Publishers

Archie just can't stay out of the news! While a million moms may be marching against Riverdale, they are staging their own Occupy movement. Whose side is Reggie Mantle on? Archie Comics has provided us with the actual cover to ARCHIE #365, which comes out in July. Story by Alex Segura Jr. Art by Gisele Legace.

While you might have expected much outcry over the introduction of a gay character into the traditionalist world of Riverdale, reaction to Archie Comics's Kevin Keller has been overwhelmingly positive. But Archie has heedlessly kept hurtling down the highway, hellbent for tolerance, going further and further until it seemed inevitable they would rouse a bear somewhere: Kevin got his own series and even his own wedding issue, one of those flash forwards in which he marries a doctor who helped him recover from injuries sustained in the Iraq war. Well, let your faith in the bigotry of humanity be restored: a pressure group is threatening a boycott of Toys 'r' Us over carrying the offending comic.

Avengers Alliance is now live on Facebook. This is basically Mafia Wars with superheroes. You're a SHIELD agent. You recruit superheroes (initially Iron Man, Hawkeye and the Black Widow) to go on missions with you. The story arc involves chasing around Hydra and meteorite fragments as you beat up henchmen and fight bosses like Whiplash and Viper.

Beyond sweeping a perfect 10 out of the month's Top 10 comic books, DC's "New 52" titles are also starting to show first signs of stabilization in January. The average "New 52" title dropped 7.4% in sales, down from 17.4% in December and 19.6% in November. This gives reason to be cautiously optimistic on the longer-term prospects of DC's relaunched line. The trend should be taken with a grain of salt, however, as DC made a number of changes to its various retailer incentives in January that may be affecting sales one way or another. On Detective Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight, Superman and Aquaman, the returnability incentive was replaced with 1:25 variant-cover incentives. Batwoman, Green Lantern: New Guardians and Swamp Thing, which were promoted with a special-discount incentive from September through December, also switched to 1:25 variant-cover incentives in January. Finally, the threshold retailers were required to meet in January to qualify for returnability on the 37 titles that weren't promoted through variant-cover or discount incentives changed from 125% of retailers' May 2011 orders to 100% of November 2011 orders. With this in mind, let's wait for the February figures to see if the trend holds when incentives are equal from one month to the next.

New day, new Avengers poster. This time Black Widow is face front and the character in the brokeback pose is....the Hulk? Truly, this is the dawning of a new day.

Anonymous Image creator on the mood at the Image Expo. It was by all account a successful weekend if only as a pep rally, with hopes for the future and independence for creators. The crowds weren't immense, except on Saturday, but they liked what they saw.

With his gorgeous GOLIATH out from D&Q, Tom Gauld is embarking on a two-continent tour. UK dates are above; here's his US schedule.

There seemed to be some mixed thoughts going around about Image Expo and that seems to be best summed up by a conversation between a local retailer and a pro who'd been to a lot of shows in Oakland.

Is the world ready for a new graphic novel from outsider musician/artist Daniel Johnston? Probably. Johnston, whose long career as a very eccentric musician was the subject of the 2006 documentary THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON, is also an avid comics reader, and this is his first GN. It comes complete with added soundtrack and app for the 360º experience. For those not familiar, Johnston is somewhere north of Wild Man Fischer and south of They Might be Giants and early Beck.

From Image, another new series:

As cat people, we're not really sold on on the whole "dress your pets" humiliation tool; however, for those who like to dress their doggie, Marvel and Fetch are introducing a line of Marvel-themed pet attire called cool pets!. The line of toys, apparel, and accessories will be available at your local PetSmart.

By Paul O'Brien

Perhaps it's a side effect of the decision to trim the line, but Marvel seem to have gone back to the days when each month had a small number of new launches that they could focus on properly. This month's sole new title is SCARLET SPIDER, and the only major new miniseries is WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN: ALPHA & OMEGA. There's also WOLVERINE #300, and the second issue of the AvX lead-in mini AVENGERS: X-SANCTION. DC's resurgence continued in January, as once again Marvel faced a fight to be the top publisher in the direct market. In terms of market share, it's really too close to call; DC led in units, by 40% to 38%, while Marvel led in dollars, by 36% to 34%. On the other hand, DC swept the top ten with the fifth issues of their regular titles - some of which are selling in a different league from anything in Marvel's range. It's been a long time since AQUAMAN was outselling the entire Marvel line. Thanks as always to ICV2.com for permission to use these figures.