Indie Comics

This weekend sees the Maine Comics Arts Festival in Portland, ME. In its second year the show has expanded to two days -- a day of FREE panels at the Portland Public Library this Saturday and then a exhibit on Sunday at the Ocean Gateway. There's also a comics art show on display at the Lewis Gallery at the Portland Public Library. Guest list is here, headlines by Brian Wood, Skottie Young and Jeff Lemire. The Portland Press HErald previews the show here and the organizer, Rick Lowell of Casablanca Comics.

By Matthew Murray

Dynamite grabs the top indie comic spot this month with the first issue of their adaptation of Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet script. However, issue 2 sees a fairly large drop, and people seem unsure if the market can support the five Green Hornet titles Dynamite plans on launching.

Elsewhere on the chart Green Hornet Year One written by Matt Wagner is the second biggest indie launch of the month, The Guild and Terminator are Dark Horse’s newest launches, and Zenescope shipped a lot of books.

IDW had a 3.61% market share, and 4.02% dollar share, Dark Horse had 3.33% market share and 4.76% dollar share (gotta love those trade paperback sales), Dynamite had 3.08% market share and 3.40% dollar share, and Image had 3.01% market share and 3.22% dollar share.

I’ve listed every indie title in the top 225, every Dark Horse, Image, and IDW title in the top 300, and a selection of other titles.

Thanks to icv2.com and Milton Griepp for permission to use these numbers, which can be found here.

I’ve probably started my last three Stumptown reports with this, but I love Portland and the Stumptown Comics Festival. You could rightly say that it’s because Stumptown was the first show that I actually set up at, back in 2007 (has it only been two and a half years of being on the other side of the table?). You could, but I’m not sure how accurate that is. Comparing the Stumptown show of 2007 (in chilly October) to that of 2010 (in springtime cool April) is a tricky thing. The show has grown and been managed in such a way as to make the two very different.

2007 yielded decent attendance for an independent comics show, though was often long periods of quiet punctuated with silence. Sure, part of that was the fact that I was just selling a mini/ashcan preview then. Nobody else seemed to have any complaints about the size/speed of the show and I didn’t have anything to compare it with, though I remember it not being particularly busy most of the time (a good starter show, as opposed to jumping in with both feet to say Wonder-Con or the like.)

Yesterday the above, somewhat disturbing photo, swept through the internets like a virus, with the breathless question : is this a leak from the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie?... Latino review, which first cirulated he photo, says that it's just a class project from one of make-up master Tom Savini's students. However we are happy to report that THIS is the real deal: PIZZA TIME!... The above is Jon Vermillyea 's drawing, and it is not disturbing at all.

If you couldn't be at Stumptown, you could follow along via Twitter, or check out the Portland Mercury's photos, or Anna Faltermeier's, or...

Such a busy weekend! The indie comics tour continues in the Midwest with the SPACE Festival, held this year at a new location:Ramada Plaza...

The Stumptown Comics Fest unfolds this weekend in Portland, one of the premier events on  the indie comics circuit, and what with the Mayor...

Dylan Williams is the founder of Sparkplug Comic Books, art film/used bookstore owner , and guy behind the scenes in many of Portland's comic and independent press events. A few months back, I sent Dylan some questions for an article on Diamond for PW Comics, expecting a few short answers, and when I got his responses, I wanted to print them all.

http://www.youtube.com/v/bdUh7c30x60&hl=en_US&fs=1&Okay we don't mention every kickstarter project we get, but when they have a promo video starring James Urbaniak, you jump to the head...

Special Beat mention for Caboose, a FREE newspaper comics supplement, created by students and alumni from the Center for Cartoon Studies. A few thousand...

Fantagraphics:We have a slew of signings all weekend long as well as a remarkably potent lineup of new books debuting at the show, including: Artichoke...

We posted this last year, and it was one of our most popular features ever. Here's an updated look at the food, drink and...