Comics

This morning's Cup O' Joe coffee klatsch between Kiel Phegley and Joe Quesada included a lengthy segment on the whole digital royalty flap from...

How on earth did we miss this!

Another digital comics deal, as Toykopop has signed with digital newsstand Zinio to sell a selection of their GNs. The line-up includes mostly OEL, such as Earthlight, The Dreaming and Van Von Hunter, and manhwa -- The Tarot Cafe -- although a few manga titles will be available soon. Books will sell for $5.99, cheaper than the print version but more than a comic book. Zinio is a virtual newsstand which sells proprietary downloads for Macs and PCs. According to Caleb Goellner, they use flash, which might be problematic for Apple devices.

TV and comics veteran Jeph Loeb has been named to a new position within Marvel, according to a press release, below. As Executive Vice President, Head of Television, Loeb will work on bringing Marvel's characters to television and oversee both development and distribution of their series efforts, both animated and live-action. He will report to Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley.

Letterer supreme Todd Klein presents another one of his logo studies, this time looking at the HULK logo through time from Herb Trimpe's previously unknown contribution through the modern "exploded logos" worthy of Zaha Hadid.

The artist of "Skim" doodles Riverdale-style.:

John K's blog is always entertaining, which is why we periodically dip in. In this post he explains some cartoonist warm-up exercises: "I strongly recommend to every growing cartoonist to do warm up exercises every day. Athletes warm up before stressing their stiff joints, musicians practice their scales every day before jumping right into their performances and I think cartoonists can benefit from limbering up their pencils and brains before they attack their work. I should follow this advice and I did this morning."

RED is yet another comic book movie coming out this summer, albeit one whose comics connections are a little less clear due to the vast changes from the original, a three issue mini- by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. The film stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren as aging CIA operatives who have to get together one! more! time! to clear their names. As expected, the trailer proves that the proof-of-concept of "Helen Mirren, Action Star" is just as awesome as you thought it would be Or, as Warren Ellis wrote of the film:.

Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle. I mean, if you don’t want to see a film with Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle, I’m not sure I want to know you.

Lots of reaction and ripples from yesterday's announcement that DC was at long last joining the digital world with their DC Comics apps for...

Dark Horse has made the Evan Dorkin/Jill Thompson BEASTS OF BURDEN story from The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings available in its entirety as...

A preview of Flight 7 is up. This will be the last volume of the anthology of fantasy comics featuring many animators and illustrators. Editor Kazu Kibuishi had a bit more at his blog:

A few event photos from around. Christina Foxley, from The Strand bookstore sent us a few photos of the exhibit of the Strand Tote Bag design contest which was held the other night at SVA. Above, left to right: Toon Books Françoise Mouly, runner up Domitille Collardey, cartoonist and contest judge Art Spiegelman; another judge, R. Sikoryak; runner-up Tim Goldman and winner Zak Foster. We stopped by and ran into many cartoon types, including Sarah Glidden who told us about her next project after the upcoming How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, another comics-journalism piece, and it sounds pretty interesting. Collardey is what you call "an emerging cartoon star" and she's presently working on a graphic novel to be published in France.