Publishers

People looking for a surefire way to print money, comics division, have often suggested a Harry Potter comic book. Since that ain't happening (JK Rowling just isn't interested), Vertigo has just landed the next best thing: a graphic novel adaptation of Stieg Larsson's best-selling Millennium Trilogy, with the comics version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo set to appear in 2012. Subsequent volumes will appear in 2013 and 2014.

by Paul O'Brien Welcome to the calm before the storm. Or, in Marvel's case, the calm before more calm. September will all be about the DC Universe relaunch, and it's going to be a little while before the news cycle comes back round to anything Marvel have to announce. In the meantime, this month we have more "Fear Itself", more "Spider-Island", and the relaunch of the Ultimate imprint with ULTIMATE COMICS HAWKEYE and (ahem) ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES. Once again, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market, leading DC by 42% to 35% in unit share and 37% to 31% in DC. Needless to say, it'll be a huge surprise if that holds up next month. Thanks as always to ICV2.com for permission to use these figures.

3.  FEAR ITSELF
04/11  #1 of 7 - 135,746
05/11  #2 of 7 - 105,359  (-22.4%)
06/11  #3 of 7 -  99,501  ( -5.6%)
07/11  #4 of 7 -  93,435  ( -6.1%)
08/11  #5 of 7 -  90,914  ( -2.7%)

Levelling out quite comfortably as the series goes on. I'll come to the performance of the tie-in issues later.

DC is concentrating on their "New 52". But what of the other stories? As DC replicates a strategy from 25 years ago, when will we see self-contained stories which can be added to a strong backlist? What will be the new "Watchmen"?

Here's a number for you: Out of 65 DC Universe comic books published in July, 32 were by the writer/artist creative teams listed in the solicitations -- less than half of the bunch. Most of the others were either completely drawn by guest artists or had help from one or more of them. And for a couple, even the story credit changed. Not counting the six DC Retroactive books, the video-game adaptations and the New Wave titles, none of which are involved in the day-to-day of the DC Universe, the strike rate is 22 out of 55. So, presuming that's not a coincidence, it looks like the big DC relaunch was about 40% well-planned, at this juncture.

THE INFINITE KUNG-FU LAUNCH PARTY: FEATURING HOP-FU! A Spectacular Graphic Novel Launch and Live Music/Film Event

It's the daily DC 52 trailer, this time for LEGION OF SUPERHEROES by Paul Levitz and Francis Portela. Surely you all know the name of the music, right? And you got the hidden in-joke, right?

Here is a Village Voice interview with Marv Wolfman, which is interesting for many reasons. Because Wolfman is always a thoughtful commenter on the comics industry and its may pressures, but also because CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS --and NEW TEEN TITANS by the same Wolfman/Perez team -- is to the New 52 generation what Fantastic Four #1 (the 1961 one) was to so many before it. With its sweeping changes, dramatic deaths and multiple universes, it set the stage for many a crisis to come. And, famously, there was talk after CoIE of doing a line-wide issue #1 reboot. The idea lay dormant until now. But Wolfman points out that for an event to be an event it should have actual motivation:

Yoe Books/IDW is having comics fans choose which cover they're going to use for the about-to-be-printed book, "Bob Powell's Terror", which reprints the cult favorite's 1950s most terrifying horror comics!

Before I go any further, these comics are not aimed at me...nor should they be. I am a long lapsed superhero reader, but surely not the kind that the DCnÜ wants to entice into reading their comics. So accept this as just one review out of 8264 that will be posted today and tomorrow. AND YEAH. SPOILERS. so don't read until you've read the comics in question.

Whoa whoa whoa. Superman may have lost his red panties, but as shown by Henry Cavill on the streets of Chicago, he's gained...a giant package.

Today's trailer spotlight is RESURRECTION MAN by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Fernando Dagnino. The music: "Dies Irae" from Mozart's Requiem. Can you see the connection? That David Macho is a smart one!

If you couldn't stay up late enough for midnight madness last night, Jim Lee and Geoff Johns will be at Manhattan Comics on 10 E. 23rd St., between Broadway and Madison sometime between 11 and 1 pm today to sign. They will only be there for about 30 minutes. Everything in the store, except new books is 52 percent off today only, so it's also a good chance to grab some other loot. No pizza will be served, unfortunately.