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

By Tom Spurgeon

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* AdHouse Books has a nice-looking PDF preview available of its forthcoming Jesse Jacobs book Even The Giants. I'm not familiar with the cartoonist, but there's certainly a lot that's visual appealing in the previewed pages.

* congratulations to the cartoonist Tom Neely for finishing art chores on his next graphic novel.

* it's old news at this point, but of the publishing-news article on the re-launch of The Comics Journal, I think I liked this one at Sequential best. Speaking of publishing news stories squarely in the rear view mirror, here's Christopher Allen on the cancellation of various First Wave titles.

* wow.

* check out the Chris Ware design on that Tank Takuro manga collection from Presspop. I am greatly looking forward to that one.

* the talented cartoonist Joseph Lambert has posted a photo of an I Will Bite You cover for you to stare at.

* the writer Nick Spencer has signed an exclusive with Marvel, although since he'll be continuing his independent comics, I would assume the primary purpose of the agreement is to keep him working for Marvel over DC. [Begin Update] Whoa, total failure of reading comprehension! Spencer is also going to be allowed to continue his gig on DC's THUNDER Agents property. I would imagine there could be some gamesmanship involved with this, or it could simply be he wanted to honor that gig and follow his muse the rest of the way out to exhaustion with his work on that title. Pretty interesting, though. Thanks to the dozen or so of you that pointed out my lousy blogging. [End Update] This seems to me a bit more noteworthy than usual, although only a bit, in that Marvel is believed by many of the folks of my acquaintance who pay attention to mainstream comics to be leading the talent development game over their direct competitor.

* in related news, Garth Ennis' return to Marvel seems close.

* the writer Robert Kirkman and the cartoonist Rob Liefeld will be doing a comic book together, something with time-travel and someone recruiting a younger version of himself to fight something-or-other. I hope the humor inherent in someone going back in time to access a second set of his own talents is explored a bit.

* I, Kurt Busiek, and many, many others will no doubt be glad to hear that longtime CR figure of obsessive linking Tom Gauld has a new book coming out from D+Q later this year called Goliath.

* I'm sure to spend a significant amount of time in hell diagramming sentences like that last one.

* finally, the artist Guy Davis is leaving the B.P.R.D. run of mini-series. Davis has anchored the primary Hellboy spin-off and is as responsible as anyone out there for that bunch of books carving out a marketplace niche, doubly notable because there aren't a whole lot of comics kind of serving that classic independent-comics audience. I know of people whose primary and nearly sole connection to a comics shop is picking up these comics. Davis' work has not only been well-received by Hellboy readers, it is generally well-regarded for the craft skills on display and for Davis' inventiveness with design. I agree with Sean T. Collins' appraisal here.


 
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