SDCC 2010: ComicsPro Looks at Retailing in the Digital Age
At the ComicsPro panel, Retailing in the Digital Age, on Friday DC copublisher Jim Lee was on hand to talk about their new retailer advisory program and was joined by by Marvel’s Jim Sokolowski; Boom! Studio’s Chip Mosher and David Steinberger from Comixology, which developed apps for Marvel and DC. Steinberger was on hand to address complaints about the app’s glitchy store locator, victimized in some instances by bad data that was sending consumers to wrong addresses or closed stores. He called for feedback, encouraging publishers go online and check their data as well as report problems back to Comixology.
There was also discussion of pricing and data on free versus paid downloads, what that said about consumer habits and the feasibility of selling full graphic novels (not yet) as wel as DC and Marvel’s limited plans to release digital comics on the same day and date as the print version. PWCW spoke with Carr D’Angelo, owner of Earth 2, a two-store comic shop in L.A., and a previous winner of the Eisner' Awards' Spirit of Retailing award, who said retailer reaction to same day and date release has been “mixed,” noting that its “hard at this point to tell whether the digital release affected sales,” while emphasizing his own interest in utilizing digital sampling to encourage customers to visit comics shops.
SDCC 2010: Archie Comics Relaunches Monthly Mag
Archie Comics co-CEO Jon Goldwater outlined a range of new initiatives at the venerable kids comics house to large gathering of fans. In August the house is relaunching Life with Archie, a monthy magazine that will feature “real life stories” focused on following “parallel universe”of stories following what happens when Archie marries Veronica or Betty and different ways life turns out for all Riverdale crew. The relaunched magazine will debut nationally at Wal-Mart, Target, Toys ‘R Us and many more national retailers. The house has entered into a partnership with Stan Lee to create comics for the Archie Universe and they are represented in Hollywood by the William Morris Agency and more TV and film projects are in the works. Archie fans can also expect to more hardcover reprint collections like Archie Marries from Abrams as well as from IDW Publishing.
SDCC 2010: Four Publishers Sitting Around Talking Comics
A panel of four very different comics publishers—Matt Gagnon (Boom!), Gary Groth (Fantagraphics), Dallas Middaugh (Del Rey Manga) and Mark Siegel (First Second) —looked at the past and present of the business. The differences in their publishing programs prompted a question about whether they even saw themselves in the same business. Gagnon, said that while Boom! focuses on action genres and sci-fi, "our whole team came up reading Love & Rockets. We’re all in the same business—trying to get books to as many readers as we can."
Groth said that after more than 30 years in business he felt isolated from other publishers. “In the 1980s it used to be the wild west and we hung out with other publishers and loved or hated each other. But with the graphic novel boom, things became so huge, with so many players, our familial inbreeding has dissipated. It’s hard to keep up with what people are doing.” But he also emphasized that today he “can sell 8,000 to 9,000 copies of work by a cartoonist like Jim Woodring, which is amazing.” Middaugh emphasized that "while you can still get numbers out in the market to start a series, the manga market has matured and it has also contracted. But it is stable market and I think will be that way for the next few years."
SDCC 2010: Librarians Pick their Fave Graphic Novels
The Comics in Libraries panel featured an all star lineup of librarians and library professionals (as well as comics artist Raina Telgemier and moderator John Hogan from the Graphic Novel Reporter) focusing on ways to integrate graphic novels into library collections and programming. But even more interesting, the session closed with each panelist citing their favorite graphic novel(s) recommendations. Here’s their lineup of library graphic novel faves. Info People’s Francisca Goldsmith (Abrams’ forthcoming YA work, Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch); Raina Telgemier (Yen Press’s kid-friendly manga, Yotsuba! By Keyuhiko Azuma); OC Public Libraries’ Jill Patterson (Metropolitan Book’s award winning nonfiction work, Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco); Tuan Nguyen of the Texas Maverick Graphic Novel List (Holt’s 2009 AIDs graphic memoir Pedro and Me by Judd Winick); San Diego County Library’s JoAnn Jonas (Bloomsbury’s Secret Science Alliance by Eleanor Davis and for adults, the Bertrand Russell biography Logicomix); Glendale Public Library’s Merideth Jenson-Benjamin (Scholastic/Graphix’s Amulet series by Kazu Kibuishi and for adults, just about anything by Grant Morrison); and John Hogan (Roaring Brook Press’s memoir How I Made it to Eighteen by Tracey White). And to close out the session a librarian in the audience pointed out that his library’s English as a Second Language classes were using graphic novels for vocabulary development for the whole family, “kids and their parents are picking their own graphic novels and reading them together to build vocabulary and learn English.”
SDCC 2010: Spotlight on Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris, author of The Southern Vampire Mysteries on which the HBO series True Blood is based, received an Inkpot Award for achievement in Science Fiction/Fantasy at her panel. Harris answered questions from her eager fans about upcoming books in the Sookie Stackhouse series, as well as questions about characters in her other books. Her comment "Sookie Stackhouse will never become a vampire" received roars of approval from the audience. She acknowledged the multi-generational appeal of her books--"I often have daughters, mothers and grandmothers in my signing lines."
SDCC 2010: Spotlight on Jillian Tamaki
Moderated by Eric Nakamura of Giant Robot Jillian Tamaki showed her range as an illustrator and a comics creator in her presentation of her work at her panel. When discussing her work as an illustrator for scientific journals she said "They don't even bother sending you the article because you won't understand it." She discussed working with her cousin Mariko on the graphic novel Skim. "We didn't know each other that well. What made it work was that she wasn't precious- the key to collaboration is respecting each others roles and realizing that things won't be exactly as you imagine.
SDCC 2010: Comics in the Classroom
Beguiling manager and blogger Chris Butcher moderated a panel of educators and librarians that discussed a variety of approaches to incorporating comics into the classroom. Tracy White (NYU) discussed the importance of teaching her students how to understand the language of comics and combining words and images before they start creating their own digital comics. Anastasia Betts (UCLA) talked about the difficulties of getting the right book to reluctant readers and shared a story about her success in using the Amulet series to get a fourth grade ELL student to read. Deborah B. Ford (San Diego Unified School District) used Neil Gaiman’s Coraline followed by Jef Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid to help a non-reader "take what they're learning in the classroom out into the real world.” She emphasized "Reading is reading- a reader is a reader." For a complete text record of this session, click here.
SDCC 2010 Fan on Fan Violence: A Stabbing in Hall H
In a terrible first for San Diego Comic-Con, one unidentified fan stabbed another in the side of the eye in a quarrel in the con's crowded Hall H on Saturday. The suspect has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon. More details are available here, in an in depth article on Comic Book Resources.
SDCC 2010 Protesting The Protesters
The infamously homophobic and protest-prone Westboro Baptist Church decided to protest San Diego Comic Con this year for its “worship of false idols”. A number of con-goers enthusiastically began to picket the picket line with signs such as “Protect Our Children – Sign the Mutant Registration Act”, “All Glory to the Hypnotoad” and “God Hates Jedi”. A fact that the blogosphere has covered extensively. Many of these counter-protesters were, unsurprisingly, in full costume.
SDCC 2010 The Big Two's Biggest Announcements
At the Saturday Cup o’ Joe panel, Marvel teased fans with the hint that they would be doing something to do withclosed publisher Crossgen in 2011. Marvel's parent company Disney owns the rights to Crossgen's catalog, acquired in the publisher's bankruptcy sale. Marvel also announced the return of Strange Tales, its indie creators do Marvel superheroes anthology series. This year's contributors include Dash Shaw, Dean Haspiel, Frank Santoro, Gene Yang, Gilbert Hernandez, Harvey Pekar, Jaime Hernandez, Jeff Lemire, Jhonen Vasquez, Jillian Tamaki, Kate Beaton, Shannon Wheeler, Terry Moore and Tony Millionaire among others. Mark Waid will be reimaginingCaptain America’s return from the ice for a modern era with a five-issue miniseries Captain America: Man out of Time with Arthur Molina, beginning this November.
Grant Morrison will be following his The Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries with a one-shot entitled Batman: The Return. Following this, he will be writing a new Batman-centric team book called Batman Inc. Paul Cornell, late of the award-winning Captain Britain and MI13 series, will be writing Knight & Squire, a new ongoing series about Batman and Robin’s British counterparts. Vertigo Executive Editor Karen Berger confirmed that all Vertigo characters originating in the DCU would be returning to that division from Vertigo, including Swamp Thing and Madame Xanadu. John Constantine will be walking down the aisle in a super-sized Hellblazer #275.
SDCC 2010 Assorted Comics Announcements
Dark Horse revealed Frank Millers sequel to his hit 300, which was hampered by the fact that most of the character died at the end, will be titled Xerxes and set on another battlefield of the same war, taking place at the exact same time.They also officially announced a prequel miniseries to the upcoming child vampire movie Let Me In and a nine volume collection of the works of Milo Manara, the Italian ero-comics superstar who currently came to attention for his X-Women one shot with Chris Claremont. Also on the slate is Dethklok! - a miniseries set in the gory comedy hit cartoon Metalocalypse, about the temperamental and ridiculous fictional Death Metal supergroup Dethklok, and Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword, lesser known heroes such as Dark Agnes, El Borak, Sailor Steve Costigan and Bran Mak Morn from the creator of Conan the Barbarian.
Top Cow is reviving Minotaur Press as an imprint for its more “independent-styled series” and Top Cow's Pilot Season project, which serves as a showcase and test track for new comics will return this fall. Unlike last year they will not all be by Mark Silvestri and Robert Kirkman, since each comic will be done by a different creative team. Image announced that Marc Guggenheim is starting a new imprint, Collider Entertainment, for comics written by Hollywood scriptwriters without intending them to become movies. Top Shelf revealed art for the much anticipated League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol.3: Century #2 1969 fromKevin O’Neill and Alan Moore. Fantagraphics announced it will publish Floyd Gottfredson’s classic Mickey Mouse comic strips in full. IDW announced a new Rocketeer anthology, featuring comics from big-name creators includingDarwyn Cook, Bill Willingham, Kurt Busiek, and Mike Mignola among many, many others. Avatar has announced that its series Crossed, which premiered as two miniseries, will now become an ongoing series entitled Crossed: Badlands. The first story arc will be written by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows. The second story arc will be written by Jamie Delano.
SDCC 2010 Coming To A Screen Near You
DC announced that they will be debuting a new computer-animated Green Lantern animated series on Cartoon Network next year. Geoff Johns will be writing an episode of the live action TV series Smallville, featuring Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. The cast of the upcoming Young Justice animated series has been revealed. The man who created the original Young Justice comic book, Peter David, will be writing for it. On a related note, the upcoming Walking Dead television show based on Robert Kirkman’s hit Image comic will feature writing from none other than Kirkman himself.
Joss Whedon is not only directing The Avengers, he’s also writing it. Longtime Whedon collaborator Nathan Fillion may or may not be playing Antman in the movie, but it is officially confirmed that Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk and The Hurt Locker’sJeremy Renner as Hawkeye have joined the cast. Four anime series produced by Mad House and based on Marvel comics titles will come out on G4TV next year. The Iron Man, X-Men, Wolverineand Blade anime series were announced last year at Comic-Con. Iron Man will appear in Japan on October 1. Brian Michael Bendis announced he will be a writer and producer on a new Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. Jon Favreau announced that his upcoming comic book movie Cowboys and Aliens will be filmed and shown entirely in 2-D.
Neil Gaiman Scripting Anansi Boys Movie
Comics legend Neil Gaiman has announced – on his blog, not at San Diego Comic-Con – that he has been commissioned to write a script for a feature film version of his best selling novel Anansi Boys. The book is about the adventures of a man who finds out his late father was the trickster god Anansi.
This Week @ Good Comics For Kids
This week School Library Journal’s blog Good Comics for Kids had reviews of four picture books from SilverlineandMaximum Ride vol. 2, an interview with Babymouse creator Jennifer Holm, the adventures of a librarian at Comic-Con, the July listing of Good Manga for Kids,the7/21 listing of comics suitable for all ages and 7/26 Reading Pile first impressions column.
This Week @ The Beat
This week PWCW editor Heidi MacDonald’s blog The Beat liveblogged the Eisner Awards – the most important and coveted honors in comics, and covered San Diego Comic-Con in depth with the assistance of PWCW's Kate Fitzsimons and Torsten Adair.
