So whatcha up to, Trina Robbins and Tyler Page

3 Comments POSTED ON Feb 03 2011 AT 8:01 am BY The Beat

While we were noting our one-year anniversary on our calendar, we also asked some of out pals and gals to update us on what they were up to, comics-wise, and a lot of them obliged. So we'll be posting them as we go along. And we'll keep doing more of it because..it's fun.

Continue Reading

10 seconds of the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN Super Bowl ad

2 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 7:34 pm BY The Beat

Share this link on Facebook!Tweet Whenever I see any of the Pirates 4 previews I think a few things. 1….how a spicy character like Captain Jack Sparrow is best used as seasoning in a stew made of more rational characters and even though PIRATES 2 and 3 were a horrible story mess, Will and Elizabeth gave it [...]

Continue Reading

Borders update: Bankruptcy looming, store uneasy

9 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 4:50 pm BY The Beat

Share this link on Facebook!TweetAccording to Bloomberg, Borders is inching towards bankruptcy, to the surprise of no one. They are looking to file next week and close as many as 150 stores along the way. Oof. On our own reconnaissance mission, we went to the Borders nearest us on Second Avenue to check out conditions on [...]

Continue Reading

Apple goes from savior to overlord with new app purchase enforcement

32 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 2:13 pm BY The Beat

Apple's app stores -- the middleman of all middlemen -- have been the target of a stampede of old media magazines, newspapers, books and comics as the vehicle for sales in the new digital era. But several recent moves make it clear that Apple isn't in this game as a helping hand for anyone. Or, to put it in a more neutral light, Apple is a PARTNER, not a platform. The uh-oh feeling started yesterday when it was revealed that Apple had rejected Sony's e-reader app. This app like the Kindle, Nook, and other "storefronts" sent buyers to a website where they could make purchases without incurring Apple's 30% fee.

Continue Reading

2010 SPACE prizes announced

1 Comment POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 12:58 pm BY The Beat

The SPACE Prize, given to the best publications presented at the SPACE indie comics show held yearly in Columbus, OH., have just been announced, and they are:

Continue Reading

Aaron Colter leaves Dark Horse

6 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 12:50 pm BY The Beat

Marketing Coordinator Aaron Colter tweeted and social networked yesterday that he and Dark Horse had parted ways. Colter was a whiz at Twitter and Facebook and all the other ways we talk today, and managed these fuctions for DH, but he also was, shall we say, irreverent -- not perhaps the best image for a respected publisher. At any rate, maybe posting stuff like the attached image was a tweet too far.

Continue Reading

Celebrate Black History month at 4th Letter

2 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 12:38 pm BY The Beat

David Brothers is blogging Black History Month, spotlighting great cartoonists George Herriman and Jackie Ormes, thus far.

Continue Reading

Speaking of Black Lightning…

3 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 12:04 pm BY The Beat

Viral, unauthorized look at what he's doing now. Warning: Vocals need compression!

Continue Reading

EXCLUSIVE: Preview of Miss Fury from the Library of American Comics

4 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 9:00 am BY The Beat

Tarpé Mills is a name well known to comics historians, not only as one of the best of the female cartoonists of the war years, but as the creator and artist of Miss Fury, one of the first successful superheroine characters, which ran for nearly a decade as a sunday newspaper strip. It was a lively blend of outre characters, adventure and naughtiness. This April Dean Mullaney's Library of American Comics is reprinting the best of the strips in a deluxe volume complete with an introduction by comics historian Trina Robbins. Mullaney provided a desception of the volume and this preview for our Anniversary week:

Continue Reading

Career Week: The Strange Case of Black Lightning

14 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 8:50 am BY The Beat

While we're spotlighting creators issues and outlooks here at Anniversary Week at The Beat, here's an oldie but a goodie: The (Sad) Saga of Black Lightning’s Creation by Daniel Best which presents documents and drawings from writer Tony Isabella and artist Trevor von Eeden, the team known to have created Black Lightning's first appearance. There's some dispute over how the two should be credited -- Isabella claims sole creative credit due to having come up with the character all on his own and described the costume and so on -- but von Eeden has drawings but...we'll we won't get into that here. von Eeden doesn't want the creator's credit--or the royalties that come with it -- but has his own opinions. But that's not what we're here to talk about today. As is well known, Isabella had the foresight to keep a piece of the character he had created independently of DC editorial -- a move he thinks backfired…

Continue Reading

To Do: Carl Barks art in NYC

4 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 8:45 am BY The Beat

Long story short, Heritage Auctions is selling six Donald Duck paintings by the great Carl Backs, and the paintings will be displayed at the Heritage Auctions location at 445 Park Avenue (at 57th Street) through Monday, February 14th.

Continue Reading

Two stories behind the story: JG Jones and J. Michael Straczynski

17 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 8:30 am BY The Beat

A couple of interviews out now clarify controversial comics news stories of the past and more recent past; both are a reminder that what you read on CBR or Newsarama is rarely the whole truth -- and that's it's not always our business to know the whole truth.

Continue Reading

TicketLeap takes pride in handling Comic-Con ticket sales

6 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 8:12 am BY The Beat

As you may recall, this Saturday is the FOURTH attempt at Pass-oween for the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con, with tickets going on sale with a new, multi-phase system which is being handled by TicketLeap, which explains in a press release:

Continue Reading

SUMFIN’ SILLY launches on ACT-I-VATE

2 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 8:02 am BY The Beat

Continuing their five-year anniversary party, webcomic collective ACT-I-VATE announces another new strip, SUMFIN' SILLY by Xeric-winner Nathan Schreiber (POWER OUT). It's the self-proclaimed "silliest comic on the web."

Continue Reading

Nice art: Paul Pope does Guido Crepax

4 Comments POSTED ON Feb 02 2011 AT 8:01 am BY The Beat

From the Adhouse THB Comics From Mars Issue 2 special edition, now available in the UK only from FPI UK..

Continue Reading
Art

Donate

Our Sponsors

Contributors

Heidi MacDonald, editor-in-chief

Assistant Editor: Kate Fitzsimons

Contributing Editors
Torsten Adair
Jen Vaughn

Technology Editor: Bruce Lidl
Entertainment Editor: Shannon O'Leary

Columnists:
Todd Alcott
Michel Fiffe
Marc-Oliver Frisch
Rich Johnson
Paul O'Brien
MK Reed

Illustrations:
Maggie Siegel-Berele

You may also like:

Let’s review!

February 2011
M T W T F S S
« Jan   Mar »
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28  

Upcoming Events

    No events to show

The Beat Twitter stream

CLASSIFIEDS

Top Shelf

© 2006-2012 Heidi MacDonald - The Beat. Powered by Wordpress. All rights reserved. Logo by Comicraft.