Does anyone have a picture of the Kirkman/Bendis hug at their panel I can use for a Baltimore story I’m writing? Full credit will be given. Email at the usual spot.

Thanks.

Posting for today is delayed by a crappy hotel Internet connection. The Beat will return soon.

Hey, guys, sorry for the lack of posting today. Poor Internet connections! However, we are Twittering the Harveys at Twitter / Comixace. More later.

We’ve decided to make everything a little more interactive here at Stately Beat Manor, because we’ve heard that social networking and interactivity are where it’s all at. To that end, we want to know more about YOU, the faithful Beat reader. Perhaps we can even create a sort of Beaters profile, kind of like the old Dewar’s Profiles when drinking fine Scotch was a better way to get laid than using social networking websites. Help us, won’t you? First up: YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ.

Archie Comics continues their modernization efforts with new logos which look…well, different. Via PR:

Archie Comics, the world’s largest English-language publisher of all ages comics, is pleased to unveil a new Archie Comics logo that will appear on all of its comic books, digest/double digests and graphic novels. The new Archie Comics’ logo will make its first appearance on the Archie Comic publications scheduled for the newsstand on-sale starting the week of September 15, 2008, commencing with Veronica #190 and Archie Digest #247.

The new trade dress for all of the Archie Digest Library books include new logos for most of the titles as well as secondary logos for popular characters featured in the digests. Characters such as Little Archie, Cheryl Blossom, Reggie, Josie & the Pussycats, just to name a few are featured in the digests every month, but not necessarily on the cover. We now have a trade dress that allows fans of these characters to know exactly where to find their favorite Archie characters. For more than 67 years, Archie Comics has provided entertainment for all ages. In 2009, Archie Comics is entering a new phase of growth with the launch of two new titles, Archie Comics Presents and Sonic Universe.

The new logos on our comics and digests highlights Archie Comics’ plans for the future and the new trade dress represents our latest step. Whereby we bring many of our popular characters to the forefront of our fans attention as soon as they see our digests and double digests.

Johanna has commentary.

Well, here we are live blogging from Hall H. Although we never received our fabled pass to the hall, there also wasn’t any line to get in, either. So we’re stuck here for an hour listening to fans behind us quoting lines from Venture Bros.

The Warner Bros. booth and its bag giveaways continues to be the biggest logjam on the floor. When they give out bags, there is a feeding frenzy reminiscent of the fire ant scene from the last Indiana Jones movie. When the bags are gone, people continue to mill around waiting…waiting…

Whatever the mayor says, it’s clear the con has engulfed the city. At least one of the elevators at the Marriott is tricked up like a cloud to promote some Disney movie. Cardboard Spirits peep from hotel cornices around town. The plaza in front of the Gaslamp Hilton has been filled with ceramic Chinese warriors. Nearly every bar and restaurant has a sign welcoming the Con, proving the nerd dollar is still strong in this place.

Well, we managed to make it across the floor. Once. Warner Bros. is once again giving out giant bags — this time with Wonder Woman AND a shoulder strap for crossbody styling. There’s practically a riot going on in front of the WB booth. A harried guy with a headphone told everyone, “There is no line. Nothing is going on. Go away.” That’s only one hour in.

For some reason, we feel particularly calm and detached. There is so much happening on any given second that no one could be expected to make sense of it.

The show kicked off with a press conference announcing Darwyn Cooke’s new series of PARKER adaptations. There was a grand unveiling of the art and a card giveaway for the press.

God only knows where we go from here. More later.

As you can well imagine, any interview that Alan Moore gives these days will be about WATCHMEN, comics movies in general, LXG, his relationship, and magic. This new interview with Entertainment Weekly has all those topics, as well as Moore talking about his favorite TV show.

Do you think that any good can come of comics movies?

I increasingly fear that nothing good can come of almost any adaptation, and obviously that’s sweeping. There are a couple of adaptations that are perhaps as good or better than the original work. But the vast majority of them are pointless.

Posted by Mark Coale

Legendary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta has filed suit against David Spurlock and Vanguard Productions for $2 mil, claiming the publisher used Frazetta’s artwork and signature without permission. Frazetta released a press release with his side of things yesterday:

World-renowned fantasy artist Frank Frazetta filed a complaint today with the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, against publisher J. David Spurlock and Vanguard Productions. The complaint alleges that in publishing the book FRAZETTA DEFINITIVE REFERENCE, featuring Frazetta’s artwork and prominently displaying his unique signature, Spurlock and Vanguard used the artist’s name for advertizing and trade purposes without obtaining prior approval, thus committing a violation of Section 50 of the Civil Rights Law of the State of New York.

The complaint further alleges that, during the period beginning on or about April 8, 2008, Spurlock and Vanguard knowingly, willfully, and in bad faith released in New York State and elsewhere literature prominently using Frazetta’s name in advertizing the book, including solicitation materials clearly stating, “endorsed by the artist,” despite possessing knowledge that such statement was contrary to fact and made without the artist’s consent. No agreement exists, oral or written, between Spurlock or Vanguard and Frank Frazetta.

Section 50 of the Civil Rights Law of the State of New York guarantees the right of privacy, and states that, “A person, firm or corporation that uses for advertising purposes, or for the purposes of trade, the name, portrait or picture of any living person without having first obtained the written consent of such person, or if a minor of his or her parent or guardian, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”

Section 51 states, “Any person whose name, portrait, picture or voice is used within this state for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade without the written consent first obtained … may maintain an equitable action in the supreme court of this state against the person, firm or corporation so using his name, portrait, picture or voice, to prevent and restrain the use thereof; and may also sue and recover damages for any injuries sustained by reason of such use …”

Stating in the complaint that Spurlock and Vanguard have been “unjustly enriched by unlawful use of the plaintiff’s name and reputation as an artist,” Frazetta demands that Spurlock and Vanguard be enjoined and restrained from using his name, image, or likeness in distribution, promotion, or sale of the book.

Based on Section 51 of the Civil Rights Law of the State of New York, Frazetta has further asked for compensatory damages of $2,000,000 and exemplary damages of $500,000, while requiring that Spurlock and Vanguard provide an account of all proceeds received from sales of the book. Frazetta is represented by The Law Office of Tedd Kessler, PC, located in New York, NY. Vanguard Productions is located in Clinton, NJ and is represented by Penino & Moynihan, LLP, White Plains, NY.

Well, after all that chatter about who was editing what at DC, we’ve just learned that Jeanine Schaefer, who had worked with Mike Marts, Mike Carlin and Eddie Berganza on such books as Countdown, 52 and Final Infinite Crisis, just started today at Marvel, working in Tom Brevoort’s office.

Sorry for all the horrible typos yesterday. Our horrible internet connection, pressing appointments and an interface with tiny type all conspired against us. Hopefully things are better today.

However, it’s yet another travel day here, as we wend our way back to Stately Beat Manor. So, normal posting will resume TOMORROW, at long last!

It was a long day for the Graphic Novel set yesterday here at the BEA. The day started out like gangbusters with the Graphic Novel Authors Breakfast, which we reported on yesterday, Then a full slate of panels rolled out. Unfortunately, we lost our notebook during the day in all the excitement, so we’ll have to rely on our shoddy memory for content.

The Young Cartoonists Buzz panel included Kazu Kibuishi, , Danica Novgorodoff, , Neil Babra and Lars Brown, with Gene Yang moderating and Jeff Smith kibitzing from the audience. They started out talking about how long they took to do a page, and it ranged from 3-10 hours. Kibuishi said it took him half and hour to ink a panel which drew amazement from Smith until Kibuishi explained that it was the coloring and modeling which takes up most of his time. Yang asked rhetorically why anyone would devote do much time to working on a 100 or 200 page graphic novel and the panelists responded with variations on the theme of how comics are a complete medium for storytelling.

We had to jump back and forth after that as there were several panels that overlapped. On the Hollywood and Comics panel, an audience member asked if there were opportunities for female-fronted comics book movies — the answer was that since ELEKTRA and CATWOMAN bombed, it’s a very very hard sell, which isn’t fair, but no one remembers Lara Croft. (We’d add AEON FLUX to the bomb list.) Both WANTED and WHITEOUT have major female characters,however. (To which we’d add, pray for WITCHBLADE.)

Other topics included Sex in Comics, various shelving and distribution issues, and building library collections. The Editors Buzz panel wrapped up the day with no less than 10 editors on stage telling Calvin Reid about their books — another sign of the strength of this category.

Truly, whereas at the very first BEA we attended back in ‘89 or so there was barely any comics presence beyond, perhaps, a lone and lonely Fantagraphics booth an NBM, at this show you couldn’t turn anywhere without seeing signs of graphic novels — Viz’s huge signage in the hall, IDW’s GI Joe banners, the New Yorker’s cartoon bags, invitations, catalogs… even the fact that so many comics flyers lay abandoned in the attendee shipping room was a sign that graphic novels are here to stay.

At 4 we dashed down to the Diamond cocktail party where most of the GN types gathered for a beer. The mood could only be described as upbeat. We ran into our old chum Mariah Huehner and Michelle Gomes from Virgin, as well as Nat Gertler, Bat and Jackie, Alan Payne and many people we’re forgetting. Ian Brill, newly installed at Boom! and Matt Maxwell showed up, and we decamped to Ventura Blvd for a Blogging Sushi Dinner. Unfortunately we were seated right next to Mary-Kate Olsen, which made it hard to gossip about FINAL CRISIS.

Overall most folks are saying this show is a lacking in news and excitement. For a show set in Hollywood there hasn’t been much foofaw, would could be a good thing. The show was briefly interrupted at lunch time by a food court strike, which also shut down Starbucks. Since the lines for Starbucks were at least 45 minutes long, you could have gotten a cup of coffee in the time it took for the strike to end.

Probably the biggest line of the day — other than Starbucks — was for Leonard Nimoy, who was signing his book of naked heavy women. William Shatner signed a few hours later so for those with some patience it was a perfect opportunity for a two-fer. Alec Baldwin was also seen running around. There were also many actual authors, including Jackie Collins who has a giant tour bus parked in the back of the hall. He gfot to met Brian Selnick of HUGO CABRET fame, and he mentioned that he was happy to be lumped in as part of graphic novel wave. At that point, anyone who wouldn’t be is just living in the past.

We were a little late to this morning’s Graphic Novels Breakfast, but got there in time to see Art Spiegelman deliver an entertaining slideshow on the history of graphic novels and his own history with the form. Jeff Smith moderated and Jeph Loeb and Mike Mignola contributed their own observations. As Spiegelman pointed out, it’s been a long journey from comic books being burned in the 50s to a breakfast for comic book authors at the book world’s biggest show. (The yearly author breakfasts are among the BEA’s marquis events.) Smith and Spiegelman pointed to two events in 2002 which really kicked off the GN Boom: the ALA meeting where Smith, Neil Gaiman, Colleen Doran and Spiegelman spoke and the great love affair between libraries and graphic novels was made clear to all; and the SPIDER-MAN movie.

Speaking of movies, when Smith talked about camera angles in his own work, Spiegelman got a bit testy, standing up for the sanctity of the humble comic as a medium in its own right.

A news item from the panel: Smith will be doing a book for Francoise Mouly’s Toon Books imprint.

Observation: lots of signage on the West Hall for IDW’s new GI Joe announcement.

There are no less than TWO tracks of graphic novel programming today, and we’ve skipped out of them to write this item. So back to the fray!

Our primitive PC gear isn’t letting us post at the moment. We advise going to my Twitter account , where we’ll be updating from the show floor.

Who’s alive? Who’s dead? Who might be dead? Who’s dead but still appeared in tonight’s episode?

Let’s get to it.

SPOILERS, of course…

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Numerous sources are telling us that Rory Root has passed away this evening.

Our sincere condolences to his family and his friends. We’ll have more later.

Time for the return of some old faces. And some bombshells of course.

SPOILERS after the jump
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We don’t know why the comment table keeps crashing. Our tech team is looking into it around the clock and will not rest until the gremlin is caught!

It looks like room will need to be made at Stately Beat Manor …

ADULT SWIM toys!

From the Kidrobot Discussion Board:

Adult Swim - Mini Figures
We’ve teamed up with Adult Swim to bring your late night to life. From Robot Chicken and Mad Scientist to Assy McGee, Carl and the Mooninites, ridiculous-ness in a box can be yours for just $7.95 a piece. 18 characters in all, including two secret chases. Badass!

Posted by Mark Coale

PR with emphasis added. Of some interest is the fact that now what we’d call “modern” or contemporary Marvel and DC creators are beginning to show up on the ballot, like Len Wein and Barry Windsor-Smith.

Voting is now open for the Hall of Fame category of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. In a change from previous years, the judges have arrived at the nominations early in the year, and the voting in this category will be online only. According to Eisner Awards administrator Jackie Estrada, this change was instituted to test the new online voting process for the awards and to reduce the number of categories the judges will have to deal with when they meet in early April to determine the rest of the nominees.

The Hall of Fame nominees are Matt Baker, John Broome, Reed Crandall, Rudolph Dirks, Arnold Drake, George Evans, Creig Flessel, Graham Ingels, Mort Meskin, Tarpe Mills, Gilbert Shelton, George Tuska, Mort Weisinger, Len Wein, and Barry Windsor-Smith.

Eligible voters can visit www.eisnervote.com to register and then select up to four picks in the Hall of Fame category. The deadline for voting is April 18. To vote, you must be a professional working in the comics industry, whether as a creator (writer, artist, cartoonist, colorist, letterer), a publisher or editor, or a retailer (comics store owner or manager). Further eligibility information is provided at the site.

The judges have also selected two individuals to automatically be inducted into the Hall of Fame: the pioneering cartoonist R. F. Outcault (who created “The Yellow Kid” and “Buster Brown”) and Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (who founded what is now DC Comics and published the first comic book to contain all-new material, New Fun #1, in February 1935).

The 2008 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of John Davis (director of pop culture markets, Bookazine), Paul DiFilippo (SF and comics author), Atom! Freeman (owner of Brave New World Comics in Santa Clarita, CA), Jeff Jensen (senior writer, Entertainment Weekly), and Eva Volin (supervising children’s librarian for the Alameda Free Library in Alameda, CA).

The judges were assisted by students at Vermont’s Center for Cartoon Studies, who made suggestions for Hall of Fame nominees and provided background information on the people they suggested. Eisner Awards administrator Jackie Estrada notes that the involvement of the students was very helpful and is looking forward to working with Steve Bissette and CCS students again next year.

The online voting process is being conducted by Mel Thompson and Associates, the official tabulators of the Eisner Awards. The rest of the categories will be available for online voting in mid-April. In addition, paper ballots will still be mailed out and will be tabulated along with the online votes for the other categories.

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are conducted under the auspices of Comic-Con International: San Diego, and the gala awards ceremony will be held on July 25 in San Diego. Further information about the awards can be found at http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_main.shtml.

Back in the neolithic times when The Beat first started working at Publishers Weekly, there was usually one graphic novel panel at the yearly Book Expo America. This year, they are having a whole programming track devoted to the form. Truly, 2008 is THE YEAR OF THE SYMPOSIUM. PR:

BEA’s Graphic Novel Day on Saturday, May 31 kicks off with a star-studded breakfast presented by Diamond Book Distributors, which will then be followed by more than ten conference sessions featuring industry leaders talking about a range of subjects from design and marketing, to what’s hot and what’s next. The entire day of activity is sponsored by New York Comic Con (NYCC), which is also run by Reed Exhibitions, organizers of BookExpo America (BEA). BookExpo America will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center, May 29 – June 1, 2008.

As noted, the day begins with a breakfast which will be hosted by Jeff Smith and will include speakers Jeph Loeb, Mike Mignola, and Art Spiegelman, a line-up of award-winning comics and graphic novel creators who have played major roles in the evolution of the graphic novel format in North America. They will discuss the latest trends in graphic novel publishing and offer some predictions on the format’s future growth. The breakfast, which is presented by Diamond Book Distributors, will take place in Room 403AB. The cost is $25.

“I am incredibly pleased that our graphic novel activity is so significant, and I’m very grateful to Diamond for helping to organize such a terrific breakfast,” notes Lance Fensterman, Vice President and Show Manager for BEA. “Since I run both BEA and New York Comic Con, this is sort of like a dream come true. I get to take one big show, in this case New York Comic Con, and give it a little home inside our other big show! Without a doubt, the strength of the content and personalities involved in our graphic novel programming this year give credence to the explosive impact graphic novels are having on the publishing and book retail industry.”

The conference panels which are scheduled on Saturday, May 31 include:

* Designing a Graphic Novel: From Concept to Comic
* Graphic Novel Distribution, Bookstores, and the Direct Market
* What’s Hot, What’s Good, What’s Next in Graphic Novels
* The New Comic Book to Film Machinery: What’s Next and Who is Buying What from Whom
* What Retailers & Librarians Should Know About Video Games and Gamers
* Manga’s New Generational Trade-Up: The Publishers’ Quest for New Readers
* Emerging Voices & Artists: The Graphic Novel Edition
* Building a Graphic Novel Section for Kids and Teens
* Sex in Graphic Novels
* Graphic Novel Buzz: Editors Share List Hightlights
* The New Literacy: How Graphic Novels, the Web, and Video Games are Changing the Way We Process Information

A jury has found Michael George guilty in the slaying of his wife 17 years ago.

George was accused of shooting his wife, Barbara, in the head on July 13, 1990, and making the crime look like a robbery. The jury found George guilty of first-degree murder, felony firearm, insurance fraud and obtaining money from an insurance agency under false pretenses.

The four-man and eight-woman jury began deliberations Friday afternoon after listening to the testimony of nearly 50 witnesses in the trial that drew national media attention.

by Paul O’Brien

Yes, I know it’s March. But as you may know, the original version of the January charts was way, way off - so crazily haywire that we looked through them and decided not to bother. But then Diamond recalculated, and this version actually makes sense. So here we go.

Marvel had two major projects for January - the new HULK series, and the relaunch of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN as a thrice-monthly title. Elsewhere, “Messiah Complex” continues in the X-books, the Young Avengers are back, and there’s somebody new in the Captain America costume.

Once again, Marvel comfortably beat DC in terms of their share of the direct market. In units, it’s 44% to 31% - in dollars, 41% to 29%. Bit of a thumping, really.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  HULK
01/08  Hulk #1 - 134,002

Officially, this is a whole new HULK series. However, at the same time, Marvel insist that the previous INCREDIBLE HULK series has been permanently reassigned to Hercules. So actually, this is a continuation of INCREDIBLE HULK, and Marvel have taken the odd decision to launch a new monthly Hercules title through the back door. We’ll see how that worked out later on.

INCREDIBLE HULK peaked at 120K during the “World War Hulk” crossover, so this is a good start for the new creative team of Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness. Bear in mind that until the last year or so, INCREDIBLE HULK consistently sold below 50,000, so Marvel’s focus on the character has really paid dividends.
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Juliet’s romantic history is not to the only Shakespeare connection in this week’s episode. More after the jump.
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