Culture

The Hugo Awards have been cool with comics for longer than most non-comics-specific awards, so this is far from a new award. This year, Phil Foglio and Girl Genius are not on the ballot. Foglio has been the only winner in the category, sweeping it since the Graphic Story's inception in 2009.

The Avengers is pulling an advance ticket sales sweep a la The Hunger Games. Deadline reports that AMC Theaters' marathon showings of The Avengers...

Of all the new features of the revamped Comics Journal website, perhaps none is so awesome as the series of cartoonist diaries—from Brandon Graham to Emily Flake to Michael Deforge to Pascal Girard. It's a treasure trove of observations and art. But perhaps none will tug at the heart as much as this week's by Dylan Horrocks.

By Todd Allen Roughly 9 years ago Mark Millar and Jae Lee teamed up for a crossover one-shot between Top Cow and Dynamite (or should...

Our feverish maunderings about old comics did draw one great link, from Jamie Coville, this interview with DJ Arneson, who was the editor for Dell after Western pulled its licenses and the company essentially started a comics company from scratch in 1962. It's a fascinating look at the business away from Marvel and DC. And it also provides a glimpse into a long ago Shangri-La before...approvals:

While looking for a comics cover for a sick alert, I realized that the heyday era of the doctor comic was definitely the early '60s. Licensed comics were such a big deal then, especially for Dell/Western. They licensed just about anything. The BEN CASEY and Dr. KILDARE comics were based on popular TV shows of the time. Dr. KILDARE lasted about 9 issues, BEN CASEY 10, although it did spin off into a comic strip which was written and drawn by Neal Adams.

Marvel bashed its way back to the top in March, winning both dollars and units and the top book with AvX #1. After getting shut out of the top 10 books for the last few months, they had three books, including the AvX 0 issues and AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #1. AvX #1 is invoiced for March although it only went on sale yesterday, in April, because it shipped to retailers a week early. Comparative charts showed March 2012 pretty flat with 2011, with only graphic novel sales up appreciably -- and that's because of a surge in WALKING DEAD VOLUME 1 sales. This perrennial led the GN chart yet again, buoyed by the TV show no doubt.

Random House has announced that Brian Michael Bendis has signed a deal with Random House to produce a book called Words for Pictures: The Art and Business of Graphic Novels. The Hollywood Reporter has it described as "designed to give those looking to break into comic writing a leg up." And they might just be missing the point. It looks to me like Bendis just wrote a textbook.

Last year a federal court in New York denied the Kirby heirs' attempt to claim the copyright in Spider-Man and other Marvel properties. Why, then, is their lawyer betting the future of the Siegel lawsuit on the same losing arguments?

Grant Morrison will present Mxyzptlk as a Kryptonian God of Chaos, in direct contrast to Brainiac, a God of Order. Both will battle across multiple dimensions (as hypothesized by String Theory), forming the "brane" of his long-awaited "Multiversity" epic.

We knew there was a Big Apple/New York Comic Market Con this weekend at the Penn Plaza Hotel...but we did not realize it was the LAST show to be put on by Mike Carbonaro. But it is. Carbonaro, an inescapable figure on the NY comics scene, has some 40 years of selling comics behind him (he started as ateen like so many of us) but really got on the NYC map with the famed "Church Con" of '96 or so when a planned major convention at the Coliseum (now torn down) was canceled at the last minute when the organizers failed to talk to/pay off the fire marshals. Carbonaro and pals like Vincent Zurzulo stepped in to throw a last-minute show in the basement of a church and a kind of tradition was born again...the kind of grimy, fan-focused shows that New York City fandom was founded on.

via Collider: