Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked: A Publishing News Column

By Tom Spurgeon

* AdHouse Books on the digital release of Duncan The Wonder Dog. Spurred in part by the delay between printing, AdHouse has a found a partner for a pay-for-it digital book version while creator Adam Hine has put the entire book up on his web site. Both Techland and Comics Alliance named the work their book of the year for 2010.

* it may something not-so-complimentary about this site that such a broad list of manga coming out in 2011 feels more like publishing news than a friendly reminder, but as it's good news it's hard to work too much up in terms of withering contempt. Taniguchi! Maruo! Tezuka!

* it looks like Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill are shopping Marshal Law around, which is good news only in that it suggests we may end up with a nice printed collection of that work, which is a lot of fun.

* I can't remember if I already knew about this or not, but a short Skeleton Key story from Andi Watson sometime this year is news worth repeating. That's a charming series, and individual comics from it wouldn't be out of place if you put them in the same stack as the fruits of the explosion of idiosyncratic genre material that came out last year, series like Orc Stain and King City.

* come to think of it, I'm not sure I remembered to mention that Dark Horse Presents is coming back this year. There were a lot of announcements just preceding the holidays this year.

* new Victor Cayro comics imminent?

* your and my favorite Latvian cartoonists are back, this time in mini-comics form. It's amazing that we live in a world where it's possible to buy Latvian comics three or four times a year and it doesn't feel like this strange or impossible thing. Just a dozen years ago these were the kind of books that would show up in a John Lent column in The Comics Journal, and you'd half-wonder if they really existed.

* JT Dockery is asking for money over at Kickstarter.com to get his latest off the ground. There's a video and everything.

* so Pogo this Fall? I think I've noted this before, but it says something to the state of comics reprints right now that there are only a few complaints out there to be found about this much-delayed Fantagrpahics' series.

* I hadn't known about this at all, and wouldn't still if it weren't for catching a random Facebook posting, Apparently Hippy Comix has just solicited a collection from Snatch through Diamond. If you believe the primary value of the underground comix was in smash taboos, or even that an important step taken by underground comix is that the participating artists felt comfortable working blue, this would seem to be a collection for you.

* longtime excellent writer about comics Steve Duin has collaborated on a work with fellow Portlander Shannon Wheeler that will be published this Fall by Fantagraphics. That's good news, sounds interesting, and I look forward to eventually seeing it.

* not comics: here's a look at a cover mock-up for John Cuneo's next children's book.

* Kim Thompson notes a new Lewis Trondheim-involved series and posts the video trailer.

* hard not to look forward to Vertical's translated version later this year of this Tezuka work.

* here's a profile of a cute-looking wrestling strip that is debuting in the classic British kids mag The Dandy.

* finally, as many folks expected when he started team-writing with Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen will take over Uncanny X-Men. He seems well suited to writing books in Marvel's line, and congratulations to him on the gig.

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While this column deals in formal publishing news, forthcoming publications are also tracked in the Crystal Ball section of this site. We're, um, still working on that part of the site.

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