Q3? More like CRAP 3
It's fitting that September's top selling comic features an image of Wolverine crouching atop a giant turd, because overall, sales were in the crapper, and the whole quarter was in the dumpster, ICv2 tells us. If you think we're exaggerating, the normally understated ICv2's use of the word "Sucked" is a strong indicator.
Continue ReadingLynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize established
Anyone setting eyes on the Library of America's gorgeous new Lynd Ward boxed set will immediately add it to the Christmas wish list. (It's the first time a graphic novel has been added to the list on classic works.) But the pioneering graphic novelist is getting a new honor -- Penn State is naming an award after him, The Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize (also the Lynd Ward Prize for the Best Graphic Novel of the Year). Ward's daughters donated a collection of his wood engravings, original book illustrations, and other graphic art donated to the Penn State University Libraries, establishing an association. The prize of $2500 will be announced each spring and be presented to the best graphic novel, fiction or non-fiction, published in the previous calendar year in the United States by a living American citizen or resident.
Continue ReadingUrasawa’s PLUTO coming to the screen?
Naoki Urasawa is almost surely the most important genre-related cartoonist working today. The recently concluded Pluto and still-coming out 21st Century Boys have more suspense, action and mystery in one volume than entire months of most other publishers comics. But he remains a bit of an acquired taste here in the US -- cartoonists love him, but sales remain modest. So maybe it's good news that Illumination Entertainment is developing a live action/CGI PLUTO movie .
Continue ReadingArmie Hammer spills beans on mature Superman and the lost JLA movie
Armie Hammer is a giant, beautiful human. Now that we have that out of the way, it's very obvious -- after his scene-stealing turn as the rowing Winklevoss twins in THE SOCIAL NETWORK -- that he would make a swell giant, beautiful Kryptonian. However, as he blabs in an interview with Vulture, at 24 he's too young for the upcoming Zack Snyder Superman movie which will deal with a more mature 35-40 year old Man of Steel. Given that we've seen the original of Superman told so well in the Christopher Reeve versions, an older I-know-what-I'm-doing Man of Steel might be a good change-up. It's also more in line with the age of Christian Bale's Batman. And, it just feels more Curt Swan, y'know.
Continue ReadingStraight talk with Eric Stephenson
Image publisher Eric Stephenson doesn't get quoted too much, but maybe he should. Rich Johnston has a very in-depth interview with Stephenson up and its about time. Image is consistently the #3 or 4 comics publishers and in recent months Image has absolutely stolen the mantle of "buzz book" publisher, starting with Chew, but continuing on with Turf, Skullkickers, Morning Glorys and so on. And of course, with the Walking Dead TV show debuting in a few days, they are set to sell even MORE copies of a book that already has 3 million copies in print. As Stephenson mentions, he doesn't often go around tooting his horn, so the inetrview touches on a lot of point seldom publicly spoken of. Kudos to Johnston and Stephenson for putting something substantive up on the internet for a change. Anyone interested in the state of comics publishing and creators rights should read the whole thing, but a few selected tidbits:
Continue ReadingTransmedia-tastic: Kerschl and Stewart create Assassin’s Creed comic
Cross-over everywhere: cartoonists Karl Kerschl and Cameron Stewart talk about how they created a comic that expands the universe of the wildly popular video game, Assassin's Creed. In keeping with all the transmedia stuff you're always hearing about, they were given quite a bit of latitude to create their own characters and give the spin-off their own spin. ASSASSIN'S CREED: THE FALL will run three issues and be published by Ubisoft.
Continue ReadingPodcast alley: Comic News Insider #300
Podcasters Jimmy Aquino and Joe Gonzalez and their long running Comic News Insider podcast are big supporters of The Beat, and the feeling is mutual, so we were happy to go down and put in an appearance on their Gala 300th Episode But we were in fantastic company: Kevin Maguire (JLA), Kate Beaton (HARK! A VAGRANT), Veronica Taylor (voice of Ash from Pokemon), Michael Emerson (Ben Linus from Lost), Molly Crabapple (Dr. Sketchy's), and Ben McCool aka FMB (CHOKER) were also on the show. Beaton did a long interview that revealed her construction site past, and everyone else was equally informative. Good times!
Continue Reading31 Days of Halloween, Supplemental: Angry Birds
You hardly need us to tell you this, but there is a special Halloween-themed, 45-level bonus Angry Birds game that just went on sale for $.99. Angry Birds is an obsession around Stately Beat Manor, and paired with our other obsession, Halloween, it means that we'll be posting even LESS soon, if that is possible.
Continue Reading31 Days of Halloween: Travis Lampe
Illustrator, toy designer, and sometime cartoonist Travis Lampe has just released some neat Halloween prints. [Via Super Punch]
Continue ReadingSo is Marvel lowering their number of $3.99 books or not?
Marvel's solicitations came out today* and indsuytry watcher were standing by with microscopes to scrutinize a proposed 1) drop in the number of $2.99 books and 2) decrease in the number of books altogether. On #2, there seems to be some corroboration with what was said at the NYCC retail breakfast, according to Bleeding Cool, which does a big count of all titles in all families. Compared to December there is a 17 percent drop in the number of titles, and a 20 percent decrease in total cover price.
Continue Reading31 Days of Halloween: Kyle Bolton
Animator Kyle Bolton provides a team-up of sorts between his own Smash Comics character and a more familiar one. Smash Comics is a superhero webcomic for kids, written by Chris Bolton, that was recently picked up by Candlewick Press. More info here.
Continue ReadingSarah Glidden is going to Iraq for “Stumbling Towards Damascus”
With her How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less soon to come out (and getting solid advance reviews) cartoonist Sarah Glidden is embarking on another journey to the Middle East, with hopes of turning it into another non-fiction comic. And she's funding part of the travel via Kickstarter with a project called "Stumbling Towards Damascus". For the project, she'll be working with the Common Language Project, a Seattle-based group of journalists who travel to under-reported on areas. For this trip they'll be journeying to places affected by the Iraq war, including Syria, Turkey and the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Glidden's larger hope is to follow in the tradition established by Joe Sacco, whose "comics journalism" in the Middle East has won multiple awards.
Continue ReadingPekar’s death ruled accidental overdose
Cuyahoga country coroner Frank Miller has issued a report on Harvey Pekar's July 12th death and ruled it was from natural causes, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. However the cause of death was given as an accidental overdose of fluoxetine and bupropion (commonly sold as Prozac and Wellbutrin.) Pekar suffered from high blood pressure, asthma and clinical depression, and was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.
Continue ReadingJonny Rench remembered
The Wildstorm blog has a series of tributes to colorists Jonny Rench who died over the weekend at the age of 28. Among those he worked with, Neil Goodge, Liam Sharp, Trevor Hairsine, and this from Gail SImone, whose Welcome to Tranquility series he colored:
Continue ReadingHow almost to: Embedding comics
Gareth Hinds is a very accomplished artist (and former Xeric winner) whose comics adaptations of classic literature have found a home at Candlewick Press. His full color Odyssey adaptation just came out, and there's a nice story about it in today's PW. While we were looking around for some art to illustrate the story, we came on Hinds' own page for the book and were struck by the "embeddable comics preview" on the page, which he said was developed by Candlewick: Candlewick has released a short preview, using some new "widget" technology which enables it to be easily embedded in any blog or webpage. There are still a few rough spots in the implementation, but it's pretty handy. See below -- and feel free to repost it elsewhere!
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