ICv@ reports a Japanese report that confirms all those rumors about Kodansha entering the US market.

Japan’s highly respected Nikkei financial news service is reporting that Kodansha has set up a U.S. subsidiary “to publish and sell translations of its Japanese manga” in the U.S. starting in September. The reason for the move, according to Nikkei, is “to boost its earnings in America, where its income has been limited to royalties received from U.S. firms.

Kodansha setting up shop in the US does not invalidate the news that they are not immediately pulling licenses from US publishers, such as Del Rey, who have an existing relationship with the Japanese publishing giant. Kodansha has a huge number of properties to pick from, so there’s lot of stuff to go round, at least at first.

However, this could be related to the news that Dark Horse’s license to publish Akira seems to be in some question.

Developing.

The Shuster Awards, given to the best in Canadian comics, were handed out last night. Details here.

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK WRITER
- Cecil Castellucci for The P.L.A.I.N. Janes (DC/Minx)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK ARTIST
- Dale Eaglesham for Justice Society of America #2-4, 6-7, 9-11 (DC Comics)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CARTOONIST (WRITER/ARTIST)
- Jeff Lemire for Essex County Vol. 1: Tales From The Farm, Essex County Vol. 2: Ghost Stories (Top Shelf)

OUTSTANDING COVER BY A CANADIAN COMIC BOOK ARTIST
- Steve Skroce for Doc Frankenstein #6 (Burleyman)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK COLOURIST
- Dave McCaig for Nextwave, Agents of H.A.T.E. #12, New Avengers #27-35, Fallen Son – The Death of Captain America #1: Wolverine, Marvel Comics Presents #1-4, Wolverine #50, Avengers Classic #7 (Marvel Comics) DC Infinite Halloween Special #1 (DC Comics), The Other Side #4-5 (DC/Vertigo) Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jensen #1 (ONI Press)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK &/OR GRAPHIC NOVEL PUBLISHER
- Drawn & Quarterly

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN WEBCOMICS CREATOR / CREATIVE TEAM
- Ryan Sohmer and Lar De Souza for Least I Can Do and Looking for Group

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT BY A CANADIAN RELATED TO COMIC BOOKS
David Watkins for using comic books as a teaching tool

CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR HALL OF FAME
Stan Berneche
John Byrne
Pierre Fournier
Edwin R. “Ted” McCall

FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR - ENGLISH LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS
Faith Erin Hicks - Zombies Calling

FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR - FRENCH LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS
Philippe Girard aka phlppgrrd - Danger Public

FAVOURITE INTERNATIONAL (NON-CANADIAN) COMIC BOOK CREATOR
Ed Brubaker - Captain America, Criminal, Immortal Iron Fist, Uncanny X-Men

HARRY KREMER OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK RETAILER
Big B Comics - Hamilton, Ontario

Over on his blog, Howard Cruse reveals that foreign reprints aren’t always a cake walk:

Which is more than I can say for Dolmen Editorial, La Cupula’s competitor, which licensed Stuck Rubber Baby years ago, produced as a beautiful a Spanish-language edition as any author could ask, boasted about the Saló del Còmic de Barcelona Award my book garnered, and then (according to a DC insider) allegedly sabotaged everything by being so recalcitrant and uncommunicative about the book’s sales figures that DC Comics ultimately rescinded the translation rights, leaving yet another of my books in limbo.

The same thing happened with the Italian collection called Happy Boys & Girls, whose publisher Coniglio Editore screwed the 2006 anthology’s six lesbian and gay contributors in one stroke with nary an apology or response to complaints. In that case it was not only “My Hypnotist” but my story “Dirty Old Lovers” and a bunch of Wendel strips that got stolen. As was true with the Spanish Stuck Rubber Baby, the book itself was nicely produced, which gives one mixed feelings as one nurses one’s wounds. It’s easy to imagine that at least a few copies of Happy Boys & Girls were purchased by innocent Italian readers who had no knowledge of Coniglio’s lack of ethics and assumed that the book’s contributors were being treated respectfully.

More in link.

A crazed truck driver went on a gruesome rampage Sunday in Tokyo’s nerd-friendly Akihabara district, killing seven people. The horrible incident has received international attention, but the killer’s otaku-tendencies have not gone unnoticed as this Yahoo photo caption shows:

A disturbed comic-book fan who killed seven people on a stabbing frenzy in downtown Tokyo

From the main story:

As stunned mourners placed flowers, sweets and comic-book images at a makeshift shrine, new details emerged of how he kept a detailed log of his plans to wreak havoc in Akihabara, the hub of Tokyo’s comic-book subculture.

The assailant behind Japan’s deadliest crime in seven years, 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato, is a graduate of a prestigious high school who went on to do manual work at an auto components factory, reports said.

Above, the alleged killer is hauled away by police.

Chris Ware beat out Dominique Goblet and Naoki Urasawa for this year’s VPRO Grand Prix, an award handed out each year at the Stripdagen Haarlem in the Netherlands. Marcel Ruijters won the VPRO Hoogste Prijs for best Dutch cartoonist, and Randall C won the VPRO Debut Prize.
More info in the PR below:

Chris Ware was nominated, along with Dominique Goblet and Naoki Urasawa, by an independent jury of three national and three international comix experts. A committee of one hundred Dutch language comix experts was invited for the final vote and the majority of them chose Chris Ware as the winner. Thus, Chris Ware is celebrated as a world class comix artist, along with the likes of Manu Larcenet, Lewis Trondheim, Joe Sacco, winners of the VPRO Grand Prix in 2006, 2004 and 2002 respectively. The VPRO Grand Prix entails a prize money of euro 1,000 and is awarded binannually for the occasion of the renowned European comix festival Stripdagen Haarlem in the Dutch city of Haarlem (June 7 and .

Below follow some quotes of the committee of Dutch language comix experts motivating their choice for Chris Ware:

‘With every new book Chris ware proves himself to be one of the main vanguard artists in contemporary visual storytelling.’

‘Within the parameters of his architecturally wrought comix structures, Chris Ware succeeds in analyzing the emotional turmoil of his apparently unmoved charcaters.’

‘On a graphic plane alone, Chris Ware is no less than brilliant. His work as a comix artist, but also as the graphic designer of his own ACME Novelty Library series, various posters and reprints of classic American comix (Krazy Kat, Gasoline Alley): it is all utterly wonderful! Also his sketches in the two ACME Novelty Date Books form further proof of his masterly eye.’

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Just as American has the Harveys and The Eisners, Canada has the Shusters and the Doug Wright Awards, the latter established in 2005. The Doug Wright award nominees are chosen by a jury of top-notch cartoonists and the winners by another distinguished jury, and the selections definitely represent the literary end of Canadian cartooning. Here’s the list:
The 2008 DWA finalists for Best Book are:

365 Days: A Diary by Julie Doucet (Drawn and Quarterly)
Spent by Joe Matt (Drawn and Quarterly)
The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam by Ann Marie Fleming (Riverhead Books)
Southern Cross by Laurence Hyde (Drawn and Quarterly)

The 2008 DWA finalists for Best Emerging Talent are:
Essex County Vol. 1 Tales From The Farm & Vol. 2 Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
Pope Hats by Ethan Rilly (self-published)
Kieffer #1 by Jason Kieffer (self-published)
The Experiment by Nick Maandag (self-published)

In addition, the Wright Awards is pleased to announce a new category—the first since its debut—dedicated to works that fall outside the bounds of traditional storytelling. The Pigskin Peters Award (named after a character in the classic Canadian comic strip Birdseye Center) was created to recognize progressive works by Canadian cartoonists that are either more experimental in nature or lack a traditional narrative structure.
The finalists for the first annual Pigskin Peters Award are:
Milk Teeth by Julie Morstad (Drawn and Quarterly)
Little Lessons in Safety by Emily Holton (Conundrum Press)
Excelsior 1968 by John Martz (self-published)
Fire Away by Chris von Szombathy (Drawn and Quarterly)

The finalists for the 4th Annual Doug Wright Awards were chosen by a nominating committee that included cartoonists Chester Brown and Seth, Canadian director Jerry Ciccoritti, comics historian Jeet Heer and writer and Sequential blogger Bryan Munn.

The winners will de decided by a jury including writer and film critic Katrina Onstad, gallery curator Helena Reckitt, writer Mariko Tamaki and cartoonist Ho Che Anderson.

The winners will be handed out in Toronto in August 2008.

Stanley Berneche, John Byrne, Pierre Fournier and Edwin R. “Ted” McCall have been annoucned as the 2008 inductees into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame.

Canada’s first national award recognizing outstanding achievements by Canadian creators in the creation and publication of comic books and graphic novels returns in 2008 for it’s fourth year: the JOE SHUSTER CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR AWARDS, named after pioneering Toronto-born artist Joe Shuster who, along with writer Jerry Siegel, created the iconic super-powered hero, Superman.

In 2008 four more creators will be inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame - they will be honoured at the JSA ceremony on Saturday, June 14th in Toronto, Canada at the Lillian Smith Library Auditorium (239 College St., E. of Spadina Ave., Toronto). The ceremony will be co-hosted by our returning master-of- ceremonies dynamic duo, Rick Green (the Frantics; the Red Green Show & History Bites) and Rob Salem (Toronto Star & Drive-In TV) and, as always, it will be an evening to remember.

The Joe Shuster Award presentations will kick off in the evening at 8PM and will be preceded by a day long Sequential Art Symposium which, along with the awards, are free to the public. The Symposium will run from 10AM to 5PM and include participants such as Darwyn Cooke, Tom Grummett, and author John Bell (Invaders from the North). The Symposium will be accompanied by an exhibit of artwork by Canadian comic book artists to salute the historic 70th anniversary of the publication of Joe Shuster’s renowned co-creation, Superman, in June 1938’s Action Comics # 1. The exhibit, entitled Visions of an Icon, will include original images of the Man of Steel by Canadian artists, including Darwyn Cooke, Dave Sim, Todd McFarlane and a vast array of additional creators.

More:

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Charles Burns has a new art book coming out from French publisher “United Dead Artists”entitled PERMAGEL. It will be 32 pages in a huge 30×40 cm format, printed in double black impression on Rives paper. Stephane Blanquet is the editor.
More information and images.

The Eagle Awards winners have been posted. We’re told a 17-year-old girl has been put in charge of the awards for next year; which will surely lead to a more timely posting of the winners, if only on her LJ:

Favorite Newcomer Writer
MATT FRACTION

Favourite Newcomer Artist
DAVID AJA

Favourite Comics Writer
ALAN MOORE

Favourite Comics Writer/Artist
ALAN DAVIS

Favourite Comics Artist: Pencils
FRANK CHO

Favourite Comics Artist: Inks
D’ISRAELI (MATT BROOKER)

Favourite Artist: Fully-Painted Artwork
ALEX ROSS

Favourite Colourist
LAURA MARTIN

Favourite Letterer
DAVE GIBBONS

Favourite Editor
THARG (MATT SMITH)

Favourite Publisher
MARVEL

Favourite Colour Comicbook - American
HELLBOY: DARKNESS CALLS

Favourite Colour Comicbook - British
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN

Favourite Black and White Comicbook - American
THE WALKING DEAD

Favourite Black and White Comicbook - British
HOW TO DATE A GIRL IN 10 DAYS

Favourite New Comicbook
THOR

Favourite Manga
DEATH NOTE

Favourite European Comics
REQUIEM, VAMPIRE KNIGHT

Favourite Comics Story published during 2007
CAPTAIN AMERICA 25-30: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA

Favourite Comics Cover published during 2007
WORLD WAR HULK 1A (DAVID FINCH)

Favourite Original Graphic Novel
THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN: BLACK DOSSIER

Favourite Reprint Compilation
ABSOLUTE SANDMAN VOLUME 2

Favourite Comics Hero
BATMAN

Favourite Comics Villain
JOKER

Favourite Magazine About Comics
WIZARD

Favourite Comics-Related Book
OUR GODS WEAR SPANDEX: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes (Chris Knowles)

Favourite Comics-Based Movie Or TV
300

Favourite Comics Related Website
MARVEL.COM

Favourite Web-Based Comic
THE ORDER OF THE STICK

Roll of Honour
MIKE MIGNOLA

§ 12th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Winners have been revealed:

Masayuki Ishikawa won the 2-million-yen (about US$20,000) Manga Grand Prize for his Moyashimon medical comedy manga. The manga follows a college student who discovers that he can see and communicate with the germs all around him — germs that appear as super-deformed characters. This was the third year in a row that Moyashimon has been nominated. Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ohoku was also nominated for three years running, but has yet to receive the award. The second-place finisher this year was Umimachi Diary 1: Semishigure no Yamugoro.

Meanwhile, the Eagle awards were presented Saturday night in Bristol, and everyone is still too hungover to even list the winners. That’s right, not one single person has seen fit to send out a press release! And we’re not the only ones t notice!

SF Awards Watch:

Has anyone seen a bunch of Eagle Awards flitting around the place looking for somewhere to land?

Richard Bruton:

This Internet thingy isn’t that good really is it?

The Eagle Awards were given out last night yet nowhere on the Interwebby thing can I find the results. Someone must know!

Of course it doesn’t help that the awards are technically the 2007 Eagle Awards. Given to work from 2007. But presented in 2008. Time to re-date the damn things I think.

Forbidden Planet:

Mike Conroy has been in touch to say that the full official list of winners for the Eagle Awards, announced at the Bristol comics bash at the weekend, should be going up shortly (in fact, hopefully tomorrow). There’s been a bit of a re-organisation behind the scenes of the awards, with Mike not being able to dedicate as much time to it as before due to his own work and the fact that both the Eagles and the Bristol Expo seem to grow bigger each year, although he said that the exhibitors he spoke to seemed to think they still hadn’t lost the fannish roots.

Come on, people, surely everyone is sober now!

UPDATE: Tony Lee captures the spirit of Bristol:

The bottles of gin have been tidied away and the boxes of pizza are being folded into rubbish bin sized portions. Having been bought at around 2am on the Friday night, this pizza has been the sustenance for all our needs and has pretty much kept us alive since day one. The three day pizza is now looking bad, but not to Dan, who munches slowly while crying weakly to himself.

England’s biggest comics bash takes place this weekend: the Bristol International Comic Expo, home of the Eagle Awards which will be presented at a star-studded gala, we’re certain, Saturday evening. Since it’s already after noon there, we imagine everyone is already sitting around The Reckless Engineer, where they will remain for the next 60 hours.

A highlight of the programming will be, as always, the Hypotheticals panel:

5.00 PM Hypotheticals: Helmed by Lee “Budgie” Barnett and Dave Gibbons, Hypotheticals returns for its NINTH year at Comic Expo. See Walt Simonson, Louise Simonson, Emma Vieceli and Karen Berger (Vertigo Executive Editor) transported to Earth-Dave and faced with hypothetical scenarios drawn from the comics industry headlines. Variously described as “must see…” and “riotously hilarious”, it’s best summed up by former panelist Mike Carlin’s comment of “More fun than you should be allowed to have at a convention!”

Perusing the guest list, it jumped out at us how many of the guests are now manga artists; not that that would shock anyone, but way up from six years ago the last time we attended.

A report on a Dutch exhibition of comics from Africa. . The exhibit website is here, and though it’s in Dutch it has a lot of biographical information and art. Above, art by Barly Baruti of the Congo.

Entrecomics alerts us to the biggest event of the year:
ITALIAN SPIDERMAN!

We are like, so utterly super swamped today that we can only leave you with the golden oldie from Pilipino Komiks, early cover art from Coching, the Jack Kirby of the Phillipines.

This interesting AP article looks at the move to grab the low-hanging fruit of giving the cash-rich Middle East their own amusement parks, and the cultural difficulties therein.

Politically sensitive characters such as Captain America could be left at home. Prayer rooms will join the list of accommodations, and menus will likely feature falafel and humus alongside pizza and hot dogs.

The piece looks specifically at the efforts by DC and Marvel to get their characters in these parks:

Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros. home entertainment group, is convinced that Superman, Batman and other DC Comics characters licensed by Warner will be readily accepted by those who visit the park from the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Even the bare-shouldered Wonder Woman shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows “unless we depicted her as a Muslim woman,” said Tsujihara, who is spearheading the Warner theme park in Abu Dhabi.

Even so, “we probably wouldn’t have her running around in costume around the park,” he said.

With plans to help build a $1 billion theme park in Abu Dhabi by 2011, Marvel Entertainment Inc. is downplaying Captain America, a World War II creation draped in the American flag, in favor of attractions based on popular characters such as Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and X-Men — none of whom carry the same political baggage.

“One of the things that’s nice about our characters is they’re either about individuals helping people or they’re about teams of people of different types, like mutants, that band together and solve problems,” Marvel chairman David Maisel said.

Technorati Tags: Amusement parks

Multiple Eagle Award nominee AAM/Markosia will be at booth 1756 for New York Comic Con April 18 - 20. The publisher of acclaimed titles such as Starship Troopers, Kong: King of Skull Island and The Boy Who Made Silence will be featuring many top notch creator signings and a $5 sale on selected trade paperbacks. In addition, every trade paperback purchase at the table will entitle the buyer to three free comics!

Publisher Harry Markos says “We’re delighted to be back in New York again for our third year, and very excited with what we have going on this time around. We’ve been here so many times now it’s become our second home! We have some great offers this year, with anyone purchasing a trade paperbacks also receiving three free comics from our back catalog. To sum it up, you can buy up to $28 worth of books for just $5! We are also offering a 20% discount on some of our newer trades and comics, so there’s plenty of quality bargains to be had for everyone. We’re looking forward to catching up with creators and friends alike, so pop by and say hello!”

Featured creators include Eagle Award nominees Tony Lee and Thomas Mauer, Joshua Hagler and Scott Larson, who will all be signing at booth 1756 throughout the weekend.

Founded in 2005, AAM/Markosia is one of the leading independent publishers in the market today. 2008 promises to be a banner year, as AAM/Markosia plans to launch several new series, such as Lazarus: Immortal Coils, Eleventh Hour and N-Guard.

Time Online profiles Cambodian cartoonist Ing Phousera or Séra as he is known:

Growing up in Phnom Penh between the worlds of his French mother and Khmer father, Séra routinely escaped into the pages of French comics, and again as a young refugee in Paris. Now the author of a dozen graphic novels — three of which have been about Cambodia’s war years — he is working to rekindle Cambodia’s interest in the art form. Since his debut showing in Phnom Penh, he has been regularly returning to the city of his boyhood to hold workshops for aspiring illustrators. “It’s important to try to approach the reality of our times,” he says. “This is a media that only needs a pen and paper to express something.” He is also helping to publish the nation’s first anthology of up-and-coming comic-book artists, (Re)géné Rations: The New Khmer Graphic Novel, due in June. In so doing, Séra and his collaborators are blowing the dust off a subculture that has endured decades of neglect.

Above, a french edition of one of Séra’s graphic novels.

The nominees for the 2008 Joe Shuster Awards have just been announced.

Nominees were selected by a two round voting process. Now that the list of nominees has been finalized, the nominated creators will have their work reviewed by a jury, who will ultimately decide which of the nominated creators will receive a Joe Shuster Award. In previous years winners were selected by a public vote.

Between now and the end of May, fans can vote for the following categories online at www.joeshusterawards.com:
- FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR – ENGLISH LANGUAGE
- FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR - FRENCH LANGUAGE
- FAVOURITE INTERNATIONAL (NON-CANADIAN) COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Winners will be announced at a public ceremony on June 14th in Toronto. The awards will be the final event at the Sequential Art Symposium to be held in the auditorium of the Toronto Public Library’s Lillian Smith branch on College Street on Saturday, June 14. The Symposium will feature talks related to comics and the 70th anniversary of the Superman character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, as well as a Superman-themed art exhibit entitled “Visions of an Icon” featuring work by Canadian comic book artists. Guests for the symposium include Darwyn Cooke, Tom Grummett, J. Torres, Ty Templeton and more creators to be announced. All nominees are invited to attend and participate.

And the honorees are:
OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK WRITER
- Ian Boothby for Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #13, Futurama #29, 31-33, Simpsons Comics #126, 128, 130, 134, 136 (Bongo)
- Cecil Castellucci for The P.L.A.I.N. Janes (DC/Minx)
- Maryse Dubuc for Les Nombrils 2: Sale Temps pour les Moches (Editions Dupuis)
- Jim Munroe for Therefore Repent (No Media Kings) Comics Festival! 2007 (Legion of Evil Press)
- phlppgrrd aka Philippe Girard for Danger public (La pastèque)
- Ty Templeton for Howard the Duck #1-3, Marvel Adventures The Avengers #17-19, She-Hulk #20-21 (Marvel Comics)
- J. Torres for The Black Canary Wedding Planner #1, Blue Beetle #15, Wonder Girl #1-4, Wonder Woman #11-13 (DC Comics), Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #1,2,5,6, Teen Titans GO! #39-50, The Batman Strikes #29, 34 (DC/Johnny DC), Ninja Scroll 5-7, 10, 12 (DC/Wildstorm), Degrassi TNG: Extra Credit Vols. 3-4 (H.P, Fenn Publishing Co.)
- Howard Wong for After the Cape #1-3, After the Cape II #1-2 (Image Comics)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK ARTIST
- Dale Eaglesham for Justice Society of America #2-4, 6-7, 9-11 (DC Comics)
- David Finch for Moon Knight #7-8, Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America #4: Spider-Man, Legion of Monsters: Morbius #1 (Marvel Comics)
- Tom Grummett for Exiles #100, Thunderbolts Presents Zemo: Born Better #1-4, Mystic Arcana: Black Knight #1 (Marvel Comics)
- Pia Guerra for Y the Last Man #55-59 (DC/Vertigo), Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #13 (Bongo)
- Stuart Immonen for Ultimate Spider-Man #111-117, Marvel Comics Presents #1-4, Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #12 (Marvel Comics)
- Karl Kerschl for All-Flash #1, 52 #47 (DC Comics)
- Thierry Labrosse for Moréa 5: La Brûlure des Ténèbres (Soleil Production)
- Jacques Lamontagne for Les Druides 3: La Lance de Lug, Les Contes de l’Ankou 3: Au Royaume des Morts (Soleil Production)

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The year of the scholarly look continues in Edinburgh as the National Library of Scotland presents a two month exhibitions of comics and a series of events featuring Alan Davis, Vince Deighan (Frank Quitely to you and me), Metaphrog and many others. You can see the entire list of events here but here’s the basics:

Local Heroes: The Art of the Graphic Novel

The evolution of the graphic novel as a ‘serious artform’, from its humble beginnings in newspaper cartoon strips and superhero comics, has been rapid and revolutionary. Its influence in cinema, popular culture and literature is beyond doubt, while the subject matter of illustrated works grows increasingly diverse. This exhibition draws on material from the Library’s vast collections to tell the story of how comics have ‘grown up’ over the past 40 years, and the influential role Scots artists and writers have played. The Broons, the superheroes and villains of Marvel comics and international work such as Tintin and Japanese Manga all feature, alongside the seminal work of Alan Moore, Art Speigelman and Frank Miller. Scottish artists featured include Grant Morrison, Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy, whose original artwork from the graphic novel adaptation of Kidnapped will also be on show. Put your creativity to the test with a host of interactive exercises.

Opening Hours: 10am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm Saturday and 2pm to 5pm Sundays

Belgian comics publisher Raymond LeBlanc (above left, with Hergé) died on March 21 at age 92. Best known as the publisher who gave Tintin a home after World War II, he was also a real life hero, if such a phrase can have any meaning. A member of the Resistance during the war, he later persuaded the demoralized Hergé to begin publishing Tintin in the new Tintin Magazine. The move changed the history of comics. In later years, LeBlanc developed Lombard into a publishing powerhouse, and at 2003’s Angouleme won the first ever Honorary Alph Art award for an editor.

Tom has more, but
Forbidden Planet’s translation of an interview with LeBlanc as good a place as any to learn about this seminal figure in world comics history.

Sixty years ago Raymond Leblanc founded the Magazine Tintin, he produced six Belgian animated features and, when the final history of the Belgian comic is ever written, he will have one of the leading parts. In his glory days Leblanc seemed to lead nine different lives at once. We present you an exclusive and especially frank interview with a living legend of 92 years.

The man sitting in front of me folds his hands and holds them under his chin, the elbows full of self-confidence on his desk. “Tell me”, he says, “How may I be of service?” We are sitting in a cosy, warm and luxurious office on the eighth floor of the Lombard Publishers building near the Gare du Midi in Brussels. The man in front of me is 92 years old, but shows no signs of getting old. “You will have to speak up, though. I have a little problem hearing”. Other than that, Raymond Leblanc is as lucid as the next guy. He remembers things that happened sixty years ago as if they were yesterday. He answers to the point and without hesitation. Even at 92, Leblanc will not be silenced in what he says will be his last interview.

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This post by Molly Flatt in the Guardian has been linked to by several bloggers, starting with Tom. Flatt is definitely of the “Think! Feel! Comics are a great medium!” school, but the comments get a bit lively, although some of the Newsarama-esque ones were removed before we could cut’n'paste. (Damn you, polite literate newspapers!)
A poster named ‘Anytimefrances’ takes point on the rebuttal:

my mottoe is now - people who read comic books also puff the ‘magic’ dragon and listen to bands for hours on end. nothing personal M, you know, but that was the way I found it, and it’s a fool’s paradise. going back, always going back, to childishness, grieving over the lost innocence, recovery, salvage, the joys, the absence of responsibility, always gulping at the jug of delight, free, delighting the senses.

was it St Paul who said, now that I am and adult, i have given up childish things.

Harumph. Must comments are more supportive, such as ‘Alarming’ of Manchester :

If you take a comic strip like Zippy the Pinhead - the writing is very literate and takes in philosophy, social comment, high and low art references, toe curling puns and makes unexpected connections whilst the drawing is very beautiful. The fact that he can carry on producing high quality work in a daily comic strip which doesn’t dumb things down but which is also not too intellectually remote is something to be admired.

Hint: The comment thread is definitely much more fun if you imagine it being read like those letters of complaint on Monty Python.

On the fifth anniversary of the start of America’s dumbest war ever, Public Enemy #1 Osama bin Laden reportedly dissed the Mohammed cartoons in one of those messages he periodically releases.

In the message, addressed to the ‘intelligent ones’ in the European Union, bin Laden said that publishing the ‘insulting drawings’ was a greater crime than Western forces targeting Muslim villages and killing women and children.

And the ‘reckoning for it will be more severe,’ he said, according to a transcript of the message provided by the Virginia-based IntelCenter.

Referring to a series of cartoons published in Danish newspapers, the Al-Qaeda leader also warned: ‘if there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions.’

We’ve got to hand it to the big cheese of Al Qaeda, he’s on the right track here. Publishing cartoons IS a far worse crime than killing women and children. You can kill a man (or woman or child) but you can’t kill an idea.

Let freedom ring.

Many many things which we had stored up or emailed to us which we have been meaning to tell you about.

§ Douglas Wolk has a new link blog. We’re already stealing from it.

§ We were talking about con fatigue the other day and unbeknownst to us, Shaenon K. Garrity had already covered it

One big change, of course, was that I moved to the other side of the booth. Conventions aren’t quite the same when you’re selling. Some cartoonists—horrible, horrible cartoonists who should die in fires—thrive on convention sales, love interacting with their fans and recruiting new readers. I’m not one of them. When someone walks up and asks me why they should read my comic, I consider the question seriously, and usually I can’t come up with an answer that doesn’t involve a lot of stammering qualifiers. Also, working a booth, unless you’re one of those hateful popular cartoonists, usually includes long stretches of boredom, just standing at attention and staring into space. I’ve invented many games to pass the time. One is to scan the crowd for people who look like characters in my comics, in case I need to cast a movie on the fly. Another is to burst into silent tears.

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• The English language version of the PERSEPOLIS animated film will be released on April 11.

This version features the voices of Chiara Mastroianni as Marjane; Sean Penn as Marjane’s father, Ebi; Catherine Deneuve as Marjane’s mother, Tadji; Gena Rowlands as Marjane’s grandmother; Iggy Pop as Uncle Anouche; and Amethyste Frezignac as young Marjane. It was recorded under the direction of Satrapi and Paronnaud as the French-language version of the film was being completed.

• Another story in The Hollywood Reporter mentions a pact between French production, distribution and international sales company MK2 and publisher Emmanuel Proust. This is of some interest to us because Proust specializes in graphic novels.

MK2 is hoping the collaboration will allow the producer to bring more books to the big screen and vice versa. MK2 is currently in production on Pascal Herold and Jerome Deschamps’ animated tale “The True Story of Puss ‘n Boots,” which Proust will adapt into a comic book. MK2 hopes to draw from Proust’s more than 120 titles and 30-40 future projects to be released per year by the publisher.

Maybe it’s just the movie trade papers picking up more on foreign film deals, but it seems like there’s been a teeny tiny move towards Euro-comics getting the kind of attention from movie studios that American comics have been receiving. First there was David Fincher being attached to Matz THE KILLER, then yesterday’s bit about James Mangold taking on CYCLOPES. Not to mention ancillary news like the TINTIN movies and Marvel’s publishing deal with Soleil. Not a landslide of activity, but it’s worth noting.

(more…)

Don MacPherson talks about DC’s decision to print only one price on its comics for the US and Canada. The move has made Canadian retailers unhappy.

So DC’s announcement, though incredibly late, is welcome news for retailers and customers, yes? Well, not really. The manager at my local comic shop, for example, is annoyed at the development; his preference would be that U.S. publishers leave the Canadian price off their comics and graphic novels altogether, allowing for easier adaptation to fluctuations in currency values. That’s what Dark Horse does and many others as well. Anecdotally, what I’ve been hearing is that many Canadian comics retailers have been disregarding the Canadian price for some time, even more the dollar achieved parity with the U.S. buck.

…and…Noah Berlatsky wonders why comics never got with the program:

It got me thinking a little bit about how comics have done, and continue to do, so poorly in this regard. Why wasn’t there ever a blaxploitation equivalent in comics during the seventies — a series of titles starring and aimed at black people? Why are there still so few black comics professionals, and so little black representation in the industry in general? I know it’s not because black people don’t like comics — every time I go into my local bookstore, I see black folks sitting in the comics section, reading away. So what’s the deal?

My point here isn’t that American comics aren’t racist or segregated; I mean, clearly they are in terms of who you see in their pages, who works on them, and, in general, who reads them. It’s just kind of interesting to try to figure out why comics are so much worse about race than other media (movies, television, music.) It’s also interesting to think about what the consequences have been.