Diamond heads back to Chicago for 2011 retailer summit
Diamond has just announced that they'll be holding their retailer's summit this year in conjunction with C2E2 in Chicago, as they did last year. The Midwest location allows for access to a wide swath of retailers. This year's show will focus on the topic of attracting new customers, with a day of workshops and focus groups on Thursday, March 17th, and a retailer breakfast on the 18th. Diamond also announced participation at a variety of shows throughout 2011.
Continue ReadingWizard cons expand potential guest pool
Is Wizard World trying to turn into TCAF? Of late, the convention tour has been reaching out to indie cartoonists, suggesting a rather unlikely team-up.
Continue ReadingNow THAT’S what we call objectification!
Just how gay were the old Marvel Swimsuit Specials? Very, very gay, Richard Cook writes, and JR JR demonstrates:
Continue ReadingDiamond stops shipping to Borders
Share this link on Facebook!Tweet As Borders struggles to dig itself out of debt, it has suspended payments to its vendors. And several publishers have stopped shipping to the book chain. Now add Diamond Book Distributors to that list. They have informed their clients that since Borders has suspended payments to them, DBD is suspending product [...]
Continue Reading2010 sales charts wrap-up: Creators are king
With Diamond's year-end sales charts released, along with year-to-year comparisons, the pundits are out in force, making all kinds of observations and suggestions. We'll try to run them down in an orderly fashion but you might want to get a cuppa...there are a lot of them,. We've bolded things for skimmers, however. First off, heroic John Jackson Miller has taken all the sales charts and given us the Top 1000 Comics and Top 1000 GNs of 2010. Jackson finds softening in every region of the periodical chart:
Continue ReadingSales chart go-round: December Comic Sales analysis
Share this link on Facebook!TweetThe other day ICv2 released their sales estimates for December, and the year ended on a mixed note, as we previously reported: Comics were down 7.5 percent, while graphic novels were up a gaudy 26.7 percent. Combined sales were up 2.2 percent year over year. So why the GN sales surge? A [...]
Continue ReadingArchie goes day and date with digital comics
Long-running comics publisher Archie is taking the plunge to become the first comics publisher to put its entire line for sale in print and digital at the same time, it's been announced on their blog. DC announced day and date with BATMAN BEYOND last week, but this is the first time a publisher has made the whole line available. The policy goes into effect on April 1, and will include KEVIN KELLER #1, starring the popular gay character.
Continue ReadingAngry women of the day: Comics shops and Wonder Woman
§ In the never-ending discourse over gender and comics, one of those classic anecdotes -- this one told by a man:
Continue ReadingKate Beaton goes to D&Q
The big news of the day: D&Q has picked up Kate Beaton and will publish her next collection, HARK! A VAGRANT. Beaton's current print outlet is the Topatoco edition of Never Learn Anything from History, which, every time we've seen Beaton at a show -- is sold out. Grrrrrr. It isn't clear from the PR if this is a new edition of that material or all new but the word "next" suggests the latter.
Continue ReadingGN News: Marzi and Delirium at Vertigo
The Vertigo blog has some news and art this am, a new blurb for AARON & AHMED, the GN by Jay Cantor and James Romberger. Also news of MARZI by Marzena Sowa and Sylvain Savoia, sort of a Polish PERSEPOLIS about a young girl growing up in '80s Poland. Interestingly, this is NOT an original GN but a translation of the original, which was published in France, a bit of a change for the imprint. (That's the Spanish version above.)
Continue ReadingThe DFC Library Day Three: Neill Cameron
Share this link on Facebook!Tweet Neill Cameron is best known online for his A-Z of Awesomeness and drawing a lot of weird Santa Clauses on his blog last month, but he also recently had his comic Mo-Bot High released as part of the DFC Library. Mo-Bot High is the tale of Asha, a typical young girl [...]
Continue ReadingNice art: Barry Blitt’s Spider-Man New Yorker cover
Share this link on Facebook!Tweet The Spider-Man musical’s woes are now so iconic they’ve made the cover of The New Yorker.
Continue ReadingGREEN HORNET is a lot of fun
We caught a screening of GREEN HORNET last night, and despite all the dire forebodings of a superhero movie starring Seth Rogen , it was charming, very funny and worthy of repeated viewings. As I tweeted last night, the mix of Rogen, director Michel Gondry and scripters Rogen and Evan Goldberg (SUPERBAD) should have aroused no worry whatsoever as long as they were allowed to play to their considerable strengths -- which mostly involve comedy. And in fact GREEN HORNET is an action comedy -- quite goofy in spots, visually inventive in others but always putting its characters first. It has the deliberately awkward mise en scene of all Gondry films, but way more propulsive action.
Continue ReadingK ‘n’ B — 1/11/11
Interviews, craft, big boobs. Just another day at Comic Book Ranch.
Continue ReadingThe DFC Library Day Two: Sarah McIntyre
Share this link on Facebook!Tweet (Sarah McIntyre (right) with Gillian Rogerson, the writer of You Can’t Eat a Princess, at Thought Bubble last year.) Sarah McIntyre’s Vern and Lettuce was one of the most recent round of books released from the DFC Library. Its story features a sheep and a rabbit that live in a tower block [...]
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