Tagged: comics

ComicMMX: 2010 in Review

  • News
  • December 31, 2010

So, that’s it for 2010. And what have we learned tonight, Craig?

Digital is coming, hard and fast. Comixology just announced (via press release) that at the moment there are more than five thousand comics in its store, and that that application has been downloaded over one million times from iTunes. You know what they aren’t saying? How many comics they’re actually selling. Heck, it’d be interesting to find out how many comics they’ve been giving away for free.

We do have some industry numbers: while graphic novel sales fell an estimated 20%, digital comics sales increased over 1000%. And it’s not just comics, either; Amazon announced that the Kindle has now outsold Harry Potter at their site– best guesses say they’ve sold 5.4 million to date. Barnes & Noble has announced that the Nook line of eReaders has become the company’s biggest bestseller ever in almost 40 years. And the iPad was the most wished for and most given (in dollar volume) Christmas gift this year, adding to a total of over 10 million sold in less than a year since its debut.

Archie’s polyamorous. Betty, Veronica, and Valerie? Daaaaaaaamn.

It seems there’s actually  a price point at which the fan base will say, en masse, “Holy cow, that’s just too expensive for me to buy.” DC says that’s $3.99. Marvel says that’s for DC Comics, their readers will gladly pay $3.99. We’ll see.

We all wondered what would happen when the best selling comics dipped below 100,000 a month. Now we’re wondering what will happen when the best selling comics dip below 50,000, the industry-leading Life With Archie magazine notwithstanding.

That’s the story of the year. Life With Archie goes magazine-sized, gets distributed to WalMart and Toys R Us and Target and such,and rapidly becomes the best-selling comic in America!

We also used to wonder when the manga boom would end or the market would become oversaturated. That would be “2010.”

DC President Paul Levitz may be too young to retire, even after having been in the industry for four decades. But he only quit his day job, as the legion of Legion readers are gladly aware.

America still loves zombies. We guess they’re deathless.

Nothing, apparently, can kill Batman – short of Joel Schumacher, of course. Nevertheless, he feels he now needs backups of himself all over the world.

Conventions are still going strong, and can make a huge impact. NYCC is hitting San Diego attendance numbers of three years ago, and Chicago’s one year-old C2E2 is hitting numbers of NYCC two years ago.

If superhero themed porno movies is all the rage, how come no one’s made one for Iron Man? You would think it’s just waaaay too easy to do. And let’s not even get started on Captain Hammer. Heck, Nathan Fillion might even reprise the role himself– he’s done porn before. Kinda.

What’s the biggest story of 2011? Ha! Watch this space.

What about you? What do you think were the big stories of 2010 in comics?

Win a Copy of ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight’

  • News
  • December 22, 2010

Buffy followers can enjoy more slayer action with the motion comic series Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.  A continuation of Joss Whedon’s hallowed shows and based on the award-winning comic book series by Dark Horse Comics, the gripping saga of the vampire-killing legend picks up where the television series ended: thousands of slayers around the world have been activated, Sunnydale has been blown up and Buffy has relocated to Scotland.

Following the destruction of the Hellmouth in the explosive finale of the television series, Buffy and her trusted friend Xander have relocated to a citadel in Scotland to oversee the thousands of newly activated slayers from across the globe. Using their new home as command-central in their fight against evil, Buffy and her allies lead these new slayers as they take on vamps, zombies and now the U.S. government who declare, in the wake of Sunnydale’s destruction, that slayers are nothing more than international terrorists.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment recently launched a poster art contest where fans are invited to submit original art inspired by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Motion Comic plotlines, scenes or their own interpretations of what happens to Buffy and her fellow Slayers during their adventures once the TV series ended.

The winning artist will receive $500, the Blu-ray & DVD combo and a signed copy of their poster. Four runners-up will also receive the Blu-ray & DVD combo. Upload your entry by midnight January 7th, winners to be announced on January 14th.

To win your own copy of this cutting-edge motion comic on DVD, simply answer this question:

What happened to Dawn at the outset of this series of comics? The first three entries received will be the winner; one entry per e-maill address only. Winners selected are in the final judgment of ComicMix.

White Power Group calls for Boycott of ‘Thor’ Over Casting of Idris Elba

  • News
  • December 19, 2010

And you thought nerdy fans complained about comic book movie casting– this one might become the all time champion.

DeathAndTaxesMag.com points us to the story that the Council of Conservative Citizens (flagged as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and no, we aren’t linking directly to them) are calling for a boycott of Marvel’s Thor movie due to the casting of Idris Elba in the role of Heimdall, in direct opposition to their White Nationalist beliefs.

Mr. Elba, as you can see from the photo, is about as non-Aryan as you can get.

Oh, hell, let me quote them so you don’t have to visit:

Norse mythology gets a multi-cultural remake in the upcoming movie
titled “Thor,” by Marvel studios. It’s not enough that Marvel attacks
conservative values and promotes the left-wing, now mythological Gods
must be re-invented with black skin.

It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have
nothing that is unique to themselves. An upcoming movie, based on the
comic book Thor, will give Norse mythology an insulting multi-cultural
make-over. One of the Gods will be played by Hip Hop DJ Idris Elba.

And of course, there’s now a “Boycott Thor” website. And no, we aren’t linking to that either, although we will quote them too:

Marvel has a history of advocating for the left-wing. In early 2010 they
even used their Captain America comic to attack the TEA Party movement.
Marvel front man Stan “Lee” Lieber personally funds left-wing political
candidates. Now Marvel has inserted left-wing social engineering into
European mythology, casting a black man to play a Norse deity.

Stan Lieber? Oh yeah, Stan “The Jew” Lee.

Me, I’m happy. Laughing at the Westboro Baptist Church at San Diego Comic-Con was getting boring. I love that a so-called Christian group is getting so upset about the depiction of Norse gods. And I can’t wait to hear what their reaction will be when they find out about Denzel Washington playing Jefferson Davis in 2012.

DC keeps moving to LA, but will there be any comics when they get there?

  • News
  • December 9, 2010

Two business stories making for an interesting juxtaposition.

First, ComicsBeat reports:

More and more ch-ch-changes at DC, as various folks in the online department have announced they are heading to the West Coast office as the DC Online department moves to Burbank next summer. Ron Perazza will become VP of Online for DC Entertainment, Dave McCullough will become Director of Online for DC Entertainment, and Kwanza Johnson is Digital Editor. Heading up the department, you may recall, is Hank Kanalz, Senior Vice President, Digital of DC Entertainment These are the first announced westward personnel changes, although at least two DCU editors are also moving west to work more closely with CCO Geoff Johns.

diamond-comics-7075568Of course, by the time they get there, Diamond will have shut down their west coast warehouse.

Diamond Comics Distribution has informed comic stores that the warehouse will be closed from next March.

It’s been a good long while since Diamond closed any such warehouse.
In 2008 they consolidated a few into the new massive Olive Branch
centre, but at one point they used to have 24 warehouses. Now they’ll
have 4. The impact of this move will mean there will be no storage
facility for comics and their like on the West Coast.

Affected retailers will notice a change immediately in the new year,
with January the fifth delivering the last shipment from Diamond Los
Angeles. The next week, all deliversies will come from their new,
expanded Olive Branch center in Mississippi. Customers who pick up from
the Los Angeles warehouse can continue to do so until March, and then
will move over to a new LA-based pick up point.

Merry Christmas to everybody who’s losing a job right before the holidays.

One additional problem, not discussed or considered: there are a lot of books that are coming from Asia– not just manga and manwha, but a lot of books from DC, Marvel, and IDW that are printed overseas. One has to wonder what this will do to shipping times and costs for trades, etc.

The Best Present You Can Give A Kid This Year

  • News
  • December 6, 2010

longbox-3454592

This is a longbox full of random comics. Your local comic book store has tons of them– various stuff he’s picked up and hasn’t filed yet, or overstock that he couldn’t sell, or low grade books, what have you.

My father used to go to Port Comics, a little store off of exit 64 of the Long Island Expressway (the same store where I first met Tom Brevoort, when we were both young punk fans) and every so often he’d buy a longbox or two from Bill the owner and give them to me.

And as you’d expect from someone who now runs a site like this, I devoured them. I had no idea what I might find– DC horror books, Marvel reprints, Archie superhero titles. Didn’t care. It was all new to me, it was all neat to read, and it got me discovering wondrous stories and characters and art and more, and getting even more involved in a medium that I loved.

And right now, you can probably pick up one for around $30 and give it to a kid this holiday season. Or you can wait until he’s home sick with a bad cold this winter and give it then, when he’ll have time to read. Or drop it off at your local Toys For Tots drive, and imagine the look on the volunteer’s face who first tries to pick it up.

So go to your local comic store and ask for a longbox or two filled with random stuff. Be sure to ask for few duplicates, you don’t need 200 copies of Spawn #1. If you don’t know where your nearest comic store is, go to the Comic Shop Locator to find out. Or go to eBay and search for “comic lot” and find something in your price range.

Just be prepared to answer questions:

“Who’s this Darkhawk guy?”

“Where does the Black Widow know Daredevil from, I thought she hung around with Iron Man?”

“How does Cosmic Boy keep his uniform up?”

And hopefully you’ll get the best question of all– “Hey, when can I get some more?”

Review: ‘Superf*ckers’

[[[Superf*ckers]]]
By James Kochalka
Top Shelf Productions, 144 pages, $14.95

superf-ckers-lg-3363487Reading the reviews about previous editions of James Kochalka’s Superf*ckers I was thinking this was going to be an amazing satire of the super-hero genre, poking fun at teams from the Justice Society of America to the Thunderbolts.  Over the years, Kochalka had been doling out one issue at a time, starting with Superf*ckers #271 in 2005 and released a fourth issue in 2007. Top Shelf has collected the four issues with the previously unpublished [[[Jack Krak #1]]] in a new collection released earlier this year.

I don’t get the praise. Not at all. Kochalka’s robbery figurework is good for his childrens’ books and other independent works but when it comes to super-powered, hyper-sexualized characters, it feels entirely wrong.

Over the course of the collection, these spoiled, nasty would-be heroes act like whiny, horny, spiteful high school students. None seem to be using their powers for the public good, but instead, to outperform each other in the hopes of gaining acceptance in the club. They are a uniformly unlikeable bunch and the satirical elements are so broadly played they’re more slapstick than witty commentary on modern comic book tropes.

Kochalka cuts between combinations of heroes one-upping each other, excreting with abandon and he paces these various threads nicely enough. He crams each page with plenty of panels and action, brightly coloring everything in what must have been a painstaking manner.

Amazingly, at the outset, Kochalka thought this might be an all-ages title but as he got further into this, he couldn’t prevent his annoying heroes from cussing so it has remained a book aimed at older readers. “And it makes the action more dramatic,” he told Comic Book Resources. Not at all. The cursing and invective permeates every pages as do the acts that should never be attempted at home.

I remain baffled why anyone things this is a laugh-out loud must-read series. In the same interview he said, “On the surface it’s fun and breezy romp, but underneath it’s a layered satire of American society, the comic book scene, power and pathos and the human condition.” That might have been his intent but the execution fails to measure up.

‘Warehouse 13’ Opens its Doors for Dynamite Entertainment

  • News
  • November 19, 2010

While no creative talent has been named, we think this is a pretty cool announcement.

November 18, 2010, Runnemede, NJ – Dynamite Entertainment has signed a comprehensive license agreement with NBC Universal Television, DVD, Music and Consumer Products Group for comic books based on Syfy’s hit dramedy series, Warehouse 13. Warehouse 13 premiered on July 7, 2009 on Syfy as the most successful series in Syfy’s history and will return for a 3rd season in the Summer of 2011. A holiday-themed episode will air next month.

“We’re very excited to be working with our friends at Dynamite Entertainment, again,” said Chris Lucero, Director of Global Licensing, NBC Universal Television Consumer Products Group.  “With Dynamite’s stable of thrilling storytellers and talented artists, we’re confident that Warehouse 13 will stand side-by-side with some of the best comics in the industry today.”

“It is a fantastic opportunity for Dynamite to bring a popular TV Show such as Warehouse 13 to the comics market,” said Dynamite President Nick Barrucci.  “Dynamite’s Warehouse 13 comic books will be an excellent companion to the TV Show, and I am excited for fans to see what we have up our sleeves!”

Warehouse 13 follows two Secret Service agents who find themselves abruptly transferred to a massive, top-secret storage facility in windswept South Dakota which houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and preternatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government. The Warehouse’s caretaker Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek) charges Agents Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) and Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) with chasing down reports of supernatural and paranormal activity in search of new objects to cache at the Warehouse, as well as helping him to control the Warehouse itself. Allison Scagliotti plays Claudia, Artie’s apprentice.

Warehouse 13 is produced for Syfy by Universal Cable Productions. Jack Kenny (The Book of Daniel) is Executive Producer and Showrunner.

ComicMix’s Glenn Hauman at PhilCon this weekend

  • News
  • November 19, 2010

Yep, on the road again. PhilCon lasts for three days, I’ll be there tonight and Saturday. Here’s my schedule:

Fri 7:00 PM in Plaza V (Five) (1 hour)
UNSTOPPABLE FORCE SUPERHEROES (455)

   [Panelists: Glenn Hauman (mod), Jonathan Maberry, Alexis Gilliland, Andre Lieven]

   The Silver Age Superman could juggle planets. Sufficiently enraged, the Hulk has no upper strength limit. How can such invincible characters be given sufficient challenges and obstacles to make satisfying stories without de-powering them? Is this merely an enlarged version of the eternal ‘how can there be tension if we know the main character will survive’ quandary?

Fri 9:00 PM in Plaza IV (Four) (1 hour)
WEIRD SCIENCE COMICS! (512)

   [Panelists: Bill Spangler (mod), Stephanie Burke, Glenn Hauman, J. Andrew World]

   The Influence of EC Comics on Science Fiction

Sat 11:00 AM in Plaza II (Two) (1 hour)
OFF THE SCREEN: MOVIE/TV TIE-IN COMIC (424)

   [Panelists: Keith R.A. DeCandido (mod), Glenn Hauman, Bill Spangler]

   For years, TV shows and movies have had comic-book adaptations, and sometimes even long-running titles.  These days, however, it’s been taken to a whole other level, with comics like “Buffy” and “Firefly” actually being written or overseen by the show’s creator.  Can comics act as way to tell stories that can’t be told on the screen

Sat 1:00 PM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
BUT THAT’S NOT SCIENCE FICTION (462)

   [Panelists: Michael J. Walsh (mod), Diane Weinstein, Carl Fink, Glenn Hauman, Barbara Barnett]

   Certain types of non-Science Fiction works such as the Sherlock Holmes series, the Regency Romances of Georgette Heyer, much of Kipling and  the Hornblower series are widely read by many science fiction fans and writers. Is there something these works have in common with science Fiction? If so, what is it?

Sat 2:00 PM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
MARVEL/DISNEY: A MATCH MADE IN HOLLYWOOD (419)

   [Panelists: Andre Lieven (mod), Phil Kahn, Glenn Hauman, J. Andrew World]

   Earlier this year, The Walt Disney Company purchased Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios.  What is this going to mean for some of Marvel’s popular characters, like Spiderman, the Xmen, or Capt. America? What about films based on some of Marvel characters?  And what effect, if any, will this have on DC Comics and it’s corporate parent, Time-Warner?

Sat 4:00 PM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
HOW REAL WORLD INVENTIONS HAVE INFLUENCED SCIENCE FICTION (513)

   [Panelists: Glenn Hauman (mod), Tom Purdom, Andre Lieven, Bernie Mojzes, Linda Bushyager]

   Science fiction has not always had a great track record of anticipating technological advances. Sometimes an invention has to show up in the real world before science fiction writers begin to write about it.
   Then what happens?

Sat 6:00 PM in Plaza I (One) (1 hour)
NOT JUST CAPES: THE BEST IN NON-SUPERHERO COMICS (427)

   [Panelists: Tony DiGerolamo (mod), Glenn Hauman, Jared Axelrod, James Chambers]

   Not every comic book features spandex and superpowers.  Some of them are about everyday people.  Some are about… other things.  But what are the best comics out there without superhero characters?
   Come and find out!

Sat 8:00 PM in Plaza VII (Seven) (1 hour)
WHY THE THEME ANTHOLOGY? (517)

   [Panelists: Eric Kotani (mod), Lawrence M. Schoen, Mike McPhail, Glenn Hauman, Danielle Ackley-McPhail]

   Why do we see so many anthologies on pre-chosen subjects?

Review: ‘Legends of the Superheroes’

legends-of-the-super-heroes1-5014371The 1970s was not a kind decade for live-action television based on comic book heroes. First there was the Cathy lee Crosby misfire of a [[[Wonder Woman]]] telefilm then there were the Reb Brown[[[ Captain America]]] telefilms.[[[Spider-Man]]] made it to prime time as a series but it didn’t resemble the comic in tone or style and died a swift death.  But the absolute most mind-numbing and cringe worthy hours featured DC Comics’ stalwart heroes and villains.

I’ve never seen an NBC executive explain what made them think the two specials that aired in January 1979. The Challenge and The Roast, aired as [[[Legends of the Superheroes]]], were probably the first time mass audiences were introduced to [[[Green Lantern]]] or[[[Flash]]] or Hawkman but they certainly knew Adam West’s Batman, Burt Ward’s Robin and Frank Gorshin’s delightful Riddler. As a result, the aging trio donned the tights once more to anchor the two specials. A veritable who’s who of B-list performers and outright unknowns filled the remainder of the costumes.

Comic book fans probably loved seeing Captain Marvel, Hawkman, Huntress, Black Canary, and others in real life but the shows did not earn great ratings and have been derided by those who recall seeing them. While illegal bootlegs have circulated for years, Warner Archive has collected them on a single disc from the best source material available.

You have to love kitsch, bad writing, awful acting, and comic books to enjoy (or endure) these specials.

The Challenge pits a gaggle of villains led by Mordru the Merciless to once more destroy the world. The heroes split up and run around like idiots in an attempt to find and disarm the doomsday device. Mike Marmer and Peter Gallay, who wrote the script for both specials, apparently never learned that humor is derived from character and situation. Not a single hero or villain has a personality depriving the story from any humorous opportunities. The heroes act like dim-wits and never use their powers when they would be needed. The laugh track is badly handled since it is triggered by the lamest of activities. The costumes are authentic but clearly done on the cheap as were the visual effects. (And why on earth is Batman’s cowl worn over his cape?)

The Roast, hosted by Ed McMahon, has some genuinely funny lines but far too few and again, mostly ignoring their characters so are generic jokes. The villains and others arrive to roast the collected heroes, causing mayhem and nonsense.

Nicely, the disc does contain some deleted scenes and outtake, making this a true collector’s item but this is really for the die-hard fans only.

National Graphic Novel Writing Month Day 29: It’s NOT A Novel, by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  • News
  • October 29, 2010

nagranowrimo-3797489

My biggest problem with the term “graphic novel” is that it’s wrong.

Graphic, yes. Novel, not so much.

A novel is generally defined as a work of prose that is 50,000 words or more, and most novels are much more than that.

Yet the average item that is referred to as a “graphic novel” rarely has
a novel’s worth of story. Back in the 1990s, when I reviewed these
things for Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, we tried referring to them with the more accurate term “trade comics.” But it didn’t take for very long, and that fight has long since been given up.

Which is a pity, because the term is really misleading. And that affects the writing, because when you’re writing a so-called “graphic novel”—or just writing an issue of a monthly comic book—your ability to tell the story is somewhat more proscribed than it is in prose.

Indeed, while there are significant and important differences between screenwriting and comic book writing—as expertly outlined by my buddy David Alan Mack earlier this month—one thing they share is that there are limits.

Graphic novels and movies have more flexibility, but ultimately there’s only so far you can go. Each has a range of pages or minutes that it can legitimately run, with very rare exceptions.

With, say, a TV episode or a monthly comic book, that’s a much harder limit. A “one-hour” episode must be 42 minutes, no more, no less. A monthly comic book must be 22 pages, no more, no less. (And yes, I know some shows have more minutes, and some comics have fewer pages, but work with me here.)

That’s probably what you most need to take into account when you’re writing any kind of comic book. You only have a set number of pages (or a range, anyhow), and that means you need to boil your story down to what will fit in that range.

The lack of flexibility is perhaps the hardest adjustment to make when you go from writing a prose novel to a graphic novel. If you need a new subplot in a novel, you can just add the 10,000 words or whatever—with a graphic novel, that option isn’t there.

Keith R.A. DeCandido has written more than 40 novels, including more than a dozen Star Trek novels, as well as half the Supernatural novels that have been published, and tons more. He is currently the scripter of the monthly Farscape comic and wrote the first arc of the Cars: Adventures of Tow Mater comic and the recent Star Trek: Captain’s Log: Jellico one-shot. Look for his Dungeons & Dragons novel in 2011. You can read his inane ramblings at kradical.livejournal.com or cyberstalk him on either Facebook or Twitter under the handle KRADeC.

Remember: you can follow all the NaGraNoWriMo posts here!

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