2009 Eisner Award Nominees
Nominations for the 2009 Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards have been announced. Nominees include cousins Mariko (for best writer) and Jill Tamaki (for penciler/inker) for Skim, their graphic novel of teen alienation ; French cartoonist Emmanuel Guibert’s Alan War, a memoir done in collaboration with WWII G.I. Alan Cope, for best reality series; and novelist Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple’s Omega the Unknown for best limited series. Among the nominees for digital comics are Dash Shaw’s Bodyworld and Carla Speed McNeil’s ongoing Finder series. The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are presented each year at Comic-Con International San Diego. A complete list of the 2009 Eisner Nominees can be found on The Beat and at the San Diego Comic-con website.

Vertigo Crime Arrives in August
Vertigo, the imprint of DC Comics known for gritty, supernatural and adult comics, is launching a line of original crime and mystery graphic novels entitled Vertigo Crime. The first Vertigo Crime titles have just been announced and will be arriving in stores this August. Filthy Rich, a crime thriller by comic writer Brian Azzarello of the Eisner Award winning series 100 Bullets and acclaimed Spanish artist Victor Santos, is about a scheming party girl and the former football player who loves her. Dark Entries, a Hellblazer graphic novel by bestselling mystery writer Ian Rankin and illustrated by Werther Dell’Adera, puts the supernatural snoop John Constantine in the middle of a locked room mystery on a reality show. Both books will be arriving in comic stores on August 19 and bookstores on August 25 and will be published in hardcovers retailing for $19.99. Future releases are said to include noir, police procedural and science fiction thriller titles.

Swamp Thing Reviewed on NPR
NPR.org’s Laurel Mauryreviews the reissued first volume of Alan Moore’s classic environmental horror comic Saga of the Swamp Thing in her Books We Like column.

Winick’s Pedro and Me Reissued
Judd Winick’s critically acclaimed graphic novel Pedro and Me about his experiences with HIV-positive AIDS educator Pedro Zamora, originally published in 2000, will be re-released this May by Henry Holt. Zamora appeared on The Real World: San Francisco, using his time on the early reality show to educate MTV-viewers on the realities of living with AIDS. Winick was his roommate on the show and they remained friends until Zamora’s death in 1994. Winick went on to write for such titles as Green Arrow and Outsiders as well as his creator-owned titles The Adventures of Barry Ween and Frumpy the Clown. Zamora was also the subject of Pedro, a recent biopic that aired on MTV.

60’s Spidey Toon Free Online
Marvel.com is now offering the 1967 ABC Network Spider-Man cartoon for free in streaming video format. Each episode contains two full stories — the first episode features “The Power of Dr. Octopus” followed by “Sub-Zero for Spidey”. Future episodes will be added every Thursday. The cartoon follows on the heels of Marvel’s earlier release of the Japanese Spider-Man live action show in free streaming video last month.

Free Naruto Preview
As a special offer to readers of the manga anthology magazine Shonen Jump, Viz Media is offering a free 120 page preview of volume 45 of Naruto for a limited time online. Volume 45 will not go on sale until July and the selected section will not appear in Shonen Jump, making this a web exclusive for over three months. A password to unlock the site is included in the May issue of Shonen Jump, currently on the stands, and the 7 chapter excerpt will only appear online until May 5. Naruto, the perennially bestselling manga about a young aspiring ninja, recently was put on an accelerated release schedule in the United States, with Viz publishing 11 new volumes between February and April in an attempt to catch up with the Japanese publishing schedule. Volume 45 will be the first volume after the push to be released on the normal quarterly schedule.

Comics 101 Primer
IDW publisher Chris Ryall and Comics101.com founder and columnist Scott Tipton have announced their new book Comic Books 101, an illustrated primer to comics and the comic book industry. The book features an introduction by Stan Lee himself, an end-piece by science fiction legend Harlan Ellison and contributions from such comics luminaries as Marv Wolfman, Clive Barker, Paul Dini and Mark Waid. Intended as a one-stop introduction to the world and history of comic books, it also contains little known bits of comics history and gossip to entertain veteran comic fans. It will be a 288 page full color softcover book retailing for $22.99. Comic Books 101 is being published by Impact Books and is currently available for preorder through Diamond Comics Distributors.

YA Author Goes Graphic
Laurie Faria Stolarz, writer of the popular Blue is for Nightmares young adult series and the recent Hyperion Books release Deadly Little Secret, has announced a graphic novel deal with Flux Books, a Midwest-based publisher of YA fiction. Black is for Beginnings, the upcoming next book in her Blue is for Nightmares series, will be adapted into graphic novel format by Harvey-nominated comics writer Barbara Kesel and comics artist Janina Gorrissen. The graphic novel will be released in September, concurrently with the text edition of the novel, and will be the first graphic novel ever released by Flux Books.

Bristol Comic Expo and Small Press Expo
The Bristol International Comic Expo in Bristol, Great Britain, has now added a one day sister convention included in the price of admission — Small Press Expo 2009. The Comic Expo will take place at the Bristol Ramada on Saturday, May 9 and Sunday May 10. Small Press Expo will be hosted at the Mercure Holland House Hotel Bristol, and will be a one day convention on Saturday, May 9 only. Guests at the two conventions include Kevin O’Neil, David Hine, Jock and Andy Diggle, among many, many others.

New Geary Treasury of Murder
Comic creator Rick Geary, known for his ATreasury of Victorian Murder historical true crime graphic novel series, has unveiled the title and release date of the second volume of his sequel series A Treasury of XXth Century Murder. Famous Players: The Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor, a graphic novel about the murder of director William Taylor in the early days of Hollywood, will be published this June from NBM Publishing. The book will be released as a hardcover retailing for $15.95 and despite a previous erroneous note, it is available to stores through Diamond Comic Distributors — interested parties may also order it through Haven Distribution. Relistings of previous volumes in the Treasury will not be available through Diamond.

Vampire D3 Contest
To celebrate the arrival of Vampire Hunter D 3, the next part of the Vampire Hunter D saga, people who pre-order the upcoming volume between now and the middle of April will be eligible for a free Vampire Hunter D prize raffle. Sponsored by DMP, the manga’s publisher, a wide variety of autographed Vampire Hunter D art and media will be awarded in the raffle, and there will be 42 winners in total. The grand prize is a shikishi autographed by Vampire Hunter D 3 creators Hideyuki Kikuchi and Saiko Takaki with a sketch of D by Takaki. More information is available at the DMP blog.