Are we living in the Jetsons or a Cormac McCarthy novel? Will the iPad take us to a world where readers pay for content…or is it yet another false prophet leading the way to a bleak wasteland with poor 3G coverage?

To no one’s surprise, reaction pieces seem to be the main subject of the internet today. Specifically:

• Kiel Phegley caught up with a lot of comics folks.

CBR News reached out to many players from across the downloadable comics sphere for early reactions to the news of the iPad and found many responses as to what the next step for publishers and content providers will be. Although one thing was generally agreed upon, fans can expect everyone to get into the mobile comics business after today.

• Vaneta Rogers has a similar piece.
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§ A fond fare-the-well to John Jakala who is hanging up his blogging pants, at least for now.

After three and a half years of blogging here, I’ve decided it’s time to call it quits. My output was never prodigious: in 3.5 years I only managed just over 400 posts, which puts my blog’s developmental maturity much lower than its calendar age. The fact that I could only muster seven posts in the last five months of 2009 is pretty clear evidence that my heart just wasn’t in it anymore. One of my personal blogging benchmarks was that if I ever went a month without posting anything it was time to start thinking about shutting things down. And December 2009 came and went without a single post from me, so here we are.

Jakala was one of the early, must-read orange-rimmed Sand Dollar template blogs along with Kevin Melrose and Graeme McMillan, and he was great while he was at it. The latter two have gone on to fame and fortune as big-time bloggers, but Jakala has found…peace. Now if we could only find out what happened to Dick Hyacinth, we’d be happy.

§ Do you mean that now you have to watch four video interviews with Dan DiDio to find out what is going to happen next?

§ Meanwhile, here’s a video of the great Mort Drucker drawing things. Unfortunately, it is a trailer for some educational videos which must be purchased, but when viewed as a trailer should give some satisfaction .

§ Chris Butcher argues very persuasively for 10 manga that changed everything and #1 and #2 are Dragonball and Cardcaptor Sakura. We’re on the edge of our seat for the rest of the list!

There have been thousands of manga released in North America over the past 10 years, but I believe the following 10(-ish) manga were the milestones of the decade, the most important works to be released in English. Depending on how detailed (or long) I wanted this article to go, I could pick 25, 50, 100 manga that serve as milestones, indicative of the industry and the medium and what was and whats to come. But I think I’ve picked 10 manga that paint the most vivid picture of the medium so I’m going to go with those–part of the fun of making lists like these is seeing where opinions differ, and what’s important to the writer (me!)

§ Tim O’Shea talks with Chris Wisnia, whose Kirby monster pastiche comics have been charming us for a while now.

And I had a friend who was into comics, and Kirby got brought up, and I began doing my griping rant about how I couldn’t stand his work, and I gave all my reasons, and all the reasons I gave for thinking the art was awful, he was going, Yeah, and using it as a reason that he loved the art. And I began realizing that, after studying art in school, none of these reasons were really valid to me anymore. Because you realize that photo-realism and all that isn’t what makes art “art.” And I started looking at Kirby’s work with a whole new eye. And his work is so absolutely dynamic, and full of energy. Now, I find, anything he did, it’s just magical to me. I love nothing so much as reading Kirby comics.

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Various talk about various charts and actual figures. You know the drill. Brian Wood posts his actual sales figures for some of his graphic novels in this Standard Attrition thread:

Aug 4th: Northlanders Vol 2 is released, with direct market orders of: 4,287 copies.

Sep 30th: My royalty sheet is tallied up and the total sales for the book as of that date is: 9,073 copies.

Also:

Northlanders vol. 1: 18783
DMZ vol. 2: 34,077
DMZ vol. 1: 57,515

Those numbers don’t include the foreign editions. DMZ is published in six languages other than English, up to the fifth volume in some of them.

Those are pretty impressive sales figures, and gives you some idea why the serialization-to-trade model still works for Vertigo even when the initial sales are low. Marc-Oliver Frisch and Wood get into this a little here.

§ The Nate Silver of comics, John Jackson Miller, looks at November sales and makes all kind of extremely educated observations — including the fact that direct market sales for 2009 will be down slightly from 2008 — but only slightly. In This Economy — and with the freefall of bookstores and magazines — this is pretty good news overall.

While the direct market is close to flat for the year versus 2008, it is up 32% versus 2004. What’s the role of inflation? The Consumer Price Index has increased 14.5% since 2004, meaning that either we’re selling more units in aggregate, or the average item sold is more expensive by a rate far exceeding inflation. Top 300 Comics unit sales are, as noted above, up 1% year to date versus the same period in 2004, whereas the dollar value of those comics is up 21%. The price of the average comic book retailers sold in 2009 is $3.42, as compared with $2.86 in 2004. That’s an increase of 19.5%. So it’s true that inflation is contributing to part of that increase — but not all. Increased trade paperback sales account for the rest of the jump versus 2004.

§ This is an old link, but we kept meaning to post it and finally have time to give it a bit of context. Graphic Novel Reporter posts The Independent Bookstore Comics and Graphic Works Bestseller List for November 2009. And this is interesting WHY? Well, indie bookstores have long been seen as a new sales frontier for graphic novels (contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, they haven’t been that big on comics until very recently) and looking at what sells in these shops gives some idea of what the habitual book buyer buys when they buy graphic novels.

1. The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
2. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
3. The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks
4. Watchmen
5. Naruto, Volume 46
6. Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection
7. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation
8. A People’s History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaptation
9. What It Is
10. The Adventures of TinTin in the Land of the Soviets

This is a somewhat different product mix than one sees in either BookScan or Diamond, and shows why this is an area of further growth potential.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

Is DC’s November success made of plastic?

We’ll come back to that later. First things first: How much of a success is it, anyway? What’s clear is that, thanks to “Blackest Night,” DC Comics once again dominated the comic-book Top 10 in November. And, as it turns out, the company’s 7-of-10 win isn’t wholly cosmetic this time. At least the publisher’s average comic-book sales increased again — for the first time since July.

On the other hand, the gross dollar value of DC’s periodical output in the direct market fell to its lowest level since June. Both Blackest Night the miniseries and “Blackest Night” the crossover are a great success, but much of the rest of the DC Universe line is flagging.

Over at the Vertigo imprint, a new Fables spin-off debuted with solid numbers, bringing a slight increase to Vertigo’s average periodical sales. Average WildStorm sales saw another major crash in November, meanwhile, dropping to an estimated 7,111 — less than 300 copies ahead of WildStorm’s all-time low in January 2009.

See below for the details, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

1 - BLACKEST NIGHT
07/2009: Blackest Night #1 of 8  — 177,105          [199,863]
08/2009: Blackest Night #2 of 8  — 146,092 (-17.5%) [155,512]
09/2009: Blackest Night #3 of 8  — 140,786 (- 3.6%)
10/2009: Blackest Night #4 of 8  — 137,169 (- 2.6%)
10/2009: Blackest Night #5 of 8  — 144,935 (+ 5.7%)

2 - GREEN LANTERN
11/2004: Rebirth #2 of 6    —  86,273 [138,252]
11/2005: Green Lantern #5   —  92,348
11/2006: Green Lantern #14  —  72,894
11/2006: Green Lantern #15  —  70,148
11/2007: –
————————————–
11/2008: –
12/2008: Green Lantern #36  —  64,755 (+ 2.2%) [ 74,005]
01/2009: Green Lantern #37  —  65,556 (+ 1.2%) [ 71,331]
02/2009: Green Lantern #38  —  68,908 (+ 5.1%) [ 77,372]
03/2009: –
04/2009: Green Lantern #39  —  79,792 (+15.8%) [ 84,784]
04/2009: Green Lantern #40  —  76,665 (- 3.9%) [ 84,705]
05/2009: Green Lantern #41  —  81,491 (+ 6.3%)
06/2009: Green Lantern #42  —  84,131 (+ 3.2%)
07/2009: Green Lantern #43  — 109,426 (+30.1%) [117,314]
07/2009: Green Lantern #44  — 105,063 (- 4.0%) [109,599]
08/2009: Green Lantern #45  — 102,431 (- 2.5%)
09/2009: Green Lantern #46  — 103,666 (+ 1.2%)
10/2009: Green Lantern #47  — 101,349 (- 2.2%)
11/2009: Green Lantern #48  — 100,371 (- 1.0%)
—————–
6 months: + 23.2%
1 year  :  n.a.
2 years :  n.a.
5 years : + 16.3%

As usual, both Blackest Night and Green Lantern were promoted with 1-for-25 variant-cover editions in November.

For those of you just joining us, this means that comic-book retailers had to order 25 copies of the regular editions of Blackest Night #5 and Green Lantern #48 for every variant-cover edition. And, as usual, Blackest Night sales were also boosted with a rarer 1-for-100 variant edition.

So far, so simple, but now it gets complicated.

Read the rest of this entry »

¶ Marc-Oliver Frisch is now link blogging! He notes that Marvel will be publishing their own bargain-priced, entry-level line of reprints, sort of like DC’s After the Watchmen promotion:

The books mentioned are Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca’s Invincible Iron Man #1 (which will be free, to kick things off), Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting’s Captain America #1, Eric Shanower and Skottie Young’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz #1, J. Michael Straczynski and Olivier Coipel’s Thor #1 and, finally, one of the various adult-oriented Punisher comics published under the Max imprint—it may be one by Garth Ennis, or the recent relaunch by Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon.

¶ Speaking of Thor, it’s confirmed that Matt Fraction will be writing the book, with John Romita Jr on the art.

GB: Tell me a bit about Thor and how you viewed him as a fan - was he a key character for you growing up? MF: There was one run– Walt Simonson’s– that I thought hung the moon but, weirdly enough, the character wasn’t a favorite particularly beyond what Walt did. And then, as an adult, a few years ago, I was at a friend’s house and saw a Kirby/Giacoia original Thor page on his wall and… and it was like an array of lock tumblers just clicked into place in my head. Like — the art, the character, the myth, the potential — the whole thing came to me in a weird revelation. I got obsessed with the character because for the first time I felt like I figured out, I sort of innately understood, just what you could do with Thor. How big it was, what the potential was, what the book was really, or could really, be about. For the first time I knew what Thor meant. Believe it or not, this is just one of several completely insane-sounding stories that have happened to me regarding Thor since I fell into the big guy’s orbit. I’ve reconciled myself with just buying the ticket, taking the ride, and sounding like a mental patient until I’m done.

¶ Dash Shaw has been chosen as one of 12 filmmakers for the January 2010 Sundance Screenwriters Labs, a prestigious program that helps young filmmakers develop the scripts for their projects. Previous particiants include Quentin Tarrantino, Darren Aronofky, etc etc. Shaw’s project?

Dash Shaw (writer/director) / Slobs and Nags (U.S.A.): Told with hand-drawn animation, a disconnected family is thrown into chaos when the scientist father loses the test subject of his experiment with appearance-altering technology.

Shaw’s animation for The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. on IFC have been well received, so a full length animated feature would be…full of possibilities.

UPDATE: Shaw talks about the project on his website and reveals that Frank Santoro is contributing on the art end. This gets better and better! Above, a cast drawing.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

Gotham, we have a problem.

The general consensus seems to be that DC Comics had a particularly great month in October, but that’s not quite true. Despite making a spectacle of the Top 300 chart by claiming — literally for the first time in ages — all of the Top 6 spots, sales of the average new DC comic book were actually down from September. In fact, DC’s October performance isn’t even in the Top 3 of the past twelve months, if you compare average sales or gross dollar value.

The main reason for that is easily spotted: While Blackest Night and its tie-ins keep performing well, the number of flagging franchises and tanking new projects is on the rise again. The Titans books, Outsiders, Justice League, Justice Society, Wonder Woman, Superman/Batman and the entire Superman line are all formerly strong properties that have been skidding down the charts for months and years now; missed opportunities like the failure to capitalize on high-profile creator J. Michael Straczynski don’t help matters. Alarmingly, even the Batman line, which saw a strong relaunch a few months back, is losing steam quickly.

The bleak picture continues through the publisher’s sublabels. For the first time in six months, average Vertigo figures dropped below 11K again in October. WildStorm saw a rare spike, meanwhile — thanks, largely, to the stoically consistent numbers of the Planetary epilogue issue, which brought sales of the average WildStorm periodical closer to 10,000 units than at any other point in the last ten months.

See below for the details, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

1 - BLACKEST NIGHT
07/2009: Blackest Night #1 of 8  — 177,105          [199,863]
08/2009: Blackest Night #2 of 8  — 146,092 (-17.5%) [155,512]
09/2009: Blackest Night #3 of 8  — 140,786 (- 3.6%)
10/2009: Blackest Night #4 of 8  — 137,169 (- 2.6%)

DC’s big crossover storyline of the year remains the strongest performer in the comic-book direct market.

Blackest Night is promoted with some of the most aggressive variant-cover incentives we’ve seen to date: There’s a 1-for-250 variant for issue #1, a 1-for-200 variant for #2 and a 1-for-100 variant for each subsequent issue, all in addition to 1-for-25 variants.

But, while these variants no doubt distort the numbers, it’s worth pointing out that sales are also bottoming out very quickly — which is unusual for high-profile “event” titles, and especially for books with multiple gimmick covers.

Looking back at this time last year, Final Crisis #4 had just come out, and its charts looked like this:

FINAL CRISIS
05/2008: Final Crisis #1 of 7 — 144,826          [166,641]
06/2008: Final Crisis #2 of 7 — 126,082 (-12.9%) [134,116]
07/2008: –
08/2008: Final Crisis #3 of 7 — 123,881 (- 1.8%)
09/2008: –
10/2008: Final Crisis #4 of 7 — 115,666 (- 6.6%)

The raw numbers would suggest that Blackest Night is doing better than Final Crisis, but then again, those were much simpler times back then: Final Crisis was promoted with one 50/50 variant edition per issue, which seems positively restrained by today’s standards.

The big difference between the two, of course, is that Final Crisis was up against Marvel’s Secret Invasion, which outsold it by up to a 100,000 units per issue. This time around, the closest thing Marvel has to a direct rival is Reborn, whose sales aren’t quite as spectacular; Reborn #1 outperformed Blackest Night #1 by about 15,000 units, but with September’s issue #3, the book dropped to 108K, which is significantly below Blackest Night. (Reborn didn’t ship in October.)

It remains to be seen whether Marvel’s upcoming Siege series and its tie-in books will come close to the commercial achievement of Secret Invasion. For now, Blackest Night appears to be as much of a success as the direct market is able to produce at this time.
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If you thought yesterday’s A.V. Club Best Comics of the Aughts list was going to tiptoe by unnoticed and uncommented on, you were wide of the mark by a fair bit. Sean T. Collins delivers a total smackdown, from the lack of manga to the last of KRAMERS ERGOT to the lack of an ordered list.

By simply listing 25 books in alphabetical order, this list avoids making difficult and absolutely crucial distinctions regarding quality, dodging the hard work necessary to back those distinctions up with considered criticism. I don’t know what good a Best of the ’00s list that sits The Goon right next to Louis Riel does anybody under any circumstances, but at least a countdown would provide context; juxtaposing two books like that through sheer alphabetical accident provides us with no window into its authors’ critical worldview(s), and actually may do more harm than good in terms of articulating what matters. Frankly, I feel like it’s a cop-out.

Although a lot of the analysis on the list was flimsy, I’m actually not so big on the ordered list, really — this isn’t a slalom race. Why does someone have to come in 7th? Do we really need MORE arguing on the internets? Do we have the time to PROVE that Sean Phillips is a better artist than R.M. Guéra?
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MUST READ ALERT! Marc-Oliver Frisch talks to probably the most powerful person in comics whom we have never seen interviewed before: the New York Times’ George Gene Gustines. As the main comics reporter/reviewer at The Paper of Record, Gustines has an incredible influence over what the rest of the mainstream media thinks about comics — the explosion of the gay Batwoman story to hundreds of outlets is but one example. He’s also involved with reviewing comics and the Times Graphic Books bestseller list. He’s probably the single most influential comics journalist in the country - yet the only picture of him we could find was this dinky little one from a blog.

Luckily, the interview shows that Gustines is smart, knowledgeable and passionate about comics. (And we’re not just saying that because in the interview he says he reads The Beat religiously.) The entire interview is a must read — Frisch, aided by Michael Dean, asks unusually substantial questions for an online interview, and lets the revealing discussion run long. So just a few pull quotes:

When a publisher wants to break something big, they sometimes offer it to me first. I have to figure out if it’s a story that makes sense for the Times and then I have to convince my editors of that. Thankfully, the more I write, the better a sense I have of what makes a good story. That also, in turn, helps me earn the trust of my editors not to come to them with something that’s too “inside baseball.” (I’ve had at least one pitch where I thought, not even comic-book fanatics would care about this. Why do they think Times readers will?)

[SNIP]I don’t think it’s limiting (at least not in a bad sense). It’s more along the lines of there’s a certain level of story that the comic book publications or blogs can do that I can’t. The stories I write have to be for a more general audience. For instance, at one point in my career, I was sincerely pitched a story about the death of the other-dimensional version of a popular comic book character. That is not a story I can write for the paper.

One of the most interesting parts of the discussion is when Frisch questions Gustines on whether the mainstream media ever runs negative reviews of comics. On the one hand, reviews that are always positive cheapen the material. On the other hand, when a mainstreamer DOES post critical comments - we’re thinking specifically of David Hajdu on GENESIS — they are often criticized by the comics media for not knowing the territory. On the other other hand, panning crappy comics in the New York Times seems like a waste of space when there are so many deserving books that should get the exposure. Our own thought is that we still need to get to the place where comics are considered a mainstream medium, and not something that is still — pow! bam! — being discovered.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

More “Blackest Night” and more Batman make September another good month for DC Comics’ periodical business. This year’s retelling of Superman’s origin doesn’t set the charts on fire, on the other hand, despite the big-ticket creative team of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank — maybe it’s time to retire the character. In other news, J. Michael Straczynski, who’s had some success recently writing the Hollywood film Changeling and Marvel’s Thor, was also meant to do something for DC in September, but I can’t seem to find it, so maybe … ah, hold it, there it is. My bad, I wasn’t scrolling fast enough.

Average DC sales remained relatively steady on balance, which for the publisher’s Vertigo and WildStorm imprints means that they sold around 10,000 units each of the comic books, give or take a few. (Vertigo: give a few; WildStorm: take a few.) Vertigo’s big periodical launch was Jeff Lemire’s post-ap-oddball-yptic Sweet Tooth, the latest new-series launch to retail for $ 1.00. At WildStorm’s comic-book department, the most noteworthy development is that they had four books below the 5K mark, two of which missed the Top 300 chart altogether. Reportedly, WildStorm’s made some lucrative wholesale deals with the video-game industry recently, to be fair, which would explain the continued existence of at least some of its titles.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

1 - BLACKEST NIGHT
07/2009: Blackest Night #1 of 8  — 177,105          [196,066]
08/2009: Blackest Night #2 of 8  — 146,092 (-17.5%) [155,512]
09/2009: Blackest Night #3 of 8  — 140,786 (- 3.6%)

Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis’ Blackest Night remains the best-selling comic in the North American direct market by about 30,000 units; the number-two book, Marvel’s Reborn #3, sold an estimated 108,331 units.

Blackest Night is levelling off very quickly for a high-profile miniseries, while reorders for previous issues also remain strong: Blackest Night #1 sold another 10,996 units in September, issue #2 another 9,420 and July’s Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #2 also made the chart again, with an additional 4,098 copies — and there were more, see below.

As usual, I should point out that the book’s numbers — and especially the smooth drop-off — probably have a lot to do with the available variant-cover editions. For Blackest Night #1, there was a 1-for-250 edition, which means retailers needed to order 250 copies of the regular edition for every copy of the variant edition; for issue #2, there was a 1-for-200 edition; starting with #3, there are 1-for-100 editions for all remaining issues — also, all issues of Blackest Night are promoted with additional 1-for-25 variant-cover editions.

Still, even taking into account that there’s likely some distortion going on at the retail level thanks to the gimmick incentives, Blackest Night keeps performing very, very well.
Read the rest of this entry »

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

August was another fairly strong month for DC Comics’ periodical output, mainly thanks to the continued success of the Green Lantern and Batman franchises. With Blackest Night #2, Batman and Robin #3, Green Lantern #45 and Blackest Night: Batman #1, the publisher again managed to place four of its DC Universe titles in the Top 10. DC’s mainstream superhero line also saw superstar writer J. Michael Straczynski’s arrival with the four-part event Red Circle, the start of Geoff Johns’ Superboy/Legion of Super-Heroes revamp in Adventure Comics #1 and the company’s latest attempt at a Doom Patrol series.

Vertigo’s average periodical sales remained down in their usual orbit around 11,000 units in August, which isn’t surprising, given the lack of new launches or other special events. Instead, the imprint’s focus was on the debut of the Vertigo Crime line of comics novels. The two inaugural releases were off to a decent start and both made the Top 10 of Diamond’s Graphic Novels chart: Brian Azzarello and Victor Santos’ Filthy Rich claimed the No. 5 spot, selling an estimated 5,371. Ian Rankin and Werther Dell’Edera’s Dark Entries charted at No. 8, with 4,330 units.

For WildStorm, August was another nail in the coffin. The imprint’s average periodical sales crashed to 7,977 units, the second-lowest level in the imprint’s history. Red Herring, a new creator-owned limited series by David Tischman and Philip Bond, debuted with estimated sales below 6,000 units.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

1 - BLACKEST NIGHT
07/2009: Blackest Night #1 of 8  — 177,105          [185,070]
08/2009: Blackest Night #2 of 8  — 146,092 (-17.5%)

DC’s big-event series of the year grabs the top spot on the August chart, with a solid distance of 20,000 units to Marvel’s Captain America: Reborn #2. Not bad for what’s essentially a Green Lantern spin-off.

This is a smooth second-issue drop-off for a book selling above 150K, certainly, but once again, the observation comes with a disclaimer. As you recall, sales of Blackest Night #1 were boosted through a 1-for-250 variant-cover edition, which required retailers to order 250 copies of the regular comic for every variant edition.

Unlike Batman and Robin #2, however, Blackest Night #2 was promoted through a 1-for-200 variant edition, and there will be 1-for-100 editions for subsequent issues (all in addition to the usual 1-for-25 variants, of course). So, while the real drop-off is probably somewhat less pronounced than it was for Batman and Robin, bear in mind that sales of Blackest Night #2 are still more distorted by gimmicks than those of Batman and Robin #2 were, back in July.

None of which is to say that Blackest Night is not a great success, of course. The first issue sold another 7,965 units in August, and there are reorders for various crossover books, as well. All three issues of July’s biweekly miniseries Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps appeared on the chart again in August, selling between 4,000 and 5,000 units; Green Lantern #43 and #44 posted reorders of 3,577 and 4,536, respectively.

That’s a fairly reliable sign that Blackest Night and its tie-ins aren’t just clogging up store shelves.
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§ Shaenon K. Garrity does what they said couldn’t be done and offers A Crash Course in Boys’ Love , with a historical context.

In America, “yaoi” has become a catchall term for any manga or anime that includes suggestive situations between male characters, including mainstream shojo (girls’) manga that would not be classified as yaoi in Japan. In Japan, the general term for this type of manga is “boys’ love,” often abbreviated as BL. The term shonen-ai, literally “boy love,” is also used, but today often refers to older titles, especially early BL manga set in private boys’ schools. In American fandom, “yaoi,” “BL,” and “shonen-ai” tend to be used interchangably. The characters themselves are called bishonen, “beautiful boys.”

§ Jog investigates an early and unsuccessful attempt at bringing manga to the US.

§ Marc-Oliver Frisch continues his look at comics of olden days with Steve Gerber’s great “Headmen Saga” from THE DEFENDERS.

The creators confront their readers with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes there is no solution, and violence only serves to exacerbate the problem. What’s left for the characters—and the audience—to do with the situation is to live with the consequences and, hopefully, learn from it so it won’t happen again. It took decades for this kind of self-reflection to become more common in a genre that’s still largely based on men in tights trying to resolve conflicts by beating each other up at sight—and even when this reflective aspect is present, even today, it’s rarely as well-executed.

§ Joss Whedon talks about Dollhouse and up-and-coming director John Cassaday.

I have the same feeling about Cassaday; he’s a storyteller. I gave him shorter scripts than any other artist I’ve worked with because he has an extraordinary visual sense and it very much matches my own. Now directing is such alchemy, it’s so easy to fail. And I’ve seen people who are great at their jobs because everybody has a go. Editors, DPs, actors, craft services guy, everybody wants to try it out but it is such a diffuse but necessary set of skills that you never know which one this person might lack. It’s a risk that in the old days I never would have taken, I was too busy going “I’m hanging on for dear life.” With Cassaday, I know he can tell a story, I know him as a person, his sensibility, the way he is with other people and I just feel that this step is logical for him, it’s something he’s been pursuing for a while.

§ Alex Hoffman at the Transmission X blog wonders if webcomics should really be thought of as separate from the rest of the industry vis–à–vis the segregated nominations for the Joe Shuster Awards:

Could it be that the lack of webcomic nominations for Best Artist, Best Writer, Best Cartoonist or Best Colorist are due to their method of publication? Isn’t it possible that somehow, somewhere, people are writing on the internet just as well as others are writing for print? It’s too early to be pointing fingers or yelling about prejudice, but this division of suitability seems somewhat arbitrary and unfair. But how do we know this to be the case? Maybe webcomics are considered, but none have been good enough to merit a nomination. Well, this year’s nominations prove that isn’t so: Nominations for Best Artist list all credited work for the past year, for instance: “Steve McNiven – Amazing Spider-Man #546-548, Wolverine #66-70 (Marvel Comics)”. Yet, for Karl Kerschl, only his print work is mentioned.

§ Fashion corner: D~LuxeList spotlights Barbie-themed accessories from Jonathan Adler and Christian Louboutin

OUCH.

ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOOSE. Last week, Jack Kirby’s four children filed notices of copyright termination for 45 characters . The LA Times has details. This is the same legal maneuver that the Siegel family employed to get back their half of the Superman copyright. Notices were sent to Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, suggesting that the 45 characters include many already being made into successful movie franchises.

Kirby, of course, co-created the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and hundreds more of Marvel’s 5000 characters. Copyright termination allows creators to apply for copyright reassignment after the term of the original contract runs out.
Under copyright law, creators and co-creators can seek to regain copyrights they previously assigned to a company 56 years after first publication and can give notice of their intentions to do so up to 10 years before that.

Kirby’s children would be eligible to claim their father’s share of the copyright of the Fantastic Four in 2017, while the Hulk would come up in 2018 and X-Men in 2019. The copyrights would then run for 39 more years before expiring, after which the characters would enter the public domain under current law.
The Kirby family is being represented by lawyer Marc Toberoff, who also handles the Siegel case. In Hollywood, he is known as a relentless litigator — he also represented the creator of The Dukes of Hazzard in a successful claim against Warner Bros.

Of course there’s a lot to be written and discussed about this. Jack Kirby spent many of his later years trying to get his ART back from Marvel, and he felt that he was not fairly compensated for his creations for years. It also casts a shadow over Disney’s recent acquisition of Marvel, although a Disney spokesperson said “The notices involved are an attempt to terminate rights seven to 10 years from now and involve claims that were fully considered in the acquisition.”

We’ll have a bit more on this later, but in the meantime, Marc-Oliver Frisch considers how appropriate it is that this news broke on what would have been the late Steve Gerber’s 62nd birthday. (Kirby and Gerber collaborated on DESTROYER DUCK.)

AND, Jeff Trexler reports on the latest in the Siegel/Superman case, including the potentially huge news that the presiding judge is retiring in a few months.

§ Marc-Oliver Frisch reviews MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #18 which introduced the Guardians of the Galaxy. I had no idea Arnold Drake created these guys, along with Gene Colan, but I would so buy a cover that looked like that right this minute.

The highlight of the piece, in lieu of an engaging plot or compelling characters, is the plainly fantastic artwork by Gene Colan, who’s doing some incredibly dynamic and flashy page layouts and figures here. Neal Adams’ work around the same time immediately comes to mind as a point of comparison, but to be fair, I couldn’t tell you which of the two gentlemen got there first. The way Mr. Colan composes his pages and stages the action looks expressive, refreshingly creative and exciting all the way through, without making any sacrifices towards clarity. You can tell that the artist had the time of his life drawing this, and even forty years later, I can’t think of many of his colleagues who are able to produce equally dynamic visuals while still guiding you through the story as sure-footedly as Mr. Colan is doing here.

§ A brief interview with strip cartoonist Berkeley Breathed doesn’t mince words on the future:

This is a sad topic but I’m going to be blunt. Newspapers have about five years left. Young readers of the newspaper comics simply don’t exist anymore in numbers that count. Those eyeballs are elsewhere and will not come back. Online comics are terrific. But they will never have 1% of the readership any major comic had 20 years ago, by the nature of the technology. They’re different beasts now. No, after having 70 million daily readers in 1985, getting 3000 a day online isn’t terribly energizing at this stage. I’m happy to go to the storytelling potential of film and books now. My heart was always there anyway, to be honest.

§ Folks have been linking a bit to this weekend’s debut of the new HBO series Bored to Death since it is created by the comics friendly author Jonathan Ames, and one of the main characters is a cartoonist. David Press rounds up all you need to know on that score. And once you’re all informed, go to Amazon and watch the first episode FREE and clear. Early reviews are positive.

§ Gary Groth (Happy Birthday, old man) suggests why you might wish to financially aid comics retailing pioneer Bob Beerbohm.

§ Eddie Argos is back with an overview of HELLBLAZER.

My friend Keith TOTP, who I live with, has a huge suitcase full of comics which he keeps in our front room. Whenever I have a long tour or flight, I raid it. I thought I’d pretty much finished all of the comics in it. Delving through it this time though, I found a huge pile of Hellblazer books. I didn’t know much about Hellblazer so I took all of them and read them over the course of my many flights to Chicago. They were all pretty ace. I read most of Garth Ennis’ run on my first flight, and then on my next I read all of Mike Carey’s run. On my third, I read Andy Diggle’s and Denise Mina’s. You don’t need me to tell you that it’s ace. Hellblazer is Vertigo’s longest running title, and I’m clearly coming to it really late. I’m just setting the scene to let you know that I am a relatively new fan of Constantine in case I put a foot wrong with what I’m about to write.

§ Dash Shaw went to Brazil.

§ Bleeding Cool has a bit more on The Return of Ross Rojek. Many old-timers will recall Rojek as the one time force behind Another Universe, as well as an early proponent of getting graphic novels into record stores; unfortunately both efforts ended up being tainted by the whiff that they were naught but rip-off schemes. AU went under owing publishers and customers a lot of money. Rojek’s next effort was an even more blatant investment scheme that tried to get people to invest in nonexistent software. That effort got him sent up the river for four years.

Rojek writes to Rich Johnston that his time in jail helped him find a new path, to running a book review newspaper.

When I got out of prison, I started working for a friend who was interested in publishing my book review idea. I had been thinking about what to do with my life after I got out of prison, and I’d always been interested in published, so I began looking into it while in prison. I also went back to school while at one institution, and did some book reviews for the school paper, which helped take me down this path.

I had been the librarian at two different prison camps, and in trying to find enough new books to keep me busy I ended up reading a number of different book reviews and review sections. From there I started drafting my “dream” book review that would be helpful to me in my situation.

He also states that all the monies owed from back in the day are lost in the mists of time and various bankruptcies–probably true enough.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

July brought the expected boost for DC Comics’ periodical business. Largely thanks to Geoff Johns’ Blackest Night series and its various spin-off and tie-in books, the average DC Comics and DC Universe periodical sales increased significantly, to their highest levels in almost two years. The weekly Wednesday Comics, DC’s other big launch in July, debuted with much more modest figures: Wednesday Comics #1 charted at No. 36, with estimated sales well below 50,000 units.

Average periodical sales of the Vertigo and WildStorm imprints remained at their usual levels, with just above 11,000 and 8,000 units, respectively, and no trend reversals in sight. Notably, Vertigo published another $ 1.00 loss-leader with Greek Street #1, but failed to match the sales of its predecessor, The Unwritten #1. At WildStorm, Free Realms debuted, but the first issue of a twelve-part series based on a role-playing game missed the chart altogether, evidently.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

2 - BLACKEST NIGHT
07/2009: Blackest Night #1 of 8  — 177,105

At this stage, given the encouraging sales of both Green Lantern series over the last year, it doesn’t come as a great surprise that Blackest Night is a sales juggernaut. The book beats June’s Batman and Robin #1 by about 8,500 units and is only 16,000 units behind July’s top book, Marvel’s Reborn #1, which was massively hyped.

Like Batman and Robin #1, Blackest Night #1 was promoted not just with the usual 1-for-25 variant-cover edition, but also with a more limited 1-for-250 cover edition. (For the uninitiated, this means that retailers had to order 250 copies of the regular comic to be able to order one limited edition.) This could mean that the figure we see is massively inflated, which would result in a large second-issue drop, but it doesn’t seem like this happened with Batman and Robin #2 — see below.

Read the rest of this entry »

§ Marc-Oliver Frisch has some thoughts on The Amazon Best-Seller List.

§ Graeme McMillan has some thoughts on WEDNESDAY COMICS.

§ Dan Nadel has some thoughts on THE HUNTER by Darwyn Cooke.. As many have noted, it’s by far the most negative review of a book that has sold well — it’s going into a second printing — and received glowing reviews elsewhere. We’re quoting the end of the review even though that isn’t really kosher:

I read The Hunter within a few weeks of reading Melvin Monster by John Stanley. Granted, this is a very odd comparison, but stay with me. The material in Melvin Monster was drawn around the same time as The Hunter was written, and Stanley’s verve and control are not unlike Stark’s. Stanley’s storytelling is clear but never didactic, his drawing has a palpable flourish to it, and his stories are consistently funny and surprising. What more do you want from a comic that has to play within certain genre rules? On a formal level seems to have done everything Cooke is trying to do, and with a light touch, too. Cooke wants to make classic, mid-century comics, but seems too rooted in the trappings of storyboards and animation short-hand to allow himself to pare down, simplify, and let the story tell itself.

To be fair, pretty much EVERYONE comes up short against Stanley in marrying economy and subtlety. While we may disagree with some of Nadel’s analysis, this is a real example of why most comics/graphic novels “reviews” are far, far removed from criticism at any practical level. The piece should be read by anyone who feigns to write reviews. Cooke is, by almost every definition, a top-level artist and storyteller, but looking at his work with more context and subtext serves a very important function.

§ Douglas Wolk is now handicapping the week’s comics at Comics Alliance, automatically making it one of the weekly comics previews you MUST read.

§ Frenchman Louis Leterrier, who directed the last HULK movie, explains why Captain America is not for him, even though he’d love to make an Avengers movie:

GB: Well do a bit of daydreaming; which characters would appeal to you most?

LL: Well frankly I’d love to do the Avengers. But there are so many great ones in the Marvel world. I would have loved to have done “Iron Man,” that is an amazing character. And it’s all because of Kevin – finding Jon [Favreau, the director] to do that movie, there were people that were surprised. They asked, “Why Jon?” And look at the result. I talked to Marvel about “Thor” at one point but I didn’t want to do Thor. It wasn’t something I read growing up, really, it wasn’t one of the books I loved. Now the new stuff, the [J. Michael] Straczynski stuff, that is great. But before you get to that you have to go back to the old stuff, the genesis and that’s not what I wanted to do. Captain America I love and that would be great but, c’mon, a Frenchman doing Captain America? They would burn my passport.

§ Is Hal Jordan confused about his feelings for Bruce Wayne? Signs point to yes.

§ Guess who this article is about! Ont.-raised comic-book creator on the verge of Hollywood stardom

§ J. Caleb Mozzocco goes through one of the worst things a comics lover can go through. Send him some good thoughts!

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

Thanks to strong debut numbers of the revamped Batman line and the perpetually solid Green Lantern franchise, June brought the expected recovery for DC Comics’ periodical sales. Led by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Batman and Robin, which claimed the top spot in the Top 300 chart, the publisher managed to place four titles in the top ten, while average periodical sales remained well within the usual spectrum of the last few years. June also saw the debut of back-up strips and a higher cover price for several DC Universe series, but without any significant impact on sales.

Over at Vertigo and WildStorm, June was business as usual. Despite “The Great Fables Crossover,” average Vertigo sales remained just above 11K. At WildStorm, the six-part horror-property crossover Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash: Nightmare Warriors debuted with surprisingly good numbers, but the imprint’s average figures were still stuck below the 9,000 mark.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

1 - BATMAN AND ROBIN
06/2009: Batman and Robin #1  — 168,604

As expected, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s new Batman flagship is the best-selling DC series in June, also outselling everything else on the chart by a wide margin. Marvel’s highly promoted Captain America #600, which came in second, sold an estimated 112,287 units, for instance.

On the surface, 170K looks like a great number, certainly. There have been comics that shifted more units in recent years, but those were all Marvel books and part of special events (such as the “Obama issue” of The Amazing Spider-Man, or Civil War). Looking for either a new ongoing-series launch or a DC book that sold in equal or better numbers, one has to go back almost three years, to the release of Justice League of America #1, which moved an estimated 212,581 copies in August 2006.

In this context, Batman and Robin #1 looks like one of the greatest successes in the periodical comics market in quite some time.

On the other hand, there’s a wildcard involved in its numbers, because the book was promoted with two variant-cover schemes. The first involves a 1-for-25 edition, which, though it’s probably boosted sales quite a bit, has been relatively common for a while. The second, though, is a 1-for-250 edition; this means, in other words, that retailers who wanted to get one of those editions had to buy 250 non-returnable copies of Batman and Robin #1. The prospect was received controversially among retailers, not surprisingly.

Right now, we don’t know how many retailers swallowed the pill and upped their orders to get those particular variant editions. But considering that the scheme only applies to issue #1, I suspect we might get a reasonably good idea of that next month, when the figures for issue #2 are released. If sales are insanely inflated due to the variant, it will show on the chart.

So, for now: a great-looking number, but take it with a pinch of salt.
Read the rest of this entry »

Before I get into this, let me state unequivocally that San Diego Comic-Con is a fantastic experience, and despite any kvetching that follows, it’s an incredible, inspiring event and I remain amazed by the organization and efficiency with which it is run. For better or worse, Comic-Con wouldn’t be the mega media event that it has become if the infrastructure to make it so weren’t there. I think in all our suggestions and observations we forget that there is only a small crew of fulltime people who put this on, and as a non-profit, they have a lot of goals to juggle. So let’s give Faye Desmond, David Glanzer, Eddie Ibrahim, and everyone else involved a big hand. They did a phenomenal job and I know I’ll be back.

Another caveat, what I’m going to talk about isn’t about comics and the quality thereof. Comics are swell, and we all know that. I’m more interested in examining the social construct and how it has evolved at the place men call Con.

With that in mind…

There are two things that everyone in our line of work talks about after Comic-Con. “Is it too big?” and “Is there any room for comics at Comic-Con any more?” Let’s start with the crowd issue.

1: Take me out of this Hell Hall   

First, it must be admitted that getting around, getting into panels and, at times, even standing still were all problematic in the Convention Center this year. 2008 saw a big spike in moaning about security, and this year was even worse. Red shirts — Elite Security forces — and orange and green shirts — other security companies contracted by the show — were everywhere and necessary.

With so many people attending, safety is paramount and preventing small children from being trampled should be the main goal for everyone involved in the show. That’s understood. (One rumor going around was that a child had been injured on Thursday, leading to the increased security.) As long as 125,000+ people are trying to get a free bag, this is the way it’s going to be. Indeed, the present structure of the show has evolved around crowd control. The reason the programming is so incredible and jam-packed is to keep people off the floor and moving around. (Former 15 minute breaks between panels have also been eliminated to increase the number of panels and keep people in panel rooms.)

Likewise, security’s evolution means zero tolerance for straying outside the lines, both to keep people moving safely and to create the mood of obedience that keeps a crowd docile.

Bearing in mind that my expertise is in being part of a crowd, not crowd control, some of the new practices (or newly noticed by me practices) seem to be more for psychological than logistical reasons. There’s no winner in the war between freedom and safety. The plan to keep people in a subdued, law-abiding state certainly succeeded. My own personal reaction to this was a state of demoralization and surrender, which did not enhance my enjoyment of the show, and I’m sure others felt as I did.

To give a little context, on Saturday at the PopCult party, I was standing outside with a G&T in my hand for about 20 minutes before a bouncer told me to go inside. Standing outside with an open alcoholic drink is illegal and not allowed in a single club in the land. It was also 15 minutes longer than I went at the convention center without being told I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.
Read the rest of this entry »

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

Overall direct-market sales crashed in May, and DC Comics contributed its share. Like Marvel, though, DC has a pretty good excuse. While Batman: Battle for the Cowl and The Flash: Rebirth continued apace, May was basically an in-between month for the publisher. There were no big launches, and everybody kept waiting for June’s revamp of the Batman line and July’s debuts of both Blackest Night and Wednesday Comics, which can all be expected to be sales juggernauts. So, with all that in mind, there’s no reason to panic just yet. If anything, there are some signs that things might actually be looking up for DC in the second half of the year.

At Vertigo, average periodical sales received a much-needed shot in the arm in May and rose to their highest level in more than two years. The two main reasons for the boost were “The Great Fables Crossover” and the debut of Mike Carey and Peter Gross’ new series The Unwritten. At a cover price of one dollar, of course, The Unwritten #1 was two thirds a promotional item and is unlikely to have made Vertigo any money as a single issue. Still, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea to market a new comic. It should be interesting to watch the effects.

Diamond’s “Graphic Novel” chart, meanwhile, was topped by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — Century: 1910, the latest chapter of another best-selling property that DC’s WildStorm imprint no longer publishes. May should have been a good month for WildStorm: With a new StarCraft series, one of their more promising licensed properties debuted; and both of the imprint’s long-running creator-owned titles, Astro City and Ex Machina, came out. In practice, though, WildStorm’s average periodical sales once again failed to escape their limbo significantly below the 10,000-unit mark.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

2 - BATMAN: BATTLE FOR THE COWL
05/2004: Batman #627 —  76,885
05/2004: Batman #628 —  74,348 [75,832]
05/2005: Batman #640 —  66,640 [71,120]
05/2006: Batman #653 —  77,257 [78,435]
05/2007: Batman #665 —  80,122
——————————-
05/2008: Batman #676 — 105,039 (+47.9%) [122,877]
05/2008: Batman #677 —  96,116 (- 8.5%) [111,065]
06/2008: –
07/2008: Batman #678 — 103,213 (+ 7.4%)
08/2008: Batman #679 — 103,588 (+ 0.4%)
09/2008: –
10/2008: Batman #680 — 103,941 (+ 0.3%)
11/2008: Batman #681 — 103,151 (- 0.8%) [114,657]
12/2008: Batman #682 —  93,469 (- 9.4%)
12/2008: Batman #683 —  90,272 (- 3.4%) [ 91,885]
12/2008: Batman #684 —  79,953 (-11.4%) [ 82,903]
01/2009: Batman #685 —  72,654 (- 9.1%)
02/2009: Batman #686 — 111,353 (+53.3%) [124,542]
03/2009: BfC #1 of 3 —  91,619 (-17.7%) [103,913]
04/2009: BfC #2 of 3 —  89,120 (- 2.7%)
05/2009: BfC #3 of 3 —  89,170 (+ 0.1%)
—————-
6 months: -13.6%
1 year  : -11.3%
2 years : +11.3%
5 years : +17.9%

The book has done very well for DC, obviously, especially so if you consider that Tony Daniel didn’t really have any track record of critical or commercial success as a writer. Evidently, the market didn’t care, and there’s barely been any drop-off at all for The Battle for the Cowl.

Perhaps more significantly, these figures suggest that there’s a great deal of interest in the Batman franchise right now, so maybe “Batman R.I.P.” was on to something, after all. These figures — and those of the various spin-off books — are nothing but good news for June’s relaunch of the Batman line.

There was a 1-for-10 variant-cover edition, as always, while a second printing of issue #1 sold another 8,133 units in May.

Read the rest of this entry »

[This really got delayed due to MoCCA madness. Many apologies to Marc-Oliver and faithful readers.]

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

After a terrifying March performance, DC Comics’ periodical sales in the direct market rebounded in April. The second part of Neil Gaiman’s “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” and the debut of Geoff Johns’ The Flash: Rebirth claimed the two top spots for DC, for starters, which is something that hasn’t happened in a while. Also, with The Battle for the Cowl, the soaring Green Lantern franchise and “The Great Fables Crossover,” there were a number of other strong projects from the company, all contributing to an improved overall performance.

Mainly, though, DC’s recovering average sales were due to more new comic-book releases from its main DC Universe line, which accounts for the bulk of the publisher’s periodical sales. After producing only 36 new comics in March, Executive Editor Dan DiDio’s office ramped up its output to a more conventional 49 releases in April.

Whereas the average periodical sales of DC Comics overall and the DC Universe line in particular showed signs of recovery, however, the Vertigo and WildStorm imprints remained largely unaffected by the upturn. At Vertigo, the second act of Grant Morrison’s Seaguy saga proved to be a commercial non-starter, while three of WildStorm’s series, once again, failed to make the chart.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

<strong>1 - DETECTIVE COMICS</strong>
04/2004: Detective Comics #793 --  34,800
04/2005: Detective Comics #805 --  39,077
04/2006: Detective Comics #818 --  60,440 [68,189]
04/2007: Detective Comics #831 --  56,284
-----------------------------------------
04/2008: Detective Comics #843 --  48,431 (- 2.0%)
05/2008: Detective Comics #844 --  48,394 (- 0.1%)
06/2008: Detective Comics #845 --  48,920 (+ 1.2%)
07/2008: Detective Comics #846 --  72,417 (+48.0%)
08/2008: Detective Comics #847 --  71,134 (- 1.8%)
09/2008: Detective Comics #848 --  68,306 (- 4.0%)
10/2008: Detective Comics #849 --  65,878 (- 3.6%)
11/2008: Detective Comics #850 --  64,196 (- 2.6%)
12/2008: Detective Comics #851 --  64,961 (+ 1.2%)
01/2009: Detective Comics #852 --  56,656 (-12.8%)
02/2009: --
03/2009: --
04/2009: Detective Comics #853 -- 104,107 (+83.8%)
-----------------
6 months: + 58.0%
1 year  : +115.0%
2 years : + 85.0%
5 years : +199.2%

There was a 1-for-50 variant-cover edition of Detective Comics #853 that likely boosted sales to no small degree.

That said, Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s two-parter “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” probably wouldn’t have needed the help to be called a big whopping success.

The first chapter of the story, published in Batman #686 in February (see below), sold another respectable 8,056 units in April, bringing the total to 124,542.

Evidently, retailers’ faith in the material was justified.

Read the rest of this entry »

§ Geoff Johns adds comics shop owner to his portfolio with Earth-2 Comics Northridge.

“When Earth-2 Comics first opened their doors and I stepped in, I knew this store was something special,” said Johns. “Since then, I’ve been amazed by what Carr and Jud have built. I’ve wanted to get into the retailing side of the industry for years, to learn about and support the backbone of comics. And there are no better partners I can do that with than Carr, Jud and Earth-2. Plus, now I can harass Bob Wayne. A lot.”

Well, he’s identified one key component of the retailing equation right off the bat!

§ Chaos Mackenzie looks at Batwoman’s journey for Xtra:

From the beginning Batwoman was planned as queer. “With Kate,” says Rucka, “that was an administrative decision from on high, there was a choice made: You know, the time has come. We’re gonna take arguably the most recognizable symbol that we have — that’s the bat — and we’re going to associate it with a character that from the start is going to be known as gay. It’s not going to be an after-school special story, we’re not going to do a pull back the curtain and duh-duh-duh, it’s from the word go. What we want is a new member of the bat family: We want this character to be female, viable and strong and among all those things she is also gay. And that is part of the character-making, right, as opposed to an evolving self-discovery story.”

§ The Comics on Handhelds: Taking Webcomics Mobile panel from SXSW is now online.

§ Chris Butcher blogs Previews. He’s a professional Previews reader, so don’t try this at home. Part 1, and Part 2…so many observant nuggets we can’t even catalog them all.

8:37pm: So I guess I officially don’t understand Dan Brereton. After pulling his NOCTURNALS books from Oni (…and I think Dark Horse too? No?), then self-publishing a nice omnibus collection of some of his older work, he is now at Image with the second collection of his work, meaning that there’s an orphan self-pub’d vol-1 HC floating around out there… and about 75% of all comics retailers are seeing this omnibus collection NOCTURNALS VOLUME 2 (p150) for the first time, cuz now it’s in the Image section. With no accompanying relist of volume 1. Which means 75% of retailers are just gonna skip this, because they “can’t get the first volume”. It’s tough out there for creator-owned work, I know that. I’ve got ENORMOUS sympathy for Mr. Brereton, and I really like NOCTURNALS too. But I look at something like this and just shake my head. I don’t get these decisions at all.

(PS: We have always thoroughly enjoyed Brereton’s work, so this was just an excuse to post the cover.)
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by Marc-Oliver Frisch

Average DC Comics periodical sales in the direct market dropped to their lowest point yet in March 2009, in the context of the six years worth of available data. One reason for that was that the Vertigo and WildStorm imprints remained at very low averages for their periodical lines.

Mainly, though, the decrease is down to the fact that the publisher’s DC Universe department, which traditionally has the highest periodical sales among the three imprints, only released 36 new periodicals in March, as opposed to 45 in February, 51 in January and between 48 and 63 per month in 2008. Taken on their own terms, average DC Universe periodical sales were actually slightly up against February.

While a few DC Universe series did miss their March 2009 shipping dates, however, the draught is mostly down to the simple fact that the line just didn’t publish a lot of comics in March.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

3 - BATMAN: BATTLE FOR THE COWL
03/2004: Batman #625 —  83,371 [84,753]
03/2005: Batman #638 —  59,797 [82,651]
03/2006: Batman #651 —  69,805 [79,616]
03/2007: Batman #664 —  80,497 [82,107]
——————————-
03/2008: –
04/2008: Batman #675 —  71,138 (+ 4.3%)
05/2008: Batman #676 — 105,039 (+47.9%) [122,877]
05/2008: Batman #677 —  96,116 (- 8.5%) [111,065]
06/2008: –
07/2008: Batman #678 — 103,213 (+ 7.4%)
08/2008: Batman #679 — 103,588 (+ 0.4%)
09/2008: –
10/2008: Batman #680 — 103,941 (+ 0.3%)
11/2008: Batman #681 — 103,151 (- 0.8%) [114,657]
12/2008: Batman #682 —  93,469 (- 9.4%)
12/2008: Batman #683 —  90,272 (- 3.4%) [ 91,885]
12/2008: Batman #684 —  79,953 (-11.4%) [ 82,903]
01/2009: Batman #685 —  72,654 (- 9.1%)
02/2009: Batman #686 — 111,353 (+53.3%) [116,486]
03/2009: BfC #1 of 3 —  91,619 (-17.7%)
—————-
6 months:  n.a.
1 year  :  n.a.
2 years : +13.8%
5 years : + 9.9%

Batman: Battle for the Cowl was DC’s big new launch in March, effectively replacing the main Batman title for three months until the big revamp of the line in June, and it’s off to a respectable start.

Given the absence of brand-name creators, the publisher marketed the book solely on the strength of it being the next step in the Batman saga, and if these sales are any indication, it’s working: The numbers aren’t up at “Batman R.I.P.” or “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” levels, but they still handsomely beat those of the Grant Morrison run prior to “R.I.P.”

As you might expect, there was a 1-for-10 variant-cover edition which likely boosted sales. Batman #686, the first part of Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s story, sold another 5,133 units in March, meanwhile.
Read the rest of this entry »

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

[Please note that Marc-Oliver Frisch is offline for a few weeks, so he will not be able to answer any questions in the comments immediately.]

DC Comics’ average periodical sales in the direct market declined further in February 2009. They dropped to just above 23,000 units, yet another new low since Diamond Comic Distributors began releasing data on sales to retailers in March 2003.

The average periodical of the publisher’s mainstream DC Universe line sold an estimated 30,000 units, which is 4.9 percent down from January, and the lowest point for the line since January 2005.

DC’s Vertigo and WildStorm sublabels slightly recovered from their January slump. The average Vertigo title sold an estimated 11,353 units, up by 3.4 percent from January. The average WildStorm title sold 8,019 units, up 17.1 percent from January; however, it remains the second-lowest number in the imprint’s history by a wide margin.

The publisher’s only high-profile periodical release in February was Batman #686, the first half of a two-parter by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert. Although there were a number of new series launches from the DC Universe and Vertigo imprints, none of them managed to crack 25K.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

2 - BATMAN
02/2004: Batman #624 —  84,081
02/2005: Batman #637 —  58,034 [60,246]
02/2006: Batman #650 —  66,447
02/2007: Batman #663 —  83,167
——————————-
02/2008: Batman #674 —  68,208 (- 1.5%)
03/2008: –
04/2008: Batman #675 —  71,138 (+ 4.3%)
05/2008: Batman #676 — 105,039 (+47.9%) [122,877]
05/2008: Batman #677 —  96,116 (- 8.5%) [111,065]
06/2008: –
07/2008: Batman #678 — 103,213 (+ 7.4%)
08/2008: Batman #679 — 103,588 (+ 0.4%)
09/2008: –
10/2008: Batman #680 — 103,941 (+ 0.3%)
11/2008: Batman #681 — 103,151 (- 0.8%) [114,657]
12/2008: Batman #682 —  93,469 (- 9.4%)
12/2008: Batman #683 —  90,272 (- 3.4%) [ 91,885]
12/2008: Batman #684 —  79,953 (-11.4%) [ 82,903]
01/2009: Batman #685 —  72,654 (- 9.1%)
02/2009: Batman #686 — 111,353 (+53.3%)
—————-
6 months: + 7.5%
1 year  : +63.3%
2 years : +33.9%
5 years : +32.4%

The first chapter of Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” was supported with a 50/50 variant-cover edition, but obviously it’s a big commercial success by any standard. In terms of first-month numbers, it outsells May’s Batman #676, for instance, which was the beginning of the much-promoted “Batman R.I.P.”

Detective Comics #853, the second part of the story, was originally scheduled for February as well, but the book is late and, as I’m writing this, is delayed until April 22.
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by Steve Horton

[Ed’s note: We’re running this column as something of an experiment. Let us know what you think, publicly…or privately.]

Welcome to a monthly column on indie comics sales, a companion to the long-running Marvel and DC columns by Paul O’Brien and Marc-Oliver Frisch, respectively.

What are indie comics? I define them strictly as comics not from Marvel or DC. I’m including both creator-owned and licensed books. That means any Icon, Vertigo or Wildstorm books will still be discussed in the Marvel & DC columns.

What is creator-owned and what is licensed? I define creator-owned as a title whose original creator is still in control of the property and owns or co-owns the copyright, even though said creator may not be working on the title at the moment. Licensed titles are usually television and movie tie-ins.

You’ll notice that I don’t cover the entire top 300. I’m discussing books which have consistent top 300 data from month to month. Titles that debut in the top 300 and quickly fall off simply don’t have enough data points. Likewise titles that appear toward the bottom in slow months only to get knocked off when the latest Marvel & DC summer event kicks off won’t appear here. Therefore, we’ve cut things off this month at #273, Shrapnel, with sales of 3,653. That ranking and sales cutoff will change from month to month. Unfortunately, that excludes many fine creator-owned books, including personal favorites of mine such as Proof. Nothing much I can do about that.

The biggest news in February’s chart is that sales dropped almost across the board. Three reasons for that: the economy continues to tank, several comic shops closed in the new year, and Diamond moved warehouses, goofing up the supply chain. You’ll see a lot of weird sales aberrations as a result; these figures may or may not correct themselves by March, depending on how the U.S. and Diamond recovery goes.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures.

12 - BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (Dark Horse)
Licensed
-
02/2008: Season Eight #11 88070
03/2008: Season Eight #12 88930  +0.98%
04/2008: Season Eight #13 83580  -6.02%
05/2008: Season Eight #14 82069  -1.81%
06/2008: Season Eight #15 80464  -1.96%
07/2008: Season Eight #16 82031  +1.95%
08/2008: Season Eight #17 79307  -3.32%
09/2008: Season Eight #18 77589  -2.17%
10/2008: -
11/2008: Season Eight #19 74202  -4.37%
12/2008: Season Eight #20 71896  -3.11%
01/2009: Season Eight #21 69980  -2.66%
02/2009: Season Eight #22 67575  -3.44%
-
6 months:    -14.79%
1 year:      -23.27%

The #1 licensed title in comics since Joss Whedon took a personal hand, Buffy’s sales have plummeted from the six figures early in its run to just over 67K. The drop doesn’t seem to be slowing any just yet, either. However, the trades are monsters. The third volume of Buffy took #9 on the 03/04 New York Times Graphic Books bestseller list. Whether in comic or book form, fans can’t get enough of the continuing adventures of the vampire slayer.
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by Marc-Oliver Frisch

The big news on the January sales chart is a catastrophic crash of WildStorm’s average periodical sales. The monthly direct-market numbers of the DC Comics sub-label hovered around the 10K mark for most of the past twelve months, but in the new year, the bottom dropped out: WildStorm’s average sales nosedived by 27.2 percent compared to the previous month, to an estimated 6,851 units.

Compared to January sales from 2004 through 2008, the loss ranges from 51 to 62 percent. Compared to six months ago, one of the weakest months for WildStorm periodicals last year, it’s still a 30.6-percent decline.

The reason for the dramatic decline of WildStorm periodical sales is simple: The imprint currently stands on three pillars, none of which seems able to support its own weight. The traditional WildStorm Universe superhero properties, based on characters created by WildStorm founder Jim Lee, have been waning for years commercially; none of the more recent creator-owned properties have been remotely able to recapture the early success of Astro City or Ex Machina (the one notable exception being The Boys, which was promptly taken elsewhere by its creators due to creative differences with the management); and the vast majority of WildStorm’s licensed titles adapting videogame, television or film properties fail miserably.

As a result of the WildStorm plunge, average DC Comics sales dropped to their lowest point since industry website ICv2.com started publishing actual-sales estimates in March 2003. Across all three major imprints, the publisher’s average periodical sales declined by 9.4 percent in January.

January marked a decline for the DC Universe and Vertigo imprints, as well. Sales of the average DC Universe periodical dropped by 6.7 percent in January, sales of the average Vertigo periodical by 5.4 percent. The January 2009 numbers are not the lowest estimated sales for either the DC Universe or Vertigo lines in the context of the last five years, but they’re still far down in the spectrum.

See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

3/4 - FINAL CRISIS
05/2008: Final Crisis #1 of 7 — 144,826          [166,641]
06/2008: Final Crisis #2 of 7 — 126,082 (-12.9%) [134,116]
07/2008: –
08/2008: Final Crisis #3 of 7 — 123,881 (- 1.8%)
09/2008: –
10/2008: Final Crisis #4 of 7 — 115,666 (- 6.6%)
11/2008: –
12/2008: Final Crisis #5 of 7 — 109,181 (- 5.6%)
01/2009: Final Crisis #6 of 7 — 123,345 (+13.0%)
01/2009: Final Crisis #7 of 7 — 103,292 (-16.3%)
—————-
6 months: n.a.

Final Crisis #6, in case you missed it, was the issue where Batman finally died (well, kind of), after emphatically not perishing at the end the “Batman R.I.P.” storyline in his own title back in November. It was easy to miss, certainly, since the mainstream media largely ignored the story in favor of the Barack Obama issue of Marvel’s The Amazing Spider-Man that came out on the same day — see Paul O’Brien’s column on that.

Still, DC evidently got a solid sales boost out of the event. The number shown above actually includes the 12,453 units of a second printing that also came out in January but was listed separately on the chart. If Diamond had combined the two listings, Final Crisis #6 would have taken the No. 2 spot on the Top 300 chart, outselling the debut of Marvel’s Dark Avengers by 5,000 units.

Sales of both issues were increased through the usual 50/50 variant-cover editions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, just a few after dinner cordials as we close the books on the annual Imbolc rituals:

§ Peerless Peggy Burns of D&Q has the last word on the indie sales matter, by pointing out that comparing apples to sea scallops makes no sense whatsoever:

Bookscan doesn’t provide an accurate report, but it can be helpful in gauging where our sales lie in relation to other publishers. I use it the same way I use an Amazon ranking — very loosely. I admit to logging in every Wednesday to see our previous week’s numbers. I don’t look to see how our books are performing against Naruto or Wimpy Kid, I look to see how our books perform among our distributor FSG’s titles, and I look to see how our books perform compared to our closest publishing peer, McSweeneys, and to make sure our books perform as well as the majority of Pantheon’s graphic novels (Maus and Persepolis are in their own league, of course.) When I see that Bookscan says that Lynda Barry’s What It Is has comparable numbers to Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon’s Maps and Legends for McSweeneys, I am happy.

Anyone who has read the entire debate here should click on the link, as it’s must reading from a very informed viewpoint.

§ Marc-Oliver Frisch looks at the intertwined economic fortunes of trades and periodicals:

The question of Vertigo’s paperback sales is a classic absence-of-proof case for most series. There is no proof in the available numbers that (a) Vertigo series sell better in the book market than in the direct market or that (b) most current Vertigo series sell well anywhere at all. But just because the limited numbers we know don’t show it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not there, of course, which makes Hibbs’ statement problematic.

§ And finally, Dick Hyacinth has the most accurate assessment of all:

Note #1 about recent Bookscan conversations: I think the current debates reveal more about the rivalries and relationships between prominent comics bloggers than anything useful about the numbers themselves. This probably would have amused me more a few years ago.