Nice art: Who drew today’s Google Dickens doodle? Mike Dutton
You may have noticed Google's stylish doodle for the birthday of Charles Dickens today. But who drew it? an artist named Mike Dutton, who has previously worked on doodles for Richard Scarry, Mary Blair, the Royal Wedding, and the World Cup.
Continue ReadingEven Garth Ennis is going to Kickstarter—for a kids’ book
If you didn't ever expect to see comics writing star Garth Ennis launching a Kickstarter program, you surely never expected to see him do it...for a kids' book. But that's exactly what is happening for a project calledERF, a sort of Finding Amoeba, featuring four lovable creatures plucked from the primordial ooze to find a better way of life:
Continue ReadingDavid Gabriel explains Marvel’s trade program
ICv2 has a wide ranging interview with Marvel's Sr VP of Sales, David Gabriel, and it covers just about every topic you could imagine, from digital coupon conversion to page counts to pricing. Go here for all that: Part 1 and Part 2. However since we've had a high degree of scrutiny on Marvel's trade program of late, here's what he had to say on that topic:
Continue ReadingInitial Reactions To “Real” January Sales Estimates – DC More Stable, Marvel’s Top Line Shrinks
The "real" January sales estimates are up. Looks like my guesstimates weren't all that far off, either. This time out, I'll be scrolling down the estimate list at Comics Chronicles. That's also where John Jackson Miller reminds us that January orders always suck, but that this January sucked considerably less than previous Januarys. He's got the overall orders only down 6.25% from December. A glass half-full, perhaps, but there is some comfort to be taken in that it looks like the top line at DC might be stablizing a little more.
Continue ReadingBatman’s dimebag found on the streets of Philadelphia
Has Bruce Wayne been making a little extra dosh on the side? This urban culture found on the sidewalk shows times are tough for everyone. [h/t Brady Russell.]
Continue ReadingNerdist and ReedPop pact, plan White Space 2
Chris Hardwick's role as nerd frontman to the world continues unabated as he's just signed a deal to appear at more ReedPop events, including C2E2 and NYCC. The "Talking Dead" host will appear at several events at both shows, and Nerdist Industries will participate in another White Space B2B think tank event such as was held at the 2011 New York Comic-Con.
Continue ReadingThe Art of Ramona Fradon announced from Dynamite
Well, here is a very worthy subject for an art book: Ramona Fradon, legendary Silver Age artist. Co-creator of Metamorpho and one of the defining artists on Aquaman, Fradon's career covers everything from Super Friends to Brenda Starr. Now she's the subject of a comprehensive art book from Dynamite that includes an interview conducted by Howard Chaykin. As you can see from the sample pages, it's a treasure trove of archival material.
Continue ReadingNew Amazing Spider-Man trailer is out and has everyone talking
In just two minutes, this summer's Amazing Spider-Man has gone from an afterthought to the Batman/Avengers slugfest to a "Hey that looks great!' Even if it is one of those "I just saw the whole movie!" trailers, it certainly conveys all the elements of a successful superhero movie: a wise-cracking hero, a winsome love interest, a villain with a transatlantic accent and an authority figure determined to take our hero down—in this case Denis Leary as Gwen Stacy's policeman dad, George.
Continue ReadingEast Coast animators paid less than West Coasters
Of late we've been much focused on the economics of creating comics as a career, and the challenges of such an undertaking. Animation is often viewed as the "money spout" for comics types—more competition, more exposure more money. But an investigation by animation writer Amid Amidi reveals a disquieting story about East Coast animators getting paid much less than their West Coast analogs, even when employed by two branches of the same company, Titmouse Animation. In fact, in the NY office, animators are being paid $400 a week to work on Disney's Motorcity cartoon. In LA, a similar job for the same company pays a union-scale $1,055 a week.
Continue ReadingHelp send WONDER WOMEN! to SXSW
To the donation button, Batgirl: WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines is a documentary by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Kelcey Edwards that examines the evolution of Wonder Woman and other kick-ass heroines, with a look at "how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation."
Continue ReadingDiamond Select releases Avengers Minimates and gigantic, aggressive Hulk figure
Toy Fair is just around the corner—the annual gathering of all things toyetic at the Javits Center. Lots of spoilers for the SPIDER-MAN and AVENGERS films have already been inadvertently revealed through toys news in the last few weeks, so the well may be dry on that, but there is still actual toy news. For instance, you may be excited about the Avengers movie, but once you know there will be Avengers Minimates, how much MORE excited are you?
Continue ReadingCatron and White return to their roots at Fantagraphics
Over the weekend, Tom Spurgeon spotlighted the return of two old school members to the Fantagraphics mansion with Mike Catron and Preston White joining as editor and designer, respectively. Catron is actually the co-founder of Fantagraphics, going back to the Virginia/Connecticut origins of the company as The Nostalgia Journal. White (who was known as "Peppy" in the olden days) was a designer for many of the seminal '80s publications.
Continue ReadingSales Charts: Diamond releases complete January 2012 charts and publisher market share
Here's Diamond complete market share charts for January, show Marvel and DC splitting the dollars and units. And here are links to all of the sales charts released for the month. As a reminder, am Indie publisher is a non-premiere publisher— so any company but DH, DC, IDW, IMAGE, or MARVEL. A "Small Press" publisher is one outside the top-10 bestselling publishers over the previous six months.
Continue ReadingSo just how many digital comics did DC sell in January?
Have you been wondering what digital comics DC has been selling the most of? While you can do a running snapshot of iTunes' "in app Sales" it doesn't give you a month's total. But, as they did last month, DC has just released their Top Ten digital comics for January to CBR. And it goes like this:
Continue ReadingLisa Hanawalt with the last word on The Super Bowl
The Puppy Bowl wasn’t so cute this year.
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