by Marc-Oliver Frisch

DC Comics’ successful “Sinestro Corps War” and “Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” crossovers both concluded in December, and with Green Lantern #25 and Justice League of America #15, two bestselling stragglers from November helped to touch up the performance. The big new launch in December was the weekly Countdown: Arena miniseries, whose numbers don’t particularly impress, but are better than those of previous Countdown spin-offs. In other news, Birds of Prey and The Legion of Super-Heroes got new creative teams, and the Western miniseries Bat Lash debuted. The average periodical numbers of the mainstream DC Universe line weren’t especially high compared to the rest of the year, but were up from their low point in November.

The publisher’s Vertigo and WildStorm imprints continued a slow recovery in December, meanwhile, in terms of average periodical sales. At Vertigo, the modest increase was due to Brian Wood’s ongoing Viking saga Northlanders, which launched with fairly decent numbers. At WildStorm, as there were no new launches in December, the slight upturn was mostly due to the absence of a number of low-selling titles. Overall, DC’s average sales in December were stronger than they had been for most of the year, rebounding from their low point in November. It’s safe to say that 2007 wasn’t a banner year for DC’s periodical business, compared to previous years and to the competition, but they’re ending it on a moderately optimistic note.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

6/8 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
12/2001: JLA #61 — 67,491*
12/2002: JLA #76 — 61,557*
12/2003: JLA #91 — 58,981
12/2004: JLA #109 — 63,791 [64,747]
12/2005: JLA #123 — 76,899
————————————–
12/2006: Justice League #4 — 136,709 (- 3.0%) [139,123]
12/2006: Justice League #5 — 132,460 (- 3.1%) [133,924]
01/2007: –
02/2007: –
03/2007: Justice League #6 — 130,099 (- 1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7 — 154,984 (+19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8 — 130,365 (-15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9 — 129,285 (- 0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (- 0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (- 5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+ 7.0%) [137,181]
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (- 9.1%) [124,006]
10/2007: Justice League #14 — 101,763 (-14.8%)
11/2007: –
12/2007: Justice League #15 — 100,234 (- 1.5%)
12/2007: Justice League #16 — 95,557 (- 4.7%)
—————-
6 months: -24.3%
1 year : -27.3%
2 years : +27.3%

As Justice League of America catches up with its schedule, another top-selling DC title drops below the 100k mark (as far as the estimates are concerned, at any rate; given that they’re traditionally a little on the low side, the real number may still be slightly above 100,000). And, as before with titles like All Star Batman, All Star Superman, Justice, 52 or Superman/Batman, there’s nothing on the horizon that looks like it could plug the resulting gap.

That said, the drop-off was to be expected after star writer Brad Meltzer’s departure, and it’s also worth mentioning that the current run, unlike Meltzer’s, isn’t supported through variant cover editions. Bearing all this in mind, the book is still holding up quite well.

—–
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For months, the LJ of Cold Cut Distribution employee Matt High has been spotlighting his spectacular vacation photos. Of late it started talking about packing up and moving. A post yesterday spelled it out

Still no official news on Cold Cut to announce, since the paperwork is not signed yet. But the unofficial news is Cold Cut is closed (and has been since before Christmas, really), and will re-open under totally brand-new ownership in Illinois sometime next month. Details to follow when they can be released.

Cold Cut is one of the very few surviving comics distributors that isn’t Diamond. Although exclusives had left them with a smaller amount of product to carry, their publishers page still lists a couple hundred publishers, including SLG/Slave Labor, Fantagraphics, NBM and book publishers like Random House and Harper Collins.

Cold Cut had been in dubious shape for a while, with a public plea for a new buyer posted in July. We wrote to High for any additional comment but received no answer. We also polled a few indie publishers carried by Cold Cut and the general sense we got is that owner Mark Thompson has generally remained current with publishers, so there is at this point no big financial hit to publishers in the offing.

The need for a distributor other than Diamond continues to be a theme bubbling under the industry, with many rumours of alternatives surfacing now and then, but never in an organized way. Baker & Taylor, the large book distributor seems to have become a de facto alternative for many retailers, as they offer speedier orders on mainstream books and reasonable rates even for returnable books. However, Cold Cut did have a niche that many people found useful or even essential. Whoever this company in Illinois is must have thought the same thing.

The 12 cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad which led to violent protesting throughout the Muslim world and continues to cause deaths, turmoil and misunderstanding around the world, will be archived by Denmark’s National Library:

Despite objections from some Muslim leaders, the library in the Danish capital will preserve the 12 cartoons for research purposes but will not make them available to the public for at least 10 years, spokeswoman Jytte Pedersen said.

“It is not our intention to provoke or anything like that. We are preserving them for future generations,” she said.

In a hopeful sign that people are just sick of this, the Danish-Muslim organization which sparked the original protests doesn’t plan any formal protest this time.

§ Y assault continues unabated: CBR visits Pia Guerra’s studio. Zack Smith interviews Guerra. BKV in WSJ.. LA City Beat has a story on the Y The Last Party benefit for the CBLDF. Whew.

§ In other major media comics news, the AP story on the New Cap hits everywhere.

§ Neil Kleid points out that this year’s New York Comic-COn takes place over Passover, and he isn’t happy. [Thanks, Lea.]

§ The PLAIN Janes by Castellucci and Rugg has won a spot on the 2008 Amelia Bloomer List of recommended feminist books for young readers.

§ David Chelsea writes to alert us that his 9th 24 Hour Comic has been posted online:

l have finally stuck a toe into the 21st Century by posting a comic online myself….There are still a few glitches- l think the slideshow plays backwards- but if all works well I may post some other unpublished comics to the site. If anyone’s counting, this is my ninth 24 Hour Comic- a World Record until someone tells me different.

§ A note in the Steve Rude newsletter reveals that Nexus 100 has been delayed yet again by a printers error, although it should be only an extra week.

Is there no end to the cartoonists invading the airwaves this week? Now Adrian Tomine will be appearing on NPR’s Fresh Air today.

D&Q’s Peggy Burns also reminds us that Tomine is going on a mini tour at the end of this month:

2/26 — D+Q Librairie, Montreal
2/28 — Brattle Theater, Harvard Bookstore
2/29 — RISD Auditorium, Providence, RI
3/5 — Politics & Prose, Washington DC.

More at the Shortcomings site.

Found via the V, the website Superheroines Demise which is totally, completely and utterly NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

We had downloaded a few photos with the intent to post with really bad parts blanked out, but they are all so yucky that we decided not to. Let’s just say that people who were incensed by the Playboy cover are going to completely Hulk out — if not die of an aneurysm right on the spot.

This site and its ilk have surely been discussed in the blogosphere before. It will come as a surprise to no one that there are websites that specialize in sexual fantasies involving superhero characters — in this case, specifically, superheroines being dominated, and beaten up, their clothes ripped off, etc etc. Or as one caption puts it:

– 36 intense photos of Golden Angel writhing in agony. This nasty terrorist zaps her to incapacitate her. Lying on the cement, bloodied and bruised, he removes part of her uniform! This story gets pretty wild. Enjoy.

We’ll set aside for a moment the question of whether seeing women “bloodied and bruised” is sick as fuck or not. No, what’s really interesting about this site is how similar so much of the imagery is to actual comic books.
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It is happening:

Okay this is going to take some getting used to. Please bear with me. I’m going to be repeating a lot of stuff since the idea is to get the word out about glamourpuss. Particularly at this point, what I’m hoping to do is to persuade people to go into their local store mid-month when each of the stores should have a copy of glamourpuss No.1 that will be included with Diamond Dateline (Feb. 13). There are roughly 300 stores that should have an advance copy right now. I built my own Canadian mailing list from all of the stores listed in the various Yellow Pages at the Kitchener Library (about 80 directories) and then used the Fantagraphics “Brick & Mortar” list from the back of their catalogue from a few years back for international and US stores. It’s a good list, considering it’s a few years old. Good range of stores from specialty book stores to primarily super-hero stores.

Dave answers questions about lettering, whether he fears death, Glamourpuss and his views on Japanese porn comics before the store where he’s using the computer closes and he’s forced to pack it in for the day.

More tomorrow!

We received a lengthy press release from Italy regarding the second annual BilBOlBul comics festival to be held 5-9 March in Bologna. This year’s fest includes spotlights on Gianni De Luca and Cristolphe Blain, sections devoted to Anders Nilsen, Kevin Huizenga and Paul Hornschemeier from America and Hok Tak Yeung and Chihoi Lee from China, films, music and a contest for young cartoonists. According to the PR:

The official image of the Festival second edition was drawn by Gabriella Giandelli: a tribute to BilBolbul, the first Italian comic character ever, created by Attilio Mussino, one hundred years after his creation.

In short, another nice international cultural festival with comics at the center. You can read all the information about the show here.

Brian Wood sent out a PR yesterday announcing that rights to another one of his books originally published by AIT/PlanetLar have reverted to him, namely Public Domain, a design sketch book of sorts for Channel Zero. This follows the move of Demo from AIT to Vertigo, which will publish a new edition of the book later this year. Quite fittingly, considering its name, Public Domain will be available as a .pdf download, which is free, although you are encouraged to donate via a Paypal button. Which is the right thing to do!

People who want to read between the lines of the press release can do so here. Full PR in the jump.

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A few people have written to ask us about the Guillermo Del Toro directing the Hobbit thing. We’ll let First Showing explain:

Before we get any further, numerous sources confirm that New Line Cinema won’t be officially announcing a director until the writers strike is settled. So until then, all of this must still be considered a rumor. There was even a report back in late December from Variety that said that Sam Raimi “is expected to go right back up the mountaintop and take the helm of The Hobbit films.” Obviously The Hobbit films are a very hyped-up project and it seems everyone is grasping onto whatever “reports” they can get from studio sources. As of right now there are enough conflicting “99% certain” reports from both camps that it could still be one or the other or even somebody entirely different. Either way, I really hope we get confirmation very soon so everyone can stop arguing.

So…what do we think? We’re delighted, although we would almost rather see Del Toro direct Harry Potter 7 & 8, just because that franchise so desperately needs a great finish. Del Toro has the sense of evil and suffering necessary to make a good Tolkien movie work, and he certainly has the fantasy chops.

Our concern, as always, remains the mysterious “second Hobbit movie.” Reportedly, Hobbits 1 and 2 will be shot at the same time. Since there is no actual story for Hobbit #2, this surprises us, although as we’ve said many times, we WOULD watch a movie that consisted of Sir Ian McKellen’s Gandalf just wandering around the Shire reading an Elven phone book, in Sindarin or Quenya.

Technorati Tags: Hobbitses

UPDATE: You can see a cache of Marvel/Lost crossovers here.

LOST is back in full force this week with the premiere of what everyone hopes won’t be a severely strike-shortened 8-episode long Season 4. Long dormant Lost blogs are firing up to hunt new Easter eggs, and one of them reveals that in addition to an ongoing online game, there’s also a big Marvel/Lost tie-in:

In a bid to create further excitement showfor Lost, ABC has announced a mash-up with Marvel Comics. You can discover elements from the show in a number of Marvel Comics titles. ABC marketing has strategically placed images and references from the show in various comic books, including Uncanny X-Men, Incredible Hercules, Thunderbolts and Wolverine Origins. It is interesting to note that some of them promote Find815.com, while others give reference to Jack and the other characters being found.

We hadn’t seen much reference to this around the net, but it’s fun stuff for Lost-philes.

As for the current season, were very glad we watched Wednesday’s “enhanced” version of the Season 3 finale because we didn’t remember ANY of it–the boat, the hatch, Locke and Walt…all that stuff. We did remember the flash forward and the death of Charlie. However, LOST has pretty much been dead to us since it went off the air last May. But now the game’s afoot and we can all play along again. Who was in that coffin anyway?

Adam Prosser reviews an advance copy of GLAMOURPUSS, Dave Sim’s new comic.

In many ways, it’s not really a comic book; Sim even acknowledges as much. His only real goal here, he says, was to refine his art by producing ultra-detailed ink drawings of (for the most part) pretty girls in fashionable clothing, in a variety of styles that attempt to ape various masters of the comic book and comic strip form: Williamson, Caniff, Adams, and Raymond among them. He’s strung it together as a de facto comic by inserting stream-of-consciousness commentary into the speech bubbles, alternating between observations about the great artists he’s imitating, the basics of comics craftsmanship, the shoddy way the syndicates and publishers have treated classic comic art, and his goals for the project, emphasizing his disinterest in producing a traditional comic. And, every so often, he slips into a writing style that parodizes fashion-magazine prose (I couldn’t help thinking of Seinfeld’s take on the J. Peterman catalogue) and that seems to be hinting at an actual story about a spoiled supermodel and her evil twin, before slipping back out to meta-commentary on what he just wrote.

[Via Dirk]

NOW with art ganked from the TCJ board.

The New Yorker’s Flickr competition to design a new Eustace Tilley is over. Click link for all entries. Above, the incomparable Ape Lad.

By Paul O’Brien

The big new launch for December was ULTIMATES 3, returning after a seven month hiatus with the new creative team of Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira. And thanks to the magic of delays, December, also saw AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545, the concluding part of “One More Day.” Otherwise, it’s a relatively quiet month. “Messiah Complex” continued to boost the X-books, and ULTIMATE IRON MAN returned for its second miniseries.

Once again, Marvel took the top spot in the direct market by a comfortable margin. They beat DC by 39% to 33% in dollar share, and 43% to 37% in units. DC’s one-off lead from a few months back seems to have been a blip.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  ULTIMATES
12/02  Ultimates #9        - 101,811
12/03  Ultimates #12       - 104,572
12/04  Ultimates 2 #1      - 146,271
12/05  Ultimates 2 #9      -  94,493
=====
12/06  —
01/07  —
02/07  —
03/07  —
04/07  —
05/07  Ultimates 2 #13     - 105,745  ( +6.2%)
06/07  —
07/07  —
08/07  —
09/07  —
10/07  —
11/07  —
12/07  Ultimates 3 #1 of 5 - 131,401  (+24.3%)
                              6 mnth  (  — )
                              1 year  (  — )
                              2 year  (+39.1%)
                              3 year  (-10.2%)
                              4 year  (-25.7%)

You won’t be surprised to hear that the two big titles charted at numbers 1 and 2. And naturally, ULTIMATES gets a healthy boost for its new series. It’s not quite as good as ULTIMATES 2 #1 from December 2004, but 130K is a fine number by any standards.

The interesting question is whether it can sustain those sales. In its favour, ULTIMATES has big name creators, and a large inherited audience. On the other hand, ULTIMATES has previously been sold more on the strength of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch (and their style) than on the characters as such, and the new book is quite different. And, let’s be honest, the reviews haven’t exactly been stellar.

I suspect sales will hold up pretty well for the duration of this five-issue miniseries, but I’m not so sure what will happen after that. Much depends on how well Marvel can build interest for the upcoming “Ultimatum” event, which is clearly intended to revitalise the flagging Ultimate imprint, and has to be seen as something of a make-or-break story.

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Update: For a change, here’s Brian K. Vaughan on CNN.

In big comics media events this week, Bucky-is-Cap is definitely getting a run for its money from the appearance today of issue #60 of Y the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. (And don’t forget inker Jose Marzan!) Just about every media outlet has its own appreciation of the 5 years-and-change journey of Yorick Brown in a world where all the men have died except him–and his monkey. Whitney Matheson interviewed a bunch of folks, including Tom Spurgeon, for USA Today. Vulture interviewed Vaughan about Y and Lost, which has its own media event this week. EW also interviews Vaughan. And just to brek things up, Newsarama’s Zack Smith has a lengthy two-part interview with Brian K. Vaughan. Part one, part two.Blogger Van Jensen has a whole week of Y-related stuff up. Whitney also talks to DJ Caruso who is slated to direct the Y the Last Man movie.

It is dense. And basically, we’re not jumping off a little bit, but we took a little license with how to get a ticking clock. One of the things with Yorick and kind of going around the whole series was there is this sort of urgency, but at the same time, there’s really no ticking clock, so we’re using Ampersand in sort of an interesting way and … sort of separating them a little sooner than they might’ve been separated in the series.

I’m scanning this all a bit lightly because I have all the trades and last few issues in a big stack and want to try to read the whole thing in order when I have a spare moment (unlikely as that sounds.) I haven’t read a Y trade since the “Safe Word” story line. I guess I was saving it all up.

All of which is ironic, because I read the ending long ago.

{Don’t worry, absolutely no spoilers in the jump.]
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Via the D&W blog: Chris Ware is having an art show this Friday :

This Friday, February 1st on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the Adam Baumgold Gallery will be hosting a reception from 6-8 PM for Chris Ware’s new exhibition “Drawings For New York Periodicals.” Check our event page for more information and the Adam Baumgold website for a preview. The above image is the double sided exhibition poster which will be available at the Baumgold Gallery, signed and unsigned.

We’re battling some kind of virus that we got from eating some ill-advised food. It’s a real tussle that goes back and forth, and going to sleep before 4 am would probably help, as would getting up before noon. We’re working on it. So just a big newsy round-up today.

First, some people on the move:

• Joe Yanarella has been promoted to Senior Vice President — Operations at Wizard, from which he’ll oversee Ad Sales, Special Operations, and Conventions as well as his original editorial duties.

• Pamela Mullin has joined DC Comics as a publicist. She was formerly the publicist for Pantheon’s graphic novel line.

• Reportedly, Shannon Denton of Komikwerks and Actionopolis is joining Wildstorm as an editor.

• Johanna Draper Carlson has dropped out of the Savage Critic website.

§ You know a while ago someone suggested to us that the writer’s strike was a good opportunity for cartoonists to get on chat fests, but we didn’t think that was really going to happen! Marjane Satrapi beat Joe Quesada to the strike struck version of the Colbert Report. Satrapi put up with Colbert’s schtik pretty well, prompting him to say “That’s one of the dangers of your film — when you humanize your enemy, your enemy seems much more human.” Perhaps a writer could have made that line funnier. Quesada came on board to warn Colbert of a Skrull invasion.

§ Kevin Melrose has an excellent summary of the Red Sonja/Red Sonya legal battle which actually got to trial without anyone knowing what the heck was going on.

Red Sonja LLC, which owns the rights to Red Sonja — with a “j” — had filed a $5 million lawsuit in April 2006 accusing Paradox Entertainment of infringing on its trademark and attempting to create confusion in the marketplace. Paradox, which bought Conan and the entire Robert E. Howard library in 2006, owns the rights to Red Sonya — with a “y” — a character created by Howard in the 1930s.

Red Sonja is a character created in 1973 by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith for use in the Conan comics then published by Marvel. Red Sonya is Howard’s lesser-known pistol-packing Russian warrior from the 16th century.

The upshot is that Red Sonja LLC now owns ALL the Sonj(y)a’s, while Paradox retains rights to the rest of the Hyborian Age. In fact, here’s Paradoix’s statement. ICv2 has more.

A newsletter from MoCCA has a few news notes that we hadn’t seen elsewhere:

§ Ellen S. Abramowitz, of Newmark Real Estate, is the new Chairman. “2007 was a year of growth and great accomplishment for MoCCA,” she writes. “The MoCCA Art Festival drew close to 6,000 visitors and the Stan Lee Retrospective showcased one of cartoon arts finest. We have established a creative presence in NYC but need to do more! It has been and always will be the mission of MoCCA to promote the understanding and appreciation of comic and cartoon art. With our dedicated volunteers top-notch board of trustees and officers, we are poised to continue to make that happen.”

§ The gallery is closing from February 1st and March 5th, 2008 so the gallery can be reconfigured.

Currently our plan is to realign our movable wall units to allow for a more open gallery area, and allow for a more recognizable division in our exhibit areas.

The layout of the gallery is being handled by EPoc Partnership, a SoHo based design firm headed by partners David J. Ennis 2, RA and Shelly M. Pocsidio, who are also involved in a more extensive remodeling of the gallery to take place over time.

§ Upcoming shows:

When the monsters and web artists come down in March, they will be replaced by “Moving Pictures” an exciting showcase that will examine the transition of print comic and cartoon characters into live-action and animated film and TV stars. Previews will begin on “Moving Pictures” on April 17th, with official opening and closing dates to be announced shortly.
In September, MoCCA will switch its spotlight from the screen to the political stage, when it opens “Drawing the Vote,” an exhibit exploring the election process through the filter of comic and cartoon art. Official opening and closing dates, and opening night party details to come.

Patrick Jodoin of Lebonfon, a Canadian printer that has been picking up some work from the Quebecor mess, sent out a brief statement yesterday:

We have been receiving many questions with regards to recent problems at Quebecor World. We wish to inform you that Imprimerie Lebonfon Inc. or Lebonfon Printing is a privately owned company and is completely independent of Quebecor World since March 2006. Our printing and distribution operations are not affected by the current situation at Quebecor World.

In other words, Lebonfon was ONCE a subsidiary of Quebecor, but it isn’t now.

Former Catwoman Julie Newmar, who is 74, would like more gigs as a spokesperson, so she took out an ad.

We say she deserves a role in some superhero movie!

[Via Jezebel]

According to his MySapce blog, Ed Brubaker will be on NPR talking about Captain America tomorrow at 5:25am, 7:25am, 9:25am and 11:25am EST.

Diamond has released the figures for its top selling individual comics periodicals of ‘07. Marvel took 23 out of the top 25, with BUFFY #1 and JLA #7 to break up the string. It affords a bit of closure to see comics based on works by Stephen King doing so well here, because everyone always said “If only we could get best selling authors to write comics, we’d be okay!” It’s also interesting how much more publisher variety there was on the Top 100 Graphic Novel list. That’s the key to the whole ballgame right there.

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Following up yesterday’s charts, our HTML is still less than desired, but here is Diamond’s year end chart for the Top 50 Manga. Although Viz dominates, Tokyopop claims the top spot with FRUITS BASKET Vol. 16.

We can’t improve on the classic Variety-ese in their lead for this story:

Eyeing its next movie franchise, Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp has inked with Gallic graphic novel publisher Casterman for the bigscreen adaptation rights to Jacques Tardi’s classic comicbook series “Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adele Blanc-Sec.”

The star of nine GNs, Adele Blanc-Sec is a tough journalist who battles threats both occult and brutish between the wars. According to the piece, the film is viewed as the first of a trilogy.
EuropaCorp has also acquired Septieme Choc, a graphic novel publishing house aimed at encouraging work by young artists from underprivileged areas.

Hopefully Besson will keep Blanc-Sec’s clothes on and we’ll see this someday in America.

§ Kevin Colden talks about publishing FISHTOWN at IDW at The Daily Cross Hatch. the indie style ACT-I-VATE comics (and one time Xeric winner) is a welcome stretch for IDW:

Q: What’s the process for finally settling on a publisher? It sounds like you’d be discussing the possibility with IDW for a while.

A: Yeah. We’d been talking on and off for months. It just ended up that they were so enthusiastic about it that I just couldn’t say no. They were prepared to put a lot behind it, and that was important to me. I could have gone with a larger publisher, and maybe made a little more money, in terms of sales, but in the end, the way that they’re set up and the size company they are, I think they’re going to sell it well.

§ The local paper catches up with ComicSpace’s move to Portland, ME:

Maine’s creative economy is about to acquire a new element from an obscure source: The world of comic art on the Web.

Two men who founded some of the most popular and influential comic art sites on the Internet, places like ComicSpace.com and WebComicsNation.com, are teaming up and setting up shop in Portland.

Joey Manley and Josh Roberts were in the city last week, scouting office space downtown and reviewing resumes for a programmer to add to their staff.

Their effort, funded by an infusion of venture capital from investors in Web development, is set to launch in the spring under the ComicSpace.com name. When it debuts, the site will strengthen Maine’s connection to the world of Web comic art, in which artists and writers publish and sell original work on the Internet.

Maine…webcomics…venture capitol…what is not to love? No wonder The Beat is caught being effusive towards the end of the article.

§ Some very very important mainstream news from the past few weeks that we missed:
• Mark Millar and Steve McNiven are doing WOLVERINE.
• Dan Didio is now the line editor for Teen Titans, because Eddie Berganza is too busy.
• THE ORDER, a team book by Matt Fraction has been cancelled by Marvel after only 10 issues and internet fans were sad.
• You know this is kind of interesting; highly regarded newish writer Jason Aaron signed an exclusive at Marvel but gets to keep writing SCALPED, his creator owned Vertigo book. As many have pointed out, “exclusive” is an increasingly flexible term these days. Of course, given the lifespan of the average creator owned book these days, maybe it wasn’t too much of a worry.

§ Joe Quesada steps in the breach one more time and answers FAN questions about you-know-what. We are thoroughly tired of you-know-what by now, and the article is loooong. For instance, on why making a deal with the devil is better than getting a divorce:

Now, there are those that say, “but he made a deal with the Mephisto, how is that better?” I would at least see something in that statement if it was Peter who conjured up Mephisto. If Peter had no options and then proceeded to perform some ritual in order to invoke Mephisto, or in essence reached out to him as a last ditch effort, then yes, I would agree because now you’re validating and saying it’s okay to seek out the Mephisto guy to fix a problem. But, that’s not what happened. It was Mephisto in this case, as he is prone to do, who comes to Peter at his weakest moment and uses this to his advantage. Why? Because he’s a villain.

That’s a very short excerpt of Quesada’s answer. Masochists/completists/continuitians only!

§ Another groundbreaking pact by Platinum Studios.

§ Kenneth Johnson, the producer of the HULK tv show, posts a list of the 117 ways David Banner hulked out on the classic show :

106. Being fed poisoned sushi

Above, this year’s Grand Prix winners Charles Berberian(L) and Philippe Dupuy(R) stand beside last year’s, Jose Munoz. The winning cartooners really do come out on a balcony and address the throng; that is why Angoulême is the true pinnacle of the comics year.

Tom covers the early linkage, including this really stunning one of the local festivities surrounding the show.