Culture

Note to Europeans: I am available to go to your comics festivals. Cry cry cry....

If you click the link, you will get to see Cyclops wearing a thong.

The cover for September's issue of Catwoman is.....

John Jackson Miller has posted the May sales estimates over at Comic Chronicles and, my but May was a healthy month for comics. Miller reports several records were set in May, at least in terms of Diamond exclusivity era. (This would have been an alarmingly low sales month in 1990.)

Renowned French comic artist Jacques Tardi, a genius of the French bandes dessinées, offers up his US debut "Manhattan," along with three other tales of the Big Apple written by Benjamin Legrand and Dominique Grange.

Via Popcrunch. There are several artists on here who show in spades that design is not their strong suit. Or their biker suit.

The seemingly tireless WOMANTHOLOGY organizer and artist Renae De Liz is in the hospital with a serious infection, her husband Ray Dillon reports:

We all know (or should know!) how important Will Eisner was to the comics artform. Something an increasing number of people know is how important libraries are to getting more and more people to read comics and graphic novels. So it makes sense that a Graphic Novel Prize for Libraries would be named for Eisner.

A round up of the week's news on Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises, True Blood, Arrow and lots more...

Book Expo America 2012 just concluded here in New York, and once again it's been an interesting trade show. Some stuff was normal, some was new, and overall, I felt it was a good show. My thoughts and discoveries follow.

Once a year, booksellers, librarians, and assorted biblios assemble at Book Expo America, the largest publishing trade show in North America. 2012 marks the tenth anniversary of the graphic novel pavilion at BEA, and while many graphic novel publishers are absent, there are many more "mainstream" publishers offering an amazing multitude of titles, genres, subjects, and audiences! This year, John Hogan of Graphic Novel Reporter hosts The Hottest Graphic Novels of 2012! panel, where a team of five diverse individuals recommend a variety of graphic novels due to be published in 2012! Last year's selections got lots of press and accolades, and quite a few of the titles below seem to be just as interesting and intriguing!

Ruben Bolling, aka Ken Fisher, is much loved in most quarters for Tom the Dancing Bug, his long running, surgical strike weekly political comic. Of course, the field for weekly political comics is not exactly busting at the seams with dough. So recently Bolling came up with a new idea, called The Inner Hive which would offer a subscription model for goodies to readers: