Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* Sean T. Collins is right: this interview with Axel Alonso and Tom Brevoort about Marvel Comics right at this moment is way more insightful than most interviews of its type. I'm not sure I'd endorse every notion floated, but it certainly is a snapshot of that company's self-conception via key personnel.

* Ward Sutton reviews Disaster Preparedness, the memoir from Heather Havrilesky, one-time webcomics titan and one of the best entertainment writers working.

* Carte Blanche is accepting submissions.

* farewell and best wishes to Charles Yoakum, one of those invaluable bloggers in that he followed a set of idiosyncratic interests rather than the dictates of any market.

* not comics: it probably has come to the point that Warners maybe not buying ad time for their Green Lantern movie will be interpreted in some corners as a lack of confidence in that movie. None of this matters if people like the movie and fill seats; none of the positive word-of-mouth would matter in the opposite case.

* so Marvel is letting retailers have an extra day to sell this week's "Death Of A Fantastic Four Member" issue of Fantastic Four; ComicsPro members will apparently have a forthcoming fantasy book to sell from the publisher an extra day early as well. I guess that's to be expected, although there's every chance that early-day sales will be routinely abused and I think that it's better for the kind of thing not to be offered at all than what should be a way to aid standard sales end up routinely exploited as a sales gimmick. As far as the Fantastic Four thing itself, it's still kind of creepy to see that kind of plot point gain sales traction so far above and beyond whether or not the comic is good, and for the comic itself to be bagged, although clearly these are promotional ploys that work. It seems to me they've done a decent job building suspense on this plot point and the market is in such an ossified state it's hard to imagine many other ways for a title to make the kind of jump in sales that has a chance to stick around for a while.

* the failure of Thor: The Mighty Avenger to find a foothold in today's crowded marketplace has apparently snuffed Captain America: The Fighting Avenger in the planning stages, with a one-shot to squeak out in place of an ongoing series.

* the retailer and industry advocate Brian Hibbs follows up on Patton Oswalt's recent public musings on the widespread availability of geek items.

* finally, I would imagine that after Tucson and the absolute minefield responses to those shootings entailed, this nation's editorial cartoonists are that much more psyched than usual to have a story with little to no real-world consequence, like Keith Olbermann's departure from MSBNC, fall into their laps.
 
posted 2:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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