§ Chris Butcher is on a tear this week, first with a calling-a-spade-a-spade . post

So yeah, most of the 3300 graphic novels released in 2007 sucked. Godwin’s Law Sturgeon’s Law is that 95% of everything is crap, and that’s about right in this case. Of course, the fact that there’s a “Godwin’s Law” “Sturgeon’s Law” at all should tell me that this is no surprise to any of you, but I just feel like someone had to come out and say it: There are a lot of awful, awful graphic novels coming out these days. Whoever’s guarding the gate, be it retailers, journalists, “journalists”, whatever, I beg you; be discerning in your praise, don’t pass along PR without having vetted the project yourself, stand behind your recommendations and, if you can’t, own up to your mistakes.

He followed it up with a post where is picked up the spade and did some digging to put his money where his mouth is:

That said, I just read the new Amazing Spider-Man, #552, and it’s awful. That’s no surprise, I read about 20 comics this week and half of them were pretty bad, but this one is written by Bob Gale, who wrote Back to the Future. Why is that important? Other than the failure of the writer on this one, there’s the failure of the editor as well for hiring him… This is the same Bob Gale who wrote Daredevil #19-25 (current series). A story-arc so mediocre that they didn’t even bother to collect it in trade paperback, and considering Marvel was collecting nearly everything at that point, including every Daredevil story, that’s saying a lot.

§ HARBINGER, a long ago title from the great Valiant Age of comics may get the movie treatment courtesy of director Brett Ratner. Ratner had fun with X-MEN 3, but now he wants his OWN comics movie franchise to get rolling. The deal was negotiated via the Valiant Entertainment Group, a privately financed company headed by CEO Jason Kothari and chief creative officer Dinesh Shamdasani, both of whom will be co-producers on the film. Apparently more Valiant comics and movie deals are on the way.

§ SLG head Dan Vado presents his March line-up in this slide-show webcast. The internet makes all things possible.

§ Marvel EIC Joe Quesada’s popular feature Cup O’ Joe in which he takes on fan questions will be returning as a regular feature at MySpace:

Every week, Quesada will tackle questions posed directly by True Believers on the world’s most popular social network in this brand new weekly feature on MySpace Comic Books. Like a might Marvel team-up, the online community known for connecting legions of fans with the most exciting creators, projects, and events in the industry comes together with the leading comics publisher to present your chance to get inside the mind of one of comics’ most popular personalities.

Cup o’ Joe was long a regular feature at Newsarama, but word on the street has it that Marvel and the comics news giant had a falling out over a broken embargo.

§ Via the Vanity Fair blog (!) comes a little piece of comics history we had just forgotten about. Radio host Joe Franklin’s appearance at last week’s MOREOLD JEWISH COMEDIANS event was a burying of the hatchet — and not in someone’s back:

That Franklin was in attendance at all, let alone getting laughs, was a big surprise to a number of people at the party, given that, in 1984, he sued Friedman for $40 million after the cartoonist published a hilarious comic strip called “The Incredible Shrinking Joe Franklin” in Heavy Metal magazine. The case was dismissed because the comic strip was an obvious parody, and almost 25 years later Franklin has apparently gotten over his anger. Friedman emailed me this morning to let me know that one of the highlights of his party was when Franklin walked up and embraced him.

Franklin was clearly an early adapter in the cartoon legal battle derby but it’s great to see old feuds left behind in the dustbin where they belong.

Over at his Boneville blog, Jeff Smith has started a series of posts looking back at the self-publishing movement of the 90s:

It’s been 15 years since I met Larry Marder, who introduced me to Dave Sim. Who in turn introduced me to Colleen Doran. Soon, along with James Owen and Martin Wagner, we created a limited edition print featuring all our characters to sign and give away to comic book store retailers.

We did this at a 1993 Diamond Comics Distributors retail show - - a few months after the industry was stunned by the announcement that six of Marvel’s top artists were forming their own company called Image Comics. The resulting rumors that we might be planning to form our own super group was irresistible. This was the beginning of what would be called The Self-Publishing Movement.

With Smith, Terry Moore and Dave Sim all launching new titles this year, it seems like a profitable time to look back at what the movement meant and where it’s gone. Back then it was all about a lone cartoonist writing, drawing, publishing, promoting and touring. It was a grueling one man (or one woman) show that proved to be too grueling for most people. The good news is that the current economics of comics allow publishers from stalwarts Fantagraphics and D&Q, to newer specialized houses like Buenaventura and Picturebox to pick up the business end of things while still allowing near-absolute creative freedom. The internet and shows like SPX and MoCCA — not to mention distributors like Sparkplug — have allowed an even greater blossoming.

The difference is that the pioneering generation was based around the pamphlet economy — putting out a regular COMIC BOOK was the goal. Nowadays it’s all about the collection. Young cartoonists can get on the map with a single mini-comic story instead of a planned 10 year epic story. Many of the 90s creators were more genre-tinged, as well. It would be just as profitable, perhaps, to look at how the economic switch has changed creative goals and processes.

And yet, see our earlier posting on the genre-more-than-tinged CRIMINAL. Brubaker and Phillips are pretty much doing things the old fashioned way — albeit in a “team” situation, not the lone cartoonist model — and getting a book out this time around involves a publishing deal with Marvel, promotions on a social network owned by Fox, and interviews with comics-loving celebrities. The hard work seems to be paying off — the second CRIMINAL collection debuted at #10 on the Diamond graphic novel initial order chart, a strong showing for a creator-controlled property. We’ve come a long way, baby.

Anyway, this series of postings at BONEVILLE — which will include guest blogs by Colleen Doran, Larry Marder, Paul Pope, Terry Moore, Charles Brownstein, and others — should be good reading.

Oh man, we can just imagine the internet chatter about this lengthy profile of Rob Liefeld in the OC Weekly:

To this day, Liefeld is described as “controversial”—it’s one of the first things you’ll see on his Wikipedia page—but he isn’t quite sure why. “I ask people, but no one really has a good answer,” he says. “It’s just one of those things, like, ‘I’m controversial!’ I’ve never gotten out of a limousine without my underwear on. I haven’t been pulled over for any DUIs. . . . I think the success that I had when I was young ticked a lot of people off because they eventually told me so.”

Pages and pages more. Fun for everyone, and the author’s email is at the end!

The recent deaths of past and preseng comics execs Steve Massarsky and Richard Goldwater have a bit of online commentary. Marv Evanier discusses Goldwater here. Masssarsly so was instrumental to the face of early 90s comics via his involvement with Valient/Voyager, was a more controversial figure, as comments in the Newsarama thread and this Comicmix obit show. Tom Spurgeon has a more comprehensive look at the Valiant years, including Massarsky’s battles with Jim Shooter.

Over on his blog, Jeff Smith recently announced some impressive sales figures for Scholastic’s BONE reprints:

I received some astonishing sales figures from Scholastic - - the paperback edition of BONE 6: Old Man’s Cave, which just shipped last month, is in its third printing for a total of 260,000 copies! The combined hard cover & paperback sales for the series to date: nearly 2,000,000.

An imposing figure to be sure, but not one that surprises me. Kids like comics. Kids like fantasy. When both are done as superlatively as BONE, success should be sure to follow.

I learned that back in the day when I worked at Disney Adventures magazine, where Bone was serialized for about a year. I’ve often been given credit for reprinting BONE in the pages of DA, but to be honest, it was Marv Wolfman’s idea at first. After Marv left, I picked up the mantle, and continued the color reprints. There was even an all-new 8 page Bone story whose reprint history I’m sadly unaware of.

DA’s recent demise gave me (and many others) pause for thought. DA started back in the early 90s. It was the idea of Michael Lynton (who now runs Sony Pictures). Hyperion Books was also his idea — some how or other Lynton introduced Disney to the idea of publishing non-Disney books and magazines, and also comics. (The brief career of Disney Comics was also Lynton’s idea.)

(more…)

Here’s one of the subjects we really need to read up on: the legal tangle surrounding the return of Valiant comics. It seems the tangle has already caused one problem: Diamond will not be distributing the HARBINGER reprint due to legal concerns:

In the latest development in what has seemingly become a quagmire of intellectual property rights and legalities over the former Valiant characters took another twist this past week. The Harbinger: The Beginning hardcover, originally due to go on sale this Wednesday from Valiant Entertainment, LLC. collecting the original 1990’s Harbinger #0-7 along with an all-new “Origin of Harada” story by Harbinger creator Jim Shooter, has been cancelled in the Direct Market. Retailers who have called their Diamond Comics Distributors representatives to inquire about the availability of the hardcover have been told that the item was canceled Friday due to “legal reasons.”

More in the link.