Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* the comics business news and analysis site notes that Reed Elsevier PLC is selling of Reed Business Information. Among comics coverage sources that stem from the mighty Reed empire are Publishers Weekly, PWCW, The Beat and Variety. They're keeping Reed Exhibitions, which do New York Comic-Con, New York Anime Festival and Book Expo America.

* Joey Weiser announces his follow-up to The Ride Home.

* although the article uses a question mark and puts it into the form of a question, I'd say any information that showed newspaper web sites moving downward in terms of unique visitors is definitely a "worrying trend." One much discussed escape hatch for declining print papers has been some sort of second life on-line, with perhaps non-daily publication, or reduced print publication of some sort. If readers end up moving past the newspaper model on-line, that could be industry-altering and not in a pretty way. At the very least, this is a blow to anyone who thinks the newspaper Internet model has been settled. In another trend article that bears watching, four more publishers join the Yahoo group.

* it's probably time to move Boom! all the way out of the fledgling publisher category some still see see it in, I think due to its launch proximity to some less successful start-ups: the company announces it has received some sort of venture capital funding from DFJ Frontier, Tim Draper and Gideon Hixon. I would assume that if the money is spent as wisely as Boom! seemed to conduct itself during its initial months, they should be able to benefit greatly.

* the tributes to the late comics writer Steve Gerber are down to trickle, but there's a greater percentage of long, considered pieces. Here's Franklin Harris and Stuart Moore. The Moore one in particular is worth reading for its insight into the writer's later career.

* can we just name Stan Lynde our Most Esteemed Senior Cartoonist Elder or whatever and start inviting him to all the conventions and giving him all the awards? If for nothing else, nobody in comics looks that cool wearing a hat.

* remember that story last week where James Sime noticed that a Marvel video for a new Wolverine-driven X-Men cartoon had used a Foo Fighters song without their permission? The likely lawsuit to follow has followed.

* in another follow-up story the artist Hideo Iura and his publisher Shogakukan held a news conference to deny the copyright violation allegations made by lawyer and media figure Masatoshi Uchida. Uchida claims that the serial Bengoshi no Kuzu, which ended its run in Big Comic Original on Wednesday. On the one hand, it's my understanding publishers take copyright violations quite seriously in Japan, so if the publisher is backing him up, I have to imagine that's a good thing. On the other hand, he admitted at the press conference that he referenced the prose work in question and only that prose work when creating his stories.

* in other manga publishing news, MangaCast tracks rumors of an anthology magazine's cancellation. In a not comics story I didn't know about, this article discusses Viz Media's plans for something called the J-Pop Center.

* Quebecor World's bankruptcy is proceeding well.

* my go-to guy in terms of mainstream comic book numbers -- meaning I send him e-mails that say, "Help me, I have no idea what this means" -- John Jackson Miller of The Comics Chronicles, has made a move into a column at Newsarama. Great pick-up; Miller's a smart writer on this subject.

* I enjoyed this opinion piece by a retailer saying he's keeping his back issues, thank you very much, trend towards comics stores as bookstore or no trend towards comics stores as bookstores. Where at one point I thought that most comic book store were going to have to move into more of a bookstore model in order to ride the crest of publication that favors that form, I've more recently been convinced that several bookstores may be able to use unique elements such as back issues as an advantage to distinguish their establishments from big box bookstores and the Internet-only booksellers.
 
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