According to a press release dropped earlier this evening, Comic-Con International has decided to extend its relationship with the city of San Diego and the San Diego convention center, ending an extensive process during which the city was heavily wooed by convention officials from Anaheim and Los Angeles.
According to the official press release, the con will stay in San Diego through 2015. "We are grateful for the tireless efforts all three cities put into to their proposals," CCI Director of Marketing and Publication Relations David Glanzer was quoted as saying in the press release."In the end, we feel this decision is the best for all those who attend Comic-Con and for the organization itself. We are happy that the community has worked with us to ensure that we remain here"
The press release cited the self-imposed attendance limit in 2007-2010, the last three of which were capped at 125,000 people, as the reason they looked to other cities.
The convention was founded in 1970 in San Diego by area fans, and from those beginnings, where the entire show was focused on a single hotel's available space, has become a city-wide event, jamming area hotel rooms and putting more than 125,000 people into the expansive convention center. Over the last decade the swell of fantasy franchise movies and television shows has fueled Hollywood's interest in the show to the point where Comic-Con has become a major entertainment industry event to rival any role it's ever played for the comics world. Debates rage among fans over where those Hollywood interests have pulled the show away from its comics roots or, alternatively, if the comics core of the show remains as strong as ever and the show is merely pursuing its traditional interests across media. A move to entertainment industry capital Los Angeles or Disney-dominant Anaheim might have exacerbated the claims of the former camp.
*****
I spoke to CCI spokesperson David Glanzer upon hearing news of their decision.
TOM SPURGEON: David, congratulations on finalizing your choice. Can you paint the picture of the moment when you came to the decision -- was it a meeting, was it a conference call? And to follow up slightly, what was the mood in the room once the decision was made? Is there a sense of relief to having all of this over with?
DAVID GLANZER: It wasn't really a particular moment per se. We made no secret of the fact that we would, in a perfect world, love to stay in San Diego. We just had to be sure that whatever decision we made would really have to have more pluses than minuses. In the end I think we came to a good decision. As for a sense of relief, yes, I think there is to a small degree. But there's going to be a tremendous amount of work ahead of us and we're all very aware of that.
SPURGEON: It's been two full months now since the decision was tabled. I don't know if you'll care to, but could you share what it was that you were considering in these last few weeks, what factors drove that extra consideration? What were you looking at?
GLANZER: I don't know that the decision was really tabled. There were just a lot of things to look at. With three different proposals, there were additions, changes, things that each city thought might mitigate some of our concerns. So, in the end, it really took much longer than I think anyone on this end ever thought it would.
SPURGEON: How much did the operation of this year’s convention play into the final decision; is there anything that worked well that you found particularly encouraging?
GLANZER: Well, the addition of the hotels meeting space really has helped us. Last year we utilized the Bayfront Hilton to much success and this year we added the Marriott Marina. The fact that attendees didn't mind going off-site so much was, I feel, a good indicator that things could work if we stayed.
SPURGEON: I'm not sure I'm totally correct about the primacy of these issues, but I wanted to ask you about how Comic-Con feels the situation stands right now on a couple of key issues. What do you have from San Diego in terms of the hotel situation that makes you comfortable that will be a smoother issue going forward? Are there more rooms? Did you get caps on certain price points regarding rooms?
GLANZER: Well, we've received assurances that we will have access to more rooms for our room bloc. This gives us the possibility of doubling the amount of rooms available to our attendees. Rates are always an issue, and the hotels fully understand this. This agreement will hopefully keep hotel rates competitive.
SPURGEON: The second issue is the convention center itself. How confident are you that the convention center and San Diego can handle this very popular show in the years ahead? Do you see or know about expansion in the future? Are there plans that you have worked out concerning outside facilities being employed?
GLANZER: We reached a self-imposed attendance limit several years ago and our deliberations on the proposals never really considered the expansion because we knew any expansion wouldn't even be complete until after 2015. So while we are faced with flat income, the center has worked with us in allowing signage and the like at the center which helps us defray costs. You know we've been in San Diego for 40 years, and at this facility since '91. We haven't had major sponsorship signage in the past because there was a lack of desire from exhibitors and others, it was just something we never felt we had to do. But of course, times change.
Being able to utilize hotels ballroom space, city park space and the like makes staying in San Diego possible.
SPURGEON: What can you do now that you have this decision made that you were maybe putting on hold until you decided? What is the next step to making this new relationship work?
GLANZER: Well, to be honest, not much. We always had a two-level approach to this. One was the ongoing deliberations on the proposals, the other was making sure that Comic-Con, WonderCon and APE continued without any interruption or hindrance. This decision allows us to now focus all of our time on each of our shows. And for that I can tell you I am personally grateful.
*****
While industry reaction should be all over the comics Internet tomorrow and throughout the weekend, not to mention the raw feed that you get via twitter and through those who use blogs, and with assurances we'll definitely cover some of that at CR as it develops, I first wanted to check in with one of my personal go-tos on Comic-Con related issues, Fantagraphics Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds. Reynolds has been attending or exhibiting at the show for more than half of his life, and as an employee of a comics company has come to represent for me the kind of comics-focused point of view of the show that some folks have insinuated isn't the show's primary concern any longer. I wondered how he saw this particular decision, or if it mattered too him at all.
"My initial thought when I read your email was, 'Wow, great!' Which, honestly, is not necessarily what I would have assumed my reaction would be," Reynolds told CR. "I really haven't had a horse in this race and have never had a strong opinion on what I wanted them to do. What do I know? I know that part of me liked the idea of an expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas every summer, even though I don't rationally believe Vegas would be a good fit; I just like to gamble. I think I was more opposed to the show moving to Los Angeles/Anaheim than I was in favor of it staying in SD or going anywhere else. I'm not even sure why I was opposed to it, because I love visiting L.A. But it would just feel like we let the terrorists win at that point. Yes, I just compared Hollywood to Al-Qaeda. At least it wasn't Hitler."
"Really, though, I've been going to Comic-Con since I was about 12. Almost 30 years. And there's something to be said for the continuity that Comicon has established in San Diego. So I think I'm quite pleased by the decision. Now if they would just build a walking bridge over Harbor Drive we'll really be in business!"
* I think for the most part, the bulk of comics people focused on conventions have aimed the prow of their ship at the blinking lights of New York Comic-Con. Here's my shot at separating the comics-related programming from the longer, more elaborately formatted list. I think there's going to be enough for most people to do. A lot of professionals like going to this show because they get to go to New York, so it's a well-attended show from a mainstream comics talent perspective. It's always been my understanding that they do relatively well with British talent coming over because it's only the ocean that separates them, not the ocean and a continent.
* as far as that programming goes, I'm talking to the legendary Mort Walker, the Rall/Kurtz print vs. internet battle should be pretty good, the Dash Shaw/Chip Kidd conversation is sure to be fascinating despite its relatively late hour, and I hope to God I'm able to wake up in time for the Kodansha USA panel Sunday morning. Beyond that I'm going to go everything with the word "digital" in it and I hope I leave the weekend less stupid on that subject. There are also some panels without any of the participants named, not even two weeks out when the list went up, which makes me wonder if things are going to go off as planned.
* APE is coming up fast, too, the weekend after NYCC. One cool-sounding thing they've just announced is a programming track to encourage writers and artists meeting and showing each other work: speed dating for comics collaboration. I'm not sure how much collaboration artists that show at or attend APE are seeking, but I'm all for innovative programming and it's not like having it at APE means they won't do it at other shows.
Five Thoughts On The Danish Cartoons On Their Five-Year Anniversary
These are my thoughts on the fifth anniversary of the original publication of 12 caricatures of Muhammed in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
1. I still think the original publication was a cheap and unnecessary stunt, that doing so in the context of that particular political climate was provocative, that this was known, that provocation was intended, and that in many ways many people who reacted poorly to the cartoons have responded less to some legally strict notion of depicting Muhammed than to the haughty, withering contempt clearly fueling that particular stunt. That doesn't mean that stunts aren't protected free speech or that anyone deserves anything that follows. It's just that it galls a bit to see the publication of those images assume a glow of righteousness it doesn't deserve. It didn't have to be done. When people claim that the original publication was meant to instigate a dialogue, I can only suggest that when people end up dying and there are five-plus years of political and intermittent economic heartache that result, you've really lost control of that conversation. If you ever had it in the first place. If you ever cared to own it at all.
2. That said, the imams and activists that pressed this action as a political point, many lying about the nature of the cartoons (as in the fake pig photoshop cartoon), and using it as a spur to drive violence and misunderstanding and to weaken their own press, these are some of the worst kind of people and their actions should always be viewed as abominable and intolerable. Anyone driven to violent reprisal of any kind -- intimidation, rioting, allowing/encouraging honest press people to be jailed -- even from the most honest sense of outrage, those people are also responsible for their actions, and those actions were in no way laudatory or excusable.
3. The greatest disappointment is that once this became a story of physical violence and economic trial, when millions of average citizens could have used access to the imagery because the nature of that imagery was at question, hundreds of media outlets all over the world abandoned their core missions to inform and educate. Worse, many did so because they were scared. Even worse than that, many did so because they were scared but wrapped themselves in rhetoric that they did not wish to further the offense, which, even if genuine, I'd argue is not a reason to abdicate core values but to have a heavy heart and an eyes-open sympathy for others while fulfilling them. I'm convinced a major reason this remains an issue today is because the world press failed to do its job in early 2006.
4. 139 people died.
5. That this remains an issue in the news speaks to the broad, bland immaturity of the modern political world and the obvious, sad fact that nothing was learned. In fact, learning was resisted. Almost no one's conduct during that time was challenged or questioned, no matter how self-serving the subsequent spin. Yale University Press hands in its right to be taken seriously as a custodian for academic freedom by not allowing the images to be reprinted in an academic study of the images. Kurt Westergaard suffers the most for bravely stepping forward and owning his work, the most provocative image of the twelve. Scarier still, in most cases the cartoons function as a kind of pre-packaged totem, an in for publicity and press coverage that has nothing to do with the issue beyond the call and response of how we perceive such repeat instances should be handled. That's the Molly Norris lesson -- nearly everything that's happened to her existed in a political climate addicted to mayhem and gossip and assumed truths more than it does the flesh and blood world. A Norris cartoon becomes a temporary political and pr football used by another wave of free speech stuntmen and stuntwomen against her expressed wishes. A death threat by an imam is heard only for breathless press coverage attracted to that many google-ready keywords. The worry for Norris' physical safety isn't that an actual political attack will be made but that some nut-job reading all the press coverage will see harming Norris as an invitation to enjoy the praise of allies, the scorn of enemies and the attention of everyone.
I don't see this particular hangover ending any time soon.
A Comics Anniversary I Almost Forgot It occurred to me while doing some research on another project that September 2010 is the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Creator's Bill Of Rights. I believe they were written in late 1988, but didn't make it to publication until September 1990 as part of a special issue of The Comics Journal. Comics was only about four or five years away from a no-turning-back number of professionals and devoted fans migrating on-line and having their spats and discussions in real time, but in 1990 I think it was safe to say that a huge number of comics-interested folk only encountered comics industry issues as they heard about them in Comics Buyer's Guide or read about them in the Journal. Even if you got to read them earlier than that -- I bet Dave Sim published them in his rollicking Cerebus letters pages -- this was a time when a lot of folks still counted on TCJ or CBG as a place to work through such issues. It was that way for me.
For an important current generation of comics makers and industry folk, those in the 35-45 age range, many would have learned about these issues right between the ages of the middle of high school to the end of graduate school (or its workplace equivalent), although it's tough to discern that the document itself is influential to a significant degree. I think a common, blunt criticism of the Bill's influence has some merit: the more economic factors were resolved to include royalties and a variety of different ownership/copyright options were put out there in order to compete for the best talent, the less anyone cared about any of the even slightly more abstract principles involved, real-world implications or not. That these ideas weren't fundamental rights but raised concerns that could then be negotiated project to project, even to be given back for the right price or under the right circumstance, ended up being the Bill's biggest weakness.
Still, It's nice to think of a time when these things were a great concern to pros, though, that this was so important some of them actually traveled to sit down together and hash things out. I have respect for all those that sacrificed immediate personal gain for principle that might only have benefited those operating on down the line, me included. We may never see that generation's like again.
Scott McCloud discusses it here; Al Nickerson has a series of rolling interviews here.
Vertigo Loses Three Key Editors
I'm coming terribly late to all of this, about four geologic eras in Internet time, but apparently DC's meetings have concluded and there's been one firm set of announcements: that Vertigo editors Joan Hilty, Pornsak Pichetshote and Jonathan Vankin have all been laid off. On the one hand, the outside observer might be surprised that the line had that many editors to fire, and the imprint's success with stand-alone graphic novels has certainly been hit and miss, and some of the biggest misses seems to have had a more direct and controlling editorial hand. I couldn't tell you a single name of one of their crime books, and I cover comic books for a living.
On the other hand, is it my imagination, or hasn't Vertigo had a pretty good year since the naming of Geoff Johns, Dan DiDio and Jim Lee as the publishing house's executive-level Cerberus? A DC mainstream universe comic generating the good will of The Unwritten or the sales oomph of that Stephen King vampire thing fails to spring to mind. If the new publishing paradigm is about building relationships with IP-generators, I think a lot of them would want to do work for a vigorous Vertigo imprint. WildStorm's departure seems to open up more such opportunities for that imprint rather than less. And while you can't always trust those "rising star" rumors, Pichetsote was even to my tin ear regarded as someone with bright career prospects in general and DC in particular, a place that doesn't have a whole lot of star editors in key positions past the top tier right now. One might be forgiven hoping that Bob Harras' purported skills at working with younger talent and nailing down core concepts is something he can employ on the editorial side of things as well.
I also wonder if the line is still supported at DC. If the two panels I saw at WonderCon were any indication, those books were completely cut out of the DCU baseball cap backwards direct sales push made at public events, except for a cursory mention when someone from the audience brought something up. There are also the long-term implications involved in how a company like DC wants to shape the industry as opposed to just responding to it. If the publisher's goal is to have more stores like Brian Hibbs' fine San Francisco shop Comix Experience out there in the future, those stores are the ones that are going to do well with Vertigo books. So I'm confused. I know that there's certainly a negative picture that can be painted of Vertigo, and if you gave me five minutes, I could probably come up with a dire portrait of my own. But again, with the absence of a positive message about that imprint from here on out, these dismissals just sound like a big thumbs-down for that corner of DC's operations.
* missed it: a profile of some of the best female cartoonists working right now. The nice thing about an article such as that one is that it's a good thing if you object, because that means there are more cartoonists than can easily fit on such a list. There's a part two coming up, but I barely found the part one and will probably miss it.
* Chris Sims picks the 10 oddest Jimmy Olsen moments. The great thing about this subject is that you could randomly plug in one of about 100 different comics and come up with a great list every time. Quality and quantity; that's our man Jim O.
* not comics: I hope this is performance art, because it's hard for me to imagine I share a planet with this big of an entitled douchebag. My goodness.
* finally, this headline cracks me up, but I can't imagine it's true. My eyeballs and anecdotal evidence actually suggests I am in the upper five percent of older people at comics shows, even in the comics-reading parts of that show, and I've got a few years to reach 65. Also, if this were true I'm pretty sure there would be an NCIS comic by now.
According to multiplecomicshistorians, the artist Jerry Grandenetti passed away on February 19. An under-appreciated mainstream comic book industry workhorse and innovator, Grandenetti moved through a variety of styles that eventually put him at odds with the strict conventions of the field at a fallow time in its commercial and creative history. He was also one of the many comics industry artists that found purchase in advertising when work in comic books became less frequent.
Grandenetti was born in 1927 in Bronxville in Eastchester, New York. (Sources differ on date of birth; both 1925 and 1926 have been suggested as alternatives. As Grandenetti himself seemed to prefer 1927, I'll let him have it.) Although he admired illustrators such as Noel Sickles and Austin Briggs, Grandenetti focused on architectural drawing in school, which included a stint at New York's Pratt Institute. His experience in drafting led him to specialized service in the Navy during World War II, the apparent monotony of which drove him to doing cartoons for the base publication where he was assigned and gave him an appetite for attempting that kind of work full-time. As he explained to an interviewer in 2006:
"I spent time with a company called C. C. Combs Landscape Architects and so the Navy gave me a special X rating and I ended up in the administration building doing these silly architectural corrections on porches and handball courts. With that special X rating I told the guy there, I forget his name, he was running the base paper and I wanted to do some drawings, so I started drawing for the base paper and that gave me the desire to want to draw for a living rather than doing this silly architectural stuff with triangles and T-squares and logarithms and all this other mathematical stuff that was boring as hell."
Seeking work in the fertile post-World War II comics industry, he eventually became an assistant to Will Eisner on The Spirit. Grandenetti helped ink The Spirit early on and eventually became its full ghost artist, providing pencils as well as sharing inks. He also concurrently began work in comic books. After a few freelance assignments including one for Eisner's own Baseball Comics, Grandenetti scored his first series, "The Secret Files Of Dr. Drew," that ran in Avon's Ranger Comics from 1949 to 1951. He also picked up work on the "Senorita Rio" feature from the same publisher.
Starting in the 1950s, Grandenetti split time between a variety of publishers -- Gleason, Media, ACG, Prize -- before settling into a long run at DC Comics where he worked on a number of their popular western, crime, science fiction and war books: Action, Gang Busters, Mr. District Attorney, All Star Western, Strange Adventures, GI Combat, Our Fighting Forces and Star Spangled War Stories among them. He became an extremely valuable freelancer for longtime editor/writer Bob Kanigher, who appreciated the grittiness of his art and his displayed skill with both arresting cover imagery and executing them in a lovely-looking wash technique. It is believed that Grandenetti was the first to do that kind of art in commercial comic books, starting in 1956. The best of his interiors could be found in the "Gunner and Sarge" feature. Kanigher and Grandenetti co-created the character Mlle. Marie for SSWS in 1959, another feature on which Grandenetti provided memorable interior art.
Perhaps the artist's most memorable drawing for DC gained fame through an alternative channel. Roy Lichtenstein's used an image from Grandenetti's 1962 cover for All American Men Of War #89 as the basis for his 1962 painting "Jet Pilot."
After a mid-1960s dalliance with a number of publishers including Tower, Marvel and Charlton, Grandenetti settled into the surging Warren Publishing and its black-and-white magazines as a gig to supplement the still-steady DC assignments. He started at Warren in 1966 ghosting for Joe Orlando, but soon moved to his fully credited stories that ran through 1972. The loose style that he developed for Warren's unique brand of stories and that was a natural extension of some his mainstream genre comics wash work was the envy of several other working artists, and is the source of admiration for many of his fans among comics historians. It was also extremely gratifying for the artist, according to the 2006 interview:
"... I began to realize what I liked was that the free rein [Jim Warren] gave all artists and that was when I really began to enjoy the comic book work that I was doing because prior to that I was kind of locked in because I got into the industry late and I was influenced by all these other great talents. Guys that were my age or maybe even younger and here I am trying to do a decent job and so when I was able to work with Jim Warren on his Creepy and Eerie books and having that freedom was what I enjoyed mostly. As I began to experiment and I began to do some of my best stuff."
While many see Grandenetti's experimentation as an extension of his work with and admiration for Will Eisner, it's also possible to see him as a forebear for the first generation of alternative comics cartoonist, who embraced the values of the best mainstream comic book art work and sought to employ those techniques for personal expression.
Continuing his work for DC, Grandenetti became valuable to that company reviving and extending the appeal of some of its supernatural characters such as The Phantom Stranger. He co-created another minor character during that run, the sword and sorcery hero Nightmaster in 1969. In the early 1970s, Grandenetti co-created a trio of concepts with Joe Simon. The most memorable was the bizarre, youth-as-president fantasy Prez, which slipped into oblivion after only a few issues. The character has since made a few strange but well-received cameos and single appearances in the DC line. Grandenetti also provided art to The Outsiders and The Green Team: Boy Millionaires projects, which each ran for a single issue of 1st Issue Special.
Grandenetti would fulfill occasional freelance duties for DC through the mid-1980s. In 1990, Grandenetti found work as an art director at Young & Rubicam, springing into that second career based on decades of sideline business building a portfolio of illustrations for small agencies. Although he remained a favorite of those who enjoyed Silver Age comics art and the best of the Warren stable, and a surge of interest in Will Eisner's work included recognition for assistants like Grandenetti, the artist faded from view for many in comics. A web site, since shut down, featuring Grandenetti's art popped up in early 2009 (and may have been slightly older than that). His passing early this year went unnoticed until a daughter named Jennifer contacted the comics historian Bryan Stroud at the Silver Lantern web site about potential interest in her father's art. Word was passed along through a mailing list for those interested in that period of comics history until it came to the attention of comics industry news sources.
If born in 1927, Granedetti would have been 82 years old at the time of his passing.
* shocker of the week: two new issues of comic serials believed potentially lost to the Buenaventura Press closure will be appearing at APE under the name of Pigeon Press: Boys Club #4 and I Want You #2 Please everybody buy these comics, multiple times if you can stand it, to coax Pigeon Press into doing more books. Full announcement here. A write-up with more context can be found here.
* less shocking, but perhaps bigger news in the overall scheme of things when we know a little bit more: Del Rey doesn't seem to have any manga due for publication... until 2013.
* I forget to do an OTBP entry for this short comic by Lucy Knisley when it was a brand-new concern, but I wanted to draw attention to it here because a cartoonist with a constant web presence like Knisley offering up a special comic at a modest price in addition to her commercial and on-line work feels like the future to me.
* Robin McConnell is waiting for the first printed copies of the Inkstuds book, and is going on tour to support it.
* the Dalai Lama biographical manga Penguin is releasing here in translated form should be imminent.
* here's an article about a press conference phone call announcing the latest, overriding direction of Marvel's Spider-Man character. It's sort of fascinating how it's presented even if you're not interested in what's being presented. In fact, I'm not certain I know what the heck they're announcing past Spider-Man getting a job. Last I knew, all the Avengers heroes draw a paycheck from one of the Stark Foundations, so I'm not sure I even understand that. Spider-Man!
* Julia Wertz is selling a bunch of stuff related to and including her new book Drinking At The Movies. Anything you can buy from the artist is an obvious direct benefit to that artist, although there are many schools of thought on the long-term effects of such sales.
* Ryan Sands unearths a bunch of previews from the cutting edge manga publisher Seirinkogeisha, which he describes as a smaller house not unlike North America's Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* the Danish daily Politikenreports that three men were arrested yesterday and that one of them has confessed that they were hoping to carry out attacks on the Jyllands Posten newspaper offices (that publication published the original Danish Muhammed cartoons) and some of its principal actors such as the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
* Flemming Rose's The Tyranny Of Silencehits shelves today. That book contains a full reprinting of the Muhammad imagery that started the whole Danish Cartoons Controversy cycle of events. Denmark's foreign minister is taking a proactive approach this time around.
* distressing news that around twenty newspapers have asked for replacements for a Wiley Miller Non Sequitur strip that mentioned the name Muhammed. This is particularly ironic/depressing since the strip apparently touched on the issue of the blinding fear that people have about the use of signifying elements that are not depictions of the Prophet at all. Miller tells Alan Gardner that the terrorists have won.
Your Prolonged Mainstream Comics Legal Battle Updates Of The Day
* the LA Times on Marvel Vs. The Kirby Family, which makes a matter-of-fact case for some of the basic moral issues involved, but does so in a very gentle way.
Missed It: Purdue Cartoon Scandal Alan Gardner caught this over at Daily Cartoonist, for which I'm glad because it totally escaped my attention: the Purdue University newspaper The Exponent ran a cartoon on September 17th in its "Sex Position Of The Week" feature that called for a male to switch with another male on the same female partner without her knowing. Sex without consent, of course, is the only definition of rape I've been taught and one that's shared by most people. While it's unclear if the cartoon actually advocated such a ruse or was simply using its lurid, forbidden nature as part of some wider point or joke, the newspaper was flooded with complaints that this wasn't funny no matter the intent. The editor apologized the week of the 20th, and the fast clip at which the entire process moved drew praise.
There's something remarkable about a story with a feature called "Sex Position Of The Week" at its core. You can't really blast a student body for being overly prudish when that's one of their weekly cartoon features. You also have to make the Yikes face (a smiley Yikes or frowny Yikes is up to you) a little more expressively when you realize that this is a joke that violated the good taste that everyone on that campus had come to expect from "Sex Position Of The Week." The closest we got to such a feature at my student newspaper a couple of decades back was the occasional story about student fees going up.
Daryl Cagle On American Cartoonists Vs. International Cartoonist Redux
The objections here and here to Daryl Cagle's recent essay on the differences between American cartoons and those in the rest of the world made me go back and re-read it to see what I missed. What I remembered was being grateful that someone mentioned these cartooning contests and placed them in a professional context, which I'd never read anyone doing before and had left me wondering if people in different countries simply just liked contests. On a second read, I don't really see the exclusion of UK cartoonists as any big deal except in a Nerd Court way: I think most people would understand the broad distinction Cagle was making and not nail him down on objectionable particulars. On the other hand, there is more a derisive tone about the world cartoonists that I didn't see the first time I plowed through -- the "actually" in "actually making a living" and the added description of wordless, broader-point cartoons as "daisies in the gun barrels" cartoons. The biggest weakness I see with the essay is that it conflates the idea that different cultures focus on different issues with the perhaps uniquely American appetite for a certain kind of declarative lack of ambiguity. I think those are two completely different things, and neither one of the flattering to cartooning as practiced in the U.S.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the artist Skottie Young argues that kids love comics, that there are comics out there for kids, and that there's a disconnect between this desire and parents being able to find comics and get them to the kids. I think that's generally true. In fact, I think most adults like comics as well, but they have a different disconnect when it comes to buying and enjoying them.
* my suspicion is that most papers are going to make this decision internally or wait to run their "what replaces Cathy?" contests until they can get a free few weeks of content from the syndicates hoping to make that sale, but my local paper, the Silver City Sun-News, ran their contest the old-school way: on a separate page, in enough time they could move right into the new strip offering without an interruption in service. For what it's worth -- and this is a smaller paper, with a single page of strips and features -- Pearls Before Swine won handily, followed closely by Baby Blues. In his editorial on the matter, Jim Lawitz claims that additional contestants Luann, Pooch Cafe, Stone Soup and the brand-new Thata Baby "barely moved the needle." The nice thing is that because of the strong response, the paper is finding a place for Baby Blues as well. It's worth noting that one thing that's changed in the last 15 years is that papers have an array of reasonably successful strips to choose from when one goes down, it's no longer a matter of only adding new features.
* this discussion of Bob Harras and the clone saga at prominent blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates' Atlantic site quickly moves into a discussion of what drove various former mainstream comics readers out of mainstream comics reading. It's fascinating.
* speaking of the clone saga, does anyone else think it's funny that it's thematically appropriate, poor, put-upon Spider-Man that seems to get saddled with the dopiest mega-plots. I've been reading comics since 1973 and I didn't understand one word of that quote from Quesada.
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 no-doubt 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 if I were anywhere near a comic shop, I would walk inside and demand the comics that read like the comics they're supposed to be.
*****
FEB100232 ABSOLUTE PROMETHEA HC VOL 02 $99.99
If this marriage of super-pretty superhero comics essay art and DC's best format for showing off the work of their best illustrative talent had a wedding, I would sneak in and sit in the back and look at all the gorgeous everything. I think there's a third to come.
MAY100405 BARNEY GOOGLE HC $39.99
Barney Google is a soft area in my comics reading, as I've flipped through one stack of Xeroxed tear-sheets and whatever Bill Blackbeard's provided over the years. It's a wonderfully drawn strip, and certainly appealed to the readership of its day, so I'm looking forward to diving in.
JUL101243 AL JAFFEE MAD LIFE SC $27.99
After you finish reading it the first time, don't forget to fold this new autobiography into joined thirds to reveal all the dirt on Jaffee's life. Okay, not really.
JUN100454 CHEW #14 (MR) $2.99 JUL100563 CAPTAIN AMERICA #610 $3.99 JUL100653 CASANOVA #3 (MR) $3.99
Three well-liked mainstream comics efforts, including surprise hit of the last 18 months, Chew. I haven't seen the Casanova reprints yet, but the full-color pages I've seen here and there sure look attractive.
AUG101041 ALLEN GINSBERG HOWL GN $19.99
Eric Drooker and Allen Ginsberg is an underrated comics writer/artist team-up.
JUL100862 DIE HARD YEAR ONE TP VOL 01 $12.99
A softcover of the Howard Chaykin-written tales of Bruce Willis' terrorist-shooting lawman in his uniformed-cop days. I know nothing about it, but I'd sure pick this one up to look at it if I were in a comics shop today.
JUL101130 HETALIA AXIS POWERS GN VOL 01 (OF 3) (MR) $10.99 JUN101148 7 BILLION NEEDLES GN VOL 01 $10.95
The high-concept, super-publicized new manga series and another solid and slightly quirky effort from the reinvigorated Vertical. I wouldn't possibly dare tell you which one you should be reading.
AUG100739 HEREVILLE HOW MIRKA GOT HER SWORD HC $15.95
There aren't a ton of higher-end independent comics aimed at kids, but this one looks pretty good.
JUL101012 YOULL NEVER KNOW HC VOL 02 COLLATERAL DAMAGE $24.99
Your book of the week. I still think this is something that will read 10X better in one volume as opposed to these three serialized books, but wanting to get a book out when its subjects can still read and enjoy it is of course an admirable thing. Plus I'm disenfranchised when it comes to that particular vote. The scary thing is, these books are already stupendous. This new Carol Tyler supposedly has within its pages one of the 100 best comics of the 20th Century, and I practically guarantee you it won't be out of place.
JUN100080 BETTIE PAGE GIRL NEXT DOOR STAR LUCKY CHARM $22.99 JUN100083 BETTIE PAGE GIRLE REVUE WOMENS T/S LG $24.99 JUN100082 BETTIE PAGE GIRLE REVUE WOMENS T/S MED $24.99 JUN100081 BETTIE PAGE GIRLE REVUE WOMENS T/S SM $24.99 JUN100084 BETTIE PAGE GIRLE REVUE WOMENS T/S XL $24.99 MAY100064 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD BELT BUCKLE $19.99 MAY100065 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD CIGARETTE CASE $29.99 MAY100074 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD KEYCHAIN $12.00 MAY100071 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD MENS T/S LG $21.99 MAY100070 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD MENS T/S MED $21.99 MAY100072 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD MENS T/S XL $21.99 MAY100073 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD MENS T/S XXL $22.99 MAY100075 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD PERSONAL CASE $27.99 MAY100068 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD WOMENS T/S LG $24.99 MAY100067 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD WOMENS T/S MED $24.99 MAY100066 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD WOMENS T/S SM $24.99 MAY100069 BETTIE PAGE GREEN LEOPARD WOMENS T/S XL $24.99 MAY100076 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT CIGARETTE CASE $29.99 MAY100077 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT HEART COMPACT $19.99 MAY100078 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT KEYCHAIN $12.00 MAY100085 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT MENS T/S LG $21.99 MAY100084 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT MENS T/S MED $21.99 MAY100087 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT MENS T/S XXL $22.99 MAY100079 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT SMALL CASE $22.99 MAY100082 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT WOMENS T/S LG $24.99 MAY100081 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT WOMENS T/S MED $24.99 MAY100080 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT WOMENS T/S SM $24.99 MAY100083 BETTIE PAGE JUNGLE NIGHT WOMENS T/S XL $24.99 JUN100085 BETTIE PAGE LOVE BETTIE CIGARETTE CASE $29.99 JUN100086 BETTIE PAGE LOVE BETTIE HEART COMPACT $19.99 JUN100087 BETTIE PAGE LOVE BETTIE HEART LUCKY CHARM $22.99 JUN100088 BETTIE PAGE LOVE BETTIE TABLET NECKLACE $22.99 JUN100089 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO CIGARETTE CASE $29.99 JUN100094 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO HEART COMPACT $19.99 JUN100095 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO HEART LUCKY CHARM $22.99 JUN100098 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO HEART REVUE FRAME $29.99 JUN100096 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO KEYCHAIN $12.00 JUN100097 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO PERSONAL CASE $27.99 JUN100099 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO SMALL CASE $22.99 JUN100100 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO TABLET NECKLACE $22.99 JUN100092 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO WOMENS T/S LG $24.99 JUN100091 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO WOMENS T/S MED $24.99 JUN100090 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO WOMENS T/S SM $24.99 JUN100093 BETTIE PAGE PEEK A BOO WOMENS T/S XL $24.99 JUN100101 BETTIE PAGE PEEP SHOW CIGARETTE CASE $29.99 MAY100088 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS CIGARETTE CASE $29.99 MAY100097 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS HEART COMPACT $19.99 MAY100098 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS KEYCHAIN $12.00 MAY100094 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS MENS T/S LG $21.99 MAY100093 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS MENS T/S MED $21.99 MAY100096 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS MENS T/S XXL $22.99 MAY100099 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS SMALL CASE $22.99 MAY100090 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS WOMENS T/S MED $24.99 MAY100089 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS WOMENS T/S SM $24.99 MAY100092 BETTIE PAGE SAHARA SANDS WOMENS T/S XL $24.99
It's comics, Jake.
*****
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, that's because I was too distracted thinking of old friends.
RFI: Zunar Goes Into Hiding An article going up today at Radio France International indicates that the Malaysian cartoonist Zulfiklee Anwar Ulhaque, better known as Zunar, has gone into hiding rather than be available for easy arrest under the country's Internal Security Act. Zunar was arrested on Friday and released Saturday, charged with violations under the Sedition Act, although he was not told which of his drawings constituted a seditious statement. A planned book release party of a book seized by police at the same time they arrested the cartoonist went on with the cartoonist's wife presiding. The arrest was excoriated by major international rights groups and local non-governmental organizations on Monday.
Zunar has publicly mocked past attempts by the government to paint his cartoons, which frequently address politically sensitive subjects, even going so far as to ask where are all the riots his work has supposedly caused? The work in question appeared on a popular Malaysian on-line news portal without objection by the government -- the latest a range of work from 2009-2010. We wish Zunar all the best in seeing this episode through, and we add our small voice to the chorus condemning these ridiculous acts against creative expression and calling for their end.
Robert Kirkman Says He's Soon Going Same-Day Digital On Everything The writer Robert Kirkman, who recently made news because his Walking Deadis hitting all digital platforms on the same day as his print comic is released, tells CBRin an interview rolling out today that he plans to do it with all of his titles. This is important because the Walking Dead move was tied into the approaching TV series adaptation -- the thought being that with a big TV show, you want to have the comic books as widely and uniformly available as possible. But this seems like something different, a calculation on the successful comics writer's part that these are two different sales tracks and that one won't cannibalize the other in a way that greatly harms one or the other. I'm actually all for this: I'm for making firm decisions of this type and then seeing what happens, whether you go delayed release or same-day doesn't matter to me as much as making that commitment and then attempt to build on that commitment. I've always been sort of baffled that this wasn't done by most companies two or three years ago, starting with those with almost no serial presence in the comics shops.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Boom! and the Hero Initiative would like you to know that the Hero Initiative can be your community charity of choice, receiving incremental kickbacks on your grocery bill, although you have to live in a state with a certain set of grocery stores. It sounds like a no-brainer good thing to me, although I could have sworn this was already announced.
* Vintage Sleazepresents the mystery of the Gene Bilbrew/Charles Mingus record sleeve art team-up.
* here's a combined Moto Hagio CCI photo gallery and a preview gallery for her Fantagraphics collection.
* the gentlemen at FPI blog present a barfaroo-looking superhero comics cover and would like to know if DC remembers what it's like to publish comics for kids -- or comics that you could at least sell kids without an 80 percent chance you're going to see a parent in front of your register 24 hours later giving you the stinkeye. I think it's sort of fascinating that after all the silly gory stuff they've done with superheroes the last few years our first reaction to something like that cover is that it's wrong, or at least noteworthy. Although in this case, that would be kind of gross no matter who it was.
* I think I passed a lifetime milestone with Sean T. Collins' review of Dark Reign: Zodiac. I had to look a second time to see which company's generically-named minor crossover event was called "Dark Reign." The next decade is going to get ugly around here.
* Bill Kartalopoulos profiles Kim Deitch for the Comics College feature at Robot 6. That's a fun feature, although if I were to write every installment would be "God, I don't know. Just read a bunch of their stuff and either something will click into place or something won't."
* not comics: I'm not exactly sure why there needs to be another film version of True Grit, but this one looks classy and if it means someone takes a look at my script for Masters Of Atlantis, I'll be extremely happy.
* finally, it was only 14 years ago that Ed Brubaker was best known in comics circles as a cartoonist that did pieces like this one.
Bob Harras Named DC Editor In Chief
DC has named comics industry veteran Bob Harras to the position of Editor In Chief, VP DC Comics it was announced today. Harras has been the Group Editor for Collected Editions at the company. PR here.
While the position of Editor In Chief at DC was last held by Jenette Kahn, it's probably safe to say that Harras will find his own role within the company more than that he will take on a Kahn-like role at the mainstream comics publisher. The PR has his initial job description as "Harras will oversee editorial for DC Comics, DC Universe, MAD Magazine and Vertigo and will be based in New York City, reporting directly to the Co-Publishers." There's no reason they couldn't name other people to other positions as they work their way through the decision-making process and what to do with individual employees, but at least one hire of this size and scope was expected.
Harras was Editor-In-Chief at Marvel Comics from 1995 to 2000, when the company was wracked with problems and liabilities owing to a financial crunch caused by the purchase of affiliate companies at price points beyond anything they could safely maintain, straight-out lifting money away from the company, and a distribution crisis caused in great part by Marvel's decision in 1994 to exclusively distribute through regional business Heroes World. Since leaving Marvel he worked briefly as a freelance editor at WildStorm and then at his current position at DC. That current position would make him familiar with every aspect of the line and hands-on experience with the people working in each group, so it seems like that would be a potentially effective stepping-stone to a supervisory position. Harras was also involved with the "Who's Who"-type efforts DC was doing, which would make him up to date in terms of the IP the company has available to it.
If I remember my Marvel editors correctly, and I may not, Harras ascended to the Editor-In-Chief position after the unsuccessful, Balkanized group-editor phase. His big claim to fame within Marvel at the time was as the group editor for the X-Men titles during their "sell 18 billion copies" run as clear market leaders within that industry, with an undercurrent of industry reputation that 1) he was not afraid to move away from that title's first generation of creators in favor of a newer, younger group, and 2) a bit later than that, he managed to keep the sales momentum of those titles going even with the Image talent drain. Harras is also a writer, having done a long stint on The Avengers title back before assuming the Marvel EiC role. If I remember right, his Marvel books as Editor-In-Chief favored interesting, younger writers on some of the secondary titles, which is a traditional way mainstream comics companies build relationships with talent.
The writer Warren Ellis speaks well of him here. There's an old, longish interview with Harras here, which makes me wonder if he was the first person to hold writer's conferences for specific groups of mainstream comic books. Probably not.
Zunar Released Saturday After Friday's Arrest, Charged With Sedition; Could Face A 3-Year Jail Term
Wire stories and official journalistic and rights organization surged with news today of the wild weekend enjoyed by the Malaysian cartoonist Zulkifli Awar Ulhaque, better known as Zunar. Zunar was arrested on sedition charges hours before a planned book release party on Friday in support of Cartoon-O-Phobia. This was after 10 police officers raided the popular cartoonist's offices and seized material they found there. Zunar was released on Saturday, but could face three years as a first-time offender under the Sedition Act.
Zunar told international press representatives that the government did not identify which cartoons they considered seditious under the terms of that act. Moreover, the vast majority if not all of the cartoons were previously published through the cartoonist's platform at the web site Malasiakini -- owned by the same group publishing the new book. Zunar has been at odds with the Malaysian government for a few years now regarding his books and magazine article, especially those that touch on politically sensitive issues. Friday's arrest, however, seems to take the confrontation of cartoonist and government to a whole new level.
Zunar's wife bravely conducted the book launch on Friday that Zunar promised would go off even as his office was being searched. She related a text messgae from the incarcerated cartoonist that the Committee to Protect Journalists described as saying that the authorities could imprison his body but not his mind.
A cartoon in the September 20th issue of Le Droit by the editorial cartoonist Bado entitled "Parliament Returns" was attacked by Canadian B'Nai Brith on the day of its release for the Star of David symbol in the clock face of the parliament building, which the organization claimed insinuated that Jews controlled the Canadian government. The story then diverged in two directions mostly unique to such mini-controversies. The first is that the cartoonist claimed it wasn't a difference in interpretation but his attempt to draw a symbol that actually exists in that clock face. The second is that another advocacy group, the Canadian Jewish Congress, says they believe the cartoonist.
These kinds of stories tend to work like flash paper rather than a slow burning coal fire, except in rare circumstances, but I thought this one a bit different than most of them for those two developments.
Go, Bookmark: Highwater History The Comics Comics site is going to be reprinting some of the oral history from the catalog related to the imminent Highwater Books retrospective show. What's available through that initial link are stories about Coober Skeber 2, the infamous "Marvel Benefit Issue," which was the introduction for a lot of folks to several in that group of artists. My hunch is to disagree with the notion floated in the testimonies that Devlin was a brand-new or unknown quantity; my memory of that book is that it came out of a certain context, if only a "oh yeah, that guy" context. It wasn't something that was all brand new and seemed to come from Mars. I even remember wanting to see how some of the artists did their stories.
It was quite the scene, though. One of my favorite personal memories from that show is a prominent Direct Market retailer gushing about the Seth cover and how Seth should be convinced to do superhero work all the time and my looking at this man's face very carefully to see if he was kidding, because I figured he had to be kidding. He wasn't. Also, I think this proves we should all give Tom Devlin credit for inventing the free model of doing comics, as he really did run around that show giving away copies of that lovely little book.
Go, Read: Bob Levin On Greg Irons I can't imagine anything better to start off a Monday than an article from the best writer about comics out there, Bob Levin, this time on the career of the late Greg Irons as chronicled in Patrick Rosenkranz's 2006 biography/art book You Call This Art?! Like Irons, Levin has roughly hippie-era connections to the greater Philadelphia area and San Francisco, and... well, that's about where the similarities end. It's a short and straight-forward piece, crisply written and perhaps a bit more cursory and to the point than some of Levin's longer, astonishing, divergence-filled epics, but in the end a sturdy summation of a compelling artist's life story, told with matter-of-fact sympathy. Such an article is especially welcome after the masturbatory scrum on the state of writing about comics that slipped into the final hours of last week's DC Comics-driven news cycle.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Paul Gravett writes at length in positive fashion about manga. I hope I had you at "Gravett."
* Bhob Stewart has a couple of images from that massive Wally Wood exhibition over in Spain.
* the artist Warren Craghead has a blog devoted to his forthcoming "lo-fi arts publishing" show. That's maybe not exactly comics, not 100 percent, but Craghead is always worth reading, and the pictures look lovely, too.
* I love that this Daryl Cagle article about the culture gap between North American editorial cartooning and similar communities in the rest of the world engages with the idea of all those international cartoon competitions, because I've never heard anyone explain exactly how they worked before.
* not comics: this just seems to me matter of fact and obvious, that Lucas swiped some things from Jack Kirby the same way he took a few things from Hidden Fortress. Why not? That's not saying that the entire Star Wars saga is a knock-off of Kirby's Fourth World, because that would be sort of crazy. But some of the visual elements, some narrative conflicts, that was pretty much Lucas' modus operandi, right?
* there's probably a lesson for comic book stores in this article about the relative success enjoyed by some independent movie/rental retailers as chains that provide that service fade from; there are also probably reasons, both structural and cultural, why these lessons aren't necessarily important ones.
* I'm guessing Isaac Perlmutter made 1500 times as much money in 16 years with Marvel Comics than Jack Kirby made in a quarter-century or so with the company. I suck at math: it may only be 850 or so. I know that's the way the world works, but it doesn't mean I can't think it's sort of weird.
* here's a roundtable discussion on the beginning of the Matt Fraction/Pascual Ferry run on Thor one of the more hotly anticipated mainstream comics run among those that anticipate mainstream comics runs.
* The FPI Blog jumps on some pages of Wilfred Santiago's forthcoming Roberto Clemente biography.
* the comics scholar Ana Merino talks about comics and childhood in broad terms. Could be "talked," as it looks like this might be a translated article. I can't tell.
Missed It: August Hoarding Article
It was always my attention to write a short post on this article that ran late last summer in the LA Weekly. That's a cute hook and tag line, and while I haven't seen any of the hoarding shows I can imagine they're compelling television and that the situations presented are affecting and uniquely bizarre. The focus on the movie business doesn't really interest me all that much, either. I think there was a much worse year for the idea of building on earlier film experiences -- 2007 -- and one of the things film people mentioned to me at San Diego was that the box office performance of Inception and the then-expected strong showing by Eat, Pray, Love were good signs for original projects or one-off projects in the overall popular film landscape even if Scott Pilgrim didn't perform to expectations (sadly, it didn't).
This article seems interesting to me primarily for the fact it addresses general pop culture consumption habits, something I'm not tied into as much as I could be comics-wise because of the fact I get a bunch of them for free. Still, when one's first thought on the death of the alternative comic book essay by Seth, not to mention this week's WildStorm closure, is that these are closed sets now that can be collected and curated with an end goal in mind, as mine was, it's clear that there's a push-against the iPad-ization of one's physical belongings, a desire to fully own the partly ephemeral that likely has a gigantic impact on comics purchasing. It's worth thinking about, for sure.
Comics-Focused NYCC Events/Programs
The New York Comic Con released its full programming slate late last week. For my own purposes I winnowed down what sounded like comics-focused programming into its own list -- hopefully I got them all. Human error probably means I didn't, plus not all of these panels have descriptions where deciding what they were about was possible. For instance, there's a panel called "Diversify!" which doesn't really have a description at all. I also couldn't tell you all the panels worth seeking out until I know a bit more. I figure the Shaw/Kidd will be good, as well as the Rall/Kurtz, but there are no political cartoonists named in the political cartoonist panel description and that would make a difference. I hope this still might give you a chance to orient yourself to the weekend.
One thing I find bizarre is how late some of the programming was scheduled. There is programming at the convention that goes later than some of the evening events planned in conjunction with the con weekend by outside organizations. Because this is going up just a few weeks out and I'd never considered the possibility of a Dash Shaw panel that might end at 9:15 PM, I'm probably not alone having already-made plans that now stand in conflict; I'd also hate to be anyone commuting in from New Jersey or Long Island. That's not a complaint made with gritted teeth -- it's a funnybook show! -- just an observation of something that seemed different to me. Every con that can seems to be spreading out these programming events, although maybe a difference with NYCC is that the Javitz center isn't really near anything. It's hard for me to fathom getting a bite to eat and then heading back for one more panel.
Also, I should probably mention that I'm participating on a panel. I'm speaking to Mort Walker on Saturday at 1 PM. I think that will be a memorable panel, I was honored to be asked, and I hope if you're going to the convention you'll consider attending.
FFF Results Post #228 -- Books
On Friday, CR readers were asked to "Name Five Books You've Enjoyed About Comics." This is how they responded.
*****
Tom Spurgeon
1. The Great Comic Book Heroes, Jules Feiffer
2. Reading The Funnies, Donald Phelps
3. Outlaws, Rebels, Freethinkers And Pirates, Bob Levin
4. The Pirates And The Mouse, Bob Levin
5. Forty Cartoon Books Of Interest, Seth
*****
Eric Newsom
1. The Art of Herge, Inventor of Tintin by Goddin (as translated by Farr)
2. Encyclopedia Of Comicbook Heroes Volume One: Batman (or, really, the version my public library had in the early 90s when I was a kid -- can't find what it was called) by Fleischer
3. Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life by Evanier
4. The Golden Age of Comic Fandom by Schelly
5. Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics edited by Blackbeard
*****
Gary Usher
1. Focus On Jack Cole, Ron Goulart
2. The New Comics, Gary Groth/Robert Fiore
3. The Comic Book Makers, Joe Simon/Jim Simon
4. The Essential Wonder Woman Encyclopedia, Phil Jimenez/John Wells
5. Reading The Funnies, Donald Phelps
*****
Tom Bondurant
1. The Comic Book Heroes, Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs
2. The Comics Journal Library: Jack Kirby, edited by Milo George
3. Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
4. Reading Comics, Douglas Wolk
5. Man Of Rock: A Biography Of Joe Kubert, Bill Schelly
*****
Des Devlin
* Comix (A History of Comic Books in America), by Les Daniels
* The MAD World of William M. Gaines, by Frank Jacobs
* The Ungentlemanly Art (A History of American Political Cartoons), by Stephen Hess & Milton Kaplan
* All in Color for a Dime, by Dick Lupoff & Don Thompson
* Tintin and the World of Herge, by Benoit Peeters
* Men of Tomorrow, Gerard Jones
* All In Color For A Dime, Richard Lupoff and Don Thompson
* The Steranko History of Comics 1 & 2, Jim Steranko
* The Adventurous Decade, Ron Goulart
* Backstage At The Strips, Mort Walker
* Comics: The Complete Collection, Brian Walker
* The Comics Journal Special Edition Vol. 4, Winter 2004 (Four Generations of Cartoonists)
* Mostly Outrageous, Bob Levin
* Comic Books As History, Joseph Witek
* Collected Letters, Vol. 1, Dave Sim
*****
Michael Buntag
1. Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga, Frederik L. Schodt
2. The First One Hundred Years of Philippine Komiks and Cartoons, John A. Lent
3. Adult Comics: An Introduction, Roger Sabin
4. The Art of The Comic Book, An Aesthetic History, Robert C. Harvey
5. Men of Tomorrow, Gerard Jones
1. How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, Stan Lee & John Buscema
2. The Great Comic Book Artists, Ron Goulart
3. Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
4. Comic Creators on the Fantastic Four, Tom DeFalco
5. Kirby: King of Comics, Mark Evanier
*****
Ryan Kirk
1. Innocence and Seduction -- The Art of Dan DeCarlo by Bill Morrison
2. Brush with Passion: The Art & Life of Dave Stevens edited by Arnie Fenner and Cathy Fenner
3. Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester by Bob Levin
4. Hal Foster: Prince of Illustrators by Brian M. Kane
5. Was Superman a Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed! by Brian Cronin
1. The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art, Jerry Robinson
2. Backstage at the Strips. Mort Walker
3. Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, Les Daniels
4. All in Color for a Dime, Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson
5. Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, Frederik L. Schodt
*****
Andrew Mansell
1. Meanwhile... A Biography of Milt Caniff by R.C. Harvey
2. Steve Rude: Artist in Motion
3. Winsor McCay His Life and Art by Jonathan Canemaker
4. Kirby King of Comics by Mark Evanier
5. B. Krigstein Vol. 1 by Sadowski
* Charles Hatfield, Alternative Comics: an Emerging Literature
* Todd Hignite, In the Studio
* Dan Raeburn, Chris Ware (also his Imp work; are those "books"?)
* Ball & Kuhlman, The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is a Way of Thinking
* Dylan Horrocks, Hicksville
*****
Randall Kirby
1. All in Color for a Dime -- Dick Lupoff, Don Thompson
2. Women in the Comics -- Maurice Horn
3. Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art -- Roger Sabin
4. The Steranko History of Comics -- Jim Steranko
5. Collecting Comic Books -- Marcia Leiter
*****
Paul Stock
1) Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Strips (OK, not comic books per se, but still...)
2) All In Color For A Dime (Richard Lupoff?)
3) Comix: A History of Comics in America (undergrounds)
4) The Great Comic Book Heroes (Jules Feiffer)
5) I've forgotten the title -- it was by Gerard Jones, around 1995 -- short bios of just about everyone in the business
*****
Chris Duffy
1. Men of Tomorrow -- Gerard Jones
2. Steranko History of Comics -- Steranko
3. Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman -- McDonnell, O'Connell, DeHavenon
4. Focus on Jack Cole -- Ron Goulart
5. Funny Papers -- Tom DeHaven (you didn't say it had to be non-fiction)
1. Steranko's History of Comics
2. Men of Tomorrow, Gerard Jones
3. Underground Classics, Denis Kitchen & James Danky
4. Comic Book Rebels, Stanley Wiater & Stephen Bissette
5. The Super Comics, Dennis O'Neil
1. 10 Cent Plague by David Hajdu. A fantastic look at the comic book censorship.
2. Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones. A riveting examination of the birth of the comic book newsstand industry.
3. Seal of Approval by Amy Kiste Nyborg. Another great look at comic book censorship, from a slightly different angle.
4. Comic Wars by Dan Raviv. An entertainingly written chronicle of Marvel Boardroom battles of the 90s.
5. Comics: Between the Panels by Steve Duin and Mike Richardson. A Comics Encyclopedia with many 'take it with a grain of salt' shocking, behind the scenes stories. It's not always good history, but it's fun reading.
*****
Kiel Phegley
1. How to Read Superhero Comics and Why, Geoff Klock
2. Carl Barks: Conversations, Donald Ault (editor)
3. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, Douglas Wolk
4. DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes, Les Daniels
5. Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975, Patrick Rosenkranz
*****
John Vest
1. Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, Les Daniels
2. Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!: Writers on Comics, edited by Sean Howe
3. In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists, Todd Hignite
4. The Steranko History of Comics, Volume 1, Jim Steranko
5. Origins of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee
*****
Johnny Bacardi
1. From Shadow to Light: The Life and Art of Mort Meskin -- Steven Brower with Philip and Peter Meskin
2. Fire and Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics -- Blake Bell
3. The Warren Companion -- Jon B. Cooke, David A. Roach
4. Understanding Comics -- Scott McCloud
5. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay -- Michael Chabon
*****
Domingos Isabelinho
1. Avanies et Mascarade, Bruno Lecigne
2. Fac simile, Bruno Lecigne, Jean-Pierre Tamine
3. El domicilio de la aventurav, Juan Sasturain
4. Case, planche, recit, Benoit Peeters
5. Reading Bande Dessinee, Ann Miller
*****
Jeffrey A. Goodman
* Seduction of The Innocent -- Fred Wertham
* Parade Of Pleasure -- Geoffrey Wagner
* Sex In Comics Vols. 1-4 -- Donald Gilmore PhD.
* Rebel Visions -- Patrick Rosenkranz
* The Art Of Richard W. Sprang -- Bob Koppany
* R.C. Harvey, The Art of the Funnies
* Blake Bell, Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko
* Pierre Couperie & Maurice Horn, A History of the Comic Strip
* Eddie Campbell, How to Be an Artist
* Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts: A Golden Celebration
*****
Danny Ceballos
1. All In Color For A Dime, Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson, eds.
2. Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
3. The New Comics, Gary Groth & R. Fiore, eds.
4. McSweeney's Issue #13, Chris Ware, ed.
5. Cartooning Philosophy and Practice, Ivan Brunetti
*****
Ben Ostrander
1. The Ten-Cent Plague -- David Hadju
2. Comic Books as History -- Joseph Witek
3. Shop Talk -- Will Eisner
4. Understanding Comics -- Scott McCloud
5. Of Comics and Men -- Jean-Paul Gabilliet
*****
Brian Fies
1. The Comics: An Illustrated History by Jerry Robinson
2. Backstage at the Strips by Mort Walker
3. Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics by Bill Blackbeard
4. The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer
5. The Penguin Book of Comics by George Perry
1. All In Color For A Dime, Richard Lupoff
2. Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
3. Manga!, Fred Schodt
4. Men Of Tomorrow, Gerard Jones
5. The Great Comic Book Heroes, Jules Feiffer
*****
Jeet Heer
* Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book by Mike Barrier
* The Adventurous Decade by Ronald Goulart
* In the Studio by Todd Hignite
* Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature by Charles Hatfield
* Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel by Annalisa Di Liddo.
*****
James Langdell
1. Comix: A History of Comics In America, Les Daniels & John "The Mad Peck" Peck
2. Men of Tomorrow, Gerard Jones
3. Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
4. Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Comics
5. Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz, Rheta Grimsley Johnson
*****
Ali T. Kokmen
1. The Comic Book Heroes Gerard Jones & Will Jacobs
2. Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know (a.k.a. Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life) by Paul Gravett
3. All in Color for a Dime, Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson
4. The Ten-Cent Plague, David Hajdu
5. Foul Play: The Art & Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics, Grant Geissman
*****
Roger Langrdige
1. All in Color For a Dime (various) -- mainly because of the Bill Blackbeard piece on Thimble Theatre
2. The Art of the Funnies: An Aesthetic History (R.C. Harvey)
3. A Very Funny Business (Leo Baxendale)
4. The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips (Ron Goulart)
5. Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book (Michael Barrier)
*****
Joe Keatinge
1. Swimini Purpose, Brendan McCarthy
2. Kaba, Katsuhiro Otomo
3. The Studio, Jeff Jones, Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluta & Barry Windsor-Smith
4. Toth by Design, Alex Toth and Darrell McNeil
5. The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, Bill Blackbeard
A Few Notes On Molly Norris' Situation
* first of all, I don't know any decent person that doesn't support Molly Norris, that doesn't feel terrible about her situation, that actually think it's a good thing that she's worried about being harmed and is being intimidated into hiding because she made a cartoon about the portrayal of Muhammed. Suggesting that someone out there does feel that away, let alone that a lot of people do, just seems like cheap, low-level sensationalism.
* second, shame on any journalistic organization, employer or public official within Norris' district that does not extend her the additional support those relationships and their resources call for and bring.
* third, I think it's pretty clear that the vast majority of those who might wish Norris harm or to intimidate her are working a political point more than they operating out of some incredibly wrongheaded and intolerable religious idea.
* fourth, can we be put a moratorium on saying Norris has been threatened "by Muslims"? That's like saying someone's been threatened "by left-handed people." They're just not organized that way. Norris was put on a specific, highly-publicized list by a specific imam named Anwar al-Awlaki.
* fifth, the main threat posed by her being on that list isn't some planned commando operation directed by al-Awlaki, but that some moron out there will take it upon himself to fulfill the mandates of the imam's list for some disturbed reason related to religious belief or for simply wanting to get some of that sweet, sweet publicity for themselves. Cut the FBI enough slack here.
* sixth, we should all be clear that it's almost certain that Norris made the imam's list not for this expression of her ideas but because folks turned her expression into a Facebook campaign that garnered a lot of attention despite Norris wishing to be disassociated from it. Nice job, you dumbasses.
* seventh, I don't feel compelled to do so, but if anyone out there would like to do something other than write a post or a column complaining about lack of support and provide Norris some of that support via, say, raising money for her,
I wish Molly Norris an uneventful and creatively fulfilling life filled to the brim with feelings of security and safety. I'm sorry this happened to you.
Malaysian Police Raid Zunar's Office; Cartoonist Escorted To Police HQ In a distressing report hitting the wires this morning, police in Kuala Lumpur have raided the Cartoon Kafe offices owned by Zulkiflee SM Anwar Ulhaq, better known as Zunar. They seized copies of the Cartoon-O-Phobia book scheduled for release tonight and arrested the cartoonist, escorting him to the district's police headquarters. Ten officers were involved in the effort.
Zunar had made headlines for the banning of his work by the government, which he is challenging in court. (Zunar's extreme disdain for the idea that his work could cause potential riots led him to the world-class funny and heartbreaking response that he would like to be shown some of this civil unrest his past works have caused.) In addition to the challenges, Zunar has spoken openly that his latest work is sharper than the old one, promising engagement with a laundry list of sensitive issues. The work draws from on-line cartoons appearing in the Malasiakini news portal in 2009 and 2010.
An even launching Cartoon-O-Phobia is scheduled this evening; the cartoonist has apparently told the press the launch will still happen. Our thoughts are with the cartoonist in this particular circumstance and his ongoing struggle to be heard without government interference.
Quick! To The Beerbohm Signal! From Mark Mayerson comes the kind of blog post I have no ability to endorse or disprove, but point out here for all of those in comics-land that are much more interested than I am in potential first comics and proto-comics: a story from 1493 told in sequential form with speech balloons. The gentleman that posted it even provides solicitation copy:
The duchy of Gelria (Gelre), in what is now part of the Dutch province of Gelderland, saw the return of the young Duke Charles (Karel) from captivity in the Burgundian France in 1492. Count Van Meurs remained in captivity in Charles' place in France, so Charles could settle his French ransom. It is Van Meurs who in this document of 1493 complains that Charles has not kept his promises...
Like I said, I can't vouch for something like this, let alone suggest that crews of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria swapped longboxes at various points on their long journey, but my hunch is to agree with the statement that this indicates that there was a certain kind of picture storytelling popular in the area and time from which it comes.
* I didn't know until just now that Garry Trudeau provided the cover for this month's Baby Boomer-focused issue of The Atlantic. Makes sense, though.
* you know, I agree with what Brian Bendis says about comics industry journalism here. There should be more long-form journalism by now, and that's as much my fault as anyone. The only thing I can say is that I think it's coming, and I'm not sure I thought that 18-24 months ago. I don't think it's a lack of wanting to do it -- well, I think that's a part of it for some folks -- but that it's more of an institutional development thing. The 'zine press that on-line industry press replaced didn't develop any kind of long-form journalism for years. It takes time to be able to devote resources that way in a consistent fashion. You can leapfrog this stage with dogged effort, but to have a publication settle into that role takes a bit longer. I do think we're on track again.
* when longtime Seattle retailer Perry Plush says "This isn't a library," his customers listen.
* the great R. Fiore explains to me what he meant by his analysis of DC Comics To West Coast rumors. I disagree with much of what he says. I think DC has enough gravity to have transferred everything it needed to Los Angeles. I think that infrastructure issues aren't as important these days -- there are massive amounts of comics processed for publication in places like Kansas City, Portland and Orlando. I think LA has as much potential talent for a variety of things DC does as New York might, and likely more talent for the key, desired practice of developing IP that can work across media. Any gains that Marvel would make in having access to leftover locals in NYC would have been offset by DC having unfettered access to all the LA talent, as much as that matters (not very). And so on. Mostly, though, I wanted to point out that it wasn't just a rumor that formulated without basis or the way that rumors formulate: DC considered such a move, and the rumor seems to have had a basis in that reality, not some sort of formulation model (it didn't change; it was sudden and pervasive). Obviously, he disagrees. I was happy to change my characterization of his aim in writing the original blog entry, though.
* finally, the writer Warren Ellis talks about publishing on-line. Ellis has a significant project -- Freakangels -- available that way. I used to love Freakangels because when it started Ellis would send out an e-mail reminder every week when it came out, which was sort of like getting yelled at to take out the recycling. It was the webcomic for people too lazy to keep up with webcomics.
Twelve Initial Questions I Have About DC's Publishing Moves Announcements
Tuesday's rolling set of announcements and revelations -- that mainstream comics giant/smart, creative kid in the back of the Time Warner classroom DC Comics would be moving everything but its print publishing line to Los Angeles, that the WildStorm and Zuda imprints would be shut down, and that the company was embarking on a process of discussing the future with individual employees and that layoffs would likely be part of that series of discussions -- was processed through the modern, loosely-assembled juggernaut of social media, newspapers and multiple web sites with enough force and big-name access that the story for the majority of industry on-lookers may be all but over even as you finish reading this ridiculous, run-on sentence. One can imagine an announcement here and there about some folks being let go, others being re-assigned, interns and temp workers being brought on full-time and maybe even an Executive Editor being named. But the event part of it, the announcement that came after months of speculation over what kind of moves would be made and when, a lot of that energy dissipated about 6 PM on the 21st. Welcome to entertainment news in the modern media world.
I think the story may be more complicated than a day or two's worth of close attention. It could be a lot more complicated. I can't remember a big story like this one where I was left with so many questions, and not just the ones of the "To Be Continued" variety -- and there were plenty of those, too. I sought out direct answers when I thought that would be fruitful, and David Hyde and Diane Nelson at DC were nice enough to accommodate my inquiries even with their heavy press schedules over the last 72 hours. I will continue to get answers and refine the ones I have.
In the meantime, I present you with the 12 questions I had after DC's big Tuesday.
1. Why Are They Leaving The Publishing Business in New York City Again?
I thought it curious that the one thing lacking from Tuesday's initial burst of press was a solid, direct answer as to why publishing is staying in New York City. You know: the basic answer to the basic question raised by the first announcement made that day. When asked the question more or less directly, the template being used either consciously or sub-consciously by DC executives seemed to first reiterate the need for DC to work within the wider Time Warner structure. Here's what I got from Diane Nelson earlier today.
"We looked painstakingly at many different criteria that necessarily weigh in to our operations moving in part or in whole. We determined that the optimal organization for DCE acknowledges the close proximity to NY and East Coast operational, talent and business resources.
"We took this evaluation and analysis very seriously, along with the personal considerations of our many valued employees and their families."
That's an interesting answer -- and that's what I was given after I told them that the answers they'd already given weren't all that convincing. Focusing on the core result explains why the whole question of moving was considered. That kind of synthesis and exploitation of DC properties and talents is very important to Warners, and thus it's very important to DC. Yet coming back with that kind of reason first, and not really giving a subsequent reason why this specific arrangement works best to facilitate that goal, suggests to me that maybe there was a lot to say about moving the whole kit and kaboodle under one roof. So with a good answer in place for why they'd go West, what you'd ostensibly need is a better answer for print publishing staying put.
I didn't hear one. Did you?
In fact, I only read two independent reasons for keeping publishing out east in any of what's come out since Tuesday morning.
The first reason is that in keeping things where they've been for the last 75 years, DC would be preserving the legacy of comics publishing in New York. That's a lovely thought, and it makes a swell third line in a wire story, but it sure doesn't sound convincing -- even as it's been articulated by DC! I'm not sure I know what preserving the legacy of comics publishing even means in practical terms. I certainly haven't detected a loss of the legacy aspects of the business that can be traced to the wider comics industry spreading out to cities like Seattle and Portland and Kansas City. Moreover, I'm dubious that a modern super-corporation would make a decision on that basis. If it were so important as to be a crucial factor, you think someone at the company could make the case in more than cursory terms. When someone sacrifices policy and/or profit for principle, they tend to be able to talk your ear off about the principle. I didn't get any of that here. It seems the issues of DC's legacy was in many ways an abstract thing even to the people who supposedly made a major decision based on that issue.
The second reason floated where I could see it is that there's some sort of intrinsic value in the current DC structure and the people that service it. I take it that means a collective, positive appraisal of the people currently in the company, the people in the local/regional pool of talent that could be brought into the company, and certain ways of doing business as established in New York.
Now, this sounds valid to me as a possible idea. I can conceive of it. It just doesn't sound convincing in this particular circumstance.
In broad terms, my hunch is that very little that a New York setting or talent pool offers couldn't be approximated or possibly exceeded in Los Angeles -- even more so given the stated goals of the company regarding the division and its place in relation to other entertainment media. DC wasn't considering a move to Indianapolis or Albuquerque; they were thinking of Burbank. If DC's decision-makers disagree with me that LA could have offered what NYC can, I'd love to have heard them say so. Further, it's nearly impossible to believe that in this economy, in this wider publishing industry, and that this being comics in the first place where a high-paying job is rarer than Gold Kryptonite, that the vast majority of key personnel wouldn't follow the company into an assault on the pass at Thermopylae. As much as I've heard about people worried to death about what would happen at DC this week, it was always because they were either going to be fired or have to move. It was never because they'd have to make a career change.
But more than that, given the length of the process by which DC's brain trust came to this decision and the supposed thoroughness with which they looked at all options, shouldn't there be much more than a vague impression they might lose some people? I've been involved in two massive firings/restructurings in my professional life. In both cases I -- a nobody -- was approached and asked direct questions about things like if I would move offices or if I could do another person's job if need be. And in each case, the time frame to make this decision was greatly compressed. According to what they've stated, it feels like DC is staying in New York because of a hunch, not because of what they learned from a thorough process of information-gathering. Again: baffled.
2. Could There Be an Unnamed Reason They're Leaving the Business in New York City?
Because those answers are unconvincing, it forces me to wonder if DC isn't staying in New York because of a reason no one has discussed yet. I'm terrible at this kind of brainstorming and the world as it reveals itself to me is a carnival midway of wonders because of how little I can predict in advance. But Tuesday even had me scratching my head. One thing that comes to mind is I wonder if there could be intellectual property concerns that make keeping an office in New York more attractive. I've always heard that New York is a better place to defend your IP than California. Jeff Trexler, who writes about legal issues and comics for Blog@Newsarama, notes that while all sorts of factors go into what gets filed and where, there's an attraction to New York for IP holders.
"The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which reviews cases heard in the Southern District of New York, has well-developed IP jurisprudence that is generally regarded as owner friendly. The Ninth Circuit, which includes California, is commonly seen as somewhat less predictable and more plaintiff friendly in regard to IP," Trexler wrote in respond to my inquiry. "Playing the odds, an IP owner would be inclined to try to file in New York--especially the IP & business savvy Southern District, which includes NYC -- while someone trying to challenge an IP owner would more often than not try to go elsewhere, such as the Ninth Circuit, which, deserved or no, has a reputation for being more liberal and less corporate. For example, one could make a decent argument that the Siegels would have been far less likely to win the Superman case had they filed in New York -- as illustrated by the previous rulings against Siegel & Shuster in the Second Circuit, an outcome favoring the Siegel heirs was not a slam dunk."
Here's another possibility, just related to me 10 minutes after my initial posting. California apparently has extremely tricky laws for work for hire that may force a company located there to treat a contractor working under such an agreement as an employee rather than as an independent contractor. One freelancer assures me this includes collecting unemployment if you're let go from a long-term assignment. I imagine that such differences in law could add a great deal of cost, project to project, to any publisher, like DC, that depends on work for hire agreements.
Now is each of these things a stab in the dark? For sure. But they are no less convincing reasons than preserving legacies or maybe/perhaps some people leaving the company. The thing is, I'm open to most possibilities right now.
3. Why Was the News Announced in Rolling Fashion?
One thing that was odd about Tuesday's news day is that the bi-coastal split of DC Entertainment and DC Comics got the first release, WildStorm and Zuda got their own release in the form of an open letter from Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, and the potential for layoffs and in-house restructuring was left to being revealed -- in controversial fashion -- in one of the follow-up interviews. A lot of people, myself included, almost dismissed the story when the first release hit only to return in a panic and refocus our coverage when we learned that WildStorm and Zuda were being closed and a reporter in a follow-up interview with Diane Nelson had claimed a 20 percent workforce reduction was coming.
Was the tiered release planned to get a blast of positive PR out there before the negative? I don't mean that in a bad way. I might split the announcement if that were my job. People always seem to remember a first thing more than a second, and it's not like they were hiding anything. An even odder possibility is that DC as currently constituted may on some level considers its ability to maximize its characters a more important story than the immediate fate of an unknown percentage of those working at the publishing company or the closure of two of its imprints. I also don't mean that in a bad way, although it sounds horrible, just in a corporate-emphasis way. As several folks have pointed out, it's not out of the question that many folks following the story -- both professionally and as fans -- agreed that the impact on the characters was a more important story than an in-house restructuring of jobs in a rough economy.
4. Why Was the News Announced at All?
One reason it's been difficult to comment on this story is that DC hasn't finished making moves. According to information gleaned through Tuesday's follow-up interviews, DC will embark on an in-house process of talking to its employees and doing some realignment work throughout their divisions. This seems bound to be an awful experience, and will almost certain involve NDAs for anyone that can sign one. It's not clear who's doing what, although Jim Lee was apparently in La Jolla yesterday and today to communicate DC's plans to those working at the announced-for-closure WildStorm office.
This makes me wonder: why wouldn't you wait until after that process to make a full and even more dramatic announcement to the press and the comics community in general? It seems like the story was still developing on Tuesday, to the point that when a few people wondered out loud if there wouldn't be a reversal of some sort, it was difficult to tell them there was absolutely no chance of it.
5. How Many People Will Be Let Go?
The LAT writer Ben Fritz stated in a blog posting driven primarily by the fruits of his discussion with DC President Diane Nelson that 20 percent of DC's 250 employees were to lose their jobs. Everyone's clear on one thing: That statement did not come from Nelson. Some subsequent sources unfortunately reported that it did based on little more than its proximity to Nelson's actual statements; my own language wasn't as clear as it should have been. Also, that statement did not indicate that any jobs cut would come from a specific division or place within DC. Again, at least one source jumped to a conclusion that it was DC proper that would suffer that number of job losses as opposed to this being a number that might include jobs lost from the closure of WildStorm and Zuda. On the other hand, no one's officially denied the number. Nor has anyone officially endorsed it. It was a very strong and certain statement, not the kind of thing open to a lot of interpretation.
I e-mailed Ben Fritz on Wednesday. He wrote back that he stands behind his reporting and the figure named. He declined to reveal the provenance of that information. The comics industry site Bleeding Coolclaims -- without making clear the origins their own, contrary, information -- that this statement by Fritz was wrong; they even suggest it was made up. Johnston claims in a follow-up e-mail that the interview in that blog post was taken from other sources, and Fritz had no direct interaction with Nelson at all. DC's response was to point out that the figure given in the article did not come from Nelson, and doesn't have her endorsement. Asked for further comment by CR, Diane Nelson said, "No comment."
So who knows? Twenty percent is a lot of people, and no matter what you may think about the necessity or wisdom of reorganizing the company in a way that involves such layoffs, those are all people that will likely suffer because of those moves. Our hearts should go out to them. We should feel sympathy even if it's only half as many people let go. Or one person. It should be a main focus of coverage from here on out because job-loss is a true, measurable result of these moves, and if it's end up being twenty percent or anything close to it, that should dwarf any other story.
6. What Is The Status Of DC Direct?
Again, there was no announcement of what's going on with this part of DC's business and nothing in the follow-up statements. The fate of DC Direct is important here because it's exactly the kind of business one would think would get moved to California if the general theory of "print publishing to the east coast"/"everything else to the west coast"" holds. It seems odd that there's no firm answer available at the time of the announcement. I've been told that this is one of those moves that will wait until after the in-house employee evaluations, which again confuses me as to why the whole thing couldn't wait.
7. How Horrible Must It Have Been To Be A DC Comics Employee This Week -- Heck, This Year?
One thing that's been to my mind under-reported is how the lengthy period preceding Tuesday's announcements must have had an effect on those that now must deal with the collective outcome of those decisions. Despite R. Fiore's post-announcement assertion that the rumors of a total west coast move were only that because such a move made no sense, Diane Nelson has clearly acknowledged that such a move was on the table and considered, and the pervasiveness and certainty of the rumor was as ingrained in the day to day reality of its believers as any I've ever seen in comics. This was not a case of a few bloggers running around screaming things just to be heard.
So, if you're a DC employee, it's possible you just spent several months thinking you might lose your job -- a comics job! -- in a shitty economy or have to move to California and away from your friends with an unknown incentive package, or none at all, as the basis for making this possible. This was followed by a couple of weeks just past where you were told that an announcement was imminent. This may have been followed by a moment of relief -- that's how it was described to me -- when the New York publishing offices were announced as staying open. And yet this was followed by word that divisions are being closed, which was followed by further news that everyone is being evaluated -- with firings on the table.
Now, I don't know if that's a fully accurate view of the timeline, but if half of that stuff happened to me, if I rode on the first two plunges of that particular roller coaster, my morale would be at the sub-basement level. One can argue that DC Comics isn't exactly a healthy culture to begin with; one can further argue that it's been a particularly difficult place to work for the last few years. I can't imagine what an injection of real drama might do to that group's collective ability to function at the high level required of them by current industry circumstance.
8. Is There Really A Baby In All That Bathwater?
One thing I've been confused by in the aftermath of DC recent announcements is this certainty evinced that a lot of what the publishing company has been doing has been right. This notion is often expressed as a defense of not making as radical a move as expected -- that you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and you want to build on all the positives of DC's current publishing practices.
Now I know that a publisher like DC is bound to do a lot of things well. Their book program has evinced renewed vigor since their distributor switch, and they seem to place titles into the top 30 slots on the Diamond serial comics list, such as it is, with slightly greater frequency than they used to when Marvel was throttling the market. I'm not exactly King Expert Of Mainstream Comics, either. But the special enthusiasm that seems to be encouraging DC into a strategy of staying the course feels to me vague and unearned.
What exactly are they doing to inspire such confidence? They don't seem to know any more than their rivals known concerning how to get serial comics out of a slow spiral of declining sales and general apathy. Some of their creative decisions have been howled at by long-term fans. They don't seem to have much in the way of perceived -- perceived -- no-question, dependable A-list talent past Morrison and Johns and maybe Straczynski. They seem at times to overwork people -- by which I mean creators, not Batman, although he's got to be tired, too -- and thus disrupt the momentum of some of their key serial comics via scheduling issues. Their ability to keep books in print in a minimally logical fashion is a criticism they face all the time. Even the fabled people skills of the new executive team -- an all-time A-list talent handler and three veteran industry new executives, two of which are working pros -- seem to have been employed in a way that's only riled further one of their most profitable, long-time authors and not exactly sent scores of creators scrambling from another company towards a seat in the Hall Of Justice. There's also Tuesday's news. Shutting down imprints may make sense from an organizational standpoint and may make the future a brighter one, but it also seems to be an implicit criticism of how things are being done right now. It should go without saying, but no imprint gets closed because it's awesome and it performs wonderfully. So what am I missing? What is the reason for any enthusiasm in staying this particular course, even its roughest outline?
9. Where Is Patrick Caldon?
I really don't care where Patrick Caldon is -- I'm sure he's fine -- but it was curious to some folks that wrote in to point out that he was nowhere near any of the follow-up press for the announcement, given that he was the fifth major member of the new Team DC. Mostly I put this in here because once you think about the presence of someone like Caldon, you realize that you don't know what you usually know with this kind of story: the parameters of the decision-making process. I have no idea who was in on it and who wasn't. Do you? For all I know, some creators were consulted (not all of them, clearly). Or maybe it was just Nelson, Lee, Johns and DiDio. Actually, I've since been informed that Patrick Caldon was a vital part of the team in terms of assessing its operational utility and its role as a cultural institution. But I had to ask.
It's strange that this whole process wasn't made a bit more transparent. There's no reason for it not to be if it's as foundational a moment as the press releases would have us think. One possibility is that all of these elements were too hard to track, that there wasn't clear decision-making, and that everything at DC is kind of moving forward in an organic and maybe even sometimes improvisational way. Another is that few want to fully own the majority of the decisions being made, at least not immediately. Or it could be a communication thing, that someone simply doesn't think this kind of thing important or worth describing. It'd be nice to know how they came to such important decisions, though, other than assurances that the process was thorough and everyone made suggestions. If we can know that DC employees are headed into evaluation meetings, why couldn't we know who was involved in the decision to send them there?
10. How Big Of A Train Wreck, Start To Finish, Was DC's Purchase Of WildStorm?
There's an article at Bleeding Cool that points out some of what I might write here. I disagree with one or two of their particulars, but I think the thrust of that article has it right. DC's stewardship of WildStorm was an almost Tundra Comics-sized fiasco, despite the best intentions and hard work of many of those at the company or working for it in a creative role, as well as the continued ascendancy within the greater company of founder Jim Lee.
There was a point at which WildStorm seemed poised to become a more potent marketplace version of Vertigo -- a Vertigo without the specific horror and related genre elements hanging over it, a company with a tighter spiritual relationship to the industry's core superhero values. It seemed ready to become one of those few, reliable companies that provided a home for creator-owned work with a popular, mainstream element to it -- that you could take a project to WildStorm without having to take a step back in your industry ambitions for it. From a consumer's standpoint, it could offer a line of books that gave certain readers series to follow that were slightly more sophisticated and thematically challenging than works in those genres offered through the Big Two, and thus it gave stores a tool to keep those readers. WildStorm even enjoyed the fruits of solid core books, driven by a halfway-decent, sturdy central concept and buttressed at key points by the work of talented writers like Warren Ellis, Alan Moore, Ed Brubaker and James Robinson.
Rather than moving to the next level with the DC purchase, becoming a prestige imprint at a comics company backed by one of the biggest media empires in the world, WildStorm sputtered with some major successes, some minor achievements, and more and more advancements that seemed marked by corresponding setbacks. As the Bleeding Cool article describes, it became known rightly or wrongly as a place for editorial meddling that drove key creators away (or further away) from the parent company. It later garnered a reputation for a certain kind of callow albeit popular licensed book, and for its constant attention to replicating certain effects of previous successful efforts -- the kind of relaunch and reconfigure and rehash grind that slowly drives readers away. WildStorm could have been a contender. Its closure didn't even merit its own press release.
11. Is There Any Reason To Believe Assurances Regarding Various Properties?
A few of you have e-mailed me to make fun of statements like this one from Ed Brubaker that now's the time to buy some of the books he did for WildStorm because they could go out of print. I think there's some skepticism on your part that this could happen. In fact, the idea that WildStorm books would go out of print because of there being no WildStorm was met by wave-of-hand denials from Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, with the assurance that books that continue to sell will continue to be sold.
Creators like Ed are onto something, I think. As Brubaker pointed out to me in a follow-up e-mail, properties like his Sleeper at WildStorm never sold that well in the first place. Without the attention that comes through a devoted company with an interest in keeping a variety of projects out there on the shelves in some way, left to the capricious whims of however that work and those properties are employed by a company with plenty of properties and books to worry after, it's perfectly logical that a number of solid works could fade from view. Moreover, as the creators at WildStorm that have properties of their own seem to have found out about the company's closure on twitter, rather than being contacted personally, no one really knows if they will remain important or vital to DC, even in the short term.
12. What Is The Long-Term Impact On DC Publishing?
Finally, I was surprised in all that was announced that there wasn't more attention paid to how this has an effect on DC Comics as a print publishing company, in addition to what it will mean for Warners. In fact, if you read the follow-up stories today about the changes at Warner, it's as if these properties in some sort of independent idea space that has nothing to do with paper and ink (or pixels and computer screens). That the first follow-up story came through entertainment media rather than comics industry media indicates that our main takeaway may be that everything that's important about DC is going to Hollywood, that print is now on an island, by itself, and the only thing that matters is if Green Lantern really is a tentpole franchise, not if he can sell twice as many comic books. As one industry friend put it, if this were a gangster movie, DC Comics is the poor dope left running things in Atlantic City after all of the other characters have left for Vegas.
Maybe that's the next round of discussions. Maybe there is a second set of publishing announcements on the way. Maybe this is merely prologue to what DC comics does from here on out as a print and digital publishing business. Maybe DC will get an exciting Executive Editor. I sort of doubt it, but it could happen. The great thing about comics is that print publishing is a niche industry and digital publishing is likely to be one, too. You don't need to change the minds of 10,000,000 people in the space of one weekend in order to revolutionize the comics field; you can transform the business by quietly recruiting 100,000 devoted new readers over a half-decade's time. Hollywood creates franchises; comics creates universes. I think you're getting close to the heart of it when you realize that it's only comics people, and a certain kind at that, that were made uncomfortable by Tuesday's announcements. What seems unsatisfying from a comics perspective was likely everything the Hollywood view of things needed to hear. The latter trumps the former, five scissors to one paper, five papers to one rock.
For right now, with all the questions I have, maybe the only thing I'm certain of is that there seems less of a comics industry than ever, if there's a comics industry at all. The second shoe dropping wasn't the WildStorm/Zuda closure after DC's bi-coastal realignment announcement. The second shoe dropping is this whole slew of odd, unclear, in-development measures and earnest but talking-point answers that seem to focus on everything but a core publishing mission, the first major industry move after a Comic-Con with a similar focus on everything but publishing. Maybe a renewed comics focus is on its way. I don't know. Maybe that's the something that needs to cost multiple employees their jobs to get us to a place where that happens. I couldn't possibly say. Maybe for most people they'd gladly see every last DC employee fired if it meant they got a decent Emma Stone Wonder Woman movie in 2014. I have my suspicions. I do know that there's honor in an industry that supports the greatest art form in the world, and that any new comic book reality will be better off in the long run keeping that in mind. It doesn't matter where the industry keeps its various offices if its orientation and mindset are going to be someplace else from now on. Let's hope this was a step to a better industry, and not an initial affirmation of a new, unfocused status quo.
The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: News On Cons, Shows & Major Events
By Tom Spurgeon
* this weekend it's MICE, a show in Hamburg and a one-day event in Seattle.
* the big news of the week con-wise was probably the announcement of a second Brooklyn Comics and Graphic Festival, to be held this year on December 4 at 275 N. 8th Street. Their special guest list is Lynda Barry, Gabrielle Bell, Charles Burns, Jordan Crane, Evan Dorkin, Renee French, Bill Griffith, Sammy Harkham, Irwin Hasen, Anders Nilsen, Paul Pope, Johnny Ryan, Leanne Shapton, Mark Alan Stamaty, Jillian Tamaki and Adrian Tomine. Any three of those people should be enough to get you out of head. Also, everyone should be nice to Irwin Hasen for joining all those young people in a celebration of comics -- you should get a print/drawing from him if you can -- and everyone should rush Mark Alan Stamaty's table in order to jump start a long-overdue reconsideration of Mark Alan Stamaty. I can't imagine a nicer room of interesting artists, which is why of course I won't be going. There will likely be killer programming. And it's free. Why wouldn't you go?
* if you get the chance, go here and study the BCGF poster up close. It's fun.
* in what may be the biggest week for con announcements in Brooklyn history, the new King Con -- a more standard comics show -- was also announced for the borough, this one in early November.
* the next big-big event on the convention calendar is the New York Comic Con. Still no programming up at the main site, although I think M. Night Shyamalan may be coming to the show to apologize for Unbreakable and give us our money back, which is nice. Don't quote me on that, though. Also it looks like IDW is going to be making the second Parker book its point of emphasis for the show which is nice because there aren't a lot of ads with comics in them on that front page.
Four Belgian Men Arrested Late Last Week In Death Note Murder Case
Through Anime News Network and Le Soir we learn a murder investigation that made headlines for its grisly nature (a torso and two human thighs were found by hikers) and its tangential relationship to the manga Death Note (a nearby note with a bungled translation of the phrase "Watashi wa Kira desu," relating to an alias in and famous phrase within the series) moved into its final stages late last week, culminating with the arrest of four men for the crime. According to that report, three men were arrested by members of Belgium's Federal Police force for murder and two of them have since confessed. The fourth was charged with not seeking to assist the murder victim. A police photograph of the notes that relate to the manga can be found here. The cause of death was apparently an argument between roommates that led to physical blows and the victim's subsequent death. The manga reference through the note and a symbol made from rice was apparently a throw-in by the arrested men, manga fans.
Kamal Sharaf Released By Yemeni Court
Kamal Sharaf, the Yemeni cartoonist who was taken into custody August 16 after his home was raided along with those of two journalism colleagues, was released earlier today by something called the Special Penal Court. The prosecution has appealed. Sharaf's co-defendant, a fellow journalist, was not released. During the first day of the trial yesterday the prosecution asked that the cartoonist be held for an extra 45 days to continue their investigation into Sharaf's activities. His family was not allowed to see him for a full month after he was taken into custody, and both the family and advocacy groups were generally concerned about his health. The advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontieres has repeatedly called for his release.
Ed Gamble, a widely-syndicated editorial cartoonist who was in the middle of his 25th year as the staff cartoonist for the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, was let go by the paper in a staff-cutting measure. Gamble, who had already been working part-time for the paper in addition to his syndication through King Features, was one of 22 staffers let go. Gamble comes from a newspaper family and is one of the few cartoonists of whom I'm aware with a degree in political science. As part of his severance package, Gamble was to receive a week's pay for each year worked at the publication. The Times-Union is owned by Morris Publishing Group. A series of Gamble's cartoons can be accessed here.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the hobby business news and analysis site ICv2.com profiles the latest anti-piracy bill gaining bi-partisan support with our elected, national officials.
* this isn't the first time I've read Shaenon Garrity enthusing over Atagoul, but I'm certainly not tired of it. That stuff is weird-looking.
* when I was a kid we just called this "being an asshole."
* Bully would like to remind those campaigning for Stan Lee to appear on Saturday Night Live that he's already hosted the show. That is a great, long, self-indulgent Bully post.
* Jeet Heer and the gang at Comics Comicsdiscuss Douglas Wolk, Reading Comics, the possibility a series of critical profile books for comics, theory and hacks.
* not comics: hey, I just realized the new Spider-Man played the reporter who got beat up a lot in the first Red Riding movie. He was pretty good, as I recall, and I think that's a Netflix "watch instantly" selection for those of you who like the British crime stuff.
* Paul Levitz is apparently bringing back one of the sweeter mainstream comics fan participation elements of ages past: the election of the leader of the Legion Of Super-Heroes, which was done by fans writing in and then used as a story point in the title. The thing I remember about that as a kid was that the numbers weren't all that spectacular. Most of my comics reading was extremely isolated from other people in my middle-school years, and seeing the vote results got me thinking about the other people reading comics in a serious way for the first time. Not that that's a serious subject or anything, but it did make me think about how the audience broke down, and it didn't occur to me before just how small in some ways that audience was, and how that was an opportunity for me to make an impact in that world if I applied myself.
* finally, the writer Jason Aaron points out that not sucking is helpful if you want to break into a creative endeavor. I think this is a piece of advice that a lot of us forget about, the fact that our own efforts and the efforts of things we like may suffer less from a conspiracy of market forces and gatekeepers and more from just not being good enough. There's also that thing where something/someone is arguably good enough but not overwhelmingly and obviously good enough, and thus presents a trap for those arguing over its ultimate fate.
I have a longer piece about DC Comics' various moves from yesterday that I thought was going to go up today. It will go up tomorrow. I fully realize that each post about a future post earns a blogger a thousand extra years in a specific corner of Hell, but I wanted to mention this here because there's a tendency in this day and age to blow through media events as quickly as one can process the basic facts. It may earn a publication the ire of those who are watching the watchmen, but sometimes it takes a couple of days to get your thoughts together, let alone responses to those thoughts from those involved, let alone a coherent article of more than a couple hundred words. It's an even bigger problem when much of the story contains within it unresolved elements. At any rate, I apologize for the delay.
In the meantime, anyone interested in the major news announcements from yesterday -- the potential loss of jobs, the closure of two imprints, the decision to basically split DC publishing into East Coast (print) and West Coast (on-line) divisions and the announcement of in-house meetings to further realign the venerable publishing company -- should read Kevin Melrose's recap at Robot 6, which I thought was the best of today's summary articles.
* the Library Journalpreviews a bunch of early 2011 comics projects, including a new edition of a late-'90s Lorenzo Mattotti project. New Lorenzo Mattotti anything is always welcome news.
* Julia Wertz has posted a few pages from her latest book as an inducement to get you to consider buying it.
* there have been one million copies of Scott Pilgrim books printed. That should be more important to comics people than how much of the production budget the North American cinema release of the movie version made, but of course it isn't.
* the team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning will be writing the forthcoming Heroes For Hire comic; they're the writers that have been doing those well-received Marvel space books for a few years now. The weird thing about Heroes For Hire is that all those people look like terrible employees.
* okay, at first upon reading this I thought that Grant Morrison was adapting the Michael Keaton film Multiplicity, which is probably the only entry point by which his doing the Charlton heroes in a vaguely, Watchman-y way doesn't seem so weird.
* I always knew that David Low was on a list of potential hanging victims were Germany to take Great Britain, and hadn't even heard of this sort-of funny, sort-of dark planted rumor featuring him being joined on that list by some cartoon editors, a rumor now debunked.
* not comics: the writer Matt Fraction notes that Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, a history of National Lampoon, is out. I know next to nothing about one of the great fountainheads of American comedy the last half-century, including one of the top 10 magazine homes for cartooning in the same period, so I'll definitely make a beeline for that one next time I'm in a bookstore.
* one-time Legion Of Super-Heroes super-team Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen are once again working together with those characters.
* the fact that Paul Trap's Thatababy was being offered as a potential replacement for Cathy in my hometown newspaper meant with 99 percent certainty that someone out there had signed the Amazon.com contest participant to a syndication deal. Turns out it was Universal. I think that one could potentially launch very well.
* finally, Amazon has spit out a release date for Pantheon's collection of Dan Clowes' Mister Wonderful: April 2011. (thanks, Brad Mackay)
Missed It: CBLDF Celebrates Appeals Court Decision Against Oregon Statutes The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund posted a long, celebratory message on their news feed in support of a decision of the Ninth Circuit court of appeals that deemed unconstitutional two Oregon statutes regarding the distribution of sex education and certain non-obscene material. While the state tried to arge that the statutes only applied to hardcore pornography, the court found they applied to a variety of artistic material including the manga Berserk and specific Judy Blume novels. The CBLDF, Powell's Books and Dark Horse Comics were part of the group challenging those statutes.
Click through the initial link for more information including access to a PDF of the decision itself.
In other CBLDF goings-on, new President Larry Marder (pictured) writes passionately about an brief filed by the Fund on behalf of another medium's industry.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* for some reason, the CNN wire is only picking up today that the there are plans to republish the original Danish Muhammed cartoons in Flemming Rose's forth coming book.
* the Chicago court case facing Tahawwur Hussain Rana will begin on October 11, with the prosecution presenting its evidence. Rana was arrested in conjunction with David Coleman Headley for a variety of terrorist activities and plans for same. Headley entereed a guilty plea, and is now talking to US and Indian intelligence where it's his role in scouting for the Mumbai terror attacks, not his plans to blow up the Jyllands-Posten newspaper office, that has garnered the most interest.
* charges have been dropped against Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot for posting anti-Islam cartoon on his web site. He was arrested back in 2005 for the offense.
* Tucker Stone and Michel Fiffe talk at length about Love & Rockets: New Stories #3. I haven't read it the post yet, it's very long and loosely edited, but Jaime's story may be the best of his distinguished career so I'm interested to hear what they have to say about it.
* Gary Tyrrell brings new information that Wowio may be trying to distribute folks' comics, and reminds us of the old news that there's still a 14-month window from which they owe people money.
* finally, the writer Graeme McMillan talks about wallowing in nostalgia, except not really, because it's somebody else's nostalgia. The concept of community memory is an interesting one for comics because right now it spans about three decades but before that it barely spanned three years at any one time. A lot of what's shaped comics in the last quarter-century has to do with the comics we take around with us inside our heads.
DC To Cut Existing Workforce; Publishing To Remain In NYC; Digital To LA; WS And Zuda Lines Killed
Read the press release here. I'm going to sit back a day on this and see what people say in reaction. I'm enough of a comics purist focus-wise that I wonder if this isn't a total non-starter for me a story, anyway.
My first thought -- and I'm not saying it's a smart one, but it was first -- is that it's another curious half-decision from a company that seemed to promise bold new directions a year ago when Diane Nelson was brought in. My second thought was that this likely saves a bunch of existing jobs. I didn't have a third thought. My fourth thought was about Batgirl.
Update:A second, separate announcement brings news that they're closing the vastly under-performing WildStorm imprint, closing that office in La Jolla and moving some of the editorial into the west coast digital team, and also closing the Zuda imprint that some people believed was already closed but had really just shifted emphases. So much for first impressions. I'm going to assume that the WildStorm closure comes with some job-loss.
Update 02: They're going to cut about 50 of 250 jobs overall, according to an interview with Diane Nelson. I'm not sure why something that big is trickling out, but okay. Also, as much as I love Howard the Duck, I'll now make this entry sticky and put it top of blog until further notice.
Update 04:First major interview I've seen with Diane Nelson talking to an industry journalist. Oddly, the answer about making sure that publishing works with wider Warners entertainment divisions is more convincing than the answer about keeping the publishing culture intact -- if I didn't know before I read it publishing was staying East, I might be confused. Also, talks about plans for the properties to extend until end of year. Most importantly, they're doing a massive in-house personnel review position by position -- some relocation, some promotions, many layoffs. Next few days should be tough.
Update 05: Let's change the headline. It was formerly "Rumors Only Half-Right: DC Comics Remains In DC, DC Entertainment (Digital, Multi-Media) To L.A." I think the staff cuts need to lead here.
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 no-doubt 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 if I were anywhere near a comic shop, I would boldly walk inside and flourish my cape.
*****
APR100045 DAVE MCKEAN CAGES TP (RES) $29.99
If you don't have one, you should probably get one. I can't decide if the fact that McKean never did another book like it changes our perspective on Cages or not.
MAY100525 ASTONISHING X-MEN XENOGENESIS #3 (OF 5) $3.99
With just about every issue of every X-Men series selling over 200,000 copies an issue, it's no surprise that they'd want to do as many mini-series as possible. Excuse me? They sell how many copies now? Really? That's all? Huh. Well, that makes no sense then.
JUL100458 WALKING DEAD #77 (MR) $2.99 JUL100855 BART SIMPSONS TREEHOUSE OF HORROR #16 $4.99 JUL100895 MUPPET SHOW #10 $2.99 JUL108108 CASANOVA #2 2ND PTG BA VAR (MR) (PP #934) $3.99
The cream of the crop of this week's "buy them in serial form" comic book. I've lost track of what's going on in Walking Dead, but I bet it's not cheery. I'll catch up, though -- I'm an honest-to-God consumer of that one in serial form. The Bart Simpson comic is the special with the yearly rotation of guest artists. This could include work that they solicited and then held onto to publish the Sammy Harkham-edited issue, I'm not certain. But that's always a reasonably solid buy. Matt Fraction's Casanova is his best work to date, and it looks like they're doing a nice job with these re-issues/re-workings production wise. And as has been his job for a bit of time now, Roger Langridge plays the music, lights the lights.
MAY101155 ART OF NEAL ADAMS HC $39.95
I'm not sure I'd want it once I had it in my hands, but I sure want to look at it.
APR101069 BEETLE BAILEY HC DAILIES & SUNDAYS 1965-1966 $19.95
This, on the other hand, I'm doing to read just to see what it would be like to read that much Mort Walker all at once.
JUN101000 FIRE WATER BILL EVERETT BIRTH OF MARVEL HC $39.99
Bill Everett is one of my top three all-time mainstream comics industry figures, if not number one, and I can't wait to dig into this book. Although that price point made me go "Sufferin' Shad!"
JUN100985 JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY TUBBY HC VOL 01 $29.95
Book of the week.
JUL101016 ZIPPY GN DING DONG DADDY $19.99
As long as Zippy is being published in some forms, comics will always be at least all right.
MAR100949 FOUR COLOR FEAR FORGOTTEN HORROR COMICS OF THE 1950S TP $29.99
Again, this collection of smaller-house scary comics from the glorious, mainstream past is something I'd want to have in my hands before buying, especially as it seems whenever a collection of this type gets published it's one of three versions from three different publishers.
JUN101067 SMURFS GN VOL 01 THE PURPLE SMURF $5.99 JUN101068 SMURFS GN VOL 02 THE MAGIC FLUTE $5.99
These are fun stories, and I like the production values for the most part. It's one time I don't have kids to read them, too, though, because the typesetting is really small.
JUL101215 WITH THE LIGHT RAISING AUTISTIC CHILD GN VOL 07 $14.99
I don't know anything about this series first-hand -- not past the first volume anyway. This has to be near the end of translatable material, given its creator's death.
JUN100243 WILDCATS VERSION 3.0 YEAR ONE TP $24.99
Solid, thematically quirky superhero comic book stories. Part of a run that may be writer Joe Casey's best work.
FEB101092 SWEDISH COMICS HISTORY SC (MR) $19.95
I like how they're just publishing entire books now related to idle thoughts one has cruising the comics Internet.
*****
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, that's because I threw my computer into the stands at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat asks after last week's "Molly Norris in hiding" stories, which I think makes this officially the most high-profile decision to go low-profile ever, although it's not like Norris had any control over that, either. Westneat spills more thorough details as to what Norris was actually advised, notes that Norris is still around town, and suggests that that an alternative strategy could have involved regional politicians and community leaders weighing in. I think they should have weighed in anyway, I don't understand how one of your constituents is threatened you don't have any response at all, but in the end the danger seems to be some independent wackjob taking it upon themselves to do something and there's not much protection for anyone against that.
* Sheila Musaji asks if the American Muslim community can do something to protect Norris. It's linked out pretty spectacularly to important articles and opinion pieces on the story as it developed, if you want to catch up.
* here's a piece on the Seattle Islamic community's reaction.
* if you want to put a name to the impulse coming from Al Qaeda to bomb the Jyllands-Posten building, it's Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri.
Zunar Plans New Cartoon Book Launch Despite Ban On Previous Works In an article driven more by its potential political news content than for its publishing news power, the cartoonist Zulkiflee SM Anwar Ulhaq, aka Zunar, has announced the release for his new book Cartoon-O-Phobia this Friday evening at a place carrying the impressive name of the Kuala Lumpur-Selango Chinese Assembly Hall. The title is a play on a claim made during the banning of his books 1 Funny Malaysia, Isu Dalam Kartun and Perak Darul Kartun in June. In banning the works, the government proclaimed they were detrimental to public order and their satirical content could lead people to riot against authorities, a claim Zunar has savagely ridiculed in the media since then.
The book will feature cartoons from Zunar's space on the Malaysiakini on-line news portal from December 2009 to September 2010. If you're not able to make it down to the Assembly Hall, the book may be purchased online at www.cartoonkafe.com, where you can also buy Zunar-related t-shirts.
10 Autobiographical Comics To Read a pretty good list -- although Contract With God is autobiographically informed rather than autobiography, at least for the most part
Alan Gardner notices something I did not: that the major and semi-major newspaper syndicates are releasing three times as many comic strips this year as in 2009. That sounds like a lot, although it's really one comic strip for most of them and two for King Features and Creators. The syndicates doing two seem to have selected pairs that complement one another rather than compete for the same audience, even. I would love to see some thinning of the number of comic strips out there as I think so many strips hanging on at a certain point, particularly legacy strips, stifles up-and-comers, but it's hard to hate on more up-and-comers being added to the mix even if it's maybe a second step that's happened first.
Giles Statue Returns To Ipswich
As this site bows to no news organization in the world in its attention to comics-related statuary, it is our pleasure to bring word to you of this article detailing the return of the Giles statue, also known as "Giles' statue," to the town square which now has a general, Giles-related theme. This represents a move from its previous position in relation to the window of the studio where the beloved artists worked for years and years on his cartoons. The statue was made in 1993.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Robert Kirkman talks to The Atlantic. My first thought is that there aren't a lot of mainstream press articles that look at the industry though the views of guys like Kirkman, even though there are 18 billion such comics press articles, so it's kind of interesting to read about his broader view of the industry.
* Archie Comics confirms that Sarah Palin is the leader of the Republican Party. As Archie Andrews is the living embodiment of the undecided voter and Jughead the face of modern libertarianism, this is more important than you might think. There's probably a joke in here somewhere about keeping Reggie away from Bristol Palin, but that would be completely out of order.
* I don't really understand this essay by Sean Kleefeld. Worse, I can't find much beyond strident assertions and rebuttals to arguments I've never read anyone make to have something to grasp onto in a way that I can formulate a solid response. Let me try, though. First, it doesn't seem to me that yet another iteration of the content argument, which is the comics Internet equivalent of a new Batman book, is somehow fresher as a way of analyzing what's going on right now than choosing to react to a specific and still-ongoing price shift. Second, no one to my knowledge has ever suggested that content doesn't play a role. It always does. It always has. Third, it's also hard for me to fathom how the industry shrinking to 2000 levels, a time when things were so bad that publishers were basically holding bake sales to stay afloat, is anything other than a scary thing, especially considering all the relative structural advantages comics enjoys right now: more sophisticated, powerful and receptive PR opportunities; more ownership groups with significant resources; greater access to more marketplaces; more elite stores than ever before and much more publisher talent development in evidence than in 2000. I have other objections, but even this much feels like I'm trying to hit smoke with a wiffleball bat.
* RC Harvey gets to the bottom of why Dennis is being flanked by two odd-looking children in a Dennis The Menace panel. It's kind of jarring.
* they sent me this as PR rather than as a link, but I guess Dean Mullaney is getting at least part of the band back together, announcing Beau Smith as the new Director of Marketing at IDW Publishing's Library of American Comics Director of Marketing. Smith and Mullaney worked in the 1980s at Eclipse Comics. I'm not sure if this is the first imprint at a company to have its own marketing director -- I sort of doubt it, actually -- but it's not a common occurrence. The PR sent out asked that all "retailers, librarians, professors, and teachers" contact Smith at beau@loacomics.com or 304-453-6565.
* the artist and blogger Gerry Alanguilan looks at a pair of attempts to revive Philippine comics through legislation, in anticipation that they might be revived or that there are more on the way.
* some companies drop titles from their ongoing sales; D+Q adds them.
* not comics: Superman has a history of bringing characters from its media spin-offs back to the comics going back to the radio show days, so that they would bring on the Chloe Sullivan character from Smallville shouldn't be a surprise except in how long it's taken. Then again, everything about Smallville has taken longer than anticipated, including Smallville.
Matt Fraction Wins 2010 Pen Literary Award For Outstanding Body Of Work
A deluge of e-mails informs me that the writer Matt Fraction has been named a winner in the 2010 PEN USA Literary Awards, taking home a special award in "Graphic Literature" for "His Outstanding Body Of Work." Fraction is widely considered one of the best writers working in mainstream at this moment of time, and his projects include a variety of well-regarded series such as Casanova, Invincible Iron Man, Uncanny X-Men and Thor. He is also known for independent press projects such as Last Of The Independents and Five Fists Of Science. I am completely not familiar with literary awards, but this looks like the awards component of a Beverly Hills-headquartered literary advocacy organization. The awards will be presented to Fraction and other winners during a ceremony linked to the group's mid-November festival.
Stuart Hample, a children's book author, theater performer, television entertainer, ad man, cartoonist, writer and illustrator perhaps best known in comics circle for his noteworthy run on the newspaper comic strip Inside Woody Allen, passed away on September 19 from complications due to cancer. He was 84 years old.
Hample was born in Binghamton, New York. He served in the U.S. Navy straight out of high school during the second half of the Second World War as a member of the Submarine Service. He attended college after the War, graduating in 1950 with a degree from the University of Buffalo, a time during which he also worked, first in advertising, then as a writer and star on a pair of television shows in Buffalo, New York. He substituted on the NBC network show Birthday House when they needed an artist, and would go on to fulfill that role on the CBS television show Captain Kangaroo in the 1950s.
He was briefly an assistant for Al Capp in the mid-'50s, and in the early 1960s began his initial run as a children's book author employing the pseudonym Stoo Hample with 1961's The Silly Book, under the legendary Ursula Nordstrom at Harper & Row's juvenile decision. Hample's book was successful enough to spawn an LP follow-up, and the author created a total of seven books during that decade. In 1967, Hample took over writing chores on Bob Lubbers' cult classic comic strip Robin Malone from Paul S. Newman and may have kept that job until the strip's conclusion in 1970.
Hample was in the midst of a return stint in advertising when he had the opportunity to try another comic strip, Rich And Famous. Signed to an exclusivity agreement on that strip, he had the idea of doing a strip with Woody Allen as its lead, drawing on the comedian's signature comedic persona which had by this time widespread recognition through his movies. Allen agreed, gave Hample a bunch of his joke books for adaptation, and would receive a share of the monies earned. Hample tried to continue with Rich and Famous by using the pseudonym Joe Marthen, but the earlier strip soon came to an end and he put his own name on the newer feature one year in. Inside Woody Allen launched in 1976 and would run until 1984, giving a second life to many of Allen's jokes and providing him with an audience that may have been older than those heading to the multiplex to see Sleeper and Annie Hall.
Although never a breakout hit, Inside Woody Allen had a large enough client list to be a profitable venture and to draw attention to syndication warhorse King Features for its modern, more youthful appeal. One could also argue that by drawing directly from Allen's source material, it was, with the possible exception of Doonesbury, the strip that engaged a wide variety of adult subjects in the most direct fashion. According to a profile at PW, Hample eventually grew less excited about the strip, and when he started writing for the television show Kate & Allie he was in a position to end the trip.
Like his friend and fellow cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Hample was also a prolific playwright. He was both published and produced, starting with Alms For The Middle Class and running through the course of his life. Seven plays, including an adaptation of one of his children's books, are listed here. He reinvigorated his authorship of children's books during the Woody Allen run, and also kept that career track alive for the remainder of his days through new books and select re-issues. In 2009, Abrams published a collection of Hample's best work on the Woody Allen feature, Dread & Superficiality, a book that included a lavishly illustrated section about its creation and modest but well-remembered run.
Robin McConnell interviewed Hample during the publicity tour for Dread and Superficiality and remembers a genial raconteur. "Stu had a genuine old school charm that grabbed your right away. During the interview, Stu was constantly throwing zingers at me, like a polite version of Evan Dorkin. He had a true love for comics, from his time working under Al Capp, to his years with Woody Allen. He was as proud of his friendships with Jack Davis and Jules Fieffer as any part of his storied career. I was struck by charismatic charm and being able to recall the most obscure details from his career, including a great yarn about Al Capp and an awkward date. These stores are the gems that interviewers want, and Stu had an endless supply."
Hample was working on a graphic novel aimed at a teenaged girl audience. It is unknown if it was completed or will be published.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* much more was revealed about a letter-bomber arrested after such a bomb went off in his Copenhagen hotel room, some of it dire: he's a one-legged Chechnyan in his early 20s named Lors Dukayev, he has the same kind of international background that a lot of the more recent detainees and suspects have had (he was living in Belgium), and yes, officials now feel safe saying Dukayev had made the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, original publishers of the Danish Muhammed Cartoons in 2005, the target of a terrorist bombing attack using the same letter-bomb technology that failed him in his hotel room.
In light of the new accusations and evidence, a Danish court has extended Dukayev's detention by two weeks. His lawyer did not express surprise over the move in an impromptu press conference held after the decision. He has so far been charged with possessing explosives and putting those around him in danger. Terrorism charges seem a likely future step. The detention is now scheduled to end October 4.
* the writer and journalist Ezra Levant, who was treated horribly unfairly for re-publishing the cartoons, talks about the recent Koran burnings and decisions to do/not do the same. I'm with him on the issues generally, with the possible exception that one isn't free from criticism because they are exercising a right. I'd also hesitate to describe the Danish Cartoons as leading to murders as opposed to their leading to deaths via riots.
* it's not like seriously talking about matters related to the Danish cartoons is a skill anyone seems to have, if this comments thread on Molly Norris' fade from public life is any indication. Extremist groups and individual wack-jobs who threaten people are extremist groups and individual wack-jobs; they're not representatives of some broader conception of a religious sports team for whom score is then kept. Like many journalists in a similar position, I've been threatened for content posted to this site, but the only category I feel safe lumping those people into is "assholes."
* the New York Timeslooks at German Chancellor Angela Merkel's recent keynote speech at an awards ceremony that honored Danish Muhammed cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in terms of changing European attitudes towards Muslim communities within their borders.
Ramon Marcelino, 1928/1929-2010
Ramon Marcelino, a longtime comics writer and prominent comics editor who also wrote a history of Filipino Comix, died early September 18 from a heart attack. He was 81 years old.
Marcelino began his career in 1951 reportedly recently out of high school -- his age as provided by his family indicates that he may have been in his early 20s -- when he became an assistant of Extra Komiks editor Edilberto Tablan. He followed the publication after its sale to a larger publisher and became its editor. He helped found the Association Of Publishers And Editors Of Philippine Comics Magazines in 1958. This was a group that with the aid of a Catholic community charity active in the country sought to practice self-censorship by creating only wholesome and edifying comics material, making the organization's code country's equivalent to the Comics Code Authority.
Marcelino helped found not one, not two but three different comic book publishers. In 1962, following the collapse of Ace Publications in the wake of a labor strike, Marcelino was one of three comics-makers approached by Don Ramon Roces to start a new company -- both filling the void left by the departed company and continuing the family tradition. Graphic Arts Services, Incorporated (GASI) was founded on August 1, 1962, with Marcelino as its editor. They had offices and a printing press in Manila, and their first publication (Kislap Komiks) hit the market in September 1962. By one year into operation they were publishing five magazines.
In 1968, Marcelino resigned from GASI during a major overhaul, and organized Ace Publications, this time working with Dona Carmen Roces-Davila. He stayed with that company for approximately 10 years, resigning in the late 1970s to pursue freelance opportunities. In 1978 he founded his third Roces-financed company, the Islas Filipinas Publishing Company. He would later become a production manager at the Manila Times
Marcelino remained a writer throughout. An I believe crowd-sourced entry on Filipino culture cites the comic serial Dirty Politician, Sumpain Ka! as one of his most popular works. His character "Cleopakwak" was adapted into a movie in 1968. That same source notes that Marcelino was the author of a serial prose novel appearing in the publication Liwayway called Si Piolo at si Lorelei. Perhaps his most famous piece of writing was a history of Filipino comics, A History Of Komiks Of The Philippines And Other Companies, which came out from Islas Filipinas in 1985. He also wrote a history of the Roces family and material in various formats about comics scriptwriting, and wrote the screenplay for at least one movie.
Although no date of graduation is provided, Marcelino studied journalism at and graduated from Manuel L. Quezon Institute in the Quiapo district of Manila. It is now Manuel L. Quezon University, which indicates that Marcelino graduated before 1958.
Missed It: Your 2010 Le prix Ouest-France-Quai des Bulles Nominees The FPI blog caught something that just blew by me: the shortlist for the 2010 Ouest-France-Quai des Bulles prize, one of the first signs I've seen that the super-crowded French-language awards season is about to gear up. It's also a very typically French award in that it's run by a group of mainstream newspaper publications, the final prize will be selected via the participation of its readership, and the winner will get not one but two awards in addition to the honor itself: a little over $2500 (USD) in a cash prize and a promotional effort in the publishing group's publications.
The nominees are as follows. The list includes the French-language version of Joe Sacco's powerful Footnotes In Gaza, what I think was the best new work published in the English language in 2009.
* Cinq mille kilometres par seconde, Manuele Fior (Atrabile)
* Coucou tristesse, Sergio Salma and Baron Brumaire (Drugstore)
* Gaza 1956, Joe Sacco (Futuropolis)
* J'ai pas tue de Gaulle mais ca a bien failli, Bruno Heitz (Bayou)
* Junk Volume Two: Pay Back, Bruno and Pothier (Treize Étrange)
* Le Montespan, Jean Teule and Philippe Bertrand (Delcourt)
* Lydie, Lafebre and Zidrou (Dargaud)
* Page noire, Giroud, Lapiere and Ralph Meyer (Futuropolis)
* Toute la poussiere du chemin, Jaime Martin and Wander Antunes (Dupuis)
* Une vie chinoise Two: Le temps du parti, P.Otie and Li Kunwu (Kana)
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the CBLDF has filed a brief in support of affirming the unconstitutionality of a ban on video game rentals to minors in a high-profile California case
* Nick Abadzis' take on Wonder Woman for next month's art auction named for the character is pretty awesome.
* not comics: that I laughed at this is basically the reason I can't participate in discussions about what people make in comics where there's an assumption that X, Y, Z amount is too little/just right.
* I liked this Evan Dorkin commission. I would think Evan Dorkin would be a good person from whom to get a commission, because I can't imagine him not doing his best on something like that.
* it's easy to get depressed or at least slightly befuddled when you look at bizarrely-targeted comics and think about who they're targeting, but the way around that is to remember that for the most part comics is a niche market not a mass market, so it's really just one niche being favored in addition to or a tiny bit over another, and that the emphasis can shift pretty severely without having to change the minds of a giant, mainstream audience.
Devlin Thompson tells me that this comments thread at Bleeding Cool about Alan Moore's recent interview with Adi Tantimedh, a thread still active through Friday, is pretty much the ground zero of everything you've ever imagined about certain attitudes towards creators, comics, and the industry they share, up to and including why someone not giving permission to do a line of action figures is a personal attack on the person that wants that line of action figures.
I'm way too terrified to wade in, but I know some of you are braver than I am and might want the opportunity. Good luck and God speed.
You've Been Reading Way Too Many Comics When You Think, "Cool, Rich Tommaso Is Rockin' The Fandral" sorry, Rich; sorry, Fandral; sorry, people who cringed that I actually still think in terms of the word "rockin'"
FFF Results Post #227 -- Fanta
On Friday CR readers were asked to "Name Five Favorite Projects/Books From Fantagraphics Not By Charles Schulz, Los Bros, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes Or Peter Bagge." This is how they responded.
*****
please note that while I was nice this week, I have no problem deleting entries with non-answer answers, or answers that strain against the parameters that everyone else is following, and will usually do so. Also, you have to have your answers in on Friday; I wish I had the time to constantly update posts with stragglers, but I don't. Sorry!
*****
Tom Spurgeon
1. Angry Youth Comix, Johnny Ryan
2. Fuzz & Pluck, Ted Stearn
3. Maakies, Tony Millionaire
4. The Cereal Killings, James Sturm
5. Blazing Combat, Archie Goodwin
1. Amazing Heroes no. 132
2. In My Darkest Hour by Wilfred Santiago
3. Itchy Planet no. 1
4. Pogostick no. 2 by Al Columbia and Ethan Persoff
5. S.O.S by Mark Kalesniko
1. Krazy Kat collections by George Herriman
2. Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips by Jules Feiffer
3. Tantrum by Jules Feiffer
4. Zippy The Pinhead collections by Bill Griffith
5. Abstract Comics: The Anthology edited by Andrei Molotiu
1. Black Hole by Charles Burns
2. West Coast Blues by Jacques Tardi
3. Frederick and Eloise by Brian Biggs
4. The Fixer by Joe Sacco
5. Cinema Panopticum by Thomas Ott
1. Usagi Yojimbo
2. Pogo
3. I Killed Adolph Hitler
4. The Doomsday Squad
5. Amazing Heroes
*****
Marc Sobel
1. An Accidental Death, Ed Brubaker and Eric Shanower
2. Dalgoda, Jan Strnad and Dennis Fujitake
3. A Mess of Everything, Miss Lasko-Gross
4. Fred the Clown, Roger Langridge
5. You'll Never Know, Carol Tyler
*****
Michael Grabowski
* Palestine, Joe Sacco
* The Complete E.C. Segar Popeye, E.C. Segar (old & new editions)
* The Comics Journal Library Volume One: Jack Kirby, Milo George, ed.
* Mome Vol. 19, Eric Reynolds, ed.
* Hey, Wait..., Jason
* Adventures of Captain Jack, Mike Kazaleh
* Crap, J.R. Williams
* Eye of Mongombo, Doug Gray
* Jim, Jim Woodring
* Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Michael Kupperman
1. Delphine, Richard Sala
2. Interiorae, Gabriella Giandelli
3. Black Hole, Charles Burns
4. Almost Silent, Jason
5. Castle Waiting, Linda Medley
*****
Mark Mayerson
* Blackmark by Gil Kane
* The Explainers by Jules Feiffer
* Humbug by Harvey Kurtzman, et al.
* B. Krigstein by Greg Sadowski
* From Shadow to Light: The Life and Art of Mort Meskin by Steve Brodner
*****
Chris Keels
* Hollywoodland (I could have picked any Kim Deitch, but this was my first)
* JIM
* Late Bloomer
* Real Stuff
* Romance without Tears
*****
MZA
1. Pixy, Max Andersson
2. Safe Area Gorazde, Joe Sacco
3. Ganges, Kevin Huizenga
4. He Done Her Wrong, Milt Gross
5. The Book of Jim, Jim Woodring
1. Will Elder: The Mad Playboy Of Art (Groth & Sadowski, Editors)
2. The Cat On A Hot Thin Groove, Gene Deitch (Gary Groth, Editor)
3. Daydreams & Nightmares: The Fantastic Visions Of Winsor McCay (Richard Marschall, Editor)
4. Where Demented Wented: The Art And Comics Of Rory Hayes (Nadel and Bray, Editors)
5. Any Similarity To Persons Living Or Dead Is Purely Coincidental, Drew and Josh Alan Friedman
1. Tales Designed To Thrizzle, Michael Kupperman.
2. I Killed Adolf Hitler, Jason.
3. Artichoke Tales, Megan Kelso.
4. You'll Never Know, Carol Tyler.
5. Safe Area Gorazde, Joe Sacco.
*****
John McCorkle
1. King of the Flies Trilogy, Mezzo & Pirus.
2. The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, Jacques Tardi
3. Cinema Panopticum, Thomas Ott
4. The Survivors (a.k.a. Jeremiah), Hermann
5. Upcoming please let it be true Franquin reprints, Franquin
1. Harum Scarum, Lewis Trondheim
2. The Left Bank Gang, Jason
3. You Are There, Jacques Tardi
4. El Borbah, Charles Burns
5. Willie & Joe, Bill Mauldin
1. The Frank Book -- Jim Woodring
2. Popeye -- Segar
3. Will Elder: The MAD Playboy of Art
4. Fred The Clown -- Roger Langridge
5. Nemo: The Classic Comics Library
*****
Rich Tommaso
1. Raisin Pie, Rick Altergott and Ariel Bordeaux
2. Nurture The Devil, Jeff Johnson
3. Biologic Show Al Columbia
4. Zero Zero, various -- edited by Kim Thompson
5. Minimum Wage, Bob Fingerman
*****
Jeff Goodman
* The Complete Crumb Comics -- R. Crumb
* You Call This Art!? -- Patrick Rosenkranz
* Rebel Visions -- Patrick Rosenkranz
* The Complete Humbug -- Harvey Kurtzman, et al.
* Will Elder: Mad Playboy Of Art -- Will Elder
*****
Chris Mautner
1) Schizo by Ivan Brunetti
2) The Biological Show by Al Columbia
3) Prison Pit by Johnny Ryan
4) Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco
5) Ganges by Kevin Huizenga
*****
Stergios Botzakis
1. Drew and Josh Alan Friedman's Warts and All
2. Jim Woodring's Jim
3. Roberta Gregory's Naughty Bits
4. Tim Kreider's The Pain: When Will It End?
5. Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle
1. The Comics Journal -- almost too influential to list as a single item
2. Burleque Paraphernalia and Side Degree Specialities and Costumes
3. Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art
4. Daydreams and Nightmares: The Fantastic Visions of Windsor McCay
5. Supermen: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes
1. Zero Zero
2. Critters
3. Eye of Mogambo
4. The Adventures of Captain Jack
5. The Best Comics of the Decade, 1980-1990, Vols. 1-2
*****
Max Fischer
1. Captain Easy, by Roy Crane
2. Prison Pit, by Johnny Ryan
3. The Complete Crumb Comics, by R. Crumb
4. Harum Scarum, by Lewis Trondheim
5. Popeye, by Elzie Crisler Segar
1. The Comics Journal (What else could be #1?)
2. Winsor McCay, Daydreams and Nightmares
3. Charles Burns, Black Hole
4. Munoz & Sampayo, Sinner
5. William Messner-Loebs, Journey
1. Ganges by Kevin Huizenga
2. Captain Easy by Roy Crane
3. Fred the Clown by Roger Langridge
4. Set to Sea by Drew Weing
5. Why Are You Doing This? by Jason
*****
Jeet Heer
* The early issues of Collier (before D&Q took over the title).
* Beyond the Pale by Kim Deitch (or any of his other books).
* Late Bloomer by Carol Tyler.
* Schizo by Ivan Brunetti.
* The Left Bank Gang by Jason (or any of his other books).
1. Pim and Francie, Al Columbia
2. Ripple, Dave Cooper
3. Artichoke Tales, Megan Kelso
4. MOME, edited by Eric Reynolds and Gary Groth
5. Black Hole, Charles Burns
1. The Krazy Kat reprint line
2. Craig Yoe's Arf books
3. Critters (especially Ty Templeton's Teddy Payne and the Blue Bears)
4. Fieffer: The Collected Works
5. The Iron Wagon by Jason
1. Doofus, Rick Altergott
2. Cheech Wizard, Vaughn Bode
3. I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets, Fletcher Hanks
4. The Book of Jim, Jim Woodring
5. Popeye, Segar
1) The 30-odd-year project of publishing alternative comics despite the obvious insanity of doing so.
2) The Comics Journal
3) Pictopia (not because I think it was the best anthology FBI did, but because I loved working on it)
4) Best Comics of the Decade/Misfit Lit (ditto)
5) Popeye (both incarnations)
*****
William Burns
* Joe Sacco, Palestine
* Dame Darcy, Meat Cake
* Ed Brubaker, An Accidental Death
* Bob Fingerman, Beg the Question
* Bill Maudlin, Willie and Joe
*****
Douglas Wolk
1. Lust, Ellen Forney
2. You'll Never Know, C. Tyler
3. Art d'Ecco, Andrew and Roger Langridge
4. I Killed Adolf Hitler, Jason
5. The Book on the Edge of Forever, Christopher Priest
1. Dave Cooper's Weasel
2. Charles Bukowski's A Couple of Winos
3. Charles Burns' Black Hole in issue format
4. Jacques Tardi's You Are There
5. Gary Panter's Jimbo in Purgatory
*****
John Vest
1. Gil Kane's Savage, Gil Kane
2. A Couple Of Winos, Charles Bukowski & Matthias Schultheiss
3. Steve Ditko's Strange Avenging Tales, Steve Ditko
4. Journey, William Messner-Loebs
5. Dalgoda, Jan Strnad & Dennis Fujitake
*****
J. Colussy-Estes
1. Art d'Ecco (Roger and Andrew Langridge)
2. Nurture the Devil (Jeff Johnson)
3. Cartoons of the Roaring '20s Vols. 1-2 (Charles Dana Gibson? c'mon!)
4. Peculia? No! Chuckling Whatsit! No...maybe 13 O'Clock? How about the catalog of Richard Sala...
5. The Nimrod (Lewis Trondheim)
*****
Matt Silvie
1. Doofus, Rick Altergott
2. Frank, Jim Woodring
3. Underworld, Kaz
4. Maakies, Tony Millionaire
5. The Comics Journal by various
*****
Karl Stevens
* Naughty Bits by Roberta Gregory
* Schizo by Ivan Brunetti
* The Pain collections by Tim Kreider
* The Complete Crumb Comics by R. Crumb
* Steven by Doug Allen
*****
Jude Killory
1. Jim Woodring -- Frank
2. Jessica Abel -- Artbabe
3. Charles Burns -- Black Hole
4. Rory Hayes -- Where Demented Wented
5. Donald Phelps -- Reading the Funnies
*****
Gabriel Roth
* I Killed Adolph Hitler
* Unsupervised Existence
* Real Stuff
* Journey
* Jim
*****
Johnny Bacardi
* Evil Eye -- Richard Sala
* Meat Cake -- Dame Darcy
* Doofus -- Rick Altergott
* Dalgoda -- Jan Strnad and Denis Fujitake
* Journey -- William Messner-Loebs
1. The Complete Crumb Comics, Robert Crumb
2. Jim, Jim Woodring
3. Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental, Los Bros Friedman
4. Popeye, E.C. Segar
5. Deitch's Pictorama, Los Bros Deitch
*****
Frank Juliano
1) B. Krigstein Vol. 1, edited by Greg Sadowski
2) Most Outrageous: The Trials & Trespasses Of Dwaine Tinsley & Chester The Molester, by Bob Levin
3) Ganges, by Kevin Huizenga
4) Palestine, by Joe Sacco
5) Willie & Joe: The WWII Years, by Bill Mauldin
3. A newspaper in China known for its degree of independence from the line offered by state-run publications demotes an editor for making a cartoon about a censured reporter and putting it on his personal web site.
SPURGEON: I'm not sure I'm totally correct about the primacy of these issues, but I wanted to ask you about how Comic-Con feels the situation stands right now on a couple of key issues. What do you have from San Diego in terms of the hotel situation that makes you comfortable that will be a smoother issue going forward? Are there more rooms? Did you get caps on certain price points regarding rooms?
"My initial thought when I read your email was, 'Wow, great!' Which, honestly, is not necessarily what I would have assumed my reaction would be," Reynolds told CR. "I really haven't had a horse in this race and have never had a strong opinion on what I wanted them to do. What do I know? I know that part of me liked the idea of an expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas every summer, even though I don't rationally believe Vegas would be a good fit; I just like to gamble. I think I was more opposed to the show moving to Los Angeles/Anaheim than I was in favor of it staying in SD or going anywhere else. I'm not even sure why I was opposed to it, because I love visiting L.A. But it would just feel like we let the terrorists win at that point. Yes, I just compared Hollywood to Al-Qaeda. At least it wasn't Hitler." 
By Tom Spurgeon
It occurred to me while doing some research on another project that September 2010 is the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Creator's Bill Of Rights. I believe they were written in late 1988, but didn't make it to publication until September 1990 as part of a special issue of The Comics Journal. Comics was only about four or five years away from a no-turning-back number of professionals and devoted fans migrating on-line and having their spats and discussions in real time, but in 1990 I think it was safe to say that a huge number of comics-interested folk only encountered comics industry issues as they heard about them in Comics Buyer's Guide or read about them in the Journal. Even if you got to read them earlier than that -- I bet Dave Sim published them in his rollicking Cerebus letters pages -- this was a time when a lot of folks still counted on TCJ or CBG as a place to work through such issues. It was that way for me.
* missed it: 
Starting in the 1950s, Grandenetti split time between a variety of publishers -- Gleason, Media, ACG, Prize -- before settling into a long run at DC Comics where he worked on a number of their popular western, crime, science fiction and war books: Action, Gang Busters, Mr. District Attorney, All Star Western, Strange Adventures, GI Combat, Our Fighting Forces and Star Spangled War Stories among them. He became an extremely valuable freelancer for longtime editor/writer Bob Kanigher, who appreciated the grittiness of his art and his displayed skill with both arresting cover imagery and executing them in a lovely-looking wash technique. It is believed that Grandenetti was the first to do that kind of art in commercial comic books, starting in 1956. The best of his interiors could be found in the "Gunner and Sarge" feature. Kanigher and Grandenetti co-created the character Mlle. Marie for SSWS in 1959, another feature on which Grandenetti provided memorable interior art.
* I forget to do an OTBP entry for 
* Andrea Tsurumi 
Alan Gardner 
* my suspicion is that most papers are going to make this decision internally or wait to run their "what replaces Cathy?" contests until they can get a free few weeks of content from the syndicates hoping to make that sale, but my local paper, the Silver City Sun-News, ran their contest the old-school way: on a separate page, in enough time they could move right into the new strip offering without an interruption in service. For what it's worth -- and this is a smaller paper, with a single page of strips and features -- Pearls Before Swine won handily, followed closely by Baby Blues. In his editorial on the matter, Jim Lawitz claims that additional contestants Luann, Pooch Cafe, Stone Soup and the brand-new Thata Baby "barely moved the needle." The nice thing is that because of the strong response, the paper is finding a place for Baby Blues as well. It's worth noting that one thing that's changed in the last 15 years is that papers have an array of reasonably successful strips to choose from when one goes down, it's no longer a matter of only adding new features.
The writer Robert Kirkman, who recently made news because his Walking Dead 
* Vintage Sleaze 
* Bill Kartalopoulos 
The Comics Comics site 
I can't imagine anything better to start off a Monday 
* the artist Warren Craghead 
* 
One thing I find bizarre is how late some of the programming was scheduled. There is programming at the convention that goes later than some of the evening events planned in conjunction with the con weekend by outside organizations. Because this is going up just a few weeks out and I'd never considered the possibility of a Dash Shaw panel that might end at 9:15 PM, I'm probably not alone having already-made plans that now stand in conflict; I'd also hate to be anyone commuting in from New Jersey or Long Island. That's not a complaint made with gritted teeth -- it's a funnybook show! -- just an observation of something that seemed different to me. Every con that can seems to be spreading out these programming events, although maybe a difference with NYCC is that the Javitz center isn't really near anything. It's hard for me to fathom getting a bite to eat and then heading back for one more panel.
From Mark Mayerson comes 
* I didn't know until just now that Garry Trudeau provided the cover for this month's Baby Boomer-focused issue of The Atlantic. Makes sense, though.
5. How Many People Will Be Let Go?
7. How Horrible Must It Have Been To Be A DC Comics Employee This Week -- Heck, This Year?
9. Where Is Patrick Caldon?
There was a point at which WildStorm seemed poised to become a more potent marketplace version of Vertigo -- a Vertigo without the specific horror and related genre elements hanging over it, a company with a tighter spiritual relationship to the industry's core superhero values. It seemed ready to become one of those few, reliable companies that provided a home for creator-owned work with a popular, mainstream element to it -- that you could take a project to WildStorm without having to take a step back in your industry ambitions for it. From a consumer's standpoint, it could offer a line of books that gave certain readers series to follow that were slightly more sophisticated and thematically challenging than works in those genres offered through the Big Two, and thus it gave stores a tool to keep those readers. WildStorm even enjoyed the fruits of solid core books, driven by a halfway-decent, sturdy central concept and buttressed at key points by the work of talented writers like Warren Ellis, Alan Moore, Ed Brubaker and James Robinson. 
11. Is There Any Reason To Believe Assurances Regarding Various Properties?
* the big news of the week con-wise was probably 
* 
* the Library Journal 
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund 
* Tucker Stone and Michel Fiffe 
* damn, 
Marcelino helped found not one, not two but three different comic book publishers. In 1962, following the collapse of Ace Publications in the wake of a labor strike, Marcelino was one of three comics-makers approached by Don Ramon Roces to start a new company -- both filling the void left by the departed company and continuing the family tradition. Graphic Arts Services, Incorporated (GASI) was founded on August 1, 1962, with Marcelino as its editor. They had offices and a printing press in Manila, and their first publication (Kislap Komiks) hit the market in September 1962. By one year into operation they were publishing five magazines.
The FPI blog caught something that just blew by me: the shortlist for the 2010 Ouest-France-Quai des Bulles prize, one of the first signs I've seen that the super-crowded French-language awards season is about to gear up. It's also a very typically French award in that it's run by 
* Nick Abadzis' take on Wonder Woman for next month's art auction named for the character 
