Matthew Vaughn aboard X-MEN: FIRST CLASS
Joining the elite three-time (Stardust, Kick-Ass) club for comic book movie directors, Matthew Vaughn has signed on to direct X-Men: First Class after a lot of back and forth. Bryan Singer was originally on board to direct but he pulled out due to scheduling -- the helmer of the first two X-flicks will stay aboard as producer. Vaughn had been rumored for a while -- he was originally scheduled to direct the third X-men movie before pulling out at the last moment himself, leaving Brett Ratner to have his way with the franchise.
Continue ReadingMarvel’s Jim McCann’s Exit Interview
During his six years as Marketing Manager at Marvel Comics, Jim McCann definitely established himself as a strong candidate for Nicest Guy In Comics, and certainly helped out The Beat on many occasions. This Thursday will be his last day on staff at Marvel, however, as he leaves to pursue his writing career with both regular Marvel writing gigs and a stiking creator-owned project, THE RETURN OF THE DAPPER MEN, coming this fall from Archaia. As McCann mentions in the interview, he long had a background in writing, but his outgoing nature usually ended up spinning him towards marketing jobs, but now he's sticking with the path to what he wants to do. McCann has definitely been in the middle of some of Marvel's wildest rides over the last six years, and when he suggested an "exit interview," we thought it would be a good way to look back on them. Plus he suggested a music number to end it all, so we had to go along. You won't find too much muckraking here -—McCann could easily segue into inspirational speaking -— and things might get a little sappy at the end, but not every one can be a tearjerker!
Continue ReadingBriefs & Boxers: 05/05/10
Share this link on Facebook!Tweet[Editor's note: we enjoyed Marc-Oliver's blogging and reviewing so much at his own site we asked him to contribute something once a week here, as well. Welcome again, M-O. ] o “The Weight of Dead Plot” New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane reviews Iron Man 2 and is relieved, “to find a comic-book [...]
Continue ReadingLost: The Candidate
You fine readers of Heidi's blog can't tell, but this column is being written on vacation in Western Canada. So, for once, the helper monkey is watching hours after everyone on the net (including the Beat) has been posting and tweeting about tonight's episode. After the jump... Meet The Candidates (and I don't mean Robert Redford or Phil Mickelson).
Continue ReadingDC Comics Month-to-Month Sales: March 2010
by Marc-Oliver Frisch March brought jolly good sales for DC's comic-book business! In fact, even considering that it was a month with five delivery days for new comics instead of just four and, consequently, one extra week of re-orders, the numbers seem almost too good on a range of titles, but maybe I'm just paranoid. In particular, DC's Vertigo imprint is beginning to look more solid than it has in ages. Partly, that's because Vertigo released a whopping 19 new comic books in March, a new record for them, but also because many of those books performed well. The big launch of the month was American Vampire, of course, a new ongoing series co-written by Stephen King. It sold an estimated 33,762 copies, the highest first-month sales for Vertigo since Diamond started providing data on sales to retailers in March 2003. (Andy Diggle and Enrique Breccia's Swamp Thing #1 came close: It moved 33,382 units in March 2004.) More significantly for Vertigo's long-term health, there are signs of moderate success with a number of other recent launches. Sales on titles like The Unwritten, Joe the Barbarian and -- to a lesser extent -- Sweet Tooth indicate that the practice of publishing debut issues with low introductory prices is bearing fruit. The Fables spin-off Cinderella and the maxiseries Daytripper are also turning out to be solid sellers. Blackest Night and its tie-ins keep the publisher's DC Universe line in reasonably good shape in March, while the WildStorm imprint saw an increase of 35% in average comic-book sales. The latter is a mixed blessing, though. The spike is entirely due to a highly irregular three new issues of WildStorm top-sellers Astro City and Ex Machina, neither of which came out in April, and one of which has two more issues to go before reaching its conclusion.
Continue ReadingMark Millar launching monthly British comics mag
Share this link on Facebook!TweetPerhaps presaged by Warren Ellis’s widely quoted musings on weekly comics magazines, Mark Millar has announced he’s teaming with Titan Books for CLiNT [sic], a new monthly comics magazine. Announced contributors include comedian Jonathan Ross, novelist Frankie Boyle, and journalist Steve O’Brien. and the mag will serialize Kick-Ass: Balls to [...]
Continue ReadingIf a real Spider-Man fought crimes, it would look something like this
An Australian comics shop owner who was dressed as Spider-Man for his Free Comic Book Day festivities confronted a real life perp, who tried to steal a $150 X-Man Omnibus. ... Michael Baulderstone, 45, owner of the Adelaide Comics Center, said he was dressed as Marvel comics character Spider-Man for Saturday's international "free comic book day," which promotes literacy, when a customer without a costume grabbed a $150 book, the "X-Man Omnibus," from a window display, The Times of London reported Monday. Another employee of the store, who was dressed as the Flash, and other customers, dressed as Jedi Knights, helped subdue the suspect until police arrived. ...Finally, as the video shows, a real life Spider-man's crime solving would involve walking around holding a ruck-sack.
Continue ReadingSimpsons make Comic-Con joke, wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy
By now you all know that Sunday's Simpsons episode used Ke$ha's Tik Tok as their opening theme as the above video shows. But did you know the episode also contained an in-joke relating to the San Diego Comic-Con's potential move to Anaheim? It's true! ...Thanks to ZT for the tip.
Continue ReadingJohnny Ryan’s Tron Of Finland
We're not the world's SMALLLEST Johnny Ryan fan but... when he nails it, he nails it. Via Flog .
Continue ReadingRIP: Alan Coil
I was saddened to learn this morning that frequent Beat poster Lewis "Alan" Coil died of a heart attack on Friday. He was 55. I never met Alan in real life, and certainly he had his disagreements with many people on the internet, but he was a constant presence here and at many other sites, and obviously passionate about comics and participating in the discussion. Alan was a ubiquitous internet presence in the tradition of the great letterhacks. On Peter David's site, Alan's friend Paul Shiple wrote:
Continue ReadingMarvel Month-to-Month sales: March 2010
It's still the event season at Marvel, with SIEGE and FALL OF THE HULKS in full sway, "X-Necrosha" wrapping up, and the "Second Coming" crossover just beginning. March also saw the latest stage in the relaunch of the Ultimate imprint, namely the return of ULTIMATES, and the start of Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's NEMESIS. Oh, and if you feel there's still a dearth of Deadpool comics out there, look out for all five issues of the PRELUDE TO DEADPOOL CORPS miniseries, setting up a new Deadpool title to start in April. Needless to say, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market yet again. This time they beat DC by 47% to 30% in unit share, and 42% to 27% in dollars.
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Jack Kirby in Lucerne
You might wonder why the first city to stage a major fine art retrospective on the whole career of Jack Kirby is Lucerne in Switzerland. Since Kirby died in 1994, there have been several modest exhibits, including a small display I curated in 1994 at the Cartoon Art Trust in London, as well as the Masters of Comic Art show which began in Los Angeles and included Kirby as one of the fifteen creators spotlighted. ... Of course the idea of an exhibit of Jack Kirby art is enticing enough; but it includes such personal effects as copies of his letters home to wife Roz from the front in WWII: ...Left him enlightened, somewhat calmer but his problem like some problems was laid in the lap of time which is the only other substitute for John J.
Continue ReadingGene Colan on his recovery
Daniel Best interviews Gene Colan as the legendary artist recuperates from a broken shoulder. ... I should be thinking more of retirement, I suppose, but I don’t even think about retiring. I need to draw, I love it, so why should I give it up. The link includes information about other ongoing efforts to supplement Colan's income via auctions and so on.
Continue ReadingJackie Chan Miyagi
Things That Should Not Be? or The March of Progress? [via Jackie Chan ]
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