You know what the problem with comics these days is? They are just too expensive! $2.99 for a few pages of story is just too much, let alone $3.50 or $3.95! No kid is going to buy a comic book that costs that much!

Oh, you mean REALLY expensive.:

•Absolute Sandman The oversized collection showcases the first 20 issues of Neil Gaiman’s master of dreams character, with new coloring and 50 pages of bonus features. DC/Vertigo, $99.

•New X-Men Omnibus More than 40 issues written by Grant Morrison in more than 1,096 pages. Marvel, $100.

•Madman Gargantua (due in February). More than 850 pages of Mike Allred’s zany superhero. Image Comics, $125.

“We’re coming into a time, not limited to comics, where people are willing to pay more for really beautiful collections of things that are important to them — the complete New Yorker, Calvin & Hobbes,” says DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz. “A niche has opened up for almost an objet d’art kind of book.”

The brief article includes differing views from retailers on the high-ticket items. As for us, we didn’t even KNOW about that Morrison X-men collection…time to start saving shekels, methinks!

A quick roundup of some comics to movie news that gives us a chance to post some nice photos.

Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra has been teasing involvement with the upcoming WONDER WOMAN film

The former model, whose previous hits include Dhoom and Krrish, told the Times Of India: “Till something happens, I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not confirming the news or denying it right now.”

Win lose or draw, Chopra has already got herself connected to the film — whenever you google her name this kind of speculation will come up! Well done!

Meanwhile, if there’s one bit of comics movie casting that EVERYONE agrees is spot on, it’s Angelina Jolie as Ava in the “A Dame to Kill For” section of SIN CITY 2. Now, Jolie has confirmed that she’s been considering the part.

“We talked about it and I read the comic,” Jolie told us. “I don’t think the film is being made at this moment. When it’s actually going to be made I’m sure we’ll talk about it. “It was a funny thing, because the idea came to me when I was pregnant,” she added. “So it was this idea… I’ve been Clover (in ‘The Good Shepherd’), depressed and quiet, and then I was feeling very maternal, pregnant. It was this idea of this sexy, violent and loud [character]… I thought maybe after I’m pregnant it would be nice to do.”

Still no word on Salma Hayek starring in a comic book movie, alas.

We all have a few tough nuts on our Christmas shopping list, but surely even the toughest would be cracked by owning Frank Miller’s drawing chair? That’s just one of the fabulous, one of a kind auctions the CBLDF is running at the end of the year. More pr in the jump.

Want to help defend Free Speech and find gifts for the fan who has everything? The CBLDF has got you covered, with our year-end eBay auctions! Here you’ll find a huge variety of unique items you can’t find anywhere else, including Frank Miller’s art chair, original art by Will Eisner, rare items by Neil Gaiman, Art Spiegelman, Schuiten & Peeters, Jim Lee, J.C. Mezieres, and much more, including original art and rare comics! Bid on these items now at: http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZcbldf

CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein says, “In the past year the Fund has had a full plate defending Gordon Lee in Georgia, while continuing to challenge unconstitutional legislation throughout the country, and expand our educational resources for retailers and librarians. This work is costly, and as we approach 2007, we need to shore up our reserves for the Lee trial, and the other challenges that lie ahead.

“Fortunately, the Fund has many incredibly talented creators backing our work, and they’ve donated this incredible array of items to support our efforts. We hope that our loyal supporters bid generously in this auction, because not only will they be able to get some wonderful and unique pieces, but they’ll be giving the Fund the support it needs to continue our work in the new year.”

Auction highlights include:

Frank Miller’s Art Chair – A true piece of comics history, this is the chair that Frank Miller used while creating his incredible graphic novels Sin City, 300, and The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Features a drawing of Marv on the seat, and Miller’s signature on the leg rest, this is the ultimate item for any Miller fan!

(more…)

Entire 8 10-page Roger Landgride Marvel Christmas story on line at Newsarama. Crap, what are you waiting for???

Eric at Flog points us towards this YouTube video of Richard Sala’s INVISIBLE HANDS which ran, believe it or leave, on LIQUID TELEVISION back in the day, along with Beavis and Butt-head and Aeon Flux. More YouTube sleuthing in the link.

Well here is the headline we never thought we’d see, but it’s all for a very good cause. Family Watchdog, a registry of information on sex offenders has teamed with Platinum Studios to put this information on mobile devices:

Family Watchdog (www.familywatchdog.us), America’s leading provider of registered sex offender information, today announced a partnership with Platinum Studios (www.PlatinumStudios.com), an entertainment company that controls the world’s largest independent library of comic book characters, to use mobile devices and “edutainment-oriented” content to provide consumers with tools to protect and educate themselves, their families and communities about the threat of sexual predators.

(more…)

Over at MILLARWORLDMark Millar pees his pants in excitement over a recent visit with WANTED director Timur Bekmambetov:

I went in expecting little as I haven’t been involved in this at all. We signed the deal, we got our cash and were just happy to be in Hollywood in some small way, but had no idea whether this would be good or bad. But oh. my. god. Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy is very classy casting, but their choice for the father is equally inspired. But talking to Timur and his vision for the adaptation was literally mind-blowing. He had a ton of pre-vis and early effects work and I shit you not I almost had tears in my eyes. I can’t go into details, but I used to think *I* was pretty good at action. Not anymore. My friends, Timur is going to knock this out of the fucking park. JG and I saw this as a nice easy payday when they asked if they could make it a movie. Now I feel like I just saw the early work on the first Matrix movie. It feels like the NEXT BIG THING and it’s all down to Timur. He’s going to make us look very, very good. I just can’t wait. Seriously, this looks bloody AMAZING and features a super-villain fight on a scale like Jim Cameron couldn’t even image. My jaw still hurts from dropping.

Not too much happening in the comic book world right now. Our link dump brought in a lot of sort of comics related MOVIE AND TV NEWS, however, so we’ll call this our special ALL-ENTERTAINMENT POST at The Beat!

ITEM! Browncoats find something to do with their pathetic lives.

ITEM! George Clooney surprisingly hip about comic book battles, just more reason to love him:

Hollywood hunk George Clooney is warning comic book fans not to get too excited about the prospect of seeing Batman and Spiderman fight it out in his new movie The Good German, the scene features two actors trying not to re-injure their backs.

It seems former Batman Clooney fights Spider-Man Tobey Maguire in the film, but both were guarding their bad backs, so it is really nothing to see.

ITEM! Superman producer Jon Peters is super-creep, allegedly:

Yahoo! Movie News reported that a former assistant was suing Peters for sexual harassment during the production of Superman Returns. The woman charged Peters with some pretty sleazy behavior including exposing himself to her while her 3-year-old daughter was in the room. The suit also accuses Peters of “creating a hostile work environment” — considering the suit contains accusations of Peters climbing into her hotel bed uninvited, groping and offensive comments, “hostile work environment” seems like an understatement.

Hm, could this be where all those scenes of Superman stalking Lois in SUPERMAN RETURNS came from?

ITEM! Sam Raimi involved in yet another attempt to make a SHADOW movie:

After a lengthy negotiation, Columbia has acquired the screen rights to “The Shadow,” the legendary 1930s pulp hero, for a big-screen adaptation to be produced by Raimi and Josh Donen through their Buckaroo Entertainment banner. Michael Uslan is also producing via his Comic Book Movies, Llc/Branded Entertainment.

Uslan once wrote the Shadow comic book. It was last on theaters in a little-seen Aleb Baldwin version in ‘94.

ITEM! Former BLADE Wesley Snipes eludes jail in tax evasion snarl…for NOW.

ITEM! Dark Horse has posted a picture from MY NAME IS BRUCE. The film is about a small town in Oregon beset by supernatural menaces that hires Bruce Campbell to save them. Campbell stars AND directs.

ITEM! New AMON TOBIN album in MARCH!

Mark Evanier is the first to announce the death of Green Lantern creator Mart Nodell at age 91. Nodell was a fledgling cartoonist with he walked in to Sheldon Mayer’s office with the idea for a superhero with a magic ring:

He said the idea had come to him on the subway when he saw a man waving — you guessed it — a green lantern. Nodell also said he wrote and drew the first few pages of the first story…but he wasn’t a writer so Mayer brought in one of comics’ top writers, Bill Finger, to rewrite and finish the first tale. The result was that Green Lantern, by Bill Finger and “Mart Dellon,” debuted in All-American Comics #16, cover dated July of 1940. The character, which drew inspiration from the legend of Aladdin, was an immediate hit on the magnitude of the firm’s other new superstars, The Flash and Wonder Woman, and soon received his own comic. (The All-American company was later absorbed by DC Comics. A new version of Green Lantern was created in 1959 and that version remains popular today, though the original Nodell incarnation has also been known to reappear.)

Nodell left comics in the 50s, to as did so many, to devote himself to the world of illustration, but in the late 80s and 90s he became a convention staple, his beloved wife Carrie, who died in 2004, by his side.

Our condolences to his friends and family.

Lee Barnett reports from the scene…:

First impressions today: compared to Bristol and even Brighton (hmm, is there a rule that I only attend comics shows in the UK if they’re in a place that starts with a ‘B’?), it’s small. As in very small.

Two dealers rooms, neither of which are that big, but still with plenty of room to wonder around the rooms.

The theatre where the panels and discussions take place seats about 80, and it’s a proper theatre/movie place with theatre style seats. Big surprise - I knew we had a screen for the audio-visual bits of the quiz, but it didn’t occur to me that it would be a full size cinema type screen. Hmm - dunno how well the graphics will come out when blown up to that size. Guess we’ll find out in a few hours.

Brought the printer along to print out last minute changes to the script, of which there have been quite a few in the last 24 hours. Of course the printer’s not working, so any amendments have now had to be scribbled on the existing printed copy, which makes my copy look… interesting.

MTV’s wretched website has the new all-CGI TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES movie trailer up. The dialog is dire, and yet, it DOES look more interesting than yet another story about funny chipmunks who live with a cow in the barn or whatever.

YAY! YAY! YAY!

New York-based independent publisher Vertical, Inc. has announced it is publishing its third Osamu Tezuka property in June 2007. Apollo’s Song will be published as a single-volume graphic novel at approximately 500 pages in length and will follow the same design format as the award-winning classic Buddha, and the runaway hit Ode to Kirihito. Apollo’s Song will have the same trim size as well as an obi-band mini book jacket just like its two American predecessors, and will be published as a trade paperback.

In a continuing effort to show Americans the more literary and adult side of Osamu Tezuka’s manga-graphic novels, Vertical proudly introduces Apollo’s Song, the story of Shogo, a troubled young man who has no faith in love. When his misanthropy reaches its peak, he is met by the Goddess of Love, who condemns him to an eternity of heartbreak.

Vertical, Inc. launched its manga publishing venture with Buddha, an 8-volume biography of the iconic religious leader, thereby making a name for itself as a publisher of prestige-edition comic books. Coincided with the release of its more affordable paperback version was the release of Ode to Kirihito, wherein “kirihito� represents an implied pun on the name Christ as pronounced in Japanese (kirisuto). With nominal appreciation of the ancient Greek god, Tezuka’s homage to spirituality comes full circle in Apollo’s Song.

Okay sometimes you just can’t improve on a headline and certainly qualifies as the Birmingham (UK) Mail spotlights this weekend’s very first Birmingham International Comics Show, bringing the world of comics to the Midlands for the first time

DO YOU know your Bruce Banners from your Bruce Waynes?

If so, then Birmingham will be the place to be this weekend when comic book fans from across the country swing into town.

The Custard Factory, in Digbeth, hosts the International Comics Show tomorrow and on Sunday from 10.30am.

The event will include every aspect of comic culture, from limited editions and graphic novels to Manga and memorabilia.

Brummie invasion aside, the show is notable for a couple of reasons — as stated, it’s the first show in England’s second largest city, which turns out to have a pretty sizable comics contingent, including the immortal Hunt Emerson, which makes it reason enough to go.

it’s also the VERY LAST convention of any size of the year…yes the marathon is over…for a few weeks.

Guests include Dave Gibbons, Alan Davis, Emerson, John McCrea, James Hodgkins, Andi Watson, Leah Moore, Matt Hollingsworth, frequent Beat correspondent Ben McCool, and more. There’s a fine programming schedule, as well, with some innovative events such as puppets and celebrity arm wrestling. Word on the street has it that cartoonists will be in the bar drinking later, as well.

You can read all about the show here. It runs tomorrow and Sunday and a two-day pass is £10.

We can’t resist linking to this nice article from the Harvard Crimson on Cliff Chiang, a wonderful artist and pal. It tells of his fateful journey from promising Harvard scholar to comic book artist, with stops for Disney Adventures and Vertigo along the way. We remember interviewing Cliff for a part time, freelance job and asking him “Are you sure you want to ruin your life?” But he seems to have ruined it very well.

One in particular, taught by visiting lecturer Douglas Blau, ended up providing a foundation for what would become his career in the comic book world.

“It opened my eyes to ways of making pictures read in a certain way that you could take an image and parse it out into a sentence, and how it functions and how the reader takes it in,� Chiang says.

Three years of studio classes didn’t appeal to Chiang either, so he decided to take the bits he liked from both VES and English and strike out on his own.

The result, under the guidance of Bernbaum Professor of Literature Leo Damrosch, was a creative thesis titled “’If Answerable Style I Can Obtain…’: An Analysis and Account of Illustrating Paradise Lostâ€? — a film noir-style graphic rethinking of John Milton’s classic poem, which won Chiang a summa cum laude reading and a Hoopes Prize.

Damrosch remembers Chiang as one of his all-time favorite students because of his “no bullshit� attitude and self-confidence, he says.

A lot was going on last night in NYC. Chris Ware was speaking at the Jewish Museum, but we opted to go downtown to Dixon Place for R. Sikoryak’s Carousel. We hadn’t been to one in many a moon, but they are always worthwhile, and this was no exception.

Dixon Place is an old school experimental theater/performance space; it’s one of the places that makes New York New York, as the many talented actors, writers, dancers, puppeteers and even cartoonists have used it over the years to pursue work out of the mainstream. The event drew a good crowd that filled the seats that were all scavenged from thrift stores and old restaurants. In fact, as the show began we realized we were sitting between — now hold on to your hats — MICHAEL KUPPERMAN AND JACKSON PUBLICK! Holy shit! Two of the funniest people on earth, how lucky can you get.

Kupperman revealed that our review of TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE as “the funniest thing since Monty Python” has proven scarily prescient! It seems he is now writing for a British sketch comedy show produced by the some of the same folks who made FATHER TED and THE IT CROWD. Good God, it does not get any more bona fide than that.

As for Publick…well, we wanted to ask him if there would be a VENTURE BROS. Season 3 but…it didn’t seem polite.

The slideshow portion of the evening kicked off with host Sikoryak reading some of his “GITA” strips — an adaptation of the Hindu holy book starring the Peanuts gang. This runs in a Canadian yoga magazine, and you must see it to understand. Snoopy plays Krishna and Charlie Brown plays Arjuna. Snoopy lectures on such things as meditation and transendance: “One attains peace in whose mind all desires enter without creating any disturbance, as river waters enter the full ocean without creating a disturbance. One who desires material objects is never peaceful.” Wild!

Next up Leela Corman and go-to-gal/voice over mistress Karen Sneider performed some of Corman’s recent strips. A heretofore sadly unknown to us cartoonist by the name of Brian Michael Weaver performed some very funny squash and stretchy stuff, like a darkly funny strip about a man and his young son who discover a race of musical people in a cave.

Weaver mentioned that he is working on a pair of graphic novels for publishers Henry Holt about a private eye that also happens to be a fly, and he’s somewhat aligned with the Rabid Rabbit group — you can see one of his comics in the above link, or his website here. A little too much flash in the last one, but Weaver is someone to watch.

Painter Jim Torok showed some of his minimalist but hilarious “Lo-tech Animations.” A fellow we don’t know named David Wells showed pictures from around the New York area accompanied by musings on broken lamps and renewable energy — that one was kind of hard to explain, but had some striking moments. Robbie Busch showed some gorgeous new comics about a mischievous imp–problems with toilets were a feature of this story, echoing last nights Grace reading series. All-around cartooner/comedian/Britney Spears body double Julie Klausner had a longish piece about Patti Lupone, Julie Andrews and Liza Minelli being caught on fire.

The evening wrapped up with Todd Alcott reading a portion of his graphic novel “Feeder Birds” with Nina Hellman and James Urbaniak helping on the voices. Alcott is best known as a writer, but he’s illustrating the graphic novel himself–imagine the Sopranos transported to a world of goldfinches, cardinals and wrens. There were double crosses, bad deals and poisoned suet galore. Afterwards, everyone was urging Alcott to put it up as a webcomic at some point, so hopefully we can enable that.

Alcott, Busch, Sikoryak, Urbaniak and several folks in the audience were all part of a live variety show back in the day called “YIKES” which we attended on many occasions. Indeed, walking into Dixon Place, we suddenly felt transported back to 1997 — we fully expected Portishead to break out over the loud speaker at any moment. The room was a converted loft, piles of lumber, unused spotlights, power tools and other random stuff were lying everywhere, not because anything was under construction but just because. It reminded us of times before multi media, and a time in New York when all of our friends were younger and poorer, and yet a dancer, a cartoonist and a struggling actor could afford to live in a loft on 12th and Broadway — something unthinkable now or ever again. When we first met the Yikes crew, no one had a cel phones, maybe 10% of the people we knew were on the Internet, and social networking meant going to a diner after we saw a movie. Now? We read each other’s blogs to stay in touch.

UPDATE: Todd posted some images one of which I’ve stolen.

Yahoo has the new 300 trailer. After watching it in high-def a few times all we can say is…well, we’re frankly pummeled speechless. Click on the above picture for a full size screen cap.

BTW, something we’ve noticed before but not mentioned is how nice it is to see Lynn Varley’s name in the credits, since much of the visual look is based on her work on the original. This really looks more animated than real.

Missed this the other day: TV Guide has a lengthy interview with Joss Whedon where he talks about the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER comic coming out from Dark Horse, and much more.

TVGuide.com: Why did you decide to do an entire eighth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a comic-book series?
Joss Whedon: Well, I’m not that bright. I keep thinking that I have all this free time that I don’t have. It started going in my brain — “Wouldn’t it be fun if… ” and, “You could… ” while the other voice was saying, “It’s death. I’m out of control. I’m already writing.” So I basically said, “We could do something and for once we could make it canon. We could make it officially what happened after the end of the show.” Let Buffy not only address certain themes that slipped between the cracks of the show, but also really be a comic book. Take the template of the show, but not so religiously that they’re all standing in the Magic Box, talking, for 10 pages.

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Early 20th century cartoonist Tad Dorgan has been voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame along with Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker and Roberto “No mas” Duran. We couldn’t find any examples of his boxing strips online, but he was a sports cartoonist as well as a reporter and journalist. According to Wikipedia he also coined many phrases that The Beat finds useful to this day, like

“for crying out loud” (an exclamation of astonishment); “cat’s meow” and “cat’s pajamas” (as superlatives); “applesauce” (nonsense); “cheaters” (eyeglasses); “skimmer” (a hat); “hard-boiled” (a tough person); “drugstore cowboy” (loafers or ladies’ men); “nickel-nurser” (a miser); “as busy as a one-armed paperhanger” (overworked); and “Yes, we have no bananas,” which was turned into a popular song.

Holy crap, we need to vote this guy into the Jargon Hall of Fame!

Several blogs commented yesterday on a retailer panic over SPIDER-MAN REIGN: #1 by Kaare Andrews, which contained a panel of a sad, old Peter Parker thinking about saltines with a sad, shriveled pecker clearly visible. (Marvel claimed it was a shadow — of its former self, yes.) We’ve reproduced the panel here with a modesty patch, but you can click on it for the FULL FILTHY ORIGINAL.

While such a small matter would seem to be of little interest, retailers were alarmed–as the Gordon Lee case shows, there is nothing more offensive to American values than the sight of a pee-pee. One admires Andrews dedication to the truth, but perhaps a Spider-Man comic was not the place to exercise it. Marvel explained that the wrong files were sent out, has made the issue returnable, and a variant no-penis edition will be shipped out.

For a real idea of The Truth Is Out There, you can go here. We’re supplied a bowlderizer version of what to expect for the faint of heart. Link NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Repeat, NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Or sanity.

§ That special on Herge and Tintin that aired on PBS is available onGoogle Video until someone catches on. Hurry up and watch.
[Via Lucy Anne]

§ Cartoonist Matthew Diffee has an immense three part interview with New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff here, here and here. If you ever wanted to win that caption contest, this is the Rosetta Stone.

Bob: It’s a little too manipulative of reality and I think humor shifts sometimes and maybe that’s where it’s going. I mean a lot of the cartoons where people just say what they’re thinking are a little bit like that too, you know? I think they work not because they’re all that clever. It’s just the surprise of someone saying the truth that works for cartoons like that. I personally like a little bit more indirection where there’s just a little bit more of a gag. Not too much more. You know what I mean?

§ CBR has a long interview with Top Cow’s new marketing man, Filip Sablik which offers a fairly frank look at the challenges facing a mainstream company that is not Marvel or DC:

Even with top quality content, the comics marketplace is relatively small and therefore fiercely competitive, which presents Top Cow with the additional challenge of making their message heard. “Too many times in the past, we’ve suffered when we had great content but didn’t get the word out in a timely and effective manner,â€? Sablik said. “We’re a small company compared to DC and Marvel, but our editorial content and production value is second to none. I’d put our artists head to head with any of the fine creators Marvel and DC have working for them, which is one of the reasons we were able to set up our current deal with Marvel. You see Tyler Kirkham on ‘Phoenix: Warsong’ or Mike Choi on ‘X-23′ and there is no doubt these guys are of the same caliber as artists Marvel has on other books.â€?

Yes, yes, there is a new ComicSpace site that aims to do for comics-types what MySpace did for normal people. Yes, yes we probably already know everyone on it, but go ahead, friend us up.

Wonkette remixes the 9/11 REPORT comic with words from the Iraq Study Group report. Fun!
[Link via Journalista.]

Cartoonist/comic Karen Sneider (left) has become the go-to-gal for cartooners looking to add hilarity to their slide shows. It’s true! We went to the last outing of the Grace Reading series curated by Ariel Bordeaux last night and it was a dual Ariel attack, as Ariel Schrag and Fly read their comics works. Shrag did a reading of two stories from the upcoming anthology STUCK IN THE MIDDLE, which she edited for Viking. Shrag was aided by her sister Tania (also a cartoonist) and Sneider and someone else whose name we didn’t catch, alas. The entire reading was hilarious, (well’ Fly’s was quite serious at times) but Sneider was a highlight on the sound effects. She told us she’ll also be helping out Leela Corman tonight at Carousel, featuring R. Sikoryak, Todd Alcott, Robbie Busch, Corman, Julie Klausner, Jim Torok, Brian Michael Weaver and David Wells, as well as this Sunday at A Sketchy Neighborhood.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE: 17 STORIES FROM AN UNPLEASANT AGE itself is a way cool anthology, including stories by Dan Clowes, Gabrielle Bell, Joe Matt, Vanessa Davis, Lauren Weinstein and many others and detailing the horrors of middle school. Shrag’s story involves shoving poop into a backpack, so it’s got nowhere to go but up from there. It goes on sale next May. Shrag, who gained fame in the comics world while still a teen, is quite the conqueror of multi-media, presently writing scripts for THE L-WORD, as well as the screenplay for a POTENTIAL movie now in production.

Fly’s reading was plagued by technical difficulties, but was very affecting, with a serious tale of childhood sexual misadventure, and another story that involved difficulties finding a safe place to go to the bathroom. Bordeaux did a fine job putting together this reading series, and we greatly enjoyed all the events we attended or even participated in.

Not that some brave fools aren’t still looking to jump into print. Comic Foundry recently announced that it is leaving the web — gasp!– for a print version.

After December, we’ll no longer be doing the online issues so we can concentrate on putting out a printed issue in ‘07. I hate to bid farewell to the online issues, but producing those were time consuming enough — adding in the work of a print edition would run us over the cliff. But, fear not, we’ll still have an online presence. I’m not ready to show my cards yet, but we’ll definitely be blogging and we’ll always be active online.

Risky as it is, it does make sense, given the high visual style that editor Tim Leong has given hs print experiments for COMIC FOUNDRY. Even if it does mean that he can’t do this kind of thing as easily. But who else is doing COMIC COVER OR SEX SCENE?

Oh yeah, Leong jumps in on the what to do with Wizard bandwagon, as well.

This year Wizard switched from a comic-sized book to a bigger page size and expanded their entertainent coverage. At the time it seemed like it was more of an advertising move to broaden their client base, and it still seems that way now. Why? Because the entertainment coverage they were putting out was the type of stuff you could get anywhere. If the top dogs want to spin Wizard more as an enterainment mag, it certainly seems McCallum was not the right guy to do it, based off the current coverage. Perhaps the switch to more non-comics entertainmetn coverage tries to address their readership retention problem, but it’s just not working out. Maybe McCallum was great at getting Wizard from A to B, but with this switch in direction he clearly wasn’t the right person to take the mag from B to C.