Last week Tania Del Rio wrote at Pop Culture Shock wondering if manga anthologies could possibly work here the way they do in Japan.

Rather than wait multiple months for the next volume of my favorite series (where I usually forget what happened in the story by the time the next volume does finally come out), with Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat I get small doses of story each month that I look forward to seeing in my mailbox. It keeps my interest fresh and I like the variety. And I find myself really enjoying titles like Crimson Hero, Baby & Me, and Shaman King which, quite honestly, I would never buy in book form otherwise.

But I want more manga anthologies like this! I want to be able to read more titles each month for less money. Of course I realize that it could never be as cheap to produce those phonebook style magazines here in the States as it is in Japan. For one, there are the costs of translating and preparing the material for an English-speaking audience. Printing costs are also higher in general. And most Americans are spoiled by glossy, superior paper stock and may not appreciate newsprint so cheap that the ink comes off on your fingers.

Manga Blog responds:
I agree with Tania. I’d like to see more manga in anthology form.

And I’ll add that the fact that we get Shojo Beat has not stopped us from buying the tanks when they come out; as I correctly predicted a year ago, Viz has found a way to sell us the same book twice. As Dave Carter demonstrated earlier this week, Tokyopop seems to be releasing more low-numbered volumes per month than Viz, and thus is perceived as flooding the market. But they don’t really promote the titles much, so they’re sinking under their own weight. A proper anthology would help build an audience for them.

As does David at Love Manga:

I’ve been fairly consistent in my dislike for anthologies as a whole, but I can understand the sentiment (plus I know I’m in the minority about anthologies, right David?!).

If you just want to look at purely licensed works and whatever VIZ Media do then I just can’t see how an anthology would work. I know we have Shounen Jump and Shojo Beat but especially in the case of Shojo Beat I see these more as anthology magazines rather then just purely an anthology.
The idea that we could get say the phonebook tankobans is hugely appealing but fundamentally impractical, which is a great shame because even I would be tempted by them. The cost implication, let alone licensing issues does kind of put a nail in the coffin for that idea.

Much interesting discussion in the comments sections. of both posts. But these responses are crushed by an amazing post from Queenie Chan (THE DREAMING) who examines the ideas of comics on demand, the psychology of consumers who download, the viability of the iPod as a transport medium for comics and more. There is even a diagram.

Apparently quite difficult, because according to alot of people, anthologies have never been commercially viable outside Japan. The Japanese system has been around so long that it revolves around people buying anthologies printed on crappy paper, and then throwing it away to buy takoubans of their favourite stories. When other countries try the same model with Japanese manga, it sells because there is an inbuilt audience who knows they’re getting a tried-and-true Japanese product (with loads of merchandising). But what about trying it with original, untested work? The financial risk can be pretty great, and printing isn’t cheap either.

Which brings me around to the idea of e-anthologies. This is something that makes alot of people cringe, because they would rather hold a crappily printed book in their hands than shell out money for something “ephemereal” that comes attached to a computer. That’s a reasonable complaint, but one that’s a bit unfair, because personally, I believe that e-books are the way of the future. I just think that it won’t catch on with our current level of technology, though things may change in 5-10 year’s time.

MUST READING.

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The McCloud Family 50-State Tour seems to be going well:

“The lecture yesterday went off without a hitch — in fact, it was better than I could have asked…”

Our sentiments exactly.

–Matt, our host at RIT offers an account of yesterday on his blog.

Matt estimates our crowd at 375, and reports a total sell-out of copies of MC. Not bad!

Meanwehile, Henry Jenkins, the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities (translation: dude is smart) has interesting comments on The Education of Sky McCloud

Meanwhile, she remains in contact with a larger circle of home schooled kids who are also tapping into their interests in popular culture (in this case, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars) to inform critical essays and research projects. We all concluded that Sky could be a poster child for the new media literacies we have been exploring through our project with the MacArthur Foundation — someone who is tapping the full range of new media technologies to learn and share what she is learning with a larger community. Sky is incredibly articulate, holding her own debating the fine points of comics aesthetics with her dad and fully comfortably plopping herself down and conversing with a room full of graduate students. We were delighted to hear her say she was potentially interested in being an MIT student some day. She won the hearts of many of us here.

Trust us, by the end of this tour, it will be Sky who has a book deal.

ITEM! Artist Whilce Portacio (WETWORKS) is blogging.

So here are some of the panels from the first issue up close and personal. I got a new computer just to do stuff like this my blog and videos and stuff. It came with a program called Muvee. Where you can load in video clips (or in this case images) tell the camera where to look at each image and add a music file then presto the program arranges all the images into a sequence that is timed to the beats of the music you’ve provided and spits out a video. So in others words I take five minutes to load images and a song and the program churns out a video that looks like I took hours to plan and put together…a perfect quick way for a busy penciler to advertise comicbook artpages he’s taken hours, days, years to bring to life…I think.

ITEM! Comics Should be Good has put together a rough INDEX of their Comic Book Urban Legends postings. Yes!

ITEM! Don MacPherson, formerly of FOURTH RAIL has launched his Eye on Comics review site.

An article on screenwriter Jim Uhls in the LA Times lets out a bunch of news about the potential movie adaptation of REX MUNDI by Arvid Nelson and Eric Johnson. It seems JOHNNY DEPP may star in it.

Indiana Jones, meet Jack Sparrow. Jim Uhls, who successfully adapted the “unadaptable” Chuck Palahniuk novel “Fight Club,” has been hired to turn “Rex Mundi,” a series of graphic novels by Arvid Nelson and Eric Johnson, into a feature for Johnny Depp to star in and produce through his Infinitum Nihil (Infinite Nothing) production company.

“Rex Mundi” (King of the World) posits an alternate present of 1933 in which the Reformation never happened, the Inquisition is still in full swing, Europe remains dominated by the Catholic Church and the rest of the world consists of colonies. Depp, who became the biggest movie star in the world this summer by reprising his Keith Richards-inspired swashbuckler, would play a pathologist investigating the mysterious death of the priest who found him as an orphan.

“It’s a noir-ish ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ ” Uhls says. “There are murders and a mystery, and the lead character discovers a massive conspiracy, biblical in its origin.”

Did you hear? Johnny Depp may star in REX MUNDI.

We said, Johnny Depp may star in REX MUNDI!

REX MUNDI is now published by Dark Horse, after starting out at Image.

Every day is ADHD Awareness Day at Stately Beat Manor!

Coolest thing ever for today. A site promoting Nissen for the 35th Anniversary of Cup Noodles presents an animated video by Katsuhiro Otomo (AKIRA.)

Ad Age explains (via sneaky Google cache):

Hence, the Freedom Project. The creative mandate of the Nissin Freedom campaign is to position the humble Cup as a symbol of freedom, since the pour-and-eat meal has “brought about a worldwide revolution in food culture.” There’s something that’s at once so over the top and so gorgeous about the all-in creativity exhibited here by Nissin and its partners that it merits a look.

The campaign includes a series of commercials and longer films, as well as posters and a range of multimedia elements, all based on an animated tale created by Katsuhiro Otomo, the legendary manga artist and anime director.

The link above takes to to a big Techno-scored flash video but here are smaller links:
Commercial
Trailer

We have to agree that this campaign is particularly inspired: Cup Noodles has always meant freedom here at SBM.

[Thanks to Randi for the link]

Naked PR, but informative:

Modern Tales (www.moderntales.com), one of the Web’s premier webcomics sites, is proud to announce the addition of four new comics to its Modern Tales Strip Lounge section. The Strip Lounge offers free, non-exclusive webcomics available to all visitors, and is designed to complement the Modern Tales V.I.P. Room, which features subscription-based comics available only to Modern Tales subscribers.

The new Strip Lounge comics are:
Killer Robots from Space, by Adam Greengard, a sardonic comic strip featuring lots of robots but not actually all that much killing. Greengard is known in webcomics circles for Killer Robots and his previous comic, No Outlet.

Planet Karen, a daily diary comic by Karen Ellis, who talks frankly about friends, concerts, Rollerblades, rent, and daily life for a not-quite-average English girl.

Shi Long Pang, by Ben Costa, the ongoing story of a portly Shao Lin monk searching for his brother in 17th-century China.

You’ll Have That, by Wes Molebash, a semi-autobiographical daily strip about the life of a young married couple.

The new comics will debut on Modern Tales this week. Over the course of the week, Garrity will interview some of the creators on the Talk About Comics blog.

The fire at the home of Lea Hernandez has receded from the internet’s front page, but reading Lea’s LJ is a continuing sad, funny story of picking up after you’ve lost just about everything. She also reiterates over and over again how much the support from the comics community and others has meant. Although The Hernandezes were insured, there are still difficulties, and they deserve our support. CAPE 2.5 is coming up in a few days and will be a benefit:

CAPE! the Comic and Pop Expo presents CAPE 2.5, a live art show and comic art auction benefiting comic artist Lea Hernandez and family.

After a house fire claimed everything the Hernandez family owned including her art, the comic book community is rallying around Lea with a live comic art jam and comic art auction.

The event is scheduled for Saturday September 30th at the Metro Grill in Dallas starting at 9pm. While a DJ spins, comic artists work on oversized canvases before an assembled audience. Once an artist finishes a piece it moves to an auction area where anyone can bid on it.

“When we had our first one in May, there were artists going at it everywhere, on the wall on the floor. We even had to cover the pool table to protect it from paint,” said CAPE host Richard Neal. “It was an amazing experience. Each time a piece finished the crowd would cheer.”

The money raised from the night of the auction goes directly to Hernandez.

Some of the comic artists already assembled run the gamut from indie to mainstream from up-and-comers to industry legends. PVP s Scott Kurtz, the Crow s James O Barr, Viper Comics Brock Rizy and Benjamin Hall, Brian Denham, Steve Erwin, Sonny Strait, Kit Lively, TJ Colligan, and Ghostwerks Comics are among the few already on the bill.

“Texas comic creators really support each other and having this line-up of talent in Dallas show up and give for a San Antonio friend is very classy. I’m proud to promote these people.” says Scott Hinze of Fanboy Radio, co-host of the evening.

“The biggest surprise of the evening will be Lea Hernandez herself. We’re getting Lea here for a little live art therapy,” said Neal. “I can’t imagine losing my entire career in a fire. It’s important for the artists assembled to bring Lea in to their show support.”

CAPE 2.5 is a live art experience and comic art auction Saturday September 30th starting at 9pm at Metro Grill. The event hosts are Fanboyradio.com, Popsyndicate.com, PVPonline.com, and Zeus Comics.

Donations to Lea Hernandez can also be made at Zeus Comics or at their website www.zeuscomics.com.

Metro Grill is located at 4425 North Central Expressway on the southbound access road just past Knox/Henderson. Additional information can be obtained by calling Zeus Comics at 214-219-TOYS

Go to wwww.capeday.com for more information.

feeling a xanax high give does

Today mobile payments ranging from mobile banking to mobile credit cards to mobile commerce are very widely used in Asia and Africa, and in selected European markets.

Newsday’s Ariella Burdick reviews the Masters show and she can’t help but pick up a bit of…well…subtext.

The Newark Museum concentrates on newspaper strips; the Jewish Museum picks up the story with comic books, which began to hit the market just before World War II. Almost from the beginning, these had a cult readership made up almost exclusively of boys and men. Indeed, all of the artists featured in “Masters of American Comics” are male, as are almost all the writers in the show’s absorbing catalog. Yet the gendering of comics goes completely unremarked by the curators, and it comes up only in the work of Crumb, a notorious misogynist.

Even sainted Chris Ware, whom let it never be forgotten, has never been replicated in female form, contains subtext!

Even today, undercurrents of negativity toward women course through the depressive and quasi-autobiographical work of Chris Ware. When they appear at all, they are cold and/or sexually rapacious. Ware addresses his art to nerdy, solipsistic and vaguely pretentious men like himself.

Burdick’s conclusion:

As I wandered through the Jewish Museum half of the exhibit, I marveled that no other art form in recent history has been so exclusionary, so limited to the concerns of one sex. It’s not that women can’t appreciate comic art; the masterpieces of the early 20th century address themselves to everyone.

But as the medium has became less popular and aspired to the status of fine art, it has focused on the gender that confers prestige, and has barely bothered with females. No wonder I knew so little about it.

At the risk of being a bleating feminist, it’s sad that newcomers to the world of comics like Burdick will come away completely unaware of the rich female tradition in comics. Sad, but hardly…unexpected.

Have you been admiring the many stirring and awe-inspiring full-size Batmans made from Lego over the past year’s convention season? Now one can be YOURS courtesy of FAO Schwartz:

At 6′6″ tall, a Batman statue would be an impressive guardian against whatever lurks in the shadows. But when he’s made entirely of Lego bricks, you know Batman’s reached new heights. Lego Batman statue is realistically rendered and wears a black bat-suit, yellow utility belt and heavy fabric cape. Comes crated in 3 sections, which can be put together easily wherever crime doesn’t pay. 78″T.

We’re a little sad that it comes pre-assembled, but then again time is money.
[Thanks to Tom for the link.]

Journalista has a link to the complaint.

Scanning the complaint quickly, there are two counts: defamation in the as yet unpublished WE TOLD YOU SO history of Fantagraphics, and a violation of California’s Right of Publicity clause for the use of Ellison’s name on the cover of the recent COMICS JOURNAL LIBRARY: THE WRITERS.

We’ll be reading the complaint at our leisure a little later because it looks to be a stunning piece of writing — we already spotted the phrase “a giddy young Groth” and are dying to know more. Knowing — and admiring — all of the parties we can only say that in the case of perpetually adolescent genius, wisdom is always the victim.

We picked this one up from Johanna this morning, and it’s a little more kicking someone when they’re down, but…hey whoever said we were nice? It seems Rick Olney’s Mighty Mini-Con, slated to be held this weekend, has been canceled.

2006 Mighty Minicon Falls on Own Sword
For very obvious reasons, I don’t expect many people to accept this explanation; Truth is tough to own up to sometimes for us all.

I’ve been searching for the words to describe what my life has been like since late July when my mom died. Can’t find them.

Those of you that have been here for a while probably know what kind of summer I’ve had. Prior to July 27th, I wasthisclose to completing my negotiations to have a site for the MMC. Then my mom died and I was knocked off my center of reason. I took a couple weeks off, actually, as after experiencing the loss of a parent we then lost our 26 year old niece on August 8th unexpectedly. So tack on another week of being torn on what to do.

Well, you gotta feel for someone who has suffered a death in the family. But not having a venue for a con one week out might be construed as…well, poor planning, let’s say. Throw in the fact that Olney has a history of postponing and canceling his shows at the last minute and you might not want to plan your social calendar around Mighty Mini-Con doings. Certainly, we hope that headlining guest Chris Cross had other plans.

Normally we wouldn’t make such a fuss about a small-time con being cancelled after a family tragedy. It’s just that Olney has a history of being a real internet loudmouth. In fact, he recently hired Ronee Garcia Bourgeois to be a spokesman for his Tightlip Entertainment, and she moved her “What a Girl Wants” column over there.

UPDATE: Her latest column was called “Small shows screwing the fans?” and we would have been quite interested to read it except that you apparently have to register for the Mighty Mini-Con forum to read it, and we just don’t have time.and you can read it at the home page.

Truly the thing that has me puzzled is the fact that little conventions either get ignored, or lose out due to fighting with each other. I just don’t get that. This is not a new revelation to me or anything… I have seen it for years now. The big shows win out and the little shows fight tooth and nail to survive year by year.

It’s ridiculous stuff too… rumors and gossip and going behind each others backs to “set the record straight” or other such nonsensical crap thinking in the end they will ruin the other and reign supreme over that geographical area when all they are really doing is forgetting the fans.

Oops.

All of this does make Bourgeois’s past column at Pop Syndicate about how no one ran her press release about her joining Tightlip just a little more ironic.

We try to stay out of endless internet blog feuds, because if we didn’t, we’d have no time for things like eating and sleeping, but once in a while one comes along that is so rich, tasty and satisfying that it must be shared with out constituency. Such is the case of James Meely, whose Comic Contemplations website was frequently linked on When Fangirls Attack! leading to a highly public and enjoyable mental breakdown on Meely’s part and the ultimo internet suicide dive of taking down his blog and then even removing all posts from various message board threads where he argued with more rational minds. Meely’s problem? He didn’t want to be linked to. On the internet. While we are touched by Meely’s idea that the internet is a private place where just a few friend can kick back in obscurity, we suggest that he may just have started posting on the wrong internets.

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ITEM! Kingdom Come: Superman supplants Jesus as icon for rappers returning from retirement wilderness, or in Jay-Z’s case, retirement wonderland.

ITEM! Colleen Doran plans to turn long out of print GN into webcomic:

A Distant Soil: Seasons of Spring has been out of print for some 15 years and I am going to be running the pages right here. I considered going straight to trade with it, but I decided to see how running it here might go over first. I have a year’s worth of one-page-a-week inventory, most of it reprints. However, considering the fact that no one has seen much of it, it will be new to many who come here.

ITEM! Bill Sienkiewicz talks about the background comics he and Neal Adams did for Roger Waters’ tour and links to video!

ITEM! The Beat salutes Peter Sanderson and his column at Quick Stop Entertainment. It has been nearly two months since San Diego and Peter is still writing about it and only up to Saturday. Honest to god, how much can anyone take? Peter’s second by second account of lines, crowd control issues, panel discussions and convention doings is the closest thing to being there without being there. Bonus: The Beat makes a guest apperance in Epidose IX.

SATURDAY 10:00 AM
On Saturday I was to appear on a Comic Arts conference panel and do two book signings, so I wanted to look good. I felt I had put together an outfit that struck the right balance between professionalism and casualness. Having disembarked from my morning water taxi ride across the bay, I was heading towards the Convention Center when a female fan, whom I had never seen before, asked, “Why are you wearing a jacket on such a hot day?�

So maybe this is why Paul Levitz wisely dresses casually for Comic-Con: so he won’t get his fashion choices criticized to his face by strangers on the street.

When I went to my first event in Hall H on Friday, there was only a short line, and it moved quickly. This morning, there was not only no line for Hall H, but I was able to sit further down front than I ever had before. So why does Hall H have such a reputation for being hard to get into? Little did I then know.

ITEM! George Gustines puts together a slide show on the comics master of them all, Jack Kirby for the comics-loving NYT:

ITEM! End times division: the august Wall Street Journal looks at…FAN FIC:

One sign of the growing influence of these authors and stories is that media companies, usually quick to go after people who use their copyrighted material, are increasingly leaving fan fiction writers alone. Mindful of the large, loyal audience the writers represent, many companies are adopting an attitude one media professor describes as “benign neglect.” While most professional writers say their lawyers advise them not to read fan fiction to protect themselves against charges of plagiarism, some say they check the numbers of fan fiction stories posted about their work regularly as a measure of their success.

[snip]”Shippers” (the term is believed to be derived from “relationship”) are writers that explore — and often invent — relationships between characters. A subgenre of this is “slash,” which creates gay relationships between characters such as Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock from “Star Trek.” Slash fiction is often sexually graphic, and fan fiction’s association with slash has made some mainstream authors and TV networks wary of it.

Increasingly, however, media companies, undeterred by the stigma of slash, are looking for ways to capitalize on fan fiction and its large audience. A company called FanLib is working with networks and publishers to create fan-fiction promotions and contests for books and TV shows.

We have no idea how the FEC counts guests, so can make no comparison of these figures to other shows. It was clearly a well attended event, however. Pictures above: great moments in nerd history.

The organizers of the 12th annual Fan Expo Canada, which took place September 1 – 3 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, are pleased to announce that over 42 000 fans attended this pop culture event in just two and a half days. This represents a 21% increase in attendance from last year.

Featuring five shows under one massive roof including: Comic Books; SFX Science Fiction; CN Anime; Horror and Gaming, the show’s appeal was pushed to new heights. Fans on Sunday had the opportunity to meet William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy in Toronto to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek. Also on hand for the first time in Canada was Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in Star Wars.

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Every day is talk like a pirate day here at Stately Beat Manor.

The new comic strip begins in the The New York Times Magazine:
I. George Sprott (1894-1975): Prologue, Oct. 2, 1975
by an artist whose style we can’t immediately recognize. Is it…Steve McNiven?

Also in the above link, the slideshow on comics storytelling featuring Spiegelman, Seth, Sacco and Ware that kicked everything off two years ago.

Newsarama reports on the latest cross town shuffle with the Phantom Stranger, a.k.a. Bill Rosemann going back to Marvel after a 4-year break:

In October of 2002, Rosemann left Marvel, and by early 2003, had joined CrossGen as Director of Marketing Communications. Rosemann eventually rose to the position of Senior VP - Publishing at CrossGen, and served in that position during the diversification of the publisher’s line to include such titles as El Cazador, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Abadazad. Amidst the company’s financial troubles of late 2003-2004, Rosemann left the company in April of 2004, and joined DC the following November.

Rosemann was apparently caught in the changes that went through DC’s Marketing Department, and was named Manager, Marketing Communications in mid-June of 2005, however, this move was undone roughly two weeks later, and saw Rosemann return Creative Services by the end of June, 2005.

Rosemann’s move from DC to Marvel comes a little over a month over Editor Mike Marts’ move from Marvel Editorial (X-Men Group Editor) to DC.

Spurge has the text of Art Spiegelman’s full statement on why he withdrew from the NY run of the “Masters of American Comics.” You should read the whole thing but the short version is he simply didn’t like the way the show was being handled in NYC — split up in New York and Newark — and had always had some ambivalence about the show, leading to his pulling out completely.

Jeff Smith and Bone are going on a true world tour, including Germany, Spain, Italy, Norway…even the good old US! You can see the complete itinerary in the jump, but over in his blog. Jeff Smith has some thoughts on the tour:

I think we’re ready. I still have a couple of weeks, but it seems like I’m already out of time. A World Tour is one of the most complicated undertakings we’ve ever gotten tangled up in. Vijaya and Kathleen worked for over a year putting this deal together. It’s not just a tour, it’s a publishing venture and a nearly simultaneous release party of BONE in color across Europe. We coordinated gang printings between publishing houses (which involved making sure the brand new translations were complete), book tours & festivals in ten countries, and Steve and I just finished putting together a 40 piece exhibition for the Frankfurt Book Fair and a 33 piece show of original art for Athens.

Many things changed or fell apart completely over the last twelve months, but ultimately all the publishers came through and many festivals invited me to be a guest.

I’m really enjoying the daily blogs of Scott McCloud & family while on their Making Comics Fifty State Tour , so as I travel across the European continent, I’ll take my laptop and digital camera along and blog as I go. I’ll share my run-ins with cartoonists and get-togethers at pubs. I will try to capture the Spinal Tap highs and lows. If we have a good signing, I’ll post it, if we have a disastrous one, I’ll post it. And when I get left at the border between two countries, with no one to pick me up - - I’ll post it.

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Well, old Tolkien reallly, according to PW:

Houghton Mifflin has acquired U.S. rights to publish the first complete book by J.R.R. Tolkien since the posthumous Silmarillion in 1977. HM bought American rights to The Children of Húrin from HarperCollins UK, which acquired the project from The Tolkien Estate in a world rights deal.

Húrin, begun in 1918, was reconstructed by Christopher Tolkien, painstakingly editing together the complete work from his father’s many drafts, this book is the culmination of a 30-year endeavor by him to bring J.R.R. Tolkien’s vast body of unpublished work to a wide audience.

HM will publish Húrin in April 2007.

This is interesting. The versions of the tales written in 1918 were previously collected in THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, Volumes 1 and 2 of THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE EARTH. Although Tolkien worked on a longer version of the Narn i Hîn Húrin as he called it, bits and pieces of this were printed in both UNFINISHED TALES and HoME. Christopher Tolkien, now 82 himself, has been laboring over his father’s papers for decades, and the Tokien scholars here at Stately Beat Manor will be very curious to see the results. To our knowledge there is no existing unpublished “complete book” by Tolkien, unless it is C. Tolkien’s redacted version of various texts, some written when Tolkien was recovering from trench fever received in the Battle of the Somme. If this is the case, we hope Christopher doesn’t make another boner like making Gil-Galad the son of Fingon in the published Silmarillion.

Not really, because there won’t be any copies to sign…

To celebrate the release of Lost Girls, London England’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and the Blackwell chain of bookstores are presenting an exclusive “Lost Girls” event with Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie on October 12th. Alan and Melinda will be in conversation with comedian, broadcaster and comic fan Stewart Lee. Details are as follows:

– Thursday, 12 October @ 7pm
– Venue: Logan Hall, Institute of Education,
20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, England
– Tickets: £8, Concessions: £6
– To book tickets call 0845 456 9876 (from the US: 011-44-845-456-9876) (lines are open Monday - Friday, 9:30am to 6:00pm London Time) or visit Blackwell, 100 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H OJG, England (Nearest tube: Leicester Square or Tottenham Court Road)

Please note that even though we will be unable to sell copies of Lost Girls at this event (due to the UK/EU distribution issue listed below), this will still be a very rare opportunity to see Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie in person, and hear what they have to say about the creation of Lost Girls. — I’m flying over for the event too!

In a further LOST GIRLS update, Chris Staros writes:

Top Shelf recently received correspondence from the Great Ormonds Street Hospital (the owners of Peter Pan in the UK/EU), and as a result, UK/EU distribution of Lost Girls has been delayed until the matter is resolved. It has been a very cordial exchange, and one we are glad to participate in. As soon as the matter is resolved, we’ll make a formal announcement about it, but this may result in the book being delayed for the UK & EU markets until 1 January 2008. In any event, if that ends up being the case, Top Shelf will probably release a special UK Edition (1st printing) at that time.

More — much more — on finding LOST GIRLS in this interview with Staros at CBR.

With a press release!

Batton Lash’s online version of his long-running comic book series Supernatural Law celebrates its first anniversary on September 19. It was one year ago that Lash took the plunge to put his characters, Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre, online. Since that time he has written and drawn three full-length stories in full color, all appearing at www.supernaturallaw.com, as part of Webcomics Nation.
Unlike several other longtime self-publishers who have started to put their work on the web, Lash is still continuing to put out his print comics, with the most recent issue having been published in August (Supernatural Law #1 at the Box Office). Both the print and online series combine humor and horror as attorneys Alanna Wolff and Jeff Byrd represent monsters and the supernaturally afflicted.
“I am committed to the print medium, and I love the comic book format,� says Lash, who has been publishing Supernatural Law under the Exhibit A Press imprint since 1994. “But I also know that the comic book specialty market is becoming more marginalized and more limited in what it offers, and I wanted to reach a wider audience.�

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There is apparently a TV commercial for this year’s SPX (Small Press Expo) running on local Washington TV stations. And here it is!

Brad Meltzer has achieved what we suspect is an unprecedented double — topping the NY Times Bestselller list AND the Diamond chart in the same month. Congrats to Brad. He’s also in the midst of barnstorming the US in a major book tour. You can see his upcoming appearances (today TWO appearances in Chicago) in the jump.

Warner Books (the publisher of David Baldacci and Nelson DeMille) and DC Comics (the largest English-language publisher of comics in the world and home to such iconic characters as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) announced today that novelist Brad Meltzer has become the first author to top The New York Times Bestseller List and the Diamond Comic Distributors Top 100 Sales Chart simultaneously. Meltzer’s new thriller The Book of Fate—which debuts atop the New York Times list on September 24—features a decade-old presidential crossword puzzle, a disturbing secret buried in Masonic history and a 200-year-old secret code invented by Thomas Jefferson. Issue number One of Meltzer’s Justice League of America, which tells the story of the re-formation of the world’s greatest superhero team, anchored by Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, is the overall top comic book in both dollars and units the Diamond Comic Distributors Top 300 Sales Chart for the month of October.

“There’s one name on the cover of every book, but only a fool thinks it’s a one-person show,� said Meltzer. “Warner built this. DC Comics built this. And most important, they built it together.�

“The appearance of THE BOOK OF FATE as the #1 title on the New York Times fiction bestseller list only days after its publication is not only a testament to the book’s broad appeal and Warner’s strong marketing campaign, but also indicates how the core audiences for both Brad’s novels and his comic books have coalesced into a groundswell of interest and enthusiasm for all things ‘Meltzer,’â€? said Jamie Raab, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Warner Books.

“It’s exciting to see this convergence of events, which demonstrates the cross-marketing potential of readers of comics and novelsâ€? said Paul Levitz, President & Publisher of DC Comics. “We’re thrilled for Brad, and hope this spurs more people to sample the creative worlds of comics and graphic novels.â€?

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