Publishers

August 2010 wasn't a great month for the direct market as a whole, and DC Comics was no exception. The current tent-pole title Brightest Day and its tie-in books kept performing solidly overall, but a number of other high-profile books, including Green Lantern, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, Batman and Robin and The Flash missed their August shipping dates, putting a bit of a dent in DC's periodical performance: Overall dollar sales for new comic books were the lowest since June 2009, and average unit sales dropped to their second-lowest point of the last 12 months. For the publisher's Vertigo brand, August was particularly tough, with estimated average unit sales dropping to a new all-time low of 9,094. Again, though, the schedule is the culprit: With American Vampire, Joe the Barbarian and Jack of Fables, some of Vertigo's best-selling comic-book titles didn't come out in August. At the WildStorm imprint, average unit sales crashed back to just above 6K, and in this case, the schedule had little to do with it. At this stage, it's not hard to see why DC is pulling the plug on WildStorm.

So, does The Walking Dead (premiering this Sunday, Halloween, on AMC at 10:00/9 PM C) live up to the hype? One Word Answer:  Ewwwwwwwwww!

Robot 6 previews THE LITTLEST PIRATE KING by David B., due any day from Fantagraphics, and dealing with...pirate zombies. Oh yeah. It's based on a short story by Pierre Mac Orlan.

We managed to get hold of a pdf of today's EW story on Captain America. We won't be stinkers and post the whole thing in readable form, but there are LOTS of pictures, including:

STRANGE TALES, the indie-does-Marvel anthology made a splash with its first issue, and thanks to our pals at Marvel, we're happy to provide an EXCLUSIVE preview of the 2nd issue, on sale next week. This time, it's cover artist Jaime Hernandez with Space Phantom and many mighty Marvel heroines limned as only Jaime can.

This week's EW debuts Chris Evans in actual Cap clothing, which turns out to be similar to the outfits that were leaked a while ago. The online excerpt include Evans discussing his fear of the role, and director Joe Johnston going firmly back into ROCKETEER territory:

It's called "Batman and the Giant Pile of Box Office Receipts". Okay, it's really called THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Everyone has surely made a Viagra joke by now, and there was ours.

Sunday is not only Halloween, it's the debut of the Walking Dead TV show, and it looks like we're going to have tons of Walking Dead-related announcements and content this week. To kick things off, comiXology has announced a standalone WALKING DEAD app. And now Image has announced a series of weekly reprints of the monthly comics starting in January and running ALL YEAR. These Walking dead stories are available in multiple formats, and the original releases have been among the best selling non-Top Two comics for a while now. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. PR below.

§ Have you ever wondered what it would be like to read an interview with a publishing executive talking about his digital plans WITHOUT worrying about direct sales retailers taking his every word as a call to arms? Well, take a gander at ICv2's talk with Disney's Dario Di Zanni:

In the spirit of the season, Evan Dorkin, Jill Thompson, and Mike Mignola provide an Eisner-heavy creative lineup for the Beasts of Burden/Hellboy One Shot which is on sale THIS WEEK and there's even a preview.

This week's NBA preview issue of ESPN The Magazine includes special Marvel-themed makeovers of all the teams, and Comics Alliance has the entire gallery. Here are a few to get warmed up:

Ever since the announcement of the "Earth One" line of graphic novels just over a year ago, it's been a little unclear just who the line was aimed at, or how it fit into DC's various lines of books. Subsequent statements just muddied the waters. Although obviously an Ultimates-type revamp for new readers, with just one book on the schedule -- the just released JMS/Shane Davis SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE -- it was just a toe in those same muddy waters.