Publishers

A recent interview with TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN PART 1 and Dexter scripter Melissa Rosenberg got an update on her development of the Marvel comic Alias as as TV show called AKA Jessica Jones -- and yes Luke Cage will be included:

Looking to expand the "buy print, get digital free" model for their comics which began with this month's AVENGING SPIDER-MAN, Marvel has announced that every issue in the Ultimate line will be sold with a code for a free digital download of the issue. The price will remain $3.99. David Brothers interviewed Marvel's David Gabriel and Peter Phillips for all the details. The rollout begins with ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #6, ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #7, and ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #7, but the downloads will be available ONLY for Marvel's DCU store on iOS and Android and the Chrome browser -- the codes can not be redeemed via comiXology's Marvel store. According to Phillips, "We've got right now two different digital offerings: we've got the [back issues] of MDCU, Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited... and then we've got the brand new stuff that comes out that you can buy on a by-issue basis digitally. [The codes] are focused on the latter."

Two blade-swinging heroines from different time periods, Witchblade and Red Sonja, are teaming up in a one-shot from Dynamite, and the question everyone is asking is "Will they be wearing chain mail?" The answer is yes! Writer Doug Wagner, artist Cezar Razek and cover artist Alé Garza comprise the creative team.

Over on their blog, DC has announced the rollout for the New 52 collections. Instead of dumping 52 trades in one month, they will be staggered from May-November, with 7 or 8 books released a month. Justice League, Batman, Green Lantern, Detective, Batman & Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman, Batman: The Dark Knight, Aquaman, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, Action, Superman and Flash are all getting hardcovers; the rest get TPBs. Missing from the list: Wonder Woman.

New series from Dark Horse, a new Brandon Graham project and a Martian team-up have been announced for early next year.

September was business as usual for DC Comics' periodical sales, as... oh, wait. The "New 52" project, a relaunch of its complete superhero line via 52 #1 issues, made September 2011 a record-breaking month for DC Comics -- and a joyously eventful one for the people watching their sales. It's not often that publishers attempt something on this scale, unfortunately, so it's nice not to come up with 52 different ways of expressing that sales have mostly been going down, for a change. It's a little bit like that myth about Eskimos and the words they have for snow. Anyway: The average DC comic book sold an estimated 57,224 units in September, the average DC Universe comic book a whopping 67,411 units. That's more than double what it was in August for both, as well as more than in any previous month since sole distributor Diamond started releasing information on actual sales to specialty retailers in March 2003. The month that comes closest is May 2006, when DC's line-wide "One Year Later" initiative kicked off, with 44,554 (DC total) and 59,505 (DC Universe) units, respectively. And, while we're breaking records: May 2006 was also the only previous time when the total dollar value of DC's periodical comic books exceeded 10 million, with an estimated $10,157,965. In September 2011, the amount was $10.9 million for DC total and $10.5 million for the DC Universe line, which never broke the 10-million mark on its own before. (Average cover prices were about the same, by the way: $3.05 for DC total and $3.04 for DC Universe in 2006, and vice versa in 2011.)

By Paul O'Brien -- It's the column you've been waiting for! The September sales - for Marvel! Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Okay, so September was DC's month. And understandably, most publishers got out of the way, rather than trying to launch any new titles against the New 52 onslaught. Marvel had the second month of the Ultimate relaunch, and there are a couple of new Icon books in the form of BRILLIANT and the returning CASANOVA, but that's really about it where new launches are concerned. Of course, there's also the continuing crossovers of "Fear Itself", "Spider-Island" and "Schism", and Marvel's standard practice these days would be to launch the new books after those events, not during. For the first time in quite a while, DC had the biggest share of the market, leading Marvel by 43% to 38% in units, and a razor-thin 36% to 35% in dollars. (Incidentally, those market share figures apparently don't apply the retainability discount which Diamond factored into the sales of individual issues.) If that seems closer than you expected, bear in mind that with 52 superhero comics, DC were actually cutting their line back. Marvel solicited almost 80 Marvel Universe superhero books for the same month - though that may not last, given that lower selling titles are now apparently being culled.

ICv2 catches the fact that two volumes of NARUTO will be released digitally before the print edition. Vol. 54 and Vol. 55 will be available as part of the shift to Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha, the digital weekly that's replacing the print edition. The availability window is pretty steep -- NARUTO Vol. 54 is available now; the print version drops January 3. It's just a scheduling anomaly but it is still startling to see one of the world's best selling comics available in digital first.

Marvel has released schedule and cover art info for THE TWELVE, an ambitious 12 issue miniseries by J. Michael Straczynski and Chris Weston that stalled out somewhere after issue #8 in 2008. In order for newcomers to catch up, the'll be offering a colelction of the first 6 issues,, a must have of issues 7 and 8 and then the rest of the series twice monthly starting in February:

Over at his blog, Image Publisher Eric Stephensonshows two Image covers that won't make it into the Previews catalog unaltered because they contain swastikas, which cannot legally be shown in Germany.

Although keeping their GN backstock in print isn't a Marvel priority, the new Nook Tablet was just announced this morning with Marvel as a very active partner. Marvel's Ryan Penagos was at the unveiling and live tweeted it and was around to answer follow ups -- including avoiding the question of whether this is an exclusive or not. First the hardware deets; The 7-inch Nook Tablet will run $250 and offer 16 GBs storage, with an SD expansion slot which supports 32 GB SD cards. Netflix, Hulu Plus and Pandora will be available. Like its predecessor, the Nook Color -- which remains available for $199 -- the tablet will have browser and email capabilities. Here's an early review.

On October 21st, Stephen Bissette from The Center for Cartoon Studies met up with Oliver Goodenough from The Vermont Law School to discuss Jack Kirby and his relationship with Marvel Comics. The Comics Journal put the audio up and it is a good listen with a nice James Sturm introduction