Comics

It's Randall Munroe's world; we just live in it. Case in point: this mind-boggling chart of where the money goes.

WonderCon may have moved to Anaheim for 2012 due to Moscone Center construction, but the Bay Area will not be without a spring comics show....thanks to Image Comics and the Image Expo. The creator-owned company is planning its OWN convention, to be held February 24-26 at the Oakland COnvention Center (original home of WonderCon, btw). Image Expo is planned as a 20th anniversary celebration for Image, and will feature as guests of honor Image partners Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Valentino. Other creators attending include Image founders Rob Liefeld, and Whilce Portacio, plus Joe Casey, Jay Faerber, Jonathan Hickman, Ryan Ottley, Richard Starkings, Fiona Staples, and Brian K. Vaughan. All will participate in panels, signings and other traditional convention activities.

Did you ever notice it’s more expensive to buy new digital comics, than it is to buy new print ones?  The big trend from...

Welcome to month two of Bizarro World! This was quite a busy month for Marvel, with the "Fear Itself" crossover continuing, the relaunch of INCREDIBLE HULK, and the first issue of new title WOLVERINE & THE X-MEN. But once again, the big story in October was the continued success of the DCU relaunch. DC's lead over Marvel in September may have been narrow, but in October it was massive. Helped by hefty re-orders on virtually the entire September DCU line, DC led Marvel by 42% to 29% in dollars and a remarkable 51% to 30% in units. That market share is partly due to massive reorders on DC's September line. It seems reasonable to assume that this won't be a regular event, and that the gap won't be quite so large in future. But the possibility that Marvel might have to readjust to life as the number two publisher cannot be ruled out. Not that it's doom and gloom by any means. DC's sales are up, but not at Marvel's expense. If the DC relaunch has brought new readers into stores, or old readers back, then in theory Marvel should be able to take advantage of that too. On the other hand, it also makes it rather harder for Marvel to argue that its books are losing sales because it's a tough market. DC has just proved that declining sales are not inevitable. Thanks as always to ICV2.com for permission to use these figures.

A new variant cover for month FOUR of the New 52.

Speaking of Dave Johnson, he's part of a new all-star art blog called What Not: that features Amanda Conner, Andrew Robinson, Becky Cloonan, Bill Sienkiewicz, Cliff Chiang, Dan Panosian, Duncan Fergredo, Eric Canete, Jock, Mark Chiarello, Mike Oeming, Reverend Dave Johnson, and Sean Phillips. Can you say wow? Bookmark!

How would you like to sit in while Anthony Bourdain critiques food or Albert Pujols talks hitting or Herman Cain talks how to look credible in a big sinister fedora? That's the kind of master class Dave Johnson has been delivering on cover design via Twitter and now...a blog. That would be the Dave Johnson who created some of the most iconic covers of the last decade or so. While he may not be making a lot of friends, he's calling 'em as he sees 'em. Here's a sampling:

Like the Batibat, the Kapre is a relatively gentle giant who lives in trees and smokes a big tobacco pipe.

Just a few days ago we mentioned how digital comics magazines for the tablet are the next frontier, and here's another new one, INK. INK's pedigree is pretty good: it's produced by the students and faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York, a hotbed of cartooning talent and innovation.The first issue can be read for FREE and downloaded for iPad or read on the web.

Comics and related cartoons continue to cause problems in the Middle East. Tunisia, the country widely credited with setting off the "Arab Spring" in a relatively peaceful fashion earlier this year, is in an uproar after Marjane Satrapi's animated film was shown last month and immediately set off a huge controversy for a scene which shows God -- which, as you may have realized by now, is forbidden by some branches of Islam. Nessma, the station which ran the film, is being sued for showing it -- and the trial erupted in angry confrontations yesterday:

One of the major -- if not THE major -- reasons that Disney purchased Marvel two years ago for $4 billion was that the House of Ideas supplied a ready-made audience of material aimed at boys under 18 -- the one quadrant Disney has always had the toughest time reaching. Disney does princesses and Pooh great, but they had to create a whole cable network that could be specifically branded for boys -- Disney XD, which already airs various Marvel cartoons. So this look at just how Disney has used the Marvel universe by Mike Gold is quite interesting as he points out that Marvel TV shows in development at Disney include the Hulk, AKA Jessica Jones (ALIAS), Cloak and Dagger, and a possible Miley Cyrus vehicle based on Mockingbird:

Promoting a comic-con with a webcomic? Why didn't *we* think of that? Emerald City Comicon -- to be held March 30-April 1 in Seattle -- has broken the seal on this idea with "Tales from the Con", a weekly strip by Brad Guigar and Chris Giarrusso. You came for the vendor update and stayed for the laugh.