Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* this article at the Wall Street Journal about a pair of fantasy graphic novel project perhaps being positioned as next books for readers of the Harry Potter series, Bone and Amulet, contains a bit of news that I don't think I've seen before: that Scholastic's version of the Bone books have a cumulative two million sales thus far. I remember writing a brief when they crossed one million, but I don't think I'd seen the two million figure yet. That's pretty amazing, and relatively quietly done.

* Dan Clowes' serial in the New York Times seems to be rocketing towards a conclusion. I'm enjoying it so far. Free comics is a great thing.

* the BEA blog's Lance Fensterman replies to Neil Kleid's complaint that the New York Comic-Con was being held during Passover this year by apologizing but stating that those were the only dates at the Javitz Center available to the con. I found it to be a measured, polite response. He also lets slip that NYCC 2009 will be in February again as opposed to this year's more attractive except for the Passover thing April, which makes me glad to be going this year.

* it looks like Chris Onstad has a publisher for a book collecting the excellent "Great Outdoor Fight" storyline from Achewood. According to his "Achewood Winter 2008 Town Newsletter":

In other news, we're having a busy little winter. Ray almost ran for President, and Nice Pete has started work on his third novella, A Marvelous Romance, due out this spring. Oh, and we're in the final stages of signing a contract to have The Great Outdoor Fight printed by a major publisher. Ninety-six pages, hardcover, with loads of new material. Details as they become official."

That was a really good sequence, and deserves as big an audience as it can muster. (thanks, Gil)

* not comics: the Seattle Times has a brief note on Fantagraphics' first prose fiction novel, Laura Warholic or, The Sexual Intellectual.

* the National Post editorial board presents a strongly-worded essay on the recent appearance by publisher Ezra Levant in front of a human rights commission in Alberta. This editorial at Agoravox also seems to have Levant's back.

* the decision at the Washington Post to pull a recent episode of Candorville because of a joke about a presidential assassination is apparently being second-guessed by folks at the Post.

* here's a marketing publication's analysis of Marvel's on-line subscription initiative.

* publisher AdHouse Books has announced a hardcover collecting Josh Cotter's series Skyscrapers of the Midwest, which in comic book form sold a lot fewer copies than it deserved to. It will be 288 pages long for $19.95 and will be available this summer.

* those of you enamored with information about the graphic novel's place in the world of children's literature will find the subject dropped more than once into this conversation with Jon Scieszka.

* there's no permalink that I can find, but here's a lengthy interview with Evan Skolnick here that seems a bit wonkier than most interviews, such as how Skolnick watched the various styles on display at Marvel editorial to develop his own method of editing, or how writer turn in their version of a script even after agreeing with an editor on the phone to change things.

* both Heidi MacDonald and Dirk Deppey spend some time with a sort-of superhero publishing story whereby there has been launched into the market a much asked-after and protested-for in-story tribute to a female character named Stephanie Brown that died while fulfilling the role of Robin in one of the Batman books. I find it creepy that Batman would keep any costumes of dead partners around under glass (I hope to god Jerry Lewis doesn't do this), but I'm not really invested in that whole world so it's difficult for me to pass judgment on someone for whom this is a really important thing, or the storytelling implications of same.

I mention it here because there's all sorts of interesting geek culture grist for the mill in such a story if you want to start punching through the links, everything from the framing of the fans' demand for such a plot point as a feminist issue to how comic books can be shackled by extended plots that don't otherwise make a ripple in such characters' convoluted histories. I would probably stop short of using it as a springboard to make a criticism of the mainstream companies' collective inability to gain and keep a certain kind of audience, but that's mostly because I don't care if these companies maximize their sales and cultural reach or not.
 
posted 8:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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