Here’s Diamond complete market share charts for January, show Marvel and DC splitting the dollars and units.

And here are links to all of the sales charts released for the month.

As a reminder, am Indie publisher is a non-premiere publisher— so any company but DH, DC, IDW, IMAGE, or MARVEL.

A “Small Press” publisher is one outside the top-10 bestselling publishers over the previous six months.

Here ya go!
Diamond January 2012 Top 300 comics periodicals
Diamond January 2012: Top 300 graphic novels
Diamond January 2012 Top 50 Small Graphic Novels
Diamond January 2012 Top 50 Small Comics
Diamond January 2012: Top 50 Manga
Diamond January 2012: Top 50 Indie comics
Diamond January 2012: top 50 Indie graphic novels
Diamond January 2012 Charts in Toys, Books, etc.

Have you been wondering what digital comics DC has been selling the most of? While you can do a running snapshot of iTunes’ “in app Sales” it doesn’t give you a month’s total. But, as they did last month, DC has just released their Top Ten digital comics for January to CBR And it goes like this:

DC Comics’ Top 10 Digital Titles, January 2011

#1 Batman (2011-) #5
#2 Justice League (2011-) #5
#3 Action Comics (2011-) #5
#4 Detective Comics (2011-) #5
#5 Green Lantern (2011-) #5
#6 Batman and Robin (2011-) #5
#7 Batman (2011-) #4
#8 Justice League (2011-) #4
#9 Superman (2011-) #5
#10 Aquaman (2011-) #5

So — new comics holding steady.

Of course this chart lacks actual numbers. But perhaps we can extrapolate a little teeny bit here — in a December interview, DC’s John Rood suggested that
But consistency is the right word — especially consistency in the digital end. There has been no shake up of numbers when you look at the percentage of physical sales by title. So if something is selling 6% of its physical sales digitally for issues #1 and 2, then it’s about 6% in issues #3 and 4. And if another title has been selling at 16% of print sales in the early titles, the latter titles have stayed at the same level. So there’s been no fluctuation. And the fact is that the makeup is largely the same and the performances you’ve seen in the data provided is largely the same in digital as it is in physical, yet we know from both anecdotal and primary research that this is a different audience. It suggests that the people might be different [for digital and print] but their tastes and their demos are largely the same.
6% and 16% seem like awfully specific numbers. So perhaps we can except that digital sales are someone between those number as percentage of print sales?

That’s a LOT more than the 1-3% that we’ve previously heard from most publishers. Again, only guessing.

Rood and Bob Wayne have their usual chat in this month’s report, and a subject near and dear to our heart comes up:
People frequently ask – and sometimes this is other people in the industry while sometimes it’s retailers or fans – whether these

numbers on the Diamond charts are the same numbers that actually sell. The argument there is that with returnability and the fact that these are estimates rather than the actual data you have, these numbers may inflate performance. Overall, do you feel this data honestly represents what you’ve been getting back when all is said and done?

Wayne: The Diamond charts for a number of years – ever since we started doing very limited returnability offers on certain projects to retailers could make sure they’re able to stock things like the weekly “52″ project a number of years back – have done a set aside on the numbers in reserve against any returns. So the numbers are depressed on the side of the set asides. We know what the set aside is, and we also then have our data later that shows us what the actual return rate was. And we’ve been very pleased that this has been an effective and efficient way for us to get as many copies on the shelves of retailers around the world as possible. In that ten out of ten, only one of those ten titles on the chart has any level of returnability. Nine of them have none.

Rood: So in answer to your question, not only do we consider the list accurate and reflective of our sales, we think anyone who would question that is kidding themselves.

Burn!

Hoorah Big…Blue. Um. Anyway. As a Jets fan, The Beat doesn’t exactly root for the New Jersey Giants, but we are happy to see an area team triumph over its foes and represent Wall Street in the ticker tape parade category. So…YEAH. Butt in the backfield.

Meanwhile, irrepressible Lisa Hanawalt did some sketches of the game including this:

The Puppy Bowl wasn’t so cute this year.

By Todd Allen

With the Avengers movie featuring several of Jack Kirby’s co-creations starting up its media run-up to opening night, the Jack Kirby creator’s rights movement has started a petition at Change.org.  Change.org is a website for social movements/causes and online petitions.  Change.org claims credit for getting Bank of America to drop its debit card fees and getting Universal pictures to put more of an environmental emphasis on the website for the adaption of The Lorax by Dr. Suess.

The text of the petition reads:

Give credit and royalties to Jack Kirby and his family.

Jack Kirby is one of the most important and influential artists in the history of U.S. comic books and popular culture. Along with writers Joe Simon, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby created the characters and stories on which Marvel Comics has built a very successful business over the past 60 years. Kirby created or co-created Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, The X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, and many more. For his efforts, Kirby was paid a few dollars a page and never shared in the billions of dollars in profits his characters have made in various media, including print, film, and video games.

We strongly urge Marvel Entertainment and is owner Disney to acknowledge Jack Kirby’s authorship and primary role in the creation of these characters. As well, we urge Marvel to pay Kirby’s family royalties for the use of these characters and stories.

Until such a time as Marvel can make things right with Kirby’s legacy and Kirby’s family and heirs, we will refuse to purchase any Marvel product, including comic books, movies, toys, or games. We ask Marvel, Disney, and its shareholders to act ethically and morally in this situation, just as their characters would.

This is reminiscent of how Neal Adams shamed Warner and DC into acknowledging Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster prior to the premiere of Superman: The Movie.  That may have been a different time, though, and Marvel/Disney may be a little less inclined to make an acknowledgement in the current legal environment.

Rokuro Taniushi is a Japanese illustrator of the 50’s on who has been called “the kawaii Norman Rockwell of Japan” for painting some 1300 covers for the influential weekly magazine Shukan Shincho. Kawaii is the “cute” style of Japanese art, seen and deconstructed in everything from Hello Kitty to Murakami.

For more art, go to 50 Watts.

[Via Tim Hodler]

The Small Press Expo has made it’s 2012 guest list official with the announcement that comics masters Dan Clowes and Chris Ware will both be special guests.

Start lining up now. This year’s SPX will be held September 15-15 in North Bethesda, MD.

The Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons, kicks off 2012 with our official announcement that cartoonists Dan Clowes and Chris Ware will be attending this year’s festival as special guests. 

Superstar cartoonist Dan Clowes was awarded the 2011 PEN Center Literary Award for his “Outstanding body of work in graphic literature.” He received the Independent Spirit Award and an Academy Award nomination as writer for the movie Ghost World, based on his graphic novel, and he has published in the New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, and GQ. He was the first cartoonist selected for inclusion in Esquire’s prestigious fiction issue, and he drew the backgrounds for The Ramones’ video “I Don’t Want to Grow Up.” But for cartooning cognoscenti, he is perhaps best loved for Eightball, the ambitious and groundbreaking serialized anthology in which he premiered most of the stories eventually collected in his graphic novels.  The most recent issue of Eightball contained the entire story “The Death Ray”, published in 2011 as a standalone graphic novel and selected by The Onion’s AV Club as one of “The Best 25 Comics of the ‘00s.”

Graphic novelist, gallery cartoonist, strip cartoonist – Chris Ware is one of the best known and most respected independent American cartoonists. He has guest edited McSweeney’s Quarterly and The Best American Comics and published cartoons in the New Yorker as well as the Virginia Quarterly Review. He was the first cartoonist to serialize a story in The New York Times Magazine, and has had his work included in the Whitney Biennial. His graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan – the Smartest Kid on Earth received the Guardian First Book Award, the American Book Award and the prestigious French comics award “L’Alph Art.” Fans are eagerly anticipating Volume 21 of his Acme Novelty Library comic strip series and his new compendium, Building Stories, will be released this Fall from Pantheon.

Or as “Damon Lindelof tweeted,

Voltron has life insurance? I cry foul, MetLife.

Is this the best toon team-up since Roger Rabbit?

The video shows every cartoon character from Charlie Brown to Jabberjaw joining together to celebrate the Affordable Care Act, MetLife’s commitment to affordable insurance. It is questionable whether everyone in the spot would currently be insurable, however, due to some preexisting conditions. Fat Albert is at risk for Type 2 diabetes due to his weight and unhealthy lifestyle, for instance. He-Man’s dangerous deeds would lead to sky-high premiums as defending the universe from evil-doers can be a very hazardous profession. Casper the Friendly Ghost is already dead, so presumably wold be uninsurable on that basis.

On a more serious note, this is a great opportunity to link to Colleen Doran’s great round-up of tips on how freelancers can get insurance.If Coleen weren’t such a great artist I could totally see her doing the entrepreneur thing and doing nothing but go around telling people how to be more productive.

PS: if you like the ad on Facebook you get to “meet the cast” and learn more about all the characters in the spot.

And here’s the complete getting the gang together AVENGERS trailer.

Straight from the Super Bowl, the extended version of the John Carter spot.

By Todd Allen

It’s Super Bowl Sunday.  How does Marvel celebrate?  How about giving away a free comic?

“MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS PRELUDE: FURY’S BIG WEEK #1″ is available for free digital download today (Sunday, 2/5).  This will be a weekly digital series, with a new $0.99 chapter dropping each Tuesday.  This series is written by Eric Pearson and Christopher Yost, with art by Luke Ross.  This is the _film_ version of the Avengers and looks to be be bridging the gap between Thor (the movie), Captain America (the movie) and the upcoming Avengers film.

So what we have here is the Samuel L. Jackson Nick Fury just after Thor has concluded and just prior to digging out Captain America, giving a little better idea of how the timelines of those two film fit together.

This is an interesting promotion, in that Marvel is releasing the material digitally first as a run-up/tie-in to the movie, rather than as a print series.  The weekly releases, in theory, could build and sustain interest in the film, though it’s odd this will be  wrapping up roughly a month before the May 4 release date for the Avengers.  Or perhaps they’ll have another set of digital comics to bridge that gap when the time comes.

Either way, digital takes another step forward.

You can down load Fury’s Big Week from the Marvel App on your various mobile devices or head over to Comixology and read it on your computer.

Video game concept artist, Nate Simpson’s, Image Comics miniseries, Nonplayer, is being adapted for the big screen by X-Men First Class co-scribe, Jane Goldman. Nonplayer is a sci fi online game immersion drama. The series netted Simpson the 2011 Eisner Award for Best Newcomer (via Sciencefiction.com)

While The Hunger Games isn’t out in comic book format yet, all you Twihard haters and lovers out there can be damned sure it will be. To that end, a new trailer for the highly anticipated Lionsgate film will be shown during some football game over the weekend but you can also watch it over at Yahoo Movies now. IGN also put up an interview yesterday with hottie Josh Hutcherson whose been cast in the role of Peeta Mark.

Listen up, people! John Hawkes, The dude who plays Kenny Powers’ brother on Eastbound and Down (and who was also Miranda July’s weirdo love interest in You, Me and Everyone We Know), WILL NOT, I repeat WILL NOT be playing The Governor on The Walking Dead. In spite of numerous nerd titters to the contrary from all over the interwebs, Hawkes’ “publicist states quite plainly that “John is NOT appearing on The Walking Dead.” I think that’s too bad. Hawkes could’ve been an interesting choice to play the rapist megalomaniacal fiend everyone’s been itching to see The Walking Dead showrunners cast (via MTV Splashpage)

Director Denis Villeneuve, who most recently released the acclaimed independent film Incendies, is developing an adaptation of Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza. It’s nice to see a comics work with real world gravitas, important historical implications and political intrigue adapted alongside the more usual superhero and sci fi fare. Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter (good gracious me, no!). It is, however, encouraging to see a live action adaptation of one of the premiere works in the pioneering field of comics journalism in the making. Especially when talented cartoonists like Josh Neufeld, Sarah Glidden, and Susie Cagle are regularly covering serious topics like Hurricaine Katrina and The Occupy Movement in their journo-comics and graphic novels. Here’s hoping they’ll be going Hollywood sometime soon as well.

GAME OF THRONES SEASON TWO SPOILERS!!!! In case you forgot: Winter is coming in April, bitches!!! Are you ready for the second season of Game of Thrones? To aid you in your anticipation, here’s an interview with Ian Cunningham, who’s been cast as the brave ranger of the Night’s Watch, Quorin Halfhand, and here’s another one with my boyfriend, Kit Harington, who hints that while his character, Jon Snow, won’t be hanging out with Tyrion Lannister this season, it looks like he’s going to be getting some play beyond The Wall… (via Access Hollywood and MTV Splashpage)

Aaandd that’s it for this week – enjoy your weekend!

By Todd Allen

Diamond has posted the top 100 sellers for January 2012.  I’ve taken their index and plugged in 31,496 for the sales of Walking Dead and calculated sales guesstimates for the rest of the titles based on Diamond’s index where 100 = the sales of the current issue of Batman.  Where did I get that number?  That was December’s estimated sales for Walking Dead and for the last 6 months, The Walking Dead has fluctuated 1.5% or less from month to month.  It’s a shockingly consistent book of late, but if the real estimates of Walking Dead fluctuated in January, then these guesstimates are going to be further off.

Since that number puts Batman #5 at 130,095 copies and the real estimate from ICV2 for Batman #4 was 133,781, I’m thinking these guesstimates are more likely to be high than low… which would bode ill for Marvel.  As it is, I’ve only got them with two issues (of one title) breaking the 60K barrier.

All clear on how I arrived at these numbers?

Here are the guesstimates:

Giant Robot’s YEAR OF THE DRAGON art exhibit, themed around this year’s Chinese horoscope, is now online. It also serves as a farewell to BR employee Michelle Borok, who curated many exhibitions at the iconic LA store. You can view the entire exhibit here. Above, “Pink Mountains, Black Dragon” by Sara Saedi..

The artistic lineup:

Andrice Arp, Robert Bellm, Aaron Brown, Elliot Brown, Stasia Burrington, Bjorn Calleja, Ako Castuera, Sean Chao, Louise Chen, Shawn Cheng, James Chong, Luke Chueh, Chris Cilla, Jesse Fillingham, Cam Floyd, Harrison Freeman, Renee French, Gabe Gonzales, Kio Griffith, Joe Hahn, Nao Harada, Hiro Hayashi, David Horvath, Kerry Horvath, Martin Hsu, Mark Ingram, Mari Inukai, Elizabeth Ito, Marc Johns, Jeremiah LaTorre, Little Friends of Printmaking, Tessar Lo, Bradford Lynn, Miso, Gary Musgrave, Mark Nagata, Ming Ong, Martin Ontiveros, Sana Park, Sidney Pink, Jarrett Quon, Jesse Reklaw, Sara Saedi, Ryan Jacob Smith, Dave Stolte, Ken Taya, Edwin Ushiro, Christine Vincent, Steven Weissman, Heidi Woan, Yoskay Yamamoto, Jeni Yang, Yejin Oh, Sashiko Yuen

By Todd Allen

*Update* DC has revised their website to list Tieri and Poulton as scripters.

————-

Change is still in the air at DC.  You may recall Rob Liefeld got three new books?  We now know his collaborators on those.

Deathstroke with be a solo endeavor for Liefeld.  On Grifter, Rob is joined by Frank Tieri as co-writer scripter.  Tieri, another blast from the past, is probably most strongly associated with early Quesada-era Marvel, working on titles like Wolverine, Weapon X and Iron Man.  He also has done some DC work on titles like Batman and the Outsiders and Gotham Underground.  Over on Savage Hawkman, Mark Poulton is the co-writer scripter and Joe Bennett is the artist.  Poulton has recently been working on Liefeld’s Avengelyne title over at Image.  Bennett moves over from Deathstroke.  Interestingly, way back in the 90s, Bennett drew a few issue’s of Liefeld’s Supreme comic.

Next up, we have the next arc for DC Universe Presents:

Following the conclusion of the science-fiction based CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, the new story arc begins when the nation’s best FBI profiler, Kass Sage, must reach out to her father for help in solving a desperate case. The twist? Her father is the imprisoned serial killer, Vandal Savage.

Writing this three-part story will be James Robinson, the acclaimed writer of STARMAN, THE SHADE and the upcoming EARTH 2. And illustrating the book will be the artist of DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS’ premiere story arc (starring Deadman), Bernard Chang.

“I’m absolutely jazzed to be working with one of my favorite writers, James Robinson, again,” Chang exclusively told THE SOURCE. “Along with the rest of the superb crew of DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS – cover artist Ryan Sook and editors Eddie Berganza and Wil Moss. I really enjoy telling stories of substance and character, so I’m planning on taking what we did well during the Deadman arc (with Paul Jenkins) and adding even more Tabasco sauce. We’re taking it to the next level!”

Please note that the actual title of this arc is not mentioned.  The Silence of the Lambs riff is definitely there.  Especially since there have been cannibalism references around Savage in the past.  The last time we saw a Savage daughter running around the DC, it was Scandal Savage over in Secret Six.  Does Scandal exist in the New 52 universe?  Is this her?  Is this her replacement?  Is the daughter the star or is the father?

This is an announcement that leaves more questions than answers.  Still, James Robinson and Bernard Chang is not a bad lineup and Robinson is on a legacy character, which is one of his sweet spots.  Of course that also raises the question of whether this is Earth-2 related or not.

Finally, artist Marcus To is moving to Batwing after wrapping up the Huntress mini-series.  Just in time for the “Night of the Owls” Event, he starts with issue #9.

By Todd Allen

I got a phone call from Rorschach just now.  I told him I didn’t want a prequel, but he didn’t seem to care about that.  Yes, that’s right, 6minutestomidnight.com is still online.

If you don’t remember that site, it’s a transmedia website created to promote the Watchmen movie.  Which is not to say there wasn’t any squabbling in the fan community about Watchmen and the movie, but it sure was less conflicted than the last couple days with the prequel.  So let’s go back to a calmer time in the Watchmen continuum.

Essentially, you go to the website, enter your phone number and you get a call from the Jackie Earle Haley version of Rorschach.  He’ll ask you some questions and if you say the right phrases, he’ll interact with you.  Otherwise, he’ll act like you’re crazy.  The site prompts you to say over the phone, or type into your computer, what you see in a rorschach test.

When I typed in “dog,” Rorschach said “I don’t want to talk about that.”  When I typed in “Dan DiDio,” Rorschach said “You think that’s funny?  No good.  Try again.”  (I did think it was funny.)

If you identify one of the images correctly, you get a video clip of one of the characters.

Opinions are a bit divided on Watchmen as a film.  I liked it well enough, but I’m not sure how easy it would be to follow if you hadn’t read the book, first.

Head over to 6 Minutes To Midnight and tell Rorschach your problems.  He probably won’t listen.  Then again not listening is a theme, these days…