By Paul O’Brien
The May sales charts have received a lot of attention already, and we all know what the big story is: FINAL CRISIS #1 triumphed for DC, vindicating the controversial direction of their superhero imprint, and proving the critics wrong.

Oh no, hold on. That’s Earth-2.

Here in the real world, FINAL CRISIS #1 tailed in around 40,000 copies behind SECRET INVASION #2, which caused a bit of a stir. And it was a strong month for Marvel all round. In addition to the summer crossover, May also saw the release of the Iron Man movie, the conclusion of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s ASTONISHING X-MEN, and the launch of AVENGERS/INVADERS (which turns out to be a bigger deal than I’d expected).

All of this means - and if you’re a devoted DC fan, you might want to look away now - that Marvel thrashed DC yet again, with a dollar share of 43% to DC’s 28%, and a unit share of 48% to 30%. And arguably, that’s a lot more damning than just comparing the figures of SECRET INVASION and FINAL CRISIS. Of course, to be fair, there’s a strong argument that DC should be happy with being number two. After all, they’ve still got around a third of the direct market. And they have imprints like Vertigo, CMX and Minx which could be selling well in other channels - Marvel has no equivalent of those. Still, the superhero books are an important part of DC’s line, and the gap between them and Marvel is starting to look more like a chasm.

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

1.  SECRET INVASION
04/08  Secret Invasion #1 of 8 - 254,449
05/08  Secret Invasion #2 of 8 - 182,443  (-28.3%)

Marvel’s summer event book holds onto the top spot for the second month running. It has a comfortable margin over FINAL CRISIS #1, with estimated sales of 144,826. Most books tend to see their big sales drop with issue #2, so chances are that Marvel will keep the lead for the rest of the run.

The conventional interpretation is that FINAL CRISIS has underperformed. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair. After all, 145K would be a comfortable number one in most months, and it’s around 35K clear of NEW AVENGERS in the third slot. So let’s look at it from the other perspective. Hasn’t SECRET INVASION done unexpectedly well?

Marvel have spent months building up this story, and at first it didn’t seem to have much impact on sales. In the last couple of months, however, things have picked up. Satellite books like MS MARVEL have seen big increases. The core title is comfortably outperforming last year’s WORLD WAR HULK, which debuted with first month sales of 178,408, before dropping to 155,322 in the second month.

If SECRET INVASION and FINAL CRISIS had both sold 145K with their first issue, nobody would have been particularly shocked by that. So let’s be fair: this gap is as much due to SECRET INVASION doing well, as FINAL CRISIS doing badly.

It’s not unqualified good news for Marvel, though. That 28% drop is on the steep side. In comparison, WORLD WAR HULK dropped 18% in its second month; CIVIL WAR, only 9%. And the re-orders aren’t spectacular. Issue #1 picks up only 4,186 extra copies (as usual, included above). However, that might be misleading - SECRET INVASION #1 came out in the first week of April, so three weeks of re-orders will have been included in the April chart.

Still, it’s possible retailers might have overdone it a bit with this series, and we might see some further downward corrections over the next few months. But even if that happens, we’re only talking about sales dropping from “astronomical” to “very good indeed.”

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The Comics Reporter has an interview with Lynda Barry up that is THE MUST READ of the week and maybe the month because this artist is a national treasure, and when you read things like this, it just amazes and saddens:

I was at a pretty low point because I was also getting kicked out of news papers left and right, I’ve gone from being in over 70 papers to being in 7 papers. I was scrambling to find a way to keep working. My solution was to start selling original art on eBay. I just said, ‘to hell with it!’ and opened a version of my own hotdog stand on eBay and started selling pictures and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made because I can still support myself, though it’s still a struggle.

The other way I was able to make some money was by teaching writing workshops, and it was teaching that really helped shape What It Is. It turns out I love to make pictures and I love to teach, so even if I couldn’t get published or keep my comic strip going in newspapers I found a way to keep going.

Of course there’s also happier stuff:

Comics are more like music to me than like plain old reading, and music changes the more you hear it because there are so many elements — from lyrics to melody to rhythm to duration in time. Comics have this same mix of elements and just as songs come back to me during my day, so comics came back. And when they did I noticed it and those were the ones I was more likely to wish to include. The thing I loved about this was I could never predict which ones would come back. There are still some comic panels that come back to me all the time. Kaz’s work in particular seems to come back like a song. Who knows why? His work really stays in my head and not just stays in my head but makes me happy when I remember it. How does that work? How can an image that just comes up in your mind make you feel happy? I don’t know! But I know that comics can do that. Don Martin from Mad Magazine did that for me a lot when I was a kid, and so did Big Daddy Roth’s Rat Finks. I just had them in my head like toys and they made me feel better. Dr. Seuss is in there, too. I think that guy is a cartoonist and I think I may have learned quite a bit from him.

One thing that’s touched on in the interview — and continues to be touched on — is whether Barry should have been included in the Masters of American Comics exhibit. At the recent Post-Bang symposium, this was brought up on the “What is Canon” panel, where Dan Nadel argued that Barry could have been in the show, while John Carlin, who organized it–well, he didn’t really defend his choices. He just said he had made choices, and that the arguments over the choices would be as valuable as the choices.

The context for this debate was Carly Berwick’s question “Why Have There Been No Great Women Comic-Book Artists?” and it’s interesting to ponder Carlin’s non-criteria. The decision to put Barry in the show — if she was ever even seriously considered — would have answered Berwick’s question once and for all. But why make history, really? Why rewrite the narrative and pioneer a new way of thinking? That would take true initiative. But not this time.

Maybe someday.

In the meantime, Lynda Barry is back and we must never let her go again.

ICv2 reports that it’s all so new at Wizard World Chicago:

Shamus described himself as “totally out” at the IFL, and “back at Wizard.” “It’s actually very exciting,” he said. “I have a renewed energy. Even though it’s my own company, I’ve been able to come back and take a fresh look with the Wizard team at a lot of the new things we could be doing. We have a lot of new initiatives coming up; we have a lot of new people in the company. This show is real evidence that there are a lot of new and exciting things going on.”

Todd Allen had quite a few reports, including the news that a gentleman’s entertainment club was an exhibitor. He also picked up some rumors :

On the way out, I heard a rumor over in artist’s alley that DC and Marvel were ready to pull out of the show. What was going around was that they didn’t think it was worth the trouble shipping their booths and they’d rather just buy some tables in artist’s alley for creators they want to hype. Yes, that ought to send a chill down your spine if this is your home-base show. On the other hand, much like last year, it seemed to me there was more commotion in artist’s alley than there was in the publisher’s area. Well, with the exception of when Marvel would do a giveaway and you’d quickly have a screaming mob.

Couple the shift in activity to artist’s alley with the seeming lack of major announcements from DC and Marvel, factor in that nobody on the pro side seems to like the idea of the show going back to early August (if I’ve got the San Diego dates correct for 2009, it would be a return to 2 weeks after Comicon) and I think you’d have to take that rumor seriously.

Newsarama rounds up the comics news, but it was all pretty low-level stuff — Jonathan Hickman at Marvel — like you didn’t see that coming — a new writer for Supergirl, ditto. Comic Book Resources also has gavel-to-gavel coverage.

BONUS: Bendis Board photos…looks like the old gang is getting a little older, a little saner.

Hm, curiouser and curiouser. Platinum Studios Announces It Is in Negotiations to Acquire WOWIO, LLC. Notice this is not an announcement that Platinum is BUYING Wowio, just an announcement that they are talking about doing it. Given the state of Platinum’s cash flow these days (as shown by the SEC filings) their acquiring any business is surprising. PR in the link, but this is our favorite line:

Final deal terms between the parties have not been reached but the companies hope a transaction can be concluded early in the third quarter this year.

Jeff Trexler rounds up some evidence that mediation is slogging towards a settlement in the Superboy/Superman lawsuits, including a comment by Dan DiDio this weekend that “We’ve got SuperBOY Prime (yes, we can say that again).”

However, DiDio’s reference to Superboy is not the only piece of evidence to emerge this weekend. On Friday, the Siegels and Time Warner filed their joint progress report in the Superboy and Superman lawsuits. This report states that the parties have not reached a settlement, despite four mediation sessions attended by their lawyers and DC President and Publisher Paul Levitz.

But that does not mean that the situation is hopeless. The progress report concludes by noting that after the mediator returns from vacation, “he would be contacting the parties … to potentially continue settlement discussions.”

Rutu Modan’s new strip at The New York Times has begun. It’s called “The Murder of the Terminal Patient.” The paper also presents a slideshow of Moden’s previous work.

CBR presents an interview with newly installed Image publisher, Eric Stephenson:

I have a lot of goals, actually, but I think my biggest goal, the one that kind of arches over everything else, is to make more people aware of some of the great comics Image is putting out, getting our books in front of more eyes. And I’d like to do more music-related projects. Our “Belle and Sebastian” anthology did very well for us and our new Tori Amos book looks like it’s going to do even better, and I think there’s just a tremendous opportunity to use that kind of project to turn more people on to comics.

As far as reaching a more mainstream audience - I think getting comics in front of people who might not typically read them is a big part of that, and cross-pollinating comics with other mediums is a great way to accomplish that.

Must reading: Don MacPherson looks at some recent comics stories and why “no comment” may not always be the best answer. He also depressed us with an example of how things work in the real world:

My day job is a courts/crime reporter. I’ve developed strong and valuable rapports with police officers, lawyers, even judges; I’ve even developed friendships. Nevertheless, access and amiability sometimes get trumped by a story. There are times when I’ve written stories that have angered the police and prosecutors, judges and defence lawyers. I still have access. I still have friends. Eventually, people let go of the anger or realize that the story had to be told, that there was nothing personal about it.

The whole piece sheds a much light on all the issues we’ve been talking about here lately.

San Diego, city of gas explosions and grease fires. The landmark Kansas City Barbeque, a locale well known to convention attendees and viewers of TOP GUN, was gutted in a fire last week:

A fire that started in an open cooking pit Thursday at Kansas City Barbeque gutted the landmark Marina area eatery, known for being in the 1986 Tom Cruise movie “Top Gun.”

The fire broke out about 2:15 p.m. in the restaurant on West Market Street, located across the street from the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel towers and near Seaport Village. It initially created so much smoke that clouds of it could be seen billowing behind Petco Park, where the Padres were playing an afternoon baseball game.

Arrevederci. barbecue. Back to Ralphs yet again.

While WANTED broke the string of comic book movies opening at #1, it was still boffo, with $51.1 million at the box office. It also set some R-rated records:

“Wanted” scored the best opening ever for an R-rated film released in June and the sixth best of all time for any R-rated pic. Film, also starring Morgan Freeman, placed No. 2 for the weekend and played well across ethnic groups. U said it’s already eyeing a sequel.

Now this is interesting, because at the Friday screening we attended, the audience seemed to be, well, demoralized by this film. The Beat was the ONLY person to clap at the end (a nod to comics pals Mark Millar and JG Jones)–which was pretty shocking given the hype for the movie, the relentless action and the packed theater. After the screening, we noted a bunch of young men looking glum as they waited outside the restrooms — apparently their dates had been so appalled by the movie (probably the rat gimmick near the end) that there was no hope of getting lucky later on.

Was the big turn-off for the audience the moral ambiguity of this MATRIX meets FIGHT CLUB mash-up? Perhaps the idea of rooting for bad people for two hours was more than the audience could bear. Afterwards, we were shocked to overhear a cluster of young men dissing the film. “It was so unreaslistic!” one complained. “Bullets can’t do that!” Like you could really make a flying suit that worked? The second week drop off on this movie could be fierce.

As for The Beat, we liked the movie just fine — we like moral ambiguity, and a kick-ass action movie that posits bad vs worse without any easy answers was long overdue. James McAvoy’s Midwestern accent was dead-on, and Angelina Jolie was scary good — she is the action hero for our times. Sure, without the Wachowskis having existed, director Timur Bekmambetov would have to make up a visual style on his own, but he uses what he’s piked up well and some of the action pieces (particularly those involving trains) are nifty. WANTED was a gripping action flick with some clever twists on the form. It’s also very violent and nihilistic, and knows it.

Guillermo Del Toro is not entirely sanguine on a HOBBIT II movie

“We believe there is a second movie,” del Toro said during a discussion at the Majestic Crest. “If there isn’t, there will not be. If we find it, we will shoot it, but by God, if we do not find it, we will not shoot it. I am anxious to shoot the book, and I’m willing and able to dedicate myself to shooting the [second film].”

Technorati Tags: Tolkien

Did you notice a couple months ago when there was an IRON MAN themed phone?

Well, it’s Batman’s turn.

I only found out about this when I was paying my cell phone bill and saw the ad for the new Nokia DARK KNIGHT Edition. Article about it here.

Posted by Mark Coale

Over at Comicmix, Rick Marshall shows us what we’re missing:

On a lighter note, I started my day sharing an elevator with Angus Scrimm, the “Tall Man” from the Phantasm horror films. Apparently, Wizard World wasn’t the only game in town this weekend, as the Flashback Weekend horror film convention was also in town for its annual get-together of fans and celebrities of the fright-film scene. This made for a particularly surreal moment later in the day when the beginning of the horror festival overlapped with the end of both a senior-age Christian meet-up and a young couple’s wedding. At one point during the day, the line that had developed for the elevators included the bridal party, a buxom, blood-covered nurse, a massive, costumed Jason Voorhees (complete with machete and severed, bloody head of Freddy Krueger) and a trio of seniors who seemed very concerned that no one else in the hallway was making a big deal about the nurse and her companion.

Tolja so:
Comic Book Resources has the news that Erik Larsen is stepping down as Image publisher, and longtime Executive director Eric Stephenson is replacing him. Why the Erik for Eric switch? Larsen wanted to spend more time doing what he loves most: making his own comics:

I loved the job and it was great fun doing it; we put together some awesome books and there are a ton of cool things in the pipeline that will, frankly, blow your mind. Now that things are on the upswing at Image, I don’t think I’m as needed in that position as I was at one point. There are a number of people who are looking out for Image Comics. I’ll still be one of them and I’ll still be out there actively talking to people about books and recruiting talent. And I share an office with Eric Stephenson, who’ll be taking over for me, so it’s not as though this is going to be some drawn out, awkward learning period for him as he takes over. He was Jim Valentino’s right-hand man when he was in the Publisher’s chair and was my right-hand man when I was in the Publisher’s chair, so he’s certainly up on the company and how it works. And he’s been in and around Image Comics since its inception, going back to working with Rob Liefeld when he had his studio. Eric’s been around, knows the rope, knows what we’re doing and is a hell of a guy. I really think he’s the best guy for the job and I think it would be great if the guys who founded this company spent less time sitting in a chair pushing papers around and more time sitting in a chair pushing art boards around.

A terribly sad announcement from Aspen has gone out announcing the death of artist Michael Turner, who had been battling bone cancer for the last 8 years. Turner was best known as the artist of WITCHBLADE, but in recent years had been a much sought after cover artist. In 2002 he founded his own publishing company, Aspen Comics.

Unfortunately it’s with great sadness that I must inform everyone that Michael Turner tragically passed away last night, June 27th at approximately 10:42 pm in Santa Monica, Ca. Turner had been dealing with recent health complications arisen in the past few weeks. More details concerning Turner’s passing, and services, will be given shortly.

Anyone wishing to send their condolences to Michael Turner’s family is encouraged to send to:

Aspen MLT, Inc.
C/O Michael Turner
5855 Green Valley Circle, Suite 111
Culver City, CA, 90230

Aspen also encourages anyone wishing to make a charitable donation to please send to Michael Turner’s requested charities:

The American Cancer Society

Or

The Make-A-Wish Foundation

When saying that Turner battled cancer, it is impossible not to add “heroically.” Despite years of setbacks and tremendous physical pain, he remained upbeat, friendly and productive, making the most of the time he had left. It’s a lesson that many could learn. Newsarama has more:

Despite his illness, Turner was one of the most upbeat people at conventions and in the industry. He always radiated a sense of humility and gratitude to his fans, and always had time for a quick chat or a smile. In an industry that can and has beat the happiness out of many creators, Mike was resistant to it, and was ever happy to work and talk to his fans, and even talk to the press. From the first moment you met him, you were his friend, and he treated you like he’d known you all his life.

Our condolences to Turner’s family and many friends.

It had to happen. Tom McLean reports:

Right now, there are about a dozen or so auctions up on eBay for Comic-Con passes. Prices on completed auctions show people willing to pay more than $100 for a sold-out one-day Saturday pass that originally sold for $35. Four-day passes, which originally cost $75 each and have been sold out for weeks, are going for as much as $300 each. Plus, there’s this solicit right here in the comments section of this very blog.

However, these may in fact be counterfeit or unusable confirmation letters.

Even with the scalping, we’ve been saying for some time that $75 is wayyyyyyyyyy too low for a FOUR DAY pass to the biggest show biz show of the year. It will be interesting to see what the market will bear, especially after the celebrity guests are announced.

[Via Whitney Matheson]

Every once in a while we feel a little bad for picking on DC around here, then we read something like this and we have to put on one of those ruffled collar things to keep from scratching our head to the bone. It seem DC refused to let Lynda Barry put an excerpt of Paul Pope’s BATMAN 100 in the BEST AMERICAN COMICS anthology. Tom Spurgeon reports:

As for the cartoonist and creator of the well-received mini-series, Paul Pope further confirmed the refusal and described what he saw from his perspective on the negotiation. “I know there were people both at DC and HM who campaigned very hard to convince DC as to the benefits and soundness of having my Batman pages appear in the collection,” the popular artist and designer wrote to CR The benefits would seem rather obvious to most. I have since found out it was not because of licensing money that DC refused (I don’t know the actual reason to be honest, but it wasn’t money, the only thing I could legitimately see as being an impediment in this case…).” He added, “DC’s formal refusal letter was one line.”

Calling all Kremlinologists!

In a story that proves that owning your good ideas gives the biggest payout, R Stevens has announced he’s ending print syndication of DIESEL SWEETIES:

As of mid-August, DS is ending its run in newspapers and going back to being web-only! Why? Because I’m an optimist, I opted out.

At Fleen he tells Gary Tyrell
more of the reasons behind his decision:

Fleen: What was the prime factor in deciding to quit?

Stevens: Not to sound like a jerk, but time and money. I was (currently still am) spending 12+ hours a day 5.5 days a week keeping my business afloat and doing 12 comics a week. My website and merch were a little over 90% of my gross income last year. When the workload starting making me sicker and fatter, it was pretty much a no-brainer which job had to go.

(And before there is any argument from the Peanuts-worshipping gallery, this was my experience. It is not true for all newspaper strips or print cartoonists, but I lived it and have the debt and carpal tunnel to prove it.)

Later in the interview, Stevens seems to say it wasn’t a question of not liking United Media, but just the hidebound nature of the print business these days

It’s natural in these things for us geeks to spring on the “Evil Syndicate“, but I don’t blame ‘em for anything. They can’t force editors to dump 80-year-old comics and they can’t legally kill all the rabid Snuffy Smith fans who would set the world ablaze if he ever left print.

I’m not saying they aren’t working on ways to kill these people, but I don’t think radioactive nanodagger ink is ready for prime time yet.

So there you have it. Game, set and match. WEB up. PRINT down. Creator ownership, UP. Selling it all, DOWN.

If one of you Beat readers can make me a little red arrow thingie, we’ll make this official.

The news that ADV was selling off a bunch of office furniture drew the expected cries of alarm:

From http://www.windsorauction.com/auction.asp : Thurs., June 26 at 10:00 am: Consolidation of Large Video / DVD Co. 10501 Kipp Way Dr., Suite 300, Houston, TX Very large quantity of oak, walnut & Ikea style office furniture, computers, servers, phones, etc.

However, determined face fronter Chris Oarr stepped right up and gave their side:

Yes, ADV has hired Windsor Auctions to get rid of some surplus material, including desks, computer monitors, chairs, etc. The auction is taking place today at our warehouse facility on Sam Houston Hwy in Houston. So if you want a good deal on a telephone headset or filing cabinet, get over there by 6 o’clock. Maybe you can get NewtypeCJ’s old office chair!

When you cut back on staff, you’re going to have extra stuff. We hired an auction house instead of a dump truck, because the stuff still works. Sorry we forgot to tell you guys, but it’s a cash-and-carry auction, so we kept our marketing to the Houston area.

Best,

Chris Oarr
Current ADV Employee

P.S. Mention you heard about it on AoD and receive a free stapler with every purchase.

See? THAT’S how to handle a rumor.

§ Don McPherson finds writing about comics subscriptions is no easy task:

Yes, it would have made for an interesting feature, tapping not only into nostalgia but examining how the business of comics publishing has changed in recent years.

Alas, such a story won’t be found on this site.

Jenna Pagliuca, who’s in charge of subscriptions at Marvel, declined to answer questions after a company PR official referred to me to her, and repeated requests for information from or an interview with a subscriptions manager at DC seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

§ Lea looks at Tokyopop asonly Lea can:

I find it more than interesting and not a little atrocious that the editors of these books offered the Pilot Program as a submission process, as a way to “make it all the way back around [to print]”. I will be blunt: if you are a publisher and need a dirty day’s work done, apparently a TP editor can do it, and do it well. Sure, they were doing their jobs. They obviously had an amazing rapport with the creators, or a finger on the pulse of their desperation levels, since they convinced them to take a piece of shit contract.

§ We just really enjoyed this list of little known books.

DJ Coffman has closed the books on Platinum:

Fed Ex showed up with a check from Platinum paying me up to date anything that was owed to me, so that whole issue is over with. I’m glad they paid me, and honestly none of this would have blown up for me if I hadn’t nearly lost my house and life banking on or trusting that money would show up on time. It is what it is though, and I learned a valuable lesson that there is no job security anywhere, no matter what a piece of paper says. The envelope included a letter saying my “consultant” agreement with them was terminated as of today, which is fine with me, because in my mind it was terminated when checks never really showed up on time in the terms of that agreement.

But, in a Carrie-like surprise hand from the grave, he adds the following:

So listen, #1, my original contract is still intact with them, and I’ve never once ever disputed the fact that Platinum owns Hero By Night, I gladly and willingly SOLD IT TO THEM, straight up. Trust me, there are no loopholes or weaselly ways out or about it, they own it, it’s fine, and I’m still connected and I’ll still make money with anything they ever do with it, and that’s what I originally signed on for with Comic Book Challenge.

Emphasis ours.

Bonus: The conversation continues on the Bendis board:

But the conflict between DJ Platinum isn’t about creator‘s rights. DJ getting back the rights to Hero By Night was a footnote in what the conflict was about. According to DJ, DJ getting back the rights came up from Platinum as a thank you for everything DJ had done for them, and was a way DJ could maybe continue Hero By Night and Platinum could maintain visibility for their project for the hopes of movie, TV, action figure, lunch boxes, and/or condom deals. Whether Platinum intended to or didn’t intend to isn’t important, this was a separate thing.

Technorati Tags: Platinum Studios

§ Warren Ellis

Went out to dinner with William and Ariana last night at a remote and relatively ancient steakhouse, which was offering dinners-for-two for $39 to celebrate their 39th year in business. Across the road, next to the Des Plaines Chamber Of Commerce, were stores called THE BAREFOOT HAWAIIAN and REBEL’S TROPHYS (sic). The air’s like soup. I stuck my arm out of the window earlier. First, my flesh took on the consistency and moistness of crushed watermelon. And then it caught fire anyway.

§ Alex Robinson

Speaking of which, this afternoon we caught a Cubs game at Wrigley field. For all the talk about the Cubs being great this season it certainly wasn’t in evidence today as the Orioles clobbered them 11-4. Plus, I was sitting next to some coked out Red Sox fan (!!) who would not stop fidgeting like a jerk. Plus, leaving the game, a bird (an oriole, I bet!) shit on my brand new Cubs shirt I bought only hours before! Will this suffering never end??

§ Todd Allen:

The question of whether or not this will be the last Wizard World in Chicago was still a concern on the floor. This wasn’t exactly helped by Wizard having sign-up forms for August 7-9, 2009, which would put the show back in the post-San Diego shadow, next year. Not all publishers I talked to were aware the show was moving back to August. We’ll have to see what happens. Then again, not everyone was aware there was a Horror Convention across the street for the weekend. That one, I’m not going to blame Wizard on. I suspect they had their reservations first. I live in Chicago, and I only heard about the horror show last week, and another local I ran into tonight hadn’t heard about it, so who knows?

Ben Towle wraps up Heroes Con with a detailed list of observations and he confronts what many people saw as low sales for indies at the show in a very constructive way:

Smile! It’s probably a bit of a regional bias, but I definitely saw some residents of Indie Island who really gave off a mopey, unapproachable vibe. While this is absolutely, 100% preferable to the other end of the spectrum, the loathsome “hard sell”/carnival barker routine, one of the things Heroes is known for is how friendly and personable ‘most everyone is. If you look like you’re in the midst of an existential crisis, you’re not really inviting people to come check out your work.

We know that by pointing out such things we’ll be accused of making excuses for a poorly run con — which Heroes was not — but we happen to agree with that assessment. This year’s Indie Island was a bold attempt to break into a new market with a lot of fabulous comics, and we’re not ready to say if it worked or it didn’t. I know some people who were used to seeing books fly off the table at MoCCA, San Diego and SPX were disheartened. And yes it disheartening that you can’t just put a book by Charles Burns or Gary Panter on a table anywhere on earth and see it sell. Sure, I think a little more salesmanship may have sold a few more books…but given the limited budgets and resources of most indie publishers I don’t think asking them to slave away at mining a new territory is entirely fair either.

There were two booths at the show that got quite a bit of attention. One was for the book Light Children and the other was for a publisher named Steam Crow. Here they are.

(more…)

[NOTE TO COMMENTERS: PLEASE NO SPOILERS!]

Before you see HANCOCK, the new Will Smith movie about a dissolute superhero, I advise you to heed two terrible words of warning: AKIVA GOLDSMAN!!!

It also invokes Heidi’s Law of Movies: The quality of a film will be in inverse proportion to the number of short films based on production companies that precede said film. The list of producers includes Ian Bryce, Akiva Goldsman, James Lassiter, Michael Mann, Jonathan Mostow, Richard Saperstein and Will Smith…that’s a lot of cooks.

This is a very odd movie. It’s like some production assistant was walking along carrying a Steve Gerber superhero movie script and a Thor movie script and then dropped them on the floor and mixed up the first half of the Gerber movie with the last half of the Thor movie. I know this movie had a loooong development process, but perhaps one of my Hollywood pals can chime in on just what happened, because there is so much tinkering evident with the premise that the resulting film doesn’t make any sense. A lot of stuff happens but it isn’t about anything in particular.
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Over at Blog@, DC publisher Paul Levitz speaks out on John Nee’s departure

Now before you decide that Paul Levitz reads Journalista (although it wouldn’t surprise us) we’ve been using “Kremlinology” for YEARS now, although the search function is messed up right now so we can’t find an actual link. Anyway, we call dibs!