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

By Tom Spurgeon

* when I initially stuck the image into this post, I did it not because I had anything to say about the forthcoming Fantagraphics publication of Jacques Tardi's The Arctic Marauder but basically because I wanted to stick that lovely-looking cover in here somewhere. Turns out there's a bit of casual publishing news about the project: Kim Thompson reveals over at The Beat that Fantagraphics will be publishing the books that feature characters that fold into the Adele Blanc-Sec series so as to reduce confusion -- and, one figures, to publish more great, fun works by Tardi.

* Daniel Johnston's Infinite Comic Book Of Musical Greatness.

* Nathan Schreiber has a new webcomic going at Act-I-Vate: Sumfin' Silly.

* here's a publishing issue that rarely gets discussed the great John Porcellino describes his frustration with comics shops that won't deal with him or other self-publishers oriented towards mini-comics in any meaningful way. I mean, I fully support the idea that people should organize their stores however they want, and that in some ways the fact that there are stores out there that don't sell anything in which I'm interested is good for the overall health of the industry -- comics doesn't begin and end with my tastes. At the same time, it'd be nice if people dealt with cartoonists like Porcellino with a certain amount of respect and class, and that overall more shops would carry his remarkable books. I'd say there was a time in about 2006-2007 where the vast majority of what I bought in comics shops was a few dozen issues of King-Cat.

* that is a lovely-looking little Charles Berberian book.

* so it looks like Marvel is trying at least one more time with its Hercules character. You could argue that trying a character out in multiple series is the new mainstream comics version of what launching a single solo title was in the 1970s. I bet they something like Agents Of Atlas or Hercules even runs across roughly the same number of issues as something like Nova did 35 years ago. I like the idea of Hercules comics because there's at least a bit of promise that somebody hits something, and the Lee/Kirby model does well by loquacious brutes, but I'm essentially four years old.

* I have no idea what the basic organizing principle will be for buying comics on-line three or four years from now -- company, creator, genre, no framework at all -- but for now I suppose it's worth noting when a company like IDW puts a bunch of material out there for sale from a single creator, in this case their foundational talent Ben Templesmith.

* webcomics pioneer Steve Conley is reviving his Bloop.

* DC Comics announces its run of mini-series and one-shot titles that will relate to its forthcoming event comic Flashpoint. The interesting thing from a comics publishing wonk standpoint is DC's desire to both capitalize on the attention of such an event but also its desire to protect the regular series from the crossover in case there's another group of fans buying those that don't want some outside set of concerns crowding into their comic.

* Lose #3 is set to debut at TCAF.

* here's a peek at Hans Rickheit's next big project.

* Chris Schweizer is hard at work on Crogan's Loyalty, and shows some art that proves it.

* Garett Martin and Hillary Brown have a new review column.

* finally, Vertical continues to expand their manga efforts with Drops Of God and Princess Knight. That's still a modest enough line that every single book they choose to do deserves a considered look.


 
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