Publishers

A minor market segment, these box sets offer what most fans are clamoring for: ownership of the actual file instead of an app, affordable comics (even at $50, the per-comic cost is usually below twenty-five cents), and extras which turns these collections into electronic omnibuses. However, due to sticker shock, and the experience of reading these comics on a horizontal screen, many fans have been reluctant to purchase these collections. Which means that now, as the digital marketplace transitions to apps and browser-based readers, these older CD- and DVD-ROM collections are being sold at clearance prices. So, dear readers, in these challenging economic times, we offer you this bargain bin listing of select titles found on Amazon.com. We make no money from directing you to these forgotten gems, and, as with anything on the web, caveat lector et emptor.

After yesterday's news that DC Comics was dropping the Comics Code, leaving Archie the last surviving member of the Comics Code Authority...comes word that...

Sierra Hahn and Dave Marshall have been promoted to full editors at Dark Horse Hahn has edited many media tie-ins and original series, while...

Marvel and the retailing community sometimes have a love/hate/love relationship, but here's news that they are strongly supporting members of ComicsPRO, the retailer advocacy organization, by releasing Orson Scott Card's FORMIC WARS: BURNING EARTH #1 a day early on Tuesday, February 15th to ComicsPRO member stores. Participating stores will also sell an exclusive poster. The regular sale date is Wednesday, 2/16.

Over on the various DC blogs, Jim Lee and Dan DiDio have announced that DC is pulling out of the Comics Code in favor of a multi-layer ratings system:

This week's PW Comics Week newsletter included our owninterview with Dynamite’s Nick Barrucci, and it was a pretty frank talk, covering all the aspects of the Hobson's choices that comics publishers must make. Barrucci says it's all damned if you do damned if you don't on many matters, and newer channels have their own issues:

Archie is going to publish its first OGN -- and its in the foolproof "Archie Babies" format. Mike Kunkel (Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam) writes and Art Mawhinney does the art. The project was previously announced as a regular comics series but the new format allows them take advantage of Archie's new distribution deal with Random House, says co-CEO Jon Goldwater:

Artist James Stokoe continues his assault on the predictable tedium of corporate comics with a huge art post including an ORC STAIN preview, pages from a WONTON SOUP spin-off and FIRE FOR EFFECT, a complete story he once submitted to HEAVY METAL. The latter is NSFW.

 If you missed the earlier stops, you can still see the one and only phenomenal Lynda Barry talking and inspiring: DO NOT MISS Lynda Barry...

Geoff Boucher got to ramble around the X-MEN: FIRST CLASS set yesterday, and hear about Matthew Vaughn's anxiety about getting it finished, and James...

After months of speculation, we now know that Christopher Nolan isn't giving up the Batman franchise without going into the sexy feminine side of the myth: Anne Hathaway will play Catwoman in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES -- and yes, that sounds pretty dirty. And the previously announced Tom Hardy will play back-breaker Bane, an escaped criminal who gets super strength after getting jacked on drugs. (Bane was responsible for breaking Batman's spine in a '90s comics storyline.)

Always outspoken creator Joe Casey has another crack at pissing people off with his take on marketing, surviving in Hollywood, and his own brand of career advice in this exclusive interview.