Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked



By Tom Spurgeon

* let's start out this week with a re-run: the Koyama Press titles I talked about last time. Here is actual information, given to me by someone I should have just asked before I ran my shrugged-shoulder mention in the previous column. Both books will be $10 CDN, feature black and white insides and a color cover. Eat More Bikes will be 36 pages and be order-able with this ISBN: 9780987863948. Sunday in the Park with Boys is set for 52 pages and will sport 9780987863055 as an ISBN. You can read about them more directly -- for now -- on the publisher's news page.

* one appeared-in-advance-on-Amazon.com item worth noting this time out is the latest in Kim Thompson's admirable line of personally curated European comics translations -- this one an early work from Hergé: Peppy And Virginny In Lapino-Land.

* this announcement that I missed for last week's column feels important to me. IDW's strength as a publishing company is in its follow-ups to publishing initiatives even more than the different things it tries, and if they're seeing an audience for a lot of specialty items and targeted material, it's worth taking note of that.

* NYCC was stuffed with publishing announcements, which was nice. A few stood out from a content perspective, at least for me. A Scott Snyder/Jim Lee Superman comic will likely sell a lot of copies, so that raised an eyebrow. The huge wave of Image Comics-related announcements piqued my interest because I'm intrigued as to whether or not they can continue their current momentum on several titles with a lot more, or even just more basically what sales will look like with that many writers and artists pursuing what are ostensibly more personal projects there. I'm not convinced there aren't some slightly cynical comics in that mix, by which I mean comics where they exist to facilitate a movie project other than come from some place of personal expression -- I realize how loaded that statement is as an act of valuing some comics over others. Kodansha doing Vinland Saga seems like a straight-up "hey, we're doing this" announcement worth noting.

* as for mainstream stuff that didn't make it into the NYCC round-up, DC made a few personnel announcements in a release sent out before the big NYCC show, including Andy Diggle on Action Comics. Here's another one, about a writing change on one of the lesser-known titles. At least I assume that's a lesser-known title. DC also cancelled some titles right after the show, including a lauded series with their version of the Frankenstein character. That bears watching, because how DC will approach its non-hits, and there are going to be a lot of non-hits, will determine the shape of the superhero market to significant effect.

* not comics: Mike Baron has an e-book for sale here called Helmet Head.

* good news: Sergio Aragones has apparently turned in another issue of his fine, current comic book to the folks at Bongo.

* finally, I never cover what Conundrum is up to to the extent I should, so let's place its Spring covers above and below this content. All of these are books that will debut at the 2013 iteration of TCAF, which is sort of interesting in and of itself -- I don't think of TCAF as a title-launcher to that extent, and there's no reason I shouldn't think of it that way, particularly for a Canadian publisher. The books are Paul Joins The Scouts, by Michel Rabagliati; Obituary Man by Philippe Girard; The Grey Museum by Lorenz Peter; and The Library by Chihoi. I want to see all of them, although the last of those is probably the one I'm most curious about.





 
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