Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* I completely and horrifically blew covering the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act stuff, whereby many smart people in comics pointed out that efforts to keep our nation's children from sucking on lead toys might have a debilitating effect on the ability of comics and related small vendors to do business at shows and in general. I have a longer piece in the works, but maybe all it needed was a "Here's the issue" piece of the kind that other sites have been smarter bringing to light. I apologize to those of you who brought this to my attention. At any rate, the appropriate government agency has apparently issued a reprieve against enforcing these standards, so there's time to figure this out.

* that sound you hear is 10,000 older comics fans cooing over these pieces of art from a forthcoming Kyle Baker Hawkman project. One of the things that I think is strangely underexplored in superhero comics is an approach that emphasizes executing the crap out of action scenes and related action set pieces. You can find this approach if you look -- Mark Millar's more successful comics are like this, and the Brubaker/Fraction comics do this a bit -- but I think there's a greater tendency towards playing against those elements (in favor of the soap opera or genre commentary) or even with the expectations caused by them rather than playing into the choreography and the action.

* I know it's uncouth to link to sales, but there are a lot of great books in the new Fantagraphics clearance offering and in the sense that recessions for most of us are opportunities to buy at discount for some of you I thought I'd mention it here. The Joe Daly, Roger Langridge, Jules Feiffer and Ted Jouflas books strike me as those that might never be reprinted and are quite good besides. Ted Jouflas is a fascinating cartoonist who has received almost no attention for his work. For years I avoided Jouflas' work because I didn't like the general look of it, if that makes any sense, but the books like Scary! are so funny they finally won me over. The Ed Sorel collection is great, too.

* I ran a link to it as a review, but it occurs to me that Brian Hibbs' take on Final Crisis #7 should also be singled out as industry analysis. Hibbs suggests the possibility that Final Crisis may work as art while also being awful publishing strategy. He's not the first retailer to suggest out loud that the general heave and thrust of DC's line over the last few years has frustrated more than a few fans. I personally think it may lead to a continued lack of strength in the company's middle-list comics -- although it's always hard to tell because even severe dissatisfaction gets spread across a delayed ordering system. Speaking of which, can anyone out there that's qualified to do so (qualifications perhaps limited to reading a lot of comics) .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) DC's general strategy coming off this last mini-series? I'm guessing it's letting the better-received writers do some work character to character a la Geoff Johns on Green Lantern, but I'm not sure.

* many of your favorite comics bloggers ask what Superman sang to destroy Darkseid in that FC issue. Me, I think there's only one choice.

* finally, there's not a ton of reaction to Reed Exhibitions moving its New York Comic-Con to Fall in 2010 and starting a Chicago show in spring that same year. It might be noted that it's a real vote of confidence in the comics industries, because it's not like Reed is running around greenlighting everything right now. One person wrote me a note that a DC representative and a Marvel representative being included in the initial press release is like Bill Cosby (Reed) walking across the party and punching Tommie Smothers (Wizard) in the face. In other words, it's on between those two, despite what either might say in the weeks and months ahead. It's also been suggested to me that more attention should have been paid to how this might have an effect on the rest of the convention calendar, but I'm not convinced it will have any effect. The Chicago show seems far enough away from WonderCon both geographically and in "convention time" that it wouldn't seem to be an issue, while the NYCC indy/alt contingent is so sad and withered that I can't imagine that show being any real danger to SPX unless they choose the exact same weekend. The Baltimore Con might take a hit, I guess, but my hunch is that people already do that one out of affection for the show rather than as a cold business decision that might now be usurped in favor of running around the Javits Center. Plus, you know, who doesn't like crab?
 
posted 6:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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