In case you haven’t heard…
…only with less of the punching and more of the shooting.
We look forward to the years of comics with titles like “They Saved Bin Laden’s Brain!”
Tagged: comics
Twitter Updates for 2011-03-15
- RT @Gurroo: I'm selling original comic art from Darwin book to raise money for Japan Quake Fund http://bit.ly/hRfI26 please RT. #
‘Comic Book Legends Revealed’ Hits #300
Congratulations to Brian Cronin on the 300th installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, his ongoing series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true, false, or somewhere in between. Click here for an archive of the previous two hundred and ninety-nine, or buy the book he got out of it, Was Superman A Spy?
Now if he ever finds about that time with the thing in the men’s room at the Wizard World in… but I’ve probably said too much already.
You can help save Comics Archives in Detroit!
The word came over Twitter: “Unless we raise $3,100 by tonight, like some cheesy 80’s flick, it looks like Comics Archives will be closing its doors.”
Comics Archives apparently has fallen behind in paying Diamond for new comics, and needs to scrape together funds quickly. They had been in discussions to sell off some of their inventory to another store, but the buyer back out.
So now they’re under the gun. The store closes at 8 PM tonight… unless you can help.
Comics Archives
25650 Plymouth Road
Redford, MI 48239-2027
(313) 937-8860
A quick call to the store confirms that they will take orders over the phone, if need be.
C’mon, people. We can do this.
Here’s what the place looks like, if you want to head on over:
UPDATE: Nope. Too little, too late.
ComicMMX: 2010 in Review
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– <a target=”_blank” href=”
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’
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
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?
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.
Of 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
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
Reading 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.
