Comics

Chris Miskiewicz and Dean Haspiel (making his return to the webcomic collective Act-i-vate) present Obambies Everywhere! which is...well I think you can figure it out.

Over the weekend, we were hanging out with the local cartooning scene, and the locals were buzzing about last week’s surprise news that The Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art was transferring all of its holdings and activities to the Society of Illustrators, a more venerable New York institution that spotlights already–recognized greats like Leyendecker and Rockwell. While there was much speculation, a MoCCA insider told us that they would not be involved with the new entity, as it had been transferred in total to SoI. What we're looking at is an entirely new operation, in effect. If the transfer has removed New York City's only dedicated comics exhibit space and social center, the new home is definitely a landmark in its own right. The Society of Illustrators itself goes back over a hundred years, and has seen all the greats from Gibson to Rockwell to Peak to Crumb come through its doors—doors of a midtown building which was once a carriage house for legendary kazillionaire J. P. Morgan. The differing paths of the comics and illustration worlds is perhaps shown by the operating budgets of both institutions—SoI's is $1.3 million; MoCCA's was $300,000.

Walking Dead rules the top of the charts again, in preparation for next month's centennial issue, while new entries for Mars Attacks and Harbinger sandwich the ever improving Saga. Elsewhere, Spawn celebrates its 20th anniversary by almost tripling its regular sales and Brian Wood's The Massive launches encouragingly high, while a bunch of successful recent launches consolidate their figures. Lots of books dropping, further down the charts though.

   

135 indie books charted this month, up on last month's 128. The bottom book sold 3,302, down on last month's 4,477. They sold approximately 1,344,491, down on last month's 1,392,594. Average sales are 9,959 per book, also down on last month's 10,880. As usual, UK and European sales from Diamond UK are not reported in this chart.

 

Out of the 135 books, only 29 went up in sales, far less than last month, and 87 went down, with the rest made up of one-shots and debuts.

 

RUN! DO NOT WALK! To Domatile Collardey's Wreckhall Abbey, a new comic about a private school for girls in the proud tradition of St. Trinians and more. Holy crap, this looks AMAZING.

Pop culture business news site ICv2 has announced the ICv2 Conference on Comics and Digital II to be held in conjunction with this year's New York Comic-Con. It will be held on WEDNESDAY, October 10th,1:00 to 5:00 p.m. -- in previous years it was held on the Thursday prior to the Con but NYCC is essentially a 4 day show now. As in previous years, The Beat is a sponsor of this event. Here's the line-up of panels, with speakers to be announce. All of them sound extremely interesting.

Breaking news! Hepzibah returns for another appearance in Avengers Vs X-Men!

Add the UK's 2000 Ad -- home of Judge Dredd -- to the list of publishers going day and date. They're even getting their own app, via the Apple Newsstand, which is offering a free introductory 69-page sampler with pages from Judge Dredd: Day of Chaos, Zombo, and Ichabod Azrael. Subscribers get up to a 24% discount and a selection of free back issues. Single issues are $2.99/£1.99.

We've alluded to this a few times, but Kyle Baker has posted some art from a new Image book by himself and Kevin McCarthy called CIRCUIT BREAKER, which is:

When Kevin sent me his story about a little girl robot in futuristic Tokyo, I thought it would be funny to draw it in the style of my favorite Japanese cartoonist, Osamu Tezuka!

Some set pics of Hugh Jackman from WOLVERINE II, currently known as THE WOLVERINE, which is set in Japan. From these photos, we can assume that in the story, Jackman's Wolverine character will have a period of extreme self doubt, which evolves into self neglect, from which he will be rescued by a period of intense study of Zen Buddhist philosophy and Japanese fighting techniques.

Christmas is coming! Here are the upcoming titles from Dark Horse! What's on your wish list?

The Fantasy Economy continues, with a record comics auction at Heritage, and an amazing array of Hollywood memorabilia from Profiles in History!

As sometimes happens, I walk into a comics shop and discover something I didn't know I needed! Here's an example...