Comics Media

Created by designer Roberto Salvador. Open to submissions.

As many have noted, DC rolled out its brand spanking new website yesterday, with a whole new look, new logo and new commenting system. Among the many improvements, new sections for major characters, and subsections for videos, live social media updating and the like. (What, no Pinterest?) The site seems to be the work of the West Coast branding/web team, and although useful and streamlined, it does match the corporate vibe of a lot of DC rollouts of late.

Print isn't dead, it's just resting. As you may know CLiNT magazine is relaunching with a Volume 2.1 and a bunch of new strips, including the long-awaited "The Secret Service" by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. A joint venture between media magnate Millar and Titan Books, CLiNT is based on the old-fashioned concept of a slick magazine that includes text AND comics. It's sort of a brash mash-up of a lads mad and Judge Dredd, and it's definitely had some ups and downs on English newsstands, but has found an audience in comics shops, both in the UK and the US.

On the "authority" scale, the idea of New Yorker cover editor Françoise Mouly launching a blog about New Yorker covers and art would rank....very high. And so Blown Covers, which she describes as a personal blog. Although it's unafiliated with the New Yorker, she's holding weekly themed New Yorker cover contests and is "always on the lookout for good ideas and great artists." So yeah, this is an audition.

James Kochalka has a new tumblr called KOCHALKALAND and it includes doodles and noodles in the Tumblr way, such as the above piece of art for an iPad sequel to Kochalka's video game Glorkian Warrior. The sequel is called Glorkbot’s Mini Adventure, for iPad and other platforms. The game is being developed by Kochalka and Pixeljam.

A group blog devoted to memories of the much missed publisher. Above, Jason T. Miles and Williams talk comics late into an SPX night while Tom Neely tries to sleep.

While we were tidying up, we chanced upon the old archives of Beat articles no longer on the Internet, including one linking to Edward Champion's Boilerplate for All Future Comics Articles. It's as true today as it was in 2006!

GeekChicDaily, the daily nerd news email, is launching an edition for New York, and also teaming with the Tokyopop brand for a special edition spotlighting Japanese culture trends and news. The New York edition will cover the Big Apple's lively offerings in geek culture, following localized versions for LA and a national edition. GeekChicDaily also added Microsoft's Mich Mathews to its board of directors.

by Matt Demers--

The other day, The Beat covered the launch of Champion!, a new iPad-only magazine that's being staffed by a number of former Wizard personnel. As a huge fan of the latter, I decided to load up the free preview issue and give it a look.

Inside, I was treated to a number of different features, including interviews with Jim Lee and Will Friedle, spotlights on toys and t-shirts and a number of off-beat features (such as comic creators' first books) that Wizard was famous for. However, capturing the spirit of the old magazine isn't the only good thing that Champion! is managing to pull off.

Some ex-Wizard staffers have found some friends and launched an iPad magazine about pop culture

Unless you have been living under a rock, you've seen Tom Spurgeon's essay on facing a life threatening illness, an illness which led to his unexpected blogging absence earlier this summer, and which still affects him, although he's recovering. Since looking death in the face usually prompts some inventory of life, Spurgeon does just that in an astonishing essay that covers his life and his life in comics, if there is a difference. That a man fighting for his life should spend that time thinking about the Green Lantern movie is both ridiculous and awesome -- Tom's thoughts on why we chose the comics life and why we stay there speak for me about 80% of the time. It's not that we have on choice, but rather why would we WANT to leave a field that is full of such honest, unpretentious work and creative, life-loving people?

Since going on a nearly month long hiatus from blogging, Tom Spurgeon has left indie comics readers in serious withdrawal from golden age comics reprints, indie comics art dumps, old photos of cartoonists doing things, and of course, insightful commentary. Luckily as of today Tom is back to blogging today, with a San Diego preview, and a look at why it may have been time for the Xeric to go. Sadly, the elements that caused the hiatus have also prevented him from making the San Diego trip, but we're sure that he'll give better coverage from afar than most of us could do from the ground.