HYPE ALERT!!! Over the summer one of the projects taking valuable time away from The Beat was work on a second volume of THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY, Vol. 2, a spine-tingling, mind-warping anthology of work by offbeat horror master Thomas Ligotti. I am happy and proud to say that the book is coming out NEXT WEEK and you all need to run out and buy a copy. A couple of previews have gone up this week — including a huge preview of “Gas Station Carnivals” by Joe Harris and the award-winning Vasilis Lolos. Ain’t It Cool News is also running a contest/preview. But as the editor of the book, I am proud to run the first ever preview of pages from ALL FOUR STORIES. As I always say, putting together an anthology is like casting — finding the right people for the job at hand is always a challenge but when it clicks the way it did here, the result is thrilling. I think that for NIGHTMARE FACTORY 2, we found four incredible artists, and working with them was a treat. Above is the cover by Jon Foster.

Above, an EXCLUSIVE page from “Gas Station Carnivals” by Joe Harris and Vasilis Lolos.

Above, “The Chymist” by Stuart Moore and the vastly underrated but TOTALLY brilliant Toby Cypress.

Above: “The Clown Puppet” by Joe Harris and Bill Sienkiewicz. Yes, THAT Bill Sienkiewicz. After 25 years of friendship, we finally got to work together, and the result was thrilling.

FINALLY, “Sect of the Idiot” by Stuart Moore and Nick Stakal, another brilliant young artist that we’ll be hearing a lot more from in the coming years.

I’ll have more previews and news of many events and signings in the next few days. Suffice to say I am INCREDIBLY proud of this book and the very hard work everyone did on it. I don’t think anyone will be disappointed by the results.

Below the cut, official PR from our publisher, HarperCollins:

Technorati Tags: NIGHTMARE FACTORY

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Shaenon Garrity takes a look at the history of her fellow Vassar alum Anne Cleveland:

So who was Anne Cleveland? Hardly anyone remembers. In addition to drawing cartoons about Vassar life, she published It’s Better with Your Shoes Off, a lovely and very out-of-print collection of Gluyas Williams-esque cartoons about Americans living in Japan. A Vassar girl, a cartoonist, and a proto-weeaboo; could I choose a more perfect role model? I think not. And so, this summer, when I returned to the Vassar campus for the first time since graduation, I tracked down all public evidence of Anne Cleveland.

This is sort of gratifying to me, since I made a bit of a stink about Anne Cleveland a few years ago, in a post on the Old Beat, now removed, but archived a bit here by Garrity. My point then was not that Cleveland was a lost seminal genius of cartooning, but quite the opposite — she was a talented and somewhat successful female cartoonist whose name had been completely lost to the sands of time in the great lost era between Rose O’Neill and Julie Doucet, and how women of her level of achievement were almost always lost to the sands of time, leaving those who come behind to have to reinvent the wheel over and over again.

I was struck again by this, though, when reading a short bit on the Comics Reporter this morning:

By the way — Sean T. Collins noted to me in conversation that Art Out of Time has led to something like a half-dozen books or future book projects, which will likely add to its reputation over the years as an important book.

Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900-1969 is a wondrous collection of obscure and little-recognized cartoonists or roughly the O’Neill to Doucet Era, give or take 15 years on the modern end, and all 29 artists within are men, a fact that author Dan Nadel has had to defend several times, but, to his credit, he always sticks to his guns. At the Post Bang Symposium back in June, in a panel with Nadel and museum curator John Carlin, Nadel mentioned how canons were inherently limiting and many cartoonists awaited discovery. But he also said that no women cartoonists of the period made the cut of cartoonists who should be rediscovered because their work wasn’t on a high enough level.

This thought always depresses me no end. Women artists of the period were talented enough — they made up their share of the greatest illustrators of the era — but comics were a dead end for that talent, whether through social forces (i.e. “sexism,” whatever that is), inherent lack of interest, or other even more mysterious forces.

My personal inquiry remains ongoing.

Or talks to God or whatever. IGN-UK has a big interview with him which has tons of pull quotes on everything and anything. We’ll quote the bit everyone else has, but you have to read the other parts, too:

I’ve been listening to people talk about ’saving’ the ‘industry’ for over 20 years while comics have continued to be published and have, in fact, become better, to the point where the only conclusion I’ve come to is that comics are best ’saved’ by sealing them in Mylar bags! Everything else is just messianic inflation. Just do good books and stop trying to be the savior of a whole medium that’s been doing okay without you and will continue long after you’re gone.

Yes, I think Kirkman’s right, in that I’d like to see more of our creative community unleashing their wild imaginations onto the page and less of the obvious ‘movie pitch on paper stuff’ that’s come about recently as a result of comic creators chasing the Hollywood dollar but I don’t have a problem with writers and artists working on Marvel and DC properties if they enjoy it. I’d rather read a good Green Lantern story by someone who cares than work my way through a ‘creator-owned’ project that’s been created solely to appeal to lowest-common-denominator movie executives.

Otherwise, he’s possibly being slightly disingenuous by issuing this ‘call to arms’ at a time when, to be honest, I can’t think of any significant comic book writer for Marvel or DC who doesn’t have creator work on the go. Apart from Geoff Johns, who’s told me he much prefers writing DC superhero books, everyone else - me, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, JMS, Garth Ennis, Matt Fraction, Brian Bendis, Kurt Busiek, etc etc - seems to be hard at work creating new properties, so I’m not entirely sure where the problem lies.

This story from Variety rounds up the summer’s box office leaders, and surprise, surprise, every studio has its superhero hit. Of course, Warners led the way with DARK KNIGHT, but the other studios followed suit:

Paramount is a close No. 2 in summer market share thanks to “Iron Man…”

…Universal is No. 3 in market share, turning in a slate of strong performers, led by “The Incredible Hulk” ($134.4 million), “Wanted” ($133.8 million) and “Mamma Mia!”

…Sony’s biggest hit of the summer was Will Smith starrer “Hancock,” which has cumed just north of $212 million.

…The Mouse House headline of the summer was Disney-Pixar’s critically acclaimed “Wall-E,” which cumed $216.7 million. Disney’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” cumed $141.5 million — something of a disappointment since the first “Narnia” film earned far more at $291.7 million.

…Of all the majors, Fox had the roughest summer…

Fox had NO SUPERHERO MOVIE is why.

Our prediction? More, more, more!

This week’s DC purist thorn of pain comes from the new issue of TEEN TITANS, in which Wendy and Marvin, two characters birthed from the insufferable SUPERFRIENDS cartoon, return, only to be savagely slaughtered by Wonder Dog, who then feasts on their grisly remains.

That is how to do it! I understand that SUPERFRIENDS is a low point, not just in superhero history but the annals of animation (indeed, the name Margaret Loesch in the credits must be seen as one of the true harbingers of cartoon doom.) It is only fitting that Wendy and Marvin get what was coming to them.

Plus, let’s face it, if Grant Morrison or Alan Moore had written this issue, we’d all think it was genius.

Yes, we are still loafing. In a summer in which we spent ZERO hours lying in the sun, reading a book, going to the beach, or simply sitting in the park, we can be allowed some late posting, especially when we’ve been so excited by conventions, speeches, sexy VPs and so on.

More: Spurgeon, Evanier, Khouri!

How many cartoonists from Singapore and Thailand can you name? After the new anthology LIQUID CITY comes out from Image, you’ll probably be able to name many more. Edited by Sonny (MY FAITH IN FRANKIE) Liewthe book will include many new faces alongside the familiar: Image PR is below, but you can follow along at a LIQUID CITY blog. The cover art by Shelly Wan alone has us eager to check this out.

Oh, PS: check out the previews here. Good stuff!

Above: Invasion by Leong Wan Kok

“LIQUID CITY presents the unique visions of artists and writers based mainly in Southeast Asia,” said editor Sonny Liew. “The creators involved range from established figures in the region’s comics communities like Lat and Gerry Alanguilan, to exciting new talents like Nguyen Thanh Pong, kenfoo and Shari Chankhamma.”

Bringing together creators from Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere, LIQUID CITY presents an edgy vision of lives in cities past, present and future: from Leong Wan Kok’s distinct post apocalyptic landscapes to Lat’s charming take on Malaysian life in the ’60s, from Mike Carey’s meditation on colonialism to kenfoo’s dark tales of regurgitation and bodily transformations.

Also contributing to the anthology are artists from outside the region, including award-winning illustrator Jon Foster and cover artist Shelly Wan.

ComicList is reporting that Q2 payments are late, and our email inbox is filling up with reports from publishers who have not been paid.

Oh well.

UPDATE: We just received this from T Campbell and are running it as received:

My name is T Campbell, and I’ve been doing comics, in partnership with various artists, for nearly a decade. My most popular work is the teen comedy Penny & Aggie, with Gisele Lagace.

I learned about Wowio from Mike S. Miller, who had published Penny & Aggie in color in the direct market in 2005. His decision to do so made me wary of his overall business acumen– even Archie can barely survive in the direct market– but he had always been good to Giz and me, and we heard reports of others earning significant amounts. And in the end, being involved with them carried few opportunity costs… we weren’t making money off e-books any other way. So we cautiously became involved with the company. I was surprised and pleased to find myself making thousands of dollars each quarter, and being paid on schedule! As a result, I increased my output, to take advantage of Wowio’s system in the years to come. Finally, I could write as many comics as I wanted to with an eye toward profit on them!

There was only one big warning sign that Wowio would be, in the end, another small publishing company whose reach exceeded its grasp. Though the company’s first two sponsors, Verizon and Electronic Arts, were impressive enough names to quell my fears, other names didn’t seem to be following. I began to hear rumors that Wowio was burning through investment capital in order to pay publishers. We changed our plans to assume that Wowio would only pay out for up to Q3, 2008.

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Methinks this news has been out there before, but Dan Nadel makes it official: PictureBox is doing Ogden Whitney:

PictureBox is going to publish a collection of Ogden Whitney’s romance and sci-fi comics in late 2009 or early 2010. Co-edited by Frank Santoro, Bill Boichel and little ol’ me. We are scouring the earth for any and all Whitney material. We aim to solve a few mysteries with this one and should get down to work on it as soon as Mr. Santoro stops blogging for a minute and finished Cold Heat! Ha! Just kidding. Sort of. No, but seriously, Frank is very close to finishing and we will send the book to the printer in December in order to have the books in stores everywhere in April.

They are also seeking Whitney’s son…so get out your sleuthing caps.

Ron Chan of Periscope Studio posts his artwork for a once-upcoming issue of Virgin’s GAMEKEEPER.

Related: Snark from Steven Grant:

As I’ve mentioned before they’re not the first company predicated on titles created by “stars” with the grunt work performed by work-for-hire comics talent, with the goal of generating mass media franchises from the properties; that’s how the runaway smash success story of the 1990s, the much-loved Tekno Comics, became the industry powerhouse they are today.

As The Beat wanders each week through a cramped Gristedes, pushing a tiny, child- or midget-sized cart through narrow, stacked-up aisles, hoping against hope to find a fresh pepper or garlic clove in the bedraggled produce area, our thoughts often return to the wonders of Ralphs, the California-based chain which has — let’s be honest here — far superior greens than any Gormenghast-like NYC grocery store. Now we have another reason to wish to live near a Ralphs — shopping there can directly benefit the Hero Initiative:

One supercool thing about Ralphs is the Ralphs Rewards card. It’s your standard grocery store “club card” that gets you discounts and whatnot. But you can ALSO register it with a Ralphs-approved charity, and EVERY time you shop and use the card, Ralphs will kick in a small percentage to the charity of your choice. It costs you, the consumer, NOTHING. It’s just Ralphs kicking in a couple bucks to good causes. See where I’m going with this?

Yes, The Hero Initiative is one of those Ralphs-approved charities, and since Ralphs just switched over from Ralphs Club cards to Ralphs Rewards, we need YOU to re-register your card for Hero, which is easy as pie (tho’ not quite as tasty):

Hit the link for instructions, and enjoy some nice fresh arugula.

Okay, here is one celebrity we can get excited about — or more accurately, his king yellowtail stew.

The New York Anime Festival (NYAF) today announced Chef Masaharu Morimoto — star of Iron Chef and Iron Chef America — will attend its 2008 event as a Guest of Honor. The New York Anime Festival, an anime, manga, and Japanese pop culture convention from the creators of New York Comic Con, takes place September 26th through the 28th at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, NY. Chef Morimoto will attend NYAF’s first day, conducting a question-and-answer session with fans from 4 to 5 PM and a book signing from 5 to 6 PM. Festival attendees are then invited to visit Chef Morimoto’s eponymous restaurant — Morimoto — from 7 to 9 PM on the last day of the New York Anime Festival for NYAF’s Official After Party. Morimoto Restaurant is located at 88 10th Avenue in Manhattan. The New York Anime Festival’s After Party will take place in Morimoto’s downstairs bar and is open to all NYAF attendees, exhibitors, professionals, and press.

“All of us here at the New York Anime Festival are honored to have Chef Morimoto join us this year,” NYAF Show Manager Lance Fensterman said. “Masaharu Morimoto has done more to expose America to Japanese cooking than perhaps any other chef in the last decade, and we are eager to give him a platform in America’s biggest city to celebrate his accomplishments and open a few more hearts, minds, and bellies to Japanese cuisine.”

Chef Morimoto joins NYAF’s previously-announced Guests of Honor: illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, author Hideyuki Kikuchi, voice actress Rie Tanaka, and fashion designer Baby, The Stars Shine Bright. Tickets to the New York Anime Festival are available now at newyorkanimefestival.com.

Looking at my calendar for today, there was a single item, planned about a month ago:

12:00 — Lunch with Virgin Comics

The meeting had already been postponed once — it was a planned confab between Publishers Weekly’s team with Virgin’s people to talk about upcoming projects and how we could “work together.” Pretty standard stuff in the publishing biz, but a lunch that was never to be.

Last month, at one of San Diego’s numerous parties, I ran into a colleague from back in the day, a veteran of many companies and many booms and busts. We were talking about the problems at Tokyopop and Platinum, and the question came up of what company would be next. I have to admit, when asked, I was stumped. Virgin flashed briefly through my mind, but things like the looming lunch hoodwinked me into thinking that systems at Virgin were go. I never really had any reason to think they were “go,” but Virgin didn’t really do anything that showed they even considered panicking, or shoring up or cutting back…or ANYTHING business related, really. Putting out books by celebrities — with an occasional, half-hearted marketing push — seemed to be the sum extent of Virgin’s business plan.

But apparently, the handwriting had been on the wall, as an official statement released yesterday showed:

Virgin Comics announced today that it will be reorganizing its operations and closing its New York office to consolidate in an LA base.
The Company is currently working with management to restructure the business and will release its future plans in the next few weeks.
Sharad Devarajan, CEO, said, “We remain excited about the business and partnerships we have built through Virgin Comics and are working towards a restructuring that properly takes the business forward. The decision to scale down the New York operations and concentrate on core activities is due to the current macro-economic downturn and is in no way a reflection on the dedicated and valuable employees we have had the privilege to work with.”

Or, as I predicted the other day, all those pacts and movie deals will probably stick around. According to the PW piece, the Indian animation studio will also stay in place.

And so, another grave marker for another pamphlet publisher. Virgin’s seeming demise has turned in some online quarters in to yet another battle for the soul of the Direct Market — or perhaps even more accurately, an examination of whether the DM even has a soul.

I’ll return to this in a bit, but to me, anyway, the blazingly obvious thing about Virgin’s publishing failure — and the concurrent problems at Tokyopop and Platinum — is that starting a comic book company just to get movie options as a business plan — THAT DOES NOT WORK. Or as a a financial analyst told PWCW, “movie and video game deals are typically seen as one-time windfalls, not a bankable business strategy.”

Oh, it may work for the folks at the top — I doubt Scott Rosenberg or Stuart Levy is in any danger of losing their homes over the failures of their own business plans. And perhaps that is all that matters. But anyone who hopes to make an ongoing business out of optioning comics plots to Hollywood without actually publishing comics that people want to read, will be in for some disappointment. (Ironically, Tokyopop actually did publish lots of comics that people wanted to read–but they haven’t been able to sell Hollywood on any of these ideas.) Everyone who has tried it has failed — from Tekno to late-period CrossGen on. And there’s no evidence to show it’s going to start working soon — Radical, I’m looking at you.

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Editor Sammy Harkham finally talks in an interview with Tom Spurgeon:

SPURGEON: Who’s in the book?

HARKHAM: The complete contributor list is: Rick Altergott, Gabrielle Bell, Jonathan Bennett, Blanquet, Blex Bolex, Conrad Botes, Shary Boyle, Mat Brinkman, John Brodowski, Ivan Brunetti, C.F., Chris Cilla, Jacob Ciocci, Dan Clowes, Martin Cendreda, Joe Daly, Kim Deitch, Matt Furie, Tom Gauld, Leif Goldberg, Matt Groening, John Hankiewicz, Sammy Harkham, Eric Haven, David Heatley, Tim Hensley, Jaime Hernandez, Walt Holcombe, Kevin Huizenga, J. Bradley Johnson, Ben Jones, Ben Katchor, Ted May, Geoff McFetridge, Jesse McManus, James McShane, Jerry Moriarty, Anders Nilsen, John Pham, Pshaw, Aapo Rapi, Ron Rege Jr., Xavier Robel, Helge Reumann, Ruppert & Mulot, Johnny Ryan, Richard Sala, Souther Salazar, Frank Santoro, Seth, Shoboshobo, Josh Simmons, Anna Sommer, Will Sweeney, Matthew Thurber, Adrian Tomine, C. Tyler, Chris Ware, and Dan Zettwoch.

I think this interview should answer all the questions everyone has about this project, even the inane ones. Illo stolen wholesale from Tom.

Two new books from Buenaventura Press:

The gay elves in Uncle Alvin’s workshop have been working overtime and Buenaventura Press is going through ch-ch-ch-changes. Not only do we have a spectacular new office space, new staff additions, and seriously exciting upcoming projects, but we will be seeing some of you live and in person at the Small Press Expo in Maryland in October and then at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco in November.

Boy’s Club 2
Matt Furie’s wildly popular teenage monsters are back! Following the success of the first issue, Boy’s Club 2 once again serves up the knee-slapping hi-jinx of Andy, Brett, Landwolf, and Pepe who are always “drinkin’, stinkin’ and never thinkin’.” The daily lives of these four best friends will be all-too-familliar to anyone who has ever lovingly farted in a roommate’s face. Join them on a psychedelic 80’s freak-out as they play Nintendo, eat pizza, and barf their brains out.

Souvlaki Circus
Finnish artist Amanda Vähämäki and Italian artist Michelangelo Setola have created the enigmatic Souvlaki Circus, a series of pencil drawings that weave a patchwork narrative of metaphoric truths about humans and nature. These two very different artists have created a seamless work of art, though their only discussion during this blind collaboration was to agree on a theme of “animals”. Vähämäki and Setola have tapped into deep and often unsettling imagery to forge a nighttime world that vividly illustrates how the differences between human and beast are often as thin as the artists’ delicate pencil strokes. This beautiful cloth bound volume with silkscreened cover showcases two important emerging talents.

Technorati Tags: Buenaventura Press

Too much to catch up on, but here’s a teeny sampling:

§ Via Colleen: Ross Rojek may soon be at large again!

Ross Rojek, formerly of Another Universe, formerly of Comics and Comix, formerly the guy who served four years of a nearly 7 year sentence for screwing a bunch of investors who were fooled into believing he had created some kind of cool facial recognition technology that was going to keep the world safe from Al Queda, will be released on September 18 from Sacramento Community Corrections. If you are one of the many self publishers who shipped Rojek product for which you were not paid (including me), don’t expect him to be making good on those debts any time soon, felonious scoundrel that he is.

§ Frank Santoro on comics coloring from Comics Comics:

Until the early 1990s, most color comics were produced in the same way they’ve been made for nearly one hundred years. The artist drew the comic in black-and-white and then, for the most part, provided the printer with a guide of some sort to color the comic by. These guides would have been anything from simple color sketches to hand-colored photostats or Xeroxes of the black-and-white line art. Engraving plates would be created by the printer for four different colors: red, blue, yellow, and black. In combination, and with the help of screens, these would produce a limited but comprehensive palette. There was no guarantee, however, that the vision of the artist and the reality of what came off the press would match. Photoshop did not yet exist. There was no way to preview the results.

§ Kristy Valenti on Laura Park, one of the cult cartoonists of the day:

“Not-quite-ready-for-primetime,” in the case of Laura Park’s impish Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream mini, is a compliment; just as those redoubtable players took advantage of their relative freedom from network strictures to embrace a wider range of comedic stylings[1], Park’s self-published comic,[2] embracing the mini format, rambles through cartooning idioms such as the gag panel, the autobiographical, the recipe and the fable. Park explained this diversity thusly: “autobiography is something I really enjoy reading (especially comics which are so suited to it) but I prefer making fictional comics. I keep a sketchbook and most of the autobio comics come directly from there.”

§ Do you think Marc-Oliver Frisch has been too harsh on DC in his sales chart analyses? Well, DC has found a fiendish way to get even with him!

Sometimes, DC sends me comics to review, which is very nice of them. The most recent one reached me literally minutes before leaving the house for an eleven-hour transatlantic flight last week. Ooo, nice, something to read on the way over, I thought. What it was? Oh, it was the first issue of Air, the new Vertigo series by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker. You know, the one starring a flight attendant, dealing with the fears of flying in the aftermath of September 11, 2001? With the images of crashing planes and people in free-fall? Yup, that’s the one. It was my first transatlantic flight, you see, and I don’t feel very comfortable on planes. But, hey, it’s just a comic, let’s not make a thing of it, right?

§ Brian Heater had yeoman coverage of the Cory Doctorow and DJ Spooky at CBLDF Fundraiser, which we were very sorry to miss.

§ From Comixology yet again, Tucker Stone on the grim ‘n’ gritty era of DC movies:

There’s this thing that happens after a movie like Dark Knight makes as much money as it did—well, actually there’s a lot of things: the next Harry Potter movie gets a massive delay placed on its release date to help offset 2009 film profits, the trailer for the next big super-hero movie increases trade paperback sales (and a lawsuit gets fast-tracked), but most of all, Warner Brothers turns around and asks where the next big spandex money machine is going to come from. And when the answer is “We’ve got these animated DVD’s that are doing alright business if you compare to them to the sales on the first season of Mannix” and “We’re making this Green Arrow in prison movie that crazy people might like,” Warner Brothers gets all flustered and says “No no no, you’re not getting it. What about the other guy, the old guy, the one everybody knows as well as Batman?”

§ “I do not think that word means what you think it does” Dept.: What’s up at Aspen?

“No way,” says Vince Hernandez, Aspen Comics Editor-in-Chief. It’s business as usual, and the editorial and creative people at Aspen haven’t even thought twice about moving forward.

NO HEROICS is a new British sitcom about a bar where out of costume superheroes hang out. It’s written by a fellow named Drew Pearce who knows a LOT about comics. The trailer is above.

Retailer Robert Scott has his own response to Robert Kirkman’s call for more creator-owned concepts:

Well, I’m not sure how folks like Lea, Ellis or even Kirkman have missed it for twenty two years but Marvel, DC, WFH or retailers have not damaged the industry nearly as much as creator owned work (and the publishers who love them) has. OK to be fair it’s not the work but the lack of professionalism surrounding the work that is the culprit.

From unprofessional and nonviable work by folks with to much cash in hand to fantastic work with untenable publishing schedules and utter lack of business/marketing savvy, this work leaves not only a frustrated consumer with no lack of alternative entertainment options but a also a line of business partners (distributors & retailers) who become increasingly gun shy over such product because it cannot be counted on to pay the bills and not to actively piss off their customers (and to be fair, the Big 2 share some of these same problems).

D&Q, Fantagraphics, Slave Labor, Top Shelf… all produce a staggering amount of creator owned work. Warren Ellis touted both financial and critical success of Fell. And yet the aforementioned publishers have had to go begging hat in hand and must fight retailers for sales at conventions because the work isn’t selling as well as needed and who knows if or when Ellis will reward us with more Fell, which now seems to be on an annual schedule.

James Jean announces he’s leaving FABLES to concentrate on his own art:

“This is a difficult email for me to write. Don’t worry . . . as far as I know, I don’t have any tumors or crippling neuroses, and my taxes are in order. But I feel like I’m breaking up with the prom queen on prom night, after having dated through grades 6 - 12. Feeble analogies aside, it has been an amazing opportunity to work on Fables these past 7 years (8 this October). But I feel that it’s time to devote myself full-time to painting and personal work. Shelly and I talked yesterday, and my last cover will be 81, at the end of the story arc. It has been a true privilege to work on a team that has produced such great chemistry on paper, and to have been a part of such an important book that has entertained and drawn together so many people.

As usual, he’s going out on the same heart-stoppingly beautiful level he came in on.

§ Heartbreaking news today: There will be no Arseface promos all over phone booths:
HBO has killed the PREACHER TV series. Mark Steven Johnson told Comics Continuum:

“We were budgeting and everything and it was getting really close to going,” Johnson told The Continuum. “But the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial. Which, of course, is kind of the point! “It was a very faithful adaptation of the first few books, nearly word for word. They offered me the chance to redevelop it but I refused. I’ve learned my lesson on that front and I won’t do it again. So I’m afraid it’s dead at HBO. “I’ve heard someone is in the process of getting the rights to turn it into a feature film. I hope that happens. But I hope it happens as a series of movies as one movie couldn’t do it justice. I really love that story and I dedicated a lot of my time to honor Garth’s work. But it wasn’t meant to be.”

§ But buck up, little soldiers! The SCOTT PILGRIM movie is burbling along:

The project has been in development since 2005, but after what seems like an eternity, it looks like the film is actually moving forward. Wright tells Wizard, “We’re hopefully going into production later this year. We’ve been doing a lot of work on it in a conception level and getting into casting and crew and stuff.” Wright and company have been making the rounds in Toronto scouting locations for the flick. But it probably makes Wright’s job a lot easier considering most of the locals in the comic were based on actual locations (not to mention; it will be fun to see my hometown on-screen without The Hulk ruining the view).

§ AND the Tintin movie series is moving forward, although there seems to be some confusion over who is doing what:

Although Brussels’ Herge Studios seems to think otherwise, Steven Spielberg remains committed to directing the first in a planned “Tintin” trilogy for DreamWorks. It will be his next directing effort after this summer’s $780 million-worldwide-grossing “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Herge Studios, which holds the rights to the iconic comic strip character, said Tuesday via a spokesman that Peter Jackson was moving into the director’s chair for the first film. But both Jackson’s and Spielberg’s camps say that Jackson in fact remains attached to direct the sequel, though he will still be a producer on the first. In the meantime, Jackson will finish postproduction on “The Lovely Bones” for DreamWorks/Paramount before moving on to co-write the two “Hobbit” movies for New Line and MGM. The first “Tintin” feature will be based on two of the books, “The Secret of the Unicorn” and “Red Rackham’s Treasure,” written by Tintin creator Herge between 1942 and 1944.

Is this a trend? Press releases complete with giant photos of Dan Slott holding a copy of SHE-HULK and Mike Siglain standing in front of a boat? It’s all in reference to now-IDW editor Andy Schmidt’s Comics Experience courses.

Comics Experience is pleased to announce that Dan Slott (Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers: The Initiative) will be teaching the Introduction to Comics Writing course and that DC Comics Editor Michael Siglain (52, JSA, Batman family) will be teaching the Introduction to Comic Book Art course. Both courses start this September.

“After teaching the classes for a little over a year, I was looking to bring something new to Comics Experience. Then it occurred to me to ask, whom would I want to take these classes from? So, I didn’t have to look far to find Dan and Michael,” Comics Experience owner Andy Schmidt said. “Dan Slott, much to my surprise, agreed almost right away and Michael Siglain earned my trust over his past guest appearances. He also has an art background that makes him a better choice for the class than I was!”

Both instructors are following the general guidelines that Schmidt set out but they are also bringing new ideas to the classes. The intention is to make these courses different, but more importantly—better.

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Just to help illustrate, I was on a plane yesterday coming in from the Fan Expo convention in Toronto and sat next to a young woman who, after we’d started talking and I told her I was a comic book artist, asked me if comics weren’t a dying industry.

I don’t think it’s dying, but I do think that what’s keeping it alive is akin to an iron lung or an artificial respirator. Something needs to enable it to breathe on its own.

— Artist Mike Choi

A few weeks into this project, I’m reading absolutely nothing but big fat comics with spines, and my inner Prose Guy is getting cranky. For one thing, they’re too darn short. I love being immersed in a narrative for days at a time, but even the fattest comics don’t take more than a few hours to read.

Please, please, can’t I take a break and dive into the new translation of “War and Peace” or, at the very least, curl up with the latest Venetian mystery by Donna Leon?

Nope. My stack of graphic novels keeps getting higher. And some are good enough to make my prose itch disappear.

By the end of “Blankets,” Craig Thompson’s lovely memoir of childhood and first love, I’ve forgotten its form and simply bought into the characters and the story. Cyril Pedrosa’s “Three Shadows” tugs at my parental heartstrings with every swirling image of a broad-shouldered father fighting to save a small, doomed child.

To my surprise, I find myself wondering if Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli’s version of Paul Auster’s “City of Glass” might be better than Auster’s original. To borrow the words of my smart brother-in-law, who lent me the adaptation, its “visual representations of intense states of mind” greatly magnify its emotional force.

And then there’s Gilbert Hernandez’s “Heartbreak Soup,” a collection of everyday stories set in a fictional Central American hamlet called Palomar. Hernandez’s work is part of a long-running Fantagraphics series called “Love and Rockets,” created with his brother Jaime. I like it for the same reason I got hooked on Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City” when the San Francisco Chronicle first serialized it: It’s an addictive soap opera, replete with humor and heart.

— WaPo’s Bob Thompson

Somewhere, Nicolas Cage is crying. Calvin Reid at PW gets the tale of the tape:

Although calls to Virgin Comics CEO and cofounder Sharad Devarajan (who is also president of Gotham Entertainment) have not been returned, sources confirm that the venture has been closed and that a statement will likely be issued soon. The closing appears to effect only Virgin Comics’ U.S. publishing operations in New York City and does not effect the operations of Gotham Entertainment, the Bangalore, India-based partner in the venture that produces comics targeted at the South Asian consumer market.

The company produced about 17 different comics series in addition to publishing about 18 trade paperback collections and 3 hardcover titles. It is unclear what will happen to the rights to these properties.

One of the legendary achievements in fantastic illustration, Lynd Ward’s Frankenstein, incredibly, out of print, but archived on the web by Nick Mullins.