had gone up to twelve and that Archie (and attendent titles) and Classics Illustrated had been included.
Archie has varied in focus and quality over the years, the 1950s/early 60s stories bordering on the subversive on occasion, but at its heart it was what we wished our teen years were like or, for those pre-teen readers, what we hoped it would become. I think it's fair to say Archie & friends gave millions of kids a template for their future, and while acknowledging the importance of MAD and Zap, Archie provided a counter-balancing normalacy for many.
Classics Illustrated probably did a better job teaching the classics than the American public school system and on occasion they actually had some pretty decent art (I remember The War Of The Worlds and The Time Machine with great fondness). They certainly had more readers than the originals or Cliff Notes. They certainly made a lot of otherwise impenetrable plots clear.
*****
John Vest
When you're looking at the greatest long running series I guess the field does narrow quickly. As honorable mentions I'd include Captain Marvel and Plastic Man from the golden age plus Lee-Ditko Doctor Strange and Tales Of Asgard from the sixties.
I'd go with Fantastic Four over Amazing Spider-Man in the top ten. The characters' lives evolved through both series but much more dramatically in the 8 1/2 year breadth of the Lee-Kirby FF. The Fantastic Four aged perceptibly and there was a more sober tone in later issues with increased family responsibilities. As the group appeared more often in casual attire during the final issues it's almost as if they had transcended the superhero scenario and had been taken as far as they could go.
*****
Danny Fingeroth
I second what Michael Grabowski said about American Splendor. Harvey created his own sub-genre of compelling personal comics, which is even more impressive when you see how many people try something similar and don't succeed. Harvey makes it look easy -- which it ain't.
FFF Results Post #161 -- Day Of
On Friday, CR asked its readers to "Name Four Comics (#1-4) You Wish You Could Have Bought The Day They Came Out And Then One (#5) You're Glad You Did Buy That Way. As A Bonus, If You Want, Explain The Reason Why For One AND ONLY ONE Of Your Choices." This is how they responded.
I'm glad I bought a TMNT #1 the day it came out because I wasn't crazy about it so I sold it to a local collector/speculator a couple of years later and because of the financial windfall got to quit my summer job a couple of weeks ahead of schedule and goof around a while before football two-a-days started. That was a great summer.
*****
Danny Ceballos
1. MAD #1
2. Plastic Man #1
3. Strange Tales #110
4. Arcade #1
5. JIM #1
I bought JIM #1 based entirely on the cover image and it turns out that sometimes you can judge a book by its cover...
*****
Michael Grabowski
1. Love & Rockets #2 (vol. 1)
2. Mad #11
3. Cerebus #14
4. Howard The Duck #1
5. Journey #1
I would really have enjoyed starting to read L&R with "Mechanics" instead of some of the lesser stories from the mid-teen issues that I first read later on.
I have the first two 100 Bullets tpbs, then about 50 singles, then the rest in trades. But I had to buy the final issue, both to support Brian, Eduardo, Trish and Dave's monumental achievement and to see how it all ended. I just couldn't wait.
1. Longshot #1
2. Mage, the Hero Discovered #1
3. DC Solo #1
4. Deadline Magazine in the UK
5. THB #1
Yeah, I got to be in on the ground floor of Paul Pope's awesome series, but then an ex-girlfriend absconded with all the issues and it took me several years to replace them without paying too much of a premium.
*****
Christopher Duffy
1. Wham-O Giant Comics thing from the 60s
2. Zap #1
3. Muppets #1
4. Love and Rockets #1
5. Nova #1
I wish I had bought Muppets #1 the first day it came out because it sold out and now all I can find are stupidly expensive "exclusive" Midtown Comics cover variant editions. Bleh!
*****
Tom Bondurant
1. Amazing Fantasy #15
2. Showcase #4
3. Green Lantern Vol. 2 #76
4. Fantastic Four #1
5. DC Comics Presents #26
I had enjoyed the '70s Teen Titans revival for most of its brief run, and I liked Robin and Kid Flash from it and other books, so I was glad to see the 16-page New Teen Titans story in the middle of this issue. New Teen Titans quickly became one of my favorite comics, and for a while NTT #1 was probably the most valuable single issue in my embryonic collection. (DCCP #26 would have been more valuable, but I had carefully removed the NTT insert...)
*****
Mark Coale
1. Detective #1
2. Danger Trail (1950) #1
3. Animal Man #5
4. Showcase #56
5. American Flagg #1
I had given up comics during my senior year in high school and when I started reading again a year later in college, I had missed the start of both Animal Man and Sandman. While it was harder to get the first five or six issues of Sandman, I wish I had been reading Animal Man from the jump. The Coyote Gospel is still my favorite issue of Animal Man and started by 20+ year appreciation for Morrison's work.
*****
Adam Casey
1. New Gods #1
2. Love and Rockets #1
3. Tales of Suspense #94
4. Whiz Comics #2
5. Ultimates 2 #1
I was working at a movie theater when Ultimates 2 #1 came out so I was painfully aware of the fact that movies that opened *that week* were being referenced in the comic and it put me off to the style of pop culture infused writing to this day.
*****
Matthew Badham
1) 2000 AD Prog 1
2) Fantastic Four 1
3) Beano 452 (the debut of Dennis the Menace)
4) Watchmen 1
5) Ed 1 (by London-based cartoonist Sean Azzopardi)
If I'd bought Watchmen when it came out, then I might have an inkling of whether I really like it as much as the wider critical culture that surrounds the comic has persuaded me I do.
*****
Jean-Paul Jennequin
1. S.O.S. Meteores by Edgar P. Jacobs
2. The Brave and the Bold #28
3. Les Taxis Rouges (Benoit Brisefer #1) by Peyo
4. Le Jardin fantastique by Raymond Poïvet
5. Uncanny X-Men # 94
Le Jardin fantastique is a book collection of the French science-fiction strip Les Pionniers de l'Esperance about a group of time and space adventurers. There were very few collections of the strip made and they had a very haphazard distribution. I used to see ads for the book in the publisher's weekly Journal de Pif when I was a kid in the 1960s but it was nowhere to be seen on sale. And the story looked so thrilling, with the heroes reduced to insect size and trying to find a lost friend in an ordinary garden, being menaced by giant -- to them -- spiders and the like.
*****
Stergios Botzakis
1. Amazing Fantasy #15
2. Whiz Comics #2
3. Weirdo #1
4. Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad #1
5. Ambush Bug #3
[Ambush Bug #3 was] my introduction to the lunacy of DC's Silver Age comics, plus it was hilarious to boot!
*****
Alan David Doane
1. Love and Rockets #1 (pre-Fantagraphics)
2. Amazing Fantasy #15
3. American Splendor #1
4. Conan the Barbarian #1
5. Gates of Eden #1
FantaCo's gorgeous and way-ahead-of-its-time 1980s anthology title [Gates of Eden] was high on my must-read list the week it came out. What I wouldn't give for the never-published #2...
The 1971 Bantam edition of Vaughn Bode's Deadbone Erotica was accidentally pulped with only a few volumes actually making it out of the warehouse and into stores and I got one!!!!!
*****
Dave Knott
- Heavy Metal #1
- Watchmen #1
- Thorn: Tales From The Lantern
- King-Cat Comics #1
* Krayons Ego
I wasn't reading comics when Watchmen was originally came out, and thus have only read it as a complete package. That's a shame, because it seems Watchmen be a different experience when read as a serialized story in discrete chunks.
1. Love and Rockets #1
2. The black and white, self-published Love and Rockets #1 (still don't have it)
3. Mad #6
4. Uncanny X-Men #94
5. Neat Stuff #1
I didn't buy an issue of Love and Rockets until #9, avoiding it for some reason, even when people at the comic shop I worked at kept telling me to read it. That comic flipped a switch in my head and shorted out some wires that needed to be done away with, it changed a lot of my attitudes about comics, what they could do and what could be done with them. I should have listened and tried it with the first issue.
2. Ascending South African political leader Jacob Zuma keeps up the pressure on the cartoonist Zapiro by suing him in court again.
3. Cartoonist Ted Rall laid off from his acquisitions editor position at United Media.
Winner Of The Week
Steve Breen is clearly the King of the Week, if not the year, but there's something nice about Yoshihiro Tatsumi sharing in the Tezuka prize for a gigantic, autobiographically focused cultural history.
Losers Of The Week
I'm a bit late on it, but these people.
Quote Of The Week
"Some of the noises coming from some of the [ANC Leader Jacob] Zuma faction are disturbingly similar to what was said by apartheid functionaries during those days. They think they alone can define the national interest and single out people who they see as opposing it." -- Zapiro
this week's imagery comes from one of the great underground comix
The Overseas Press Club announced Wednesday that newly-minted Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Breen has won its 2009 Thomas Nast Award, given to the best cartoons on international affairs. Kevin KAL Kallaugher received a citation.
Missed It: Italian Cartoonist Dismissed After Criticizing Administration's Actions In one of those stories where you initially think there may be something more to it and then eventually resign yourself to it perhaps being exactly what it looks like and what it looks like is depressing, cartoonist Vauro Senese was fired from a state television show gig after doing a cartoon savaging one of the responses to the recent L'Aquila earthquake. The show in question was Annozero, hosted by Michele Santoro.
My thoughts fairly mirror the ones unpacked here, in that there's reason to believe this is solely about the political insult rather than any of the reasons given.
Go, Look: Preview Of Darwyn Cooke's First Parker Book At Publisher IDW
click through the image; this material looks 50 times better at IDW's preview than it does in my jpeg and I bet it will look 50 times better than that in print, so I urge you to take the first step and have a peek
And They Will All Live Like Cartoonists: The US Economy And Comics, Post #36
a few pieces on the tumultuous newspaper business, which is facing an all-time crisis in readership and revenue:
* the latest data shows an increase in overall newspaper site traffic and the time individual readers spend there. This makes sense to me as more core readers abandon print, by which I mean they're now creating customers for that material that are used to reading newspapers and spending some time doing so as opposed to attracting new readers who may not give a crap about newspapers at all.
* the New York Timesis making vague promises it will explore pay models for on-line consumption, although there's no real reason to think that anyone out there has a strategy for this to work.
* the writer Warren Ellis earlier this week pointed out this article about the general state of newspapers vis-a-vis on-line opportunities. He did so with a grain of salt, which I will second with an option to upgrade to salt lick, but there's 1) an interesting way to frame the debate about newspapers' decline in there, as a supplier of services many of which have migrated on-line without enough in the way of a protest from the newspaper people, 2) a compelling way to take a second look at what newspapers do, by recasting them as something of a social community dominated by news and information experts. I find that fascinating because I come at newspapers critical of their adoption of service models over news models in the 1970s and beyond, while this analysis seems to accept that as a given in a way I'm not sure I can really argue away.
Jean Schulz Gives $1 Million To The Ohio State University Cartoon Library & Museum
Jean Schulz has donated $1 million to the Ohio State University's Cartoon Library & Museum in order to assist that entity in rebuilding its Sullivant Hall. The widow of Charles Schulz has also pledged another $2.5 million in matching funds. As I recall, Schulz gave Sonoma State a similar seven-figure give in 2006 or 2007 to aid its music program. Total renovation cost at the OSU facility is expected to reach more than $20 million.
* missed it: Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon is trying to raise money to restore the artwork in its possession, including 19 original drawings by Lute Pease. I hope you'll join me in considering a small donation, or at least spending some time staring at the scans of the Pulitzer Prize winner's originals. Here's a short news story.
* Michael Cavna notes that one thing State Of Play got right about the current condition of newspaper journalism is that there's no editorial cartoonist hanging out in its fictional newsroom. That's too bad -- I think it would have been funny to have Jeffrey Tambor or someone annoying the shit out of Russell Crowe's character. By the way, it's weird to hear these articles about State of Play as a semi-serious meditation even in an incidental way on the state of American newspapering. The BBC series -- which I very much enjoyed -- seemed a lurid, guilty pleasure romp with no pretension to saying anything about the state of journalism except that being a star reporter can net you a decent enough place Polly Walker will sleep over.
* this comment in a thread under a pretty typical "comic strips are square and stupid" post mentions something in passing that may be an actual, slight phenomenon of note. As much as people make fun of some of the creakiest soap operas and staler humor strips on the comics page, and as much as I personally believe the overall health of comic strips would be stronger if there had been an industry-wide move away from legacy strips starting in the mid-'70s, it has to be worth noting that in some markets it's easier for newspapers to get rid of the kind of 1970s-era hits that supposedly connected with boomers and broader audiences than the goofier, even older features that are frequently favorites of the Silent and Greatest generations.
* finally, there's an interesting article about a European print-on-demand service here that seems a bit sprawling to me and potentially not rigorously vetted claim by claim (there's a breathless quality rather than a challenging tone to the prose), but worth a read nonetheless. As is the case with a lot of people, my gut feeling is that the future of publishing will include some sort of POD element for smaller runs and stuff way in the back catalog and that this option will have some sort of relationship to on-line iterations of same. I'm not ready to say how that element will come together, and I might break with other people who think about this stuff in that I'll confess there's a possibility POD will become an option in a way that totally makes sense and be rejected by the market anyway.
* this is astounding news, of course, because those comics are great, but part of me thinks we already knew about it. Maybe it's come to the point with all the reprints that I just assume everything I like is going to come out in one of these series.
* the longtime arts comics publisher Fantagraphics is rolling out their next catalog in on-line chunks like this one. Just about every project featured is of at least some interest. The unfortunate thing is I believe you have to just scroll until you find these, as I'm not finding a common tag.
* Matthew Loux has launched a Salt Water Taffy web site in support of the print books that will feature comics not in the print books.
* Kevin Maroney wrote in to inform me that the Skrull Kill Krew revival Marvel's released this week is written by Adam Felber. Apparently this is common knowledge. Felber's best known for being a panelist on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me. So I guess that means the series will be humorous.
* here's a nice photo showing off Seth's design work on the forthcoming Nancy book from Drawn and Quarterly.
* the cartoonist Lea Hernandez is re-launching her Rumble Girls: RLO projects and needs subscribers.
* finally, AdHouse Books has details up on the third of their Process Recess series, art books they do with celebrated illustrator and comics cover artist James Jean. That should be out this summer.
*****
Bundled, Tossed, Untied and Stacked is a way for Comics Reporter to organize and pay more attention to raw publishing news: what is coming out and when and what it might look like.
Vanessa Davis won this year's Maisie Kukoc Award for Comics Inspiration for work that was "at least partially hand-made" by the cartoonist. I'm not really sure for which one or ones she took the award, but Davis has been killing it lately, so I'm certain the award was deserved. The award was given out the Friday of the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland at Guapo Comics and Coffee, and there was a cash prize of $450. It is coordinated by Jesse Reklaw.
Gestalt Publishing Managing Director Wolfgang Bylsma wrote in after yesterday's posting about that company having their anthology Flinch canceled by dominant North American direct market facilitator Diamond Comics Distributor, Inc. He had good news: he'd been contacted by his account manager and was told that while the title had been auto-canceled for not meeting the new minimums, they were now going to carry it and they were very sorry about the initial snafu whereby Gestalt hadn't been informed of the cancellation.
Comics Employment/Movement Updates
* the best place for commentary on Ted Rall's departure from United Media is the comments thread at Alan Gardner's post on the news at his Daily Cartoonist. For some reason, it keeps threatening to devolve into the same, largely idiotic discussion about webcomics vs. traditional syndication that shows up a lot more than is necessary or applicable, but there's a lot of interesting stuff there beyond the trotting out of the usual pathologies.
* I have an e-mail in my inbox that was forwarded to me by someone I don't know that indicates longtime Wizard employee Karen Evora-Adamy is now running her own advertising agency called EVORA Advertising. Her list of clients includes Long Beach Comic Con, which is run by another former Wizard person, Martha Donato. That seems to me something that's either popped up or simply stands to benefit because Wizard canceled/suspended its LA show.
* another piece of employment news I forget to mention is that Milt Priggee is working with the new on-line Seattle PI. I think I have mentioned that former Daily News staffer Patrick O'Connor is doing some freelance work for the LA Times, but it can be noted one more time.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the Independentprofiles mobile entertainment options including manga. I always grit my teeth when people make the point that their delivery system/genre/art form is cool and/or profitable by asserting that Shakespeare was some kind of medium-unspecific gadfly, and there's nothing in here that doesn't seem to me should surprise anyone, but it's a solid piece for sure and I'm happy for whichever cartoonists get to reach audiences this way.
* Leigh Walton suggests that webcomics is part of a unique and growing approach to artistic expression generally.
* here's a way to look at all of the King Features Earth Day cartoons from yesterday.
* not comics: Gil Roth points in the direction of this list of forgotten or otherwise neglected Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, which I thought interesting enough I wanted to bring it to your attention, too. The only two I've read are probably the poorest choices on the list, concept-wise: the Drury and the Millhauser. No one's buying Martin Dressler because there are better Millhauser books, and I bet most of those copies were purchased at some point by somebody out there. And just because no one reads Advise and Consent anymore doesn't mean it didn't have millions of readers in multiple editions for about three decades. There's probably two copies in their respective bookshelves within a half mile of where you're sitting right now, between the Thurber and the Edwin O'Connor.
* finally, happy birthday, ninja turtles. I'm tempted to write an article at some point, but in a sense I think their legacy is clear: the worldwide licensing bonanza that began with principles of ownership and control fostered by the self-publishing movement, the Vinko Bogataj-style lesson of Tundra and the Xeric Foundation.
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, leading to feets and hands a'-plenty.
*****
JAN090111 BPRD TP VOL 10 THE WARNING $17.95
I know how idiotic it is to keep whistling "wow" when you get to a certain number on a title or trade series, but wow, there are 10 of these now.
MAR094364 KODT BUNDLE OF TROUBLE TP VOL 24 $12.99
And there's 24 of these. Has anyone ever written about this series simply as a long-time, successful publishing endeavor?
FEB092421 INVINCIBLE #61 $2.99 FEB092371 VIKING #1 $2.99
These are your high-end genre comics of interest this week; the Viking book is writer Ivan Brandon's new series.
JAN094226 TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE #5 (MR) $4.50
I can't imagine in a week this light on substantial comics offerings that you couldn't find a place in your backpack or on your car seat for the latest issue of Michael Kupperman's great series.
FEB092517 SKRULL KILL KREW #1 (OF 5) DKR $3.99
Sooner or later, they all come back.
JAN094262 BEATS GRAPHIC HISTORY HC (MR) $22.00
I don't hold out much hope for this anthology of non-fiction comics as a lot of books like it have been pretty bad, but maybe I'll be surprised.
FEB094448 STONECUTTER HC $14.99
This is a Jon J Muth-illustrated adaptation of Chinese folkstory that as a project has inspirational literature aspirations. I'd really like to look at this if I were in a shop.
*****
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'm mean.
What If Diamond Cancelled Your Comics Anthology And Didn't Tell You?
That's what one company representative claims happened. Gestalt Comics' Managing Director Wolfgang Bylsma wrote into CR earlier today to claim that their anthology Flinch was apparently canceled by Diamond Comics Distributor, Inc. -- by far the leading provider of books to the Direct Market of comics and hobby shops. What makes this stand out a bit in a year where a lot of small-press books have lost Diamond's support in accordance to their new minimums policy is that Bylsma claims Gestalt wasn't informed of this decision by Diamond but by the stores that Diamond had given this news. "I received an email from a retailer in Montreal asking why we were going ahead with our planned book launch in Melbourne, Australia when Diamond had canceled the distribution. Local retailers than confirmed for me that Diamond had informed them the title was canceled."
The publishers plan on selling the book through Amazon.com and perhaps Haven Distribution. That's Shaun Tan's cover above; other contributors include Justin Randall and Ray Fawkes.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* hackers attacked the site selling prints of Kurt Westergaard's bomb-in-turban cartoon.
* I will never in a hundred years understand Flemming Rose's continued justifications for the initial publication of the Danish Cartoons. While the refusal of newspapers and other media organizations to publish the cartoons when what those cartoons looked like became a crucial, international news issue was clearly awful and disappointing on a billion levels, and we hosted them here as early as November 2005, I've always held that the initial publication was an action that had nothing to do with fulfilling journalistic principle despite occasional, specifics-free assertions to the contrary such as Rose gives in the linked-to article. It's hard for me to stomach the further assertion that this was a typical enterprise, and I flat-out disagree that any of these assertions should obviate that decision from criticism.
* the US will join several other countries in boycotting a UN racism conference where ideas will be bandied about that are in some ways influenced by the Danish Cartoons Controversy.
Ted Rall Laid Off By United Media
The cartoonist, writer and editor Ted Rall has announced he's been laid off from his acquisitions editor position at United Media. He'd held the position since 2006. He runs through the strips he helped launch in the post through the above link. You also get his take on them. I'd say that the R Stevens signing was significant, as was that cartoonist's decision to return to the Internet full-time. My hunch is that the Keith Knight project The Knight Life is probably the feature that's performed the best in terms of exceeding initial expectations, but that entails a massive assumption or two on my part as to how it's doing reverse-engineered from PR-driven press. Anyway, Rall certainly increased the breadth in terms of kinds of people to which one could pitch, and I'm sad to see him go.
Steve Breen Hits Nice Note In Dedicating Pulitzer Prize To Colleagues
I don't have much to write on this, just that I thought Steve Breen's reaction to his Pulitzer win thoughtful and appropriate, noting both the wounded state of his profession and the fact that he could one day join a lot of cartoonists he admires as a person let go from a staffed position. I prefer this to an angry bellow at the state of things, as an editorial cartooning Pulitzer is bound by the need to select an editorial cartoonist and doesn't really say anything triumphal about that group's overall value vis-a-vis other journalistic enterprises.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the search for more information about deceased Punch cartoonist Robert Peacock has gone poorly enough I'd like to note his passing here in case that failure continues and a proper obituary isn't written.
* so who among you had Buenaventura "we also make super-large, infuriating-to-some, hardcover anthologies" Press in the pool of name alt-comics publishers that would pick up the periodicals flag and charge up the hill with it? Put your hand down, you did not. I'll try to provide more details in the next Bundled, but BP just sent out a press release they're not only releasing six new comic books this year but they'll be doing things like bundling them in order to provide a better price point and potential buying opportunity. Their "Economic Stimulus 3-Pak" will be in June's Previews and will run $11.95 for Aviatrix #1 (Eric Haven), I Want You #1 (Lisa Hanawalt) and Injury #3 (Ted May). The books cost $4.95 apiece. There's definitely something going on when folks like BP and Sparkplug seem to be sticking with putting some traditionally-formatted comic books out there and the more established publishers seem to be moving away from that model for the part. What that something is, I couldn't possibly tell you.
* the writer Van Jensen takes a look at the latest Platinum filings and notes that the company is $20 million in the whole and beset by a number of struggles and woes. Some are entertaining; some are aggravating. There's a lot of gossipy grist for the commentary mill there and people like Gary Tyrrell are digging in to hilarious effect. I think the only news here is the extent of the losses, which would seem to me to speak against the conventional wisdom that the Platinum model would work if only one or two deals go through.
* finally, I would assume this is more about publishing in general and not webcomics specifically, although I could be wrong and maybe it's even about both. The line in the "rebuttal" about four weeks before Miller could respond is funny, although it's hard to see that as a real shot. Who cares how long it takes people to publish? As always, I'm for every revenue model, not one over another, especially when that may be an artificial construction.
Follow-Up On Steve Breen's Second Editorial Cartooning Pulitzer Yesterday
The day after the Pulitzer Prize announcement is always a happy one in editorial cartooning land, as fans of that art form rally behind the latest standard-bearer and the nominees are feted as well. The San Diego Union-Tribune's Steve Breen is this year's winner, his second before turning 40. Here's the annual "our guy won the award" article, one of the happier traditions around.
Mike Thompson of the Detroit Free Press and Matt Wuerker of Politicowere the other nominees. Thompson is a classic multiple-nominations story, as this is his third. As Wuerker works for Politico.com rather than a standard daily and also works some with animation, that gives the category a bit of new media juice than an award to the more traditional Breen might have initially indicated.
Entries were down, aggregation sites were disqualified and on-line aspects to a story played a role in half the awards, says Editor & Publisher.
Jacob Zuma Sues Zapiro... Again The Telegraphhas an update on the current legal pressures from ANC party leader and probably next South Africa president Jacob Zuma directed at popular cartoonist Jonathan "Zapiro" Shapiro. The compelling thing about this story over the long haul has been how the rise in Zuma's fortunes following the legal matters that instigated the initial barrage of cartoons has intensified the pressure on Zapiro. The linked-to article describes a coarsening in public rhetoric (including vague threats) and other media backing away from tacit support of the cartoonist. The article also describes the reason that Zapiro places a shower nozzle on the political leader's head, which has to be the best and meanest piece of visual shorthand in world cartooning this decade.
The Oregonian Profiles Anne Cleveland
There's a nice coda to the recent passing of mid-20th Century cartoonist and illustrator Anne Cleveland at The Oregonian, where writer Margie Boule talks to daughter Susan Whitcher in order to fill in some of the biographical blanks in the public record. In addition to the compelling psychological profile aspects of the piece, we learn, for example, what her involvement with the New Yorker may have been: informally providing cover ideas, at least according to family members. Cleveland died on March 1 at age 92.
El-Shafee Court Date Changed To 5-12
A hearing for Egyptian cartoonist and publisher Magdi El-Shafee on charges of violating public morality was postponed from its initial April 18 date to May 12. Here's a succinct profile of the issues involved, drawing in part from a conversation with the cartoonist, which also describes some previous charges brought by the plaintiff against other people. I haven't read anything that makes me think there will be a positive outcome here: initial news stories cited some international pressure to protect these kinds of rights as a first step towards Egypt's greater participation in certain kinds of political arrangements, but I haven't seen anyone argue that recently.
The Stumptown Trophy Awards were given out last Saturday night at Portland's Stumptown Comics Fest. They are designed to reward exhibitors for their work and are voted on by those in attendance during Saturday of the show. They gave out a "Mystery Award" to Indigo Kelleigh.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the Golden Apple chain is selling its San Fernando Valley location to Earth-2. I would imagine that's a good thing: losing stores almost always leads to some people making a clean break with reading comics, and the start-up costs would have to be easier with an existing store in almost any semblance of shape.
* it's still April and Friday passes have been sold out at Comic-Con International in San Diego, joining earlier four-day pass and single-day Saturday pass sell-outs. Thursday and Sunday passes will likely go before the show starts, even though it's harder to build a trip to CCI around a single day two days away from the next available day, if you know what I mean.
* you know, Peter Bagge looks kind of cool with that beard. Also I'm afraid if I'm not complimentary he'll toss an axe into my back Howie Long style.
* enough people e-mailed me this link to a story about a fire in Northern Indiana comic book store that someone had to have it first, so my apologies there. I think the bigger piece of news is that Plymouth had a comic shop in the first place.
* I generally prefer smaller comics. While I suppose changing the size of comics is something that could end up being on the table as a future cost-cutting measure, I'm amused that the post is first and foremost about superhero comics fans being upset because their free comic book isn't the right size. Because that will totally be the case.
* speaking of which, where's my Q.E.D. comic book, you jerks?
* the longtime Comics Journal writer and Robot 6 contributor Chris Mautner posts a list of cartoonists he'd like to see return to the comics form. I did a list like this once and half the people were still working. It's hard to enjoy rediscovering artists when they're mad at you.
* is there a particular reason a not-very-good even by the standards of such comics superhero graphic novel starring a third-rate character would rip its way up the Amazon.com charts like President Obama endorsed it on Oprah? I'm stuck between some sort of breezy chart manipulation in the name of "marketing" by one of its authors and this being a dire plot development on a new episode of Fringe. Mostly, I don't care.
* finally, there's a bit of Internet chatter about the latest round of bizarrely sexualized imagery on a) a project designed to be a Marvel Comics version of Sex And The City, which I'm tagging as the breakout comic book hit of 1998, and b) an ad that shows off Supergirl's boobs while not bothering to give the Teen Supreme a head, which I guess is smart in that no one can do a parody ad of something if you do it for real first. There's probably a joke to be made that in the Marvel Sex And The City the only one you get to see naked on a regular basis is Agatha Harkness, but I wouldn't mean it -- I just miss making jokes about HBO shows that everybody is watching. (Have you tried making an Eastbound and Down joke? Crickets!) Mostly these things just depress me. I don't know why these companies can't just eat the development cost of forgoing the easy cheesecake money for a while, and I don't understand how anyone over 17 could look at the Supergirl boob ad and think that's the best idea. On the other hand, I can't get too worked up about it, because these kinds of efforts from these kinds of companies don't really mean as much as people who have burrowed into that world tend to think.
Steve Breen Wins 2009 Pulitzer Prize Steve Breen of the San Diego Union-Tribunehas won this year's Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning, it was announced earlier today. Breen won the Pulitzer 11 years ago as a younger cartoonist with the Asbury Park-Press, and has been with the San Diego paper since I think 2001. Expect the articles about this year's slate of winners to make something of the Union-Tribune's semi-shaky financial status over the last several months. You might also see an article or two noting that Breen is a fairly traditional editorial cartoonist: on staff, syndicated (by Copley, I think), and with a strip (Grand Avenue) as opposed to someone working in a non-traditional style or making a lot of noise with animated versions of his work.
The 13th annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize winners have been announced, according to a short piece at Anime News Network.
Sharing the Grand Prize -- an awards first -- is Yoshihiro Tatsumi's A Drifting Life and Fumi Yoshinaga's Ooku: The Inner Chamber.
Hikaru Nakamura won the Short Work Prize for Saint Young Men while the New Artist Prize went to Suehiro Maruo for Panorama Tokitan. I don't see a listing for a Special Prize winner, so I guess that wasn't awarded this year.
Drawn and Quarterly has released an English-language version of Tatsumi's massive autobiography/cultural history, while Viz is going to launch an English-language version of Yoshinaga's science fiction story this summer.
Winners will receive a cash award (Grand Prize winners approximately $20,000 USD; other winners half that) at a presentation ceremony June 5.
Your 2009 Bedeis Causa Winners
The Prix Bedeis Causa 2009, celebrating books released in Quebec from February 2008 to February 2009, were given out April 17 in conjunction with the Festival de la bande dessinee francophone de Quebec. The winners, in bold, were:
*****
PRIX REAL-FILLION (First-Time Creator)
* Maryse Chouinard, for Soeur mon ame (Monet editeur) * Francis Desharnais, for Burquette (Editions les 400 coups)
* Yvon Roy, for Agaguk (Editions Adonis)
*****
GRAND PRIX LA VILLE QUEBEC (Best French-Language Book Published In Quebec) * Burquette, Francis Desharnais (Editions les 400 coups)
* Les Ravins, Philippe Girard (Mecanique generale)
* Voyage en zone d'exploitation, Louis Remillard (Editions les 400 coups)
*****
PRIX ALBERIC-BOURGEOIS (Best Book Published Outside Quebec by a Quebec-Based Cartoonist) * Les Nombrils Vol. 3: Les liens l'amitie, Delaf and Dubuc (Dupuis)
* Les Druides Vol. 4: La ron des geants, Jacques Lamontagne (Soleil Productions)
* L'ordre des dragons Vol. 1: La lance, Denis Rodier (Soleil Productions)
*****
PRIX MAURICE-PETITDIDIER (Best French-Language Book Not Covered Above)
* Spirou, Journal d'un ingenu, Emile Bravo (Dupuis) * Tout seul, Chaboute (Vents d'Ouest)
* Le Combat Ordinaire, Vol. 4: Planter des clous, Manu Larcenet
NYT On xkcd Publishing Plans
The New York Timesprofiles the very young and very successful webcartoonist Randall Munroe of xkcd. Their focus seems to me very odd. Munroe's strip seems perfectly suited as a project that might eschew traditional book publishers for the print arm of a on-line merchandising agent, and I have to imagine his book collection has every chance to do extremely well under that arrangement. If someone in Vegas would like to offer odds, I'll take the print-run over.
Asserting some sort of game-changing status for such a move seems to me to invest traditional book publishing with a power and dominance in comics generally and collecting webcomics specifically it doesn't come close to deserving. It may also grant the Times the ability to "call" a cultural moment it hasn't earned, either. Looking at what you do well and finding the publishing platform that best suits your tastes and skills and ability to reach an audience is something people have been doing in comics for four decades now: it's what links Robert Crumb to Dave Sim to Studio Foglio. It's still early enough in webcomics history I look forward to any number of variations on publishing models shaking themselves to the surface in the years ahead.
Not Comics: Pirate Bay And Protests
There was a 1000-person protest in Stockholm over the weekend protesting the sentencing of two founders and two key personnel of the Pirate Bay web site. Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij (the two founders), Peter Lunde (programmer) and Carl Lundstrom (who provided funding) were sentenced to a year each in jail and ordered to pay approximately $4.5 Million USD in damages. The Pirate Bay did not host copyrighted content but brought folks' attention to it when it was hosted elsewhere.
I only have a couple of thoughts, which are very broad and not really informed by the specifics of this case. The first is that it's hard for me to accept that this isn't at least some sort of setback for folks who won't to conduct business in this way no matter how deliberately it's argued, if only that if the four were exonerated I bet it would have been seen as a huge victory -- and still will be if an appeal is successful. I'm also not sure that anyone with half a brain was ever claiming something like this might eliminate file-sharing, except maybe for those who want to point out in very strong language that it won't.
The second thought is the same one I always have. I just find faulty the logic frequently expressed that the existence of a market compels anyone to use that market, let alone that they must pursue a strategy that person A, B or C asserts or even assures will be the most profitable.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* this year's Pulitzer Prize nominations are imminent.
* so I guess there's a six-page Spock story by Paul Pope in the new Wired. I'm not sure what else I can say about that without feeling I'm getting out of some film studio's expensive car and helping push it up a hill, but it sure sounds cool. Everyone's comics pal Dustin Harbin did the lettering.
* the much-respected David Lloyd talks about the coloring on V For Vendetta. Although the article provides the best summary of what he's getting at, I think, you should definitely click through and look at the stuff on Lloyd's site.
* there's an interesting article from Brian Hibbs here about his 20th anniversary as a retailer, including a couple of casual mentions of elements of that job I'm not certain that I even knew: that retailers would visit regional warehouses the night before new comics day to get a sense of the week and buy comics, and that you could still start a comics shop in the late 1980s with very little in the way of investment (I would have guessed that stopped being true about five years earlier).
* not comics: some days I worry about the big newspapers of record going out of business and some days I can't wait for them to go. This art piece is a peach: a super-shaky premise (even the three stars cited as exemplars of staying thin hadfullerfaces later in their careers), the more interesting examples even if you accept the premise are ignored (the puffy and never better Alec Baldwin; the scary-looking but still quite lean Nicolas Cage), and an ending that utilizes a fishy-sounding quote from a Hollywood publicity person as unchallenged truth. Hurry up, printapocalypse. (via Gil)
* I'd have to take a much longer look at the cartoonists that are still out there before I could safely agree with Daryl Cagle's view that the loss of editorial cartoonists means diminished choices in terms of style and approach. Loss of choices = less choices seems like unassailable conventional wisdom, but it could certainly be the case that the job losses have an effect on one school or another and that a harsh market might favor alternatives over a deep bench in a tradition or two. Also, a variety of styles might crop up as a market outcome in response to fewer staffed positions.
* I enjoyed reading Neil Gaiman's measured response as to the relative expense of his Absolute Sandman books. I also enjoyed looking at some Mike Allred art from his collaboration with Gaiman on a Metamorpho story.
* finally, the writer Mark Evanier has launched his project to restore Len Wein's comics collection; among other things, this post suggests you're not being as helpful as you think you are if you don't color in the lines on an effort like this one. If you can help in the way that they need helps, that seems to me a nice thing to do.
Matt Maxwell Tells Me A Story On Friday I joked that if I were at the Stumptown Comics Fest I'd make Matt Maxwell write me a five-minute story featuring the words "Judge," "Dredd," and "prom." He surprised me by sending in the following.
*****
The punchbowl exploded. Twenty-five millimeter shell with thermoplas casing. Simulated raspberry vaporised, showering pockmarked and knock-kneed teenagers with a sticky mist. Dredd holstered his weapon, satisfied rictus tightening his lips.
"Something wrong, Judge?" asked Mrs. Jeffers. Tinkle of falling plastic shards, any of them sharp enough to cut someone by looking at them sideways.
"Too close. There should be a space of no less than eight inches between partners."
Aside from that, it was the quietest prom that anyone could remember.
*****
Thanks, Matt. Judge Dredd copyright to the Judge Dredd copyright holder. Please follow Matt's blog and his serialized comic. If you're at a con and see him, he does this instead of sketching.
FFF Results Post #160 -- Old-Fashioned
On Friday, CR asked its readers to "Name Five Specific Superhero Serial Storylines Of Which You're Fond (In Other Words, You Don't Have To Be Able To Make A Case For Them, You Just Have to Like Them)." This is how they responded.
*****
Tom Spurgeon
1. "The Sleepers Trilogy," Captain America in Tales Of Suspense
2. X-Men Vs. Alpha Flight (Alpha Flight's First Appearance)
3. Iron Man Kills The Carnelian Ambassador
4. Shang-Chi and Company on the Island of Mordillo
5. Weird, Cross-Dimensional Crossover Story In Fantastic Four #160-163 Including Cosmic Hockey-Playing Alternate World Johnny Storm That I Still Don't Understand 30 Years Later
*****
David Welsh
1. The Headmen/Nebulon arc in Defenders
2. The Brand Corporation/Serpent Crown arc in Avengers
3. Those back-up stories introducing Harlequin in Batman Family
4. The Manhunter back-up series in Detective Comics
5. The Calculator series of stories in Detective Comics
*****
Andrew Mansell
1. "Death Watch!" -- Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2
2. "Flesh of My Flesh" -- Master of Kung Fu #116-118
3. "Return to the Bowl Shaped World" -- Nexus #45-50
4. Swamp Thing in Gotham -- Swamp Thing #52-53
5. "Suddenly -- The Celestials" -- The Mighty Thor #283-301
*****
Tom Bondurant
1. Rupert Thorne outlaws Batman and Robin while Bruce Wayne romances Silver St. Cloud, Detective Comics #s 469-76
2. The Justice League and Justice Society meet the Legion of Super-Heroes, Justice League of America #s 147-48
3. The Doom Patrol meets the Brotherhood of Dada, Doom Patrol vol. 2 #s 26-29
4. The Fantastic Four (along with Thor and Iron Man) face the Black Celestial, FF #s 337-41
5. Dr. Polaris traps Green Lantern at the North Pole, steals his power ring, and takes over Los Angeles, Green Lantern vol. 2 #s 133-35
*****
James Langdell
1. Flash -- A sequence where Wally West disappeared mysteriously, and you hardly noticed because William Messner-Loebs made the supporting cast so interesting.
2. Green Lantern -- The issues (with numeric countdown titles) running parallel to the run of Crisis On Infinite Earths.
3. Captain Atom -- Sequence leading up to him getting out from under the blackmail threats by Col. Eiling.
4. Batman/Detective -- Storyline introducing Black Mask and the False Face Society (starting Batman #386).
5. Thor -- A spell preventing Thor from healing causes him to become gradually immobilized by injuries over several issues.
*****
Russell Lissau
1. Uncanny X-Men in Japan (Claremont/Smith era)
2. All-Star Squadron battle Brainwave, and Green Lantern destroys the world
3. Daredevil: Born Again
4. Amazing Spider-Man: The original Hobgoblin arc (from the 230s until at least the 270s, I think)
5. Bloom County: Billy and the Boingers
*****
Mark Coale
1. JLA/JSA v SSOSV (Justice League 195-197)
2. Reuben Flagg in England
3. Avengers -- "Celestial Madonna"
4. Starman -- Solomun Grundy arc
5. Iron Man -- Armor Wars I
*****
Booksteve
1- Dr. Doom gets the Silver Surfer's Power in FF
2- Superman catches Virus X in Action Comics
3- Dr. Strange on the run from Mordo and Dormammu in Strange Tales
4- Steranko's Captain America run
5- Mike Barr's run with Alan Davis on Batman
*****
Doug Gray
1. The Spider-Man storyline about the ancient tablet, Amazing Spider-Man #68-77 (art by Romita/Buscema/Mooney!)
2. The Golden Age #1-4 (Robinson/Smith)
3. Doctor Strange #59-62 (Doctor Strange vs Dracula)
4. "Who Killed Batman?" -- Batman #291-294
5. "Spidey Joins Doc Ock!" -- Amazing Spider-Man #53-57
*****
Dave Knott
* The Monster Society of Evil
* Thor: The Great Surtur Saga
* Doctor Strange: The first journey through Dormammu's realm and subsequent battle with Eternity
* Kraven's Last Hunt
* Miracleman: Olympus
*****
Buzz Dixon
1 - Captain Marvel (silver age) vs Thanos of Titan
2 - Captain Marvel (classic) vs the Monster Society of Evil
3 - "The Coming Of Galactus"
4 - Cannon
5 - Nick Fury: "Who is Scorpio?"
1. Batman Year One
2. Captain Marvel vs The Monster Society of Evil
3. Defenders vs The Head Men.
4. The 70's Avengers vs. The Squadron Supreme bit. I think it was called the Serpent Crown Affair or something like that.
5. Captain America: Madbomb. Nuff' Said.
*****
Scott Cederlund
* Dark Phoenix
* The original Ras Al Ghul storyline by O'Neil & Adams
* Jim Starlin's original Adam Warlock
* The New Teen Titans' Death of Terra
* The Kree/Skull War
*****
Jeff Chanley
* ROM -- Total War
* Amazing Spider-Man -- First 6 issues of black costume
* Daredevil -- Typhoid Mary
* Detective -- Return of Hugo Strange
* Captain America and The Falcon -- The Secret of File 116
* The Great Darkness Saga
* Korvac Saga
* Days of Future Past
* DD: Born Again
* Bats: Year One
*****
Christopher Keels
* "The Defeat of Dr. Strange" (extended Mordo/ Dormammu/ Eternity serial in Lee-Ditko Strange Tales)
* "Musical Minds" -- Defenders vs. Headmen/ Bozos
* "Panther's Rage"
* Warlock vs. the Magus
* Thor... Frog!
1) Crisis on Infinite Earths
2) Avengers: Under Siege
3) The New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
4) All-Star Squadron: Origin of the Freedom Fighters
5) Suicide Squad: "Baptism of Fire"
*****
Frank Santoro
* Daredevil "Typhoid Mary" run with Romita Jr
* Byrne FF's with Doom, late 250's?
* Ross Andru Spidey and Green Goblins (late 170's Amazing)
* "Mad Bomb" Captain Americas by Kirby
* Batman: Year Two
1. The Celestial Madonna Saga (The Avengers)
2. Avengers Forever
3. The Headmen stories (Defenders)
4. The Roger Stern/Marshall Rogers issues of Dr Strange
5. The Roger Stern/John Byrne issues of Captain America
1. Shrinking Violet is replaced by a Durlan imposter.
2. The Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E.
3. The Manhunters come for Green Lantern for blowing up a planet.
4. Dr. Strange goes on the run.
5. Riot at Xavier's.
1. Captain America: The Madbomb Saga - Jack Kirby
2. Captain Marvel & The Monster Society of Evil - Binder, Beck, & Co.
3. Miracleman: The Golden Age - Gaiman& Buckingham
4. Alan Moore & Alan Davis' Captain Britain arc
5. Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight - Flyer by Chaykin & Kane
*****
Chris Noble
* New Teen Titans Vol.2 #1-5 (Terror of Trigon)
* Legion of Super Heroes #290-294 (Great Darkness Saga)
* New X-Men #114-116 (E is for Extinction)
* JLA- Rock of Ages
* Superman Vol. 1 #307-309 (the Superman as environmental terrorist/ Krypton is a lie story)
*****
Douglas Wolk
1. Zenith Book Three
2. 52
3. Millennium (with its crossovers, please)
4. Ultimate Spider-Man's Clone Saga
5. The Len Wein-written Deadman serial that jumped around a few titles
*****
Uriel A. Duran
1) The Great Darkness Saga
2) Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight
3) Captain America as The Captain
4) Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast
5) X-men: Age Of Apocalypse
*****
Fred Hembeck
1. Captain America defeats The Secret Empire, discovers the TRUE identity of their leader, and is so shocked, he abandons his star-spangled outfit and takes on the role of Nomad, the man without a country.
2. Batman, Hugo Strange, Silver St. Cloud, Boss Thorne, Deadshot, The Joker--yeah, THAT story.
3. Nick Fury and SHIELD vs. The Yellow Claw--which all turns out to be an elaborate chess game between Dr. Doom and one of his robots!! (I said it then, I'll say it now--"WHA?...")
4. The Defenders vs. The Headmen.
5. Supergirl vs. Bottle City of Kandor villainess, Lesla-Lar, in a story--Action Comics 278-285--that eventually leads up to Superman finally revealing his cousin's existence to the world (also personally notable as the very first serial I ever encountered reading comics).
*****
Jamie Coville
1. Avengers - Assault on Olympus (#281 - #285)
2. Spider-Man: Nothing can stop the Juggernaut
3. Avengers vs. X-men mini series.
4. Spider-Man vs. Wolverine: High Tide
5. Secret Wars
The top comics-related news stories from April 12 to April 18, 2009:
1. A slight dip in DM sales in Q1 2009 can be spun either way you like: good news considering the general shape of US retail, the fact there's something of a pause between imagination-capturing mega-events and the reality of some structural improvements by Diamond just now settling in; dismaying news considering the continued ridiculous performance of Watchmen, taking into account a once-in-a-generation single-comic book sales figure with the Obama/Spidey effort, and acknowledging that the sales hit may have come at the top of the charts for an industry designed to maximize the potential of books at the top of the charts.
Quote Of The Week
"I'm of the opinion that a baby's first word should be 'uh-oh', just so he or she learns early how quickly things can go south." -- Richard Thompson
this week's imagery comes from one of the great underground comix
Stumptown Comics Fest This Weekend I was lucky enough to attend a portion of the Stumptown Comics Fest last year, and enjoyed my experience there very much. It's an exemplary small-press oriented regional comics show. I can't imagine too many people ever flying in for it, although many already do. Barring the show being taken over by the arts festival version of a comic book despot it's not like Stumptown need ever rely on exhibitors or attendees streaming over from Portland International: there are enough people in the area on both sides of the table to sustain such a show for years and years and years.
It's a good show just to attend and leave, which is something I appreciate more and more as I get older and time gets more precious and interests continue to diversify. If you're not from Portland nor all that familiar with it, it's a lovely city with a bunch of stuff to do on an almost neighborhood to neighborhood basis and the weather this weekend should be great. Here are some highlights of stuff I'd likely do at the show were I there.
* do anything Jeff Smith-related I could. Jeff's not only a really talented cartoonist, he's great at cons and has an easygoing rapport with his readers. I sometimes wonder how many more of these things Smith is going to do, so to get him at a smaller, regional show is a real treat.
* I would submit my awesome mini-comic Shelton #5 to the Dark Horse myspace.com contest on Saturday and start my magnificent comics career with a bang.
* I would walk the entire show at least once, and look with great interest at any and everything that caught my eye. I would buy at least three things I hadn't heard of before.
* I would stop to talk to some of my favorite creators and comics folk that attend shows like this one: Craig Thompson, Hellen Jo, Scott Faulkner, Jen Ralston, Dave Lasky, Jim Blanchard, JR Williams, Eli Bishop, Jesse Reklaw, Dylan Williams, Elijah Brubaker, Brett Warnock and Tom Neely. I would ask Andrew Farago and Shaenon Garrity about that photo of them with Hayao Miyazaki. I would let Steve Lieber know what day I'd be leaving town so he could "forget" and offer to buy me lunch and show me the studio the day after that. I would pretend to laugh at Jeff Parker's jokes. I would make Matt Maxwell write me a five-minute story with the words "Judge," "Dredd" and "prom."
* I would accost local comics guru and gainfully employed proper newspaper man Steve Duin as he was roaming the aisles and when he least expected it.
* even though I might not spend all day, every day at the show, I would still try to attend as many of the parties as I could.
* I would consider for the 10,000th time moving to Portland, because that's actually a requirement, and then talk myself out of it.
Summer arrives with the MoCCA Festival in New York City, but Spring arrives tomorrow with Stumptown. Please everyone enjoy and avail yourselves.
SLG, one of the veterans of the indie comics market as currently constituted, announced a few days ago they're having a tax sale through today with checkout coupon "taxtime09." SLG is one of the few companies of its size to announce they've made business changes because of the economy, and head honcho Dan Vado has been forthright about the troubled waters and challenges SLG faces during this period of time. So if there's something you want from there, now may be a good time to go out and get it in any number of ways.
If you're not all that familiar with SLG, or need reminding here are some suggestions.
1) they publish Evan Dorkin, and whether you get his stuff in comic book or collected form, it's all worth having.
2) they've published James Turner (I'm not sure if he's currently doing anything) a funny cartoonist with a unique approach to visual representation that changes comic to comic. He's like some cartoonist that time-traveled from the early indy-comic 1980s, a period in which I think he would have had a much easier time finding an audience. I liked his series Rex Libris (top), but a better try-it one-shot might be the graphic novel Nil. His maps might make a nice gift for those that are into posters and prints.
3) the cartoonist Derf's Punk Rock and Trailer Parks was under-read last year and is an endearing coming-of-age story of the kind that filmmakers tend to follow their hit gross-out comedy by making.
4) enough people liked the Phil Elliott-drawn Contraband to the point that it's back on my reading pile and makes me think it may also have been under-read. It was written by Thomas J. Behe.
5) the illustrator Sonny Liew's art on Wonderland was fairly gorgeous, and it seemed like people mostly forgot about this series as it progressed.
I feel these are reminders more than they are suggestions; I wouldn't expect anyone to come to such a sale cold. There are of course many, many other books from the company that have their fans and adherents -- Skaggy the Lost, for instance. It could be worth poking around.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the artist Alex Ross is the first guest of honor announced by Reed Exhibitions at its 2010 Chicago show that already sounds like a sequel: C2E2. It's worth noting how Reed approaches its first big show in the Chicago area because Wizard Entertainment previously had the only Chicago-area humongous show, that company's flagship show, and there should be some fun to be had for industry insiders by seeing the strategies unfold guest-wise and wondering after what each announcement means.
* the blogger Alan Gardner notes that Todd Clark's Lolahas hit the ten-year mark and currently has 125 newspapers -- that may be clients instead of newspapers, you can never tell unless they make it explicit -- both of which are impressive achievements worth noting.
* there are a couple of floating news stories out there related to the economy that may not make for a full posting on same. The first concerns the implications of the bankruptcy of newsprint maker AbitibiBowater -- a company apparently named by Twiki from the Gil Gerard Buck Rogers television show -- should include some lower pricing in that market for a while and perhaps changes in regional pricing, suggests E&P. That bankruptcy seems to have been caused by a business outcome all-too-familiar to many of its clients: massive and unrealistic levels of debt placed on the company during earlier transactions with only a very debatable relationship to the effectiveness and success of their core business function.
* the second story is that newsroom employment is down to 1978 levels. This is astonishing to me because I can't imagine any scenario where with trends over the last few decades like the decline of newsroom-generated writing, the move towards casting newspapers into the role of service publications rather than news publications and the improvements in production employee to employee that should have come with the transition in wire services to computer systems and rise of the Internet, newsroom levels shouldn't have already been well under where they were in 1978. This hints at what I still feel are two little-discussed flip sides to certain lines of analysis about the tumble newspapers are taking: 1) the not nearly as effective as it should have been way that newspapers have employed the Internet and general computerization as tools, not just as a competing or perhaps cooperative publishing platform, and 2) the manner in which the years of double-digit profits allowed for bloat in newsrooms in addition to fueling the unrealistic expectations of owners and ownership groups which saddled many of those companies with unrealistic debt.
* the webcomics gathering point Girlamaticisn't dead, although one could argue that it's in more of a semi-animated state during this current transition than fully alive and active.
Missed It: Dark Horse And Image Gain Final Order Cut-Off Program Status
Dark Horse and Image will join Marvel and DC as participants in their Final Order Cut-Off program, which allows retailers to adjust orders on books at a much later date than standard ordering from Previews. Marvel's been doing this since 2003 and DC since 2006. I can't imagine any scenario under which offering Direct Market retailers the ability to make choices according to greater information would ever be a bad thing, although I'm sure someone out there can suggest something. I'd actually go so far as to say that this is the kind of move one hopes drives the industry during a potential down period: structural improvements to the delivery mechanisms and attention to details like, perhaps, release schedules within individual months that will make for an overall stronger market in the long run.
Not Comics: About Paying For It
This Special Report on charging for material on-line that's up at Editor & Publisher is pretty fascinating in terms of a snapshot of current thoughts on how newspapers might monetize certain aspects of web publishing. That said, I'm not exactly sure what to make of it. There are obvious things in there like the fact that you can actually charge more for advertising to a select audience than to a general one that are presented in a way that makes me doubt the seriousness of the article. As a survey, though, it seems effectively broad and discriminatory, and points out a lot of programs that seem worth noting.
Two things I'd like to see addressed as this debate develops. First, I'm always dubious that you can take as much away as people would like to from programs that run counter to conventional wisdom, because I think such programs have a uniqueness that are a specific benefit and may or may not translate to a new standard model. Second, I'm always unclear as to the standards we should use to judge such things. I mean, it's clear that some pay-models can work. For instance, if a South Bend newspaper were to put together a $15/year package to get an unbelievably informative on-line magazine about Notre Dame football, I could see that working: I'd buy it as a gift. I still don't know how well something like that has to work to be a serious contributor to the bottom line, or how that model might be different in order to be transferable. As is the case with webcomics boosterism, I think a sober appraisal of what's out there and what's working right now is as relevant as projecting isolated models into a bright, shiny future.
Your 2009 Stumptown Comics Fest Trophy Award Nominees
The Stumptown Comics Fest has announced its nominees for the third annual Trophy Awards. They are designed to recognize standout new works from creators exhibiting at the Portland, Oregon small-press show. They are voted on by attendees of the show on Saturday, April 18, and given out that evening at Cosmic Monkey Comics. The program may be best known for using recycled trophies. The nominees are:
* I was as surprised as Drawn and Quarterly's Peggy Burns that more people didn't react to that nice review of Yoshihiro Tatsumi's A Drifting Life in the New York Times. That's a great get, doubly so for a book that doesn't have an easy pop-culture hook, and while I expected to be hammered over the head by mentions, I think I ended up reading three posts on it. Although CR doesn't really cover marketing in that way, there are plenty of sites that follow such moves -- sometimes with what seems like breathless wonder, other times with all the fake critical authority that the Internet allows -- that I guess aren't doing that so much anymore. An interesting coverage event to contrast against the Tatsumi review would be how people may or may not react to the fact of an article being done about a J. Jonah Jameson-related plot development in the Spider-Man comic books.
* as a one-time submissions editor of a different nature, it seems to me that an electronic submissions-only policy at a syndicate is mostly a bad idea, although I'm not sure I can articulate why. It just seems to me that delivering in print is still an important part of the newspaper comic strip, so having an artist that can display at least a bit of talent to that end would be preferable to one that can solely work within electronic means. In other words, I would imagine it'd be easier to teach someone how to upload strips than it is to find people whose work pops on paper and who are professional enough to work according to the seriousness a print submission requires.
* finally, after reading this, the longtime comics reporter Tom Heintjes asks if Dick Tracy has become a laughingstock -- meaning basically if Dick Tracy is no longer a priority in terms of making sure its artwork is first rate and well-done.
Analysts: March 2009 DM Estimates
The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com offers their usual array of lists, estimates and analysis regarding the performance of comic books and graphic novels in the Direct Market of comic and hobby shops, this time for March 2009.
The big news this month would be IDW assuming the #3 position over Image and Dark Horse, which is something that company had seemingly been aiming towards with a sustained, significant volume of production and a position it seems suited to sustain in the months ahead.
As for the market generally, this seems like an odd month to me. I'm not sure how I feel about the Q1 spin. The ICv2.com folks know more about comics numbers and business trends than I remember about events in my own life, but the analysis that "only" a five percent drop in the first quarter should be seen as encouraging puzzles me. There's a bunch of factors I'm not sure how to process and I can't tell if they did. The spin going into 2009 from most sources is that comics was specifically inured to recession -- so does that seem true or not true? The DM didn't have the obvious gaping wound going into 2009 like some industries such as bookstore sales had with a clearly wounded Borders. Other entertainment media have I believed slowed down previously existing declines or even set Q1 records. Also, I thought the DM had seen singularly awesome and not-soon-to-be repeated performances from Watchmen in trades and the Obama-Spidey comic in single issues. So I'm confused. Can someone out there at least answer the question of how bad it would have been if Watchmen sold at 2008 levels and Obama-Spidey hadn't spiked?
In general, the third month was noteworthy for no general comic book sales moving past the 100,000-unit measure in sales, which could be noteworthy in that the market seems primed to create such books. (It isn't exactly blockbuster season, it should be noted.) An issue of Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk would seem to me a gift in such a market, too, sales that weren't likely to be predicated on a rise or fall from ones in the immediate past, but that's probably not true, either. I can't help but think both March and Q1 are bad news months, not good news months considering X, Y and Z. I don't think it's a dire hit, but I suspect that it may be one explained just as easily as explained away.
It May Not Be The Primary Cause, But It Certainly Can't Be Helping Matters
There are any number of factors that have led to the ongoing downward spiral of the print newspaper business (and with it, one of the traditional homes for comics art in North America). With attractive, fascinating options out there to discuss such as the way certain publications were recently saddled with massive amounts of debt according to old profit margins, the rise of the Internet as both a competitor and difficult-to-use tool and the shift away by younger readers in particular from the sort of harder and more detailed news on which newspapers built their display-ad monopoly, it's hard to discern the impact newspapers simply sucking may have on their current plight. For example, this was a headline in the on-line version of a top five newspaper yesterday:
"Boston pitcher suspended for six games after MLB rule he tried intentionally threw a pitch near the head of a batter: MORE>>"
Not to get all cranky old man about it, but that's barely English. I write poorly on this site a lot of the time -- I killed Len Wein in a headline last week -- but it's baffling to anyone that remembers newspapers as recently as the '60s or '70s imagining one of these institutions lobbing that kind of fundamentally garbled turd onto its readers. When I wrote sports headlines in 1986 for a moderate-sized daily, three or four people looked at them before they were released.
I think if you polled a lot of people about newspapers, you'd find a lot of small things like this contributing to a slow bleed that weakens some of these publications' resistance to the bigger, more directly pressing issues. Little stuff like home delivery that lags far behind what 11-year-old kids provided in 1974, prominent columnists that spend a chunk of their time on TV or radio and as a result write pieces that don't reflect deliberation and first-hand sourcing, a move towards bigger art (photos) at the expense of contextualizing sidebars you used to see everywhere forty years ago. That stuff adds up.
Pointing out the headline led to a defensive retort led to a quick cancellation of the service.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* hey, I liked this: Tucker Stone celebrates the conclusion of Brian Azzarello's 100 Bullets by looking at a bunch of the writer's work here and there in other venues. That's good programming.
* so I guess that cartoonist Bryan Talbot adopted another artistic persona and released a book through NBM last year? It made one best-of list that I know of, Dan Kois'. I'm not sure why this is noteworthy, as I can think of nothing to be gained by a false artistic persona and people really aren't on their guard about that kind of thing. I guess it's a fairly extravagant stunt that many might find fun on that level.
* finally, here's a story from the Chicago Tribune about the difficulty of selling collectibles, including old comics, in hard times. It's about what you'd expect if you've spent any time around such markets and/or their players: most stuff isn't worth anything despite general, floating claims to the contrary; dealers will play hardball; for the most part the items in question need to have been treated as collectibles as opposed to something you use, and so on. The people that come across as most screwed are those that believe their stuff would be worth a lot of stuff someday because they purchased them during a time when that was the notion in the air.
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, leading to a long period of reflection on the owner-retailer relationship.
*****
DEC080034 DYLAN DOG CASE FILES TP $24.95
Dark Horse's occasionally European compilations have been one of the great secret joys in comics buying over the last 15 years, and this nearly 700-page chunk of comics would seem to fit that role really wall.
DEC080041 HERBIE ARCHIVES HC VOL 03 $49.95
And so the publishing event ends with a third volume.
NOV080072 PLANET OF BEER SC $14.95
I've always enjoyed Brian Sendelbach's work, and I'm delighted he has a book out now. And that's pretty much all I have to say.
JAN090075 WONDERMARK TP VOL 02 CLEVER TRICKS STAVE DEATH $14.95
Another in Dark Horse's successful line of trades from popular webcomics, I think less than a year after the first one, which seems to indicate that one sold well.
DEC080194 100 BULLETS #100 (MR) $4.99
Congratulations to the 100 Bullets team on the completion of their 100-issue run.
DEC080212 100 PERCENT HC (MR) $39.99
This is a new hardcover of an admirable Paul Pope effort, stuffed with lots of extras.
FEB090252 AIR #8 (MR) $2.99
I think I would have lost a bet on this reaching an eighth issue, so congratulations to the creative team.
OCT082289 GODLAND #27 (RES) $2.99 FEB092434 WALKING DEAD #60 (MR) $2.99 FEB092529 CAPTAIN AMERICA #49 $2.99 JAN092558 INCOGNITO #3 (MR) $3.50 FEB098016 INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #11 2ND PTG LARROCA VAR $2.99
This week's mini-suite of well-liked, serialized genre comics. That Walking Dead comic has been good recently in that I have no idea where it's going issue to issue.
FEB092463 SUB-MARINER COMICS 70TH ANNIV SPECIAL #1 $3.99
I have no idea what this is beyond what's obvious from the title, but I'm always interested in whatever Marvel's doing with the character so I suppose I'd pick it up. I like Bill Everett's comics enough I'd be more disappointed by fewer pages of reprints.
JAN094393 ALEX TOTH GOES HOLLYWOOD SC $25.00 DEC084249 BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY HC $39.95
I didn't know what either of these were, either, but with those heavy-hitters involved I'd have to take a look. The Toth/Hollywood book is a Greg Theakston production made up of these stories. The Simon & Kirby volume is the first in Titan's expanded Simon and Kirby library series. Please don't let comics shops die.
OCT084199 STUFF OF LIFE SC GRAPHIC GUIDE TO GENETICS & DNA $14.95
This gets my vote for weird project of the year, a basic lesson in genetic and dna told through the prism of an alien scientist lecture his supreme ruler.
FEB094288 ADVENTURES IN CARTOONING SC $12.95
This is comics-driven book to help young people make comics. It looks nice; I heard more about it when it was its earlier stages than I've heard about it recently.
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 may be that you're a smelly felly.
* the writer and editor Ezra Levant's book is re-opening for debate his treatment by human rights and citizenship commission after putting the Danish Muhammed cartoons in his Western Standard.
* Hans-Peter Geissen tries to puzzle out why people became so upset about the Danish Cartoons, both in the "looking at the cartoons" sense and the "how did this become such a big story" sense.
I liked this for its glimpse into a comic book operation's warehouse space (one of them, anyway) and for its acknowledgment that comics shops are using their collectibles stock in creative ways in order to float through a period of economic uncertainty. That matches the anecdotal feedback I've been receiving from a number of comic shop owners. I also just like hearing people that are really into selling comic books talk, as much as this kind of person is foreign to my existence and the background music may be driving me nuts. The article seems to suggest some downturn in the collectible's market, but I'm not sure how true that is: pulling your books because you can't receive the margin you want on eBay could mean a lot of things. The figure given for loss of volume is pretty alarming, though, but certainly the claim of an 80 percent isn't reflected in the national market, so I'm not sure what to make of it.
Lee Judge won the 2009 Fischetti Award winner for excellence in editorial cartooning last week, Editor & Publisherreported last week. Judge's win follows the honor going to a couple of Mikes: Mike Keefe (2008) and Michael Ramirez (2007). Judge is affiliated with the Kansas City Star and won for the above cartoon, originally published in February of last year.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* former newspaper publishing industry bible Editor & Publishercalls attention to Daryl Cagle's recent interview with laid-off cartoonist Robert Ariail. It's interesting to me and perhaps indicative of something that it's with Ariail's departure from his long-time position that we're finally going to see a straight-ahead platform for his cartoons.
* the cartoonist Evan Dorkin talks about drawing a "lost scene" for the Turner Movies promotion and ponders going to see the Humbug event at The Strand.
* not comics: I'm not all that interested in this week's Amazon.com listing story but I did appreciate David P. Welsh calling attention to a quote about the value of multiple sales platforms as a way to disallow the entire possibility of one vendor's potential peccadilloes becoming market reality.
* administrative note: maybe it's the economy, but I've received dozens of e-mails recently from people pressing for some sort of direct PR boost for their various professional projects outside the standard review, interview or "publishing news" coverage. I'm afraid I don't really do that kind of thing, and I don't do a lot of stuff that if looked at sideways resembles that kind of thing. I apologize for not being of more use to many of you. I love receiving your PR, and wish you all the best, but please understand if I pass on giving you the help you seem to think you deserve.
* not comics: I think this article is nonsense, and although I appreciate someone wanting to sell their book I never thought of Editor & Publisher as the kind of publication that provides authors these sorts of platforms. Oh, well. Anyway, there's good writing and bad writing, and referencing is a tool that can be employed effectively or poorly, just like the rest of one's tool set. I can't imagine the most accurate, generation-friendly reference in the world would genuinely improve any article on Tim Geithner; I also can't imagine blasting them out of text employed by some of the more engaging news commentators helps anything, either. Just a non-issue. Or, as Murray might add, "The man said it was a non-issue."
* finally, while I enjoy watching Chris Butcher beat on the NYT comics-related lists and the likely screwed-up methods for compiling them, I came at my own dismissal of them from another angle. Since the Times wasn't sharing their methodology, and as their coverage for the vast majority of the time they've paid attention to comics has been made up of not-very-serious enhanced press releases in service of the major publishers, I just didn't see the announcement of their lists as something that should be extended coverage. So I haven't. I'm always open to having my mind changed, but all I've read about the lists since their initial announcement is people giddy about getting to use the New York Times best-selling author appellation, general bafflement about some of the individual results, and Butcher repeatedly kidney punching his best guess at how they're making this particular package of sausages.
Karbala Cartoon Exhibition Raid Galvanizes Discussion Of Free Speech Within Iraq
An Iraqi parliamentary committee meeting yesterday in Baghdad became the forum for discussion of a raid last week in Karbala, where an artist claims his cartoon lampooning Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was taken from an exhibition. Artist Salman Abid told international press that his aim was not ridicule but political satire. The area's governor, Amal-Din al-Hir, claimed that Abid and area press are wrong to say that the cartoon was seized, stating that the exhibiton was put on without local authorization. Abid countered that his house was searched on the same day as the exhibition.
The majority of the Comics Comics crew hit Switzerland for this year's Fumetto, which they talk about and provide photos in documentation of here, here, here and here.
Everyone Loves A Local Library Sale
This is work from the early 1970s. I was always baffled by these as a kid because when it came to saying where the material came from they would reference another set of books. It also strikes me as humorous how you read different things in Peanuts when you get older. Like there's a sequence in here where Peppermint Patty comes to stay with the Browns and she ends up sleeping in Snoopy's doghouse. What I didn't get when I was a kid is how funny Schulz made the Brown kids' dull lives, as all they do is watch TV and eat cold cereal.
*****
It's amazing how well these paperback versions of MAD have done over the years, and how they hold up despite the severe reformatting that took place in their creation. Many folks have as their primary access to these specific works the paperbacks rather than the magazine. Every bathroom in the nation should have at least one.
*****
This was the belle of the ball: a first-edition printing of David Breger's third (I think) book. Not that the first-edition means it's worth anything. Breger was widely published and there's little demand for his work today, so I can't imagine the book's worth a dime. I just think it's a cool-looking little package. I believe Breger gets credit for coining the term "GI Joe."
*****
This is one of the later editions of this book, which I picked up to go in the gift drawer and because I was dazzled by a cover that looks like it was lacquered.
*****
I bought this joke book for the illustrations.
*****
I'm not sure exactly what this is, but I figure it's early Jeff Danziger work with more of a local perspective than the angrier, punchier work by which he's become more recently known. It's always great to see these weird, regional books.
*****
Everybody likes and frequently forgets about John Callahan.
*****
I didn't have any of these albums, French or English.
A Few Quick Words On Eisner Noms I wanted to draw attention to a few Eisner Award commentaries I missed last week. Our own David P. Welsh touches on the matter of manga's place in those awards, which was widely discussed and you can get into it from that post of David's if you want. Evan Dorkin talks about the awards in general -- my general take is close to his -- and notes the lack of consideration generally afforded the Hernandez Brothers. Gary Tyrrell notes that the on-line category probably needs to get nailed down a bit over the next few years.
I share Dorkin's general reaction, and was also surprised by nothing for RASL, which I think is really good so far, and Aya of Yop City, which is appealing in exactly the way I thought most Eisner nomination panels tended to reward and is gorgeous besides. I'm also disappointed in the lack of a nomination for the best book ever written about a cartoonist, Bob Levin's Most Outrageous, although its subject matter is such I understand why people aren't exactly hugging that one to their chest.
* following up on their good news regarding their doing a book with Imiri Sakabashira, Drawn and Quarterly runs a bit of work from another forthcoming translation, 
* the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com had a bunch of single-project publishing announcements on their site in the lat few days. The Del Rey and Cartoon Network alliance 
* I expected to see this kind of thing but maybe not so soon: one of the Savage Critics 
In terms of L&R, starting reading it with later issues has practical applications but also replicates the way a lot of fans first got into the Hernandez Brothers -- by catching up with the series after it had been going a while. Most of the people I know that are huge Love & Rockets fans started reading the book because the Comics Journal made them feel like they should or they responded to some surface aspect of it. Then, at some point during the initial stretch of issues they read, something clicked into place and they became totally obsessed with it. That was true for me, too. I started reading it because I liked Jaime's art in the color comics reprint Mechanics. The story in the magazine that captured my attention for good was "For The Love of Carmen." 
When people talk about ways to explore Cerebus -- I'm a "go with High Society" guy, personally -- I think of a friend of mine who maintains for his own purposes that Cerebus died in issue #150. He bases this in part on simply not caring for what followed but also in that he believed the character had died in that issue back when it was initially serialized and that Sim was going to re-boot the series with a female aardvark in #151. I have no idea why he thought this; maybe Sim had said something about the male/female split in the series and my friend took him literally? I prefer to think he just made it up. I've never asked, and I hope he doesn't e-mail. The funny thing is you can certainly read Cerebus in that truncated way and have it work, although certainly not as the author intended. Cerebus dies after being awakened to something deep within his heart and then rashly committing a violent act in a world set against him sounds like the ending I would have written for the character at a certain age, that's for sure.
* 
Dan Nadel 
In one of those stories where you initially think there may be something more to it and then eventually resign yourself to it perhaps being exactly what it looks like and what it looks like is depressing, cartoonist Vauro Senese 
* missed it: Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon is trying to raise money to restore the artwork in its possession, 
* here's 
* so who among you had Buenaventura "we also make super-large, infuriating-to-some, hardcover anthologies" Press in the pool of name alt-comics publishers that would pick up the periodicals flag and charge up the hill with it? Put your hand down, you did not. I'll try to provide more details in the next Bundled, but BP just sent out a press release they're not only releasing six new comic books this year but they'll be doing things like bundling them in order to provide a better price point and potential buying opportunity. Their "Economic Stimulus 3-Pak" will be in June's Previews and will run $11.95 for Aviatrix #1 (Eric Haven), I Want You #1 (Lisa Hanawalt) and Injury #3 (Ted May). The books cost $4.95 apiece. There's definitely something going on when folks like BP and Sparkplug seem to be sticking with putting some traditionally-formatted comic books out there and the more established publishers seem to be moving away from that model for the part. What that something is, I couldn't possibly tell you.
* that whole goofy Minnesota Senate race has been worth it for 
* the much-respected David Lloyd 
I was lucky enough to attend a portion of the 
* the blogger Alan Gardner notes that Todd Clark's Lola 
* I was as surprised as Drawn and Quarterly's Peggy Burns 
* 
* the writer and publisher Dan Nadel 
* 
I wanted to draw attention to a few Eisner Award commentaries I missed last week. Our own 
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