Publishers

The Beat Staff has been...busy lately with two events going on and the Ultimate Universe coming to an end (sort of) this week. All...

Your shelves have been buckling for years under the weight of the first two Walking Dead compendiums -- compact volumes offering more than 40 issues and 1000 pages of the famed comics series for $60 each. Talk about a license to print money—the first two compendia have been constant bestsellers, with thousands and thousands of copies in print, and creator Robert Kirkman and artists Charlie Adlard and Stefano Gaudiano have earned all those royalties. And now they are doing it again with The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 3 which goes on sale on October 13—just in time for the new season of the Walking Dead TV show. Fire up the money bin!

There had to be a reason the new West Coast Dc hired all those branding, licensing and content managers. It's to create a new...

Even without an issue of Secret Wars proper this week, the news coming out of Marvel regarding the event has been overwhelming. Get a...

Former Dreamworks SVP Brad Woods has joined Viz Media as Chief Marketing Officer. Woods also has Mattel and Warner Bros. on his resume. At Viz he'll oversee strategies for expansion into multiple channels. Inaddition to it's well known print manga products. Viz also has streaming, online, film, TV and many other home entertainment branches, so hiring a veteran exec to look at all this stuff is a good move.

X-O Manowar has been an instrument of war over the past 30+ issues that has seen Aric of Dacia dismember and kill others with...

Okay one more comics-to-movies announcement for the day, and this one is pretty unsurprising—ever since Tony-winning producer Vivek J. Tiwary wrote The Fifth Beatle,...

Image Expo is coming back, but unlike last year's which functioned as a roll-up to San Diego Comic-Con, this one returns to Image's home...

I've seen a lot of speculation about Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Ryan North and Erica Henderson being on the edge of the cancellation zone, but the first four issues are getting a reprinting—their third—with connected covers by Henderson and new copy by North. This is sort of interesting to me, without knowing any of the behind the scenes on it, as it seems to speak to a special interest in the book, which features a college age heroine who has fun with pals while beating Galactus. It definitely has an all-ages vibe to it, and a bit of a cult following. It's certainly one of the most unusual books Marvel is publishing so it's nice to see it get a boost, even as it suggests the book is more successful than it seems from the charts alone.

A few E3 2015 predictions and some Secret Wars giveaways.

I'd been hearing word on the street that the controversial Archie Kickstarter campaign would be cancelled, about $30 K in and CBR has the official word. The planned titles—Jughead by Chip Zdarsky, Betty & Veronica by Adam Hughes and Kevin Keller by Dan Parent—will be published, as promised, but the rollout will be slower with Jughead launching in the fall. According to Archie publisher Jon Goldwater, the negative attention was detracting too much from the actual projects:

Writer: Jonathan Hickman Artist: Esad Ribic Colors: Ive Svorcina Letters: Chris Eliopoulos • WHEN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE IS GONE, ALL THAT REMAINS IS BATTLEWORLD! • LEARN THE SECRETS OF THIS BRAVE NEW REALM...