Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked



By Tom Spurgeon

* this is one of those with a bunch of scattered publishing news, all over the place. So why not start with an "off the beaten path"-style post about a new comic book out there for folks to buy? The above image is the new one from Mardou. Preview here; review here. It looks like a chunk of a much larger project.

* this would be huge: Fantagraphics' Kim Thompson has confessed his company's interest in the Sinner material.

* there's a pretty big mainstream publishing news story that seems to be lurching forward in bits and starts. News that the writer Jonathan Hickman is ending his run with Marvel's Fantastic Four comics would be news in that world by itself. Hickman's run was well-received, and married the kind of big-event focus that Mark Millar brought to the title a while back with a kind of ambitious, science-fiction feel that's marked a lot of the better mainstream comics over the last decade. But if you combine it with word several days ago that Brian Bendis is ending his affiliation with the Avengers titles, it suggests that Marvel is going to move its writing talent to different books -- that seems to me a pretty logical way to leverage the writers they have right now, writers they seem to like very much, in a way that could bring some energy to their titles. Execution will be key, though.

* buying box sets of mini-comics is a little beyond my personal comics-buying skill-set, but this group of comics includes minis from Charles Burns and Mat Brinkman and is tempting me to try it out.

* Alan Gardner informs us that The Cartoonist Studio is launching an e-publishing initiative.

* Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover are apparently working on something superhero-related.

* J. Caleb Mozzocco describes a new version of an iconic DC Comics character, as the mainstream comics companies looks to make publishing hay out of all its properties. As much as I think a goofy version of a character traditionally suited for another take indicates that it's the market that's broken, not the character, I do appreciate that DC finds value in getting all of their big names out there in the comics publishing realm as opposed to their sitting on one or two of them. Although man is that take goofy. It's almost impossible to parody.

* say it ain't so, Joe.

* there were a bunch of individual forthcoming project posts in the last several days. To group a bunch of them together: new series from Vertigo, a Daniel Johnston (!) book at BOOM!, Koyama Press backs a fourth issue of Wowee Zonk, a David Lloyd crime book goes to the iPad.

* Britt Wilson has finished her book.

* I guess it's sort of interesting that a character from the Walking Dead TV show may find their way into the Walking Dead comic book.

* this post was apparently the first official advance publicity on Chris Ware's big Fall release.

* I'm not all the way certain of the exact nature of this apparent alt-comics (European version) team-up, but that's a pretty cover and those are formidable names.

* not comics: did you know you can buy Alan Moore-related stuff to support Occupy London? I did not.

* here's a follow-up story on some reasonably significant comic strip-related publishing news from recent days: Corey Pandolph ending the Elderberries strip started by the late Phil Frank and the very much still living Joe Troise. It's a good story, being from Frank's old stomping grounds the San Francisco Chronicle.

* comics projects by pairs of otherwise unrelated cartoonists: Matt Kindt and Gilbert Hernandez at Dark Horse; Bernie Wrightson and John Byrne at IDW. (The Wrightson is in collaboration with the popular writer Steve Niles.)

* a couple of potentially key digital comics-related news announcements this week: Dark Horse expands its device footprint; Marvel is going to make what sounds like a digital comics announcement at the forthcoming SXSW. The Dark Horse PR is important to note because hitting all the devices seems like it's going to be an inevitability for all of these companies, so the sooner that happens it seems to me the better; the Marvel announcement sure sounds to me like it could be a digital-first content initiative, but I could be totally wrong about that.

* it's not comics, but it's a pretty good cartooning gig: Slate is doing a monthly book feature that will spotlight one cartoonist's art in relation to the featured material.

* Blaise Larmee has a bunch of new stuff up at his shop. Well, it was new when I got the e-mail about it, anyway.

* additions at the AdHouse and Domino Books distribution end of things.

* finally, a publishing process post on the next Brecht Evens book.


 
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