Has hit the web. Discuss. Back in a bit.

Technorati Tags: The Spirit

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

Sorry for the panic of Twitter last night! Basically, The Beat’s table included Kyle Baker, Dean Haspiel, and Ben McCool, so to say there were laughs afoot would be an understatement. We were all kidding about the deadly-looking steak knives when it turned out that Kyle had cut his finger buttering bread. Someone called a waiter over and the waiter intoned “Come with me!” and TWO people led Kyle off to get a Band-Aid. It was funny at the time but not as funny when it was Twittered. Anyway, at least one other person cut themselves with those darned knives. They are truly SNAPPED-worthy.

The highlight of the night was legend Nick Cardy getting the Hero Award. As presenter Todd Dezago explained, no one even knows how old Nick really is — either 88 or 89…but either way, he’s a treasure to be around.

A few photos of Table 1 hijinks:

Dean opted for double the meat.

Henrik Andreasen is unafraid of the Harvey knife danger.

We have lots more pictures that aren’t on Flickr…posting later.
Read the rest of this entry »

Official list; winners in BOLD. ALL STAR SUPERMAN was the night’s biggest winner with three, while Nicholas Gurewiitch’s PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP won two.

BEST WRITER

Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Marvel Comics
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Grant Morrison, All Star Superman, DC Comics
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone
Brian K. Vaughan, Y: The Last Man, Vertigo/DC Comics

BEST ARTIST

Gabriel Ba, Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics
John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men, Marvel Comics
Guy Davis, BPRD, Dark Horse Comics
Frank Quitely, All Star Superman, DC Comics
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone

BEST CARTOONIST

Darwyn Cooke, The Spirit, DC Comics
Matt Kindt, Super Spy, Top Shelf
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Oni Press
Vasilis Lolos, Last Call, Oni Press
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone

BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM - ORIGINAL

The Arrival, Scholastic Books
Donald Duck: The Case of the Missing Mummy, Gemstone
Exit Wounds, Drawn & Quarterly
Laika, First Second
Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Oni Press

BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM - PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED

The Annotated Northwest Passage, Oni Press
Antiques, Volume 1, Gemstone
Captain America Omnibus, Volume 1, Marvel Comics
Damned, Volume 1, Oni Press
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, Marvel Comics

BEST DOMESTIC REPRINT PROJECT

Complete Peanuts, Fantagraphics Books
Complete Terry and the Pirates, IDW
EC Archives, Gemstone
Popeye, Fantagraphics Books
Walt and Skeezix, Drawn & Quarterly

BEST AMERICAN EDITION OF FOREIGN MATERIAL

Eduardo Risso’s Tales of Terror, Dynamite Entertainment
Exit Wounds, Drawn & Quarterly
Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Abrams
Moomin, Volume 2, Drawn & Quarterly
Witchblade Manga, Top Cow/Image

SPECIAL AWARD FOR HUMOR

Chris Eliopoulos, Franklin Richards series, Marvel Comics
Nicholas Gurewitch, Perry Bible Fellowship, www.pbfcomics.com
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Oni Press
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone

BEST ON-LINE COMIC

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney, www.wimpykid.com
EZ Street, Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley, www.comicmix.com/title/ez-street/
Penny Arcade, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, www.penny-arcade.com
Perry Bible Fellowship, Nicholas Gurewitch, www.pbfcomics.com
Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo, Dwight L. Macpherson, Thomas Boatwright and Thomas Mauer, www.drunkduck.com/The_Surreal_Adventures_of_Edgar_Allan_Poo

SPECIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRESENTATION

The Annotated Northwest Passage, Scott Chantler, Oni Press
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney, Amulet Books
EC Archives, Various, edited by Russ Cochran, Gemstone
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriguez, Villard
Super Spy, Matt Kindt, Top Shelf

BEST SINGLE ISSUE OR STORY

Alice in Sunderland, Dark Horse Comics
All Star Superman # 8, DC Comics
Captain America # 25, Marvel Comics
Donald Duck: The Case of the Missing Mummy, Gemstone
I Killed Adolf Hitler, Fantagraphics Books
Immortal Iron Fist # 7, Marvel Comics
Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen # 1, Oni Press

BEST BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL OR JOURNALISTIC PRESENTATION

Blah Blah Blog, Tom Brevoort, http://www.marvel.com/blogs/Tom%20Brevoort/
The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth and Michael Dean, Fantagraphics Books
Meanwhile…: A Biography of Milton Caniff, R.C. Harvey, Fantagraphics Books
The Naked Artist: Comic Book Legends, Bryan Talbot and Hunt Emerson, Moonstone Books
Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, edited by J.C. Vaughn, Gemstone
Reading Comics: How Graphic Albums Work and What They Mean, Douglas Wolk, Da Capo Press

BEST COVER ARTIST

John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men, Marvel Comics
Marko Djurdjevic, Daredevil, Marvel Comics
James Jean, Fables, Vertigo/DC Comics
Mike Mignola, Hellboy, Dark Horse Comics
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone

BEST LETTERER

Chris Eliopoulos, Daredevil, Marvel Comics
Jared K. Fletcher, The Spirit, DC Comics
Willie Schubert, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone
Douglas E. Sherwood, Local, Oni Books
Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library, Acme Novelty

BEST COLORIST

Susan Daigle-Leach, Uncle Scrooge, Gemstone
Jamie Grant, All Star Superman, DC Comics
Matt Hollingsworth, Daredevil, Marvel Comics
Matt Kindt, Super Spy, Top Shelf
Laura Martin, Thor, Marvel Comics

BEST INKER

Stefano Gaudiano, Daredevil, Marvel Comics
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Steve Leialoha, Fables, DC Comics
Mark Morales, Thor, Marvel Comics
Kevin Nowlan, Witchblade, Top Cow/Image

BEST SYNDICATED STRIP OR PANEL

Doonesbury, Garry Trudeau, Universal Press Syndicate
Get Fuzzy, Darby Conley, United Feature Syndicate
The K Chronicles, Keith Knight, Self-Syndicated
The Mighty Motor-Sapiens, Mark Wheatley, Daniel Krall, Robert Tinnell, MJ Butler,
Craig Taillerfer, Matthew Plog, and Jerry Carr, Self-Syndicated
Mutts, Patrick McDonnell, King Features Syndicate

BEST CONTINUING OR LIMITED SERIES

All Star Superman, DC Comics
Captain America, Marvel Comics
Damned, Oni Press
Daredevil, Marvel Comics
Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics
Uncle Scrooge, Gemstone Comics

BEST NEW SERIES

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
The Order, Marvel Comics
Resurrection, Oni Press
Thor, Marvel Comics
Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics

BEST NEW TALENT

Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Jeff Lemire, Essex County, Top Shelf
Vasilis Lolos, Last Call, Oni Press
Robbi Rodriguez, Maintenance, Oni Press
Christian Slade, Korgi #1: Sprouting Wings, Top Shelf

BEST ANTHOLOGY

Flight Volume 4, edited by Kazu Kibuishi, Ballantine Books
Mome Volume 8, edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds, Fantagraphics Books
Popgun Volume 1, edited by Joe Keatinge and Mark Andrew Smith, Image Books
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriquez, Villard
Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, edited by John Clark, Gemstone

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

Yes, it’s Baltimore once again! We elected to go down and enjoy the Harveys, the scenic inner harbor and our occidental pals as opposed to NYAF this weekend, but we’re sure it’s a sound choice. Guests include Bernie Wrightson, Brian Bendis, Jim Lee, and Mike Mignola, and many, many more. We couldn’t find the link to the panels, so we’ve posted it in the jump. We’ll be there Saturday for this one for sure:

2:45pm-3:45pm
Kirkman vs. Bendis: The Future of Comics
Oa room (upstairs, room 307)
What began as an open letter on the future of comics has turned into one of the hottest topics to hit the industry in decades. Now, the two main opposing forces in the discussion get together as Robert Kirkman and Brian Michael Bendis come face to face in a no-holds-barred debate! Don’t miss out on what promises to be the most talked about panel of the year!

The Harvey Awards are Saturday night and we’re presenting! Thank the Lord — a chance to dress up! Kyle Baker returns as emcee. For those who wish to attend:

Tickets are available for $10, or free with a two-day pass to the convention. The hall will be opened for those ticket holders at approximately 8:45pm. Attendees who purchase a ceremony-only ticket are not eligible to receive the gift bag. The two-day convention tickets may be purchased through Ticketmaster, accessible from www.baltimorecomiccon.com.

We always have a swell time at Baltimore, and this year should be no exception. Come up and say hi. This is our big show of the year to kick back and have fun at, and a lot of others think so too.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Hollywood Reporter has more on the launch of Liquid Comics, formed when Virgin Comics’ Gotham Chopra, Sharad Devarajan and Suresh Seetharaman bought out the assets of the company. As previously expected, Liquid will continue to develop digital content, films, animation and gaming projects based on its original characters and stories. Director Shekhar Kapur will have a changed role, however.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kapur said he will no longer be associated with the company, except as a minority shareholder. “The company is in the process of being restructured, and I continue as a founder-shareholder,” he said.

Liquid’s management plans to proceed with a number of projects previously announced by Virgin and said it soon would announce project launch dates.

But it was not clear whether Virgin-associated talent such as actor Nicolas Cage, porn actress and entrepreneur Jenna Jameson and U.K. musician Dave Stewart would work with Liquid.

Ongoing projects include “Virulents,” a feature based on a Virgin graphic novel to be directed by John Moore (”Behind Enemy Lines”).

The New York Anime Fest kicks off today, and we haven’t given this NEARLY the kind of buildup we should have, but it should be a lot of fun. The move from December has definitely given it a better slot, but more conflicts with other shows (like Balitmore Comic-Con and Yaoi Con.)

But this is still a big show. Major guests include Yoshitaka Amano (above), goth Lolita clothing designers Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, horror novelist Hideyuki Kikuchi, voice actress Rie Tanaka, and many more who you can see here.

There are parties. There are panels. Contests! …and all kinds of tie-in events. Oh, and concerts. If we weren’t going to Baltimore, we’d be there.

WHAT:
Justin Hall & Dave Davenport HARD TO SWALLOW @ Isotope
Friday, September 26th
7pm - 11pm

Kicking off Folsom Street Fair weekend in high style… queer comics icons Justin Hall and Dave Davenport will be launching the fourth issue of the edgy, gay erotic comics HARD TO SWALLOW at the Isotope.

One of our favorite indy books, HARD TO SWALLOW brings together three award-winning creators in an orgy of sex adventures featuring all the hardcore pirates, naughty werewolves, exotic locales, and horny studs you could hope for. Isotope is known for throwing some of the best bacchanalias in the comics world, and we’ll be jam-packing the store full of raunchy comics, booze, loose men and brash women, weak-willed cartoonists, and plenty of that HARD TO SWALLOW action that you need!

This event features hot tunes spun by The Eagle & The Cinch Saloon’s own DJ BEARZBUB.

The failure of WaMu Minx pretty much took over the blogosphere yesterday. A few highlights:

§ Mariah Huehner, who worked on the initial Minx launch, has her own postmortem:

And I think a huge part of it is a lack of long term planning. It was always going to take time for this line to find the right combination to work, probably with various hiccups along the way. The fact that it wasn’t an overnight, break out star, shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. It’s not like YA fiction just suddenly became popular…it’s been growing for awhile. Decades, in fact. And it’s really the fact that many of them have become films recently that makes it seem more “sudden”. Same thing with Manga, which often had tv shows and movies that were already successful here. There’s no such thing as an overnight success, in my opinion, and expecting it in publishing doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Minx was still going through a lot of growing pains and I’m truly sad it won’t be able to continue to evolve and grow.

§ Raina Telgemeier refutes a lot of what I was hearing yesterday: Minx going down doesn’t mean girls don’t want to read comics:

Girls do want to read comics. They email me and send me letters to say so. Their parents do the same. I meet them at comic conventions, libraries, bookstores, comic stores, schools, and via my friends. They find personal inspiration in comics. They decide to start their own publishing companies and draw their own comics. They look for comics about interesting topics (nothing unusual there), and comics about characters they can identify with. They want comics that are made for them. They need comics that are made just for them.

§ Chris Pearson at Comic Book Junction has an interesting look back at Acclaim’s 1997 attempt at a line for kids:

But if Acclaim Young Readers never made it into — or made an impact on — the book stores, in the Direct Market they were completely lost. Relegated to the bottom shelves, packed in with the “Kids Ghetto” of comic selections — or even worse, racked spine-out. Unlike the beefy mangas that would make such a splash less than ten years later, the spines on the Acclaim Young Readers line were extremely thin and nondescript. If they had the misfortune to be placed on store shelves like actual books –they were completely invisible & forgotten.

§ Katherine Farmar has a very long and insightful post which does heavy duty finger pointing, and compares the Japanese and American markets:

One of the ways in which the Japanese manga market differs from the American comics market is the degree to which Japanese publishers cater to their audiences’ whims. If there is a niche out there to be exploited, you can bet your ass there’s a Japanese manga publisher exploiting it. If there’s a bandwagon to jump on, they will jump feet first. This requires three things: firstly, a keen eye for trends; secondly, tight editorial control so that creators stick to their given mandate and are carefully sheparded through every stage of the process; and thirdly, a hotline from your audience — and, before you begin publishing, from your potential audience — so you know what they’re looking for and can gauge what works and what doesn’t.

I do think the American Big Two do a LOT of market research into what their audiences want, in some ways — more Green Lantern Corp., more Skrulls–but it doesn’t quite pay off the same way because the audience models are different. And I think some people go too far in comparing American reading habits to those of Japan: Japanese society accepts what we consider shocking and distasteful as light entertainment, and have far far different views of “letting off steam” than we do. Plus, they read on trains. You might as well say that having more long train rides in America will improve comics readership.

A few more links of note:

• PW story by Calvin Reid
• KadyMae, who has some interesting insights from the retail end of things.
• Kai-Ming Cha
• Leigh Walton
• Leigh Dragoon
• Richard Bruton
• Chris Butcher
• Randy Lander
•Kevin Church
• Johnny Bacardi
• Simon Jones
• Johanna Draper Carlson Part 2

That survey looked readable in the preview.

I’ll be honest with you kids, it is hard to write about comic books right now when a meeting of our greatest leaders to decide how to stave off a depression (not recession) ends in finger pointing and shouting and begging. When the biggest bank in the country has gone under. And our potential vice president can’t coherently answer tough questions from Katie Couric.

It’s all worrying.

But…I’ll keep trying.

PS: We’re off on the road to Baltimore today, so look for some road dispatches and Twittering.

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.

Mets fans are gladdened by this news from the Onion: Struggling Mets Combine To Form Carlos Voltron:

Facing the Cubs in the midst of a three-game losing streak, the desperate Mets sprinted out to the field Tuesday, launched themselves high into the air above Shea Stadium, and combined their bodies to form a 400-foot tall fielding robot called Carlos Voltron.
Enlarge Image Mets Robot

According to eyewitnesses, before the Mets players completed the complicated procedure, in which they fused their physical selves and combined their talents to form the 20,000-ton robot, manager Jerry Manuel called the team to the dugout, where he commanded them to prepare their interlock systems for activation, connect the appropriate dyna-therms, charge up the infra-cells to full capacity, engage the mega-thrusters, and give it their best out there.

{Thanks to FMB for the link]

Well it’s official, as DC’s release makes clear:

Minx will cease publication beginning January ‘09. Minx was an experimental imprint for DC Comics and we are extremely proud of the books we published and the stories we told during the past two years. We thank all of the writers and artists who lent their talents to our endeavor and especially thank readers who came along for the ride. DC Comics remains committed to publishing diverse material for diverse audiences as we continue to welcome new readers.

Announced in November ‘06, after years of development, the Minx line launched in Spring ‘07 with THE PLAIN JANES by Cecil Castellucci; and Jim Rugg, RE-GIFTERS by Mike Carey, Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel, CLUBBING by Andi Watson and Josh Howard and CONFESSIONS OF A BLABBERMOUTH by Mike Carey, Louise Carey and Aaron Alexovich. Subsequent releases in ‘07 included GOOD AS LILY by Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm, and KIMMIE66 by Aaron Alexovich. This year, after a long break in new titles, we saw BURNOUT by Rebecca Donner and Inaki Miranda, the sequel JANES IN LOVE by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg, WATER BABY by Ross Campbell and THE NEW YORK FOUR by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly.

Still upcoming are TOKEN by Alisa Kwitney and Joëlle Jones, and EMIKO SUPERSTAR by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston.

Other announced books for ‘09 include ALL NIGHTER by David Hahn, POSEUR by Deborah Vankin and Rick Mays and the sequel CLUBBING IN TOKYO by Watson and Grazia Lobaccaro. As of this writing, DC had no comment on the fate of these last three books.

After being launched with tremendous publicity, the line was also given a marketing budget of $125,000$250,000 to expose the books to the unfamiliar territory of teenage girls, in partnership with Alloy Media, a marketing firm. This included some events with Seventeen that are just breaking, even as the line has been cancelled:

Also this fall, with the help of SEVENTEEN magazine, MINX books will make appearances at two SEVENTEEN “Rock the Runway” Events going on at malls around the country, including: Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights, Michigan on September 20th, 2008 and Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, Pennsylvania on October 11th, 2008. Both events run from 2-4 pm.

Minx was also promoted as the back cover of Seventeen magazine. So clearly, some money was actually spent on the kind of marketing efforts that would attract attention to these books from the target audience.

Monday morning quarterback reports are springing up all over the web. Book retailer Shannon Smith has posted in many places with variations on the following:

As soon as the first boxes came in and I saw that the thin little books would be shelved in graphic novels I knew it was going to fail. The books are small YA format and are totally lost in the GN section. Plus, they just can’t compete with manga. I tired. I created endcaps for them but they were in the wrong part of the store. Could I have put them in YA? Sure. But it would have gone against the shelving code on the sticker and would have conflicted with the title look up computers so, no, not really an option. They might have had a chance if shelved with Gossip Girl and similar books in YA and that would not have taken marketing dollars. That would only have taken a phone call to Borders and N B&N to make happen. Just a call to say “hey, these books are YA so can you change your stickers to put this line of books in YA?”. It would not have taken a major marketing inititative on Random House’s part. Just a phone call. My advice to DC and all publishers is to vist a bookstore from time to time. Ask to talk to the shelvers. Ask to talk to the inventory managers. They know. They know where each book should be. They know which kinds of books the kids sitting on the floor in YA are reading and which kinds of books the kids sitting on the floor in manga are reading. Ask a bookseller. They won’t even charge you. (Yet.)

This interpretation falls in line with the “Random House” line of thinking — these books were YA titles, NOT Manga, and needed to be shelved in the YA section…but bookstores wouldn’t do it. Despite Smith’s it stretches creduility that that Random House wouldn’t make that phone call. But it still didn’t work for one reason or another.

Indeed, as I’ve speculated many times here, the Minx books seemed too be reaching an audience composed equally of male bloggers, and NOT teenage girls. Comments everywhere today back this up:
Read the rest of this entry »

Over at CBR, Andy Khouri reports that DC has canceled the Minx line, the much-talked-about line of GNs aimed at the female YA market, launched with much fanfare last year. Khouri’s story doesn’t go into detail on which books will be released, but it appears some will still come out, only not under the Minx imprint. Other books, including one already in the can, will not be published, but reversion to creators is under discussion.

We can’t say we’re entirely surprised, but the move seems to come down to the old problem of finding an audience, and the conclusions reached by those close to the situation are grim ones:

Developed over several years and backed with the full financial support of DC Comics parent Warner Bros., the MINX line and its many titles are generally well reviewed, and the imprint’s ambitious goal was met with optimism and support from direct market retailers. Nevertheless, CBR News was told that Random House, DC’s book trade distributor, has not been able to successfully place MINX titles in the coveted young adult sections of bookstores like Barnes & Noble.

Multiple sources close to the situation agree Bond and DC aren’t to blame for MINX’s cancellation, and that this development should be seen as a depressing indication that a market for alternative young adult comics does not exist in the capacity to support an initiative of this kind, if at all.

We keep hearing that Random House has a huge influence over DC’s plans in the bookstore market…it seems the Minx line has been the first victim of some pruning.

We’ll be weighing in with more thoughts later, but Valerie D’Orazio keys in on the marketing problems as well:

Were the Minx books “comics” or “books?” Where were they to be racked at the comic shop, and where were they to be racked in the book store? As of two weeks ago, I saw Minx titles kept in the “teen novel” section of Barnes and Noble — some distance, perhaps a whole floor or two, away from the graphic novel section. Would there be that crossover readership from the teen novel crowd? Would they open up that copy of Re-Gifters and be like “hey, cool” or would they be turned off?

UPDATE: We knew Dirk would have a field day with this, http://tcj.com/journalista/“>and he doen’t let us down.

DC seems to have gambled everything on the notion that the manga model of bookstore success could be duplicated: That if you threw Stuart Levy levels of money into a new market, you stood a good chance of grabbing Tokyopop’s magic. Unfortunately, Tokyopop’s “magic” amounted to the possession of the Sailor Moon line of books, which played on a groundswell of young television viewers who remembered the animated series fondly and were hungry for more, backed up by titles like CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura to feed the demand for similar works. Minx simply didn’t have anything like that initial spark in their inventory, and thus the enormous amount of money thrown at the line became a millstone around its neck. Success needed to come quickly in order to justify the initial cash outlay, and Minx just couldn’t meet such ridiculously high expectations. This race required a tortoise, not a hare, but DC Comics foolishly bet everything on the hare. The result is yet another tombstone for the graveyard.

Shaenon Garrity continues to reprint manga from the 40s. This stuff is pre-Tezuka, and it shows, but it has much charm. This week:

Matt Thorn translates the title as The Delightful Steel Mill, which is probably the best translation, but I kind of prefer the translation one of my Japanese coworkers at Viz offered, The Happy Cog Factory. It appears to be a loosely-connected string of adventures had by the inhabitants of a cartoonist’s studio, mainly his Snowy-like talking dog and a pair of Mutt-and-Jeff-like cartoon characters who come to life.

Much more in the link.

FallCon is a nice regional show held each year in the Midwest — this year, it will be held October 4th and 5th at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, and to really get in the spirit of the thing, the mayor has even made a proclamation!

The honorable Christopher B. Coleman, Mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota has issued a Mayorial Proclamation declaring “Now, Therefore, I, Christopher B. Coleman, Mayor of the City of Saint Paul, do hereby proclaim Saturday, October 4, 2008, to be: Midwest Comic Book Association Day in the City of St. Paul!”

Congrats to St. Paul for being a forward-looking city which has recognized the art form that is taking over the world.

§ Charlie Adlard (THE WALKING DEAD) writes to tell us he FINALLY has a website.

§ Similarly, Geppi’s Entertainment now has a new comprehensive website for all of his collectible-related endeavors.

§ Evie Nagy runs her full Q&A with Greg Rucka, mainly focusing on QUEEN & COUNTRY:

Do you go to any great lengths to reflect the realities of international intelligence, or do you sort of give yourself the liberty to look at the Queen & Country universe as largely fictional?

GR: I think the Q&C universe is tied very closely to this one, and for that reason I work very hard on the verisimilitude, I want it to feel as authentic as possible. I know just enough to make me potentially dangerous. But I think I’m very good at what I refer to as logical extrapolation—if A is true and B is true, then it is logical to me that C would also be the case. It’s the logic that I think carries forward. That’s always been how I’ve approached it. Just trying to take what I’ve been able to find in research and in talking to people, and I do a lot of reading—I read those big 800-page Metrokin archives, things that really only people with a sadistic streak would take the time to read. Either that or need a good book for self-defense.

§ George Gustines reviews AMERICAN WIDOW for the NYT:

The graphic novel “American Widow,” written by Alissa Torres and illustrated by Sungyoon Choi, is a memoir about the author; her husband, Luis Eduardo Torres; and his death on Sept. 11, 2001. That day is fraught with so many emotional and political landmines for countless people that a critic might hesitate to review such an account, especially if the work is less than stellar. Fortunately, “American Widow” is very good — largely because of the author’s willingness to address difficult issues, including her anger at her husband and her frustration in dealing with relief agencies that at times alternated between being overeager and counterproductive.

§ Steven Grant continues to muse on work-for-hire:

Again, don’t get me wrong. Work-for-hire is a vile concoction that has, as Joe Quesada so kindly (if unintentionally) pointed out, poisoned virtually every entertainment medium in existence. It’s an extension of the 19th century workhouse mentality, which holds that all benefits of labor and all ownership should accrue to the overseer, not the worker, as a condition of employment, and it’s basically the worker’s own damn fault if he lives in misery and squalor. That the man on top would be incapable of producing on his own what the laborer beneath him provides for him never enters the equation. (Which is not to suggest that, say, Joe Quesada, who’s an excellent artist and not bad writer couldn’t produce his own comic book, but he certainly couldn’t produce the entire Marvel line. I suspect most of his bosses are far less capable of carrying on were they suddenly in the position of having to produce the books themselves.)

But if work-for-hire were to vanish this afternoon, it wouldn’t visibly change the complexion of American comics.

§ Don’t forget Brian Cronin’s Month of Art Stars — some really good stuff here — we are blessed to live in a time of many wonderful talents, let’s not forget that.

§ Nikki Finke reports this year’s Oscar submitted film from Israel will be =the animated ‘Waltz With Bashir’.

§ Tucker Stone handicaps the Harvey Awards:

The Harvey Awards will be presented this weekend at the Baltimore Comic Convention. As a long introduction would bring a column already long enough past the breaking point, here’s where This Ship Is Totally Sinking gives you some predictions, as well as some hopes and fears on the upcoming ceremony. If you attend the awards, you’ll be able to watch the look of smug superiority appear on my face when I’m right, as well as witness my crushing disappointment for the moments when I’m proven wrong. You’ll also be a real freak, because staring at people you don’t know is just weird. But hey! That’s why you’re dressed like a gigantic plush doll!

§ Apparently, There will be a FATHOM movie after all, and it’s being made by Fox Atomic….hmmmmm.

According to the report from IESB — albeit from an unnamed source, so take all this with a grain of saltwater — “Fathom” is indeed still on at 20th Century Fox, however, the studio has decided to move the project to their genre film division, Fox Atomic. While the rumors of the film proceeding after many believed it to be canned is enough to get the internet humming, it’s trumped by the additional rumor that up-and-coming Hollywood super-hottie, Megan Fox, has agreed to sign on as the film’s lead role, Aspen Matthews.

Following in the tradition of Uncle Floyd and the ORIGINAL cast of Saturday Night Live, Spider-Man is teaming up with late-night personality Stephen Colbert:

Marvel is proud to reveal that Spider-Man and acclaimed television
personality Stephen Colbert will
join forces in an all new eight-page story featured in the extra-sized Amazing Spider-Man #573! Acclaimed writer
Mark Waid and fan favorite artist Patrick Olliffe present Stephen Colbert, a
candidate for the US Presidency in the Marvel Universe, teaming up with
Marvel’s most iconic crime fighter. What could bring these two together?
And what will it mean for both their futures? This issue also features a
special Colbert variant by Marvel EiC and industry superstar Joe Quesada! Plus,
don’t miss the stunning conclusion to the sold out “New Ways To
Die” from the dream team of Dan Slott & John Romita Jr!

Colbert has never been ashamed to show his nerdish streak, and previously teamed up with Marvel by having EiC Quesada as a guest on the show, and by “inheriting” Captain America’s shield after Cap’s “death.” He was also the subject of a much-delayed Tek Jansen comic for Oni, based on the egotistical pulp hero Colbert’s show occasionally features.

This week, Rich Johnston broke the story that part of the reason for the Fox lawsuit against the Warner WATCHMEN may be a rights swap of sorts:

Sources tell me that Fox want the 1960s Batman TV series. Currently Fox own the TV footage, but Warner Bros own the characters and trademarks, via their ownership of DC Comics. The rights to a DVD release have been held up for a long time now, and this case looks like it may be the instrument to release them.

Oh, Fox will get a wodge of cash as well - many millions of dollars it seems. But it seems they also want the rights to release the Adam West-starring Batman on DVD, something long denied fans of the series. And Warners will get the “Watchmen” film, to release as planned.

This kind of rights swap is not unheard of in studio history. For instance, Universal once swapped the rights to Oswald the Rabbit for sportscaster Al Michaels. However, this deal is not so simple.
TVShowsOnDVD explains that the rights to those long lost Batman TV episodes are tied up in more rights than you could possibly imagine:

Why? Because, as CBR notes, Fox owns the footage. That footage is theirs to release in any manner they see fit…as long as they obey all contractual language involving licenses, royalties and residuals. For the big-screen film which was in theaters in the ’60s, shortly after the first season (and which recently came out on Blu-ray), there had been language in the contracts that covered release of the footage in places other than a theater (on an airplane flight, for example). Language which could cover the home video releases that came along ages later…something that wasn’t imagined in the late ’60s! But for the television episodes, there was no such language in the contracts about showing the footage anywhere else besides on television. So Fox can’t show it anywhere else, such as on a DVD, because they don’t have any rights to do so. The contracts did have language, though, to cover licensing small clips out to other productions (which is why some short footage can show up on DVDs like Holy Batmania!, but not entire episodes).

Also, because the show had so many cameos based on other pop culture sensations of the time, the rights are incredibly convoluted.

Wow, this just gets juicier and juicier.
Read the rest of this entry »

Bluewater Productions sent out some PR yesterday about a new comic based on the life of Hillary Clinton — guess this political thing is so big even the comics are getting in on it. If we could we would just reproduce Kevin Melrose’s post at Blog@ Newsarama because he has a lot of fun with this story, from the typo-ridden release to the fact that the cover is a direct rip-off of IDW’s Obama and McCain comics.

“Too facetted”?

The comic, called Female Force: Hillary Clinton, features a woman on the cover who doesn’t much resemble the senator. At all.

Seriously, the Bluewater book even imitates the IDW poses. Come on, now! That’s not innovation we can live with.

§ Time Out New York scores an extremely rare interview with…Spider-Man, on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, as part of a series of interview with 40 important New Yorkers:

Who are your favorite New Yorkers?
Spider-Man: I love anyone who doesn’t publish incredibly slanted editorials in their newspaper about what a menace I am. I also like listening to Joe Benigno on WFAN; he’s the only guy I know who’s more of a lovable loser than me. Let’s go Mets!

What’s the biggest thing that’s happened to the city in the last 13 years?
Spider-Man: The ’05 transit strike. Sure, it was awful for you guys, but I was the first person into work every. single. day. That’s a big change for me.

Oh, wait I’m supposed to say Time Out magazine, right?

§ Nisha Gopalan discovers that Mark Millar thinks Sarah Palin is “Terrifying” and more in a chat at io9:

io9: The posters promoting War Heroes slam Obama, while the tone of the comic is, in kind, fervently patriotic. Is all of this satire or sincerity?
Millar: It’s amazing how many people seem to think this is a neo-con comic. Same thing happened on [Marvel’s] Ultimates, when it was clearly anti-war through and through. I feel like [director Paul] Verhoeven must have felt after Starship Troopers, in the sense that many people are missing the political satire. In my story, America is clearly engineering terror attacks as a means to garner control back home, enslave the population, and send kids with nothing to lose into the Gulf. It’s fake terror to justify an aggressive foreign policy.… There’s nothing duller than some worthy anti-war [commentary]. We know it’s wrong, illegal, and ill-considered. You don’t need me to tell you that. So I’m jumping one step ahead and planning a heist story of sorts in the middle of this bad situation.

ICv2 has a four-part interview with Gonzalo Ferreyra, Viz Media Vice President of Sales and Product Marketing, on many topics:

We’ve heard that there is more attention at both the consumer and trade level to the top manga titles while the middle and bottom titles are losing audience. Viz is blessed to have a lot of titles in that top tier, but between the various titles you offer, do you see that trend?

We’re not seeing it as much. It’s a question of expectation, and we’ve always been rather realistic about understanding the potential of that middle and bottom tier, so to speak. We’ve also done a little bit of housecleaning to manage the list and help us focus our list a bit more. But I wouldn’t say that we’re seeing a dramatic difference in the response to the long tail.

More: Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.

§ The New York Metro talks to novelist Jonathan Ames on THE ALCOHOLIC:

Was it therapeutic to be able to write about some of the ups and downs in your life?

It was good to write about some issues and events which I had not covered in my essays or novels. These were things that artistically I had wanted to address. One of my goals as a writer is to record what I’ve seen and felt - like a caveman scratching things onto a wall - and so in this sense certain parts of the book gave me an artistic catharsis. My other equally important goal is to give people something, to provide them with some entertainment and distraction.

§ Gopalan strikes again as Splash Page talks to an actual comic-book writer, Glenn Eichler on STUFFED:

“‘Stuffed’ has to do with father issues, brother issues, and the history of anthropology,” explained Eichler. But it really has to do with a dead body. His book (out in 2009 from First Second) is about a guy who inherits the contents of his late father’s “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”-type museum. Among the findings: a macaroni-noodle interpretation of “The Last Supper” and…a statue of loin-cloth-wearing, spear-wielding African man.

“It’s the corniest sort of ooga-booga native thing you could imagine,” says Eichler of the politically incorrect curio. “Then it slowly dawns on him—it’s not actually a statue, it’s stuffed human skin.”

Upon this discovery, his pothead half-brother (a.k.a. the disheveled guy in Bertozzi’s sneak peek) returns to town, and the siblings—who must contend with their father’s involvement in such an unsavory practice—disagree about what do with the creepy statue. The protagonist wants to hand it over to a natural-history museum; the hippie brother…doesn’t.

In a case of burying the lede a bit, Shadowline has announced a new online comics site, including PLATINUM GRIT by Trudy Cooper and Danny Murphy, and perhaps most interestingly, a new online home for FINDER (above), Carla Speed McNeil’s ongoing SF saga. The site presents the comics in a Flash-based format. PR below.

The digital comics revolution continues as Image Comics’ Shadowline expands their web comics division with a number of titles from fan favorites and the newest generation of creators!

“While my first love comes in the traditional comics format, there’s no denying the massive amount of new ideas and talent coming from the online world,” said Shadowline Publisher Jim Valentino. “It’s become a way for creators like PLATINUM GRIT’s Trudy Cooper to gain recognition or established names like FINDER’s Carla Speed McNeil to get their work to a wider audience. We’re thrilled to bring these creators together in one collective.”

Shadowline’s continued diversity will be reflected in the web comics, as the line will vary from the science fiction of FINDER to the political intrigue of Len Kody & Jenny Frison’s CHICAGO: 1968 and even the oft-kilter superheroics of ACTION, OHIO by Neil Kleid and Paul Salvi. The lineup also currently includes newer titles like HANNIBAL GOES TO ROME, and the long-running YENNY and BRAT-HALLA. Future contributions include the web comic hit, PLATINUM GRIT by Trudy Cooper and Danny Murphy, and the upcoming LI’L DEPRESSED BOY featuring art by Jim Mahfood, Sam Kieth and more to come!

More information can be found at www.shadowlinecomics.com/webcomics.