Comics

You could learn a lot from Mark Millar. Seriously. Not content to let his movie option deal announcement go live and get covered everywhere, he got a full three days of publicity out of it! And made such a big deal of it that Bleeding Cool literally wouldn't sleep until they scooped Deadline on the news -- which everyone we talked to seems to have known for days. So a big deal becomes a Bigger Deal. That is how you market it, Mark Millar, and we salute you.

We won't slap a "Tolja!!!" over this, but a memo this afternoon confirms what many had been predicting since DC's new regime took over...

While folks like Mark Millar, Mike Mignola, and Robert Kirkman have been deservedly marked by the success of their creations in Hollywood, one hard-working...

by Marc-Oliver Frisch After unleashing a deluge of new titles in May, DC Comics' lineup of major periodicals was fairly restrained in June. There were...

A version of Wonder Woman aimed at teen-aged girls and not 40-year-old men? That will never fly. BTW for everyone who is always wondering "How should a pitch look???" Here's an example. Of course, being able to draw as well as Ben Caldwell really helps.

Canadian artist James Stokoe (ORC STAIN, WONTON SOUP) tweeted a warm-up drawing of Galactus, seen full-size here. Holy crap. (Via Robot 6)

Artist Stephen DeStefano directs us to a trailer for his new graphic novel LUCKY IN LOVE, written by George Chieffet. The trailer was directed by Miguel Martinez-Joffre and colored by Carly Monardo -- both are vets of The Venture Bros., as is DeStefano.

by Paul O'Brien It's a month of relaunches and new titles, as the "Heroic Age" branding continues. June saw the relaunch of NEW AVENGERS,...

The road to comic book Valhalla is lined with companies that have tried to do "celebrity comics" as a means of switching to the fast lane of movie money and licensing gold. Tekno, Virgin, CrossGen. There is hardly a company that does not have some kind of celebrity "vanity project" comic out there made mostly to show to producers as a bible for a film. And all of this is despite the fact that not a single movie has yet been made from a comic book that was published just to be turned into a movie. COWBOYS & ALIENS, which is certainly an A-list project with Jon Favreau, Daniel Craig, and Harrison Ford aboard is set to be the first comic of its genre to ever actually get turned into a big movie. But this is the first time it has ever happened and it took 10 years. And despite this, there are still no other Platinum, Tokyopop, Radical, or Liquid movies. No one can go to Netflix and order the MAYHEM movie or OCD movie or GAMEKEEPER movie.

Buffy may be on a break, but that doesn’t mean that a Joss Whedon book isn’t the top selling “indie” comic this month as Serenity takes the top spot. Further down the list we have lots of Red Sonja comics, a Goon spin-off by Eric Powell, and yet more adaptations of movies and TV shows. Dark Horse had a 3.53% unit share and a 5.30% dollar share, Image had a 3.38% unit share and a 3.88% dollar share, and IDW had a 3.07% unit share and a 3.67% dollar share. I’ve listed every “indie” title in the top 200, every title from Image, Darkhorse, and IDW (ie. “the front of Previews”), and a selection of others. Thanks to icv2.com and Milton Griepp for permission to use these numbers, which are estimates, and can be found here.

ROBOT 13, the stylish steampunk fantasy comic by Thomas Hall and Daniel Bradford, has just become one of the first independently produced comics to push past the 100,000 download mark on iTunes and Android, according to a press release from e-distributor Robot Comics. The app is free on both platforms, so it hasn't been a cash cow for the creators -- however, there are three print issues available and the first has sold out. Nonetheless, it's an impressive feat for a relatively unknown indie comic. The downloadable version has many bells and whistles, says Robot Comics.

Funnybook Babylon has an interesting charticle looking at the runs of various Vertigo ongoing series over the years, following some speculation that books were being canceled there because of increased scrutiny from DC's new management. Chris Eckert suggests this is not the case, or at least not the only factor, by showing that the lowest selling titles are always canceled, although nowadays the best selling title is something that would have been canceled a decade ago. Eckert also runs a chart showing relative Amazon rankings for various Vertigo trades, a weak metric but all we have to go on.