Comics

It's been reported that Diamond has laid off three technical staffers: "Dave Bowen (Director of Digital Distribution), Jeff Dillon (Web Development Manager), and Lev Schneider (Programmer)." Bowen's presence on that report, raised the question of what's up with Diamond Digital, so I asked iVerse's Michael Murphy, since iVerse is the engine Diamond Digital runs on.

We've always had a soft spot for weird medical comics, from the plentiful manga genre —Tezuka's Black Jack and Akihito's The Ray—to Seifert and Ketner's Witch Doctor. And this seems to fit right in.

It's been a while since we checked in on Disney Publishing and their impending move. Since then a lot has happened. As we recall from our own time at Disney, they have an entire department that does nothing but move people around, and this switch sounds like it was put in place just to give them something to do. Basically, as reported by Publishers Weekly, Disney is swapping its East and West Coast publishing houses, moving 100 people from White Plains and the NY office to Glendale, and 50 Disney Press people back to New York. Wha--? The moves will roll out from now until September 30th.

Notorious typewriter and fax guy Dave Sim is taking advantage of the internet's crowdfunding abilities to run a Kickstarter to reprint High Society, one of the best story lines from CEREBUS. The project met its $6000 goal within hours of starting. In case you are coming in fresh, Sim is the author of one of the great feats of the indie comics age: his 300-issue run on CEREBUS, a genre-defying melange of slapstick, fantasy and social commentary. The more the book had of the first two, the better it was; the more of the latter and...well...best not discussed.

This isn't anything we haven't covered here before, but here's another take on the end of impulse shopping for comics, this time via Dean Haspiel. Haspiel covers the problem of shops that only order for pull lists, and suggests that there may be a substitute for impulse buying in webcomics. Linking to it also give us a chance to show this cute picture of Haspiel meeting Wallace and Gromit.

The 2012 'Reuben' awards were given out by the NCS (National Cartoonists Society) on Saturday night, although only one is actually called the Reuben. The full list of winners is here, but Tom Richmond, best known for his work on MAD Magazine won the top spot, otherwise known as THE REUBEN AWARD for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. Richmond is a fairly prolific blogger, and has already recorded his initial thoughts:

With the recent release of Youngblood #71, the relaunch of Rob Liefeld's Extreme universe is in full swing. I looked at the amazing Prophet and surprising Glory when they came out. Now it's time for the rest of the batch.

In recent weeks, we've been seeing the exclusivity monster poke it's head up on the digital platform. Marvel's exclusive with Comixology. Valiant is exclusive with Comixology. DC might as well be exclusive with Comixology. But, for the most part, there appears to be a catch: the digital exclusives seem to be just for the monthly editions. Single issues if you prefer.

by Serhend Sirkecioglu

--          My common complaint with the current wave of interactive/digital comics is the lack of ingenuity, risk, and execution, which fall into three camps. The first is the artist-centric camp where the person who made the comic is a competent cartoonist but has no knowledge of programming and is unconscious of interactivity, so the function feels gimmicky and not worth my time. The second is the program-centric, where the design is strong but the story is not much of a looker or read, and can feel more like a proof of concept than a whole-hearted piece. Finally, the third camp is the ones that peter out because the time and energy put into it outweighs the pay off, leading to burnout and an unfinished story.

People have been asking why, when Peter and MJ's marriage had to end for story reasons, Northstar getting married is okay. Editor Tom Brevoort answered this on his Formspring:

If by nice, you mean very, very unsettling. She's great.

Some holiday weekend tidbits, including Game of Thrones, Derek Kirk Kim's Mythomania looks to Kickstarter to fund it's 2nd season, a first look at The Walking Dead's Michonne, along with a whole lotta Kickass 2 news.