Publishers

By Henry Barajas-- IDW was kind enough to invite me to a see a magic show at their booth at the San Diego Comic Convention as if there wasn’t enough magic in comic con. I have to admit I was a bit leary about attending a magic show. I’m very ignorant of the whole thing. I was afraid they were going to saw me in half and separate me from my nicely shaved legs. I got to the booth and I was greeted by the creators of Smoke and Mirrors, Mike Costa and Jon Armstrong. Jon is an award winning magician that has been performing internationally for over twenty years. Before we started the interview Jon was kind enough to do some card tricks.

It looks like Top Cow turned their Cyber Force Kickstarter campaign on the evening of the 17th. I discussed the campaign during Comicon, but the short version is that Top Cow is trying to raise $75K and distribute free copies of the first five issues/first story arc of a new ongoing Cyber Force comic in a manner similar to Free Comic Book Day. It's an interesting idea.

by Alexander Añé -- One of the hot topics in the comics industry is the movement into the digital medium, and of course the biggest question in that migration is, "what's it going to cost?" Sunday afternoon at San Diego Comic-Con, the leading voices in this debate came together to discuss this topic: Mark Waid representing Thrillbent, Scott Kurtz the creator of PvP, IDW Publishing's ePublishing director Jeff Webber, Chris Ross attending as Top Shelf's director of digital publications, and moderating the panel is comiXology's Chip Mosher.

We discover some overlooked items from Comic-Con. Lobo, bubble gum cards, Margaret Atwood, and Weird Al!

Last night's gala premiere for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES in NYC brought out some stars, with author Neil Gaiman escorting DC president Diane Nelson to the event. At the afterparty, DC execs Jim Lee and Geoff Johns relaxed and flexed with singing star Daughtry, who is teaming with the WB and DC for the "We Can Be Heroes" campaign to raise funds to end hunger in the Horn of Africa.

Marvel's newly eponymous Captain jumps into a new solo title. But does Carol Danvers soar in the new role... or crash and burn?

IDW announces three new titles in their award-winning Artist's Edition series of archival reprints!

While this year's San Diego Comic Con was lighter on movies and heavier on TV then it has been in recent years, the Iron...

With "New 52" numbers settled down (see here for a long-term breakdown), May marked a return to a variety of old-fashioned direct-market sales boosters: six of the loowest-selling "New 52" titles were replaced with new launches Earth-2, Worlds' Finest, Dial H, G.I. Combat, The Ravagers and Batman, Incorporated; new creative teams (meaning Rob Liefeld, mostly) were instated on Hawkman, Deathstroke and Grifter, three of the lower-selling "New 52" books that haven't been cancelled; Annuals for Batman, Animal Man and Teen Titans, three of the more popular "New 52" series; and, finally, four separate crossovers involving 21 titles, notably the "Court of Owls" storyline running through most of the Batman line. And those tricks still work quite well, as it turns out: For the DC Universe imprint, average comic-book sales, total unit sales and total dollar sales soared back towards their highest respective levels since November 2011, which is pretty good. With Before Watchmen around the corner and September's issue-#0 stunt and the next round of "New 52" replacements coming up, it seems safe to say that the publisher will be able to build on the ground recovered thanks to the "New 52" relaunch through the second half of 2012.

Check out Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward signing comics for the kiddies at San Diego Comic Con

As predicted, THE WALKING DEAD #100 has smashed records, with 383,612 in initial orders. Published with 13 variant covers, this issue of the popular comic is the best selling comic since 1997's THE DARKNESS #11. Details in the PR:

I suspect part of the rhetoric is an attempt to differentiate Marvel Now from the New 52, but in a video interview with Newsarama, Marvel EIC Axel Alonso sure does make it sounds like the only changes happening are fallout from AVX.