Okay gang, you know New York Comic-con 2: Electric Bugaloo is coming our way in a few short weeks. We have a bunch of press releases stockpiled, but we want to know YOUR plans. Booth assignments, signing scheules, party venues. Let us know — we’ll let the world know. Meanwhile, the con itself has just announced…PODCASTING!

In a significant development that will transform it into a year-round national event, New York Comic Con (NYCC) has announced that it will launch an audio and video podcast available free to the general public.

The podcast episodes, which will begin almost immediately after New York Comic Con (February 23-25) concludes, will feature interviews, anime clips, previews from TV shows and films and highlights from panel discussions at the show. The podcasts are expected to be released for several months following the convention and will remain available throughout the year. Fans may subscribe to the podcasts through the official podcast web site at www.nycccast.com or through popular podcast portals such as iTunes. They will be able to download the podcasts to their iPod, portable player or cell phone, or they will be able to watch or listen to the episodes directly on their computer through streaming technology.

This new podcast venture is similar to a program that was launched at BookExpo America (BEA) in May, 2006. New York Comic Con and BookExpo America are both managed by Reed Exhibitions and the podcast initiative at both conventions is produced in partnership with BurstMarketing. In its inaugural presentation, BEA’s podcast had 60,000 downloads and 220,000 unique visitors from 25 countries to the podcast website.

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Let’s face it, 2006 was the year of FUN HOME and AMERICAN BORN CHINESE, both of them smashing through all genre barriers to announce…WIN! KUDO! Comics aren’t just for kids anymore. AMERICAN BORN CHINESE has racked up yet another prestigious first:

AMERICAN BORN CHINESE by Gene Luen Yang (First Second Books, an imprint of Roaring Brook Press; September 2006; $16.95; ISBN: 13-978-1-59643-152-0) is the first graphic novel to receive the prestigious Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature, announced today by the Young Adult Library Services Association at the American Library Association’s midwinter conference in Seattle.

In addition to the Printz Award, AMERICAN BORN CHINESE was nominated for a National Book Award for excellence in Young People’s Literature in 2006, and was the first graphic novel ever to be nominated in any category the award’s 57 year history. Other accolades include: Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2006; a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; a Booklist Editor’s Choice Book; a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year; an NPR Holiday Pick, and Best Graphic Novel/Comic of the year by Amazon.com.

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NPR has another comics report to listen to:NPR : Black Artists Plot Diverse Themes for Graphic Novels. This one features Felipe Smith (MBQ), Andy Helfer, Randy DuBurke and PW’s own Calvin Reid.

More writers and artists are using graphic novels and comic art as a way to take on major issues. Some African-American artists are exploiting the medium to create books about black history, racism and to craft new stories about America’s diverse culture.

Via LJ:

Beginning on February 17, 2007, the Cartoon Art Museum’s ongoing Small Press Spotlight will feature the art of Debbie Huey.

Debbie Huey is the artist, writer, and creator of the all-ages Bumperboy comics series. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Huey received her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in 2000 at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She admits she had never purchased a comic book until the age of 21, when she attended her first comic book convention, but ever since then she has been passionate about reading and drawing comics.

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[Via Urbaniak]

Okay, okay. We have our little non-comics related fetishes. Can you stand them? We think you can. But we have been covering the following stories for so long that we can’t very well stop now.

Page Six, the NY Post’s venerable gossip outpost suggest that there may be a NEW HELMER FOR ‘HOBBIT’? namely…SAM RAIMI:

– FANS of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy are praying for a miracle now that Peter Jackson has officially been severed from “The Hobbit” - and that miracle may be Sam Raimi. Sources say the pressure is on the “Spider-Man” director to helm the project.

The story comes down to a lot of scuttlebutt. We have heard a lot of private rumors about Peter Jackson and his mental state…suffice to say there is more than money behind this New Line/Jackson feud.

Sam Raimi is the other premiere nerd director of our era…but do we really need a HOBBIT movie? Wouldn’t you rather see…EVIL DEAD 4? Come on now, they’ve been teasing this for years. We’d rather see that, than a Raimi Hobbit. Meanwhile, Maybe Peter Jackson can get his ducks in a row and get it together. SPIDER-MAN 3 cannot come soon enough.

Thanks to all of you who sent the following item to the Beat:Clive Owen to Play Philip Marlowe:

Children of Men producer Marc Abraham has revealed to The Courier-Journal that he will reteam with that film’s star Clive Owen for a feature adaptation of one of Raymond Chandler’s short stories. Owen will play the private detective Philip Marlowe.

Just last December, it was announced that ABC is teaming with producer Sean Bailey on a “Philip Marlowe” series. The hourlong drama “Marlowe” would be a present-day procedural crime drama with noir aspects and set in Los Angeles.

That series, however, would not use Chandler’s Marlowe books as source material for storylines.

“You go too far, Marlowe.”
“Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he’s walking out of your bedroom.”

If they do any such thing, we hope they stick to the period, because Marlowe will always be mid-century LA to us.

[Image from Bobby Wabi Sabi]

Last week we reported on the very, very sad story of Afghani political cartoonist Shiraga Rahimi, a father of nine who was killed by a truck while making his last pizza delivery of the night in Hamilton, Ontario. The Hamilton Spectator - News has more updates including news of a fund to aid his nine children.

Marufa Hishinwari, a counsellor with the Settlement and Integration Services Organization, said yesterday a trust account has been set up to help pay for the children’s education and other expenses.

“They need so much. It was Said’s dream that everyone get an education.”

Hishinwari said Rahimi was on his last pizza run of the night around 1:30 a.m. when the crash occurred. “Then he was going home. He was a good father.”

She said there is great concern in the Afghan community about Rahimi’s wife Karima, daughters Amina, 20, Hamida, 18, Sakina, 16, Fatima, 14, Sahra, 12, and sons Said Mohammad, 10, and Said Ahmed, 4.

Donations may be made at any branch of TD-Canada Trust to account number 1026339535.

According to Tom, donations are being coordinated by the Ibrahim Jame Mosque, 778 King Street East, Hamilton, ON L8M 1A6; 905-527-2392. Help if you can.

Do you remember micropayments? Well, if you ever listened to Scott McCloud in the 90s you do. Micropayments were the idea that you could make a few cents every time someone read y our webcomic, or blog or whatever. Bitpass ws a company that was set up to enable micropayments — now it has gone out of business, and T Campbell has some commentary.

The word “micropayments” literally means “small payments,” but the micropayments concept is that those small payments will come from many hands to make up a significant total. Finance charges made small payments difficult in the early days of the Web, but companies like Bitpass have made them much more feasible. Attracting the many hands has proven a tougher problem.

Micropayments have been a much-discussed commercial option for online cartoonists. Bitpass in particular became a rallying point, thanks largely to its endorsement by the influential Scott McCloud, who had already become one of micropayments’ most prominent enthusiasts after the publication of his Reinventing Comics (excerpted here). Bitpass’ own site lists numerous cartoonists as clients today.

However, its comics client list has changed little since June 2004. More significantly, Bitpass’ most commercially successful clients besides McCloud himself, R. Stevens and Jonathan Rosenberg, soon abandoned the model. McCloud’s own reported sales of his Bitpass-enabled, 25-cent comic were less than impressive, too [scroll to final item]. In more recent interviews, McCloud has been more guarded about micropayments and Bitpass.

More in the link.

Brian Wood and Rob G’s COURIERS, has been optioned by Rogue Pictures, according to The Hollywood Reporter:

Rogue Pictures and Intrepid Pictures have picked up the movie rights to “Couriers,” a series of action graphic novels, and have set writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach to adapt.

Written by Brian Wood and illustrated by Rob G, the series follows the adventures of two gun-toting mercenary couriers named Moustafa and Special who take on jobs other couriers do not, such as intelligence, large cash transfers, protection, assassinations and blockade-running.

Three graphic novels have been published so far by AiT/PlanetLar, and the series has been praised for its Hong Kong movie and Japanese animation-influenced kinetic art style and action set pieces.

Marc Evans and Trevor Macy of Intrepid are producing.

Ain’t It Cool News breaks the news that perhaps the CGI animators were having some fun with the Silver Surfer’s franks and beans in the recently released trailer for FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER. They also make the joke that had to be made:

I guess now we know what they mean by “Rise” of the Silver Surfer!?

Oh dear.
[Link via Blog@]

Markosia is one of the more recently founded comics publishers, and like most recently founded comics publishers who tried to publish periodical comics (aka “pamphlets) they had some ups and downs. However, it appears they are back on track with a new publisher, editor and Tony Lee back doing the PR and stepping in as Group Editor.

As of the 31st January 2007, Markosia Publishing, the UK publishers of critically-acclaimed titles including STARSHIP TROOPERS, SMOKE & MIRROR, SCATTERBRAIN, SHADOWMANCER and THE LEXIAN CHRONICLES will have a new Editor In Chief, following the loss of founding E.I.C Richard Emms.

“We’ve worked with Richard from the very beginning, when he was publishing APC,” said Harry Markos, Managing Partner and Publisher at Markosia. “I can quite honestly say that without him and his incredible amount of effort, we would simply not exist. We’re sorry to see him leave, but he’s reached a point in his career where he has an opportunity to move into other mediums, and we wish him all the best for the future. And he’s always welcome to come back and help out when he wants to.”

Richard Emms came across to Markosia in late 2005, bringing with him APC titles including DARK MISTS, NICK SCHLEY’S ABIDING PERDITION and the Eagle award nominated MIDNIGHT KISS. Over the last two years he has been one of the main guiding forces of the company and, as Editor In Chief, a public face as Markosia has progressed from imprint to international bestselling publisher.

With Emms moving on, Markosia decided that they wanted a different type of Editor In Chief, someone who could take the company and move it in a newer, more vibrant direction - and they decided on one name - Brian Augustyn.

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Batgirl continued to be a hot topic around the blogosphere water-cooler this weekend. Some like her; others are more ambivalent and long for Barbara Gordon. Rivkah took a stab at a more playful version of the character (who is now a villain.)

Of course, in my made-up wonderland, Batgirl is a blonde, originates from suburbia, and reluctantly fills in as a cheerleader because where I come from, when you’re into gymnastics, the only choices you got are either cheerleading or hiline, and which is worse? A skirt that shows your panties or a skin-tight outfit that shows off your ass? In front of the whole school, that is.

I can see why she’d WANT to sneak out of her window in the middle of the night. Beating up a few baddies and making the world a better, safer place works wonders on getting all that teenage angst and frustration out. And every good girl’s gotta have her secrets! ^_~

More in the links and comments.

§ MangaCast has news of SegaToys plans to reproduce 400 mini-manga collecting the works of Osamu Tezuka:

The books are truly mini in every sense including price. Each one of the books is 5cm wide by 6.7cm tall and between .7 to 1.0cm thick! The first set of 200 books will be priced competitively at 73500円 (around 368円 a volume).

SEGAToys is specifically marketing this to the collector sector of fandom. According to a press release .pdf they company is targeting males between the ages of 30~50 who would consider this a fine addition to their figure and collector item collections. Furthermore, as these books are under the 0 Magazine label they should be considered premium Tezuka items with only 3000 of this first set to be sold starting Jan 27, 2007.

Picture ganked from MangaCast — damn they are cute! WE WANT THEM ALL.

§ Meanwhile, ComiPress has a long article on the economics of producing manga in Japan. We’ve translated the currency using Google (rounding to the nearest multiple of 5) in the following portion so you can get some idea of the scale:

In the case of a weekly serialization, because in 2 months a tankoubon can be compiled, a 100-page monthly production rate = 2,000,000 yen.[$16,500]

Even putting together the costs of toner, pens and paper, the necessary expense is around 100,000 yen [$825]. The rent of the office is difficult to evaluate, but we can assume it’s about 100,000 yen [$825]. What requires the most money is the labor cost paid to the assistants.

1 chief-assistant 2 or 3 sub-assistants 1 background artist, it’s a group of 4 or 5 people.

When we include social insurance and even pension (considering such cases are frequent), for one person, 150,000 yen [$1235] should more or less be necessary. Moreover, in the case of the chief-assistant, due to his experience, it’s not rare for the cost to be 300,000 yen [$2475] .

If such salaries exist, and if the assistant start to work in their 20’s or 30’s, they can barely make a living (if they give up the idea of having a house, a wife and kids). So, the wage of a mangaka, counting only the labor cost, should be around 750,000 to 900,000 yen {$6185-7420]. If they have a weekly serialized story, with approximately 10,000 yen ($82) for each manuscript page, they should feel like they’re earning money.

In the case of a tankoubon publication, there will always be problems on the publisher’s side. Even with 10,000 copies, each costing 420 yen ($3.50), the sales would be around 4,200,000 yen ($34,630). Also, for tankoubon at the price of “New Book Edition”, the minimum circulation required must be 10,000 volumes. For example, “Norakuro” is an old manga, but it is being re-published in a splendid format. The front cover is a hard cover, and it’s boxed. The price for it at the moment is around 2,000 yen [$16.50] per volume, which is unreasonable.

We’re not sure how this relates to the American comics economy, but it has always been known that the need to pay all the assistants necessary to keep cranking out the pages keeps the average manga-ka from being as wealthy as you might think.

§ The Toronto Star finds out more about the artist behind that Manga Simpsons illo.:

Who says fandom doesn’t pay?

Nina Matsumoto is living proof. A few weeks ago, the 22-year-old Vancouver artist posted a piece of art she called Simpsonzu – an anime salute to the citizens of Springfield – to deviantart.com under her pseudonym, Space Coyote. The picture quickly rose to the front page of that site and then to several content aggregation sites like digg.com and throughout the blogosphere. Matsumoto’s picture became an instant meme, and as she jokes on her site (spacecoyote.com), she became “e-famous.”

0.5944 3g Ringtones Free 40.5954 Alias Free Ringtone| Back Cash 0.59 Online CouponsRisk Credit Merchant Card 0.59 High Processing Account ServicesAlberta Groups 0.585 InterestWallpapers Free 0.5809 100 Ringtones AndRingtone Free 0.5809 3g4 CingularSanyo Free 8100 Ringtones 0.5809 10025 Map

Avatar Press has been around for a long time, and published work by folks like Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and more — but you’ll probably be hearing a lot more about these projects and more as they have just hired a marketing guy.

Avatar Press has announced the addition of David Marks to the staff to begin handling press, marketing, and other communications responsibilities. The hire is the first of many announcements in a year of major new projects and evolution within the company itself. A new position at Avatar, the addition is intended to help the publisher better address the needs and concerns of audiences and the industry alike during a year which Avatar expects to be a growth period for the company.

“We have such a strong lineup of projects coming out on a continuous basis these days that we can no longer operate like the small indy company that started in 1997 with a couple guys writing and publishing their own books,” notes Avatar EIC William Christensen. “We’ve talked about doing this for a while, but I’ve always been wary of trying to force expansion — the history of the Direct Market is littered with the corpses of companies who have tried to bulk up too much. So we’re going to take some steps this year to help us change carefully and organically. We’ve put some things in place over the past few months to help us address scheduling concerns, for example. We’re going to start seeing the results of that slowly but surely. The next step is getting better at getting our message out. Bringing in David Marks as Marketing Director is the most important staffing hire we’ve made since the early days. Avatar will always have that indy-publisher heart, but we hope to build some big-publisher muscles to help us address the needs and concerns of the marketplace.”

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Still out there believing and thinking, Stan Lee thinks video games have even more potential than movies for comics tie-ins:

As significant as Hollywood has been in reviving the Marvel brand, Stan Lee believes video games can have an even bigger impact on the growth of the comic book label. “Video games are more exciting, more colorful and more complex than motion pictures,” says Lee, “”In a movie, you just sit and watch. [In a game] you’re not only seeing the story but you’re participating in the story.”

Despite Lee’s enthusiasm for the games medium, he admits he doesn’t have the time or the skill to play video games. Lee is certainly not alone, which explains why Marvel movies have grossed billions of dollars, while the games have managed only hundreds of millions in sales (hardly insignificant, but nonetheless paled by the film industry’s results). Still, Lee remains optimistic about the future dominance of Marvel games, hoping to become more involved with game makers’ efforts by contributing to the content and narration of future titles.

We haven’t linked to the John Byrne forum lately because…well, are you surprised when a snapping turtle turns out to snap? But a recent thread where Steve Sadowski, Andy Smith and Dusty Abell try to get Byrne to try Robert Kirkman’s INVINCIBLE — even offering to send it to him for FREE, leads to further bouts of curmudgeonliness:

I always cringe when I read or hear that statement. Illustrative example of why? I set out to do “old fashioned comic book fun” and did BATMAN & CAPTAIN AMERICA and GENERATIONS. Frank Miller set out to do “old fashioned comic book fun” and did DK2.

The term simply has too wide an interpretation to have any meaning any more.

and then this sad, sad statement:

Take a look at the Commissions Gallery.

What do you THINK “inspires” me?

More if you can bear it.

§ Eddie Campbell spills the beans on his next book:

The book which I am currently working on is now 41 pages to the good, in full painted colour. If the schedule is met, it will be out in mid 2008 from First Second Books. It’s title :
The Amazing Remarkable Mr. Leotard.
I’d tell you more about it but I’ve already gone so far astray from the original pitch that I don’t want to worry my editor.

[Link via Illustrated Fiction]
§ The headline you NEVER THOUGHT YOU WOULD SEE AGAIN!!!!
Comic books today aren’t just child’s play:

Comic books today aren’t just child’s play
A mild-mannered teacher is showing students how to use their creative powers to craft stories about comic book heroes.

Actually this news bit puts dollar signs dancing in our heads as we contemplate a movie combining the “noble teacher” genre with the now-hot comic book think. Can you see it? In a world where one man can make a difference, a maverick teacher is about to learn that sometimes, letting kids draw comics is the only way to get serious.
§ Meanwhile, the LA Times offers a very nice profile of James Sturm and the CCS:

An increasingly visual culture has turned cartooning into a field with a future, serving a seemingly limitless audience for stories told through hand-drawn pictures. The field has exploded with the growth of graphic novels, imported comics from Asia and a global passion for cartoon-based animation.

CCS co-founder Sturm taught drawing for years, and in 2001 his graphic novel about Jewish baseball players, “The Golem’s Mighty Swing,” was Time magazine’s comic of the year.

About four years ago, he moved to Vermont with his family and stumbled onto a tired industrial hamlet intent on repackaging itself as a 21st century arts haven.

Sturm, 41, describes CCS as both a cartoonist’s boot camp and a think tank for graphic novelists. He argues that cartoons offer a unique synthesis of fine art and popular culture, and afford an arena for biography, fiction and improbable dreams.

“Wish fulfillment: That’s the birth of a comic book,” he told the students one recent day. “A man can fly. You can shoot flames out of your hands. In a comic, that is possible. That is what this class is about: laying legitimacy to your own wish fulfillment.”

§ The LA Times also looks at parallel graphic cancer memoirs from Marchetto and the late Engelberg.

§ MEANWHILE, the Philadelphia Inquirer has a nice interview with Scott McCloud:

Inquirer: Are you ever a little leery of the word comics to describe these works?

McCloud: When you’re stuck with a label like comics, you can do one or two things: You can try to change the name, or you can try to change what the name means. I chose the latter, but I’m grateful for the people who are trying to do the other things. For example, Will Eisner [author of the Contract With God trilogy and dozens of other graphic novels] worked hard to promote the term graphic novel, since comic book had this pejorative association, and his efforts - and his novels! - forced people to confront the possibility of comics being something more than “Pow! Blam! Biff!” Over time, though, as the notion of comics for adults - more mature, more sophisticated - became commonplace in some circles, we could take back the name comic, and now it could mean something else, so we could have people publishing comics with serious themes and writing. And they could call those comics, which now meant something else. The term movie, after all, wasn’t originally a high-art term, but by now people understand that this term is pretty silly or antique by now - we no longer think of a moving image as a novelty - and that the category movies includes films of real artistic value. Even when I was growing up, people knew the term comic wasn’t necessarily funny: In fact, we’d moved to the other stereotype - that of superheroes doing violence to each other.

§ A woman in Georgia has spent the better part of 2006 trying to get Harry Potter books removed from the local library, and she plans to appeal a court order that would allow the popular books to remain.

A Loganville mother who claims Harry Potter books promote wickedness and witchcraft said she will appeal the state’s decision to allow the best-selling books to remain in Gwinnett school libraries. Laura Mallory, who has three children in elementary school, said Wednesday she has requested an appeal of her case to Gwinnett Superior Court. Mallory has said the books should be removed from all Gwinnett County public schools. County school board members said the books are tools to encourage children to read and to spark creativity and imagination. In May, the county decided to deny Mallory’s request.

This nutjob isn’t giving up without a fight!

§ Interview with TANK GIRL co-creator Alan Martin at badlibrarianship.

Two stories that illuminate how many of us think and work. First, two great, forward-looking, clear-thinking researchers have just written a book that saysbeing messy might just be okay:

The authors pooh-pooh the notion that they’re just slackers trying to justify their own bad habits.

Abrahamson is a professor of management at Columbia University’s School of Business who has written an academic paper on the benefits of messiness, and Freedman is a business and science journalist who has written for publications such as Newsweek. Freedman says their book is based on hundreds of sources, surveys and interviews with messy people and neatniks.

The book’s most compelling argument for the benefits of messiness and disorder is that they save people time and make them more efficient.

“There are people who spend all day keeping things in their places who really wish they had time to do other things,” Freedman says. “But they feel obligated to do this.”

As for the office, a survey done by the authors found that people who say they keep a “very neat” desk at work spend an average of 36 percent more time looking for things than people who say they keep a “fairly messy” desk.

“That’s because it takes time to put every paper in its place in a filing cabinet or folder,” Freedman says, whereas messy people tend to put things in “surprisingly sophisticated” piles that they can easily access.

Ya hear that? “Surprisingly sophisticated”!!! We knew it!

Meanwhile, social fumblers may as well just give up and send an email istead of trying to tough it out face to face:

Is there always one person at the office who acts rudely during meetings? Do you shy away from interacting with colleagues because you’re not good at office politics?

Maybe that colleague, or you, have trouble reading social cues .

[snip]Teaching people to read social cues is very, very difficult. So instead of trying to understand how to say things differently in a meeting, it might be more appropriate for these people to limit the time they spend in large meetings. Instead, they should concentrate on having one-on-one conversations or using e-mail.

People who are bad at reading nonverbal cues tend to fare worse when there are more people around, because there usually is that much more nonverbal communication going on.

Yes, yes, we know we are obsessed with a potential John Carter movie. Can’t you just humor us just this once? Anyway, CHUD has dirt from producer Don Murphy who seems to think he and Walden Media (Narnia) are in the running still.

The Burroughs estate hasn’t finalized a Disney deal, Murphy says, and he doesn’t see why they necessarily would. Don’s working with Walden Media, the folks behind The Chronicles of Narnia movies, and he says that part of their offer is a guarantee to have a film in production in 18 months. Disney, meanwhile, is making no such offer, and is in fact interested in sitting on the film for Andrew Stanton, the director of Finding Nemo. Apparently Stanton wants to do a live action movie, and John Carter is what he fancies… but he’s lined up to do Pixar’s post-post-Ratatouille film, meaning he wouldn’t get started on John Carter, at the earliest, until next decade.

Much more informed speculation in link.

Mr. and Mrs. Natural:

“We live in Crumbland,” Ms. Crumb said.

They moved to France 16 years ago, sickened, they said, by the infiltration of their once sleepy California town, Winters, by newcomers who bulldozed hilltops for McMansions. The Crumbs also wanted to shield their daughter, Sophie, from a growing conservative and fundamentalist Christian influence while continuing to educate her in what they consider the classics. They reared her on “Little Lulu” comics from the 1940s and ’50s and Three Stooges videos.

Can she help being comics royalty?

Wrestler Bam Bam Bigelow was found dead yesterday, cause unknown.:

Bigelow, a major star in the 80s and 90s throughout the world, was found dead by his girlfriend at their place of residence in Hudson, Fla. when she woke up at 10 a.m. Police haven’t been able to pinpoint the time of death nor a cause of death.

Bigelow had severe back problems stemming from his years in pro wrestling, and was involved in a bad motorcycle accident that nearly killed his girlfriend a few years ago.

Bigelow was also badly burned in an incident even more years ago where he rescued children from a forest fire. No lie. We knew a few people who knew Bam Bam well and they never had a bad word to say about him. It was also our own chance encounter with Bam Bam perhaps a decade ago where a discussion of echinacea and goldenseal revealed to us that behind the kayfabe was a world of real people with their own hopes and dreams and goals.

As someone on a wrestling board said, the chances of a former WWE/F star in his mid forties dying unexpectedly are so high as to come as no surprise. Sad but true. The price these gladiators pay for our amusement is sickeningly high. Scott Bigelow, may you rest in peace.

There’s a Big Apple show this week at the Penn Plaza Pavilion. It’s a Fan Appreciation Show with FREE ADMISSION to celebrate the show’s 10th anniversay. Guests include Soupy Sales, Larry Storch and even some comickers like Alex Maleev.

However, the future of this show may be in doubt, as apparently, the Pennsylvania Hotel is to face the wrecker’s ball at sometime in the next few years.

The New York City hotel that inspired the song “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ will be torn down for a 2.5 million-square-foot office tower. One of McKim, Mead & White’s later designs, the 22-story Hotel Pennsylvania was one of the largest hotels in the world when it opened in 1919 with 2,200 rooms. It was built across the street from the firm’s Pennsylvania Station, which was torn down in 1963 for Madison Square Garden. The Hotel Pennsylvania’s ballroom was a big band hotspot for Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and
Glenn Miller, who made it famous in his 1940 jingle.

Owner Vornado Realty Trust, based in Paramus, N.J., intends to build an office tower with a trading floor in place of the 1,700-room hotel, which is not a city landmark.

While the Pennsylvania Hotel is way past its prime — we heard nothing but horror stories from some comics pals of ours who stayed there last month — this still brings a tear to our eye. First off, one can only imagine the New York in which the once-respondent hotel faced across the street from the grand and glorious original Penn Station. (It was the destruction of this landmark - an event which still makes us choke up– which spurred the movement towards building preservation in NYC.)

Then, over the years the Hotel Penn was the scene of many many conventions, Seuling, Creation, you name it, as it went down is prestige a bit and became a place for fans of many stripes to congregate over cardboard boxes.

As the article says, the battle for the Pennsylvania Hotel was lost many years ago, but we intend to spend some time there before it goes, and we might just start this weekend.

[Link via Boing Boing]

The Onion proves it still has what it takes to skewer the zeitgiest with this satirical jibe at many trends covered daily in The Beat :
New Archie Graphic Novel Explores Rich Inner Life Of Jughead :

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. released a new Archie Comics graphic novel Tuesday, Heavy Is The Head That Wears The Crown, an examination of the complex inner workings of longtime Archie compatriot Forsythe “Jughead” Jones. “Readers will be fascinated by Forsythe’s agonizing realization that his love of food was really just a substitute for loving himself, something he deems impossible due to his guilt over the premature death of his baby sister, Forsythia, and the predatory sexual overtures he suffers at the hands of Mr. Flutesnoot,” author and cartoonist Adrian Tomine said.

…only a heartbeat away…
[Link via Anne Ishii]

It’s been a few years since Jeff Smith wrapped up his masterpiece, Bone. In the meantime he’s been traveling around the world and puttering away on SHAZAM: THE MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL, a four issue prestige mini-series from DC. The first issue launches, at long last, February 7.

To get us in the mood, Smith has been posting a SHAZAM PRODUCTION JOURNALwith drawings and process. Charming doesn’t begin to cover it. This is what comics should be, and should be one of the biggest comics events of ‘07.

Remember back in the days when you bought records or CDs? Remember how you would sometimes go down tot he record store at Midnight for the new release of a particular epic album? Well, Marvel is going back to those days with a midnight launch for THE DARK TOWER at select comics stores.

UPDATE: The complete list of comics shops participating can be found here.

To celebrate the launch of the ground-breaking new comic book series adapted from Stephen King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower, Marvel Comics will offer a first-ever midnight release of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #1 the night of Tuesday, February 6, 2007. Nearly 150 retailers across the country will open at midnight on Tuesday (effectively 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, February 7, 2007) so Stephen King fans can get their hands on the debut issue of this historic comic.

Under the direction and guidance of Stephen King, the creative team of Robin Furth (Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: A Concordance), The New York Times-bestselling author Peter David, Eisner Award-winning artist Jae Lee and fan-favorite Richard Isanove, the seven issue series will expand the saga of King’s epic hero, Roland Deschain, whose quest to save the Dark Tower is captured in seven best-selling novels published over the course of twenty-five years. King’s unparalleled storytelling power will inform new stories that delve into the life and times of the young Roland, revealing the trials and conflicts that lead to the burden of destiny he must assume as a man, the last Gunslinger from a world that has moved on. The comics will work in conjunction with the novels, further supplementing and defining the saga’s mythology under the direction of the acclaimed author himself.

Marvel’s Senior Vice President of Sales David Gabriel said, “As the first visualization of The Dark Tower characters and stories in the sequential arts medium, these midnight openings provides fans with the same first chance, gotta-be there-the-second-it-comes-out opportunities that Harry Potter fans have enjoyed at mass market book stores.”

“The opportunities this comic book series will open up for retailers is one of the biggest reasons we are a part of this deal,” said Marvel’s Publisher & President Dan Buckley. “Retailers across the country are sure to see an influx of new customers — Stephen King’s loyal legion of fans who will actively seek out this comic.”