EW scoops the comics world with a First Look at Darkseid AND a 5-page preview of FINAL CRISIS. EW still hasn’t figured out how to resize pages large enough to read, so they included Grant Morrison’s script.
We would be lying if we didn’t say we wanted to read this.
For DC Comics, March was another slack month in the periodical business. More than ten ongoing titles were slated for cancellation across the publisher’s various lines, and numerous finite projects were in their final stages, with new ones waiting around the corner to replace them over the next several months. There were no major new releases in the DC Universe line of mainstream superhero titles in March, but DC suffered from late books again. With Action Comics, Batman and Justice Society of America, three of the company’s major titles failed to come out. The fact that sales of both the average DC Comics periodical and the average DC Universe periodical were the lowest they’d been in more than three years didn’t come as a great surprise, consequently. Over a five-year period, though, both averages remain slightly up.
At the publisher’s Vertigo imprint, which accounts for four of the ten titles due to be cancelled, writer/artist David Lapham’s ongoing series Young Liars debuted, while the WildStorm sublabel had the launch of two miniseries belonging to its troubled WildStorm Universe line of superhero titles. The average periodical sales of both imprints display massive losses in the neighborhood of 30 percent over the past five years. In response, Vertigo appears to be focusing more strongly on original graphic novels in the future, while more licensed and creator-owned projects are in the pipeline at WildStorm. See below for the details, and please mind the disclaimers 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.
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7 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 03/2001: JLA #52 — 67,382* 03/2002: JLA #64 — 61,871* 03/2003: JLA #79 — 61,589 03/2004: JLA #94 — 76,134 [77,822] 03/2004: JLA #95 — 69,898 [73,620] 03/2005: JLA #112 — 64,790 ————————————– 03/2007: Justice League #6 — 130,099 (- 1.8%) [131,754] 04/2007: Justice League #7 — 154,984 (+19.1%) 04/2007: Justice League #8 — 130,365 (-15.9%) 05/2007: Justice League #9 — 129,285 (- 0.8%) 06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (- 0.0%) 07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (- 5.0%) 08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+ 7.0%) [137,181] 09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (- 9.1%) [124,006] 10/2007: Justice League #14 — 101,763 (-14.8%) 11/2007: – 12/2007: Justice League #15 — 100,234 (- 1.5%) 12/2007: Justice League #16 — 95,557 (- 4.7%) 01/2008: Justice League #17 — 94,712 (- 0.9%) 02/2008: Justice League #18 — 89,803 (- 5.2%) 03/2008: Justice League #19 — 87,482 (- 2.6%) —————- 6 months: -26.8% 1 year : -32.8% 2 years : n.a. 5 years : +42.0%
The last two issues tied in with the Salvation Run miniseries that was announced as a major event last summer. Given that Salvation Run failed to deliver commercially, it’s not much of a surprise that there’s no discernible effect on Justice League sales.
Historically, these numbers are still sound, however, despite the recent decline since novelist Brad Meltzer ended his run back in August.
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Dan Didio’s office chart. (Click for larger version.) Via Newsarama.
I think this speaks for all of us.
Big comics story in today’s NY Daily News whose very url spoils something huge. SERIOUSLY DO NOT CLICK IF YOU HAVE NOT READ DC UNIVERSE #0.
Val has more to say in another URL spoiler.
Also, I find it interesting that the direct market is depending on the spoilers not to be spoiled in order to maximize sales, yet the company putting out the comic is purposely working with the major media to spoil the story on the morning of the book coming out. Just a thought.
We find it interesting that he name of the comic the article supports is fund halfway through; hopefully civilians will get the message and run to the shops to find out WHICH long-dead hero is being resurrected.
“That’s the point of comics - they don’t have to die, because they’re fictional creations,” said Grant Morrison, one of the writers behind the comeback.
UPDATE: If you are immune to spoilers, the Occasional Superheroine comment section complaining about spoilers is also pretty interesting.
Five of them!
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Some little news notes that have been floating around:
Zuda news: a second chance for previous contestants to get picked up via the Zuda Invitational and a new strip by Dean Haspiel, STREET CODE which is an “instant winner.”
3. The much talked about ZUDA COMICS INVITATIONAL is on! Celebrating the one-year anniversary of our announcing Zuda at the San Diego Comic-Con we’re going to have a competition featuring comics from the previous years worth of non-winning comics. I’ll blog about this in more detail but basically if it ran on Zuda and didn’t win its eligible to participate in the Invitational. Send your picks for which comics you want to see get another shot at the brass ring to FEEDBACK (in the upper right corner there, by the login)! The Invitational will be our July competition.
§ The Same Hat kids reveal a new project, an English edition of Yusaku Hanakuma’s TOKYO ZOMBIE. The book is planned for September release from Last Gasp but may ne out in time for San Diego:
Tokyo Zombie is a self-contained story featuring Yusaku Hanakuma’s two characters Afro and Hage. It was originally serialized in AX Magazine in 1998-1999, and was collected and published the year after by Seirinkogeisha. Seirinkogeisha is an incredbile indie/underground manga publisher, and publish the vast majority of Same Hat favorites including Suehiro Maruo, Takashi Nemoto, Shintaro Kago, Kazuichi Hanawa and many, many others.
§ Similarly Warren Ellis reveals a pair of new books from Avatar later this summer.
and No Hero.
Technorati Tags: Warren Ellis
Apparently, toys from the upcoming Watchmen movie will make their public debut at NYCC this weekend.
But, Entertainment Weekly has some shots of the toys up now.
I’ve heard this song before. I’ll believe them when I see them on the shelves at TRU.
Posted by Mark Coale
We’re all for it! CAT FOOD!!!!!!!
This cause du jour for superhero readers seems to be TITANS #1 by Judd Winick and Ian Churchill. The reviews are in and they are not kind overall, although some people liked it just fine. Rachel Goguen at Living Between Wednesdays also points out that the young superheroine’s short skirts looks like muffin cups and not short skirts. It’s that kind of nitpicky snark that really takes the wind out of the sails of hard working creators who slave over an issue only to have it reduced to its relevance to a muffin cup…but it’s also funny as hell. Melissa Krause rounds up reax. Val has more including the free-for-all over that ensues over at Newsarama when Troy Brownfield pans the book.
In other superhero news, J. Caleb Mozzocco explains by BOOSTER GOLD is fun:
When seeking cannon fodder to fill-up an alternate timeline in the current Booster Gold story arc, writers Jeff Katz and Geoff Johns unearthed Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty’s Wild Dog, a super-vigilante character that starred in all of five comics in the late ‘80s. I can see that the appeal of the Booster Gold title could be quite limited, but the fact that it’s a book in which Wild Dog can appear is one of its greatest strengths. It’s a comic book about the time stream of the DCU, which means it’s also a comic book about DC comics and the company’s publishing history and, thanks to the smaller outfits they’ve gobbled up over the years, that’s a lot of comics and characters. No matter when the comics were published or when they were set, characters and story elements from them can turn up in Booster Gold.
Mozzocco follows up with some 65 characters who could appear.
The wildfire that is THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD can’t be contained. Don McPherson speaks up for the book’s many admirers:
One of DC’s mid-level super-hero titles has been the focus of a fair bit of discussion online as of late. Plummeting sales figures have prompted industry pundits to ponder the problem with The Brave and the Bold. It’s been a critical darling of many reviewers, and it was launched to a bit fanfare, especially given the involvement of two of comics’ stalwart talents: writer Mark Waid and artist George Perez. The series had a lot going for it. Seemingly separate from current DC continuity, it’s an accessible read, embracing a more traditional approach to super-hero storytelling. Comics readers tiring from endless events and crossovers could find relief in Waid’s words and Perez’s pencils. Those who thought the super-hero genre had grown too dark — especially DC’s take on the heroes, in light of its Identity Crisis series, with its incorporation of rape, betrayal and ethical breaches into the plot — were offered a kinder vision of the publisher’s iconic characters.
But then there’s John Jakala for the prosecution:
The island gods are restless tonight. Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker and David Aja are all leaving their extremely well received run on THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST. Cable writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Travel Foreman take on the book with issue #17. This is notable in that the run was a quirky, creator-driven take on an old character, just the kind of comic that gains acclaim and prestige as time goes on. It’s an increasingly rare phenomenon in the company driven x-over era. So why did the band break up? Brub was already doing less on each issue; Aja was leaving because of a new baby and it seemed like a good time to hang it up for the entire team. Fraction also had baby-related timing:
Matt Fraction: The second story was wrapped up, Danny and the Iron Fist mythos were where we wanted them, I had a new baby and new work coming in and it felt like we were at the absolute top of our game with the book… so let’s get the hell of the stage now before we ruin it all. Let’s leave after London Calling and not Combat Rock.
Call us old fashioned, but normally the arrival of a baby means freelancers must sweat even MORE to afford nappies and so on; it’s a nice change that people at the Fraction/Aja level afford go be more selective about their workload. It’s also telling that a year and change seems to be the outer limit of how long a quirky, creator driven book can run these days.
MEANWHILE, Geoff Johns is also leaving a book, in this case BOOSTER GOLD, after, you guessed it, a year.
It was announced in January here on CBR News that Johns will be leaving the time traveling “Booster Gold” title later this year. Unfortunately for his fans, Johns still plans on exiting the hit series, but not with issue #11 as was previously reported.
“It’s actually issue #1,000,000,” Johns revealed. “And we’re introducing a new character in that issue, too. But yes, my run ends after 12 issues, if you include #1,000,000 and #0, which was our seventh issue. So it’s been a full year. I never intended to stay on the book that long.
WB released new stills from SPEED RACER, CLONE WARS and THE DARK KNIGHT on Friday. In this post, we share ones we like with you.
“Begun this clone tool has.”
Has tghis still been out for a while? We’ve lost track. =(
Me gusto mucho Racer X!
When Marc Oliver Frisch asked why Brave and the Bold by Mark Waid and George Perez had been sliding in sales, it seemed to touch a nerve, and Graeme at Blogorama kept the ball in play. Surely Waid and Perez were fan favorites? (Perez has left the book, but Waid continues on.) Shouldn’t such a book be right in the wheelhouse of the presumed 40-year-old fanbase of DC Comics? But is that really who reads DC comics any more?
We’re always suspicious of comment threads as a barometer of any kind of valid demographic or marketing information, but the one at Blog@ is worth looking at for the widely varying reasons readers have rejected the title. The overall picture is a reminder that just because it was hot for the Tweeners who now run comics, doesn’t mean the current audience likes it. For instance, Ryan Dunlavey, artist on Action Philosophers writes:
Why I don’t buy Brave and the Bold:
1 - It’s boring.
2 - I don’t like George Perez’s artwork.
3 - Super heroes.
“Don’t like George Perez”???? Wha–? That’s heresy! Ed Ward has a even more stark assessment:
The fact that it reads like older, pre-decompression comics is, I’m pretty sure, one of the reasons it’s a tough sell to contemporary readers. The storytelling is very much a part of a different era of comics and, I suspect, doesn’t ‘click’ with a lot of people explicitly because of that.
I also think that people who may not innately respond to that style of storytelling make adjustments when they are reading older work, because they expect that storytelling style going in, but will not make that adjustment for new books.
I know that it definitely takes a lot more effort for me as a reader to find an ‘in’ to a book by George Perez than it takes me for almost any other contemporary books, and it it’s more work for me to stay involved. The adjustment in my headspace feels very similar to the adjustment in headspace I need to make as a film viewer when I’m watching something from the silent-era as opposed to something contemporary.
Given the constant exumation of every facet of both Marvel and DC history, the idea of “contemporary” isn’t one that necessarily tops the list of current comics selling points. (Other readers in the thread say that the overall storyline wasn’t strong enough to keep their interest.) But seeing this brought up several times shows that it isn’t just John Byrne who’s out of touch these days.
Johanna also links to this thread but picks another pull quote
B&B appeals to intelligent readers who appreciate the history of DC’s universe and the caring attention Waid and Perez give to the characters they use in their stories. Such readers have by and large stopped reading DC comics, since the bulk of the DCU is now run by overgrown fanboys with dismemberment fetishes.
This comment reflects the general consensus of many respected observers on who reads superhero comics and why, but there is no denying that the Ultimate/Identity Crisis/52 generation of superhero comics readers IS a generation of superhero comics readers, and not just the lingering survivors of an older tribe.
While old timers–like The Beat–turn up their noses at this “decompressed” storytelling — rejecting what seems like plotlessness and a lack of pacing, for today’s readers, this is what they expect from comics. And for old timers with any sense of taste, the difference in quality between a Millar/Hitch comics, say, and the average rush job corporate comic, is fairly obvious. In the same way that the Image style drove out John Byrne, the “decompressed” style is throwing dirt on the grave.
What’s interesting from our own viewpoint, anyway, is that in a quest for new comics that satisfy in less widescreen ways, the only place to go is indie comics. The average Oni, D&Q or Top Shelf book has more “traditional” storytelling than corporate comics these days, and are created by young cartoonists with completely different sensibilities.
Looked at another way, a few posts back we linked to some gobsmackingly beautiful old comics by Reed Crandall. Crandall’s heydey as an artist would have been 20 years before those Harris comics were published — a shorter time than George Perez’s heydey was from now. Looking on the Crandall pages today we’re stunned by their artistry and timeless skill. Had they been published 10 or 20 years ago the style would have been seen as hoplesssly old fashioned, however.
But the 20-something comics reader has got his own bag now. What do you think, kids? Who are the greatest storytellers of the “decompressed” era?
Over at Blogorama, Paul Levitz is answering reader questions. He can’t answer all reader questions. But he read them.
There’s no way to answer everybody’s questions and still do my day job, and I trust the collective web will understand if I skip the questions that ask us to plead guilty before we can answer, as well as ones that touch on relationships with specific creators in ways that I can’t possibly answer fully in a public forum. (And thanks to all of you who offered up kind personal remarks in your posts.) Given that I was writing about graphic novels, I tried to cull the related questions to follow up:
There’s much interesting info in the link regarding various aspects of DC’s trade publishing program. A sample:
* John Smith and Con ask if the high price is turning off new readers.
Certainly not for graphic novels, where we’re getting new readers at a very fast pace and research indicates the price range (generally) feels appropriate for the customers. Harder to tell for the periodicals, since the way they’re created and sold means that we ask a new reader to commit to a lot very early on—weekly visits to a comic shop, multiple titles of characters and crossovers, and the like—but those factors are also part of what makes the experience of comics so exciting.
At their upfronts yesterday, the Cartoon network revealed a new Batman cartoon called Batman: The Brave and the Bold for the 2008-09 season:
Few details of the new Batman series were unveiled with the announcement. The show will carry on the Dark Knight’s crime-fighting crusade following the recent series finale of the Emmy-winning The Batman.
Several sites, including ComingSoon.net debuted a new series of outdoor artwork for THE SPIRIT movie which opens January 16, 2009. In case you forgot, this movie is being directed by Frank Miller, and it may just look a little bit like the Sin City movie. Bonus: note this web address: MyCityScreams.com.
Technorati Tags: Frank Miller
Martijn Form is writing a new column on Vertigo for Comics Bulletin, and the latest one includes a sneak preview of the new American Splendor mini which includes art by David Lapham. In this episode, Harvey must drive to Columbus with four bodies in the trunk of his car. Hilarity ensues.
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by Marc-Oliver FrischThe big DC Comics release in February was… ah, nothing. The biggest news across the publisher’s various imprints were a new creative team on The Spirit, an Astro City special and a new Johnny DC title. Although DC’s average periodical sales recovered slightly from their gigantic January slump, the company’s DC Universe line is basically holding its breath until April’s DC Universe: Zero one-shot kicks off the new event season. At Vertigo, similarly, three new ongoing series are in the pipeline from March through June. And at WildStorm, the WildStorm Universe line is in the process of another revamp until July, while more licensed and creator-owned titles are on the way.
In other words, DC Comics’ entire periodical business is in the middle of a major transitional phase right now, and it’s going to take another six months to get a reasonably good idea where things are heading. See below for the details, and please mind the disclaimers 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.
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6 - ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER 02/2006: – ————————————— 02/2007: – 03/2007: – 04/2007: – 05/2007: All Star Batman #5 — 114,302 (-28.7%) 06/2007: – 07/2007: All Star Batman #6 — 105,991 (- 7.3%) 08/2007: – 09/2007: All Star Batman #7 — 100,582 (- 5.1%) 10/2007: – 11/2007: All Star Batman #8 — 97,037 (- 3.5%) 12/2007: – 01/2008: – 02/2008: All Star Batman #9 — 93,766 (- 3.4%) —————- 6 months: n.a. 1 year : n.a. 2 years : n.a.
The book’s first arc concluded in February, after a measly two-and-a-half years. While All Star Batman seems to have settled into a more moderate decline since returning from its hiatus in July, it’s still not exactly what you’d call a stable performer. Given that it’s a Batman comic by Frank Miller and Jim Lee, in any event, these sales are quite disappointing. The fact that it’s still DC’s top-selling title says more about the current weakness of their overall line than about the book’s own merits.
As always, All Star Batman sales were supported with a 1-for-10 variant cover edition, which means that retailers had to buy ten copies of the regular edition to be able to buy one variant comic.
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While the April Zuda competition won’t be up until next week, the December winner, Pray for Death by Nick Doan and Daniele Serra is now updating, with a significant change to the art style.
March’s winner was Black Cherry Bombshells by Johnny Zito, Tony Trov, Sacha Borisich and Alex Bruno. Frankly, we’re a little sad that a strip about “Ultra-violent girl gangs fight for supremacy of a doomed future where all men have been mutated into flesh eating zombies” beat Wes Molebach’s Litterbox Chronicles, because nothing is funnier than a cat searching for a litterbox, but it’s a new era in webcomics.
Hey it’s Paul Fridays! as DC head honcho Paul Levitz begins blogging at Blogorama.
Another interesting phenomenon is the difference in concentration between three types of graphic novels; manga, the strongest category in bookstores, seems increasingly dominated by a handful of properties; literary graphic novels (about 5% of bookstore sales and less in comic shops), by a couple of authors’ backlists with no major new hits in ‘07; and genre graphic novels (the strongest in comic shops) seem to spread the readers around to the most titles. This is an evolving situation, and as the number of literary titles being published expands, it’ll be particularly interesting to see how the pattern shifts. And the definitions of these categories are all highly debatable.
Debatable they are, as John Jakala picks up the gauntlet:
So if “genre graphic novels” “spread the readers around to the most titles,” I guess we can expect to see significantly more than 140 properties represented on the Bookscan list, right? Well, that would be tough considering that DC only placed 58 books on the top 750 and Marvel only 37. (”Everything else” accounts for another 72 books, but many of those appear to fall into Levitz’s third category of “literary comics.”) Even if we count each book from Marvel and DC as its own property, that’s only 95 spots.
Okay a few links to tide you over.
Jeff Trexler continue his coverage of the case with a FAQ and an explanation of why DC isn’t “doomed.”
Comics Should Be Good! has an FAQ written in non legalese, and and interview with copyright attorney Brendan McFeely:
Despite the Court’s explicit ruling, several factors remain in play. “[DC] does not need to account for profits earned outside the US,” McFeely said. “[The Siegels] have only recaptured these rights within the United States. The court also found unequivocally that DC retains all rights outside the United States. I suspect that Siegels’ lawyers will find a way to appeal this.”
McFeely continued, “It’s a bit up in the air currently exactly what this means: the Court also found that major elements of the Superman mythos were created long after the original material published in ‘Action’ #1. Lex Luthor, Myxyzptlk, Titano, kryptonite, Kandor, Brainiac, the Phantom Zone and Zod, just for starters, were all created after ‘Action’ #1. But the key elements of Superman, his abilities, his appearance, his dual identities and his basic abilities were all present in that comic, so its very likely that DC and Time Warner will have to cough up a very, very large amount of money to the Siegels.”
A few historical links. Jamie Coville’s The History of Comic Books has some of the history surrounding the creation of Superman.
It should be known that Siegel and Shuster did not share in the wealth generated by Superman. The two had sold the rights to the characters along with the first story for 10 dollars a page. Siegel did ask for increases in page rates and did get them, but they still were only getting very small portion of the income Superman was generating. A 1941 magazine article in the Saturday Nights Evening Post went into detail about how the money was being distributed. It reported that in 1940 The Superman Shop got $75,000 dollars. $16,000 of which went to pay the staff and other expenses, leaving $59,000 to split between the two creators. Meanwhile Harry Donenfeld was bragging to reporters his take home pay from Superman was around $500,000. The article writer believed it to be half that, Liebowitz would only admit that it was over $100,000. Superman Inc., the company set up for Superman licensing made 1.5 million dollars that year. There was no mention on how much DC co-owner Jack Liebowitz was getting paid.
Mike Catron’s page has a letter Jerry Siegel wrote in 1975 attempting to get publicity for his continuing attempts to get what he felt was his share of the profits of Superman.
Obviously, this case will go to appeal, and the legal battle will go on for years and years. I couldn’t find any mention anywhere of the age of Joanne Siegel, the original inspiration for Lois Lane, but she has to be in her 90s. Begin to ponder the years of fighting this woman has gone through, and this legal victory — one that has come not through any groundbreaking legal precedent, but through the application of established copyright law — and you can’t help but think the good guys have won, at least for a day.
With that in mind, the attitudes displayed on many message boards accusing the Siegel family of “greed” or worrying that this is a terrible decision for the character of Superman are stunning examples of ignorance and selfishness. They are the reason we have laws that apply a higher degree of ethical and moral judgement than the rabble is capable of. Granted, copyright law is the not a subject that the man or woman on the street would be expected to have a sound grasp of. But the case of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel – living in poverty for years even as a character no ever denied they created made hundreds of millions of dollars — is infamous as one of the most unfortunate examples of financial disparity in the history of intellectual property.
And with his shaman’s magic, Grant Morrison managed to get their story, once more, into the pages of All-Star Superman. The story of Siegel and Shuster is the story of comics, in all its shoddiness, inspiration and endless battle.
The law finally caught up.
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