The top comics-related news stories from October 24 to October 30, 2009:
1. Two men arrested in Chicago for plotting the death of Kurt Westergaard and Flemming Rose, perhaps with Al Qaeda assistance.
2. 2010 Angouleme Festival in danger because of municipality's refusal to pay full amount of expected $600,000 (USD) utilized for infrastructure and security.
3. Award-winning, iconic The Comics Journalre-formatting into two semi-annuals with a beefed-up online component.
Could They Really Cancel Angouleme? According to articles like this one, a challenge to the funding of technical services by the local municipality has cast the future of the 2010 Festival International de la Bande Dessinee into doubt and suggests potential difficulties for future years if this year's festival comes off. At the heart is approximately $600,000 (USD) in monies that go to infrastructure and security costs, and, more broadly, the city's contractual investment in future editions of the event. While the Festival has itself been profitable the last couple of years and is the very definition of leisure destination travel that is the hottest category in tourism, a worldwide recession, friction between national and local expenditures on such matters, and the occasionally fiery nature of European politics all indicate a counter-possibility to those of sitting over here in North America and without any knowledge of the specific situation suggesting that a cancellation would never happen. To be honest with you, I'm usually wrong when I make assumptions about European comics.
So I asked Bart Beaty, the noted North American expert on the European comics scene who writes this site's "Conversational Euro-Comics" and who is a frequent, devoted attendee of the Festival for his thoughts on the matter. He gave me this thoughtful response.
I am so not privy to the high stakes negotiations that would take place between the town and the Festival, that I am almost tempted to just keep my mouth shut and listen to the signals. The essential problem for the moment seems to be the idea that Angouleme does not want to take on the cost (400,000 Euros) of erecting the tents and the security barriers that allow the Festival to function. Like every other government in the world, they're faced with declining tax revenues and a financial crisis. This has led them to question whether or not the city really derives that much economic benefit from the Festival, and the suggestion that the costs of erecting tents so that publishers can sell comics should be borne by the publishers. There is also concern moving forward about future funding for the Festival for 2011-2013.
This is not really surprising to me. Things are tough all over, and it has seemed for several years that the Festival has had a sword of Damocles hanging above its head. There was talk of moving it out of Angouleme during the construction downtown and the displacement that that caused, and in recent years I hear more and more about publishers who don't think that it is financially worthwhile to set up stands at Angouleme, with the costs of bringing all sorts of employees down there for the week. One would suspect that there will be publishers -- both large and small -- who would balk at added costs if the Festival has to pick up the cost of the tents. At the same time, the town has to know that if the Festival leaves it's not coming back, and I don't think they want that (no matter how disgruntled the locals occasionally get about the event).
At this point, and knowing nothing first hand about ongoing negotiations, I would think that this is public posturing and possibly brinksmanship, but that some accommodation will be worked out. Having said that, let me be the first to say that while I have a hotel room booked, I'm not buying my plane ticket until things are a little more clear. And I would guess that I'm not the only one in that position.
As Bart suggests, I'm hearing of a higher level of concern from European publishers as opposed to the contingent of North Americans that attend. I would expect the fate of this year's show to come to a head pretty quickly, as cultural officers and Festival organizers begin their slow build to late January. Neither outcome would shock me.
Friday AM Update: Bart wrote in about a half-hour before this post is to roll out to say that I should confirm he sent us the "sword of Damocles" comparison well before it was used this morning as part of this article's headline. Consider it confirmed. You should read that article, too, if this is a story that interests you. It's an interview with Franck Bondoux, the "delegate general" of FIBD and the person whose statements on radio have driven this story. This article gets into the city's response a bit, but it's written in ActuaBD.com's usually looping style that I have difficult parsing.
OTBP: Warlord Of Io #2 the James Turner comic whose early cancellation led many folks to question the future of the Direct Market is part of the Internet Market, with an affordable pay-for download at publisher SLG
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* it looks like lawyers for Tahawwur Hussein Rana are trying to play him off against the other and perhaps more directly involved figure, David Coleman Headley. Makes sense to me.
* a couple of semi-clashing articles about India's interest in the recently arrested Chicago men: One says Mickey Mouse plot central figure David Coleman Headley's mention of a prominent Indian actor as one of his international contacts is enough for India to dispatch an interrogation team to Chicago, where Headley's being held. Another says Headley was going to be used in a major strike on Indian soil and that the FBI shared documents with them to that effect. I guess they don't really clash, but the second one makes the first one look kind of unimportant. According to my record with predictive news analysis, that likely means it will end up being the more important story.
* finally. Jytte Klausen spoke at Brandeis this week. No specific mention of the new arrests. The content of her comments -- and what gets left to other speakers -- sure is interesting. There's a pretty good student editorial here that again punches Yale in the kidneys for the decision to censor any imagery portraying Muhammad from Klausen's book.
Marvel Makes Major Mobile Move
According to the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com, Marvel has released about a hundred titles in various, overlapping ways through major digital download platforms. One would assume that this represents both a notable move on Marvel's part as well as indicates they're going to be still sifting through results for answers, feedback and relevant information they can apply to a broader strategy. My guess reading ICv2.com's article much earlier than this post will roll out is that there will be a lot of "major milestone" talk, but despite my jokey headline for me there's not enough grind or surprise there to catch my attention in quite that way. Clearly Marvel like all comics companies should be moving forward in a matter-of-fact way with some sort of digital offering or series of same, and I would imagine at this point they feel the same way. I'm probably more optimistic than some that there's an additional audience to be had rather than an existing one to be lost, but more to the point, I'm not sure those worries are all that relevant anymore.
There are a lot of repulsive aspects to the collectible comics arena, but I love the idea of finding all of these comics in some building when they're likely worth five to ten times what the building was.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* so Wizardis dropping its price guide, maybe? I have to imagine that's an overall good given how corrupt and awful those kind of enterprises can be. At the same time, when I was at The Comics Journal in the mid-1990s it was hard not to also see that section of the magazine as their providing a service greatly desired by their core audience.
* one thing that may have been lost in the news about The Comics Journal moving the bulk of its regular output on-line is the final line-up of interview pairings for its forthcoming #300 as printed on the cover for that landmark issue: Art Spiegelman-Dash Shaw, Jean-Christophe Menu-Sammy Harkham, Frank Quitely-Dave Gibbons, David Mazzucchelli-Dash Shaw, Alison Bechdel-Danica Novgorodoff, Howard Chaykin-Ho Che Anderson, Denny O'Neil-Matt Fraction, Jaime Hernandez-Zak Sally, Ted Rall-Matt Bors, Jim Borgman-Keith Knight, Stan Sakai-Chris Schweizer. I'm in love with all of those pairings except two, and figure they could all make for good interviews.
* the new web site from Fantagraphics art direct Adam Grano may delight or infuriate you.
* there's an interesting post by Jason Miles up at Comics Comics about Gil Kane that not only provides a couple of killer quotes from Kane but perhaps provides some insight as to why a young artist with decidedly art comics interest might find Kane appealing as an artistic figure and what sets that same kind of young artist looking at books in the bargain bin.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* in case you missed yesterday's explosive revelations of arrests in the case of two Chicago men who wanted to bring terror upon those they felt responsible for the Danish Cartoons Controversy in 2005, the Chicago Tribunehas a decent general article to catch you up.
* for some reason, I totally spaced on the fact that the other target of the general assassination plot was Flemming Rose.
* finally, Matthias Wivel looks at the Mickey Mouse plot as a jumping-off point for a wider discussion of re-publishing the Danish Cartoons. I've always rejected the notion of publishing them for solidarity, yet I still strongly believe that publishing them back when people were dying and there was a lot of mystery as to what those cartoons looked like should have been part of many more journalistic missions than it was.
Crumb Genesis Book First Print Sell-Out? It should come as no surprise to anyone that Robert Crumb's The Book Of Genesis Illustrated has been a big hit with the media. The combination of the Bible, comics, and a 1960s icon best known for breaking artistic taboos about sex and human relationships paves the way for everything from a two-line twitter post to an extended feature article. Here's this morning's contribution: a piece in the LA Times entertainment section about research sources and methodology. I've heard unofficially from a couple of sources that it's hard to get a hold of the book at the distribution level right now, indicating strong sales on the first printing. It's difficult to gauge the veracity of such claims without the book publisher jumping in to trumpet it, and sometimes that just confuses things further. Why I think it's worth noting is that if it's selling well, this makes the second half of 2009 a potentially pretty strong comics in bookstores sales period after some book to book softness in late 2008, early 2009.
List In Progress: 2009 YALSA Nominees List Of Great Graphic Novels For Teens
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has released its nominees list -- to date -- of "Great Graphic Novels For Teens," which is pretty much what that sentence promises. The full list is 53 titles, about 1/3 of the books nominated. They are broken down into "top 10" and then "nonfiction" and "fiction" lists. The YALSA committee list of responsible persons is available through the link above. The final list will be named in the new year.
Top Ten
* Abel, Jessica, Gabriel Soria and Warren Pleece. Life Sucks. First Second. 2008. 9781596431072. $19.95.
* Ashihara, Hinako. Sand Chronicles, Vols. 1-3. VIZ. 2008. 9781421514772, 9781421514789, 9781421514796. $8.99 apiece.
* Clevinger, Brian and Steve Wegener. Atomic Robo: Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne. 2008. Red Five Comics. 9780980930207. $18.99.
* Inoue, Takehiko. Real Vols. 1-2 VIZ. 2008. 978421519890, 9781421519906. $12.99 each.
* Ito, Junki. Uzumaki Vol. 1. VIZ. 2007. 9781421513898. $9.99.
* Landowne, Youme and Anthony Horton. Pitch Black. Cinco Puntos Press. 2008. 9781933693064. $14.00.
* Steinberger, Aimee Major. Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan. Go Comi. 2007. 9781933617831. $16.99.
* Tamaki, Mariko and Jilliam Tamaki. Skim. Groundwood Books. 2008. 9780888997531. $18.95.
* Way, Gerard and Gabriel Ba. Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite. Dark Horse. 2008. 9781593079789. $17.95.
* Wilson, G. Willow and M. K. Perker. Cairo. Vertigo. 2007. 9781401211400. $24.99.
*****
Full List, NonFiction
* Buhle, Paul and Sabrina Jones. Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography. Hill and Wang. 2008. 9780809094974. $19.95.
* Hennessey, Jonathan and Aaron McConnell. The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation. Hill and Wang. 2008. 9780809094707. $16.95.
* Landowne, Youme and Anthony Horton. Pitch Black. Cinco Puntos Press. 2008. 9781933693064. $14.00.
* Pink, Daniel H. and Rob Ten Pas. The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need. Riverhead Trade. 2008. 9781594482915. $15.00.
* Schultz, Mark, Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon. The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA. Hill and Wang. 2008. 9780809089383. $18.98.
* Steinberger, Aimee Major. Japan Ai: A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan. Go Comi. 2007. 9781933617831. $16.99.
*****
Full List, Fiction
* Abel, Jessica, Gabriel Soria and Warren Pleece. Life Sucks. First Second. 2008. 9781596431072. $19.95.
* Ashihara, Hinako. Sand Chronicles, Vols. 1-3 VIZ. 2008. 9781421514772, 9781421514789, 9781421514796. $8.99 each.
* Bialik, Steve. Minister Jade. Cellar Door Publishing. 2008. 9780976683131 . $14.99.
* Black, Holly and Ted Naifeh. The Good Neighbors: Book One, Kin. 2008. Graphix. 9780439855624. $16.99.
* Brubaker, Ed and Steve Epting. The Death of Captain America, Vols. 1-2. 2008. Marvel. 9780785124238, 9780785124245. $14.99 each.
* Clevinger, Brian and Steve Wegener. Atomic Robo: Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne. 2008. Red Five Comics. 9780980930207. $18.99.
* David, Peter, Robin Furth and Jae Lee. Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, Vols. 1-2. Marvel. 2008. 9780785121442, 9780785127093. $14.99 each.
* Diggle, Andy and Jock. Green Arrow: Year One. DC. 2008. 9781401216870. $24.99.
* Flight, Vol. 5. Villard. 2008. 9780345505897. $25.00.
* Fujisawa, Yuki. Metro Survive, Vols. 1-2. DrMaster Publications. 2008. 9781597961257, 9781597961264. $9.95 each.
* Hale, Shannon, Dean Hale and Nathan Hale. Rapunzel's Revenge. Bloomsbury. 2008. 9780345503305. $18.99.
* Hicks, Faith Erin. The War at Ellsmere. Slave Labor Graphics. 2008. 9781593621407. $12.95.
* Hotta, Yumi and Takeshi Obata. Hikaru no Go, v. 1213. VIZ Media. 2008. 9781421515083, 9781421515090. $7.95 each.
* InWan, Youn and others. DejaVu: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. Tokyopop. 2008. 9781427803184.
* Inoue, Takehiko. Real, Vols. 1-2. VIZ. 2008. 978421519890. $12.99 each.
* Inoue, Takehiko. Slam Dunk, v. 1. VIZ. 2008. 9781421506791. $7.99.
* Ito, Junki. Uzumaki, Vol. 1. VIZ. 2007. 9781421513898. $9.99.
* Johns, Geoff and Dave Gibbons. Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War, Vols. 1-2. DC. 2008. 9781401216504, 9781401218003. $24.99 each.
* Johnson, Mat and Warren Pleece. Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery. Vertigo. 2008. 9781401210977. $19.99.
* Kabei, Yukako and Shiori Teshirogi. Kieli, Vol. 1. Yen Press. 2008. 9780759528512. $9.99. Kieli, v. 2. Yen Press. 2008. 9780759528529. $10.99.
* Kawahara, Kazune. High School Debut, Vols. 1-2. VIZ. 2008. 9781421514819, 9781421514826. $8.99 each.
* Kirkman, Robert and Jason Howard. Astounding WolfMan, Vol. 1. Image Comics. 2008. 9781582408620. $9.99.
* Kirkman, Robert and Ryan Ottley. Invincible, Vol. 9. Image Comics. 2008. 9781582408279. $14.99.
* Kishimoto, Masashi. Naruto, Vols. 28-31. VIZ. 2008. 9781421518640, 9781421518657, 9781421519425, 9781421519432. $7.95 each.
* Kiyuduki, Satoko. ShoulderaCoffin Kuro, Vols. 1-2. Yen Press. 2008. 9780759528970, 9780759529014. $10.99 each.
* Kusakawa, Nari. Two Flowers for the Dragon, Vols. 1-2. CMX Manga. 2008. 9781401215262, 9781401215279. $9.99 each.
* Moore, Terry. Echo: Moon Lake. Abstract Studio. 2008. 9781892597403. $15.95.
* Nakaji, Yuki. Venus In Love Vols. 1-3, DC Comics/CMX. 2007. 97810401213459, 9781401217303, 9781401217723. $9.99 each.
* Pak, Greg and Carlo Pagulayan. Planet Hulk. Marvel Comics. 2008. 9780785120124. $34.99.
* Park, Hee Jung. Fever, Vol. 1. Tokyopop. 2008. 9781427805324. $9.99.
* Rich, Jamie and Marc Ellerby. Love the Way You Love, Vols. 1-2. Oni Press. 2007. 9781932664669, 9781932664959. $11.95 each.
* Sakai, Stan. Usagi Yojimbo: Tomoe's Story. Dark Horse Comics. 2008. 9781593079475. $15.95.
* Shitou, Kyoko. Key to the Kingdom, Vol. 1. CMX. 2007. 9781401213930. $9.99.
* Simone, Gail and Neil Googe. Welcome to Tranquility, Vols. 1-2. Wildstorm. 20072008. 9781401215163, 9781401217730. $19.99/$14.99.
* Straczynski, J. Michael and Esad Ribic. Silver Surfer: Requiem. Marvel. 2007. 9780785128489. $19.99.
* Takaya, Natsuki. Fruits Basket, Vols. 20-21. Tokyopop. 2008. 9781427800091, 9781427806826. $9.99 each.
* Tamaki, Mariko and Jilliam Tamaki. Skim. Groundwood Books. 2008. 9780888997531. $18.95.
* Tamaki, Mariko and Steve Rolston. Emiko Superstar. Minx. 2008. 9781401215361. $9.99.
* TenNapel, Doug. Monster Zoo. Image Comics. 2008. 9781582409115. $14.99.
* Tezuka, Osamu. Black Jack, Vol. 1. Vertical. 2008. 9781934287279. $16.95.
* Tezuka, Osamu. Dororo, Vols. 1-3. Vertical. 2008. 9781934287163, 9781934287170, 9781934287187. $13.95 each.
* Umino, Chica. Honey and Clover, Vols. 1-3. VIZ. 2008. 9781421515045, 9781421515052, 9781421515052. $9.99 each.
* Way, Gerard and Gabriel Ba. Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite. Dark Horse. 2008. 9781593079789. $17.95.
* Whedon, Joss and Michael Ryan. Runaways: Dead End Kids. Marvel. 2008. 9780785128533. $19.99.
* Wilson, G. Willow and M. K. Perker. Cairo. Vertigo. 2007. 9781401211400. $24.99.
* Yagami, Yu. Hikkatsu! Strike a Blow to Vivify!, Vols. 1-3. Go Comi. 2007. 9781933617572, 9781933617589, 9781933617596. $10.99 each.
* Yazawa, Ai. Nana, Vols. 8-12. VIZ. 2008. 9781421515397, 9781421517452, 9781421517469, 9781421517452, 9781421518794. $8.99 each.
A couple of folks have e-mailed me this posting that suggests a reduction in public support for the Festival International de la bande dessinee could endanger this year's festival. It makes total sense there'd be less public money forthcoming, but I don't see much to the posting beyond the assertion that there could be trouble. One has to think that any real danger to the show would be such a PR disaster that something would work itself out, although I can imagine plenty of drama up until that point.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the newspaper industry bible Editor & Publisherconfirms that Walt Handelsman's cartoons are behind the pay wall erected at Newsday.
* yesterday's announcement of a multi-book deal between Fantagraphics and Greg Sadowski sent me scrambling for my copy of Supermen! -- Matthew Brady has an itemized series of observations here. That is one deeply weird and occasionally wonderful book.
* the writer and inker Charles Yoakum analyzes a recent David Gabriel interview in terms of Marvel's publishing strategies. Michael Doran does a play by play.
* go, bid: it looks like the Hero Initiative's charity auction of Wolverine covers has begun.
* I'm a little confused in that Wizard shut down its WizardUniverse.com site to almost bare bones functionality, and then announced that they'd moved their stuff to WizardWorld.com, but it basically looks like the old WizardUniverse site and functions about as well, by which I mean not well.
* here's something I hadn't noticed in the recent coverage of the new Asterix volume tied into that character's 50th anniversay: Albert Uderzo wants volumes to continue after he dies. That article is worth it for Hugues Dayez's brutal critical appraisal of the later volumes. Tell us what you really think, Mr. Dayez.
* C. Spike Trotman is funding her second self-published project Poorcraftthrough a Kickstarter page. The Templar, Arizona cartoonist and her Iron Circus Comics is teaming with Diana Nock for a lengthy disquisition on options for stretching one's spending cash to, says the PR, "teach readers how to live well on less, expanding their options and freeing them from the paycheck-to-paycheck living that defines so many modern lives."
* in the announcement this week likely to cover the most future books, Fantagraphics sent out a release that they will partner with editor/designer and former full-time Fanta staffer on a series of seven new book collections collecting classic material. Sadowski's previous books with the company are Supermen: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941, B. Krigstein and B. Krigstein Comics. The new books, to be released twice a year, will start with Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics Of the 1950s in collaboration with historian John Benson (June 2010). The second book will be on Alex Toth's work at Standard Comics in the early '50s (to be released Fall 2010). Subsequent books will cover Jack Cole's Golden Age work 1937-1941, EC artists at other comics companies, Basil Wolverton's science ficition and horror comics from 1938 to 1955 and a Dick Briefer Frankenstein book.
* one might say that the big publishing news of the week is DC in partnership with Stephen King on a book. I'm told it's a bit different than the King/Marvel partnership in that King will be writing his own character for a few issues after which point the publication will continue with another of its launch characters in a solo slot. Anyway, I hope it's good.
* despite its recent deal with Nickelodeon for the overall property, Mirage has kept the right to do a certain number of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics and will exercise a portion of that right through May of next year for sure.
* the writer Clifford Meth sent an e-mail to tell me that The Invincible Gene Colan, a project to benefit the great American mainstream comic book creator whose name is in the title, will be published by Marvel in February. You can track its progress here, I bet. I have an essay in the book.
* I also wrote the introduction for this book, if anyone's interested. That's right, this blog is all about my awesome accomplishments from now on.
* Kazu Kibuishi says he's getting into the deep end of the production schedule for Amulet Vol. 3, which is nice given how well that book's first two volumes have done.
* the great PictureBox Inc. has a bunch of new items for sale. If that link doesn't work, the post announcing those items should be somewhere findable here.
* finally, Kurt Busiek is as surprised as anyone that a new trade of his work on the Iron Man character has been collected in trade form, and runs through some of the reasons such a book might be coming out now.
Danish Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard Targeted In Foiled Assassination Plot
In a bizarre and distressing twist on a story over five years old, two Chicago men have been arrested in what is being described as a plan to attack employees of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper that published the Danish Muhammad Cartoons in 2005.
David Coleman Headley, who used to be called Daood Gilani before changing his name in 2006, is a US-born citizen who once lived in Pakistan and now calls Chicago's north side home, was arrested at O'Hare airport on October 3 as he planned to make a trip to Pakistan. He held an additional ticket to Copenhagen.
A longtime acquaintance of Headley's and a travel agent who helped him arrange trip this year to Denmark and Pakistan, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, was arrest on October 18. Rana is a Pakistani-born Canadian citizen living in Chicago.
Headley's charges include conspiracy to murder and maim in a foreign country. The New York Times has reported that Headley informed FBI agents that his plans initially consisted of harm to the Jyllands-Posten building, and then moved towards killing the paper's cultural editor and cartoonist Westergaard. Westergaard was informed of the plot yesterday, and reportedly feels safe yet angry.
Reports indicate that Mr. Headley had contact with members of a terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, where his plans were referred to as the "Mickey Mouse Project."
What's interesting about these arrests from a domestic standpoint is that both men are in their late 40s and each, especially Rana, is a working member of a community -- a far cry from the standard portrait of young people and drifting souls getting the not-so-bright idea to take action on behalf of an abstract political notion like this one.
Both men are scheduled to appear in federal court in Chicago today.
Gary Groth On TCJ Post-#300 Moves
Fantagraphics co-publisher and longtime Comics Journal editor Gary Groth was kind enough to answer a few questions about the Journal's forthcoming move to a mostly on-line model with two print editions a year, a move that was recently announced to current subscribers through a letter. He says that the move has been discussed for a relatively short period of time -- approximately, three months, with much of that time spent on refining the proposal. If things go according to their plans the revamped site should launch in late November. Groth says this will not have an effect on the magazine's current news blog Journalista! or its infamous message board -- "Dirk [Deppey] will continue the fine Journalista tradition, and the message board will, alas, remain much the same" -- and the staff will remain Groth, Mike Dean, Deppey and Kristy Valenti, although it's uncertain at this time how individual work time will be apportioned.
Asked about the direct impetus for making the move, and if there were financial motives involved, Groth, who has been editing the publication since 1976, admitted it was a mix of editorial and financial concerns and spoke to the nature of publishing in the new century in a way a lot of print publishers facing similar decisions may recognize.
"It was always a strain to assemble eight commercially viable issues that were also aesthetically pleasing -- balancing that fine line -- every year. I feel much more comfortable concentrating our resources on fewer print editions each year and spending some of those resources on our web presence. It's no secret that newspapers and magazines are suffering because so much of what they've traditionally done can be done on the web, faster and cheaper. We decided therefore to redesign the editorial and physical format of the magazine to take advantage of what print's best at -- upscale production values, longer prose, more permanent content -- and bring the Journal's mandate for criticism and commentary to the web with a vengeance.
The details of how the Internet and print versions will interact under this new set-up Groth is happy to discover as his editorial team moves forward.
"I haven't the slightest idea at this point. I suspect that little of the material on the website will be reprinted in the print edition; rather, I'm anticipating that short pieces that appeared on the website may be expanded for the print edition -- or the reverse, an excerpt of something we plan for the print edition may be previewed on the website. But there's going to be a learning curve while we figure out the different editorial requirements for both the website and the print edition. My main goal is to maintain the editorial impetus of the magazine on the website, making it an intelligent and sometimes provocative source criticism and commentary.
Although he wasn't asked in a follow-up, Groth also spoke to the strategy described in the subscriber letter of new bloggers working out of the TCJ framework.
"You forgot to ask, but, yes, to that end, Ken Smith will be blogging."
*****
additional: Dirk Deppey follows up yesterday's revelation of the move (made here at CR) with his own take on the matter, including official PR.
My New Favorite Industry Pundit
"The comic-book industry, in general, is kind of in trouble. It's going the way the music industry is. I had a meeting with Stan Lee about a year ago to talk about doing another comic book -- he's always been a big fan of Elvira -- and he said -- and this is coming from Mr. Comic Book himself -- 'Get out of comic books! Forget it! It's over! It's done! All people want to do is get on the Internet!' I'm happy that I did all those comic books; I have them all, and it was a really cool thing to do. I still, of course, go to Comic-Con every year. But even Comic-Con is less about comic books now and more about Hollywood. It's a freaking nightmare." -- Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark
Your 2009 Prix Ouest-France Winner Lulu, femme nue by Etienne Davodeau received this year's prix Ouest-France during a ceremony Saturday. Previous winners Matthieu Blanchin and Christian Perrissin of Martha Jane Cannary. The juried award is associated with the Quai des bulles Festival, and the article indicates that it was a close win. We're just about at that time of the year where French-language comics awards begin to pick up as France's cultural focus begins to lean towards Angouleme.
* not comics: Gary Tyrrell calls our attention to the horrifying case of John T. Unger. Stories like these should remind us that there are people out there that think it's their god-given right to rip off artists, and are willing to go to the mat for it.
* I think everyone in comics needs to post embarrassing pictures of themselves in Halloween costumes right now.
* you know, for as much beating up as I've done on the Vertigo slate -- which doesn't come close to matching the nasty words you'll hear from comics creators about their impressions of the imprint if you just sit around a bunch of them long enough -- I do think they've done a good job in the post-Y world of nursing some of their series into solid performers.
* finally, a grant to help libraries build their graphic novel holdings seems like a nice idea to me, and I hope the program is executed with skill to match the good will such an idea engenders.
Subscriber Letter: TCJ Moves More Dramatically On-Line; Print Version To Come Out Two Times A Year
Fantagraphics' The Comics Journal has announced via subscriber letter (scanned version above; large scanned version available by clicking through the above) that they'll be moving more of their coverage on-line after the forthcoming issue #300. This will correspond to making the print version of the magazine a larger, apparently more substantial publication that will come out twice a year. Included in the longtime, award-winning magazine's efforts on-line will be more of the features through which the magazine made its name known -- including its interviews -- and what appears to be a number of staff bloggers added to the roster.
The magazine, first published under its current leadership in 1976, currently offers several things on-line including a well-known message board, a number of archived articles, and Dirk Deppey's Journalista!. A competing, on-line version of the magazine with separate content ("TCJ On-Line") was published briefly in 1997-1998.
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 take them all and build a little comics fort out of them, demanding of the proprietor sandwiches of mayonnaise and Buddig ham on white bread be brought to my castle.
*****
AUG090468 FANTASTIC FOUR #572 $2.99
This is the superhero comic of this exact moment in time.
AUG090475 INCREDIBLE HERCULES #137 $2.99 AUG090012 ABE SAPIEN ONE SHOT (OSW) $3.50 AUG090030 GROO HOGS OF HORDER #1 (OF 4) $3.99
Here are a few more mainstream comic-book comics sporting a halfway decent pedigree.
MAY090566 MMW ATLAS ERA MENACE HC VOL 01 $59.99
I would buy these odd collections of Atlas material had I the money to do so. I'd love to take a look at one, but I don't have a nearby comic shop, either. Man, this is depressing.
JUL090645 ROCKPOOL FILES GN $6.95
A collection of Glenn Dakin and Phil Elliott strips, which makes this the out of left field surprise publication of the week.
SEP091066 1000 COMIC BOOKS YOU MUST READ HC $29.99
This is Tony Isabella's book, I believe, and it's his take on exactly what the title would have you think it covers.
JUL090984 FAT FREDDYS CAT OMNIBUS (MR) $29.99 SEP090805 KEY MOMENTS FROM THE HISTORY OF COMICS SC (MR) $10.00 SEP090806 MAP OF MY HEART GN (MR) $24.95 JUL090848 RED SNOW HC (MR) $24.95
These don't really belong together in any significant way, but I wanted to bundle them closely because as far as I can tell they're the four best books out this month. The Fat Freddys Cat Omnibus features material that's not exactly form-expanding, but there's a lot of fine cartooning there and having it all in one place will be nice. The Ayroles Key Moments book also feature a ton of clever, funny material. The Drawn and Quarterly books pretty much encompass a lot of what makes that company great. Susumu Katsumata's collection of short stories is the latest step in the publisher's ongoing efforts to release classic gekiga cartoonists to an increasingly sophisticated manga audience. The belle of the ball this week, however, is the latest John Porcellino effort Map Of My Heart. He's a great cartoonist, and we're lucky to have him. All in all, this is one of those weekends you might end up paying $100 for your library as opposed to $30 for your longbox.
*****
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 here, it may or may not exist.
Heidari runs the web site linked to above, contributes to several newspapers firmly in the political reform camp and was recently cultural editor at the banned newspaper Etemad-e Melli. A number of that publication's contributors are also in prison. RSF says that Heidari was picked up during a religious ceremony honoring political prisoners in the home of one such prisoner. Many of those picked up have since been released.
Heidari was born in 1970; a gallery of his work can be seen here.
Go, Look: Blutch Drawing Flickr Set from Sarah Glidden: "More french comics stuff... here's a set of photos and videos from a recent event at the Fondation Cartier where Blutch drew about six drawings live, projected onto a screen inspired by the music of Sun Ra."
La Monde Vs. Morocco: "All Cartoonists Seem To Be Cursed Forever Globally"
An article on the English-language portion of the Pravda site not only carries maybe the best headline of the week but also sorts through the Le Monde picking a fight with Morocco portion of the Khalid Gueddar affair, where the French newspaper hammered officials by repeating Gueddar's caricature of a royal family member and running further commentary of its own. Spain's El Paishas been blocked as well.
Random Digital Comics News Round-Up
I'm going to start gathering these pieces into one place somehow and in some way, so forgive me these occasional, transitional posts. Beyond the usual barrage of "I'm doing digital comics now" press releases, which as a group have me baffled, two stories about readers pop a bit. The first is Simon Jones' straightforward and casual review of B&N's new portable reader Nook as a way to potentially read comics. As Jones unpacks in a few, brief sentences, there's a lot more to how these things are developed beyond simply adding color to make it a place to store and host funnybook pages -- there are things like which formats are acceptable for transfer and which files can be read at what settings. The second is that Amazon.com remains bullish on the Kindle in a way that indicates the market may still bend itself around that device. The bullishness, however, does not include specific numbers. I am personally looking forward to the day when the bulk of at least my new junk comics reading can be done on-line, and expect that day to be here in 36 months.
Remo Forlani, 1927-2009
According to the French-language market news clearing house ActuaBD.com, film critic Remo Forlani, who for decades sidelined in comics criticism and historical work in addition to the work for which he was better known, recently passed away. He was 82 years old.
According to that report, Forlani enjoyed screen credits with a pair of the 1960s efforts to bring the iconic character Tintin into the cinematic world. In terms of the wider comics readership he was likely best known as the author of a series of articles known as "Le roman vrai de la bande dessineé" that ran in Pilote starting in 1961. That early attempt to tell the history of the comics art form included interviews with a number of major figures including Hergé and Milton Caniff. The brief obituary also mentions as small press effort featuring illustrations by Edmond Baudoin, Un chat est un chat, published in 1994.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the much-liked comics-focused, mainstream-oriented yet indie-friendly show HeroesCon has announced its dates for 2010: June 4-6. I think that's a nice date for them because it pushes them a couple of weeks further away from Comic-Con International, sort of putting themselves on an island between TCAF and CCI and potentially positioning themselves as an early summer getaway show. I hope I can attend. These are the dates held by Florida Supercon, which moves to June 18-20 in a classy move. Make tradable mailing lists, not war.
* a company called TopTenREVIEWS bought all of the Imaginova consumer sites including comics' own Newsarama, the site announced through obtusely-worded press release yesterday. I don't know enough about how Newsarama operates to even guess how this might have an effect of their doing what it is they do. On the other hand, I remind all potential buyers that we're up for sale for what it takes to settle my local bar tab.
* finally, I'm never sure what to do with cartoons of note that feature unfortunate racial stereotyping. In fact, I'm almost certain that I have a standard for even recognizing that kind of thing that some people would find too harsh and others too lenient. Plus in some cases the presence of the caricatures makes the art more interesting. Anyway, I figure the presence of such a drawing is probably enough so as to not spotlight them via their own post, but I was still interested in this page of cartoons by Otto Soglow and this series of not-comics illustrations by Norm McCabe and Cecil Beard. (thanks, Eric Knisley)
Flipped!: David Welsh And A Few Friends On Recommended Spooky, Scary And Supernatural Manga
By David P. Welsh
Will walking fish be the new zombies? This is the question I'm left with after asking some folks for their recommendations for spooky, scary and supernatural manga. (I added the hyperlinks below.)
"Like many other children of the 1970s, Jaws left an indelible impression on me," Dacey wrote. "I wasn't just terrified of swimming in the ocean, I was reluctant to immerse myself in any standing body of water -- swimming pools, bathtubs, ponds -- that might conceivably harbor a shark. That irrational fear of encountering a great white somewhere it's not supposed to be even led me to wonder what it might be like to bump into one on land -- could I outrun it?
"I'm guessing Junji Ito also suffers from icthyophobia, because Gyo looks like my worst nightmare, a world in which hideously deformed fish crawl out of the sea on mechanical legs and terrorize humans, spreading a disease that quickly jumps species. As horror stories go, many of Gyo's details aren't terribly well explained -- how, exactly, the fish acquired legs remains unclear despite talk of military experiments gone awry -- but the imaginative artwork appeals on a visceral level. Gyo's highpoint comes midway through volume one, when a great white shark chases the hero and his girlfriend through a house, even scaling the stairs (no pun intended) in pursuit of its next meal. The scene is utterly ridiculous, but it works -- for a few terrible, thrilling pages I learned the answer to my long-standing question, What would it be like to be chased by a shark on land? In a word: scary."
Dacey isn't alone in her fondness for Gyo. Blogger and critic Jog (who also contributes to The Savage Critics and comiXology) examined the fine line between tittering and terror:
"Hopefully someone else will mention horror manga godhead Kazuo Umezu, 'cause I'm going with his most popular latter-day acolyte as far as manga-in-English goes: Junji Ito. Or, at least he was the most popular for a while; Dark Horse's short story collection Museum of Terror apparently bombed hard enough in 2006 to get canned after three volumes, and I don't think he's been seen around here since, which is ironic since we've gotten a lot more Umezu since then, offering some historical context for this kind of oddball mainstream giggle-terror, like horror with comedy but not horror-comedy, if you know what I mean. Which is something largely unfamiliar to American audiences, who're more likely to dismiss horror as failed if they laugh; they 'win' against the scare if it's funny. The Umezu-type style seeks integration of those impulses as an authentic, giddy whole: think of teenagers shouting and giggling from the communal experience of watching Paranormal Activity in a theater, and think of concentrating that into a solo experience, and you're on the road I think.
"Er, anyway: Gyo is my favorite example of that, at least in its first volume because it gets so much out of the perfect 'world turned upside-down' premise of all the fish in the ocean suddenly getting legs and storming the land. There's so much weird, alien shit in the sea, and Ito's super-tactile art sells the horrible panic of huge, stinking, rotten-in-the-sun unblinking beasts with perpetually open mouths shambling around in an army of millions, burping and bumping and smothering you with their sticky bodies and dragging you down their throats, and you recognize them from Shark Week and fish tanks and that's why it's awful! And it's so funny too, with cops drawing their guns on landsharks and girls screaming like it's an Italian Jaws rip-off with a $200 million budget. The second (and final) volume kinda screws it up though, piling on back-story and human consequences and junk science and plot points and crap, but there's something to be said for a perfect cut of serial, right?"
"Then there's the wide world of guro, or even ero-guro, the extreme, often pornographic fringe of horror manga (which isn't to say there's no Kazuo Umezu influence there either, but we're talking before and beyond the pale as two sides here). This stuff has a reputation I guess as little more than rusty-smelling romps through Nonconsentylvania, and I suspect those interested in such orthodoxy might be interested in one of the rarest manga-in-English items of them all, Creation Books' Beauty Labyrinth of Razors, a custom-edited (and brilliantly-titled) 'best of' collection for artist Jun Hayami's relentless short stories, which no printer in the U.K. was apparently willing to handle, so they released it as an e-book for a little while and now it seems to have vanished entirely. I actually haven't read it; can't find it. The Hayami shorts I've read are totally relentless sex and violence.
"But there's more to 'guro' artists than that: take Suehiro Maruo, a pro artist since 1980 who hilariously won the New Artist Prize at this year's Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prizes for The Strange Tale of Panorama Island (due in English next year from Last Gasp). He's possibly one of the best pure draftsmen in Japanese comics and a creepy, inspired visual designer, blending the domestic influence of 19th Century printmaking and pre-WWII militarism fashion with heavy, composed figures and layouts not a million miles away from the Euroisms of Katsuhiro Otomo or Jiro Taniguchi. His sledgehammer patriotic satire Planet of the Jap was the best part of Blast Books' excellent Comics Underground Japan anthology, though his solo books -- Blast's Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show and Creation's short story collection Ultra-Gash Inferno -- are way out of print.
"I'd like to make a license request for this, one of his more mainstreamy pieces, a little girl/little ghoul love & murder story from 2000 that's low on logic and stuffed with evocative poetical trash horror images, like a Jean Rollin movie captured perfectly on the page. Historical post-war atrocity hums around the edges, but really it's all about the thrilling sensation of teenage love spilling over into a glorious rejection of all of society's values and morality. How teen vampires ought to be. I haven't read the 2004 sequel. Maybe I'll read both someday, in English, in my hands."
Turning to industry types for their horror of choice results in a nice mix of titles and types. Asako Suzuki, Director of Manga for DC's CMX imprint, offers an old-school, shôjo-flavored option:
"I am not a big fan or horror or scary stories, but there are some I like. Obviously, I like Kanako Inuki's Presents -- if not, why did we license it, right? Especially, the episode about a girl knitting scarves with her hair just creeped me out -- I understand that David enjoyed the series, too, so I wonder which episode is his favorite. Other than Presents, I like Junji Ito's Gyo -- that series was quite scary! It is not licensed in the United States yet, but Yokihi-den by Suzue Miuchi (author of Glass Mask) traumatized me for some time."
Presents is indeed a personal favorite, especially in the category of comeuppance theatre -- comics where terrible things happen to horrible people. All of the stories have a grisly-cute charm, but my favorite has to be the one about the girl who's obsessed with collecting manufacturers' freebies to her everlasting regret.
Tokyopop Senior Editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl opts for both a novel and the manga it inspired: Goth, authored by Otsuichi and adapted by Kendi Oiwa.
"Not for the faint of heart, this manga and novel duo written by Otsuichi is both gruesome and psychologically horrifying. Goth tells the story of two impressively morbid high school students who bond over a series of mysterious incidents in their area. Sounds generic, but Goth is definitely a series where excellent execution puts it way above your average horror. I read the manga first, as part of our acquisitions process, and enjoyed it quite a bit, but didn't get around to reading the novel until more recently (in translation -- my Japanese isn't quite good enough for prose). Of course, then I couldn't put it down. Otsuichi's great writing adds some shocking narrative twists that are difficult to pull of visually, so while the manga follows most of the novel, it skips at least one story for that reason. But the manga, drawn by Kendi Oiwa of Welcome to the NHK fame, is still appropriately dark, creepy and elegant, and a complete reading experience on its own, so if you just buy one version of Goth, you won't regret that one. But be warned: it earns its M-rating in a big way. Highly recommended!
Diaz-Przybyl gives "bonus mentions... to xxxHolic, Natsume's Book of Friends, and Petshop of Horrors for creepy supernatural themes (and varying degrees of homoeroticism), but Goth definitely wins the 'scary' award for me."
Last but not least, Viz Media Senior Editor Eric Searleman offers a mix of hard-core, old-school horror and sweet, supernatural stories:
Gyo isn't the only Ito book that earns roundtable admiration, as Searleman cites Uzumaki: "Creepy and inescapible horror. Ito's best work. Ghastly Graham Ingels would surely approve." He turns to Viz's online initiative, SIGIKKI, for Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida: "Is there a layer of subtext below the grissle? I don't know. The artwork is stunning, regardless." I absolutely concur with his inclusion of Hitoshi Iwaaki's Parasyte: "Imaginative and mindbending. Totally crazy. A tip o' the hat to Del Rey for bringing it back into print." And if only someone would bring the horror manga of Hideshi Hino back into print, including Searleman's choice, The Bug Boy: "Poor li'l bug boy!" On the significantly softer side, he mentions one of my favorite magical comedies, Wataru Yoshizumi's Ultra Maniac: "A young witch casts love spells that go totally awry. Perfect reading for young girls who want to add a little bit of magic to their Halloween."
While many of my favorites were included above, I'll throw in a few more. Tomie, written and illustrated by Junji Ito, included in Dark Horse's Museum of Terror is my favorite Ito manga, about a beautiful, horrible undead girl who punishes the wicked. I can also recommend anything by the aforementioned Kazuo Umezu, though my heart belongs to The Drifting Classroom, where the most terrible things happen to an entire elementary school.
*****
* from Gyo
* from Gyo
* from The Laughing Vampire
* from Goth
* from Presents
*****
David P. Welsh has loved comics since his parents first used Archie and Casper to sedate him during long trips in the family station wagon.
He's worked as a reporter and editor for daily and weekly newspapers, and later sold out for the glamorous world of public relations. Prior to relocating to The Comics Reporter, he wrote his Flipped column for Comic World News for just over three years. He's written articles on comics for print outlets and a variety of other web sites.
He lives in West Virginia, which he says has gotten a lot easier since the Starbucks and Barnes & Noble opened up.
You may e-mail David with questions or commentary You can write to this site about David's columns
District Court Recommends South Korean Cartoonist Pay $17,000 Fine The Korea Timeshad an update last Friday on a story that first came to my attention in June: that of the cartoonist Choi and an insult of President Lee Myung-bak woven into incidental design in a cartoon.
It was recommended by a branch of Chuncheon District Court that the cartoonist settle with the city by paying approximately $17K (USD) in damages. The money would go to the city because the cartoon was done as part of a promotional effort for Wonju City. The city had sued the cartoonist for six times that amount. The linked-to article reports that he is likely to pay the amount asked. June's news items had reported two insults and said that Choi had already lost his job over the matter.
A Few Thoughts On Con Wars 2010
* so here's the very short version: Reed Exhibitions (Reed), Comic-Con International (CCI) and the Company Still Sort of Known As Wizard (the fighting Shamuses) are beginning to fight over dates, resources, terminology and branding in the increasingly prominent major comics and comics-related convention schedule. For the longer version: read Sean T. Collins.
* it's worth noting the entities have been bumping into one another for a while now. All off the top of my head [deep breath]:
+ although impossible to confirm, all three major con organizers seem to have, at some point in their past, scheduled shows with an eye on what the other two entities had planned.
+ CCI and the Shamus-led Wizard group (and/or their respective fans) used to compete over the right to call themselves America's most important comics show (CCI's San Diego, the Shamus-owned Chicago) until that became an obvious and lopsided win for CCI.
+ the Shamus group had been reportedly building to an eventual move into New York for several years; Reed got there first.
+ CCI (San Diego) and the Shamus camp (Anaheim) both have Southern California shows now.
+ Reed is widely perceived to have entered the comics convention business in part because of the success of CCI's San Diego show.
+ Reed has a new show for Chicago (C2E2), a region that had for years been almost entirely ceded to the Shamus group and its Chicago Comic Con (formerly Wizardworld Chicago) since they bought and refurbished the then-failing old Chicago shows (and I do think Shamus and his group saved that show; it was just miserable its last few years in the old incarnation, a corpse with visible flies) in the late 1990s.
+ the Shamus camp has switched to terminology for their shows that seems suspiciously close to CCI's.
+ the Shamus camp preceded their move of Big Apple Comic Con to NYCC's weekend by moving other shows to other Reed-selected weekends.
+ Reed and especially the Shamus camp have been accused of inflating attendance figures.
+ the Shamus group has recently kicked individuals aligned with Reed and a pair of potentially competitive independent shows out of their conventions. [exhale]
So clearly these entities have been rubbing up against one another for months and years now. Add in all the side fighting that occasionally pops up with smaller shows that have a bone to pick with the bigger ones (or vice versa), and it becomes clear that if comics has a con war, it has one with multiple nation-states and a half-dozen fronts.
* however, save for 1) the appearance of dirty tricks along the line of one show misrepresenting themselves at another show's expense, and 2) a move from CCI to more concretely protect certain terminology to which it has rights, there's very little practical grind to be viewed between the major shows. It's like a game of RISK with the majority of the continent-to-continent borders closed. All three entities seem to have the ability to execute successful con seasons without that season having one iota of an effect on anyone else's shows -- more importantly, there's seemingly little to be gained by a hostile approach from one show to the other. Most of the con war is going to be the shows knocking themselves out to look the best they can regardless of the competition. Maybe think con pageant, not con war... ?
* something I think bears repeating is that the primary measuring stick for each show's success is not based on a Vs. scenario. Most of each show's issues involve matters particular to that show. What can CCI do to negotiate the demand for attendance and resulting infrastructure issues in and out of the San Diego convention center? How will C2E2 attract traffic and attendance into the sometimes-difficult Chicago downtown? Can the Shamus camp do something with that extra BACC Friday and continue to attract enough guests? Even when they compete, each entity brings very different standards to the able in terms of what makes their shows successful. Take NYCC vs. BACC. One supposes that Reed needs their shows to work according to the standards of successful trade shows. Based on anecdotal evidence gathered from the Big Apple Comic Con, Shamus and crew can have the kind of last-minute cancellations and confusion regarding programming and instances of acting out that might be a black eye on someone else's show, but can still claim victory if the general energy and attendance figures and press coverage all develop at least somewhat in their favor. Again: these shows have internal pressures they react to with more concern than any external ones they might face. Comic-Con International has to compete with the last two or three years of mega-successful shows before anyone will think to compare it to Anaheim. And so on.
* I would suggest that any reporters covering these shows either as stand-alone entities or as part of a storyline featuring "shows in conflict" keep in mind these distinct standards for what makes each successful. It will also help I think to constantly make clear the difference between moves that might be unsporting -- the notion of "drafting" off of another show's publicity efforts, any distaste we might feel for elements of individual shows, whose feelings are hurt by what poster, what they're saying at BACC meeting before everyone high-fives -- and those that could be flat-out unethical, such as misinformation being knowingly disseminated on a specific show's behalf or against another show.
* I hope that the "con wars" storyline doesn't dominate the bigger con story, which is that we're awash in a general flowering of conventions on a national and regional and even local level. Too few sites reported that the perfectly-pitched local show The Stumptown Comics Fest named its 2010 date recently. Regional conventions Heroes Con and Florida Superconannounced dates today. This put six shows of size and stature (WonderCon, C2E2, Anaheim, MoCCA, SPACE and Stumptown) into an April that used to be known for one or two worthwhile shows at best. You could conceivably buy one $800 set of one-way airplane tickets and exhibit or attend shows every weekend that month. I run hot and cold as to whether comics shows are always what they could be or even how much they're necessary, but the flip side to my sour way of thinking would likely note that any platform for comics to shine can be useful and that given a generation of hardcore enthusiasts likely counts a convention that consisted of nothing but 38 longboxes in a Holiday Inn banquet room as a seminal experience, the thought that developing readers and artists today might have the opportunity for a first-class show to shred their minds, show them comics and start them dreaming is a noteworthy thing. It's a phenomenon worthy of closer study and more focused journalistic inquiry.
Newspaper Circulation Drops 10+% From 2008-2009: Decline Hastening?
Sean T. Collins draws my attention to a couple of articles at Talking Points Memo. The first takes notice of an over 10 percent drop in circulation figures over a six month period comparing 2008 to 2009; the second is Josh Marshall's analysis that this isn't an industry taking a hit but a medium in accelerated decline.
I'm not sure exactly what to make of it. I think you'd have to pull in whatever the latest numbers are on newspaper web site traffic and make some allowances for places where papers have dropped days to get a fuller reckoning. Still, any drastic loss in circulation is bothersome, and as I'm one of those that think part of the problem right now is that newspapers are drastically ill-equipped across the board to serve a changing modern audience in a way that's profitable, sustainable, and attractive in the long term, any factor that increases the pressure makes it that much harder for print journalism entities to keep their pants up. I see a lot of weathering the storm and very little building an ark.
I Think I Like It Better With Fewer Librarian-Related Comics News Stories
I suppose there's some novelty in this day and age that two librarians claim they were fired for not giving an 11-year-old access to a League Of Extraordinary Gentleman volume, but the fishy smells leap off of this thing in a way I can't quite quantify. First, due to library policy we only have the librarians' -- or circulation desk help employees', depending on who's talking -- word for it. Second, while I'm all for a policy that leaves these things in the hands of parents, I know a lot of reasonable people who wouldn't mind having a librarian ask them "are you sure?" when it comes to this sort of thing, so firing someone over it seems sort of harsh to me. Heck, at my first comic shop the owner asked if he could meet my mom just to make sure it was okay with her if I was buying certain kinds of comics -- it didn't seem like an assault on my free speech, although I know the situations are different in ways that count. I don't know -- it feels like there's something remaining here that might emerge later on.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the retailer and industry critic Brian Hibbs has a nice article up at CBR analyzing the problems with Diamond and suggests, quite sanely, that the problem isn't as much Diamond as a corporate entity but Diamond as a agent that must live up to the promises it made and allowances it provides gigantic brokers and sometimes bad partners in business Marvell and DC.
* in the latest installment of what I think is a recurring feature, Chris Mautner recommends how people might start reading Jack Kirby. It's funny in that he completely blows by Thor, which was probably the third-best Marvel comic during its remarkable mid-'60s heyday -- a testament to the depth of Kirby's career. I think Mautner gives good advice that when working with already-established comics fans that it might be easiest to work from the primetime Fantastic Four stuff and then spin outwards in various directions from there. I've had luck with non-superhero fans just giving them a stack of 2001 to start. There's no right answer, of course.
* the writer and retailer Chris Butcher has sharp words for one of those people who wants to be a publisher but don't seem to have any desire to learn the basic business mechanisms involved.
* Dan Nadel takes a hammer to a recent review of Crumb's Genesis by writer David Hajdu.
* it's interesting how little service has been paid to the Gold Key Painted Cover, surely one of the iconic visuals of 20th Century comic book publishing. I think you could put those colors in abstract and they'd be recognizable as a Gold Key cover.
* Daddy Warbucks (who once remarked, "you should be able to count your good friends on the fingers of one hand--even if you're missing a couple of fingers")
* "The Baron" from Derf's Punk Rock and Trailer Parks
* Buddy Bradley
* Rob from "Get Fuzzy"
* Peter Parker
1) Popeye: for entertainment mainly, but also, seriously--dude’s tough
2) Richie Rich: to buy drinks, seems like a nice guy, knows how to get out of a pinch using only head-sized rubies
3) Charlie Brown: it’s good to have a friend to take care of a little
4) Colossus or Nightcrawler: I love strange people with accents
5) Lewis Trondheim: nuff said. Not to mention, falls under #4 as well.
*****
Michael DeForge
* Woozy Winks
* Cutter John
* Ikegaki from Drifting Classroom
* Foggy Nelson
* Shrimpy from Shrimpy and Paul
*****
William Burns
* Mo Testa
* Tom Strong
* Sara Felton
* Harvey Pekar
* Dogbert
1. Goat (from Pearls Before Swine)
2. Alfred Pennyworth
3. The Shoveler (especially as played in the film by William H. Macy)
4. Rev. Sloan (in Doonesbury)
5. Gyro Gearloose's Little Helper
*****
Bill Matheny
1) Jughead
2) Woodstock
3) Tonto
4) Big Boy
5) Conchy
*****
Stergios Botzakis
1. Ben Grimm
2. Heraclio
3. Linus Van Pelt
4. Flaming Carrot
5. Betty Cooper
First Thought Of The Day
There are many, many, many more miserable ways to wake up in the worning, but "Random, Inexplicable Charley Horse at 4 AM" would make anyone's top 100. Especially when you're totally hydrated.
The top comics-related news stories from October 17 to October 23, 2009:
1. A distressing middle finger raised by Morocco to the rest of the world in terms of Free Press principles to which many countries of similar size and influence adhere: more papers banned carrying a cartoon depicting of a cousin of the king; trial of original offenders continues.
2. A bump in September Direct Market number indicates a static 2009, an amazing thing given this economy.
3. Lines are drawn in the sand regarding a growing war of wills, press coverage and public perception between Wizard (or a post-Wizard entity yet to be named) and Reed Exhibition over various issues in the former group moving its Big Apple Comic Con to New York Comic Con's already-selected October 2010 weekend.
Minneapolis-based cartoonist Will Dinski was the winner of this year's Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics, announced last weekend in conjunction with the Alternative Press Expo and the focus of a party hosted by the award's organizers at their well-regarded comics emporium. Dinski won for a recent, longer work Covered In Confusion, about a horrific series of events in a high school setting told through the prism of its years-later aftermath.
TOM SPURGEON: Congratulations on the win. How did you find out? Were you able to celebrate your victory?
WILL DINSKI: Thanks! I knew that I was a finalist shortly after hitting ground in San Francisco. That was the Thursday before the event. But I didn't know for sure that I would need a speech until that day of the event. Kirsten Baldock stopped by my table at the end of the day and gave me the good news. I was pretty shocked.
The APE aftermath party was basically one big celebration. James Sime knows how to throw an amazing event and it made me feel like a total rock star. What a great night.
SPURGEON: You submitted two comics, as I recall correctly. Covered In Confusion won, but I also greatly enjoyed Mind-Mapping. There's an actual, honest-to-goodness special effect involved with Mind-Mapping that reminds me of some of the European minis Bart Beaty discussed in his book Unpopular Culture: where did you come up with that idea? Was it difficult to produce that book?
DINSKI: That book was a lot of ideas I had been kicking around all coming together at once. I had an idea for a story that could involve glow in the dark ink, and another idea about a book folding out like a map. It's funny, though. It really wasn't that difficult to make. I've screen printed some books that were a real pain in the ass to make.
There was a poster done by some local designers (Aesthetic Apparatus) that I have hanging in my kitchen. It was done to promote a Raconteurs show. And that poster glows in the dark. I probably got the idea from there. Later I heard, that they didn't even know that it glowed. The ink was just contaminated from a previous project where they intended to use glow in the dark ink. Surprises like that are priceless.
SPURGEON: You suggest that Covered In Confusion has a basis in real life -- seeing as it's likely been some years since some of those incidents, what was it that caused you to do this comic right now?
DINSKI: The main part of that story was told to me a long time ago. It's about a teacher I once had. As soon as I heard it, my heart nearly broke. And then it was one of those situations where the conversation continued and changed topics but that story stuck with me.
Whenever something silly happens, there will sometimes be that one person who knows I make comics and say, "Hey! You should do a comic about that! Right?" This must happen to cartoonists all the time. Whenever that would happen to me, I would remember that really heartbreaking story my friend told me about my old teacher and think, "No. I should do a comic about that. I can't stop thinking about it."
I wrote the full script about two years ago. Put it in a drawer for some reason. I don't think I was interested in drawing a longer story at the time. Then I took it out earlier this year and drew it over a period of three months.
SPURGEON: Because of the sensitive nature of two of the plot lines, did you ever second-guess doing the story once it started, or did it change your process as to how you completed the material. Was there an emotional component to seeing the story done?
DINSKI: That's a good question. Yeah, I worried a lot. Lots of second guessing. There were certain people that I knew whom I didn't want to read it. People who where starting new families of their own. They did and their reaction wasn't great.
However, it was important to me that this story wasn't just a retelling of a terrible thing that happened, but about how people react to those things. At what point can you not forgive yourself? Can you forgive someone who makes such a terrible mistake?
But it's hard for me to worry too much about those things by the time I'm already drawing the story. I'm pretty busy thinking about the visuals. I kind of have to just trust that it's all been considered when I wrote it.
SPURGEON: Do you have plans to publish the story in a different format, either as is or by expanding it or making it part of a group of similar stories? What's the next step?
DINSKI: I've thought it would be great if Covered in Confusion was collected with my short stories in one volume. I'd like to try and make that happen once I'm sold out of the mini-comics.
Update On Moroccan Situation Centered On Caricature of Royal Family Member
I totally missed the fact that after the closure of the newspaper Akhbar al Youm for its caricature of Moroccan royal Prince Moulay Ismail that not only was the editor willing to apologize and not only (according to what I can find) has the newspaper remain closed, and not only has the government rejected any kind of free speech formulation in the matter, but that the editor Taoufik Bouachrine and the cartoonist Khalid Gueddar have been on trial for the last couple of weeks, a trial that continues today. They represent the third lawsuit against journalists in recent weeks in what has to be called a dismaying period of hostility against the press in that country. Even as the trial continues, today's wire reports indicate that issues of La Monde commenting on the story that include the offending cartoon and an additional cartoon on the matter have been blocked from distribution in Morocco as well.
ICv2.com: ABA Asks Justice Department To Look At X-Mas Book Pricing "War"
I suppose this story is partly comics but definitely so, as at this point those distinctions are blended on a bookselling level and I can't see how this wouldn't have an effect on some comics as well as prose books. Anyway, the American Booksellers Association -- made up of independent booksellers -- has apparently asked the Department of Justice to take a look at what is developing into a massive Christmas season price war between the big chains that they claim involves a lot of selling below cost as a kind of economic cudgel. That's one worth watching, as I think aspects of the traditional book market is getting more and more into the habit of discounting the holy heck out of books that might be a valuable income source for that industry generally.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* if I were to start some blustery speech as to the ramifications of people launching graphic novels through Kickstarter.com I'd be lying to you and annoying, but I thought it worth noting that Jamie Tanner has exceeded the goal he established for himself through that service, and I assume is working on his premiums and the project itself full speed ahead. I would also assume he could put to good use any more money that comes in in the time remaining.
* totally missed it: Portland's Stumptown Comics Fest has announced for April 24-25, 2010, placing it in a very crowded April (C2E2, Anaheim, MoCCA, SPACE, WonderCon), but on a date that should work for that very regional if not outright local comics show.
* the creator Scott McCloud asserts that a certain kind of reportage from a convention can become a snapshot of a community, and that communities in comics are a common but ephemeral thing.
* missed it: E&Phas an interesting story up about that presupposes an eventual recovery for newspapers and then 1) suggests that where they spend money at that time is going to be super-important, 2) implies by corrective that those profits aren't likely to go to vital newsroom functions.
* finally, same author as that last piece Sean Collins continues sifting through various statements that might enlighten as to the feelings and motivations of those involved in the convention tussle between Reed and whatever the Gareb Shamus-led group should be called. His best catch is a slightly spread-out announcement by writer Brian Bendis where he cancels plans to attend the Shamus Anaheim show going up against Reed's C2E2 next spring in favor of staying home and writing.
Jozef "Jef" Nys, the Belgian cartoonist best known for the strip Jommeke, has died according to a rash of newspaper reports from the Flemish region in which his creation was hugely popular. He was 82 years old.
Nys was born in Berchem in 1927, where his family had located after living in coastal regions before World War I. The future cartoonist had three siblings, two of which died at an early age. His father died while he was a teen. Nys was initially influenced by his maternal grandfather, who painted part-time, and by the Disney Studio movies. At the age of 11, he began evening art classes, and at age 13 he began to prepare for live as a technical engineer. In 1943 he began study at the Royal Academy of Arts of Antwerp. He supported his studies with work at an animation studio.
Nys' first comics camed at the weekly satirical newspaper 't Pallieterke, where he served as a kind of jack of all trades. He was refused employment at the Disney Studios in 1947, and spent the early part of the '50s doing a number of isolated comics works and fulfilling his military obligations. His first series was a comedy-adventure during this period called Kadodderke.
His life's work Jommeke enjoyed a modest start in 1955 as a gag comic for the Catholic newspaper Kerkelijk Leven, for whom he would later make a number of more realistic-looking religious-themed anthologies. That initial burst of Jommeke comics ran for three years and were collected into books, along with other work he was doing at the time. In 1958, Jommeke moved to the daily Het Volk and became a story-strip, with two strips a day feeding 44-page stories. Through most of the 1960s he made Jommeke comics and continued to do fill-in work on other serials and launch supplementary features of his own. By the 1970s, he had focused much of his attention on his most successful feature. By the late 1970s, over two million copies of Jommeke books were selling each year, and initial printings of new works were in the six-figure range.
It was also in the 1970s that Nys began to farm some of the Jommeke work out to other creators, first in terms of additional inkers, then to artists and writers, work that eventually scaled back as the feature fell from the absolute height of his popularity. He was still contributing work to the feature shortly before his death.
It is estimated that the over 200 albums in the Jommeke series sold over 200 million copies, and there are statues of Jommeke in Middelkerke and Temse. Although translated into French early on and into English and German periodically, he enjoyed the vast majority of his success in his native country. Nys was honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Strip Turnhout Festival in 2005, the same year the Centre Belge de la BD celebrated the international aspects of the character with an exhibition. For generations of children born in the geographical region of Flanders, Nys remains one of the great cartoonists who ever lived, and his creation a rite of passage for many young readers.
A 248th album, Jommeke, Fifi Kampioen, is due by the end of the month.
Not Comics: Newsday Erects Paywall
According to industry bible Editor & Publisher, the publishing entity Newsdayis going to move most of its involved content behind a paywall in what is certain to be a much-watched experiment in the recently dormant, ongoing issue of how journalistic enterprises are going to make money off of putting content on the web. Actually, this story might have an element of comics to it, in that I have no idea despite reading five different articles on the move what they're doing with Walt Handelsman and any other cartoonists they might use.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* the group Reporters Without Borders had in previous years punished Denmark for its role in the Danish Cartoons Controversy, but in its most recent survey the country was #1 on their list of free-press friendly countries. The curious thing is that legal precedents instigated by the Controversy contributed to the positive appraisal.
* here's a fairly standard and straight-forward recent indictment of the decision by the Yale University Press to not publish any imagery of Muhammad in their new book on the Danish Cartoons Controversy.
* and here's a much-longer and more detailed version of the same kind of indictment, including the alarming and lingering charge that the Press made their decision so as not to piss off potential Near Eastern contributors to their endowment. If you spaced out during or consciously skipped the whole Yale University chapter of this cultural story, and you don't mind the polemical aspects being pushed in your face, that's a good catch-up article.
An Argument For Holding Copyrights?
The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com reports that Nickelodeon has purchased the now nearly venerable kids property Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for $60 million. And I really don't have much to say beyond that, although I hope it was the kind of deal everyone involved hoped for.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* no one on the comics Internet has been more dependable in recent weeks than Jog, and this piece about the Crumb Genesis project and a very different kind of Crumb project is about par for the course. A very, very tough course.
* the writer Sean T. Collins continues to follow the Reed/Wizard "con war" into nooks and crannies where only a very brave person might go. Guest star: Scott Kurtz.
* has anyone ever heard of a "Jack Cribbs" that was acquainted with the late Allan Kurzrok?
* if nearly a thousand lunatics are able to afford $1000 motorcycle bat suits, does that mean the recession's over?
* I don't really follow the NY Times graphic novels bestsellers list -- I maintain a slight distrust of the methodology in terms of where it might put the list entire on the positive good/positive bad specture -- but that Bloom Countybook hit #1, which is nice for them. That was a project with some degree of worry to it in terms of the amount of work put in and if sales would justify reprinting that work right now.
* the Robert Kirkman-written Astounding Wolf-Manis going to end its run with issue #25. That was an Image title written by Kirkman and drawn by co-creator Jason Howard that never caught on to the extent his two other series written by Kirkman (Invincible, Walking Dead) with the publisher have found audiences. It also stayed around longer than most.
* I know should have written something about the re-launched Valiant Comics, but every time I start I have to go lie down for 20 minutes.
* according to this interview, the great, pioneering arts cartoonist Edmond Baudoin has applied for a grant that may allow him to do a comic on the drug-related violence in and around Juarez, Mexico. Whatever Baudoin wants to do is of interest, but as someone who used to eat lunch twice a year and go shopping with his mom in a Mexican border town where the mayor was just burned to death, I can assure you that the Juarez story is a fascinating and horrifying one.
* the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com reports that Marvel is going to adapt the first volume of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, after previously adapting flashback work from later volumes in the series and producing new material related to the series.
* the strip feature In The Sticksis making its Go.comics debut with a heavy in-development component. That makes a lot of sense someone would try that, actually.
* that looks quite lovely. You know, if Fantagraphics only published that Humbug collection and this book in the calendar year, that would be a very good calendar year.
Rand asked me to give you something on George Tuska.
Unfortunately, it's a frustrating, very short story. When I was a kid in the Bronx I used to shine shoes on Prospect Avenue. I bought very few comics because I never much liked -- still don't -- superheroes.
Captain Marvel was a favorite, as was Crime Does Not Pay.
The only reason I bought that book -- with my hard-earned dime, was because George Tuska was in it. I used to copy his gangsters with their fedoras and thug faces.
Fast forward about a hundred years, and I'm an editor at DC--a lofty positions I held for one year, two weeks and three days. Within that time, I met some of my heroes--none more valuable to me than Tuska.
Well -- in he walks into my office, portfolio in hand, looking very like a slightly moulting eagle -- in fact, the double of Samuel Beckett.
He was looking for work, Tom. That was shock number two. The first was seeing this imposing hero of my youth walk through the door. It was too much for me. I couldn't tell him how much he'd meant to me as I dreamed of becoming a cartoonist, copying his work line for line. I simply gave him the assignment, watched him leave, then sat for a long time doing nothing but being sad.
Analysts: September 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 September 2009.
In fact, it's Miller's analysis that I found the most interesting, as he feels comfortable at this point extrapolating for the year and barring a disastrous Fall and Christmas-shopping season, he sees things in that market remaining stable. Given the fears that folks had going into the year-long recession, I would imagine that's good news. It's not like things couldn't turn sour in a hurry, but I think most people given this option and an industry status report behind a curtain would take the relative stability.
I think I agree with the analysts that the top story for the month itself is the rare performance by certain Blackest Night comics: both the main title only dropping a tiny number of issues moving from issue #2 to issue #3 to various tie-ins actually growing in circulation. This is I imagine a good thing because the series and it tie-ins are finding their level which is 1) reasonably high, 2) doesn't come after burning off some numbers that indicate early issues were over-ordered. Also: I would have guessed that the well-regarded Incredible Hercules sold about 10,000 more copies -- I had no illusions that one was a hit, but but I didn't imagine it selling quite that poorly, either.
The notion that $3.99 pamphlets are having a severe effect on ordering of issues past a first issue is an interesting one, and makes a lot of sense. If any retailer out there would like to share their experience in that sense,
I thought the graphic novel chart was generally interesting, too, in that some titles seem to do strong supplementary business in comics shops while their main sales are elsewhere (Walking Dead, L&R, according to anecdotal evidence) while other entries on the list are very standard comics favorites (Batman-related stuff). And then there's Buffy, which I think may be performing over expectation in both markets.
Go, Look: Pierre Feuille Ciseaux this is from Sarah Glidden: photos and art from a comics festival that includes an exquisite corpse/comics storytelling type game whose rules are explained in the last image of the set
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* why are you here instead of looking at this?
* the cartoonist Evan Dorkin deserves his reputation as a word and concepts guy, but I sure like the way he drew this dog in a panel from one of his gag strips.
* not comics 01: here's an article about not fighting the revolution in art and culture that comes with recent technological innovation and instead re-focusing that energy on puzzling through the implications.
* this semi-longish interview with veteran comic book illustrator Steve Lieber is frequently funny and provides a lot of working-artist details that most interviews don't get into.
* not comics 04: I have a hard time enjoying even well-meaning articles about print dying like this one because the standards they use are so bizarre -- people willing to go to conferences, books on paper meaning the same thing as writing generally when maybe they're not interchangeable -- and yet so ill-defined that I'm not sure what they feel is in danger of extinction except everything staying the exact way it is right now or going back to some idealized past. I used to think only comics people were so invested in the exact shape and form of an industry as it exists at any one moment in time, but I'm reconsidering that position.
* finally, because Tom Devlin is a kind man, he's posted one more Judy Junior story before getting back to work. Thank you, Tom.
Everybody's yelling "Con War," which is fun when you don't have to fight in one. The competitive rivalry between Reed Exhibitions and whatever entity under which longtime Wizard Entertainment honcho Gareb Shamus is organizing his convention business these days entered into a new phase this weekend when the Shamus group announced their intention to run their just-completed Big Apple Comic Con the same weekend in the year 2010 as the New York Comic Con.
Having two conventions in the same city on the same weekend calls into questions a lot of interesting, long-developing stories in comics: Reed's attempt to become a major player in comics conventions building on their success in trade shows (they're also launching a Chicago show in Spring 2010), the Shamus' group attempt to retrench as a convention organizer and general pop culture web presence after staggering losses (in personnel terms) at their print magazines, the increasing important of such shows to comics entities and professionals, that New York will host two such shows after years of organizers circling the waters afraid to take the major-investment plunge, and the success of the two models of such shows as represented by each organization's track record.
It also becomes an interesting story because having two conventions in the same city on the same weekend practically guarantees the smaller show -- the Shamus show -- will gain in press opportunities may have the ability to seek out advantages in terms of general branding, guests and exhibitors. At the same time, each show's standard of success will be their own and no one fully knows how those standards will feel the impact of a nearby show, not to mention the pressure of the ramp-up, until the shows come off in 2010.
Reed Exhibitions VP of Books, Publishing and Pop Culture (and acknowledged NYCC show-runner) Lance Fensterman was nice enough to exchange e-mails interview-style. I appreciate him taking the time to do so.
TOM SPURGEON: Can I ask how surprised you were they'd go the same weekend? The way I see it, they had to announce sometime in the same general window, and going the same weekend made sense given their decision to have an Anaheim show the weekend of your Chicago show. Had you been operating with this latest sort of move in mind at all?
LANCE FENSTERMAN: I am not surprised in the least. They have launched two previous events, Anaheim, as you mentioned, on C2E2's dates and Toronto is on our PAX East dates (Penny Arcade Expo). There is a clear trend that even I can make out happening there.
SPURGEON: For that matter, does realizing there will be a large show in proximity -- whenever you did -- change anything about your strategy and work planning at all? Do you lock down guests more quickly? Will you be more careful about pricing strategies? Do you make general plans differently with a competitor very focused on a certain audience for comics? Or do you just do what you do?
FENSTERMAN: We believe we have a pretty good strategy towards our events and I think our track record indicates that. We put the industry, fans, exhibitors and guests first. If we please them we'll be rewarded with a stellar event and yes a good business proposition for ourselves. It's start with those entities. We have been in high growth mode for five years now, so we are always looking at how to grow the show and give the fans a great experience, but no, we won't alter our plans dramatically.
SPURGEON: The elephant in the room is dirty tricks, Lance. Or at least unsavory ones. Do you know of any attempts by any of your competitors to confuse potential guests as to which show they're attending? Is this a concern? Do you feel that there's a line to be crossed where someone can use terms or a kind of branding that occludes clear consumer choice? Does Reed have experience with this kind of thing and policy in terms of how to deal with it?
FENSTERMAN: I don't think there is any question when someone puts a similar named event, in the same city as the market leader on the same weekend, they are counting on drafting off our success and confusion as part of there business model. To me that's without question. We are aware of guest issues and exhibitor issues that are not what we would consider "above board" on the part of other events and we've chosen not to take action because, frankly, we believe we have a better business model because we consistently put the industry, the exhibitors, the fans and the guests first. That's a headache we don't need, we'd rather focus on our customers and growing this industry.
SPURGEON: How much will you welcome the press -- particularly local and regional press -- covering their show along with your show? Do you have a preference they not do this? Can you work with your press partners to ensure your show is covered in a way that doesn't allow another show to piggyback on press coverage you've earned? Is this an issue at all?
FENSTERMAN: That gets to be tricky. We have always had a very liberal press credential policy and embraced all forms of media, new and old, and I do not see that changing.
SPURGEON: Same question, but with your guests attending both shows?
FENSTERMAN: We have never employed any kind of "exclusive" clauses with our guests or our exhibitors nor will we. We think our events speak for themselves and will be the clear choice of where guests will want to spend there time the weekend of October 8th.
SPURGEON: Have there been any further developments in NYCC personnel being asked to leave the show last weekend? How do you feel about that now that you've had a couple of days to mull it over? Will that have any lingering effect, do you think?
FENSTERMAN: We've had a good time retelling the story here at the office! No, it's an illustration of how they chose to do business. We have always welcomed staffers from other shows to our events as we would any other professional -- free badges and freedom to conduct business.
SPURGEON: Does anything about the events being on the same weekend change any of your goals or benchmarks for that weekend? Where might adjustments be made? If not, why are you so confident in the lack of impact?
FENSTERMAN: We will not adjust our expectations at all. I firmly believe that when you are dedicated to the growth of an industry as we are, and focused on delighting the fans, the exhibitors and the guests (professionals) you cannot have a better proposition for success. We are well organized, professionally staffed, well funded and a strong track record. As I stated above, my most important task is assuring the audience knows that New York Comic Con is in 750,000 square feet of space at the Javits Center, not down the road.
SPURGEON: This may be a stab in the dark, but am I right in that Wizard and Reed had a relationship that extended to the first show or pair of shows that you did in New York? Can I assume any and all vestiges of that relationship are now terminated? Is there any lingering Wizard influence on the floor of NYCC, any Wizard left in your DNA?
FENSTERMAN: We advertised with them and they may have had a booth at one point, but nothing more than that.
SPURGEON: My bad. Hey, we're about six months away from C2E2, and as in a way that also represents a "turf battle" between yourself and the Wizard/Shamus camp, I wondered if I could sneak in a question there. I'm a former Chicago resident, so I recognize many of your upsides. The one thing I'm intensely curious about is one potential downside of having it out by Lake Michigan as opposed to Rosemont -- namely, the basic logistics and housing issues, getting people in and out of the show in a hard-to-negotiate city as opposed to highway-accessible suburban sprawl and the relatively easy parking out there. Can you sketch in broad terms how you expect people to come to the show? Do you expect regional attendance? Will there be shuttles, convention hotels, guaranteed parking at the show…? Do you foresee this as something about which the show's concerned?
FENSTERMAN: The upside is we will actually be in the city of Chicago, one of the greats cities in the world and we plan to use the city as a part of the con. The challenge is that yes, for some it will be a new routine or more costly, but I think when we educate our customers, they'll find that it is really not that expensive. We have a large stock of reasonable hotel rooms, the EL Train and the Metra (suburban lines) both run to McCormick, there is parking attached to the building, and cheaper parking a few blocks away and we will run shuttles. Shuttles will also be running form all the major hotels.
We expect very broad regional attendance and we plan for C2E2 to be a Midwest Wide Con. We'll be offering coach buses at a discount from major feeder cities (and major college cities) like Madison, South Bend, Milwaukee, etc. We are prepared for C2E2 to be a con that draws from all reaches of the Midwest and we've done our research on demographics and retail strong holds to plan for that.
a couple of the questions were tweaked for clarity in posting. Mr. Fensterman has yet to answer follow-ups on the Wizard con's extra day and a redirect on making the two shows distinct in the public's eye. I'll add them here if and when they come in; they weren't crucial to the end result.
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 stroke the spines of each and every one of these suckers.
*****
AUG090044 BEASTS OF BURDEN #2 (OF 4) $2.99 AUG090225 AIR #14 (MR) $2.99 AUG090355 INVINCIBLE #67 $2.99 AUG090019 CITIZEN REX #4 (OF 6) $3.50 AUG090542 DOMINIC FORTUNE #3 (OF 4) (MR) $3.99 AUG090365 UNDERGROUND #2 (OF 5) $3.50
Here's a small group of well-regarded standard comic books from various comic book creators. Air has sure hung in there.
MAY090058 NOIR TP VOL 01 $12.95
It used to be you could make a joke that projects like this were instituted just to garner Eisner nominations, but that's not so much the case anymore. This seems like it could be a reasonably strong snapshot of crime-related material from various working cartoonists. It's one of those books where a comics shop works really well, because I'd love to have this in my hands before buying.
JUN090206 FINAL CRISIS LEGION OF THREE WORLDS HC $19.99
There was so not enough pulling off of arms in this series. It was like all this cannon fodder everywhere, but not much cannoning.
AUG090853 BOOK ABOUT MOOMIN MYMBLE & LITTLE MY HC $16.95
This is the direct market debut of the D+Q-related children's book effort, so while it's not comics it should be swell-looking and should feature some lovely cartoon art.
AUG090859 TALKING LINES HC (MR) $29.95
I haven't jumped into this necessary collection of RO Blechman's work yet, but it has one of the most clever cover and appropriate designs I've seen in a long, long time. Check it out if your shop has one.
AUG090698 CTRL+ALT+DEL TP VOL 02 DARWIN WOULD BE PROUD $12.95
One of the better-performing gaming webcomics out there. It caught my attention here because I wasn't aware there was a volume one, although it makes sense.
AUG090607 DREAD & SUPERFICIALITY WOODY ALLEN AS COMIC STRIP HC VOL 01 $35.00
Hard to think of a time when Woody Allen was such a powerful cultural totem that the idea of turning his life/work/humor into a comics strip felt like a counter-culture victory when it appeared in your newspaper. I remember liking it just fine, but I was pretty young and desperate for adults to like me.
JUL091109 NAOKI URASAWA 20TH CENTURY BOYS GN VOL 05 $12.99
The best of the mainstream manga series out this week. I think.
SEP090891 FAMILY CIRCUS LIBRARY HC VOL 01 $39.99
I've been joking with the series editor that these books would be worth doing from a gig in the workplace standpoint just so you could occasionally call up and talk to the genuinely funny and charming Bil Keane on the phone. I look forward to seeing one of these just for the differences in art.
JUL091007 STORY OF O HC (A) $24.95
Guido Crepax: popular enough to have an entire half-shelf in the Fantagraphics library, circa mid-1990s; not popular enough to have his books stolen by the interns. This is no doubt very, very, naughty.
AUG091044 NEXUS SPACE OPERA TP $14.95
I couldn't quite follow the release schedule on this latest Mike Baron and Steve Rude return to their iconic 1980s indy comics character as it was coming out, and judging from the failure of the title to drive plans for more such series, I wasn't alone. Still, I'm going to be all over the trade.
AUG090737 STUART & KATHRYN IMMONENS NEVER BAD AS YOU THINK HC (O/A) $15.99
This book offers some crisp, smart cartooning. Also, I think the Immonens should host a selection of books every week.
*****
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 here, it's probably because our realities diverge on the existence of your book.
* the great Steve Duin runs a great essay by Gary Groth pooping all over Superman. We all need to do our part to make "lintheads" part of the general comics vernacular.
* not comics 02: everyone deserves one foul-mouthed teacher who the moment you graduate begins telling you all sorts of humiliating stories about the other faculty members. Goodbye, Mrs. Wasson. You would have had something funny and mean to say about this blog.
* not comics 03: about five of my friends have sent me the link to this profile of James Cameron in The New Yorker. It's filled with enough jaw-droppers you'll soon see why. He seems like an awful, awful man, although I imagine the kind of self-belief he evinces is necessary to function in that world a certain way. A line from Linda Hamilton made me laugh.
* finally, this line in a DC solicitation as republished here sort of captures the self-regard and madness of many titles today. "After things heated up in a firefight with the Red Tornado and Red Torpedo, Red Volcano has gone solo, abandoning his 'little brother', the Red Inferno." Words cannot describe how little that makes me want to buy this comic.
Flipped!: David Welsh On Junko Mizuno And Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu
By David P. Welsh
I wonder if editors and publishers of mainstream manga just weep when they think about Junko Mizuno. If she would only draw something simple or tell a straightforward story and use her prodigious skill to create something just plain cute, just imagine the money that could be made. But as weird and expansive as Japan's consumer culture can be, do a profitable number of people really want a cell-phone charm of a lovesick space ovary?
Of course, it's not as if Mizuno hasn't enjoyed success on her own terms. Her illustrations have been exhibited in art galleries around the world. She's created designs for merchandise ranging from figurines to t-shirts to stationery. She's been a guest at the Angoulême International Comics Festival and been published by Marvel Comics (in the first issue of Strange Tales). She's been profiled in periodicals like Juxtapoz, which succinctly described her aesthetic as "part Strawberry Shortcake, part Nightmare on Elm Street."
Mizuno seems to be a creator who's managed to craft a career without compromise. If she's potentially vexing to the part of the comics industry that wants to move product in predictable ways, she's got to be an inspiration to the creator contingent. Look how weird she gets to be, and look how successful she is because of it.
Her latest work to be translated into English is the first of three volumes of Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu, published by Last Gasp. As is generally the case with her comics, describing the plot sounds like retelling a dream spawned by spicy food and too much liquor. It stars the aforementioned space ovary, Pelu, who travels to Earth to find true love, or at least a woman to bear his child. Aside from an endearingly grotesque origin story, though, Pelu is less a protagonist than a master of ceremonies. What Pelu wants is immaterial to the women he pursues; some of them seem barely cognizant of his existence.
So what's the theme here? That's entirely up to the reader. As Mizuno said in an interview with Deb Aoki at About.Com, "I never try to send messages to people through my comics. I just want people to take it, however they want." Given that liberty, I would describe Pelu's quest as just a framing device that allows Mizuno to examine the resourcefulness and resilience of women, even kind of awful women. It also allows her to play with different tropes of different styles of manga storytelling.
"The Naked Enka Singer" is like giddy gekiga, a cotton-candy revision of a story that Yoshihiro Tatsumi might have told. It's about a shopgirl and her construction-worker boyfriend who are struggling to build her a career as a folk singer. They're doomed strivers in the classic Tatsumi fashion, but they're revealed through Mizuno's sparkly, subversive lens. "We're into kinky stuff a bit," she blushingly confesses to Pelu.
Mizuno hews close to shôjo in two of the stories here. In "The Sassy Girl and the Bad Boy," Mizuno introduces us to a ruthless, sailor-suited schoolgirl desperate for attention. Pelu is just one of the found objects she uses in her pursuit of the juvenile delinquent of her dreams. Mizuno happily plays the clich é-riddled scenario for gross-out farce than social commentary. "The Mysterious High School" has a little bit more satirical intent, juxtaposing a perfect, privileged princess with a poor, plain classmate. Mizuno takes the perils of socioeconomic envy to trippy extremes, and it's a treat.
She also dabbles in Daisuke Igarashi's brand of environmental fable with "Beach Maidens." Pelu and his scruffy, homeless pal meet a beautiful woman who dives for mollusks in the sewers. I'd actually love to see a straightforward version of this tale of sisterhood and treachery, but I'm perfectly content with Mizuno's wigged-out shorthand take.
I offer these summaries in hopes of illustrating how versatile Mizuno is, no matter how distinctive her style is. The creepy-cute thing isn't a shtick; it's a vehicle to tell stories, and Mizuno is a scrupulous storyteller. For all of the absurd digressions she layers on her plots, they do legitimately function as plots, and they're informed by genuine feeling. You could just gawp at her illustrations and get your money's worth out of Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu, or any of Mizuno's works, but there's passion on the pages beyond craft and imagination. Her work is creepy, cute, and (I suspect) completely sincere.
"I just try to enjoy making what I enjoy," Mizuno said in her interview with Aoki. There's an undeniable level of corporate influence in a lot of the comics from Japan that are translated. There are demographic expectations, particular styles and niches that magazines try to embody, and a profound concern with audience reaction. That Mizuno seems to have exempted herself from that system (which I hasten to add still generates lots of terrific comics) is another reason to embrace her striking, subversive work, above and beyond how very good it is.
*****
* Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu, written and illustrated by Junko Mizuno, produced by jaPRESS, published by Last Gasp, 168 pages, ISBN: 978-0-86719-700-6, July 2009, $17.95.
*****
* all art from Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu, selected by David P. Welsh
*****
David P. Welsh has loved comics since his parents first used Archie and Casper to sedate him during long trips in the family station wagon.
He's worked as a reporter and editor for daily and weekly newspapers, and later sold out for the glamorous world of public relations. Prior to relocating to The Comics Reporter, he wrote his Flipped column for Comic World News for just over three years. He's written articles on comics for print outlets and a variety of other web sites.
He lives in West Virginia, which he says has gotten a lot easier since the Starbucks and Barnes & Noble opened up.
You may e-mail David with questions or commentary You can write to this site about David's columns
Your Last Weekend's Prize Winners
* the cartoonist Will Dinski's Covered In Confusionwon this year's Isotope Mini-Comics Awards. Kudos to James Sime and the gang for pulling off the awards in a period of high-stress. It was apparently announced, as usual, at the Sunday night post-APE party. I was a judge; I had both of Dinski's entries in the top five I submitted, and I'm happy with the final choice.
* Hermann won something called the Grand Prix de la bande dessinee du Brabant wallon, which I believe is tied into a Belgian festival that is there to specifically promote Belgian comics and cartoonists and should therefore be seen in the context of other civic efforts on behalf of that tradition as much as it is another award. A best foreign album award went to the Italian book Medz Yeghern: Le grand mal by Paolo Cossi; best album went to Jolie Tenebres by Sebastien and Marie Kerascoet with Fabien Vehlmann. The real reason to go look at the link is that the prize design is an obvious one I've nonetheless not seen before.
* the great cartoonist Lat was one of six Malaysians named a 1Malaysian Icon in service of a cultural initiative that sounds both major and daunting.
Maryland Kids Safe From Goku's Peeny
After the complaints of a local politician about the content of Dragon Ball Vol. 1, the series has been removed from all school libraries in Wicomico County, Maryland, that locale's superintendent office announced late last week. I'm a great fan of that series, so I'm distressed by its dismissal as trash during the kerfuffle and the apparent orientation of educators involved that comics have value as reading matter for stupid and/or reluctant people as opposed to value of their own. I also despise culture warmongering in general, and this has elements of that.
At the same time, I find something it almost more encouraging that the system is making a choice on a series rather than their previous state of having no idea what was in their library. The fact that the book didn't seem to find an eloquent, on-the-ground defender -- I'd be happy to make that kind of defense, but I don't live there -- just makes me wonder after how they and organizations like them routinely procure books. I'm also sympathetic to people not wanting their younger children to have access to the brief nudity and sexual discomfit jokes in at least the book in question. I guess my ideal would have been for them to keep the series for older readers and to stumble towards some sort of recognition of its value based on why they shelved it in the first place.
There's an interesting post here by guide author and English-language manga expert Jason Thompson on the difficulty of editing content with those kinds of books, namely way devoted fans reject what they perceive as an inauthentic experience of those books.
Auction And Sketches At Komikon 2009 Raises Money For Flood Victims
There is a series of lovely-looking photos form the just-past Komikon 2009 here, the top one of which informs us that organizers were able to use the event to raise about $1700 USD for victims of recent flooding throughout the nation. You can find more information through links available at that posting. Kiel Phegley's well-written article late last week reminded me of the then-forthcoming effort.
Two other less-important pieces but still fun pieces of news I can see in the photos is that international comics expert John Lent does appear to travel to those things. There was a tiny percentage of my soul fearful that when I ran article about cartoonists in Turkey or wherever John was just having a laugh making them all up. How would I know? The other is that Gerry Alanguilan's Elmer, the best comic ever about sentient chickens and their ability to find a place in the new world created by their awakening, has apparently been collected.
If You Must Read A PR-Driven Story...
... I liked this one on R. Crumb's Genesis book by Frank Browning at NPR, even though it seems awfully silly for him to suggest that no comics have print runs of 100K when the next Asterix will have a three million print run in the French-language version alone. What I liked about it was the quote work: pretty good ones from Crumb and peer Gilbert Shelton, and a very good one from Jean-Luc Fromental that describes the way I think most people will see Genesis as a valuable work.
As far as it being news that Robert Crumb is driving feature articles with his first major book, I'm not sure how that's a story at all!
Fairey Amends Obama Suit Papers
I'm not sure this is really a comics story although the famous image at the center of the story has cartoon elements to it and certainly much of the artist Shepard Fairey's work has such elements. Anyway, Editor & Publisherhas a lengthy update and further links about Fairey copping to altering some potential evidence, asserting that another AP photos was the basis of the image and admitting that his lawyers wanted out. What's strange is that I always thought his original claim, that the image as used was drastically altered to the point of becoming its own thing was a strong enough stance with which to go into any of the related legal battle.
* I don't get it -- just because they close your post office branch doesn't mean you stop getting mail. Pluggers don't understand how mail works?
* the cartoonist Eddie Campbell's march through modern graphic novels continues with a look at Exit Wounds.
* finally, more than a couple of people are taking note of this Fall's price war, driven by Wal-Mart or Amazon depending on which article you read, as a bad thing for booksellers in general.
I wanted to write something positive today. One thing I feel most positive about when it comes to comics is our collective ability to find and purchase them. This may sound silly, but surely one of the transformative experiences of comics culture over the last 30 years is a move from scarcity (not being able to find or perhaps even learn about the comics one desires) to sorting (finding the comics one truly wants in a sea of availability). The comic shop with all its faults is best understood by looking at a spinner rack in your local Osco's. A convention's identity as a gathering of tribes or fulfillment of on-line social networking seems more grounded and less frivolous when you realize that it used to be the place you went to find comics you wouldn't see otherwise. In the promise of a small-press show, or when one hears about a certain kind of convention sketchbook, it may still be that way.
A final step in bringing all of the comics into play has been ease of access to various seller via on-line sources. Comics fans today frequently make use of publisher sites, cartoonist sites, old-comics sites and mail-order sites with an on-line component. They may even judge their brick and mortar comics shop against the discounts, ubiquity and ease of service of Amazon.com.
These are all great; I use them, too. But the one service that has changed the way I buy comics more than any other and the one where I think there's the most potential growth in terms of its everyday use by serious, devoted comics readers is the used bookstore listing service AbeBooks.com. There are similar services out there; much of what I like about AbeBooks applies to them, too. I'm sure folks' experiences vary, and there are those out there with bad experiences in terms of that kind of service, specific or general. I'm also quite certain that there is something about the purchase of the site by Amazon.com a couple of years ago that people find alarming or distressing either in practice or on principle. It even seems likely to me that this kind of on-line listing has had a horrific effect on people keeping brick and mortar stores of the kind you used to find a flat dozen or so worthy representatives in every major city. I can't speak to those things, partly from ignorance, and mostly because I almost always have a good experience that suits my needs perfectly. It may not be an overall boon for everyone, and I'll explore anyone making that case, but it's been a general boon to me.
Here are few words on each of seven ways I use that site -- and similar sites -- to supplement my comics buying needs.
1. It's a place to collect all those cartoonists who still exist mostly in older, forgotten book form.
I don't know if there are any comics being published today better than the best Peter Arno or Charles Addams books, two New Yorker cartoonists I think are best served by classic collections of their material. While we wait for the Barnaby deal to be struck, there are two great hardcovers from the 1940s and a handful of paperbacks from the 1980s that are out there ready to be brought home. The image at the top of this post is from a cartoonist turned kinetic sculpture artist named Rowland Emett -- the interest in most of his books died out with the train culture they gently satirized, but they're still out there to be had and enjoyed by fans of delicate linework and clever cartooning. Anne Cleveland, Chon Day, Abner Dean, Oliver Harrington... they're all out there waiting for you to read them ahead of any publisher who may or may not give them back to you in as full, lively or well-designed form. It's worth hitting that search button at least.
2. It's a way to access single volume needs or fill-ins -- reading copies, in particular -- and flat-out lost books.
I don't buy my standard comics trades through the sellers who list on AbeBooks, but I have certainly filled holes and bought single-volumes I needed in a hurry. For instance, I purchased an Essential X-Men trade for an essay I wanted to write on Dave Cockrum and received a sturdy copy about four days later for less than $5 total. The problem with a lot of buying these kinds of books this way is that you build up a lot of postage charges, so I've relegated the service in this case to my need-soon pinch-hitter and buy in fits and flurries elsewhere, qualifying for free postage. AbeBooks has an excellent on-base percentage, though, in terms of those single opportunities, and I use it about once a month this way. The sites also provides an easy way to find outright obscurities that aren't likely to be found in your local comic shop, or, really, any such store. For example, James Vance recently linked to an article that profiled the 1980s furry scene comics figure Kevin Duane and mentioned his anthology The I Hate Unicorns Book. I snagged a copy for less than $5 total off of one of the four booksellers offering that title.
3. It's a place find all those sort-of comic books out there.
The used bookstores and book sellers left out there don't make the same distinctions we do between books that are obviously comics and books that aren't quite what we think of when we think of that word. It is therefore very easy through AbeBooks to locate copies of Terry Gilliam's book of animation art, Animations Of Mortality, pictured above, or one of the joke captions over photos books that Stan Lee has done intermittently throughout his career, more than one under the basic title "You Don't Say." I once spent six years taking a few seconds in every bookstore I entered to see if I could locate a copy of the artist Tony Fitzpatrick's poetry and paintings book Hard Angels; it took the site less than six seconds early today to track down more than a few, plus copies of the same artist's Max And Gaby's Alphabet. With more and more sort-of comics hybrids hitting the market, this could be the place where I buy the one or two a year that catch my interest.
4. The search engine may inform you of an appearance with which you're not familiar.
I like the AbeBooks.com search engine much more than that offered by the other used bookstore listing mechanisms. A few of these sellers sell comic books, and while I tend not to buy comics from these sellers having them listed as books with an emphasis on the authors involved rather than condition or grade or character yields an advantage when working with obscure cartoonists. If you look up the late Pacific Northwest cartoonist Paul Ollswang, for example, you'll be reminded not just of his long out-of-print collections but a few of his anthology appearances, like the one in the comic above. If you're a completist, it's a place you should stop just to be sure.
5. It's a great place to check out other publishing efforts on behalf of comics you may already collect.
One of the growing joys of comic strips that are now being offered in these massive and admittedly wonderful complete volumes is that they absolve earlier and less complete attempts at publishing that work from failing to do so. They can thus be enjoyed as stand-alone works on their own, with a more rigid beginning and end, perhaps at a size or with a design that personally appeals to you. I've talked in the past about my fondness for 1970s Doonesbury collections, and noted that Barnes and Noble still seems to do a bang-up business with less-than-complete strip volumes like the original Calvin and Hobbes books and Peanuts Treasury, originally published I believe in the late 1960s. Sometimes it's not only about getting all of the comics, but the comics you like, presented in a way you like for reasons all your own.
6. It's an easy way to check out illustration and children's book gigs by your favorite cartoonists.
As is the case with the obscure books published by your favorite cartoonists, the search engine will also throw up the occasional illustration or even children's book gig. Searching Lorenzo Mattotti tosses up Eugenio and The Cranky Sun right alongside the comics Fires and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Look up the wonderful MAD artist Jack Davis and one of the common entries is his great-looking mid-'60s kids' book with Barbara Cary, Meet Abraham Lincoln. There are artists from whom each of us likely wants to see everything, not just the comics work.
7. And sometimes you see one or two things that make you wish you were really, really rich.
I've been tempted by a few of the very expensive things I've seen in standard comic book shops, but I tend to be more attracted to the things that drive values up in bookstores. Gross oversimplification: In a comic shop, a comic book that looks like it's never been touched is more valuable; in books, a volume that seems as if it were signed to and then manhandled by a noteworthy personality is worth more cash. If someone were to give me $1797 to spend on comics there's an 80 percent chance I'd come home with 1797 issues of Thor, I'd sure consider a copy of Passport signed by Saul Steinberg to designer Paul Rand complete with two pages of Rand's Steinberg-like doodles (!) before I'd ever look seriously at 18 selections from DC's Absolute Editions library. And I like those books.
*****
20 Comics Or Comics-Related Books I Own I've Bought Through An On-Line Service
* Animations Of Mortality, Lucinda Cowell and Terry Gilliam, Eyre Methuen: 1978.
* Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley, Crockett Johnson, Henry Holt: 1944.
* Curious Avenue, Tom Toles, Andrews McMeel: 1993.
* Emett's Domain: Trains, Trams, and Englishmen, Rowland Emett, Harcourt/Brace: 1953.
* Hard Angels, Tony Fitzpatrick, Janet Fleisher Gallery: 1988.
* Harlem as Seen by Hirschfeld, Al Hirschfeld and William Saroyan, Hyperion Press: 1941.
* It's a Long Way to Heaven, Abner Dean, Farar and Rinehart: 1945.
* It's Better With Your Shoes Off, Anne Cleveland, Tuttle Co.: 1955.
* Max and Gaby's Alphabet, Tony Fitzpatrick, Museum Of Contemporary Art: 2001.
* Night Becomes Day, Richard McGuire: Viking Juvenile: 1994.
* Peter Arno's Circus, Peter Arno, Horace Liveright: 1931.
* Peter Arno's Hullabaloo, Peter Arno, Horace Liveright: 1930.
* Peter Arno's Parade, Peter Arno, Horace Liveright: 1929.
* Richard's Poor Almanac, Richard Thompson, Emmis: 2004
* Sizzling Platter, Peter Arno, Simon & Schuster: 1949.
* The Best Ride To New York, Bob Levin, Harper & Row: 1978.
* The I Hate Unicorns Book, Edited by Kevin Duane, Protostar: 1984.
* There Are Ladies Present Helen Hokinson, Dutton, 1952.
* They'll Do It Every Time, Jimmy Hatlo, Avon: 1951.
* You Don't Say, Stan Lee, Non-Pareil: 1963.
FFF Results Post #185 -- 4th Estate
On Friday, CR readers were asked to "Name Your Five Favorite Characters that Work in the Media." This is how they responded.
1. Brenda Starr
2. Billy Batson
3. Lois Lane
4. Vicky Vale
5. April O'Neil
*****
Paul Stock
1) Donald Dduck (career at Disney)
2) Clark Kent
3) Peter Parker, photographer
4) I'll go with Studs Kirby, too.
5) - NO! NUMBER ONE!: Philbert Desanex
1. Tintin, supposed reporter (has he ever filed a goddamned story?)
2. J. Jonah Jerk Jameson, publisher/crank
3. Reuben Flagg, owner of pirate station Q-USA
4. Billy Batson, boy radio reporter
5. Popeye, "star reporter"/co-owner of the Daily Blast and iirc, also an editor in another storyline
*****
Will Pfeifer
1. Jimmy Olsen
2. J. Jonah Jameson (an obvious choice, but c'mon!)
3. Dan Pussey
4. Vic Sage
5. Steve Lombard
*****
Russel Lissau
1. Meredith Van Zeyl (The Batman Strikes)
2. Ben Urich (Daredevil)
3. JJJ (Spidey)
4. Rick Redfern (Doonesbury)
5. Kermit the Frog
1. Matty Roth
2. Spider Jerusalem
3. Ben Urich
4, Robbie Robertson
5. Kent Brockman
*****
Thomas Scioli
1. Clark Kent
2. Vic Sage
3. Billy Batson
4. Johnny Flagg
5. Lois Lane
*****
Michael Grabowski
1. Robbie Robertson
2. Peter Parker
3. Mike Moran
4. Morgan Edge
5. Lois Lane
*****
Mark Waid
1. Scribbly Jibbet
2. Oscar Asherman
3. J. Jonah Jameson
4. Iris West
5. Rush Limbaugh
*****
Andrew Mansell
1. Lester Gooch creator of Fearless Fosdick (Li'l Abner)
2. Jimmy Olsen For A Day columnist
3. Snap Hunter International Photographer (Johnny Hazard)
4. Poteet Canyon reporter for FLAM magazine (Steve Canyon)
5. Brenda Starr outsourced Reporter
*****
Tom Bondurant
1. Lois Lane
2. Mark Slackmeyer
3. Hilton Krieger
4. Billy Batson
5. J. Jonah Jameson
*****
Scott Dunbier
* Milo Bloom
* Clark Kent
* Billy Batson
* P. Martin Shoemaker
* R. Crumb (as a reporter for Mother Jones or The New Yorker)
*****
Matt Blind
1. Kermit the Frog
2. Spider Jerusalem
3. Matty Roth
4. J. Jonah Jameson
5. Brenda Starr
1. J Jonah Jameson
2. Milo Bloom
3. Tenzil Kem
4. April O'Neil
5. Dennis Hough (The American)
*****
Justin J. Major
1. Kent Brockman (The Simpsons)
2. Steve Lombard (Superman)
3. Morbo the Annihilator (Futurama)
4. Jack Ryder (The Creeper)
5. Johnny Chambers (All-Star Squadron)
First Thought Of The Day
It's very much throwing a calcified tater tot from a house made of peanut brittle and sporting a ranch dressing moat, but Muncie sure is putting the middle in Middletown, USA these days.
2. Stitchesbecomes second graphic novel up for National Book Award; there's some huffing and puffing about it being in a Young Adult category that mostly goes away when word came out that it was the publisher's decision.
George Tuska, a comic book artist who was one of the few of his peers to have measurable success in both the the initial 1930s-1940s flood of comic book production and during their revival as more of a specialty publishing form in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, passed away near the stroke of midnight between October 15 and October 16.
Tuska was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1916. His parents were Russian immigrants who met in America. Tuska's father died when the future comic book artist was a teen, and his mother worked two shifts as a cook in a restaurant she established on her own. It was as a child that Tuska suffered the fever that initially damaged his hearing.
Like many future comic book artists, Tuska saw more general training as an artist before moving into that field. His lambiek.net entry has him finishing studies at the National Academy School Of Art in 1937, while an initial obituary asserts he may have attended classes the National Academy of Design as late as 1939; I would favor the latter. In an interview from 2001 conducted by PC Hamerlinck, Tuska describes his move into art thusly:
After high school I visited my aunt in New York City, where I ended up working a few odd jobs. One was designing women's costume jewelry. It was fun, but I soon found out that it just wasn't my thing. Shortly thereafter, a friend of mine invited me to work out with him, lifting weights at a local gym. I exercised for five hours that day. The next day I was so sore I couldn't get out of bed. My friend came over, and we dropped in to visit a friend of his who was a sculptor. His studio was on one of the West 70s Streets, overlooking Central Park. I never got to know his name, but he knew I was interested in art, so he recommended me to the National Academy of Design. At the time it was located at 104th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Thus began my art career!"
Better documented than the length and location of his schooling is that Tuska began his comics career during the industry's initial burst of publishing activity, joining the Eisner/Iger studio and working as an assistant on the newspaper strip Scorchy Smith in roughly the same time period. For Eisner/Iger he worked on the titles Jungle, Mystery Men, Planet Wonderworld and Wings. He joined the Harry "A" Chesler Studio for a while, where he contributed work to features such as Captain Marvel, Golden Arrow and Uncle Sam. He would later work for Eisner after his separation from Iger. Other publishers for whom Tuska worked in this initial period included Quality Comics -- for whom he created the character "Hercule" -- Fiction House, Harvey, Fox and Standard.
Tuska was drafted into military service during what looks like the latter phase of World War II. Although comics artists of that period didn't always find a deployment that took advantage of those skills, Tuska served his country at South Carolilna's Fort Jackson as an artist. He drew military plans, and found time to provide illustrations to army magazines.
Tuska returned to comics after the war, and enjoyed his first major success as a reliable performer on a variety of features in the best-selling Crime Does Not Pay title, splitting time between that work and on solid adventure titles of the period such as Black Terror and Doc Savage. He also did his first sustained work for Marvel, turning in pencil work on a variety of gigs into the early 1950s.
Tuska was one of many comics artists to see his workload in comic books decrease due to circulation and censorship issues in the 1950s. He found work in comic strips. Tuska returned to the adventure strip Scorchy Smith as its primary artist from 1954 to 1959. He then took over on both dailies and Sundays with Buck Rogers, a job he kept well until the 1960s (he dropped the Sundays a couple of years after the dailies, in 1967).
A drop in the popularity of adventure strips and a more stable market than that which existed in the previous decade began to entice the veteran illustrator back into the comic book fold. Although his re-entry into comic books came through Tower Comics, perhaps the most famous entity that tried to capitalize on the success of new superhero books at DC and Marvel, he is best known for his work at Marvel during this period. One early assignment that grew in stature over the years was inking Jack Kirby on the Captain America "Sleeper" storyline that appeared over several issues of Tales Of Suspense. He worked fill-in slots on various titles, before setting in on the Iron Man character for a decade-long run. Tuska also found work with the Luke Cage character, as well as performing duties on Ghost Rider, X-Men and Daredevil.
Earlier this year, the AV Club examined his work during this time period for the article "Reinventing The Pencil," and singled him out as the embodiment of a certain kind of uninspired craftwork:
"It's hard to find anyone who would say a bad word against [Tuska] as a man. But as an artist, his Silver Age work for Marvel Comics... Well, it wasn't exactly bad; Tuska was perfectly competent, and his art for titles like Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk is decent, though unspectacular. But his drawing was so quickly assayed, and so essentially flavorless, that he became the King Of The Fill-In Issue, hopping in to provide bland, forgettable work whenever someone else blew a deadline. He thus played an inadvertent part in setting up the Big Two's creed of speed over quality, and helped establish the Marvel house style, which nurtured some young artists, but acted as an artistic straitjacket for others."
Another way to look at Tuska's work during this period was that he did so many fill-in comics because the expansion in the Marvel line put a significant strain on the available talent pool; a versatile artist who could produce professional work on short notice must have been a huge boon to that company's bottom line. It's unclear if Tuska suffered a bit in terms of overall ease making the transition from strips back into comic books, and whether he felt entirely comfortable working under the basic model established by Jack Kirby: his layouts were certainly more imaginative than the standard at the time, and the way in which characters like Luke Cage held a lot of their strength in their shoulders and punched from their legs up through their torsos betrayed his knowledge of strength and fitness. His signature flourish may have been characters in arrested motion, coiled in preparation for violence like so many pulp heroes of an earlier generation, legs splayed in the form of a near-base ready for what might come next. While perhaps slightly diminished in otherworldly power that many comics artists milked from the contrast of stillness and exaggerated movement, Tuska's heroes almost certainly suffered fewer muscle pulls.
In the 1970s, Tuska took one last journey into the world of newspaper strips, becoming the artist on the World's Greatest Superheroes effort featuring DC Comics heroes. He also worked for that company's comic book line on various titles in much the same plug and play manner in which -- save for Iron Man -- he was employed by Marvel.
Tuska retired from comics in the middle 1980s, but remained active in commissions up until several weeks preceding his passing. As more and more attention began to be paid to the comic book artists of the past through the development of magazine sources, Tuska received attention as a physically impressive memorable presence to many in that first generation of comic book artist. Dewey Cassell's book, The Art Of George Tuska, was published by TwoMorrows in 2005, documenting various phases to his long career. A thinly disguised version of Tuska, a character called "Gar Tooth," appeared in Will Eisner's 1986 paean to the early days of comics, The Dreamer. Like many personal reminiscences of Tuska, that portrayal was of someone physically imposing -- as noted above, Tuska began to lift weights at about the same time he entered into art -- but of a friendly, even gentle nature. He has recently been an Eisner Hall of Fame nominee.
One of the stranger and surprisingly telling tributes paid Tuska in recent years has been the occasional Internet posting either including or outright centered around a panel from his short run on Hero For Hire, where in that title's ninth issue Luke Cage brazenly asks Dr. Doom for monies owed with the line "Where's My Money, Honey?" While that issue may be best remembered for that oddball bit of street slang from Steve Englehart, the story itself turns on Tuska's ability to depict comic book violence in a way that blends fantasy and reality: namely, the character's decision to strike a specific point in the bad guy's armor until it's weakened and begins to malfunction. In that sequence, Luke Cage certainly came across as a man with the ability to punch his way into Marvel's upper tier of superheroes, and through his portrayal of a corrective, "what if?" situation that added to rather than subtracted from the general storyline of a still wobbly Marvel Universe, Tuska cemented his reputation as one of the more iconic superhero artists of that decade -- two full generations after entering comics.
George Tuska was 93 years old. He is survived by his beloved wife of over 60 years, Dorothy, their three children and a number of grandchildren and great-granchildren.
Day By Day Cartoon Draws Attention, Ire And Even Inferences Of Threat
Blogimus Prime Andrew Sullivan got there first and flexes his usual efficient writing muscles to point out a weird Chris Muir Day By Day cartoon and the equally weird responses to it at some super-sensitive nodes around the Internet. Basically, Muir put a rant about the growing dictatorship infrastructure into the mouth of one of his characters holding a knife, which some people took as a subtle suggestion of violence. I think that's pretty silly, but I'm not sure it's any more silly than the rant itself, which is presented with the comics equivalent of a straight face. I envy the drama and sense of purpose that must come in a life that is perceived by its agent to be living in stalwart resistance to various Washington D.C. diktats.
All Eyes Toward The American Coasts
* the Alternative Press Expo gets going tomorrow in San Francisco, California. There have been so many dramatic stories in terms of conventions and convention-going over the last 12 months that one forgets we're still very early in an experiment by APE's mothership company, which includes WonderCon and Comic-Con International, to bracket its San Francisco show on either side of its San Diego one. There are other ways to look at APE, too: in terms of whether or not with an increased nationwide convention schedule if San Francisco can support two shows, how this show relates to a show like SPX perhaps in terms of drawing more west coast talent, whether or not the vendors favor comics or is more generally predisposed towards handmade art. Robot 6 has a breakdown of who is doing what where.
* if I were going to APE, I would 1) buy a copy of John Pham's Sublife #2 -- I saw the pages last summer and they're super-pretty and Pham should be encouraged to make more comics in every way possible; 2) take a look at what Anders Nilsen might have for sale at the Drawn and Quarterly booth; 3) buy the new Rina Ayuyang comic from Sparkplug; 4) go see Jeff Smith's spotlight panel and his participation in a quick draw activity; 5) find out something about the publishing future of the great Phoebe Gloeckner; 5) visit as many of the local comics shops or at least their booth set-ups if I could, culminating in Isotope's big party with their mini-comics award winner. If I hadn't been invited to a wedding this weekend, I'd certainly be there.
* early word from the show itself indicates that the con will be held next year from October 7-10, 2010. Watch for a spate of headlines noticing this from various blogs and news sites. Why? Well, for one reason, next year's New York Comic-Con is October 8-10. This is great news for those of us who like to sit back and watch gigantic comics entities beat on each other and try to out-compete each other, and particularly good news for those of us who thought Wizard would get only as close as a week away from the Reed Exhibitions show on either side. This puts the two shows in direct competition, with anything resembling a draw favoring the smaller Wizard show. Also, with an extra day, Wizard may be able to convince even NYCC attendees to also do their show. This will all be watched very, very closely.
Go, Look: Stick In The Mud I know some of you feel that many of the stories at the other end of these horror links are almost unreadable, but I love the individual panel
According 
* one thing that may have been lost in the news about The Comics Journal moving the bulk of its regular output on-line 
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Robert Crumb's The Book Of Genesis Illustrated has been a big hit with the media. The combination of the Bible, comics, and a 1960s icon best known for breaking artistic taboos about sex and human relationships paves the way for everything from a two-line twitter post to an extended feature article. Here's this morning's contribution: 
* yesterday's 
* C. Spike Trotman is funding her second self-published project Poorcraft 
"It was always a strain to assemble eight commercially viable issues that were also aesthetically pleasing -- balancing that fine line -- every year. I feel much more comfortable concentrating our resources on fewer print editions each year and spending some of those resources on our web presence. It's no secret that newspapers and magazines are suffering because so much of what they've traditionally done can be done on the web, faster and cheaper. We decided therefore to redesign the editorial and physical format of the magazine to take advantage of what print's best at -- upscale production values, longer prose, more permanent content -- and bring the Journal's mandate for criticism and commentary to the web with a vengeance.
Lulu, femme nue by Etienne Davodeau 
* everyone is agog over 
According to 
* 
"I'm guessing Junji Ito also suffers from 
For as-yet-untranslated shivers, Jog pointed to 
Tokyopop Senior Editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl opts for both 
The Korea Times 
+ although impossible to confirm, all three major con organizers seem to have, at some point in their past, scheduled shows with an eye on what the other two entities had planned. 
* in the latest installment of what I think is a recurring feature, Chris Mautner recommends how people 
* missed it: a comic 
His life's work Jommeke enjoyed a modest start in 1955 as a gag comic for the Catholic newspaper Kerkelijk Leven, for whom he would later make a number of more realistic-looking religious-themed anthologies. That initial burst of Jommeke comics ran for three years and were collected into books, along with other work he was doing at the time. In 1958, Jommeke moved to the daily Het Volk and became a story-strip, with two strips a day feeding 44-page stories. Through most of the 1960s he made Jommeke comics and continued to do fill-in work on other serials and launch supplementary features of his own. By the 1970s, he had focused much of his attention on his most successful feature. By the late 1970s, over two million copies of Jommeke books were selling each year, and initial printings of new works were in the six-figure range. 
It was also in the 1970s that Nys began to farm some of the Jommeke work out to other creators, first in terms of additional inkers, then to artists and writers, work that eventually scaled back as the feature fell from the absolute height of his popularity. He was still contributing work to the feature shortly before his death. 
* the second season of Comix Claptrap 
* the Robert Kirkman-written Astounding Wolf-Man 
Captain Marvel was a favorite, as was Crime Does Not Pay.
* 
* the cartoonist Evan Dorkin deserves his reputation as a word and concepts guy, but I sure like the way he drew this dog in a panel from 
* it looks like a fine discussion of proto-graphic novels 
Her latest work to be translated into English is the first of three volumes of 
* there's a bunch of George Tuska stuff out there, celebrating the life of the late, longtime veteran comic book artist. Here's 
Better documented than the length and location of his schooling is that Tuska began his comics career during the industry's initial burst of publishing activity, joining the Eisner/Iger studio and working as an assistant on the newspaper strip Scorchy Smith in roughly the same time period. For Eisner/Iger he worked on the titles Jungle, Mystery Men, Planet Wonderworld and Wings. He joined the Harry "A" Chesler Studio for a while, where he contributed work to features such as Captain Marvel, Golden Arrow and Uncle Sam. He would later work for Eisner after his separation from Iger. Other publishers for whom Tuska worked in this initial period included Quality Comics -- for whom he created the character "Hercule" -- Fiction House, Harvey, Fox and Standard.
A drop in the popularity of adventure strips and a more stable market than that which existed in the previous decade began to entice the veteran illustrator back into the comic book fold. Although his re-entry into comic books came through Tower Comics, perhaps the most famous entity that tried to capitalize on the success of new superhero books at DC and Marvel, he is best known for his work at Marvel during this period. One early assignment that grew in stature over the years was inking Jack Kirby on the Captain America "Sleeper" storyline that appeared over several issues of Tales Of Suspense. He worked fill-in slots on various titles, before setting in on the Iron Man character for a decade-long run. Tuska also found work with the Luke Cage character, as well as performing duties on Ghost Rider, X-Men and Daredevil.
