Dark Horse has hired former Borders graphic novel buyer Micha Hershman as their new Director of Marketing. According to PR:

In his 13 year tenure, Hershman has developed an extensive professional experience with comics, graphic novels, science fiction, horror and related merchandise. After handling the buyer duties for the chain’s rapidly growing graphic novel section, he became the Category Director for the company’s pop culture section. Having engineered highly successful retail and online marketing campaigns for such recognizable brands as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Twilight, and managed the Children’s and Fiction marketing teams, Micha comes to Dark Horse armed with both the experience and passion to grow the brand’s presence in all markets.

“Dark Horse is a world-class organization, unmatched in it’s dedication to comics, their creators and their fans” said Hershman.  “I couldn’t be more excited to join Mike Richardson and his team.”

“We are extremely happy to have Micha here at Dark Horse” said President Mike Richardson. “The experience, knowledge, and enthusiasm he brings to our marketing team will be a huge resource as we look to grow Dark Horse over the coming years.”

A very quick google shows Hershman commenting on GNs and their place in the world for years, so he’s very conversant with the field. He starts in his new position later this month.

Dark Horse has put up a preview of the upcoming Charles Vess art book Drawing Down The Moon: The Art of Charles Vess. Not 10 pages, not 20 pages…the whole damn thing.

And you know what? It’s going to sell more books.

Is there any way you can look at a few images of this lyrical, imaginative art and NOT want to look at it full size in a form you can savor?

When we ran the Wimpy Kid press release yesterday about the fourth book in the series having a 4 million copy lay down, someone pointed out to us that Wimpy Kid has been — and still is — a free webcomic, available to all. Hasn’t hurt sales.

As for the Vess art book, it contains:

Verdant fairy forests. Whispering mountains. The fallen towers of ancient kings. Spirit-filled lakes. The distant strains of elven bards. For over thirty years, the fantasy art of Charles Vess has been acclaimed worldwide, his rich palette, striking compositions, and lavish detail second to none in the field. Vess has been the illustrator of choice for countless publishers and writers, including Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clark, and George R. R. Martin. Embodying the timeless approach of the golden age of illustration, Vess’s work is both breathtakingly singular and yet recalls an era when paint and brush were the vessels that carried readers of all ages to distant lands, bygone ages, and realms of the imagination

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Drawing Down the Moon goes on sale in December and sells for $39.99.

What’s this now??? It’s can’t be! More turmoil!

NO! Just the announcement that Dark Horse and Archie are teaming up to publish the Archie Archives.

The Archie Archives will consist of hardcover volumes, in Dark Horse’s archive format, featuring Archie Comics mainstay characters of “Archie”,  “Betty”, “Jughead”, “Veronica” and the other characters in the Riverdale Universe.  Each individual title will begin with the earliest published issue and move forward in chronological order.  Each volume will be approximately 200-250 pages, feature embossed printing, a dust-jacket and carry both Archie Comics and Dark Horse names and logos.  The initial plan is to release three volumes of each individual title per calendar year, with each volume retailing for $49.95. According to Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson, the series will run indefinitely.
 
Archie Comics co-CEO Jon Goldwater stated, “We have seen the quality and care Dark Horse has put in to restoring and collecting material for their archival series, and we are looking forward to making our early MLJ library of classic material available to a new generation of  kids and collectors.”

Whew, we were worried there for a moment.

Crumb’s GENESIS. ASTERIOS POLYP. Joe Sacco’s NOTES FROM GAZA. The ALEC collection. 2009 has seen more than its share of graphic novels that change how we look at the medium. But none of those books is a beautiful painted miniseries about a kitty and some puppies that fight supernatural menaces. No, that book is BEASTS OF BURDEN by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, and WE NEED THIS BOOK. These two fine creators will be making various appearances to promote this book over the next few days, starting TONIGHT! Here’s the schedule:

Friday Sept 11th
Evan Dorkin
Modern Myths 7th Anniversary Party
Northampton, MA
6-9
http://www.modern-myths.com/

Saturday Sept 12th
Evan Dorkin
Modern Myths
Northampton, MA
1-3
http://www.modern-myths.com/

Wednesday Sept 16th
Jill Thompson and Evan Dorkin/Beasts of Burden #1 release party
Comic Book Jones
Staten Island, NY
6-9 pm
http://www.comicbookjones.net/events.htm

Saturday Sept 19th
Jill Thompson and Evan Dorkin/Beasts of Burden #1 release party
Bergen Street Comics
Brooklyn, NY
6-closing
http://bergenstreetcomics.com/dev/?page_id=12

One of the most excellent comics announcements to come out of you-know-what was the news that Dark Horse will be reprinting all three volumes of BLACKSAD by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido in a deluxe oversized volume. The first two BLACKSAD books were published here by iBooks a while back, but with iBooks having gone into bankruptcy, these became highly sought after. Getting the full series reprinted was in limbo, but now Dark Horse has ridden in to fix that right up.

BLACKSAD is best described as hardboiled detective tales with an anthropomorphic cast, but with a darker side and social criticism mixed in. The real star is Guarnido’s art, which is some of the best stuff out there (the series has won over a dozen European awards). He worked extensively on several Disney films, and his art has the best qualities of that brand: indelible character designs, flawless storytelling and the attention to mood and place that is the hallmark of the great European comics. The series is hugely popular in France and Spain, and we can’t wait to read the whole thing in English.

Bonus: Jamie S. Rich at Robot 6 talks to editor Katie Moody:

And as you also point out, it has a different flavor than the usual “funny animal” titles. I devoured the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics while growing up, am an ardent fan of Usagi Yojimbo [fist-bump of UY solidarity], and look forward to digging into Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge at some point, which is widely recognized as genius work. So in no way do I think that the visual trope is without fundamental merit. But each of these prominent books follows more of a cartooning tradition, and Guarnido’s realism is ultimately rooted in caricature. What he does in Blacksad transcends anthropomorphism–a boxer is literally a gorilla, a cold-hearted villain is an actual reptile–to the extent that the term “anthropomorphism” itself feels backwards; he’s not giving animals human-like qualities so much as he’s giving his human cast animal-like qualities. (Which would be what, bestepomorphism?) However you want to describe it, the result is creative alchemy, as the title’s “holy grail” popularity can attest.

Artist Charles Vess writes to say:

My 200 page, hardcover art book, Drawing down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess will be arriving in stores this December from Dark Horse Books. Chris Warner & Co. have done a lovely job of assembling this retrospective of my 35 + years working as an illustrator/comics artist.

…The book has been solicited and re solicited several times but this time its for real. I have in hand a complete set of proofs and, if I do say so myself, it looks beautiful!

The book is listed in latest Diamond Previews (August) on page #36(Item # Aug09 0029).

Vess has some preview images at his blog and, suffice to say, this is one “art of” book that is richly, richly deserved. Order your copy now.

Adding to their slate of classic comics reprints, Dark Horse is set to publish the Archie Archives, hardcover reprints of every Archie story starting from the very beginning, starting early next year. According to Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson, the series will run indefinitely. “The first story, some readers may not recognise the style,” he told The Beat. “It evolved quite a bit after that, but even the earliest stories are fun to look at and read.”

The books will be in the hardcover, dust jacketed format used for other Dark Horse reprints such as Tarzan.

Richardson said he’s looking at reprinting other Archie characters, as well.

In addition, Dark Horse is also putting out more material from the Harvey Comics historical archives, with a Casper 60th Anniversary Special Edition, a hardcover reprinting of the very first Casper story. Dark Horse has already published several collections of Harvey characters, including Richie Rich and Hot Stuff, and more is on the way. Richardson said he’s happy to put out more material for younger readers, and this classic material has been well received by kids and collectors alike.

Dark Horse is going green as the above comic shows. They also have more activities at their booth than you can shake a pointed stick at, with Powell, Vess, Talbot, Aragonés, Landis, Thompson, and more, more, more.

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Consider this a plug! Evan Dorkin delivers his pitch for BEASTS OF BURDEN, a four-issue miniseries written by him and painted by Jill Thompson:

I do know what the deal on the comic is: It’s $2.99 for 23 pages of story and art (the first issue is 23 pages, the others are 22), wonderfully painted by the talented and popular Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother, Magic Trixie, Sandman et al). Dogs and cats versus the supernatural. Come on, that sounds okay, doesn’t it? It’s at least half as good as a kid bitten by a spider who gets superpowers and can’t make money even though he invents all this great stuff and sews a costume all in one night. Don’t you think? Well, okay, maybe not, but it’s still okay in my book. And it’s only three bucks! Three lousy bucks. Cripes, you people, really, don’t tell me about the economy, I don’t want to hear that jive talk. Just take it out of your mom’s bag, or your dad’s wallet. Bring some beer bottles in for redemption. Roll the town drunk. Busk. Do something. Hell, my daughter has three bucks, and she’s only four. Don’t give me any excuses this September. Please. I beg of you.

We beg of you too! Is there any reason in the world not to buy this gorgeous comics about KITTIES AND PUPPIES? Who fight the supernatural? It’s got “awesome’ written all over it in big felt tip marker.

Lost in all the excitement over Gilbert Hernandez’s new superhero Dreamstar last week, is the fact that Dark Horse Presents has left MySpace. Given the social networking site’s unfriending of hundred of employees — including those that ran the comics site — this is pretty low on the surprise meter. ICv2 caught up with editor Sierra Hahn for more info:

The new issue of Dark Horse Presents isn’t up on the Dark Horse My Space pages, which don’t seem to have changed in quite a while. Why did you elect to put it up on the Dark Horse site?

The issue currently on MySpace Dark Horse Presents is issue #23 and went live on June 3rd. Issue #24 was supposed to go live on MySpace on July 1st, but due to the unforeseen layoffs at MySpace, and the changes made with the department that we’ve worked closely with for the last two years, it was clear that we weren’t going to be able to post issue #24 on time. The artists on these projects have worked hard these last months to generate great content for the newest issue, and I didn’t want readers to miss their Dark Horse Presents fix. So when we realized that it was too soon to sort out the changes with MySpace, we decided to host the newest issue on our site.

The latest issue contains the almost greatest yaoi moment ever, in a Buffy story by Joss Whedon and Jo Chen, new Matt Kindt and Mike Lawrence, as well.

As reported widely yesterday, MySpace, the once ascendant social networking site, laid off over 400 people yesterday — a third of its workforce — in the same month that it announced that rival Facebook had surpassed the Fox-owned site in number of users.

According to Comics Alliance, the layoffs included the people running MySpace Comics, a once lively site that had presented regular original content, including Cup O’ Joe (now moved to CBR) and MySpace Dark Horse Presents, an online anthology series by top name creators. That feature’s fate has long been the topic of much speculation given MySpace’s stagnating fortunes, and the departure in an earlier round of layoffs of Sam Humphries, who spearheaded the comics effort. Dark Horse is still deciding what to do with the feature,

According to a Dark Horse spokesman, “We are currently gathering information on the future and direction of the site to determine whether or not this kind of program will continue to make sense there. However, even before yesterday’s news, we had already begun discussions on the future of Dark Horse Presents, and are working on ideas on what will now be the appropriate venue to continue what has been a very successful program for Dark Horse and all of the creators who have participated thus far.”

MySpace DHP gave rise to several well-received print collections and an Eisner win for Best Digital Comic for Sugarshock by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon, so continuing the anthology somewhere would seem to make a lot of sense.

Meanwhile, The LA Times had a lengthy analysis of MySpace’s business stumblings. The perceived missteps are numerous. Some observers say it clung too long to a “portal strategy,” in which it sought to amass an audience around entertainment content.

By contrast, Facebook maintained its focus on features that enhance the social-networking experience, such as the “News Feed” that matches the immediacy of Twitter’s staccato updates. “The speed with which a company like Facebook is able to innovate and keep things fresh is the key to survival in this space,” said Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group, a research firm specializing in social networking. “There are new things like Twitter that come along. What does Facebook do? It does Twitter . . . and it does it better.”

With Myspace ditching the “portal” concept, it sounds like Myspace Comicbooks was already on the way out. See also this Crain’s piece. It’s hard to believe Fox head Rupert Murdoch was once seen as a visionary for buying MySpace, isn’t it now?

Meanwhile, new social web darling, Twitter, has yet to show a way of earning any money, and YouTube’s losses are a party game:

Technology consultants RampRate Inc. projects YouTube’s operating losses this year at $174.2 million — far below the $470.6 million estimated by Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Kenneth Sena in an April research report that became a hot topic on Wall Street and the Internet.

The dueling forecasts are the latest twist in a guessing game that has intrigued investors since Google bought YouTube for $1.76 billion in late 2006.

Although YouTube has become an even more popular diversion since the Google deal, it still hasn’t proven it can make money.

Mountain View-based Google has acknowledged YouTube isn’t profitable, but has refused to provide any specifics, leaving it to outsiders to figure out

As reported in Dark Horse’s solicitations for August, Bryan Talbot has a new book, GRANDVILLE, coming out, and it looks to be as unique as his previous works, if not quite the in-your-face mind bender of ALICE IN SUNDERLAND. It’s best described as a steampunk alternate history mystery with anthropomorphic characters, in the Euro tradition. As the solicitation puts it:

Two hundred years ago, Britain lost the Napoleonic War and fell under the thumb of French domination. Gaining independence after decades of civil disobedience and anarchist bombings, the Socialist Republic of Britain is now a small, unimportant backwater connected by a railway bridge, steam-powered dirigible, and mutual suspicion to France. When a British diplomat’s murder is made to look like suicide, ferocious Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard stalks a ruthless murder squad through the heart of a Belle Epoque Paris, the center of the greatest empire in a world of steam-driven hansom cabs, automatons, and flying machines. LeBrock’s relentless quest can lead only to death, truth . . . or war.

There’s a trailer up now. The cover is above and a random page is below. Many more previews at the GRANDVILLE page, linked to above.

Dark Horse has joined the stampede of publishers who are trying various ways to get their comics distributed onto iPhones and other mobile devices. To do it, they’re launching an app for TERMINATOR: DEATH VALLEY from 1998. You can read the full PR below the fold, but CBR has an interview with DH’s Mike Richardson on the initiative:

The publisher gave no hints as to what Dark Horse comics would follow “Terminator: Death Valley” onto the iPhone, but upcoming titles will be selected by Richardson in coordination with designers, editors, and series artists to determine suitability for the format. “We’re going to be very ambitious,” Richardson said. “We’ve always tried to be the best at everything we do, and this will be no different. It’s one of the reasons we’ve held back up to this point, because we’ve wanted to make sure we can do a great job in presenting the material, and we also wanted to make sure the delivery systems were able to deliver the material in the way that we wanted it ourselves.”

More below.

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Well now, despite some hearty protestations when the story first surfaced, it seems that Dimension/the Weinsteins have indeed lost the rights to make a SIN CITY sequel.

The sequel rights to “Sin City,” Frank Miller’s popular noir comic, are being shopped around Hollywood, in what appears to be a sign that Dimension Films has lost rights to the property.

The Weinstein Co./Dimension continue to maintain that they hold the rights to any sequel for the Robert Rodriguez film, which grossed $159 million worldwide when it came out in 2005.

But producers say they have been shopped the rights by reps for Miller’s estate, who they say are seeking a new place to set up a potential follow-up.

Whoa…what do you mean “Miller estate”? FRANK MILLER IS ALIVE, ALIVE, I TELL YOU! Aside from that creepy typo, it would seem that the Weinsteins just sat around on the rights for too long and they lapsed. According to the article in THR, it is unknown if Robert Rodriguez would be involved, or anyone else, really. Although the whole SIN CITY look has become a bit of a cliche since the movie burst upon people’s eyeballs, we’d still hit that for old times’ sake, anyway.

It seems that we have never officially given this its own item, but a movie based on DYLAN DOG, the long running supernatural Italian comic, is being made, and it has a Production Blog and everything. The movie is being directed by Kevin Munroe down in New Orleans and it stars Brandon Routh as Dylan Dog, and co-stars Taye Diggs, Anita Briem, and Sam Huntington. And it’s called DEAD OF NIGHT.

The original comic is by writer Tiziano Sclavi, and artist Claudio Villa; since debuting in 1990, it’s been published in many other countries, including, in the US, by Dark Horse.

Among its many interviews with nerdlebrities enamored of the wonderful world of comics, MTV’s Splash Page caught up with James Marsters, formerly of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, who had his run-in with comics writing TEN years ago. But the experience was so traumatizing that his resentment has simmered to this day, eclipsing such things as Smallville, Torchwood, and DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION…

“I thought that if I wrote a comic, I’d have ultimate power over everything,” said Marsters. “It was a rude awakening to find out how little power writers have.”

The real bone of contention was with Dark Horse’s choice of artist Ryan Sook, who drew everything in a dark, gothic style that, while he liked the art, Marsters insists just wasn’t right for his story.

The actor goes on at some length to vent about Sook’s unseemliness..,so long, in fact that Dark Horse felt compelled to respond: explaining that it was Buffy omnilord Joss Whedon himself who approved Sook!

“The artist James was referring to was Ryan Sook, and he was someone Joss really liked,” explained Dark Horse Senior Managing Editor Scott Allie. (The artist was misidentified as inker Keith Barnett in the original post.) “When James expressed his concerns about Ryan, Joss talked to James for me, and told him this was how he wanted the book handled. I talked to Juliet about this recently, and she had no problem with any of it — she’d seen the book and thought it was fine.”

“Looking back, I wish I’d been more sensitive to James’ feelings at the time, but the main problem was a difference of opinion about the tone of the book,” added Allie. “To Joss and me, it was a horror story, focused on two of the best villains from the show — this was before Spike’s redemption. We wanted it to feel like a horror comic.”

Reading of Marsters’s “rude awakening,” one can’t help but recall the words of Alfred Hitchcock: “I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.”

PS: If you go over to Sook’s website you’ll see tons and tons of art, and after a few clicks, you get the feeling he may know more about making comics than your nerdlebrity on the street. (Above, a painting of HELLBOY’s Abe Sapien.)

As planned for over a year, Dark Horse and Image are joining the ranks of “FOC” publishers at Diamond. Already used by Marvel and DC, “Final Order Cut-Off” allows retailer to raise or lower orders right up until print time in accordance with changing factors, such as increased publicity, or negative reaction to previous issues. Diamond’s PR below:

Dark Horse Comics and Image Comics — including Image Central and Top Cow Productions — have announced that they will implement new Final Order Cut-Off (FOC) programs, effective with products carrying an FOC Date of Thursday, April 23.

“We’re very pleased that two more of our Premier Suppliers have joined the FOC system” said Diamond VP-Marketing & Sales Roger Fletcher. “The change is a welcome one for retailers who rely on FOC to adjust their orders and manage their purchasing and buying decisions in a timely manner.”

The new system allows retailers greater flexibility to increase, decrease and even cancel orders up to the FOC date, which will be Thursdays at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. (The same date/time as other participating publishers.) Product will generally reflect FOC Dates with a 20-day adjustment window, meaning that an item carrying the April 23 FOC Date is scheduled to be on sale Wednesday, May 13.

“We are pleased to announce this move to the FOC,” said Dark Horse Comics President Mike Richardson. “As every comics retailer knows, times are tough. It is important that Dark Horse not only support them with great product, but with our best efforts to make their ordering decisions as easy as possible. This system will help every retailer who orders Dark Horse product and should lead to better business for all of us.”

“We’ve been enthusiastic about implementing FOC for quite some time now,” Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson said. “FOC allows retailers to test the waters with our all of our new projects, whether they’re by seasoned veterans or comics’ newest names with limited risk while still getting all the benefits of supporting a series from the floorboards up.”

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Let’s relax a little today with another page from BEASTS OF BURDEN, the Evan Dorkin/Jill Thompson miniseries coming later this year.

And the cover to issue #2 of LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS by Karl Kerschl.

Don’t you feel better?

• Eric Reynolds reports that Esther Pearl Watson’s UNLOVABLE has been picked up by young women’s apparel chain Urban Outfitters and will be tested in ten stores nationwide. With its chunky pink appearance and accessibly hiliarious tales of self-conscious agony — Watson adapts the diary of a teenage girl she found in a gas station restroom — this book definitely fits in with UO’s college dorm esthetic, so we’ll see how it rolls out.

• Michel Rabagliati, Gabrielle Bell, and Graham Annable have joined the lineup at TCAF, which we won’t be attending, much to our sorrow.

• Dark Horse’s ECCC announcements, in one handy article.

• Speaking of ECCC, although it’s not precisely news, Matt Maxwell continues his jeremiad across the cons of America with a report at Robot 6:

See, I’m good enough at this convention thing now that I have to tack on extra difficulty just to keep myself from being bored. Which is why I traveled with my two kids by plane up to Seattle instead of doing the sensible thing and flying up on my own. At least I have enough sense to drop them with the grandparents while I try to sell books. Having an easily bored pair of five and eight-year-old kids is just not conducive to doing anything other than clinging to my last shreds of sanity and composure, and add to that selling books and spreading the Strangeways gospel? Not gonna happen.

• The planned UMBRELLA ACADEMY movie, based on the comics by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá is moving along, with screenwriter Mark Bomback now attached. Bomback wrote the recent Witch Mountain reboot, as well as CONSTANTINE.

• Marvel is running a contest for people to dress up their pets to publicize the release of the LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS mini.

Marvel is proud to announce that now your pets can join Lockjaw’s new super team that has everyone talking—The Pet Avengers! That’s right, in honor of the upcoming LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #1, click on URL right now and submit photos of your pets dressed as Marvel heroes to the Powers That Be at Marvel.Com. If you’re lucky, your pet may be featured as Lockjaw’s newest ally online! (Or be really adventurous and dress your pet as a Marvel villain).

We’ll keep a close eye on THAT Flickr stream!

• ECCC news: The initial launch of the BOOM!/Fox Atomic partnership will be an ongoing 28 DAYS LATER comic:

Initial launch story will be firmly based in 28 DAYS LATER continuity with the first arc focusing on Selena. Bridging the gap between 28 DAYS LATER and 28 WEEKS LATER, a few key questions will be answered along the way: what happened to Selena after 28 DAYS LATER? How did Selena happen upon the machete she wields in 28 DAYS LATER?

The creative team wasn’t mentioned, but the Tim Bradstreet (Above) and Sean Phillips(Below) cover art that came with the PR is a good start.

• ECCC News: Writer/Artist Rick Remender has signed an exclusive with Marvel, where he’s writing PUNISHER. The article doesn’t mention any exceptions for his creators-owned books like FEAR AGENT and THE END LEAGUE, so one assumes those are on hold for now.

• Todd Allen continues his look at a post-direct market world with a survey of monetizing webcomics:

The first thing we need to do is acknowledge that the online readership of many print comics is larger than the paid physical readership. .CBRs are popular, as are torrents. No two ways about it. You have to accept you have a problem before you can deal with it.

The second thing we need to do is understand what revenue models work for webcomics and why. If the print publishers need to get into digital distribution, reinventing the wheel is folly, and potentially dangerous.

• Heed Japan: Masahiro Itabashi’s romantic comedy series Boys Be has come back as a comic for cell phones.

The new manga is called Boys Be 2009 1 and as far as I can tell is an updated version of the original 1991 manga, revolving around students dealing with both platonic and romantic relationships in their daily lives, particularly average-guy Kyouichi Kanzaki and his childhood friend Chihara Nitta.

• John Jakala catches that Tokyopop has raised the price of their GNs from $9.99 to $10.99:

I’m assuming the price increase won’t be accompanied by any additions to the manga volumes, like better paper stock or color inserts. It would be interesting if Tokyopop followed a page from DC’s recent playbook and offset the price increase with backup features. Like DC, Tokyopop could use the price increase as an opportunity to publish fan favorites that don’t sell well enough to justify individual publication. It’d be especially interesting if Tokyopop used such backups to complete the many OEL series stuck in publishing limbo. Of course, you’d run the risk of fans complaining about charging more for series they don’t want to read, but if the prices were going to go up anyway, I assume most fans would rather get something additional rather than nothing at all.

The Beat has learned that editor Rob Simpson was recently laid off at Dark Horse. Simpson, an industry vet who formerly worked at DC, was the Senior Editor in charge of Dark Horse’s prose books line, which includes original novels, nonfiction, a series of Playboy Interview collections and various fantasy novels — including the recently launched Neil Gaiman Presents series. Although Dark Horse would not comment directly, they did release this statement from owner Mike Richardson:

In recent years, Dark Horse has dedicated a great deal of time and resources to move outside of the traditional comics medium with ventures into publishing prose novels. Due to the well known facts of the current state of the book market, and cutbacks at the chains for these types of books, we are placing these efforts on hold for the time being. This is in no way indicative of the health and vitality of any other division of our business, or the company overall.

Although any layoffs are looked at as part of the Great Recession during this time, comics are still getting off fairly lightly, at least on the creative side, with only a smattering of layoffs. It’s painful for anyone, but far less than the massive cuts other aspects of the entertainment industry have been experiencing. We hope this trend continues.

As for Simpson, he’s a real professional; we’re sure he’ll land on his feet even in this harsh time.

MTV’s Splash Page blog has a fantastic cover for perhaps the most unexpected — but delightful — crossover of all: Eric Powell’s THE GOON vs. DETHKLOK, the world’s greatest metal band.

AICN previews the CGI GOON movie which David Fincher is producing. Created by Eric Powell, The Goon has starred in a well-received series of graphic novels, and would fit nicely into the “Dark Horse Movie” niche pioneered by The Mask and Hellboy. More in the link.

Somehow, last week we did not link to Jill Thompson’s gorgeous artwork for BEASTS OF BURDEN, a four-issue miniseries wirtten by Evan Dorkin with painted art by Thompson about some animals who fight the supernatural. The characters have already appeared in Dark Horse’s various anthologies “The Dark Horse Book of…” Hauntings, Witches, The Dead and Monsters, but the new series will be out later this year. Can you wait???