This Week’s New Comics: July 25, 2012
This week’s list of new comics in stores is sponsored by Manhattan Comics and Comixology. Buy new comics now!
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Tagged: comics
The Point Radio: BREAKING BAD – What’s Next?
We begin our two part interview with the creator & cast of the blockbuster cable TV hit, BREAKING BAD. With less than two seasons remaining, the big questions are – where is it going – and where will it end? Plus both the comics and film industries react to the Colorado Tragedy, Judge Dredd gets a new home and Anne Hathaway says “maybe” to a Catwoman spin-off.
Don’t miss a minute of pop culture news – The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
12 Killed At Dark Knight Rises Screening
At least one dozen people were killed at the midnight screening of the Dark Knight Rises at the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado this morning. A gunman wearing a gas mask — evidently an imitation of the movie and comics villain Bane — was arrested at the scene. According to the Associated Press, 16 people are in critical condition as of this writing.
24 year old James Holmes was placed under arrest. He offered no resistance.
Various theater locations have increased security, and a Paris debut was cancelled.
This is a breaking story, and as in the case of all such stories, facts unfold slowly and sometimes misinformation comes out. Details as they develop.
This Week’s New Comics: July 18, 2012
This week’s list of new comics in stores is sponsored by Manhattan Comics and Comixology. Buy new comics now!
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MoCCA closes their Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) announced yesterday via a press release that they will be closing its physical location effective immediately.
The SoHo museum, currently at 594 Broadway, New York City’s only cultural institution dedicated specifically to celebrating the comics medium, recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. While the physical space is closing, plans are afoot to continue MoCCA in a new incarnation. An announcement of MoCCA’s future arrangements will be forthcoming by the end of July.
Current memberships will be honored at the new venue, as will table renewals for MoCCA Fest 2013.
MoCCA’s website has been scrubbed of all previously upcoming events.
New York’s Forbidden Planet moving to bigger space
Long rumored to be moving (perhaps due to the giant FOR RENT sign on the building), Forbidden Planet, one of NYC’s longest-running comics shops, is moving a few doors down the street to larger digs, according to manager Jeff Ayers. The new location, 832 Broadway (between 13th and 12th Streets), provides 3400 sq. feet of space for comics, toys and games, and it’s the largest of the three spaces the store has held on that same block over the years.
“This expansion has been necessary for some time now, and will allow us to provide our customers with even more product selection and depth, while streamlining the store’s layout to one convenient floor,” said Ayers in a statement.
The new store opens Tuesday, July 24th 2012 in a “soft launch,” but there will be a bigger launch party later. The olde shoppe closes on Sunday, July 22nd.
The olde shoppe had a nice corner location but definitely was a bit cramped and narrow…we’ll look forward to checking out the new space.
The new building:
Locus Awards for 2012
I think I have too many RSS feeds in my reader; I keep getting behind and then leaving things unread to deal with “later” — but then there’s too much new stuff I haven’t even looked at, which pushes “later” much further than I’d like.
That’s all prologue to the fact that these awards came out some time ago, and, if I’m going to blog about them at all, I should do it more quickly. Nevertheless, here’s what’s happened recently in award-land:
Locus Awards for 2012
Locus magazine, the newspaper of the skiffy field, has polled its frighteningly well-read readers yet again, and these are their choices for the best of the year past:
- Science Fiction Novel: [[[Embassytown]]], China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
- Fantasy Novel: [[[A Dance with Dragons]]], George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
- First Novel: [[[The Night Circus]]], Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday)
- Young Adult Book: [[[The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making]]], Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends)
- Novella: Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA; Clarkesworld)
- Novelette: “White Lines on a Green Field”, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Fall ’11)
- Short Story: “The Case of Death and Honey”, Neil Gaiman (A Study in Sherlock)
- Anthology: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-eighth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin)
- Collection: The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, Tim Powers (Tachyon)
- Non-fiction: [[[Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature]]], Gary K. Wolfe (Wesleyan)
- Art Books: [[[Spectrum 18: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art]]], Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner (Underwood)
- Artist: Shaun Tan
- Editor: Ellen Datlow
- Magazine: Asimov’s
- Publisher: Tor
Congratulations to all of the winners, and especially to Catherynne M. Valente, for a very impressive three wins in one year.
Related articles
- Various and Sundry Awards (antickmusings.blogspot.com)
Comics sales for first half of 2012 18% ahead of last year
The Diamond Comic Distributors sales report for the middle of the comics year always hits right before Comic Con International: San Diego, which itself is about the future of the business; we see where we’ve been right before we see where we’re going. Last year, the industry arrived in San Diego with the first half of 2011 off 8% versus the year before; this year, orders by Direct Market comics shops in North America are up more than 18% year-to-date. It’s quite the turnaround. Retailers have already ordered more material through June — nearly $223 million in retail dollars— than they did in last year through July.
Marvel’s Avengers Vs. X-Men #6 led the charts, with four DC Before Watchmen debut issues landing in fifth through eight place. Click to see the preliminary top sellers for June. June 2011 was a five-week month versus four shipping weeks for June 2012, and the beats were a little smaller than we’ve seen — but periodical units and dollars were still up double-digits. All the comics in the Top 10 were priced at $3.99.
On the trade paperback side, the release of Walking Dead Vol. 16: A Larger World both topped the charts. There was a slight year-to-year drop in graphic novel units, but not dollars — suggesting that maybe with the DC hardcovers and a new Walking Dead release priced higher than some of the earlier backlist releases, the average price for each graphic novel ordered increased some.
Retailers appear to have ordered $40.5 million in comic books and trade paperbacks from Diamond in the month, a sum that brings the second quarter orders to more than $20 million higher than the same three-month period last year. For the year to date, all Direct Market sales are more than $34 million ahead of the first half of 2011.
But the comparison observers may be more interested in isn’t between the first six months of this year and the first six months of 2011 — but rather, with the last six months, which included the DC reboot. Direct Market orders were $224.92 million from July 2011 to December 2011 — so even with the reboot titles reaching double-digit issue numbers, the market is down less than 1% from that blockbuster six-month period. The reasons are several: Marvel has Avengers Vs. X-Men on the playing field, and graphic novels are rebounding with the DC hardcovers and Walking Dead. But the fact we can compare at all is significant, because the second half of the year has outperformed the previous first half every year for the last 10 years — and by an average of 10%.
A CLick Survival Guide for Comic-Con International
With Comic-Con International, ak.a. San Diego Comic-Con, now just days, almost hours, away, those traveling to the extravaganza are packing to hit the road. There are several noteworthy survival guides we can recommend to those of you less familiar with what it’s like being there. Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has his valued 150 tips, the gold standard of advice.
But our friends over at Click Communications has also assembled a witty Survival Guide of their own. Click is a leading media public relations firm and we’ve been dealing with them for years. They talk the talk, walk the walk, and have plenty of good pieces of advice to share along with thumbnails on many of the properties near and dear to their hearts. While Tom’s tips are good for everyone, even veterans, this guide is great for newcomers and those who don’t speak Geek as fluently as the rest of us.
They explained to us, “This guide began as a way to offer some helpful tips—and a little entertainment—to anyone working the Con who might not count down the days ‘til July the way we do. Now in its fifth year, our simple How-To manual has grown into something that “n00bs” and nerds alike can appreciate. This year, the guide also features original artwork from some talented, up & coming comic book artists: Tess Fowler, Tony Fleecs, and Scott Arnold.”
Since you’ll be stuck on lines for a good portion of the con, they have even come up with a useful way to pass the time: The Click Communications Comic Con Survival Kit Contest!
Enter to win a Survival Kit of your very own by visiting our blog, or join us in playing Comic-Con Bingo. Grab the Bingo card from the back of the Guide and share your pics online via Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest to line up your finds to win fabulous prizes while in San Diego. For more information, and to enter to win, visit either here or here.
Now for Click’s OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER:
Click’s Comic-Con Survival Guide is just a little something they put together for your information and our amusement. There’s zero guarantee that the information they found online is 100% reliable. After all, release dates change, actors need rewrites, directors run out of budget, writers go…insane. Things happen. Since we all know that, no one should take any of the information contained within as locked-in gospel or anything. Okay? Okay.
Monkeybrain and ComiXology announce exclusive distribution agreement for Monkeybrain’s new line of independent creator-owned comics
A press release from Chip Mosher of ComiXology.com:
New York Times bestselling comic book creator Chris Roberson is celebrating “Independents Day” a little differently than others this year as he and co-publisher Allison Baker launch MonkeyBrain Comics, with a slate of creator-owned titles from some of the top names in the field. MonkeyBrain Comics will debut digitally first on comiXology—the revolutionary digital comics platform with over 75 million comic and graphic novel downloads to date—through a exclusive distribution agreement between the two companies.
Joining Roberson (iZombie, Memorial, Cinderella) under the Monkeybrain Comics umbrella with their own independent titles will be a who’s who line up of creators, including: Grace Allison, Nick Brokenshire, J. Bone, Chad Bowers, Wook-Jin Clark, Colleen Coover, Kevin Church, Dennis Culver, Matt Digges, Ming Doyle, Curt O. Franklin, Ken Garing, Chris Haley, David Hahn, Phil Hester, Joe Keatinge, D.J. Kirkbride, Adam Knave, Axel Medellin, Jennifer L. Meyer, Michael Montenat, Ananth Panagariya, Thomas Perkins, Adam Rosenlund, Chris Schweitzer, Brandon Seifert, Chris Sims, Matthew Dow Smith, Paul Tobin, J. Torres, Josh Williamson and Bill Willingham, among others.
More creative teams with new titles will be announced next week at Comic-Con International during the Monkeybrain Comics panel on Friday, July 13th at 7PM.
“MonkeyBrain Comics was born out of a desire to directly explore what opportunities there were in the newly expanding digital marketplace for creator owned material,” said Roberson. “We knew from the get go that we’d want to work exclusively with comiXology, who have become the undisputed leader in the digital comics field with their platforms’ unparalleled reading and shopping experience. And we’re pleased to have so many of our close creator friends along for the ride. I can’t wait to see what fans around the world think about our first batch of releases!”
“We’re excited to be the exclusive digital home of MonkeyBrain Comics,” says co-founder and CEO David Steinberger. “ComiXology’s mission is to get comics into the hands of people everywhere and we look forward to doing just that with Chris and Allison’s stellar line of creator owned comics!”
MonkeyBrain Comics is a new comics imprint of Roberson and Baker’s long-running publishing company MonkeyBrain Books. Over the past decade, MonkeyBrain Books has published a line of prose novels by authors such as Phillip Jose Farmer, Michael Moorcock, Rudy Rucker, Paul Cornell and genre collections edited by such notables as Joe R. Lansdale, Lou Anders and others.
Launching their first titles on July 4th with the slogan “Independents Day” exclusively on the comiXology digital platform, Monkeybrain Comics are currently exploring following up their digital releases with trade paperback collections.
Related articles
- New MonkeyBrain digital imprint launches with five titles (comicsbeat.com)
