The Comics Reporter

February 8, 2012

Go, Read: Bob Levin Reviews Yiddishkeit

Bob Levin is my favorite writer about comics, wrote the best book ever published about a cartoonist, and is a top three contender for the greatest-writer-about-comics-ever overall crown. Any time he has new work up it's must-reading for me, and I hope it becomes that way for you. He reviews Yiddishkeit today at TCJ, and I'm headed over right now.

posted 7:00 am PST | Permalink

This Isn't A Library: 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. You never know. I'd sure look at the following, though.

*****

OCT111062 BERLIN #18 (MR) $4.95
The latest issue of Jason Lutes' long-running series all by itself would get me into a comics shop today, were one within two hours of where I'm sitting. I really like this as a comic book, even, more than the collections that have been release so far.

NOV111115 GTO 14 DAYS IN SHONAN GN VOL 01 $10.95
This is a manga property with which I'm largely unfamiliar -- besides always getting a chuckle out of the "guy becomes teacher to have an in with young girls" initial concept -- that I will give a shot because of the publisher involved now (Vertical). That's not a statistically significant sample, I know, but it happens. This is the sequel to the popular late 1990s series.

OCT110026 STRANGE CASE OF MR HYDE TP $14.99
I wanted to pull this one out because this was a classic mini-series of comics to trade publication comic, starring what is to me unknown talent. I think it's worth noting when a publisher like Dark Horse does that, because it doesn't happen as much as it used to. The thought of Jekyll/Hyde as half of a Victorian buddy cop duo -- I'm guessing -- makes me pine for a comic where Jekyll and Hyde are the entirety of a Victorian buddy cop duo, but I'll withhold judgment until I get to a funnybook shop and take a peek at the work.

DEC110058 LOBSTER JOHNSON THE BURNING HAND #2 (OF 5) $3.50
DEC110079 MURKY WORLD ONE SHOT $3.50
NOV110235 NORTHLANDERS #48 (MR) $2.99
DEC110623 NORTHANGER ABBEY #4 (OF 5) $3.99
DEC110939 ADVENTURE TIME #1 $3.99
Not a bad week for comic-book comics, even when you leave out the higher end stuff of interest from Marvel and DC. The Lobster Johnson is the latest comic from the unstoppable Mignola-verse. The Murky World title is Richard Corben, and everything Corben is at least worth a pick-up and look-over in a store. The Northlander comic I haven't read for a few years but my memory is that it was a solid funnybook in the Vertigo vein, and is now heading towards Valhalla. I dont' have any intention on buying Northanger Abbey, but seeing books like that on Marvel's list always makes me laugh. The Adventure Time property isn't something I've caught up to, yet, but I'd look at the funnybook if I could get to one before it sold out.

SEP110334 TORPEDO HC VOL 04 $24.99
If I had a normal person's job, I'd buy all these Torpedo volumes, and there will be a point down the road I'll probably have them all in my bookshelf and be grateful they were published.

DEC111170 AMERICAN SPLENDOR LIFE & TIMES OF HARVEY PEKAR GN NEW PTG $20.00
OCT111102 LIFE & DEATH OF FRITZ THE CAT HC $19.99
Work you probably have in one form or another. If you don't have them, you should probably want them. The Fritz book is handsome; I haven't cracked my copy yet.

DEC111048 JINCHALO GN $19.95
In a week without a new issue of Berlin, this stand-alone fantasy by Matthew Forsythe drawn from Korean myth would place an image right at the top of this post. I thought the last work of this type from the cartoonist was a total charmer, and it was one of those books where I ran imagery on the blog and people kept e-mailing me to ask what the hell it was.

NOV111113 WALLY WOOD STRANGE WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION DLX HC $69.95
OCT111099 YOUNG ROMANCE BEST SIMON & KIRBY COMICS HC $29.99
Two comics veterans on the Mount Rushmore Of Perpetual Interest, plus the late Joe Simon, who's no piker. I have a decided lack of reading experience with romance comics, so I'm hoping the Young Romance book is effectively curated.

*****

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 failed to list your comic, that's on me. I apologize.

*****

*****
*****

posted 5:00 am PST | Permalink

Go, Look: Rescue Pet

posted 4:35 am PST | Permalink

Analysts Weigh In On January 2012 DM Numbers

The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com has offered up their usual array of lists, estimates and analysis regarding the performance of comic books and graphic novels in the Direct Market of comic and hobby shops, this time for January 2012.

* Overview
* Analysis
* Top 300 Comic Books
* Top 300 Graphic Novels

My favorite numbers cruncher John Jackson Miller at The Comics Chronicles has posted his analysis of the month here.

So things get curiouser and curiouser. Two things seemed to leap out at everyone in discussing these numbers as they were initially released: DC monopolized the entire top 10 in comic books with fifth issues of their New 52 initiative, and Marvel only had a couple of books above the 60K sales mark. In overall terms, DC led unit sales while Marvel won dollar sales. Over in graphic novels, a Batman collection from the pre-New 52 initiative showed there was a bit of life in trades from that period (some fans have worried that this period would glossed over in terms of trade availability). Compared to last January scary-ass, apocalyptic sales numbers, the month looked pretty darn healthy both on a month-to-month an January-to-January basis.

I think what I take from these articles is that people are still waiting for a major Marvel response to the New 52 that's likely not going to happen, at least not any time soon in the way people conceive of such a response. I suspect what we're seeing with Marvel is a whole bunch of factors working in relationship to one another: the fact that they're years into their current conception of how they approach their general storylines, the fact that they don't have the institutional and structural ways to support their books that DC does, the general perception of price point and value, and their difficulties in establishing second-line books in a dependable way. If this were TV, Marvel would have a lot of decent-performing shows in their eighth to tenth seasons but not a lot of time-slot winner past those reliable brands. I think it's more of a challenge given specific things about Marvel more than an insurmountable challenge facing Marvel right now, so the next year could be quite compelling. They don't have a lot of margin for error in terms of execution, I don't think, and could be immensely helped by coming out with comics that exceed fan expectation in terms of how they nail their story points -- that hasn't been a recent strength, at least not in a way where a plot development has become a positive talking point in the way that drives sales. I know people will disagree with that.

There's a related way to worry about the market more generally in that we don't know how much Marvel's scramble in terms of finding sales and dollars and DC's more general all-in approach to its New 52 stunt are masking egregious weaknesses in the broader marketplace. In other words, how much are these comics selling because they're solid performers delighting their readers and just happen to have early-issue numbers, and how many readers do they have that are just sort-of committed for a while to get to a certain issue a few months away? That seems fraught with a lot of dangers, not all of them immediately apparent. For instance, it makes sense for Marvel to reduce their line, and they have, but does having multiples of big-brand comics increase the overall reading pool or just squeeze more money out of a devoted fandom at the expense of other comics? DC's latest Watchmen-related publishing initiative, at least right now, sounds more like something a certain kind of existing comics fan will want to buy and less like something that will add anything to the overall comics-buying populace. All of the ways to do that may not come with PR blasts and coverage in mainstream media.

posted 4:30 am PST | Permalink

Go, Look: Shut Up About Cats

posted 4:25 am PST | Permalink

Go, Read: ICv2.com's Interview With Marvel's David Gabriel

The hobby business news and analysis site ICv2.com has a three-part interview up with Marvel Senior Vice President -- Sales David Gabriel on various issues facing the comics company in 2012 and on various holdover issues and news items from 2011. It's fascinating for anyone with an interest in that part of the overall comics market.

Gabriel gives direct, spirited answers. I'm not certain all of them hold up to a lot of scrutiny, though, and I don't mean the initial, selective reading of 2011 generally, which is the kind of thing where one can expect qualifiers and spin. For instance, Gabriel's statement about Marvel letting some of their collections going out of print that retailers feel they could sell seems to crucially depend on his own definition of what constitutes evergreen, archival books. The fact that Marvel doesn't let best-selling recent collections go out of print really isn't a bragging point. Despite Gabriel's challenge that no retailer has ever been unable to order a book he defines as being a book they should be able to order, it took me approximately four seconds to find a retailer saying they weren't able to find a graphic novel that if it were a similar-status book from Marvel's main competitor would stay in print with greater consistency. Gabriel's right, I think, in suggesting that their trade program is pretty complicated and has a lot of different facets, but I really think when that argument is made against Marvel it isn't that they're flat-out crazy and letting their biggest books go out of print, it's that they're less devoted to keeping all of what many perceive as key books in print, thus leaving some sales on the table and generally frustrating some of their retail partners.

I also think Gabriel finesses the question about price points, by suggesting that their books with higher price points sell more than their books with lower price points. The key there is that overall sales of those higher price point books seem to be down. Price points are notoriously difficult to measure in comics because of the nature of hardcore fandom. Heck, not even hardcore, just regular fandom: that an Avengers book sells more than a book called, say, Stingray and Paladin even if the former costs a dollar more isn't really an argument for higher price points; it's an argument against teaming up d-list goofballs Stingray and Paladin. I've always maintained that there's rarely a one-to-one relationship to be measured when it comes to the effects of price points, and that what happens a lot of the time is that a comics reader will abandon the buying of serial comics altogether when the group of comics they tend to buy goes from $17 to, say, $24. But even leaving that notion off the table, and giving up on the suggestion that maybe some primary-Marvel readers have been nudged from the overall serial comics buying experience, noting how much anecdotal evidence is out there for fans moving off of Marvel titles to sample DC titles and the corresponding numbers on overall sales levels per property seems to me as close to that kind of one-to-one analysis as this market will ever yield. It's a dangerous game Marvel has been playing there, reducing pages and raising prices at this point in their current creative cycle, during a recession, at a time when DC is at a much fresher point in their own creative cycle. I think it doesn't all the way conform to reality to suggest this has had no impact on Marvel's recent results.

posted 4:20 am PST | Permalink

Even The Airboy Comics Were Enough To Give Me Nightmares

posted 4:15 am PST | Permalink

NYT Wants To Run Weekend Cartoons But Only At A Certain Price

Michael Cavna has the best write-up thus far on an issue surging through the editorial cartooning world right now: the New York Times plans to start running weekend cartoons again, but wants to do so at a drastically reduced price -- what one of the folks in Cavna's piece calls more of a reprint fee than what a publication like the Times should be offering for a first-run cartoon.

This is a delicate issue, because the nature of the market and the opportunity represented by the Times suggests that they can charge a low amount and still get what they want from the initiative: people are going to want that low fee and that showcase. You also have leaders in that field that want to move the Times towards that higher price point without scaring them away from providing this new market, basically by appealing to their better nature. I hope it works out on all ends.

Update: A tweet here indicates the pricing may have come from what they pay for illustrations, which opens up an entirely different avenue of discussion.

posted 4:10 am PST | Permalink

If I Were In New York City, I'd Go To This

posted 4:05 am PST | Permalink

Forthcoming Comics-Related Events, This Month And Next

Go, Look: Some Vintage Howie Post

posted 3:00 am PST | Permalink

Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* congratulations to Chris Butcher on his new gig. He's keeping the old one.

* I like how Bully's mind works, and I like that my mind doesn't work that way.

* John Kane on various kids' comics. Grant Goggans on Low Life: Paranoia. Sean Gaffney on Cross Game Vol. 6. David Brothers on Godland. Andrew Wheeler on Fantastic Four: Season One. Katherine Dacey on GTO: 14 Days In Shonan Vol. 1. Todd Klein on BPRD: The Warning and BPRD: Killing Ground.

* I like this little drawing by Knut Larsson.

* I was happy to be asked to write about the Romitas for the Comic-Con annual that's out this week, and was pleased to see that I'm paired with Blake Bell in the Spider-Man comics section of the magazine. Blake has his article up here.

* Zac Bertschy and Justin Sevakis talk to Carl Horn.

* just a reminder from yesterday that Rick Trembles might be able to use your help.

* not comics: egad.

* Brigid Alverson has a follow-up on Jamie Gambell's digital experiment from several days back.

* finally, I've been tracking the status of that Rich Burlew Kickstarter campaign through Gary Tyrrell's Fleen, I think because confronting that news directly would freak me out a little bit more than it already does.

posted 2:00 am PST | Permalink

Happy 47th Birthday, Marc Chalvin!

posted 1:00 am PST | Permalink

February 7, 2012

Go, Read: Loss

my apologies if that's not the name of it

posted 3:00 pm PST | Permalink

Garry Trudeau On The Chicago Tribune's Bouncing Of A Recent Daily

Michael Cavna has Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau's comments on the Chicago Tribune bouncing one of his dailies because it had a code through which people could donate to schools in need. The Tribune claimed they have a policy against people doing something with their strip directly in their self-interest. It should come as a surprise to no one that this policy looks to be, at best, inconsistently and poorly applied.

posted 6:10 am PST | Permalink

Anthony Horton, 1968-2012

Anthony Horton, the New York City man whose story of living in tunnels beneath the city and unlikely friendship with a children's book illustrator became the subject of the graphic novel Pitch Black, died on February 5 in a fire in one of the rooms he kept underground.

Horton was raised in New York's foster care system after being given up by his parents.

In 2004 he struck up an extended conversation with the artist Youme Landowne during a series of subway rides around the city. Their friendship and Horton's unique experiences in carving out living space for himself underground led to the 2008 graphic novel from El Paso's Cinco Puntos Press. Horton and Landowne are both credited for the story; Landowne made the art. While it was conceived of as an all-ages book, Landowne expressed hope in interviews supporting the work that adults, particularly those that ride the subways, might take notice of the book and its subject matter.

An artist in is own right, Horton was in jail from 1990 to 1991 and then again from 1999 to 2003 for crimes related to assault; he was actually incarcerated at the time the book was released for possession of stolen property. His collaborator described Horton's existence at the time in terms of it being a continuing struggle against addiction and despair.

According to the Times article, Horton's final resting place was a home he created for himself in a space "about 150 feet north of the Queens-bound platform at 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue."

Anthony Horton was 43 years old.

posted 6:00 am PST | Permalink

Go, Read: Michael Chabon On His Fictionalized Stan Lee + Jack Kirby

posted 3:30 am PST | Permalink

Please Consider Lending A Helping Hand To Rick Trembles

The Montreal-based cartoonist Rick Trembles details via a Facebook post a lengthy ordeal by which he was evicted from his rent-controlled apartment under severely dubious circumstances. He's looking for a job and is willing to send folks information for paypal donations if they ask. If you've ever enjoyed his comics, his Internet presence or simply hate to see people screwed over for the sake of profit, please take some time to read Trembles' post and considering extending a helping hand. That goes double for anyone that might be able to hire the guy.

thanks, Brad Mackay

posted 3:10 am PST | Permalink

Go, Look: Early, Slightly Naughty Gag Cartoons Of Dave Berg

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Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked

By Tom Spurgeon

* Gilles Roussel -- the prolific cartoonist working under the pen name "Pierre Boulet" -- talks about forthcoming projects and provides an informal history of French webcomics -- in this interview with Ao Meng.

* Brigid Alverson has a nice piece up at PW about Jimmy Gownley coming to the end of his book contract with his Amelia Rules concept, and his future plans that include work that's not Amelia-related.

* this interview with Laura Park reveals two projects I didn't know about: a picture-book and a young adult's work. Any comics or illustration we get from Laura Park is a wonderful thing, I don't care what it is. She mentions her MOME work and short stories in general, which makes me wonder if an enterprising editor couldn't get into her publicly posted art and comics and combine it with the MOME material and whatever else is out there and we could have a Laura Park collection. Update: I've since been told she might have one in the works with Atomic Books, which would be great news, indeed.

* everyone but me -- and maybe you, so I'll mention it here -- already knew that Bleach is heading towards its conclusion. Sadly, I probably mentioned it on the blog at some point.

* DC apparently has some new kind of publishing initiative planned for this summer.

* Ken Eppstein wrote in to point out that Nix Comics has a new Kickstarter effort going.

* finally, I'm just now catching up to the fact that Bernie Mireault has a new, full-length graphic novel out: To Get Her. It's discussed here, and available in webcomics form here. I hope to have more on this in upcoming weeks.

posted 3:00 am PST | Permalink

Go, Bookmark: The Screwball Comics Blog

posted 2:25 am PST | Permalink

Go, Read: James Sturm On Why He's Boycotting The Avengers

James Sturm has written a longish piece for Slate on why he's boycotting Marvel's forthcoming Avengers movie, how Marvel wouldn't exist without the contributions of Jack Kirby, and even why a boycott probably won't take hold in a way that causes the company damage. Sturm is writing for a general audience but chooses to employ specifics and various well-known, related cultural signifiers, which is the major reason why the piece is as long as it is.

One thing that's interesting about this is that Sturm won an award for his Fantastic Four work not ten years ago. To my mind this makes him a Marvel author who's reoriented his position on this matter. At the time of the release of Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules, Sturm didn't have a lot of moral qualms about doing that work. Here's an exchange from our 2004 interview:

TOM SPURGEON: Is there any queasiness working with characters that were part of a dispute? Maybe Stan's recent lawsuit is a contractual dispute rather than a work-for-hire dispute, but it's driven by rhetoric that claims these characters have been exploited unfairly and he's been exploited unfairly. Is it the fact that these specific characters don't hold any extra queasiness for you at all?

JAMES STURM: Like in what sense?

SPURGEON: You have $10,000 in the bank, but Marvel doesn't send Jack Kirby's children trade paperbacks of their father's work when it's re-released.

STURM: Boy. But if you extend that argument to your day-to-day existence, on how you shop and how you spend money and how you interface with the world, you couldn't touch anything. You know what I mean? It's like, we live in a tainted fucking universe. Every pair of shoes you buy was probably stitched together by someone being paid ten cents an hour under ungodly conditions. And that's not to excuse myself, but are you getting at that maybe I shouldn't do this out of concern for...?

SPURGEON: It's one thing to get work-for-hire from an artist who is ceding control of his characters to you, but you're signing a work-for-hire agreement with a corporation that may have, or may not have, unfairly taken these characters from the artist to begin with.

STURM: What the fuck have I done, Tom? What the fuck have I done? Holy shit. Black mark on my soul.

I don't know. Obviously everyone's ethical standards vary, but I just don't feel I've made an egregious ethical breach. I think the question is valid and I'm glad you raised it. But for me, a few things play into it. First, Kirby himself returned to work for Marvel. Second, Marvel has changed owners several times since Kirby's stints there. Finally, I have never heard of any boycott by Kirby's heirs -- or anyone else for that matter -- calling for writers or artists to refrain from using characters he created.

Kirby created something 40 years ago that has so influenced and shaped comics history and I look to honor it. I hope that comes across in the book. Kirby's imprint is all over Unstable Molecules, his art adorns each cover (and several interior pages). My position at Marvel is no different than Kirby's was: work-for-hire.

I'm sure every character that was created some writer feels propriety for. I shouldn't do that Stingray graphic novel because somebody who developed him feels cheated? Remember that stupid character called Stingray from Marvel?

SPURGEON: Red and white costume and a fencing mask.

STURM: The Fantastic Four are characters, due to the role they played in my childhood, I feel connected to. When I'm reading this stuff as a kid, I don't know any of this stuff. These characters don't have owners. They exist. They're like cultural icons. Same with Peanuts. They belong to the public in a sense. This could just be me trying to rationalize my actions... Money wise, when you look at all the time I put into this project, it's obvious that it wasn't done for the money. If anything, I'm trying to restore a certain dignity to the character. The Fantastic Four was about this family who were superheroes. But they were a family first, right? That's what made the book tick. That's what I was trying to get at, this dysfunctional family that love/hate relationship they all have with each other. I think that's what Lee and Kirby were trying to do, right?"

I think this is stuff always worth talking about. None of the positions worth having are easy, and it's always possible to string together some series of details that shift the argument one way or the other until we feel better about what we've done or chosen not to do. That's what we do now. The Internet has turned us all into moral Perry Masons, worrying testimony from ourselves on a series of imaginary witness stands, never quite getting that slam-dunk, tear-filled confession that makes everything click into place.

In the end, I think the broader principles and meanings should guide us. Marvel should have treated Kirby better when he was alive, and making up for it by treating his legacy better now would be a wonderful, just thing to do. Any executive that makes this happen would be doing a great and honorable and potentially rewarding thing. Restoring Kirby's legacy in a way that matches what outside actors have done on that artist's behalf should include some sort of financial arrangement with the family. Jack Kirby isn't a comics sob story; in the context of all the popular arts his story stands out as one with a particularly ungenerous ending to match the contributions made. He was shoved to the side of the official narrative until he pushed back a bit, something for which a certain kind of angry fan has never forgiven him. Kirby had to fight to get some small amount of original art back, even.

Comics should be better than that. Comics can be better than that. The number of people that have received more money and more credit for less inspired, sometimes flatly derivative, sometimes just caretaker-style and paper-shuffling work with what Kirby made, up to and including people with the power to do something, is significant and slightly heartbreaking. With great power comes great responsibility, and I'm not sure how you define great power in our culture better than four billion dollars.

posted 2:20 am PST | Permalink

Go, Read: Ward Sutton Reviews Quiet

posted 2:15 am PST | Permalink

Go, Read: An Andrew Schick Interview

posted 2:05 am PST | Permalink

Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* Diamond has apparently instituted some kind of awards for comics stores doing comics store things. I'm not sure I'd know if these were actually awards that had been around for several years. I'm not sure what to think of t-shirt displays having awards-level status. Hooray?

* Craig Fischer writes about one of the Skywald magazines over at The Comics Journal. That's sort of a lousy description of the article, to be honest with you, but there is such a discussion in there.

* Juan Fernandez talks to Ed Piskor. Mark Hensel talks to Ryan Cecil Smith. Ao Meng talks to Ryan Cecil Smith. Misty Lee and Paul Dini talk to Mark Evanier. Vaneta Rogers talks to Gregg Hurwitz. Chris Arrant talks to Cliff Chiang. Dave Richards talks to Jeff Parker. Tim O'Shea talks to Matt Gagnon.

* Daryl Cagle has a post up of cartoons about the current crisis in Syria. Speaking of which, I guess Ali Ferzat's plight was discussed during a meeting of the UN Security Council.

* the CBLDF will be hitting the ComicsPro annual meeting in a big way.

* Dan Nadel caught a really fine article from Jessica Abel about moving her family to France for a year. I like matter-of-fact articles about cartoonists and their lives because I think it clears up some of the mystery for young people that might want to pursue cartooning as a vocation.

* most of the articles still being done on DC's new publishing initiative are going deeper and longer, at least in terms of the discussion of creators' rights. Here's one by Matthew Surridge.

* not comics someone really needs to make that list of comics-related illustration in various gaming rules booklets and 'zines of that period.

* I'm not sure there's any real overlap between comics and the Annie Awards, beyond the obvious connection through cartooning. I guess animators compete in the NCS awards including being up for the Reuben.

* not comics: it's the rare art critic that color-coordinates his wardrobe to match the art.

* Drew Sheneman on five graphic novels. Johanna Draper Carlson on Bakuman Vol. 9 and various other manga. Greg McElhatton on Friends With Boys. Sean Gaffney on Negima! Magister Negi Magi Vol. 33.

* finally, some sort of tempest in a teapot about some cartoon or something.

posted 2:00 am PST | Permalink

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