Shore Leave 31. It’s where I’ll be this weekend, at the Hunt Valley Inn, along with (deep breath) ComicMix people Robert Greenberger, Aaron Rosenberg, Jenifer Rosenberg, and comics pros Peter David, Mike W. Barr, Greg Cox, Keith DeCandido, Kevin Dilmore,
Michael Jan Friedman, Allyn Gibson, David Mack, Dayton Ward, and an armada of other SF writers and media guests.

Make sure to get there Friday night at 7:30, when we’ll be roasting Keith DeCandido. Cheap shots will be taken and mud will be thrown. 18+ to enter, 21+ to drink. The event’s for charity; all proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross. And stick around for Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000 on Sunday, with a few other special guests along the way.

It’s a fun convention. Come on by and say hi.

Sad but true. Ten blocks away from DC’s corporate headquarters, Superman and Batman were arrested yesterday by police– Superman was even charged with resisting arrest. Was the big red “S” being mind controllled?

When the men in tights refused to produce proper identification,
officers quickly cuffed Batman, while Superman flew off, screaming, “I’m not getting arrested!” Witness Ryan McCormick tells the Post, “The Man of Steel didn’t go down with just two officers, it took seven officers! He was putting up a good fight. Little kids were like, ‘Mommy, it’s Superman!’ ” The Batman quickly confessed that Superman, his cowardly cohort, “freaked out and punched the girl cop in the face.”

We have no idea where the cops got the Kryptonite needed to bring Supes down, but we assume it was from Batman’s utility belt.

I love New York in July. How about you?

Hat tip to (where else would you expect a story about Batman?) Gothamist. Photos by Idle Type.

Yesterday I wrote about how DC was trying, with Wednesday Comics, to do something that couldn’t easily be reproduced on the computer screen to drive sales of paper. Marvel has now announced they’re doing something that doesn’t work on computers well– though it might be the return of the biggest disaster to hit comics in the 90s.

Don’t worry, says the press release:

“This is Marvel doing the nineties right,” explained David Gabriel,
Marvel Comics Senior Vice President of Sales & Circulation. “We’re
taking two of the most popular cover treatments of all time—foil and
holograms—to create an all new kind of cover, as a ‘thank-you’ to fans
who’ve been demanding this kind of variant! Retailers and fans don’t
need to worry. We’re only doing this on a limited basis. You won’t see
one on Ms Marvel #46 or Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers #4. We’re using
them to mark very special occasions…such as the launch of Ultimate
Comics line.”

I had the same type of feeling when the Bush Administration said it didn’t torture, and anyway those were special circumstances.

The hell of it is, foil covers do catch the eye and help promote books, that’s why they do it with novels, record covers, and every other kind of packaging. But if they crank up the stupid collectibles market again… or rather the collectibles stupid market… Marvel will have no one to blame but themselves.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to reading piles of press releases about stupid exclusive collectibles being released at San Diego Comic-Con this year. Ooh, a special Gleek action figure only at SDCC! How could I have ever survived without it…?

Adding a contradictory point to the previous post about Wednesday Comics, here’s a tidbit to consider: US kids aged 2-11 are spending +63% more time online over the last five years, according to a new Nielsen report, from about 7 hours in May 2004 to 11+ hours online in May 2009.

In May 2009, kids 2-11 comprised 16 million, or 9.5% of the online universe (a fairly split evenly between boys and girls).  This is an increase over 2004, with the number of K2-11 online growing +18%. K2-11 are also outpacing the increase for the overall population, which was up by 36% over the last five years. Boys are spending 7% more time online than girls, but girls are taking in more content, viewing 9% more web pages than boys in May 2009. Meanwhile, in May 2009, boys led in viewing and time spent, consuming 61% of video streams among kids and comprising 57% of the time spent viewing videos.

So with this new growth, combined with the collapse of the newsstand market, if you want to reach that new, upcoming audience and hook them on reading comics, where should you be…?

(Hat tip: Cynopsis. And a virtual nickel to the first person who can identify the picture.)

I have a big computer monitor. It’s probably bigger than yours. I know, I know, I probably shouldn’t bring size into it, but it’s true. And when it’s standing upright, it’s even bigger. Almost 18 inches standing up.

Yeah, sure, you say, quit bragging. And yet, it’s so nice. In fact, it’s got well over 350% of the area of a standard comic book page. Take a look to the right, where I compare it to a regular comic and the oversized books DC did a few years back.

And I really feel it when I read a comic book on a computer screen. Particularly the naughty kind. No, not the ones with panty shots of Supergirl, you pervert, I mean the naughty kind that you don’t pay for, but should have. The downloaded ones.

When I read those onscreen, they’re almost double the size of a regular printed comic. It’s great.

But now, here comes Wednesday Comics. And it’s really big– it might even be bigger than the area on my monitor; but even if it’s just close, the paper version will have better resolution. And the work is designed for the big area that they have.

DC is designing for the comic book equivalent of the IMAX screen–  an experience that you can’t get from the bootleg version. Heck, even the previews they’ve made available don’t fit on most screens.

And that’s brilliant. They’re trying to make comics an event again, one that you can only fully get in paper– delivering a better experience and fighting back against the scanners (who weren’t going to be happy with the oversize pages in any event). Small wonder USA Today has picked it up.

Kudos to DC for the grand experiment, and for bucking the trend.