Publishers

Gene Luen Yang's new book, LEVEL UP, covers some territory that may be familiar to many people -- a young man whose parents want him to make something of himself, while he just wants to play video games. Drawn by Thien Pham, it's Yang's latest exploration of growth and personal identity, especially as it relates to Asian Americans. But the book isn't just about video game addiction. At Wired's GeekDad, he explains where the book is really coming from in his own experience.

Behind the scenes at FLASHPOINT and Marvel, among other things.

Just a few weeks ago we were musing about how to get digital comics reviewed, and in our ongoing conversations about this is definitely seems to be the wave of the future. And now Dark Horse has made it official by joining NetGalley, a service that has been automating galley distribution for book publishers for a few years now. Instead of sending out review copies to a kabillion different sites and magazines, publishers can just send them to NetGalley -- reviewers sign up for an account and you're off to the races.

Did you know that Disney owned Marvel Comics? You do now, as Marvel is putting out a licensed comic from the ABC show Castle, which stars nerdlebrity godhead Nathan Fillion as a mystery writer who also solves crimes. The GN. will not be an adapttaion of the show, however, but a story about Castle's best-selling character, Derrick Storm. Tellingly, this will not be a periodical, but a standalone graphic novel, due in September, written by Brian Michael Bendis and Kelly Sue DeConnick with art by Lan Medina and a cover by Carlo Pagulayan.

Led by the top-selling Batman: The Dark Knight and Batman, Inc., which were back on the racks after a two-month absence, and a double-shipping Green Lantern, DC Comics' periodical sales continued a slow recovery in February. Notably, the February numbers also show modest increases across the rest of DC's line-up. Maybe the company's decision to cancel around 25% of its current ongoing titles and stick to a $ 2.99 price point is encouraging retailers, after all.

This is the busiest month Marvel have had in quite some time. The big release for March was the relaunch of FANTASTIC FOUR as just plain FF, but the month also sees the prologue to upcoming mega-crossover FEAR ITSELF, two new ongoing titles in VENOM and IRON MAN 2.0, the revival of CrossGen titles RUSE and SIGIL, and issues from the "Death of Spider-Man" and "Age of X" crossovers. We also have the second month of Point One issues - more on that below. As usual, Marvel had the largest share of the direct market, both in terms of dollars (leading DC by 40% to 28%) and unit sales (45% to 32%).

On his Twitter account, DC's vp of Online Ron Perazza confirmed that he is leaving DC instead of moving to the West Coast, as had been previously reported. Perazza was a 12-year-vet at DC, following a stint at Marvel, starting out in creative services where he rose rapidly in influence and rank to vp of creative services. Perazza's best known public move at DC was starting the Zuda webcomics line, which was controversial but one of the most innovative efforts at DC in recent years, and one which developed a thriving online community.

Just a reminder: The NBM blog is running regular web comics by Lewis Trondheim, one of the finest cartoon diarists of all time. The comics are excerpted from his acclaimed Little Nothings series, published in the US by NBM. Bookmark!

Both Variety and Deadline are reporting that a pick-up for NBC's WONDER WOMAN pilot looks unlikely, contravening some rumors that went out this morning. WW show runner David E. Kelley might not get blanked, however -- his show HARRY'S LAW, starring Kathy Bates, is likely to be renewed.

In honor of the debut of FLASHPOINT, CNN had a story on Geoff Johns which made it all the way to the front page. The story speaks with various sources who discuss the fact that Johns is The Man of Comics 2011:

DC has released am image (click for larger) to mark the release of FLASHPOINT #1 today. You need to be a bit more versed in DC lore to know how entirely shocking this image is, but there is a monkey, and that's always good. There are also different versions of Batman, Wonder Woman, and so on. Alternate universe, ho! What we do know: FLASHPOINT, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Andy Kubert, kicks off tomorrow, featuring the Flash and ushers in a slightly ..."Different" world for DC. Which we've seen before but you know...it always works for a new generation. Retailer Larry Doherty of Larry's Comics in Lowell, Mass, himself no stranger to attention, went on yesterday's "#comicmarket" retailing discussion to say that FLASHPOINT will be the book of the summer. Selected tweets:

Fan of the curious antics of Michael Kupperman have been enjoying his "Mark Twain meets Einstein" adventures on his blog for a while, but it turns out that it's turned into a book, Mark Twain’s Autobiography, 1910-2010 which will be published in August from Fantagraphics. The cover hasn't been released yet but a few preview images have.