We have really fallen asleep on the job with our WonderCon coverage. It kicks off today and we haven’t even mentioned the lively party scene! A few links of note:
• SF Examiner spotlight on Debbie “Bumperboy” Huey

• Wired Preview with comic shop action

• Prism Comics programming

• The Cartoon Art Museum programming and activities.

• Related: Eight comic books to read before you die

• Brian Wood is selling limited edition postcards, above

As usual, there will be an explosion of signings, parties and other fun activities. All Party Poop in the jump.

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It’s snowing a gale here in NYC (NB; this weekend last year was New York Comic-Con! Woe betide the return to February in ‘09.)

However, if you are ANYWHERE NEAR ROCKETSHIP you must go to this because HOTWIRE #@ will melt icicles and blast through drifts.

Rocketship proprietor Alex Cox informs us in the comments that this has been CANCELLED for tonight and postponed until March. Smart move!

UPDATE: The new date is March 14th, per head Hotwire Glenn Head.

Stay home and watch CELEBRITY REHAB reruns!

CNN international presents a video report the the holocaust comic book we’ve mentioned here previously. Produced by the Anne Frank Center and drawn by Eric Heuvel in full-on clear line style, the comic is intended to give German schoolchildren a primer in the horrors of the Holocaust. However, according to the video, some experts feel using the comic book medium will trivialize the event. This is an old school argument, and it could be argued that the Tintin-inspired imagery isn’t the gut-punch that some would prefer, the idea that comics are inherently frivolous is one that we suspect will be protested loudly.

This is getting annoying.

Where Maury Povich when you need him? LOST nerds spent most of last night’s show wondering who the father of Kate’s future baby was going to be. Sawyer? Jack? Ben?

As it turns out, like most of LOST, the answer is not that simple.

SPOILERS after the jump
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Newsarama has started a new columns by noted sales figure collector John Jackson Miller. there is much to absorb in his maiden outing, but here’s a snippet: then and now.

January 2008 sales are up over those of January 1998, a month from deep in the comics recession when the “dead quarter” very definitely lived up to its name.

Jan. 2008 final orders versus Jan. 1998 preorders (est.)
Top 300 units: +3% (7.18 million copies vs. 7 million copies)
Top 300 dollars: +34% ($22.33 million vs. $16.6 million)
Average cost of comics in the Top 300: +23% ($3.22 vs. $2.61)
Average cost of comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders: +31% ($3.11 vs. $2.38)

Most, but not all, of the difference in dollars represented by the Top 300 comes from the increase in cover prices. But the overall market is certainly larger today — Diamond did not release indexed trade paperback data for the month, but the category was certainly far smaller than it is now.

Among other things. This week Borders rolled out the first of 20 new souped-up media-age “concept stores” which spotlight five areas: Traveling, Cooking, Wellness, Graphic Novels, and Children’s Books. According to the PR:

Certain categories within the new Borders concept store — Travel, Cooking, Wellness, Graphic Novels and Children’s — are so popular and rapidly growing that Borders has designated them as special destinations within the new concept store — giving these categories their own “shop within a shop” look and feel.

Journalists toured the store, located in Pittsfield Township, MI, this week and report it is filled with fancy space age gizmos:

The 29,000-square-foot store is not so different that you won’t know you’re in a Borders. But it’s filled with new digital features unlike anything the $4.1 billion Ann Arbor-based bookseller has offered before - like a kiosk where customers can mix and burn CDs and a video conferencing device called the LongPen that lets an author sign a book electronically.

ICv2 has more.

Certainly this tends to confirm that the graphic novel category is in growth mode for traditional booksellers.

Above: the pilot store’s GN section.

It seems that Hot Topic has stated selling a t-shirt which is a dead ringer for one created by cartoonist Jess Fink. She isn’t taking it lying down.

I’m sorry but I really don’t think this design is coincidentally or simply inspired by clip art. Things right down to the pose of the character and the look of the feet and hands are the same, even the color. I do not know if you know this guys, but most soap is white. Why not make your rip off soap blue or white? I am not trying to give any ideas to any further assholes, I am trying to point out how blatantly similar this crap is.

Fink’s original t-shirt was sold on the Threadless site, and she reports they will pursue action against Hot Topic. A friend of Fink’s created the above banner which many sites are posting in solidarity.

More info here, including mention of another t-shirt designer we can’t talk about here.

#1. Grady Hendrix talks about Gerber changed comics :

But Gerber himself was trapped in a vulturelike publishing industry. A dispute with Marvel over payment terms for the artist on the Howard the Duck newspaper strip led to Gerber leaving the book, only to realize too late that his creations were all work-for-hire, property of Marvel Inc. He engaged in a protracted legal battle that was eventually settled, but the comics industry broke his spirit. When novelist Jonathan Lethem was hired by Marvel last year to revive Omega the Unknown, a series created by Gerber and collaborator Mary Skrenes, Gerber blasted the younger writer for validating the theft of his creation. Even after meeting with Lethem, he said, “I still believe that writers and artists who claim to respect the work of creators past should demonstrate that respect by leaving the work alone.”

#2. Stuart Moore remembers Gerber:

But for a brief moment, Steve’s desire to do one more Howard series coincided with Bill Jemas’s own particular form of madness. Faced with the problem of the duck’s design — a legal settlement with Disney had left us with a very specific, not terribly attractive look that had to be adhered to — Bill embraced the idea of transforming Howard into a variety of other animals. (I don’t remember now whether this was originally Bill’s or Steve’s idea.) It was Bill who suggested the first issue’s cover, depicting a pissed-off mouse under a large Howard The Duck logo, and Bill who came up with the tagline: DON’T ASK. And Steve didn’t just go along with it; he ran with it, gleefully.

#3. Last week’s remembrance by Steven Grant:

Howard’s also of the most important characters in the history of comics because Steve became the first major figure in modern comics to sue a comics company over who really owned the character. It was eventually settled without trial, leaving Marvel in control of Howard and Steve scrounging to pay off massive legal fees, and by that point Howard’s value had been gutted by its notorious movie version, which, in Hollywoodizing the Duck, missed his appeal completely. Which isn’t surprising, since Marvel, despite several attempts to revive the property, missed it as well. Howard easily survived artist changes, but if there was ever a character who functioned almost purely as an expression of his creator, it was Howard the Duck.

One for the road: Mark Evanier talks about a Burbank gathering to remember Gerber:

Not much I can say about it other than a great time was had in spite of the reason for the gathering, and I think it brought a little sense of closure to some of us. One hopes some of the anecdotes that were told will find their way to the Comments sections of this blog, hint hint.

Technorati Tags: Steve Gerber

Ben Towle alerts us to a new local comics fest:

Coming up next week, I’ll be appearing at Ma-Con, a one-day comics event held at Macon, Georgia’s Museum of Arts and Sciences in conjunction with their running exhibit, “The Art of Macon Comics.” That exhibit showcases the art of Macon comics artists Craig Hamilton, Ray Snyder and Tony Harris, some of whom local N.C. folks may have seen over the years at Heroes Con. In addition to those three, the event on Saturday the 23rd will also include a ton of other folk listed on the banner below, as well as pals Josh Latta and Brad McGinty, both of whose work you can check out at www.cutegirldemographics.com.

§ Christopher Priest returns with a prose back up in Boom’s GUNPLAY.

§ The Foo Fighters are suing Marvel, because Marvel used two of their songs in promos for the upcoming animated Wolverine and X-Men series without permission. That is a big no-no.

§ The Wall Street Journal reviews and excerpts Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front, the bio of the famed editorial cartoonist whose WWII cartoons captured the life of the common soldier.

§ Ben Katchor has written another musical

§ Vanity Fair hosts a cartoon by Peter Bagge and Dana Gould spotlighting the Oscars.

The above video features the kind of music Chris Ware like to work to, and some of Ware’s art.

In yet more WOLVERINE casting news, Dominic Monaghan and Daniel Henney have signed up as, respectively, Barnell/Beak and Agent Zero. Monaghan, of Hobbit and Lost fame, continues his ground zero nerd-friendly career, and as for ex-model Henney, it only took us two Google Images pages to find an ab-tastic pose. Poor Lynn Collins — are there no other girls in this film? It’s like the opposite of Frank Miller’s SPIRIT movie.

§ Principle photography on WATCHMEN has wrapped. Director Zack Snyder celebrates by releasing a still. /Film does the hard work of comparing it to the comics shot.:

§ SHOOTING WAR by Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman, which began life as a webcomic for Smith Magazine, has been optioned for a TV show, as long hinted.

§ THE DRINKY CROW SHOW is now official, with a 10-episode order placed by Adult Swim. Go Tony Millionaire!

§ The Smurfs are coming and they are 3D!

§ Mr T is getting his own comic book again from UK-based Mohawk Media, ending a long, lonely T Comic-less drought that made fools everywhere weep with despair. Long lay the world in sin and error pining. Let us pray.

The comics industry was first shocked, then stunned and then just gobsmacked as news leaked out this week of the engagement of The Beat and writer Ben McCool, of Birmingham, UK.

“MacDonald’s constant posting about ‘DDGB’ always makes me chuckle,” said DC publisher Paul Levitz. “I hope that isn’t going to stop.”

“When The Beat runs all those beefcake pictures of Marvel movie stars, box office is guaranteed,” echoed Marvel e-i-c- Joe Quesada. “This could mean a real blow to our bottom line.”

Industry concerns over the removal of these and other popular Beat Fave Hotties regularly featured on the site were allayed somewhat when news of a prenup spread. “The Beat will not change,” a close friend of the couple revealed. “She will continue to post just as much silly crap as before.

“The only big change is that The Beat is now required by law to support Aston Villa,” the pal continued.

As for Beat regulars, Gerard Butler and Clive Owen, neither could be reached for comment.

Friends of Butler, say the 300 star has been in seclusion. “He’s completely gutted and has been driven to take a role as a widowed father of 7 who must chase a kitten through a zoo in order to win the heart of Sarah Jessica Parker,” said one insider.

Owen is said to be similarly distraught, and has vowed to devote his now-empty life to playing hard boiled tough guys who never smile or miss a shot.

McCool’s only comment was “Go Villa!”

As you may have heard, yesterday Reed Elsevier announced they were selling off RBI, the b2b publishing end of their operation, including Variety, Broadcasting and Cable, and, yes, Publishers Weekly, the home of this very blog. The reason given was that the cycle-driven profit structure of magazines supported by advertising didn’t fit in with the Dutch parent company’s business plans. Lots of scuttlebutt going around, but whoever wants the whole caboodle will need a spare $2-2.4 billion, which could take a while–or no time at all. Certainly Variety alone could have a number of suitors.

We really have no idea what any of this means but we’ll keep on blogging until they tell us to stop. One bit of fall-out that is known: the Reed Exhibitions group that puts together the BEA, New York Comic-Con and New York Anime Fest will not be sold off, so that’s one less conflict of interest on our plate.

Vanessa Davis talks to her mom at the D&Q website. Say, maybe these autobio comics ARE the best form of storytelling!

Catch-up from all over :

§ “recently released, incredibly popular and critically acclaimed” — yep it’s the weekly Adrian Tomine interview!

“He’ll be presenting a slide show that confronts his critics who accused him of ‘hiding’ his racial identity behind his glasses.” Huh?

“Ha ha! It’s because for a long time when I used to draw autobiographical stories and I used to draw myself as a character, I’d draw myself with glasses that were just sort of opaque, empty and white”, he says. “There was a lot of silly conjecture that I was maybe trying to disguise my own features. So in the slide show I go through a history of that in cartooning, going all the way back to Robert Crumb and even Charles Schultz - when he drew this character Marcie she just had these opaque little round glasses. That’s just a starting point.”

§ Dick Hyacinth branches into interviews with Mark Andrew Smith and Paul Maybury of Aqua Leung:

MARK: I think readers will be taken by Aqua Leung and it’s got a wide range of emotion, moods, and tones throughout the work. It’s definitely an action adventure comic in every sense of the word. But also there’s a lot of our own personalities and humor that you can usually expect from us throughout the story. I think it’s okay to just do full on action and let loose. The style and the material is also something that’s very attractive. So I think it will defy all reader expectations in many ways but then satisfy them in many other ways.

§ Van Jensen yaks with Tony Millionaire at CBR:

What are some of your favorite strips collected in “The Maakies with the Wrinkled Knees?”

Where is that damn book? The thing that’s been happening lately… when I first started doing this shit, I was doing really depressing, nihilistic [things]– drinking just for killing yourself. Since my life’s gotten to be kind of deader, I’ve got a nice house with a garden, so my mind’s not as focused on blowing my brains out. It’s focused more on absurd humor. I sometimes feel that I’m losing it, that I’m not putting enough effort into it, but then I look back and say, wow, I’m improving. The more you do it… after a certain time, it starts to deteriorate. I’m always waiting for that to happen. You have to keep your eye on your work. I see plenty of cartoonists who peak and then got lazy and started drifting off.

§ The Daily Cross Hatch’s Brian Heater talks accidents wih Julia Wertz:

You got hit by a car? You weren’t lying in the street, were you?

No. I got knocked off the bike, but I didn’t get hurt. I just realized that if I’m going to be losing my health insurance in five months, it isn’t worth the five dollars an hour.

As someone who does autobiographical strips, are you thinking about how you might spin this into a book?

I don’t know. Everyone keeps saying, “It’s good material, right?” As if I’m going to stick with a shitty job because it’s good material. It’s not good material.

§ Kristy Valenti wraps up her profile of indie distrbutor/publisher Randy Chang of Bodega

The majority of Bodega’s comics sales “come directly through our website to individual customers, and through our sales guy Tony Shenton who puts us into the super-hip indie-friendly comics shops. Stores can get our books through Diamond as well. We do pretty well through Amazon, too, but that’s more sporadic. We do well enough at the shows.” However, Chang is sympathetic to ComicsPRO’s recent missive chastising publishers for debuting books at conventions.

§ Speaking of part 2, Tom got all cranky and came down on interviews and pieces that run in more than one part..

There’s really no excuse in this day and age not to run entire articles at once unless the article itself truly demands multiple parts, like Chris Butcher’s recent Japan travelogue. I’m convinced that in 90 percent of all cases, it’s stat pumping. Anyone that’s loading this site and its graphics can load an entire article from you.

Apparently Tom’s readers have been complaining about this in droves. We’ve always suspected The Beat has less fussy readers than Comics Reporter’s, but come on now, not everyone has a camel-sized attention span.

§ Finally, Andy Khouri at CBR talks to Boom! Studios’ Chip Mosher about their very controversial North Wind MySpace promotion. According to Mosher, despite some retailers crying foul and pledging never to order a Boom Studios comics again, the unthinkable happened, and orders went up for issue #4:

“We did see a bump [in sales for ‘North Wind’ #4],” Chip Mosher told CBR News. “But let me put this in perspective for you. We usually see a dip of 10% or more between issues #3 and #4 for any of our series. That said, we saw nearly a 20% increase in orders between issue #3 and #4 of ‘North Wind.’ An increase like this has never happened in the history of our company. Never. Bottom line - we are talking about a total 30% increase over the norm.”

As some comics readers may know, orders for issue #4 of a new title are generally submitted by direct market retailers a short time after issue #1 of said series goes on sale. As such, “North Wind” #2 and #3 were ordered before the MySpace promotion was announced and before issue #1 was delivered to stores. The 30% increase reflects the initial orders for “North Wind” #4, not readjustments.

§ The Eagle Awards Nominations are online, although a technical glitch means that your vote may not be counted. Welcome, Florida!

§ The Daily Cross Hatch is one year old. Belated congrats to Brian Heater and his whole great staff.

§ Steve Bissette has posted the Dave McKean cover to Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman a book on you-know-who by Bissette, Chris Golden and Hank Wagner.

§ While we were out of town, the Staying in San Diego blog addressed what went wrong on Hoteloween :

We should point out that Travel Planners made significant upgrades and improvements to their system after 2007, both online and in their phone system. Comic-Con thought that the upgrade would be sufficient. Clearly, this was not the case.

Travel Planners told us that in the first five seconds of the site going live on Wednesday, they experienced three times the number of people requesting rooms as they had last year.

Also in the first five seconds, the site had the same number of people requesting a room as there were rooms available. So, while we were prepared for more people, we were not prepared for three times as many people and were certainly not prepared for as many people to call/log on as there were rooms available.

Also, for you numbers junkies here’s the skinny:

There are only 9,800 rooms within a 1.5 mile radius of the San Diego Convention Center and Comic-Con is only allocated 6,100 rooms in our block, mainly in this radius.

Emphasis added.

§ io9 asks Is Sky Doll Too Hot For America? Apparently the French BD approach to the story of a doll designed to serve the “state’s needs” is just as sexy as you’d imagine a French comic about a pleasure bot to be. What will Marvel do?

§ Peter David has started a crusade to make sure New York gets its due in international Monopoly sets:

While attending Toyfair, I found out that Hasbro is putting together an international version of Monopoly, and instead of street names on the board, there will be city names. The color coding remains the same: The most valuable real estate will be on blue spots, for instance (normally occupied by Broadway and Park Place), and then green, yellow and so on. There is currently a vote going on that is open to anyone in the world with a computer, and you can vote once a day for up to ten cities. The top vote getters will be on Broadway and Park Place, and the rest will be apportioned to the remainder of the real estate.

Now how, you may ask, is the United States faring in this international voting? The answer: Miserably.

The leading vote getter is thus far Istanbul, apparently because Turkey has a well-regulated internet militia armed and ready to win all internet polls.

§ Those who were around in comics in the 80s will recognize a familiar name from this story of online suicide cults.

Based on focus groups and surveys, The second New York Anime Festival will be held this year September 12-14th, significantly earlier than last year’s Dec. 7-9 time frame. According to the calendar at Comic Book Conventions.com there are no real scheduling conflicts with other shows, although it is coming pretty soon after Otakon which is being held August 8-10 in Baltimore. According to the PR, below, NYAF is now the fourth biggest anime show. Anime Expo and Otakon would be bigger, but what’s #3?

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We don’t know how many of your have been following the adventures of Ivan Brandon and Kristyn Ferretti. The NYC MECH duo has been traveling around South America for a few months, and having the most incredible adventures you could possibly imagine and blogging about it. New Year’s Eve on a beach with Fireworks! Amazon journeys! Eduardo Risso! Llamas! Lost cities!

We especially liked the part where they discovered a lost tribe, and were offered a local delicacy of slugs on a banana leaf and then uncovered some ancient cave comics that prefigured compressed storytelling.

Okay, we made that last part up, but barely. Meanwhile, Ivan’s also been keeping up with his scripting deadlines at the same time. Truly a Superman.

WonderCon kicks off in San Francisco tomorrow, and a few companies have released signing schedule. Here’s Image Comics signing list:

This upcoming weekend, Image Comics kicks off convention season with its hometown show, WonderCon!

“Image is always especially excited to start off the year in our own hometown and always strive to do something special,” said Image Comics Executive Director Eric Stephenson. “We have a great lineup this year, especially with Top Cow and Electronic Arts working with us.”

In addition to signings with such creators as SCUD THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN’s Rob Schrab, DEAD SPACE & FELL’s Ben Templesmith, THE LAST CHRISTMAS’ Brian Posehn, THE INFINITE HORIZON’s Phil Noto, WITCHBLADE’s Michael Choi and Image Comics Publisher & SAVAGE DRAGON creator Erik Larsen, fans can visit the Image booth to purchase variant covers of SCUD THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN #21, DEAD SPACE #1 and THE DARKNESS #2. Also available are free, convention exclusive posters for such titles as DARK IVORY, PERHAPANAUTS and the very first look at CIVIL WAR and ULTIMATES’ Mark Millar’s new superhero title with EX MACHINA’s Tony Harris, WAR HEROES.

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Cult director David Fincher has been attached to a few comics comics movies (notably TORSO) and now he’s attached to another: Charles Burns’ BLACK HOLE. The film was adapted by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, and previously had Alexander Aja signed on to direct. Frankly, we’d prefer to see Fincher’s take on the award-winning tale of a sexually-tranmitted disease which turns teenagers into mutated monsters.

A couple of graphic novel film adaptations making the rounds this am. First, Columbia has a film based on THE BOYS in development, with producers Neal H. Moritz, Ken F. Levin and Jason Netter on board. THE BOYS by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson follows the darkly humorous adventures of a team assigned to clean up the often very excessive excesses of superheroes. The book is published by Dynamite after a much-publicized early run at Wildstorm.

Next up, Warner’s is fast tracking a two-picture adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo’s AKIRA. The first part could be out as soon as 2009. Otomo, who directed an influential anime version in 1988, is listed as a exec producer, Leonardo DiCaprio is a producer, and first-time director Ruairi Robinson will direct from a script by Gary Whitta (”Book of Eli”). According to Variety, WB had held the rights to Akira for years, but had to recapture them in a “spirited” bidding war which ended up with a seven figure deal to publisher Kodansha.

Dark Horse last published the 6-volume AKIRA series in the US, but from a scan of the Dark Horse site it seems several volumes are out of stock. Time to fire up the presses!

Technorati Tags: Garth Ennis

Well we’ve run out of room and time yet again today, so we’ll leave you with the link to the most excellent new art blog of Roarin’ Rick Veitch which we’re told has enough material to run for YEARS. Above, the one and only Miracleman.

Technorati Tags: puppy, Rick Veitch

We’re way behind in our Wondercon news, but we had to post some updates to the plans for The Hero Initiative. Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have been addedto the list of those signing at the booth. SAT., 23 FEB from 1 PM-230 PM. The rest of their schedule can be seen:
here.

In other exciting Hero Initiative news, they are bringing back the dunk tank for MegaCon! With Joe Q in the seat of danger. “Brand New Day” lovers, line up now!

Finally, and even more importantly, over on the late Steve Gerber’s blog, (which is being maintained by Mark Evanier), Paul Levitz suggested the best way to remember Gerber would be to make a donation to The Hero Initiative, which was founded to help comics creators — who typically are often without health insurance or retirement plans — in Gerber’s name. It’s a fantastic idea and you can do so here.