By Paul O’Brien

After the chaos of the January chart, we’re back to normal in February. And it’s a pretty quiet month. For Marvel, this is a lull between crossovers. We’ve had the Spider-Man relaunch, we’ve had “Messiah Complex”, WORLD WAR HULK is way in the past, and SECRET INVASION isn’t here yet.

However, we do have a small number of new launches, two of them from Mark Millar. Firstly, he’s reunited with Bryan Hitch as the new creative team on FANTASTIC FOUR. And then there’s KICK-ASS, his creator-owned title, which is appearing under Marvel’s Icon imprint. We’ve also got the first issue of the revived X-FORCE and… well, there are some scattered minis and one-shots too. But basically, this is a month of consolidation, where we start to see how recent launches and relaunches are going to bed down.

As usual, Marvel had the biggest share of the direct market. They beat DC by 38% to 30% in dollar share, and 42% to 33% in units.

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

And so, let us ceremonially crown Mark Millar and Byran Hitch’s FANTASTIC FOUR as the number one title for February.

1.  X-FORCE
02/08  X-Force #1 - 105,149

Oh.

Didn’t see that one coming, to be honest. Aside from the fact that I was expecting FANTASTIC FOUR to top the chart, I had this book figured for the lower end of the top ten. But apparently “Messiah Complex” did a better job of promoting this new series than I gave it credit for, and the variant covers don’t hurt.

Realistically, I don’t see X-FORCE continuing to outperform the other X-Men books. I expect it to settle at a lower level fairly quickly. But this is certainly an excellent start, which suggests the book has a bright future ahead of it. This also bodes well for the upcoming CABLE series, which was also heavily trailed in “Messiah Complex.”

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Hey it’s Paul Fridays! as DC head honcho Paul Levitz begins blogging at Blogorama.

Another interesting phenomenon is the difference in concentration between three types of graphic novels; manga, the strongest category in bookstores, seems increasingly dominated by a handful of properties; literary graphic novels (about 5% of bookstore sales and less in comic shops), by a couple of authors’ backlists with no major new hits in ‘07; and genre graphic novels (the strongest in comic shops) seem to spread the readers around to the most titles. This is an evolving situation, and as the number of literary titles being published expands, it’ll be particularly interesting to see how the pattern shifts. And the definitions of these categories are all highly debatable.

Debatable they are, as John Jakala picks up the gauntlet:

So if “genre graphic novels” “spread the readers around to the most titles,” I guess we can expect to see significantly more than 140 properties represented on the Bookscan list, right? Well, that would be tough considering that DC only placed 58 books on the top 750 and Marvel only 37. (”Everything else” accounts for another 72 books, but many of those appear to fall into Levitz’s third category of “literary comics.”) Even if we count each book from Marvel and DC as its own property, that’s only 95 spots.

Okay a few links to tide you over.

Jeff Trexler continue his coverage of the case with a FAQ and an explanation of why DC isn’t “doomed.”

Comics Should Be Good! has an FAQ written in non legalese, and and interview with copyright attorney Brendan McFeely:

Despite the Court’s explicit ruling, several factors remain in play. “[DC] does not need to account for profits earned outside the US,” McFeely said. “[The Siegels] have only recaptured these rights within the United States. The court also found unequivocally that DC retains all rights outside the United States. I suspect that Siegels’ lawyers will find a way to appeal this.”

McFeely continued, “It’s a bit up in the air currently exactly what this means: the Court also found that major elements of the Superman mythos were created long after the original material published in ‘Action’ #1. Lex Luthor, Myxyzptlk, Titano, kryptonite, Kandor, Brainiac, the Phantom Zone and Zod, just for starters, were all created after ‘Action’ #1. But the key elements of Superman, his abilities, his appearance, his dual identities and his basic abilities were all present in that comic, so its very likely that DC and Time Warner will have to cough up a very, very large amount of money to the Siegels.”

A few historical links. Jamie Coville’s The History of Comic Books has some of the history surrounding the creation of Superman.

It should be known that Siegel and Shuster did not share in the wealth generated by Superman. The two had sold the rights to the characters along with the first story for 10 dollars a page. Siegel did ask for increases in page rates and did get them, but they still were only getting very small portion of the income Superman was generating. A 1941 magazine article in the Saturday Nights Evening Post went into detail about how the money was being distributed. It reported that in 1940 The Superman Shop got $75,000 dollars. $16,000 of which went to pay the staff and other expenses, leaving $59,000 to split between the two creators. Meanwhile Harry Donenfeld was bragging to reporters his take home pay from Superman was around $500,000. The article writer believed it to be half that, Liebowitz would only admit that it was over $100,000. Superman Inc., the company set up for Superman licensing made 1.5 million dollars that year. There was no mention on how much DC co-owner Jack Liebowitz was getting paid.

Mike Catron’s page has a letter Jerry Siegel wrote in 1975 attempting to get publicity for his continuing attempts to get what he felt was his share of the profits of Superman.

Obviously, this case will go to appeal, and the legal battle will go on for years and years. I couldn’t find any mention anywhere of the age of Joanne Siegel, the original inspiration for Lois Lane, but she has to be in her 90s. Begin to ponder the years of fighting this woman has gone through, and this legal victory — one that has come not through any groundbreaking legal precedent, but through the application of established copyright law — and you can’t help but think the good guys have won, at least for a day.

With that in mind, the attitudes displayed on many message boards accusing the Siegel family of “greed” or worrying that this is a terrible decision for the character of Superman are stunning examples of ignorance and selfishness. They are the reason we have laws that apply a higher degree of ethical and moral judgement than the rabble is capable of. Granted, copyright law is the not a subject that the man or woman on the street would be expected to have a sound grasp of. But the case of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel – living in poverty for years even as a character no ever denied they created made hundreds of millions of dollars — is infamous as one of the most unfortunate examples of financial disparity in the history of intellectual property.

And with his shaman’s magic, Grant Morrison managed to get their story, once more, into the pages of All-Star Superman. The story of Siegel and Shuster is the story of comics, in all its shoddiness, inspiration and endless battle.

The law finally caught up.

Sadly, we’re under the weather and can’t summon the energy to cover the huge Superman/Siegel estate copyright decision. It’s very frustrating because we have a lot to say,but need the energy and clarity to say it. So, apologies.

In a stunning decision, the heirs of Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman, have been granted the copyright to Action Comics Vol. 1. Jeff Trexler has more links and details. The concluding paragraph of the court decision is worth quoting in it’s entirety.

After seventy years, Jerome Siegel’s heirs regain what he granted so long ago – the copyright in the Superman material that was published in Action Comics Vol. 1. What remains is an apportionment of profits, guided in some measure by the rulings contained in this Order, and a trial on whether to include the profits generated by DC Comics’ corporate sibling’s exploitation of the Superman copyright.

While many details of the decision remain to be worked out, including the fate of Superboy, this at long last rights one of the greatest injustices in the history of comics, whereby the creators of the tentpole character of the superhero genre sold all rights away for $300$130.

Breaking. We’ll have more details and analysis later.

More: Jeff Trexler has a FAQ with lotes more background:

Q: Do the Siegels have creative control over Superman comics?

A: No. The court explains, quoting an earlier case, that “each co-owner has an independent right to use or license the use of the copyright. . . . A co-owner of a copyright must account to other co-owners for any profits he earns from licensing or use of the copyright.” (p. 66) However, if the Shuster heirs regain copyright in a few years, then the future of Superman comics gets rather complicated, since all domestic copyright in the Action Comics #1 material & its derivative works will vest in the two families.

Q: What about Superboy?

A: That’s a separate case, although procedurally it is consolidated with the Superman case for discovery and pre-trial purposes. The question of the Siegels’ rights to Superboy is as of yet unresolved.

Also: the New York Times analyses the ruling::

Compensation to the Siegels would be limited to any work created after their 1999 termination date. Income from the 1978 “Superman” film, or the three sequels that followed in the 1980s, are not at issue. But a “Superman Returns” sequel being planned with the filmmaker Bryan Singer (who has also directed “The Usual Suspects” and “X-Men”) might require payments to the Siegels, should they prevail in a demand that the studio’s income, not just that of the comics unit, be subject to a court-ordered accounting.

Mrs. Siegel and Ms. Larson said it was too soon to make future plans for the Superman character. But they were inclined to relish this moment.

UPDATE Saturday: Nikki Finke has some interesting things to say

For instance, Joanne Siegel (who’d been the sketch model for Lois Lane) wrote a 3-page letter back in 2002 to then Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons calling the company “greedy” and “heartless” and acting “just like the Gestapo … your company wants to strip us naked of our legal rights… Is that the reputation you want?” The answer is a resounding yes. Because for years Warner tied with Disney for its aggressive unwillingness to settle these kinds of legal disputes and its absurd eagerness to risk going to court. Its corporate counsel would hire litigation piranhas hungry for billable hours who pledge to make each case go away by exhausting the patience and resources of the creators or rightsholders. It’s a thoroughly effective but completely disgusting way of doing business.

The second annual Kids Comic Con is taking place this weekend at the Bronx Community College:

KIDS’ COMIC CON 2008 will feature:

1) professional artists and publishers from the field of kids comics!

2) a huge variety of kids’ comics’ exhibitions, workshops, panels, and signings, aimed at kids, parents, and educators.

All in one day, March 29, 2008, from 10 AM to 6 PM!

Artists on hand include Kyle Baker, Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, Kevin Pyle and many more. Check it out!

[This post was supposed to come up immediately after the rise of the manga one, but then all hell broke loose.]

Despite the huge huge market for manga and things manga right now, comics shops, by and large haven’t been able to sell them or capitalize on the boom. While Naruto sells in Watchmen-like numbers overall, it’s not even in the top 10 on Diamond’s graphic novel charts.

Retailer Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Ohio talked about this in a widely-linked to piece at ICv2 in which he targets the direct markets failure to join on the manga bandwagon in clear, resigned terms:

By now I imagine a lot of you have filed this column into the category of “what does this have to do with us?” — and you’d have a point. We don’t sell manga and from the retailers I’ve spoken to over the last couple of months, it’s clear most of us can’t sell it — not in significant numbers to justify the floor space it’s taking up. But we used to; no one talks about it, but it was the American comic book industry that introduced manga to America.

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This is the moment of manga. I mean, I know you all knew that, but it’s not just a fast growing comic book category; when people look back at Aught Nostalgia, this well be remembered as the Manga Decade. Or at least that’s what our link round up tells us:

Let us being with Chris Butcher’s photo of what 5000+ manga look like (check link for full sized picture) and continue with this story about Hollywood’s J-Pop mania:

“It’s become a veritable feeding frenzy,” one young and enterprising American producer said of Hollywood’s anime and manga craze over a dinner of German sausages in Silver Lake, a hipster enclave in Los Angeles. “In fact, we’re now looking to other Asian countries like South Korea, China, even Singapore. There are just too many people focused on Japan.”

Last summer’s Transformers movie–whose toys and anime series originated in Japan–was one of the biggest box office draws in an otherwise mixed or dreary 2007 for big-budget Hollywood productions. Appleseed: Ex Machina, about which I’ve written in this column, smashed all previous anime DVD sales records upon its release earlier this month, selling 100,000 units in only its first week.

This story (originating in a Japanese newspaper) can be seen as a bit of hype, but it’s unquestionable that the Manga Look is the look of the moment. And Japan is trying to export more of its cultural influence according to this article:

“Japan is a giant in animation and there’s many things that we can learn. There’s still a huge gap in skills,” Zhou Feng Ying, president of the Beijing Glorious Animation Co, told a seminar at the Tokyo International Anime Fair on Thursday. “It’s very important for us to grow through cooperation,” she added, referring to the animated “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” currently being produced by her firm and Future Planet, a Japanese company. That cooperation brings Zhou’s company access to international distribution and Japanese animation know-how honed over decades, while Future Planet gains a sharp cut in production costs and a chance to tap the potentially vast Chinese market. Such ventures are now seen as key for the industry, since despite decades of global dominance and a boom in the popularity of anime and manga comics, Japan’s foreign anime profits are still surprisingly small compared to the money made at home.

Meanwhile, previously normalized Manchester, Uk has been turned into Manga-chester thanks to a major manga art exhibit:

Urbis displays all of the above, from cutesy to violent, erotic to commercial, informative to distinctive, exploring the way Manga has permeated everyday life in the 21st century. There’s even a photo-gallery of how teenagers in both Eastern and Western countries are dressing like real-life Manga characters. Naturally, Japanese girls adapt the characteristic look with ease. Anyone else looks like they’ve had an unfortunate accident with Crayola and a fancy dress box.

In Florida, Bleach and Naruto vie for supremacy:

The two hottest manga series are undeniably Viz Media’s Bleach and Naruto. Both have been battling it out for years in Japan and in America, and neither is willing to give up the top slots in the manga translation ratings. Tate’s Comics is a store in Lauderhill that caters to manga, anime and comic-book fans. “Some series like Fullmetal Alchemist gain a lot of popularity quickly but don’t last long, while these two lose some of their fan base every now and then, but always manage to find their way back,” store manager Joann Minieri said. “Even then, they never get bumped out of the top five.”

Funimation has been making some of its anime available on iTunes, and now Starz’ Manga Entertainment channel joins suit:

In the other corner, the Manga Shakespeare project is examined once again.

Larry Olson, vice president of marketing for Wiley, says that because of manga’s popularity, these books might get youngsters fired up about Shakespeare in a way more traditional texts or performances cannot. Also, because of their shortened passages and stimulating visuals, they might reach a wide range of ages and be especially helpful for visual learners (who account for as much as 30 percent to 65 percent of the students out there).

Finally, this may be the most important link of all, as nerd-friendly parents attend Anime Expo with their young children, and remain mindful but accepting

As I wrote about yesterday, my wife and I spent the weekend at the Anime Boston show at the Hynes Convention Center, but it wasn’t about connecting with our kids directly — that’s something we do as a couple. And part of the reason is because we like to scope out what’s hot and what’s new on the anime and manga scenes, so we can vet the content for our kids. I do the same for video games. I’m lucky enough to actually get paid (at least partly) to review video games, so that helps me justify keeping different console systems in the house and subscribing to various magazines, and even taking a couple of trips a year to trade shows to really get some good exposure.

Brooklyn’s indie cartooner Robin Enrico is profiled in the Ny Daily News:

With thoughtful and believable dialogue, eye-popping visual elements, simple character designs, and influences ranging from graffiti art to candy packaging, his comics are some of the most stunning artwork available in the mini-comics industry. Although his work is not really autobiographical, Enrico draws from real-life experiences in his comics, which range from his video game addiction in “Controller,” to relationship drama in “Stupid and Unkind” and “Jam in the Band.”

Enrico writes “it’s part of an interview series they have been doing with indie cartoonist. Last week focused on Monica Gallagher and next week should be an interview with MK Reed.”
Please note, this is not a dream, nor a hoax, not an imaginary story. We have reached the point in the cultural assimilation of comics that you don’t have to be Frank Miller or Jim Lee to get interviewed in one of the most famous daily newspapers in the world. You can be a hard working, talented indie creator whose biggest public exposure previously was probably sitting behind a table at MoCCA.

Congrats to Robin on the great coverage. We’re living in a world even The Beat could never have imagined.

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Now on sale.

The Secret Invasion Hype Invasion continues with a trailer-like “webizode” featuring some vintage era Skrull artwork.

Plus Marvel_B0y has some scurrilous, shocking gossip, and he’s now back to posting at night when we won’ get caught stealing internet bandwidth.

Here’s the dark little secret that no one outside the office walls is talking about: Joe Q is about two weeks away from getting fired. Not just shown the door but having it slammed so hard it knocks him on his ass. He can sing and dance about how much of a success OMD was as much as he wants but everyone knows he messed up. Both licensing and west coast are pissed and even people in editorial know it was a mistake. There have been at least three meetings in the last couple of weeks about how we can get Peter and MJ back.

Shock! Horror! Can it be true?

§ CBR interviews Kazu Kibuishi who still has much to say about the process of making AMULET:

Was it hard writing children characters? It was more difficult than I imagined it would be. Rather than pulling from my own recent life experiences, I had to try thinking about people who were just starting life and have yet to make major decisions that will affect their future. Basically, it was really difficult to put myself in the shoes of the ten year old me, since I had changed so much.

§ A full Comic Foundry party reports, complete with pictures. Conclusion: Jen (above) looks great but we need a stylist!

§ Tom Brevoort battles ennui:

I’ve been getting very sloppy with updating this blog these last few weeks. This is only my eleventh post this month. Part of the reason for that is obvious:I’m right in the middle of another massive crossover, so the amount of free time I have is minimal. But I think that part of it is also that it’s getting progressively harder to find new subjects to ramble on about every day. I’ve been pounding these keys for coming up on two years now, and that means that I’ve already covered a lot of diverse subjects. There’s only so many times anybody wants to hear me grumble about the same old things again and again.

Tom, Tom, when you are tired of blogging, you are tired of life.

§ He may just be Rafer Roberts of Plastic Farm to us, but to the local paper its Jefferson man pens full-length graphic novel.

§ Nerd mom strives to raise nerd kids:

The Girlchild was introduced to DC Comics characters early in life, when Mommy went a touch overboard in her Justice League Unlimited obsession. Girlchild was presented with a Supergirl Barbie and a Wonder Woman doll for her second birthday, and she bonded with the Barbie satisfactorily. She is enamored of all things Supergirl: clothing, stationery, ad yes, even floor mats. Living near a Six Flags, Supergirl items are even more readily available than they might normally be.

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Actually we used Duane Reade’s “Multi Eraser” knock-off, but either way, when your light switches are clean, you are clean.

PS: Thursday is pretty anticlimactic without Lost. Sniff.

Never let it be said that Stan isn’t down with the kids.

Viz has a 32 page preview of Takehiro Inoue’s SLAM DUNK up to read. You should.

Via John Jakala, who compares the current translation to the one from Gutsoon a few year’s back.

Boom! Studios is looking for an editor:

COMIC BOOK EDITOR WANTED! BOOM! Studios is looking for the right candidate to join our dynamic team of editors and cover some of our licensed properties. If you’re smart, organized, have a good sense of story and design, and excellent phone skills, live in Los Angeles and play well with others, we’d like to hear from you. Must be able to politely and professionally navigate the tricky waters of materials approvals. Love comic books, gaming, films and TV? Let us know! Send cover letter, resume, and references to resumes@boom-studios.com, subject line: Editorial Position. Please note, emails for anything other than this position will be immediately deleted unread.

Go to it, kids.

MySpace’s comic book page has just been revamped, with a new look and new mottos, such as the one at left, and a new commitment to daily updates and previews. Most of MySpace’s comics initiatives are spearheaded by Sam Humphries, a longtime comics insider who has been doing much behind the scenes. MySpace is an increasingly important promotional tool for many comics companies, from Dark Horse’s DARK HORSE PRESENTS comics to Boom’s controversial previews. The blog post announcing the upgrade could serve as a comics stump speech:

Anyone who says comic books are not cool, vital, and popular forms of entertainment today only has to type myspace.com/comicbooks into their browser to see that it simply isn’t true. Whether you love comics, manga, graphic novels, or all of the above: YOU prove the haters and the doubters wrong, every day, just by being who you are.

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A local politician in New York is eager to jump on the comics marketing bandwagon. Queens Councilman Hiram Monserrate wants to make “Gotham City” the official nickname of the Big Apple, which already seems to have a nickname but whatever.

“I see that as a marketing tool, ‘Come visit the real Gotham City,’ taking advantage of this movie which will be one of those gate-breaking, record-selling movies like it always is,” he said.

This led to an outcry from New York Magazine:

Gotham City is not New York! The differences are legion: Their geographies are totally dissimilar; Gotham’s street gangs are charmingly multiracial; multiple sources place the city in New Jersey, not New York. And, most glaring, the made-up metropolis is plagued by corrupt hypocrites in the highest levels of government — a ludicrous fictional conceit definitively indicating that “Gotham City” exists in a never-neverland fantasy world that only a child would find plausible.

While this outcry is one that only a child would find entirely serious, there is some grave debate here, heard yesterday morning on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Should New York be named Gotham City? Or Metropolis? Or Latveria?

Several sources are reporting that cartoonist Don Rosa is recovering from surgery. Mike Gold at ComicMix writes:

It probably goes without saying that an artist’s most significant tools are his eyes. People have figured out alternate ways of drawing, but they’ve got to see what they’re doing. So it is with great trepidation that we note legendary Disney Duck artist Don Rosa, a regular at many a convention and fan event, underwent emergency surgery last week to cure a detached retina.

It will not be known if the procedure was successful for several more weeks, but Don is resting at home (in a prone position) and will have to undergo six months of recovery downtime. He hopes to return to the convention scene this fall.

Lovely Sir Ian McKellen often answers questions from fans on his webpage, and in his latest installment he all but promises that he will be back as Gandalf in the film version of the Hobbit. “I will, if Peter Jackson and I have anything to do with it, he being the producer and me being, on the whole, a very lucky actor,” he writes.

That’s the good news. More problematic is Sir Ian’s interpretation of life in the undying lands:

Q: I have read lord of the rings and am enamoured by it. what do you think happens to gandalf once he leaves middle earth and goes to the grey havens? does he have someone to return to?

A: I had always supposed that the Grey Havens were an eternal life of some sort. But not even Tolkien would presume to anticipate what a Heaven is really like. As for companionship there, don’t forget that he takes Frodo and Bilbo with him and he loves hobbits. If you meant that there might be a Mrs Gandalf or a civil partner at the end of the journey who knows? But I doubt it.

While we share Sir Ian’s doubts about Civil Partnerships in Valinor, he should have pointed out that Gandalf is Maiar, an angellic spirit and a servant of Manwe and Eru.

Technorati Tags: Hobbitses

§ Mark Evanier followed up on his post about why audience questions aren’t always that great:

One other thing I oughta mention: I’ve done a couple of public interviews where the interviewee stipulated certain topics that could not be discussed. That happens. Years ago at a comic convention, I did a one-on-one with Harvey Kurtzman, who among his other achievements was the founding editor of Mad. An unannounced condition of Harvey’s appearance was the agreement that he would not be asked on stage why he’d left Mad or about any of the business-type aspects of his relationship there.

§ There should be more Manga 101 things like this concise profile of Arina Tanemura .

Arina Tanemura is a shoujo manga superstar, with hit series such as Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and Full Moon wo Sagashite under her belt. Her current ongoing series is Gentleman’s Alliance†, which is being released in English by VIZ.

Tanemura’s debut work was a 1997 series called I-O-N, about a girl named Ion Tsubaragi who develops psychic powers. After that she charged ahead with a collection of shorts called Firecracker is Melancholy, and dove into her first big hit: Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, a magical girl series about a high school girl who transforms to fight demons. Jeanne was followed up by the shorter Time Stranger Kyoko, which is a slightly sci-fi magical girl series set in the 30th century.

§ It’s been a long time since we checked in on John K’s blog. Here he analyses the humor of Don Martin:

My pal Eddie has a term he uses when he likes something funny. He calls it “Ignorant Humor”. I think that’s a funny term too, but hope he never uses it in front of a layman or cartoon executive, because it might give the impression that cartoons are stupid and easy to do.

§ David Hajdu author of THE TEN CENT PLAGUE is interviewed at Vulture:

Speaking of pictures, our only beef with the book is that there are only four pages of them! Why
so few? That was my decision. My editor wanted more. To me, I didn’t want people to pick up the book and mistake it for a coffee-table-ish thing about fun comics of the fifties. I wanted the seriousness of the issues involved to come across. I wanted the book to look kind of text-y and grayish; for a long time I also wanted a somber black-and-white photograph on the cover. That one I lost! And I’m really glad I lost it because the Charles Burns cover is great.

§ Oni’s June solicits. Issue 2 of Tek Jansen! Did you think you would live to see it?

§Whitney Matheson teams with Tim Sale for mischief at the ‘Tope [Via Matt Maxwell]

§ Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaardhas no regrets

“I would do it the same way (again) because I think that this cartoon crisis in a way is a catalyst which is intensifying the adaptation of Islam,” he said in an interview on Wednesday, speaking in English.

“Without a cartoon that provoked the Muslims, it would have been something else; a novel a play, a movie, this situation would have occurred sooner or later anyway.”

§ Two early silent anime cartoons have been found in Japan. They are the work of artists including Junichi Kouchi and Seitaro Kitayama and date from 1917. No word on whether they contained the popular “bloomer shots” of the era.

§ When the hell did this happen?

This has nothing directly to do with comics but this brilliant piece by Eric Alterman in The New Yorker is one of the best things we’ve ever read about the internet, and how internet news is changing not only how the publishing business is run, but how society processes information:

Taking its place, of course, is the Internet, which is about to pass newspapers as a source of political news for American readers. For young people, and for the most politically engaged, it has already done so. As early as May, 2004, newspapers had become the least preferred source for news among younger people. According to “Abandoning the News,” published by the Carnegie Corporation, thirty-nine per cent of respondents under the age of thirty-five told researchers that they expected to use the Internet in the future for news purposes; just eight per cent said that they would rely on a newspaper. It is a point of ironic injustice, perhaps, that when a reader surfs the Web in search of political news he frequently ends up at a site that is merely aggregating journalistic work that originated in a newspaper, but that fact is not likely to save any newspaper jobs or increase papers’ stock valuation.

We have a lot to say about it, but that should await a more suitable venue.

As economic morons, we were also interested in this piece by Peter Dreier in HuffPo which gives a longer historical context for the mortgage mess. We’d imagine a lot of people would disagree with his analysis. Like we said, we barely know how to put pennies in a jar, so it’s all voodoo to us.

Meanwhile, we had a nice time at the COMIC FOUNDRY party last night, and the new issues looks amaz-o! We didn’t take any pictures, but plenty o’ other folk did and hopefully they will be showing up online. Seen around, Yuku Shimizu, Ben Trinh of Rabid Rabbit, Rocketship’s Alex Cox, DC’s Alex Segura, Virgin Comics’ Michelle Gomes, Valerie D’Orazio, irrepressible Torsten Adair, and of course the stars of the night, Tim Leong and Laura Hudson. We surely are forgetting many people because our throat is sore from yapping too much.

Otherwise, we’re kinda tuckered out again and it’s a quiet week. In other news we’ve upgraded to the beta of Firefox 3, but it’s in beta and bookmarks behave oddly. Plus no “Copy as a Link.” We also started a Tumblog, but its not ready for public unveiling yet.

Plus, we decided we really like Hugo Montenegro.

David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America has been getting a great deal of press. The story of how the government investigated then all but destroyed comics, spurred by the pronouncements of psychologist Dr. Fredric Wertham, is an incredible story that needs to be told. In this weeks issue, the suddenly comics loving New Yorker presents a superb essay by Louis Menand that not only recounts the main points of the congressional witch hunt, but analyses the views in Bart Beaty’s Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture, which paints a more favorable picture of Dr. Wertham — if not for his views on comics than for his other writings, which were pioneering efforts towards the well-being of children, the end of racial segregation and even the benefits of fandom subculture.

The fall of the comic book in the ’50s has a much larger social context given what else was going on in the US, as Menand writes:

If it makes sense to speak of a Cold War culture in the United States—and it’s a concept that would have to accommodate a pretty wide assortment of artifacts, from Partisan Review to the transistor radio—then one of its classic moments was the comic-book inquisition. The event took place on April 21, 1954, at the Foley Square U.S. Courthouse (now the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse), in New York City, where a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee charged with investigating the causes of juvenile delinquency took on an imminent danger within: the comic-book industry. The hearings were televised.

At a guess, most of the people reading this blog know the name Wertham; not as many, surely, know exactly what happened in 1954. For those who don’t, Menand’s piece offers a brisk summary:

The hearings went on for another two days, and some experts questioned Wertham’s methods and conclusions, but the industry was badly wounded. According to a Gallup poll taken in November, 1954, seventy per cent of Americans believed that comic books were a cause of juvenile crime. From the fall of 1954 through the summer of 1955, laws restricting the sale of comic books were passed in more than a dozen states, and there were also public comic-book burnings.

The article is online, everyone should read it. Understanding the effects of Dr. Wertham and his book Seduction of the Innocent is key to understanding much of the subsequent history of comics. While the obvious effects — the establishment of the Comics Code and the end of dozens of publishers and the ends of hundreds of careers — would cast a pall over comics for a long time, some other effects were more self-inflicted; Dr. Wertham would act as a boogieman who scared comics out of doing anything groundbreaking for years to come.
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Must reading: Brave Kristy Valenti starts a methodology-based (or as much as it can be based) series entitled Gender and Reading Habits . In Part One. she looks at the well-known factoid that bys stop reading at a certain age, and looks at how this demographic is affected by superhero comics:

If one visits ERIC, the Education Resources Information Center, on the Internet, he or she will find scores of articles on why, in the U.S., boys lag behind girls in reading. Many of these articles suggest using graphic novels as a lure for boys, [2] but it is Christine Welldon’s popular “Addressing the Gender Gap in Boys’ Reading,”[3] that’s of particular relevance. Welldon’s “school literacy initiative was to help close the gender gap in reading,” so she invented a club aimed at the older elementary school grades.

Valenti marshals as much statistical evidence as she can and talks to librarians to explore the topic, which shows that for teen boys, books are as great a marketing wasteland as superhero comics have been for adult women.

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UPDATE: You can read the first 12 pages of SECRET INVASION at EW’s website. PLUS, Nisha Gopalaninterviews Brian Bendis:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How much input did you have in this event, and what kind of directives did Marvel give you? BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS: I was writing both Avengers books [the New Avengers] and [Mighty Avengers], so I was pretty much there for everything…. I’m also part of that room [in a Marvel retreat that takes place in New York City each year] that decides those things. Me and Jeph Loeb [DC’s Batman: Hush] and Ed Brubaker [Captain America] and Mark Millar [Civil War] are there. We scream and yell at each other — it’s hilarious. You’d literally think that real political agendas that affect the world were being [debated]. In fact, me and Loeb were having at it just at the last retreat.

As we mentioned yesterday, purported disgruntled Marvel staffer Marvel_b0y is blogging again and he has learned nothing from all the misery he has caused.

To all of you haters out there that keep calling me a hater, let me spell this out for you. I do not hate Marvel comics, I do not hate Marvel. I do not want to bring the entire company down. I am not doing this because I am an attention whore. I just don’t like some of the things that they have done and I am trying to use this as a forum to get Marvel to rethink some of these editorial decisions, starting at the top. I actually DO like some books!

He then goes on to plug some books. This, coupled with the fact that he’s posting during the day, when supposedly computer activity and whatnot could be monitored, indicates to us that this Marvel–b0y is indeed a Skrull plant. Is this the same MB as the first bitter, disenchanted blogger? Forensics seem to say yes.

But now a new copy-cat career killer is on the prowl. Another Marvel “insider” is leaking even juicier spoilers to a blog that we won’t link to. Is the blogger in question being played? Is this disinfo being leaked? Do you really care? From our honest viewpoint, SECRET INVASION looks like a fairly entertaining Marvel mini, and if it’s a good story, all the spoilers in the world won’t ruin it entirely. If you want to get even more into the Skrullduggery, marvel has made the entire Secret Invasion Prologue available via its digital comics site. (You’ll need to register to read the whole thing, True Believer!)

Even more importantly, a Marvel_b0y look-a-like has struck BLOG! the Fantagraphics blog! Is this the first in a series of indie/Marvel crossover>

Find Marvel_b0y if you can, which you can’t. I’m squatting where there’s an audience besides the Skrulls and their wannabe minions. Props to DB for slipping his way into this blog (thanks for the easy pickings, Blogger). The tight tshirt crowd at Fantagraphics won’t mind the traffic and besides that Gilbert Hernandez knows how to draw a real superheroine.

Conclusion: NO ONE IS SAFE.

(Above graphic created by Dorian and you must hit that link to get ALL the good shit. Thanks, amigo!)