John Jackson Miller does his usual insightful number crunching with February’s sale numbers:

…the February 2008 Top 300 as a group…sold 1.22 million more copies than the February 2001 grouping, an increase of 24%. Why? Mid-list strength. The 5,000-copy mark was at 191st place in February 2001; today, it’s at 226th place. The major publishers are simply offering more titles now than they were then. Last month, DC had 88 offerings in the Top 300, and Marvel had 83. Back in February 2001, DC had 73 — and Marvel had 42!

The major publishers’ slates were actually smaller in February 2008 than they had been in recent months — the top five publishers placed 232 comics in the Top 300, versus 246 in January. The result was that 32 publishers made the Top 300, a larger number than in a while. One new publisher made the list for the first time: the numerically named Th3rdworld, whose Space Doubles #1 came in 300th place.

This is just a tiny TASTE of the analysis Miller offers. For instance, he even looks at a 20-year comparison in sales:

While overall sales projections for individual months of 1988 remain even further off — though there is data, which remains to be crunched — some facts are known about individual issues. With multiple distributors and few reporting sales, determining the top comic book from sales charts is not straightforward, but the top comic book for February 1988 was likely Uncanny X-Men #231.

Marvel sold 260,800 copies of the issue to direct market distributors. Initial orders from Capital City Distribution are known to have been 67,200 copies, or 25.8% of the total direct market orders. The direct market accounted for 64% of Marvel’s sales of the issue, which had final newsstand sales of 99,800 copies of the issue and 48,900 copies in subscription, foreign, and other special markets sales. The total sales for the issue, 409,500 copies, was very close to the average of 408,925 copies Marvel reported to the Postal Service for all Uncanny X-Men issues in 1988. Average print runs for the title for the year were 633,760 copies, suggesting that wastage for Uncanny X-Men #231 in the newsstand market was on the order of 69%. Marvel printed approximately three copies to sell one.

More charts and graphs we can barely understand in the link.

ComicsPRO, the organization for comics retaielrs, held it’s conference last week, and Matt Price has a bunch of posts on the public presentations. Scroll back for reports on presentations by DC, the Hero Initiative, Graphitti Designs, and the CBLDF, among others. There’s bits of news scattered throughout, like this from Jeff Smith:

In May, “Stupid Stupid Rat Tales” and “Rose” will come back into print from Cartoon Books. At some point, a color version including some of the Rat Tales with a new framing sequence will come from Scholastic. Smith’s latest series, “RASL,” sold about 24,000, Smith said. After surveying the audience, Smith said he planned on reprinting “RASL” No. 1. Each three-issue arc will be collected in oversized trade paperbacks of about 110 pages. Another new product from Cartoon Books is a 2-foot plush of Fone Bone, the hero of “Bone,” which will sell for about $40.

Over the weekend the Marvel-b0Y Live Journal was taken down, meaning you can’t read the very mild spoilers he posted about Secret Invasion which we read and have already forgotten — spoiler: a character will die! Was it for real? The industry was abuzz with speculation this weekend, and even some people at Marvel weren’t sure what was going on. While Occam’s Razor suggests that it really was just a dumb intern, the idea of Marvel planting a blog by a supposed insider while their big event was about trusted sources turning out to have been alien plants all along is so cool, you almost wish they had done it. One of our own correspondents point out a past blog posting by Tem Brevoort again

In the meantime, watch the skies for some of the bizarre and probably ill-considered new concepts we’ll be throwing out in the weeks and months to come. They may be stupid, or childish, or idiotic–but they won’t be boring!

PS: I’m staying out of the other blogosphere brou-ha-ha. It’s pretty obvious that the people stirring the pot just want to see their names in bold, and I’m not much inclined to go along with the plan.

Nylon Magazine previews the new line of DKNY men’s wear which sports art by Paul Pope.

Take a break from lamb chops and chocolate:

When: Sunday March 23, 7 pm
Where: KGB Bar 85 East 4th Street

This year, a lotta humor and a little drama with:

Julia Wertz (Fart Party)
Liz Baille (My Brain Hurts!)
Sam Henderson (Magic Whistle)
Jason Little (Motel Art Improvement Service)
Tom Hart (Hutch Owen)

Festivities will begin at 7 pm, and is free- just buy a drink ya cheapies!

PR with emphasis added. Of some interest is the fact that now what we’d call “modern” or contemporary Marvel and DC creators are beginning to show up on the ballot, like Len Wein and Barry Windsor-Smith.

Voting is now open for the Hall of Fame category of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. In a change from previous years, the judges have arrived at the nominations early in the year, and the voting in this category will be online only. According to Eisner Awards administrator Jackie Estrada, this change was instituted to test the new online voting process for the awards and to reduce the number of categories the judges will have to deal with when they meet in early April to determine the rest of the nominees.

The Hall of Fame nominees are Matt Baker, John Broome, Reed Crandall, Rudolph Dirks, Arnold Drake, George Evans, Creig Flessel, Graham Ingels, Mort Meskin, Tarpe Mills, Gilbert Shelton, George Tuska, Mort Weisinger, Len Wein, and Barry Windsor-Smith.

Eligible voters can visit www.eisnervote.com to register and then select up to four picks in the Hall of Fame category. The deadline for voting is April 18. To vote, you must be a professional working in the comics industry, whether as a creator (writer, artist, cartoonist, colorist, letterer), a publisher or editor, or a retailer (comics store owner or manager). Further eligibility information is provided at the site.

The judges have also selected two individuals to automatically be inducted into the Hall of Fame: the pioneering cartoonist R. F. Outcault (who created “The Yellow Kid” and “Buster Brown”) and Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (who founded what is now DC Comics and published the first comic book to contain all-new material, New Fun #1, in February 1935).

The 2008 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of John Davis (director of pop culture markets, Bookazine), Paul DiFilippo (SF and comics author), Atom! Freeman (owner of Brave New World Comics in Santa Clarita, CA), Jeff Jensen (senior writer, Entertainment Weekly), and Eva Volin (supervising children’s librarian for the Alameda Free Library in Alameda, CA).

The judges were assisted by students at Vermont’s Center for Cartoon Studies, who made suggestions for Hall of Fame nominees and provided background information on the people they suggested. Eisner Awards administrator Jackie Estrada notes that the involvement of the students was very helpful and is looking forward to working with Steve Bissette and CCS students again next year.

The online voting process is being conducted by Mel Thompson and Associates, the official tabulators of the Eisner Awards. The rest of the categories will be available for online voting in mid-April. In addition, paper ballots will still be mailed out and will be tabulated along with the online votes for the other categories.

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are conducted under the auspices of Comic-Con International: San Diego, and the gala awards ceremony will be held on July 25 in San Diego. Further information about the awards can be found at http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_main.shtml.

Dark Horse has been kind enough to give us a peek at the cover of their first collection of Achewood strips by Chris Onstad: The Great Outdoor Fight.
This will look strong on our shelves!

Disgruntled Marvel assistant or viral plant? U decide:

Oh, and as usual, Bendis continues to write bad fiction. Last night he claimed 10 people knew who I was already at Marvel. Well, no one came to escort me out and my key card works just fine. I’m not an idiot. I play the good soldier at work, smiles and GO TEAM attitude. But here I can say whatever I want and I will, until the day they catch me (which, the way things look here, will be a LOOOOOONG time if ever). It’s easy to cover tracks, anyone with half a brain and an internet connection can do this without anyone really getting to them. It’s so simple it’s almost pathetic! Don’t post at work and they can’t track you. I dumped my old LJ account with more personal, identifiable posts to start this new one. (I DID keep my favorite posts from the past because there are those of you out there who DO like me, and things you should know about me!) I’m not stupid enough to get caught. They never caught “Felicia” and they won’t catch me.

Kevin Melrose fills you in on the background.

UPDATE: Tom had an interesting comment which sums up my feelings entirely;

Now that Marvel and DC so greatly emphasize their books as vehicles for plot permutations — as opposed to peak experiences, say, or places to find this month’s great art — this heightens the value of that information as a kind of cultural currency, to the point where a once-novel pleasure, which probably had its greatest expression in the old Amazing Heroes Preview Specials, has become the unquestioned prize in a battle between fans and pros over what should be revealed and how. In other words, if the main selling point of your comic is a new and bold direction for Mucous Man, then anything surrendering for public consumption the details of that direction may work against sales. In contrast, if your emphasis is “another stellar effort from Claremont/Byrne” or “the latest babe drawings from Michael Turner,” plot reveals won’t devalue that experience as much.

But that ship sailed off to some summer place long ago.

Yes, Michael’s back. The worst-kept secret in TV is finally out in the open. So, how did Michael become Kevin Johnson? Let’s discuss after the jump.

WARNING: There will be discussion about who did and did not die in tonight’s episode. You’ve been warned. No griping.

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A reader writes to inform us that Jill Thompson now has her own forum on the Lurid Forum. That in turn reminded us that she has a blog which we don’t check nearly often enough. Thompson is yet another cartoonist who has been locked away working on a loooooong series of graphic novels for quite a while, in this case Magic Trixie:

I finally finished Magic Trixie #2. Break out the champage and chocolate! After months of life throwing horrible obstacles in my path…I packed up the final spot illos yesterday and sent them off to Harper Collins! Yay! So. One hundred and eighty six pages of painted art in the can ( minus covers and title page art and spot illos) and only one hundred and eighty six left to go. And, while I am very pleased with Miss Magic Trixie and her monstery pals. I can honestly say, I wouldn’t mind a plain old pen and ink vacation! It will be lovely to go to a convention in Spain next week and do some pencil drawings. I do not know why I didn’t think that drawing and painting 372 pages would not be a bit daunting…it seemed like a breeze at the time. But, I will be very proud of myself once I’ve finished all my books. Really, I think it’s at about the 53 page mark that your brain goes…”Isn’t this enough? Whaddaya mean I have another 40 pages to go? You must be insane!”

Taking a look at the art, it can only be judged the best kind of insanity.

Yesterday’s announcement that Borders was having a tough time coming up with financing for expansion and was contemplating a potential sale led to a bad day on Wall Street, but the outlook for chain book stores isn’t all that rosy over all says Marketwatch:

Shares tumbled more than 20% in morning trading [for Borders] ahead of the rescheduled conference call, and are down more than 70% for the year. Borders’ quandary would have seemed less gloomy in 2006, or even a year ago, when private-equity firms were falling over each other to snap up specialty retailers.

Meanwhile, its top rival Barnes & Noble Inc. posted a 9% decline in quarterly profit and said it expects fiscal first-quarter same-store sales at its namesake stores to be “slightly negative.” Its shares climbed, but it’s looking at a loss of more than 20% of its market value for the year.

Many things led the bookstores to this gloomy place. A book is the ultimate retail commodity, so shoppers either go for the lowest price — which leads to margin-killing price wars — or the best shopping experience.

According to the piece, both chains are rooted in their 90s heyday which saw consumers flock to the “third place” ambiance of free reading, comfy chairs and coffee bars.
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The San Jose Mercury News asks if the shaky economy could lead to slashes in sales for all those movie spinoff toys that are coming out based on Indy, Iron Man, Prince Caspian etc etc? Not necessarily.

Longtime Bay Area comic book store owner Joe Field said comics and graphic novels - a core piece of the spring merchandising push - are classic “counter-economy” products.

Comics and some related items, Field said, become “inexpensive nesting entertainment” when budgets are stressed. Field, who owns Flying Colors Comics in Concord, said people decide they can’t afford the theater, concerts or eating out, so they stay home reading, playing games and returning their attention to neglected hobbies.

Amazon toy manager Sarah Wood states that their toy sales have been growing thus far this year.

This post by Molly Flatt in the Guardian has been linked to by several bloggers, starting with Tom. Flatt is definitely of the “Think! Feel! Comics are a great medium!” school, but the comments get a bit lively, although some of the Newsarama-esque ones were removed before we could cut’n'paste. (Damn you, polite literate newspapers!)
A poster named ‘Anytimefrances’ takes point on the rebuttal:

my mottoe is now - people who read comic books also puff the ‘magic’ dragon and listen to bands for hours on end. nothing personal M, you know, but that was the way I found it, and it’s a fool’s paradise. going back, always going back, to childishness, grieving over the lost innocence, recovery, salvage, the joys, the absence of responsibility, always gulping at the jug of delight, free, delighting the senses.

was it St Paul who said, now that I am and adult, i have given up childish things.

Harumph. Must comments are more supportive, such as ‘Alarming’ of Manchester :

If you take a comic strip like Zippy the Pinhead - the writing is very literate and takes in philosophy, social comment, high and low art references, toe curling puns and makes unexpected connections whilst the drawing is very beautiful. The fact that he can carry on producing high quality work in a daily comic strip which doesn’t dumb things down but which is also not too intellectually remote is something to be admired.

Hint: The comment thread is definitely much more fun if you imagine it being read like those letters of complaint on Monty Python.

Fresh off the news that his AMULET gn is getting the movie treatment, Kazu Kibuishi’s long running COPPER webcomic has been sold to Scholastic, ICv2 reports.

The Copper collection, planned for Spring 2010, will include both existing and new material. It will be released in both trade paperback and library hardcover editions. Judith Hansen of Hansen Literary Agency represented Kibuishi.

We would guess that the huge success of DIARY OF A WIMPY KID has webcomics on many book editors’ radar these days (yes yes it is not really a webcomic, but creator Jeff Kinney usually refers to it as such), and the idea of putting out a book based on something that people have been reading free for years is not really so daunting at all. Ya hear that?

Technorati Tags: Scholastic

§ “Manga, anime growing in southeast Kansas “ — The National Guard has been dispatched, but can they halt this growing threat?

§ In comics history this may well go down as “The Symposium Era”. Add the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books to the list of bookish confabs spotlighting GRAPHIC NOVELS.

For the first time, the Festival of Books will offer “The Comix Strip,” an entirely new comic book, graphic novel and Manga-devoted event area, offering attendees access to the genres’ exhibitors, retailers and newest issues. Mike Mignola, creator of the Hellboy comic series, and other comics luminaries are slated to participate in special panels, programming and autograph sessions.

§ Over at Comics Comics, the critics don’t mince their words, and that’s how we like it, but Dan Nadel, who also runs ultra-high art publisher PictureBox, shows he has some refreshingly catholic taste in a recent review column:

Punisher War Journal: Matt Fraction writes it and Howard Chaykin draws it. I have to say, I really like this title. Fraction is firmly in the Morrison/Milligan self aware tradition, but he has a sarcastic, easy style — somehow more casual than the the Brits. I like his work here, which so far concerns washed super villains going about their daily lives. Basically these are noir slice of life stories, like a riff on Eisner’s Spirit, where The Punisher only appears at the end to, well, make it a Punisher comic. Chaykin’s art is awfully fun. He’s never been the most subtle of artists, but he’s using photoshop is some very curious/possibly retarded ways and I like it. In any case, can you believe Howard Chaykin is drawing the Punisher? Remember American Flagg? Or Cody Starbuck?

Technorati Tags: JMS, Symposiums

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The first picture of Snake Eyes, played by Ray Park, from the GI JOE movie has been released. We give this its own spot because it’s a nice spot to salute Larry Hama, who wrote tons and tons of GI Joe comics and is a creative consultant on the film. Hama is the kind of storytelling craftsman you don’t see much in comics any more because, well…there just isn’t much call to write 155 issues of a licensed comic book any more. He’s currently writing some stuff for Devil’s Due. In addition to writing comics, he also played roles in MASH and was in the original Broadway cast of the Stephen Sondheim musical Pacific Overture. In other words, he was also a comics crossover star long before it became fashionable. Plus, he’s just one of the coolest dudes to talk to you’ll ever meet.

§ Has Tintin been cast? The Daily Mail thinks so. This is only a rumor, but they claim Thomas Sangster, 17, is on the job as the boy adventurer. Sangster is an experienced thespian, having already been adorable in Nanny MacPhee, and cute in Love Actually. The Daily Mail doesn’t identify when this picture was taken, but that is one youthful looking 17-year-old if it’s remotely contemporary.

Just to remind everyone of TINTIN movie facts: thus far it is slated to be THREE movies, one directed by Steven Spielberg, one directed by Peter Jackson, one by UNKNOWN and they will be mo-cap cgi. Mocap mogul Andy Serkis has been cast as Captain Haddock. Of the filming process, Jackson said
“We’re making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people — but real Herge people!”

Other than this, little is known. So far.

§ AICN is reporting that Matthew Vaughn (LAYER CAKE, STARDUST)will adapt Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s KICK-ASS.

[Vaughn is] evidently holed up with Jane Goldman (his writing partner on STARDUST) right now and working hard to get the script right. Considering Millar’s only got the first two issues out at this point, this may turn out to be a case like Edgar Wright and SCOTT PILGRIM, where Vaughn is working directly with Millar, already privy to where the series is headed.

KICK-ASS, you’ll recall, is an Icon title, meaning Millar and JR JR should get a nice piece of any ensuing film. Good one.
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Mark will be along with his usual summary but can we just say: “WE KNEW IT!”

Dear friends, The Beat has been blogging for nigh on four years now, and when we began, our goal was to put comics culture into the context of real world culture, and make cartoonists feel good about themselves by treating the medium as a place of ideas and influence, not the island of misfit toys. Now it appears that this movement may have gone too far. Just as the literary acceptance of comics began with the infamous New York Times mag cover story, the Times may have officially made this THE DAY COMICS JUMPED THE SHARK.

The evidence? A FASHION spread (above) on Indie cartoonists taken at Splat:

A PARADE of awkward TV and movie antiheros — think Ugly Betty, Velma from “Scooby-Doo,” McLovin from “Superbad” — has given nerdism a boost in cachet. Now come their off-screen counterparts, the crowd at Splat!, the graphic novel symposium that took place on Saturday at the New York Center for Independent Publishing in Midtown. The cartoonists, publishers, librarians and manga fanciers in the crowd elevated the overtly scholarly Poindexter look to a retro art form.

Skipping the requisite gadgetry (Bluetooth headsets and the like), most cultivated an aura of benign self-neglect. Overstuffed messenger bags, weathered cords, Converse sneakers and trilbys contributed to the effect. Tousled hair, windbreakers and spectacles, too, played a part in transforming these studiously nondescript characters into brashly confident avatars of cool.

Jim Milliot at Publishers weekly is reporting that the Borders book chain has hired J.P. Morgan and Merrill Lynch to help them look into a possible sale in order to get more cash to move forward with restructing.

CEO George Jones said that given the tight credit market it was becoming expensive, and at times impossible, to find new funds. To help ease that situation, Pershing Capital, the private equity firm that has a large stake in Borders and two board seats, has agreed to lend the company $42.5 million. In addition, Pershing has agreed to acquire Borders’s Australian, New Zealand, Singapore and Paperchase subsidiaries for $125 million if Borders cannot find another buyer at a better price. A deal to sell the Australian/New Zealand unit fell apart last week.

The infusion of capital from Pershing will give Borders enough money to continue to revamp its operations. Still, Jones said the completion of its turnaround may take longer than expected. “Overall, we believe that the 2009 financial targets we set back in March of last year remain attainable, yet within the current economic environment, we will be slowed in our progress and expect that we’ll reach them later than originally anticipated. Still, we believe our strategic plan remains the right path toward achieving these goals,” Jones said.

Borders has had many economic woes in recent years; any blow to its bottom line would be a blow to, certainly manga sales.

Tons o’ guests have been recently announced for this year’s New York Comic-Con, including Gail Simone, Orson Scott Card and now =…the Venture Bros. crew of Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer will be on hand. REMINDER: ONLY THREE MONTHS TO GO! Season 3 debuts this June. It’s been a long lonely year (!) without the Ventures, and we’ve had to make do with beautiful concept art on Stephen De Stefano’s blog to keep us going. WE haven’t been running much NYCC PR, but these creator bios are a welcome reminder of why we can’t wait to go adventuring with Team Venture once again!

ABOUT JACKSON PUBLICK:
Jackson Publick III was born in 1971. The only son of Jackson Publick, Jr., author of the popular Rusty Venture series of boys’ adventure novels, he forsook his literary birthright to pursue comic books and a degree in the liberal arts. He was successful at neither, and after a period of sky country hoboing and soul-searching, he decided to put his limited skill-set to use in the Creative Warfare department of the Marine Corps; Psi-Ops division. His most notable achievements during his short tenure were designs for something called “The Mindcopter,” and a squadron of giant, flying metal lions which, when reconfigured and joined together via electrical current, formed a giant, flying metal man. Neither project was ever put into production and, upon learning that he had plagiarized the latter, the Marine Corps discharged Publick summarily, but honorably. It was to be the most important day ever. Drawing on the powers and influence of his amazing Bilderberg Group superpals, he then made up The Venture Bros.

ABOUT DOC HAMMER:
Doc Hammer was born in 1626 in Hamar, Norway under the name Erik VonHamer. Being the son of a humble cobbler, not much was expected of the young man other than to cobble, and to not complain about all the cobbling. But Doc was destined for greater things. “Greater things” being not cobbling. At seventeen, with nothing more than really well made shoes and a dream, he made his way to Antwerp to study oil painting under the great Rubens. Within a year the two were at odds. Rubens spoke (infrequently) of Doc as “that creepy skinny kid,” and Doc spoke of Rubens’s work as “kinda unattractive if you really look at it.” By 1648, Doc had relocated to Leiden, where he found his master in Rembrandt. It was there, in his 23rd year, that Doc met “She Who Was To Deliver The Kiss Of Eternal Youth.” After a spicy courtship, “She Who Was To Deliver The Kiss Of Eternal Youth” and Doc were married. By 1650, Doc had grown weary of immortality and committed an unsuccessful suicide by burying his never-corpse in the basement of a Dutch cottage. In 1870, Doc again resurfaced. Using the name Vilhelm Hammershoi, Doc resumed his painting career with mild success. After thanking his bride for “the immortality thing” and nicely reminding her that he had “heard every one of her stories like a billion times,” “She Who Was To Deliver The Kiss Of Eternal Youth” and Doc split up in 1916. Again, Doc literally went underground ’til the 1920’s, when Doc (now using the name Armond Hammer) resurfaced and made a whole mess of money selling overpriced meds to the Russians. Sick of all the baking soda jokes, Doc faked his death yet again. Biding his time ’til the MC Hammer thing had blown over, Doc again resurfaced as “Doc Hammer.” Today, Doc still paints in oils and writes, voices, and does other menial tasks for The Venture Bros. (A show you can watch on cable TV, were you to have cable TV.)

§ First off, Bryan Lee O’Malley will be appearing this Saturday at Meltdown in LA. Hope Larson will also be lurking.

§ NEXT, Alex Zalben has a review of the SCOTT PILGRIM movie script!

There’s spoilers here, not just for the movie version, but for the books as well. Because, at least in the draft I read, the movie covers every single book. That’s right. This isn’t the first book in the series, adapted into one movie Chronicles of Narnia style. You’re not going to get six (or seven) Scott Pilgrim movies, at least none that are based on the series of books O’Malley is in the process of writing. This is all of the books, packed into one two hour film.

§ FInally, Matthew Pack writes to tell us that O’Malley will be appearing on the Public Radio International show FAIR GAME tonight. The show will be available at the link.

Technorati Tags: Bryan Lee O’Malley

More Jacob Covey-designed goodness! The cover to Dash Shaw’s upcoming BOTTOMLESS BELLY BUTTON.

BEASTS art director Jacob Covey has linked to a Flickr page of submissions for his open call and the results are super tasty. Above, Mario Trigo.

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