Culture

Matt Madden nails the history of comics in six panels. To see the thing full size, you'll need to go here, to a long essay by Professor Paul Lopes of Colgate University, on why comics are a great artform—something that some in the academic world must still be persuaded of.

As you may have heard, nail art is all the rage these days, and its getting more and more ornate. And some ladies are going for comics inspired pieces, such as this, by Brooklyn's Fleury Rose, who created this design for someone going to the Dark Knight Rises premiere in New York, who got to show them off to director Christopher Nolan, even. Who wouldn't want to sport these dark knails?

This is firmly under the HYPE banner since I was a publishing consultant for this project, but Ham Fisher's venerable boxing-themed comic strip character has been updated to an MMA-fighter for IDW's Joe Palooka, the brain storm of boxing announcer Joe Antonacci, along with Mike Bullock, Fernando Peniche and Matt Triano. In the story, Joe Palooka is a discredited MMA fighter who travels the world desperately trying to clear his name while fighting to earn a spot in the legendary “Legion of Combat,” worldwide fight series.

Last night Ragú debuted the above ad during NBC's telecast of the Olympics. We had to rewind it a few times before we actually believed what we saw.

As sometimes happens, I walk into a comics shop and discover something I didn't know I needed! Here's an example...

There's been some concern over Marvel's sales in the last six months or so. "But AVX is frickin' huge," you say. And it is. But that might be masking Marvel's inability to sell comics that aren't part of a crossover/Event. Marvel's Next event is the pseudo-relaunch of Marvel NOW! and nobody's quite sure what to make of that just yet. Last week, Brian Hibbs penned a column expressing concerns about Marvel NOW!'s viability and the poor general state of Marvel's and non-Event top list and mid-list. I think it's time to compare some of the numbers on this.

The Walking Dead #100 led the charts in July, even as DC just barely edged out Marvel in both dollars and units—a sign that Marvel NOW can't come soon enough perhaps. BATMAN: EARTH ONE led the graphic novel charts, topping a strong month for DC. Sales were generally flat from June, although remain much higher year to year. Comics were down a tad while GNs declined in dollars but gained in units.

The final teaser of the week hands over the keys to the Baxter Building to Matt Fraction, Mark Bagley, and Mike Allred

And you thought comics had it bad. It's been a banner year for video game sexual harassment—or at least video game sexual harassment awareness. The Anita Sarkeesian Kickstarter and subsequent online abuse has been well documented, and it's been discussed so much that the Times is ON it with a piece that nonetheless serves as a good round-up. This is the last frontier, as anonymity and youth add up to a culture of harassment—which spills over into the real world as when a female gamer was harassed by the captain of her own team IRL (above.) The Times says it's gone so far even video game makers are trying to do something:

Marvel's newest teaser is for Deadpool, suggesting the new creative team will be comedian Brian Posehn, writer Gerry Duggan, and artist Tony Moore.

Color Scott Pilgrim is coming. It was available at Comic-Con. And soon it will be available on-line. Soon meaning August 8th. But to get the very rare Collector's Editions (which includes the Evil Edition, along with all the sweet merch mentioned below and pictured above, like coins and prints and patches) you must watch and wait. And then crash the server, probably. Here are the details:

Frank Santoro's new process blog Comics Workbook, which has "flipped the script":