Comics

Just So Happens By Fumio Obata Published by Jonathan Cape Buy This Book Upon first impression of Fumio Obata's new graphic novel, Just So Happens, I was struck...

Naoki Urasawa is probably the greatest living genre cartoonist. Sorry ya'll but it's all true. Combining dense, suspenseful plotlines with thrilling, heart stopping artwork that never sacrifices character, he's just the master. He's even won an Eisner Award.Works in English, all published by Viz include MONSTER, PLUTO and 20th CENTURY BOYS. And now, MASTER KEATON, an early (pre-Monster) work from 1988 about a heroic insurance investigator who goes around using his archaeological skills to solve mysteries. SOLD. The series was co-written by Hokusei Katsushika and Takashi Nagasaki.

Yesterday's Sunday NY Times contained a seminal essay by sometime cartoonist Tim Kreider on the subject of his love for his cat. Yes there are "cat dudes" too, and Kreider is one, as revealed by the elegantly written piece. Plus it contained creepy cute illustrations by Lisa Hanawalt of men and cats. Hanawalt (My Dumb Dirty Eyes) is known for her anthropomorphic humor comics so this was a win all the way.

Yesterday Mark Millar took to CBR to reveal that he kinda missed the boat on that whole digital thing, when he refused to allow...

Agents of SHIELD—or as we call it here, that's So Coulson—is returning from an Olympics break tonight, and it's kind of do or die,...

Toshiro is a new graphic novel from Dark Horse by writer Jai Nitz (Dream Thief) and artist Janusz Pawlak. According to Nitz, it's a...

One of the real breakout comics of 2013 was Bandette, from the husband and wife team Colleen Coover and Paul Tobin. A digital comic...

Oh yeah, the other major news coming out of ComicsPRO, was the return of Paul Levitz, former publisher and president at DC Comics. Levitz...

Archie Comics continues its march to diversity, naming playwright/screenwriter/comics scripter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa to the post of Chief Creative Officer. Aguirre-Sacasa's hire was announced in...

Marvel is planning some big digital announcements at SXSWi, it interactve conference taking place at the end of the week, it seems, and to kick things offer they're making all the comics in their Marvel Unlimited app available for 99¢ for the next two weeks. You can also download 12 of the comics for free. This is an introductory subscription offer—similar to those you get for the Franklin Mint series of Presidential Chia Pets, for instance—in subsequent months you'll be billed at the going rate for Marvel Unlimited.

Straight from the offices of Publishers Weekly, it’s More to Come! Your podcast source of comics news and discussion starring The Beat’s own Heidi...

By Jason Enright

Hi everyone! My name is Jason Enright and I am going to be analyzing the Marvel sales charts for you. I have a background as a comic book retailer and now a comic book marketing specialist. As we go along I’ll be adding in my thoughts as to why we may be seeing these numbers and what they tell me as a fan, retailer, and marketing guy. A few things to keep in mind about these charts: 1. The direct market (comic book shops that order through Diamond) does not track sell-through. So these numbers don’t represent what actually sold, but instead represent what retailers ordered. A book can get high orders and sit on the shelf (which often leads to lower orders in later months) and a book can be under-ordered and sell out (see Black Widow further down this chart). These numbers are what retailers estimated would sell in their shops. 2. We currently don’t have any digital sales data so this is only a look at what is selling in stores. Until we somehow convince Marvel and all the other publishers to release their digital sales numbers, we have no clue how well most of these books are really doing, as digital is a very quickly growing marketplace which sees a lot of new first-time comic readers.