Nice art: Skottie and Scott’s Harry Potter sketches
Skottie Young, who has thrilled us with his Oz comics, and Pixar's Scott Morse have a sketch blog together and it's lovely. Today they are doing some Harry Potter sketches and they are, predictably, awesome. Above, Dumbledore by Young; below, Lumos by Morse.
Continue ReadingSan Diego Comic-Con: Painless Hoteloween gives way to days of agonized waiting
This morning's San Diego Comic-Con hotel registration process was, as opposed to past days, a quick 3 minute exercise during which I did not hit refresh even once. As you may recall, in the olden days, servers were usually swamped, resulting in endless refreshing, endless waiting, endless website crashes, endless agony. The upside was that you knew within an hour if you had your hotel.
Continue ReadingComics industry much bigger than it was 50 years ago
As he posted in the comments yesterday, Russ Maheras has run some numbers showing that despite millions of comics selling in the '50s/'60s and 1000's selling now, the industry as a whole is way more profitable now -- say $600 million as opposed to $236 million. John Jackson Miller hosts the figures and breaks it down:
Continue ReadingMajestic Snow Batman towers over Vermont
Speaking of Vermont, Beat Spy Inky Jen passed along this epic photo of a huge Batman carved from the icy terrain spotted by a passing motorist/blogger. (Click link for larger image.)
Continue ReadingVideo Watch: Tom Gammill at CCS
Comedy writer Tom Gammill (Seinfeld, The Simpsons) has a comic strip called The Doozies, and has made a bunch of videos in which he teaches the ancient secrets of cartooning. In his 26th episode, he visits the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont and discovered things about the climate and the students. The humor is a bit, er, broad, but this video is quite charming.
Continue ReadingNice art: Gilbert Hernandez’s Master of the Universe
Everyone else has lauded this illustration of the Masters of the Universe by the great Gilbert Hernandez, and we will not be the only ones to miss out on the action.
Continue ReadingTwitter hacker strikes comics pros
For a while last night, Twitter and Facebook were a parade of laughs as a number of prominent comics pros were struck by a hacker who commandeered their tweets and status updates to suggest that "I just viewed my TOP10 Profile STALKERS. I can't believe my EX is still checking me every day." Really no fun for the hackees, but it was amusing to watch unfold. Poor Ed Brubaker was hard hit, and Chip Zdarsky suggested it was getting really out of control. Okay, maybe you had to be there.
Continue ReadingSpider-Man musical officially delayed again — can it be saved?
Well, it looks like The Beatwill have to see Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark again! Because when it officially opens--in JUNE this time--it could be a different show. The NY Times reports that what everyone was whispering yesterday was true: the opening has been delayed until June, and the production -- the most expensive in Broadway history -- will take a break to try to fix some of the problems, and probably bring in a fixer.
Continue ReadingFebruary comics: The growing midlist
Sales charts estimates for February were out today and the top seller, GREEN LANTERN, set a record for lowest total ever, writes John Jackson Miller. However, the titles lower on the charts showed STRONGER sales:
Continue ReadingJim Shooter blogs
"On a November day in 1957 I found myself standing in front of Miss Grosier’s first grade class in Hillcrest Elementary School in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, trying to think of a really good word. She had us play this game in which each kid had to offer up a word to the class, and for every classmate who couldn’t spell your word, you got a point--provided, of course, that you could spell the word. Whoever got the most points received the coveted gold star."
Continue ReadingCharlie Sheen vs Marge Gundersson
Okay we have not been linking to EVERY single Charlie Sheen comic because, let's face it, we're beating this thing to death. Yes there was Family Circus and Superhero Quotes and Sheen vs Deadpool and even some Comics Alliance didn't link to. But it is Kate Beaton who has supplied both the only necessary Charlie Sheen comics and the FINAL Charlie Sheen comic, in a page featuring Marge Gundersson, the sensible sheriff from Fargo. That is a tiger blood rocket to Mars right there.
Continue ReadingNice art: Man-Thing by Adams
Just to balance out the International Women's day stuff here Man-Thing by artist (and Beat pal) Art Adams.
Continue ReadingNice art: Comic Twart’s Plastic Man
Art blog Comic Twart is drawing Plastic Man. Above, Ron Salas. Below, Dave Johnson.
Continue ReadingUntil the answer is yes, we must never stop asking
It's international Women's Day, yo. To celebrate, let's watch this video of Judi Dench (M) interrogating Daniel Craig (uh, James Bond) who appears in drag. "We're equals, aren't we, 007?" asks Dame Dench. Let's also look at the day in nerd gender relations. There was much tweeting yesterday about the new TCJ.com and the number of lady contributors. Melinda Beasi at Manga Bookshelf sums up the whole thing, and the comments have it out and then everyone sat down and ate a hearty lunch.
Continue ReadingDC Comics Month-to-Month Sales: January 2011
DC kicks off the year with a new sales record: Average numbers of the DC Universe line dropped by 21% in January, to 24,321 -- the lowest number in the history of these charts, by about 4,000 units. Traditionally a weak month in the comic-book market, January 2011 was even more of a downer than usual for DC. With only five titles selling above the 50k mark, average comic-book sales of the company at large fell to 21,922, the lowest figure since March 2009, while average Vertigo sales clung to the 10,000-unit mark, as they've done for the last three years. The poor January performance of the DC Universe line comes thanks to three different kinds of erosion. First up, DC failed to get Green Lantern, Batman Incorporated and The Flash out of the door, three of its major titles, while a fourth one, Batman: The Dark Knight, was still late from December. Second, DC is looking at a whole range of failing titles: Out of the 43 ongoing monthly DC Universe series currently on sale, eight have been marked for cancellation and won't be around come June 2011. That's almost 20% of the imprint's regular output. And there are eight more -- Doc Savage, The Spirit, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Jonah Hex, Booster Gold, Power Girl, Zatanna and Gotham City Sirens -- that look less than healthy and sell fewer copies than some of the ones that have already been axed. At the tail end of the spectrum, finally, six former WildStorm titles were absorbed into the DC Universe line in January, where they end up being the six lowest-selling books and dragging down the average. (If WildStorm were still around, this would be another new low for them: The six books, one of which missed the charts altogether, have average sales of less than 4,000 units.) So, for better or ill, 2011 is set to be a year of transition for DC, with some heavy lifting in the company's periodical line. See below for the details, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com's estimates can be found here.
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