Comics

Matt Fraction has become the first comics writer to win a prestigious PEN Center literary award for his "Outstanding Body of Work." The awards are presented annually to writers living west of the Mississippi. A panel of judges choose finalists in ten categories: fiction, creative nonfiction, research nonfiction, poetry, children’s literature, translation, journalism, drama, teleplay, and screenplay.

It seems that the general air of Doompocalypsamagedden has now even extended to the comic book film, a once thriving genre that provided much of the capital that has fueled the biz for the last decade. Over at Comic Book Movie, there's an unsigned "volunteer contribution" that suggests "comic book movie" could go the way of the Western or the POLICE ACADEMY movies:

Speaking of horror, a A new issue of the indie anthology is coming out next month, and here's the grisly cover.

Only three were produced, alas, but they are swell. We have censored some salty language for our younger readers -- read the shocking unexpurgated version in the link!

Eleanor Davis (SECRET SCIENCE ALLIANCE)) did some illos for Athens Tiny Farm and they are my-t fine. (Click for larger version.)

The BATMAN writer is the bad guy in a new MCR video? And here we always thought he was a force for good.

By Torsten Adair --

The following is a selection of new comic strip titles due to be published this Fall 2010. This list is not comprehensive, as there are over 200 books about comic strips scheduled from September to December. These are just the titles which caught my eye. Although you are welcome to debate the definition of "comic strip" in the comments, for my purposes I'm including single-panel cartoons as well as books about comic strips in this list.

And speaking of long awaited graphic novels, Chester Brown, another indie comics genius long silent, has finally announced a new graphic novel for 2011. It's called PAYING FOR IT, and it deals with his ongoing experiences with prostitutes.

It was a wise man who said that comic book movies function as $20 million advertisements for graphic novels...and in the case of the Scott Pilgrim series it is certainly true.

DC Entertainment head Diane Nelson pledged a "no fear" era at DC since announcing changes earlier this year, everyone has been plenty nervous ever since she took over. The reason? DC's proposed move to the West Coast. Will it happen and when? That's been the question on everyone's mind. Word on the street is that next week, the answer to "Will DC be moving to the West Coast?" will finally be revealed, and an article in The Hollywood Reporter seems to back that up.

Twitter and Tumblr prove what they are made for as artists tweeted their versions of Marvel characters as kitty cats, and Agent M hosted the results. I'm in yr meme, being cute. So cute we can't link to just one!

The "Brightest Day" and Batman titles continued to be the driving force of DC's comic-book line in July. The publisher's overall performance in the periodical direct market remained more or less flat, consequently. The most prominent new release of the mainstream DC Universe line, and maybe a bit of a wildcard for retailers, was the debut of Batman: Odyssey, a six-issue miniseries by writer/artist Neal Adams, who is still something of a high-ticket name, but hasn't actually produced a substantial comics project in decades.

At Vertigo, overall sales were slightly down in July because Fables, for all intents the imprint's flagship series, didn't come out. At WildStorm, the numbers were slightly up because of two new miniseries debuting above the 10K mark.

See below for the details, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com's estimates can be found here.