Coming Attractions: January 2012: Marvel and DC
Here's what caught my eye this month, from DC and Marvel!
Continue ReadingCrossover News Roundup (DC and Marvel)
A little more information on the various crossovers has emerged over the week. Batman/Night of the Owls Over at Newsarama, Scott Snyder has shed a little light on this Batman Event that's spawned its own backup feature.
Continue ReadingMarvel announces second wave…of printings!
Perhaps not wanting to be left off the second wave chatter today, Marvel has announced a slew of second printings for books like SCARLET SPIDER and DEFENDERS. And some new covers, as well.
Continue ReadingThe Surprising State of Marvel Graphic Novels and the Diamond 2011 List
Over at Publisher's Weekly, I was writing about how Marvel has trouble keeping their books in print and had some retailers tell me how Marvel's sales suffer for it. Now with Diamond's 2011 year-end sales charts coming out, WOW, do things look odd.
Continue ReadingEXCLUSIVE: AvX Alan Davis teaser
Fight! Marvel is releasing a series of teasers for Avengers vs X-Men, the big slugfest for 2012, and we're pleased to EXCLUSIVELY present this one by the great Alan Davis . The biggest superhero brawl in the history of the Marvel Universe begins this April in Avengers Vs. X-Men #1! Which team will reign supreme? Join the conversation on Twitter with #AvX!
Continue ReadingDisney XD rolls out Marvel Universe programming block in April
From the moment Disney purchased Marvel, people were drawing a line between their Disney XD channel -- an attempt to lure more of the lucrative audience of young boys -- and the Marvel characters. Marvel animation has been running non-stop on the cable channel ever since, but in April, the Marvel Universe programming block will roll out with the new Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon as the tentpole. Produced by Man of Action — Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, Duncan Rouleau and Steven Seagle—the creators behind Ben 10 and Generator Rex, with input from Jeph Loeb,joe Quesada and Brian Michael Bendis, the show does not lack for comic book bonafides. Plus, it's got JK Simmons reprising his lifetime role as J. Jonah Jameson. Soundboard that.
Continue ReadingNew AVENGERS film poster
A new poster for the Avengers film has been circulating -- this seems to be the "Ultimate Avengers Movie" version.
Continue ReadingGerber and Colan’s Phantom Zone – What If Marvel Had Bought DC
Let's start the new year out with a "what if." Over the years, there have been a ton of early-to-mid-'80s rumors about various Marvel creators having proposals in to revamp the DC characters. Some of the stories involve Steve Gerber and Frank Miller pitching new versions of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as Crisis on Infinite Earths was being planned (and that The Dark Knight Returns spun out of said pitches). I've heard Howard Chaykin and Walt Simonson's names attached to similar rumors.
Continue ReadingA New Year’s Gift From The Beat!
Listen to Heidi MacDonald, The Beat herself, discuss 2011 in comics on a special year-end edition of More To Come, the PW Comics World podcast! As you may or may not know, Heidi has been one of the hosts of our bi-weekly comics news podcast for the past several months. In this episode, Heidi MacDonald and her co-hosts PW Comics World editor Calvin Reid and I discuss the biggest trends and events of the past year, including...
Continue ReadingBryan Hitch leaving Marvel for mystery project and spelling lessons
Bryan Hitch, the king of widescreen comics, is announcing the end of his Marvel run of nearly ten years -- or at least that's what he's tweet hinting: In two days time, an amazing decade at Marvel closes for me. What a wonderful time to have joined the party. Very proud and honoured. For the last month, Hitch has been counting down to a purported huge announcement -- he has only five days to go, so January 3 will be the big day -- coincidentally, the day that Hitch's frequent -- Ultimates, Authority-- collaborator Mark Millar also has an announcement planned. Hm.
Continue ReadingMarvel and ESPN team for Tim Tebow cartoon
While they don't equate him with a miracle, Disney stablemates ESPN and Marvel have teamed up for a brief cartoon painting Tebow as a superhero. The segment is barely a minute long, and really only features some stills drawn in the mighty Marvel style, so "minimum comics content." And no Tebowing.
Continue ReadingMarvel prevails in Ghost Rider ownership dispute
Marvel has won a four-year legal battle over who owns the rights to Ghost Rider. On Wednesday a judge rejected the claim by writer Gary Friedrich, who co-created the character in 1972's MARVEL SPOTLIGHT #5 along with Roy Thomas and Mike Ploog.
Continue ReadingBoth Marvel and DC support SOPA, the onerous anti-piracy act
Stopping digital piracy has become a full-time obsession for most major entertainment companies; but the Stop Online Piracy Act now wending its way through Congress is probably not the way to do it -- a far too broad law that would give lawmakers powers to stop just about any activity they don't like via cutting off funding to the site and other zero tolerance measures. Although aimed at hard-to-stop foreign websites that recognize no copyright laws, opponents say the bill goes way too far in allowing copyright holders to choke off stuff they don't want with an arsenal of tools.
Continue ReadingBookmark: The Marvel Age of Comics
Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort has opened up some kind of secret vault where artifacts from Marvel's history have been stored; and just like anyone else would do, he's putting them on Tumblr. For instance, here's the origial last page of AVENGERS #1 with Tom's annotation:
Continue ReadingMarvel Month-to-Month Sales: November 2011 – CORRECTED
With FEAR ITSELF wrapping up, Marvel had several major releases in November - the POINT ONE one-shot, the relaunches of UNCANNY X-MEN and FANTASTIC FOUR, and the first issue of new ongoing title AVENGING SPIDER-MAN. We've also got the epilogue of FEAR ITSELF, the start of BATTLE SCARS, and a bunch of other "Regenesis" tie-ins from the X-books. Marvel found itself behind DC for the third straight month in November, though the gap is growing closer. DC led by 40% to 38% in unit share, and 35% to 33% in dollars. And of course, it should be remembered that DC's extra sales don't appear to have come at Marvel's expense; if DC's relaunch has brought any new or lapsed readers into the market, then in theory, that's good for other publishers too - it brings them into everyone's potential market. Thanks as always to ICV2.com for permission to use these figures. 5. POINT ONE 11/11 One-shot - 113,352 Marvel's top selling comic of the month! Or is it? This book was massively overshipped, with retailers receiving twice the number of copies they'd actually ordered, at no extra cost. Those copies are presumably included in this number - that certainly appears to be Diamond's standard practice, given the odd sales spikes that we've seen when this strategy has been used before. If that's the case, then the actual orders of this book would be 56,676 - which would have placed the book at number 29 between AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and AVENGERS. Considering the solicitation ("You CANNOT miss this. Catch a tease of the biggest change to the Marvel Universe in over 35 years!") that number would surely have been disappointing, even allowing for the six dollar price tag. The wisdom of pricing a teaser book that high must also be open to question.
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