Author: Glenn Hauman

And you thought Watchmen warped book sales charts for comics. That’s nothing– according to USA Today, Watchmen came in ninth in sales for the first quarter of 2009. The first four books were the first four books in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. In fact, a whopping 16% of all books sold in America in the first three months of the year were Twilight books– four books out of every twenty-five books sold.

The rankings:

1. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
2. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
3. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
4. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney
6. The Shack by William P. Young
7. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey
8. The Associate by John Grisham
9. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
10. Eat This, Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide by David Zinczenko, Matt Goulding
11. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
12. The Love Dare by Stephen Kendrick, Alex Kendrick
13. The Appeal by John Grisham
14. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
15. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
16. Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan by Suze Orman
17. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
18. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
19. Marley & Me by John Grogan
20. The Yankee Years by Joe Torre, Tom Verducci

Well, that’s one way to squash a rumor.

Stories had been appearing about Sarah Michelle Gellar finally being ready for a big-screen version of Buffy The Vampire Slayer appear to have been trumped by the announcement that she and her husband Freddie Prinze Jr. are expecting their first child.

On the other hand, the rumors had Buffy being a mom too… naaaah.

In the meantime, I’ll stick with the Buffy comics from Dark Horse.

Straight from Heidi at The Beat comes word that the Big Apple Con has been purchased by Wizard and will move to a new venue, Pier 94, and an October date for this year.  If this date holds for next year it would put the show in direct competition with the New York Comic-Con which is moving to a fall date next year.

The Big Apple Con had been held at the rapidly decaying Penn Plaza Hotel– a great location, a lousy facility. Wizard has had its own problems with the cancellation of their Texas show, the postponement of their Los Angeles show, and the cutbacks in their publishing line. The Chicago and Philly shows are still planned. As with other Wizard shows, the new Big Apple Con will be partnered with another pop culture show, this time the Video Game Expo. Here’s the press release:

Gareb Shamus, CEO of New York-based Wizard Entertainment,  today announced he has acquired Big Apple Con, one of the trailblazing brands in the comic book and pop culture world, and the longest running annual show in New York City. The “new” Big Apple Con is moving to Pier 94 in Manhattan the weekend of October 16-18, 2009.
“I’ve been going to shows in New York City since I was a kid and I have a fondness for Big Apple Con,” Shamus said. “Today’s acquisition fulfills a dream of running a mega-show in New York City unlike anything there’s ever been.”

This move also enjoys tremendous support and enthusiasm from industry leaders. “Diamond is really looking forward to working closely with our friends at Wizard as they expand into the New York market,” said Bill Schanes, Vice President for Purchasing at Diamond Comics. “We anticipate a great event based on their ability to attract key talent, to promote and market the event, and at the same time to give consumers a tremendous value for their admission price.”

Ed Fleming, CEO/Founder of Video Game Expo (VGXPO), the largest East Coast expo of its kind, announced recently its partnership with Wizard World Philly. Now, VGXPO will expand its relationship to include Chicago Comic-Con and Big Apple Con as well. “Our partnership provides VGXPO with the ability to rapidly grow our footprint from Philadelphia to Chicago and now New York City,” he said. “We look forward to working and sharing our passion for video games with all the fans in New York.”

Michael Carbonaro , the longtime and current producer of the show, will continue to provide his limitless creativity and enthusiasm to the show.

Good luck, folks– you’ll need it.

New York magazine shows us 8 Reasons Not to Download Wolverine, but they forgot a biggie– it could get you fired. At least, if you’re stupid enough to wite a review of it, and then post the review for FoxNews.com, sister company for 20th Century Fox, the company that’s putting out the movie that’s just been pilfered.

You ask, quite logically, who could be that dumb? Ladies and gentlemen, say hello– and good bye– to Roger Friedman. Since FoxNews.com has pulled the article, we rely on Nikki Finke for the play-by-play:

"Fox 411" freelance columnist Roger Friedman wrote what I’m told his bosses felt was a blatant promotion of piracy on his Fox News web outlet. Besides writing a review from watching the purloined print of Wolverine, Friedman posted, “I did find the whole top 10 [movies in theaters], plus TV shows, commercials, videos, everything, all streaming away. It took really less than seconds to start playing it all right onto my computer. I could have downloaded all of it but really, who has the time or the room? Later tonight I may finally catch up with Paul Rudd in I Love You, Man. It’s so much easier than going out in the rain!” I’m told that Fox News’ actions were swift and severe. First, Roger Ailes, who overseas Fox News, deleted the offending post after he was contacted by 20th Century Fox about it. And then Ailes fired Friedman as a freelance Fox News entertainment writer. I hear the move was done with the full support of News Corp. "He promoted piracy. He basically suggested that viewing a stolen film is OK, which is absolutely intolerable. So we fired him," a source told me Saturday. "Fox News acted promptly on all fronts."

Oh my lord, how did I miss the work at TÖRdötCÖM?

Either let us drag you willingly into the future, or be impaled upon the shiny, metallic spikes of our awesomeness. We will bludgeon all resistance with our second generation Kindles and Sony PRC 505s, slicing and dicing holdouts and naysayers with our sleek, sexy MacBook Airs. Now bow before our awesome new lögö. Note the umlaut—it’s totally Spinal Tap, “but way cooler,” according to our latest focus group, a culturally diverse assortment of popular sixth graders (twelve-year-olds being widely recognized as the eternal harbingers of Cool).

It must be understood that we’re not cutting ties with the geek community—rather, we like to think of ourselves as ultra-modern alchemists, painstakingly turning geek into chic. We would never attempt to trivialize the concerns of fandom. At least the fandom we care about—the kind that hangs out at the Apple Store, and look like those kids from Twilight. Young, pasty, sexy, tech-savvy, secret vampires…yes, that pretty much sums up our new target audience.

Where do we start?

• Anne Rice Admits to Writing Jesus Fan Fiction
• Krofft Brothers Give Green Light to Re-Imagined Sigmund
• Fiction World Rocked as Woman Claims No Sexual Attraction to Neil Gaiman
• Fox Cancels Joss Whedon
• PETA Unsure About Furries
• Requiem for a Filker
• Propinquity Contrivance Re-read: The Deep Purloining
• TÖRdötCÖM’s plans for ebooks
• Doctor Whodism: How the Doctor Influenced the Dharma
• Released DHS Documents Confirm Battle Schools
• Spaceglam: Will It Last?
• Shocking Split Rocks Comics World: Alan Moore Abandoned by His Beard
• Troll Nation Protests Against Derogatory Internet Slang
• Ron Moore’s Alternate Endings to Battlestar Galactica
  
• And for obvious reasons, one of our favorites here: Quarrels and Quarterstaffs: Shakespeare’s Robin of Sherwood on DVD. Be warned– Mark Ryan and Ray Winstone are very dangerous men.