This makes me so very happy.
MySpace.com - MySpace Dark Horse Presents Free Online Comics & Comic Books on MySpace
MILK! AND! CHEESE!
Go now! Read!
MySpace.com - MySpace Dark Horse Presents Free Online Comics & Comic Books on MySpace
MILK! AND! CHEESE!
Go now! Read!
There was a time when you learned about new comics by word of mouth. Not by advertisements, or being hand-sold books because they just littered up the newsstands or spinner racks and the clerks didn’t know anything about them, or by the internet.
I know. You’re wondering how we got along. I assure you, we got along just fine.
Comics, by which I mean largely superhero comics, since this was the dawn of the 80s, and both Marvel and DC had tossed their eggs into the basket crammed full of leotards and domino masks (soon to be replaced by black vinyl cut at arresting angles), were a hermetic order. Sure, anyone could pick up a comic at any time and get into the storyline that was unfolding in the sawdust-yellow pages (thank you, Jim Shooter, for getting me hooked on monthly Marvel books). Remember, these were the days of “Every comic is someone’s first comic and we gotta get them up to speed on the whys and wherefores.” Yeah, it makes for clumsy reading in trades of the material from that time, but back then, it was like, electra-glide smooth entry into the polychrome universe.
Let's see, news to report.
Gervasio and Jok have signed on for the main story in the second STRANGEWAYS voume, tentatively entitled THE THIRSTY.
Luis Guaragña has agreed to do artwork for the second story in that volume, "Red Hands". So there's going to be strong artistic continuity in the next book, which I see as a good thing.
Back to filling re-orders and Amazon POs.
Tom says:
Shame on every stupid-ass, morally ignorant fan out there who has expressed even the slightest opinion that this course of legal action in any way reflects an agenda of greed on the part of people not directly involved in the act of creation, or worse, has articulated as their primary concern the potential interruption of their monthly four-color fantasy product. I wish we really did live in the might makes right moral universe that supports such a piggish outlook, because then I could quit my job and drive around on a motorcycle punching people in the face until they penned a formal apology to the Siegel family.
---
Which pretty much sums up my response to the Newsarama thread on the issue. Yes, both National/DC and Siegel/Schuster co-created Superman, and the trademark itself would not have been as fabulously valuable had there not been a publishing company behind it.
But when said publishing company benefits itself grossly in comparison to what the original creators earned, there's a problem. Do I think that DC should be stripped of the character because of the sins of National? No, nor is it likely to happen.
But to hear the bleating of the entitlement-crazed fans, you'd think that the judgement was nothing more than simple money-grubbing and it will destroy the hobby as we know it, jacking up cover prices so that the Siegel family can repose on their new collection of Louis XIV furniture while polishing their new diamond-studded ashtrays.
But if they fashion necklaces from all those outraged fanboy tears and wear them until the end of time, I wouldn't think that unjust.
For the record, this is big news, no doubt. But I doubt it will be big in the ways that people think. The Siegel case has its own set of legal and historic wrinkles that aren't likely to be duplicated anytime soon.
Though I gotta ask, does the Wylie estate see any of this...?
Blog@Newsarama: Siegel heirs awarded Action Comics #1 copyright
There's some loons in this world. Some of them are posting at the above.
By the by, does anyone else find the timing of this incredibly interesting given the big reveal at the end of ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #10 this week? If I didn't know any better, I'd say there was a greater force involved.
Just for Tom, I've kept this all in one post. But something tells me I really oughta break this up.
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It’s Spelled “F I G U E R O A”, Dummy.
I didn’t reliably know how to spell that until just this week. Forgot the “u after e except after w” rule. Why was I staying at the luxurious, Moroccan-styled Figueroa Hotel in Los Angeles some 350 miles from my newly-native Sierra Nevada Foothills?
Because I went to Wizard World Los Angeles. Which is actually held in Los Angeles now, but used to be called Wizard World Los Angeles back when it was held in Long Beach. Long Beach is NOT Los Angeles, by the by. That’s like saying that Oakland, or more accurately, Fairfield, is in San Francisco. It just isn’t. But I guess Los Angeles has cache that Long Beach just doesn’t. Even if Wizard World fit better into the Long Beach convention center and had a wider variety of nice bars right outside the doorway. Don’t get me wrong. The city of LA has done wonders punching up the Convention Center area of downtown into shape. There’s still some work on the south side of Main yet, but I suspect that’ll be a perpetual condition.
The Savage Critic(s): Arriving 3/19/2008
According to Brian HIbbs' shipping list for the week, which is usually pretty on, Strangeways: Murder Moon ships this week. Which is news to me, as it was supposed to go out *next* week.
Not that I have any major launch plans or anything, but this is a little weird. More news as I figure out WTF is going on.
While waiting for my interminably delayed flight last night, I got about 2/3 through my WWLA report. Some stuff to finish up first, but it should be along this afternoon or evening.
If you want to see a picture of me looking sort of glum and morose (it's not your fault, Mike: I just don't do posed pichers real well), then head on over to Mikester's WWLA report. You can't miss it. And I gotta give Mike an 'attaboy' for running the cover under the picture itself since the flash blew it out, matte coating or not.
Mightygodking.com - Yesterday, At The Comics Store
But Chris Butcher isn't. He actually makes hand sales. Imagine that!
Hand! Sales!
I forgot to mention that on Friday afternoon, I had coffee with the Most Hated Man In Comics. No, not that one. Not that other one, either. And certainly not Graeme, who could hate him? (And I didn’t even see him until Saturdayish). Yeah, him. That’s the one. He’s not so bad, really. He even bought the coffee.
I also kinda forgot to mention that I caught John Carpenter’s GHOSTS OF MARS on the telly back in the room while I couldn’t sleep. No, I can’t sleep in hotels. Don’t know what it is, but that’s just the way I am. I’d been on a big Carpenter kick lately, so I stuck through it, but I have to say, I liked ASSAULT ON PRECINCT THIRTEEN a lot better, and GHOSTS hit a lot of the same notes, only with more boom boom and Natasha Henstridge. It wasn’t terrible, but I wasn’t enthralled, either. But I don’t have to be enthralled: I’m an insomniac.
Breakfast at Mel’s. The “Elvis Scramble” in honor of the sideburns and semi-pompadour I’m apparently rockin’ lately. You can see for yourself in the Io9.com photo gallery from the CBLDF party that night. I’m in two of them, but you wouldn’t know unless I’d told ya. Off to the show after liberating my car from the varlet parking at my ex-hotel. The first place I stopped was at Comic Relief to grab one of the Kirby books that I’d seen so many of yesterday. Remember, they had eighty of them, right?
WONDERCON '08: HERB TRIMPE SPOTLIGHT - NEWSARAMA
Geez, what was I doing that I missed that? Must have been something important like transplant surgery or something.
Being a Wonder-Con 2008 retroperspective.
Things started about as badly as they could start. At least I had a hotel. And boy, did I ever. It was the con hotel, the big juke-box looking thing that towered over fourth street like a green-mirrored Wurlitzer, only without the stream of oldies (but you could get a reasonable approximation of that at Mel’s Diner on Mission, where I paid fifty cents to hear some Etta James and Junior Walker.)
Of course, it being downtown San Francisco, there was only one way to get into the hotel, and it wasn’t on Fourth Street, even though the street address clearly said Fourth Street. Go figure. So I got to make two passes, cursing my inability to turn left on Market while driving through the broken sunlight.
Check in, get my room, go fetch my badge. Relatively painless, as opposed to the overnight parking charge for the room. Which was basically a third of the room price. Yeah. Right. I wasn’t going to stay there a second night. Don’t get me wrong, the Wurlitzer is a nice hotel and all, but come on.
Friday at the show? Dead. Pretty dead. Deader than last year dead. And when I got there, Image was indeed parked and ready to go, contrary to reports to the contrary. That SILVER STAR book looks pretty tempting, now that I’ve actually seen it and all, but the 35.00 pricetag puts me off just a bit. I’ve waited this long; I can wait for the paperback.
Speaking of waiting. I saw that Comic Relief had copies of the new Jack Kirby book, KIRBY: KING OF COMICS by Mark Evanier. They had stacks. 80 copies to be precise, that they themselves paid to have air-freighted out to the show. That’s proactive. I glanced at the stacks and figured, “Okay, they’re set for the show. I’ll grab one on Saturday on the way out or on Sunday. Easy.” Only it wasn’t. They were gone by Saturday morning when I checked back. But more on that later.
Continue reading "If there are diamonds in the sidewalk, this must be San Francisco." »
Tired. 2 days of hotel sleep (which for me means it may as well have been no sleep), 2.5 days of walking and lugging around that stupid darned satchel, 6 panels, 1 hunt for the new Kirby book, 2 conversations with Rory Root, 1 conversation with Brian Hibbs, 1 wrong way trip in search of Minna street in the rain and driving wind, 1 undigested Carl's Jr. Hamburger, 1 sketch for the sketchbook.
More later.
"As we already discussed, the Best-Seller in this category is Frank Miller’s 300, with 72,328 copies sold, and an astounding $2.2 million in sales, if they all sold at full retail – that’s a crazy big number, and shows the ability of a film to sell a single-volume title. Someone coming out of Spider-Man 3 might be interested in Spider-Man, but the possible range of choices they have is enormous – they might pick up an issue of one of the half-a-dozen Spider-Man comics, or maybe one of the several score graphic novels, but their choice is diffused over the sheer number of choices that exist. Not so with something like 300 – if they’re interested in reading 300, they have exactly one choice."
This from the latest Tilting at Windmills by Brian Hibbs over at Newsarama. Interesting because it partially refutes a point I made in this week's Full Bleed which you can read right here. That point being that movies based on Spider-Man comics don't actually sell Spider-Man comics. But they do apparently sell 300 graphic novels. That's the Frank Miller 300, not the quantity. And Brian makes a really interesting point: that the wide variety of Spidey material actually makes it harder for people to pick the book that the movie may have interested them in. There's only one volume of 300, which directly ties back to the movie. Not so with Spider-Man. And the words "movie adaptation" don't usually sell those single issues so well, either.
This is good news for folks who get their OGNs optioned (assuming that their books are still in print and in books for the time that the movie comes out -- not always a gimme.)
Here's another point:
"Buffy, to me, is a disappointment, for much the same reasons as delineated in the discussion about Dark Tower in the Marvel section. As a periodical comic book, the first issue of Buffy seems to have sold at least 158,437 copies, or more than ten times what the trade sold into the book market. To a certain degree, I’d say that Buffy is the “civilian friendly” comic following an extremely popular property with a rabid and dedicated fanbase that is both well-connected and well-educated about availability. And yet, against all conventional wisdom, the periodical performed significantly better than the collection."
Seems pretty simple to me in that the folks who desperately wanted the episodic story (as they're used to getting from Whedon) went and bought the comic but didn't feel the need to buy the graphic novel afterwards. As for being *the* "civilian-friendly" book, I'd argue that BUFFY is super-friendly for the BUFFY fans out there, but that's a large and vocal minority compared to the rest of the buying public. I'd also note that if these folks are anything like me, Buffy works better in an ephemeral sort of format and doesn't really reward repeated viewing/reading. But I'm a notorious crank.
The Comics Journal - The Steve Gerber Interview
Well worth your time, and could pretty easily be about the Current State of Comics, though it's thirty years old. Which is more than a little sad.
Jordi Bernet is coming to the San Jose Super-Con? I am totally there. Paul Smith too? Ryan Sook? It's a veritable who's who of artists I love who are pretty much overlooked (or so it seems to myopic me.)
Comic Book Resources - Comic Book News, Reviews and Commentary - Updated Daily!
Go read this one, if you don't read Grant already, which you should be doing. He puts up a powerful remembrance of Steve Gerber, tying him into some hidden threads of both the aesthetic and more sanguine aspects of the industry.
Frank Miller and Steve Gerber redesigning the DC Universe in the early 80s? Just imagine that for a moment.
If, like me, you’d been reading Steve Gerber’s weblog, you’d have known that his health was suffering of late. Pulmonary fibrosis isn’t something that magically goes away, short of a double lung transplant. That’s not exactly a walk in the park, but I’ve seen folks walk away from a transplant better than they started out, so, like a fool, I’d held out hope that Mr. Gerber would turn it around. He’d had some close calls before, and there didn’t seem to be much reason to think this one was different, given the casual voice he’d used in his weblogging.
And reading it, you wanted to believe that he was going to knock this thing out. I wanted to believe it, anyways. If for no other selfish reason than he’d be well enough to write again, and assumedly be deriving whatever pleasure he could from the act. When his health allowed, he seemed to have found a good working relationship over at DC, who even allowed for a second season of HARD TIME in the face of uninspiring sales (it was the only survivor of the Focus line of DC sci-fi/superhero books) and gave the series an opportunity to wrap up with as much grace as could be mustered. A well-deserved tip of the hat to Paul Levitz there, who I’m convinced lobbied hard on the book’s behalf.
There was a time when I was a Marvel zombie. The combination of hyperbolic heroics built on a human heart engaged me in a way that DC comics of the early 80s never did. Granted, by the time I was in Marvel’s thrall, they were but a ghost of their former greatness, but that didn’t really matter, because I had yet to discover a lot of the classic Marvel material. And I’m still discovering it, even now.
If you’d asked me a week ago, which of the Marvel ESSENTIALS volumes was my favorite, I’d have said, unhesitatingly and without irony, HOWARD THE DUCK. It’s crazy, loopy, absurd, and yet has at its core, a concern for the everyday sorts of humans (even ones who happen to be feathered) dealing with the grind of modern culture. This is not to say that it’s perfect. Being a work of topical satire, you’d best be fairly well grounded in the popular culture of the 1970s, as well as have a background in Marvelania (though this was back in the days of editor’s footnotes, so you could at least get an idea of what was going on even if it was just your first issue.)
I've had a lot of time to read comics. What's on the reading list? Mostly trades that I've purchased over the last several months and just hadn't gotten around to. Here's what I've racked up over the last few days.
ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS v 2 & 3
LONE WOLF AND CUB v 7
DOOM PATROL: PLANET LOVE
GOD'S MAN: A NOVEL IN WOODCUTS
MAGE: THE HERO DISCOVERED
MAKING COMICS
YESTERDAY'S TOMORROWS (yes, the Rian Hughes collection, that one.)
But aside from that, this whole sick thing has become a wonderful adventure in suckitude. Sneezing or coughing (which I do more than a little of) gets me this wonderful stabbing pain in my chest. And every decongestant in the house has got me feeling twitchy or speedy, enough so that I've given up on them. I suppose I'm going to have to escalate to antibiotics at some point. Bleah, just bleah.
The Comics Journal Message Board :: View topic - Baker & Taylor: Blindsiding Diamond?
I need time to go through the whole thing, but there's some interesting stuff going on in this dusty old thread at TCJ.com. I wonder if most of the pertinent content is still...pertinent, or if things have changed in the intervening 1.5 years?
And let the folks over at Hijinx comics know how you like to read your comics. I already stopped by and made the point by picking up some forty bucks worth of trades while I made my goodwill tour of the area in support of STRANGEWAYS: MURDER MOON. But your vote matters, too! Don't let your voice go unheard!
Just please don't vote for "bubble gum wrappers". I mean, unless you really mean it...
…minus ten percent
Declan MacManus, ladies and gentlemen. Give him a big hand.
And I thought I was loopy when I was posting earlier this week. I’m past loopy to sober and back to loopy again.
As I suspected, the discussion fired off by the ComicsPro position paper on convention-pre-sales is not over. Nor is it prompting any kind of a change in people’s minds, really. There’s a lot of talk, but it’s cross-talk. The pro and con sides have their minds made up (‘cept for those folks who seem to only be mildly for or against it, oh yeah, and everyone else who hasn’t said anything about it, which isn’t me, since I’m still babbling.) There’s a lot of passion and bluster, and thorough proof that the plural of anecdote is bitchfest.
For the record, since I apparently didn’t make it clear in my last missive (unsurprising, since my writing tends towards the opaque side of clarity), I will not be selling copies of STRANGEWAYS: MURDER MOON at Wonder-Con ahead of the Direct Market ship date of March 26th. Should I have copies, they will be given for promotion to reviewers and contributors (at least I think Steve is going to be there.) If local (or non-local) retailers want to buy copies at cost and I have a supply to meet their demand that is their business. I will be there to sign those books, should customers for them be found. I will have paid the cost to appear there, as will they. Perhaps both of us can benefit from that. As said before, Rory Root from Comic Relief in Berkeley has made such an offer, for which I am thankful.
Hell, in my position, I’m thankful for any customers.
But I won’t put myself in competition with pre-paid orders, particularly from local retailers. After the street date, I’ll happily sell copies at whatever price I choose (and continue to pass out preview copies should it make sense.)
It’s a conflict between a fast sale (or two, or ten) and whatever retailer goodwill I can generate as a result of playing by the ground rules. As I said last time, I’m not in a position to pick and choose friends and supporters. If my selling some copies of STRANGEWAYS over a three-day show is that much of a threat to my long-term presence in my book’s primary market, then I’d be short-sighted to do so. I’m not interested in selling a pamphlet comic with a low-duration shelf life. I was already convinced of that when I started this whole process back in 2003. The Speakeasy diversion and dalliance in the monthly form was me adapting to an opportunity that presented itself; an opportunity cost that was, well, high.
Again, the reality of STRANGEWAYS is that it will be ordered by a handful of stores. I don’t need to muddy up those waters with pre-sales. If a store is going to take a chance on my book, then I should give them a fair chance to sell it.
This does not make it my place to criticize or chide others who choose to pre-sell on convention floors. Eric Reynolds makes his case, and it’s a persuasive one. I am not going to tell him that he’s wrong in his choice. I bought a copy of I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS from a show before it was available in the DM. And then I gave that to a friend for his birthday and I replaced it with a DM-purchased copy.
But then I also believe that we’re not looking at a zero-sum system where a convention pre-sale means that a retailer is going to be left holding the bag on a pre-ordered book forever. For that to be true, then you’d have to prove that only people who go to conventions go to comic shops, and that is simply not true. If it is true, then we’re looking at a terrifyingly small comics market and have far bigger problems to figure out than convention pre-sales.
Long week, folks. I'm goin' to bed.
The morning that I was going to send out a press release about STRANGEWAYS: MURDER MOON is the morning that Comcast decides that I really didn't want to send any mail out after all. They do know what's best, right?
Hoping to get it out today. I'd post it here, but nobody comes here...
EDIT: Now I'm sure it's gone out twice. At least. Gah.
Okay, Heidi found me and kinda folded me into the current "pre-sale at conventions ahead of Direct Market or not?" meringue/harangue. Like so:
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Leaving behind the steaming battleground for a moment, there’s this quiet little comment from Matt Maxwell:
I should have something to say about this, since I’m a new publisher in a position to debate a book at Wonder-Con before the official street date. I don’t have the time to devote to commenting at the moment however. Hopefully this will change over the course of the weekend.
And there’s the rub. What SHOULD Matt Maxwell do, ComicsPRO? Diamond isn’t going to help one little man with a book on any significant level. Comic shops aren’t going to order an almost unknown self published western by a creator best known as being an intelligent blogger in numbers that are going to impress anyone. Maxwell’s only business strategy is to raise awareness of his book by the means available to him — internet postings, selling directly to fans at shows, media outreach and, yes, talking to retailers.
The sad thing is that no set mechanism exists for the latter. New publishers arriving on CBIA are inevitably met with suspicion and the equivalent of a “Are you now or have you ever been a publisher who might have sold a comic outside the direct market?” threshhold that just isn’t logical in today’s day and age.
---
Okay, first thing that everyone needs to know about this is that the argument isn’t necessarily about what it’s about. In other words, yes, there is concern about the actual pre-sale of books at conventions on the part of retailers who have to order their books three months of time and on a non-returnable basis. This is a valid concern.
But it seems that some folks have made this into a proxy battleground between some retailers and some publishers/fans regarding how alternative books are sold, or the perception of how they’re being sold. On the independent publisher side, there’s concerns that the DM is a diminishing portion of their actual sales, and that they have the right to shore up their profits by making sales at conventions where they cut out the chunks taken by both Diamond and the retail seller. Notice that nobody from DC or Marvel or Image, so far as I can tell has any interest in this particular discussion. Even though Marvel debuts some big-ticket items in bookstores before the DM, but that’s not being addressed at this moment.
THE BEAT: Blog Archive--Retailer/Publisher/Customer tensions revealed
I open my mouth to say that I should open my mouth on one issue and I get quoted by Heidi. Even if my quote is malformed (as originally posted, no malforming on Heidi's part) to say that I could "debate a book at Wonder-Con" not *debut* a book at Wonder-Con" as it should have said.
I gotta fix that. Then I better hurry up and say something smart. But that's gonna have to wait until tonight, 'cause kids want to drive up and see snow...like now...
Brendan McCarthy has a blog!
Brendan McCarthy has a blog!
Brendan McCarthy has a blog!
Brendan McCarthy has a blog!
Brendan McCarthy has a blog!
Aw, just go read it.
Tom Spurgeon commented on the recent ComicsPro position paper regarding publisher debut sales at conventions. Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience comments back, and you can read Tom's second-level response in the above.
I should have something to say about this, since I'm a new publisher in a position to debut a book at Wonder-Con before the official street date. I don't have the time to devote to commenting at the moment however. Hopefully this will change over the course of the weekend.
EDIT "debut" was quoted as "debate" in a recent link on The Beat. The error was mine in the original posting. That's what I get before trying to write before my second cup of coffee on a Saturday.
And no, I still don't have anything useful to say just yet. Check back tomorror morning.
EDIT TO THE EDIT - The book in question is called Strangeways: Murder Moon. A preview of Chapter One, as well as detailed pre-ordering instructions can be seen right at this very link.
Stop reading this and click on the above. Now.
About comic-book monsters? That is actually covering new stuff and not just the monster classics from Kirby/Ditko? Who'da thunk it.
I sure hope that link works. My current fave out of the latest batch of Zuda entries. Though I'm curious, wasn't this originally going to appear in an Image anthology of some kind? Maybe I'm just confused on the robot thing. I do confuse easy.
And "A Crooked Man" didn't win the last go-round? WTH?
Jeff Parker interviewed by Park (and Barb) Cooper, wherein he reveals that he tried to sneak a Marvel GODZILLA reference into AGENTS OF ATLAS. In a perfect world, he'd have gotten away with. The rest of the interview is worth reading, too.
It's all dark.
Pink Floyd comics from a 1975 tour programme. Crude, yet enjoyable, I suppose.
Super, All-action & For Boys AND Girls ! � The Ephemerist
As spotted on Journalista.
Zuda, Zu Zu Zu Zuuuu-daaaa
Zuda Comics | Click Here to Continue
Zudacomics went live yesterday. I checked it out, mostly, I'll admit, to see "High Moon", which on its face seems exactly like the cogent plot elements of my OGN MURDER MOON, only in color and in a webcomic. Oh yes, and to see "Bayou", which I had high hopes for.
Let's talk about the good. "Bayou" is the most fully realized of the offerings, with an intriguing setting/cast and charming art that I'm sure belies the real nature of the storyline. It's the first continuing series to be named at Zuda, and deservedly so. I look forward to reading this as it continues.
"Dead in the Now" is also a good read, though you don't read Rey's work so much as you absorb it. It's big, bold, energetic, unafraid to eat up page space, learning lessons from manga without simply aping the styles. There is story there, believe it or not, though it's presented unadorned and unfettered. No messing around. I'll be reading this as well, though I can see how some folks might not be digging it.
"High Moon" actually has some lovely art, but the story isn't doing it for me. However, I'm biased since I'm gonna have to take grief for "hey, cowboys and werewolves, just like that Zuda comic." "Leprenomicon" is intriguing, but I'm going to need more before I'm convinced.
"Alpha Monkey" has some vibrant art but doesn't do much for me (though my son will probably dig it.) "Black Swan" suffers for having a distinctive look that is only used in flashbacks and not in the main storyline (which in and of itself is pretty average). I'd probably like "The Dead Seas" if I was in its target audience bracket (I'm not, by probably twenty-five years or more).
One of the biggest problems seems to be pacing for webcomic pages, and that's a big one. It took me a long time to understand (some would argue that I don't get it yet) how a page and a series of panels needs to flow for story/dialogue beats to work. It feels like too much is being packed into some of the strip pages (while some don't have enough going on at all or following what is there is tricky.) This is a problem that is solvable.
I have to confess I'm not wild about the shockwave-based reader and inability to jump to a bookmarked page, for instance. I might have missed it, I'll admit. But the interface can be changed once the content is placed.
The quality of the offerings is variable, either in the art or the writing (and yes, I know it's unfair to judge writing on the basis of eight pages, sixteen in the case of "Bayou". On the other hand, I knew that Cameron Stewart's "Sin Titulo" was good on the basis of three pages, maybe four.) Granted, there's no way I'm going to be enraptured with "The Dead Seas" or "The Enders" or "Raining Cats and Dogs". They're aimed at literally a different generation of readers. And there's a chance that DC/Zuda will connect with some of them.
Costwise, there isn't much to lose, from DC's perspective. Sure, there's page rates (I'm assuming that there are page rates), but a vastly reduced cost of production comes into play when playing on the digital ballfield. And that cost only drops after you've eaten the initial development (though I'd hope they'd spend a little money on a plain interface for mobile devices, etc.)
But please don't ask me to make a prognostication as to how this is going to turn out. There's some good stuff there, most of it's readable (but largely not my thing), probably enough to keep people coming back, if the content comes in regularly and is updated often. Besides, DC shouldn't be aiming this at me; they should be aiming this at folks who aren't reading comics yet but could possibly be talked into it.
That seems to be the rumor, anyways. I'm pretty excited about this, since I'm one of those five readers who thought that SEAGUY was the meatiest of Grant Morrison's offerings in the last several years. Wonder how much it's going to deviate from the following that I jotted down (and even got linked to in LitG) from Wondercon in 2006. Was it only 2006? Seems like forever ago.
---
High points of the panel included his relating the utterly and beautifully absurd first issue of SEAGUY v. 2, which he’s basically written though there’s no interest in it at Vertigo right now (apparently the numbers on the first series were less than stellar, which is criminal on a cosmic scale.) Apparently our hero has been brainwashed by the agents of Mickey Eye, when he realizes that the parrot who replaced Chubby the Choona at the end of the first series is a BAD GUY. Seaguy is transformed into El Macho, world’s greatest matador! But he’s not a normal matador. See, you can’t kill bulls now, they’re sacred. So instead of poking them with a sword, you have to dress them and by doing so, utterly humiliate them. No really. The ghost of Chubby appears to Seaguy and ultimately, Seaguy follows him out of his artifically crafted life (apparently abandoning his pregnant wife.)
Of course, she isn’t pregnant. She says “Well, we just couldn’t keep him” to her round belly. Then she lifts her shawl and underneath it is not an unborn child, but a Mickey Eye.
---
I'd still buy it.
It's all comics. Some people don't like what you love. Sides can be taken over form versus content. You're all very smart and passionate.
Now please get back to work making comics or getting folks who don't currently read comics to give them a try.
Remeber, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Lessons from the Convention Floor
Stumptown, September 2007
1. Never Fly Alone
Having to totally close up your table just because you need to heed the call of nature really puts a cramp in your style. That and people are gonna steal your stuff, so get a buddy. Well, that and so you can actually see the show, too. I was able to get out for all of about forty minutes to take in the show.
2. The Limits of Electricity
So here I was with a neat little Quicktime movie to show and a creaky old laptop that only had battery power for about two hours at any given time. I brought an extension cord, but not long enough, and not small enough to keep itself from being a tripping hazard. So, no multimedia blitzkrieg for me.
3. Eat a Hearty Breakfast (corollary: bring antacid)
Buffet breakfasts are great bang for the buck, as I learned in college, but man, can they be murder on the digestive tract.
4. Bring a Tablecloth
White vinyl is never in style. I saw some really neat patterned tablecloths being deployed by a number of artists, which were both functional (vinyl makes me sweat something fierce) and easy on the eyes. Now, do I go for basic black or something like a calico given the Western theme in MURDER MOON?
MyFox Dallas | IMAGES: Rare Comics Found At Garage Sale
That this hasn't hit the newsblogs already. What looks like original art from AVENGERS #1 (you know, the really old one, not the other one) and some EC/Warren books has been recovered from a garage sale in north Texas. All the art was reported as stolen from Dallas/Fort Worth airport sometime this year. The investigation, as they say, is forthcoming (but not after the family selling the pages were temporarily slapped in irons.)
Spotted at Fark.com. Yes. I read Fark.com.
Here's all the sprawling mess of my SDCC 2007 reportage. At least Tom seemed to like it; maybe you will too.
Photos
Preview Night
Thursday 1
Thursday 2
Intermission
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Wrapup
Conpocalypse. Contaclysm. Contastrophe.
It’s always a little chilly when I leave Comic-Con. Maybe that’s the onset of Global Dimming talking (Albedo reduction is a serious threat, people!) Or maybe that’s because the Con has always meant the passing of High Summer for me. Well at least the semi-adult-me. I still haven’t put away the childish things yet (actually, some of those childish things being me great joy still.) The sun is setting earlier, rising later. Maybe there’s weekends of Indian Summer or furnace-winds of the Santa Anas (though not so much since I don’t live in SoCal no more), but summer wanes still.
I won’t deny there’s an energy at big shows like this. Even little shows, really. There’s a frisson that sings through the air, a connectedness in the love of pop culture (no matter what sorts of perversions that love might undergo – alternate covers, I’m looking squarely at you.) And I have to say, I miss it when I’m locked away in my office trying to tap into the Thing That Is Bigger Than Myself, wherever the ideas come from, whatever that circuit is. It’s a lonely business, writing. At least that’s the way the cookie has crumbled in my case.
But it’s not sustainable, the avalanche of cultural output, art to satisfy any taste or predilection, from the sparse inkings of Hugo Pratt to the lush forests of cheesecake to the hard shine of metallic battle armor. It’s your thing, do what you gonna do. The presence of such stimulation very quickly becomes enervating; dehydration and fast food take their tolls. But like the first three nights in Vegas, they’re a hell of a ride. Just that all the sex, drugs, rock AND roll can only keep you propped up for so long. After that, you’re on your own.
I must have left off on Saturday. So if it seems that everything is blending together like a Baskin-Robbins store without power to keep the Fudge Ripple from joining up with the Peanut Butter Swirl, then you’ll know why. I shoulda taken copious notes is what I shoulda done.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda, didn’ta.
So, as you all likely know (particularly if you were on the floor) was that Friday, Saturday AND Sunday tickets for SDCC sold out. None to be had. You had a 4-day pass already or you didn’t have bupkis. This, this is madness. But what divine madness, I suppose. The Con has achieved maximum density. Restraint and reason have left the building. Check your conscience at the door, for (contrary to Rich Johnston’s exhortations) anything goes. Imperial Rome got nothing on SDCC. ‘Cause Imperial Rome didn’t have the Team Evil Cheerleaders and Lego sculptures rubbing shoulders with more Fake Jack Sparrows and stormtroopers than you could hope to count. An injunction against attention-seeking cosplayers clogging up already-clogged corridors is just what the convention ordered for next year. Can’t you just see it? There can be HazMat-orange suited goons with the menacing phrase COSPLAY CONTROL stenciled onto their Barry Bonds-like strapping young men chests, metallic voices clipped and distorted into a stream of angry vowels as they go buckwild with cattle prods and pepper spray in the faces of a thousand bawling Narutos and Jedi Knights?
I can see it. It is the future. And the future is beautiful.
Saturday, Satyrday.
First up, breakfast at the Original Pancake House in Kearny Mesa. Cherry crepes and thick-cut bacon. I ate there more times than I could count, having lived in the area for something like seventeen years. It never gets old, though I burned out on the buckwheat pancakes some time ago.
Then the blogging panel. Which not so quickly became a "Is there such a thing as comics journalism" panel. Lots of repeat offenders from last year's outing, minus a couple (Chris Butcher most notably) and the addition of EW's comics blogger (whose name I really should remember and am far too lazy to look up now.) There wasn't the electric tension between Tom and Heidi as there had been in years past, or perhaps my senses are so dulled by boredom and bourbon that I just didn't pick up on it, but I don't think so. My big question is what matters of real journalism are there to cover in comics? The marketplace itself is dissected on a regular basis by all sorts of folks much smarter than myself (though I chime in from time to time.) For the most part, we already know why things happen in terms of franchise maintainence versus audience outreach. We know that women are underrepresented for the most part and that there's still a boy's club mentality at work on the publishing side of things (and at some, but not all, retail outlets.) There's facts that we can report, such as so and so taking over ASTONISHING X-MEN after so and so leaves. And that's probably an issue to so and so's fans. But beyond that? Does it mean more folks reading ASTONISHING? Not particularly.
But then I was never a big fan of master narrative construction, so maybe that's why all this is escaping me. There's plenty of commentary to be offered about creators and their creations, but not a lot that requires undercover investigative journalism to unearth. And finally, I'm a lapsed lapsed comics blogger, so perhaps all of this is suspect. At any rate, it's good to see Graeme in person (even if only for a period of moments.)