Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked



By Tom Spurgeon

* apparently one of the comics you'll be able to find this weekend at Comic-Con International is the latest from David King, a 40-pager called Lemon Styles. Information here. Dylan at Sparkplug should be able to hook you up, and the cartoonist will be on hand as well. King is really talented and vastly under-appreciated.

* Jason T. Miles' zine/minis distribution company Profanity Hill has added a bunch of new comics-related material including, their press release says, from the following: "Peter Bagge, Douglas Bagge, Ingaletta Basher, Philip T. Basher, Jim Blanchard, Bruce Carleton, Steve Cerio, Chris Cilla, Max Clotfelter, Crypts, Jeremy Eaton, Dennis P. Eichorn, Austin English, G. Fling, CansaFis Foote, Kelly Froh, Jim Goad, Marianne Goldin, Adam Grano, Stefan Gruber, Kailynn H., Gretta Harely, John Holstrom, J. Bradley Johnson, Josh Journey-Heinz, Chris Kegel, Kinoko, Emily Litjens, Jesse McManus, Donna Mathes, Jason T. Miles, Pat Moriarity, Jason Overby, Karn Piana, Rev. Ivan Stang, A Wood Storm, Ron Rege Jr., Tony Remple, Josh Simmons, R.K. Sloan, Matthew Thurber, Roy Tompkins, John Trubee, Nico Vassilakis, Ken Weiner, Dennis Worden and Gary Wray." Sounds worth a visit to me.

* Image partner and Walking Dead/Invincible writer Robert Kirkman has a new imprint, Skybound, which will hope to replicate the success Image has enjoyed through Kirkman's books by enabling new writers and artists to bring their similar dream projects to the field. The curious thing about the announcement is that Kirkman will participate profits-wise in what develops through the imprint, which is more of an "Image Classic" approach than it is a "Image Central" way of doing things.

* the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com reports that the new Scott Pilgrim volume has a first printing of 100,000.

* also garnering some CCI buzz will be the formation of Jason Netter's Kickstart Comics, with editorial guidance from Larry Young and Jimmy Palmiotti. The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com offers up a succinct write-up. I like Palmiotti and Young, and I'm not going to begrudge anyone's creative opportunities, but I'm skeptical in that I don't think anyone on planet earth woke up this morning and thought, "You know what the comics market really needs? Four more graphic novels a month, all with an eye towards becoming properties fit for screen and television set." While there's always room for exemplary work in any industry serving any art form, making their having to be awesome the de facto standard of a new company and its new works in order to simply function in a super-crowded market puts a lot of pressure on all those involved.

* I nearly missed this press release from Nat Gertler and About Comics: they'll have a collection of the Salimba comics by Paul Chadwick and the late Stephen Perry for sale in October.

* there should probably be a rule that in order to re-do some classic superhero storyline you should be old enough to have been alive when it came out, and I'm not sure Ben McCool qualifies when it comes to The Korvac Saga. Actually, I'm just kidding, those weren't even the best comics and I have no problem with corporations re-assigning work if they want to. Two things that story did very well, though. One was having these gigantic superhero battles take place in a quiet, suburban neighborhood, which I loved as the kid. A second was that the overall story gave us this sense of what it was like to be one of those superhero teams in terms of losing track of threats and events. Plus everybody died. Seriously.

* Bongo is launching its new web site at some time today in conjunction with the start of Comic-Con International.

* bring on the 2009 Nostalgia Effort!

* the CBLDF is doing another issue of its Liberty Comics, with contributions from various upstanding creators designed to raise money for and awareness of comics' First Amendment issues.

* it seems like it's been a while since there's been a John Carter comic, but I'm probably forgetting something. Anyway: here that is.

* there will apparently be a Tiny Titans/sort-of Li'l Archie crossover.

* I'm sad to hear that Jeff Parker's efforts with the Atlas-era superhero characters have come to an end. Or at least the primary title has and at least it has for now. It's amazing they continued on for as long as they did, given the market, but still, there haven't been so many readable superhero adventure comics in the last five years that you'd want to end one on some sort of abstract principle.

* I'm happy to hear about an Axe Cop/Dr. McNinja team-up.

* finally, Sean Phillips provides a sneak peak at cover art for the forthcoming comics adaptation of Let Me In, the Americanized version of the fine film Let The Right One In.


 
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