Culture

Comics are a business that is relatively insulated from the ups and downs of the economy: things are ALWAYS marginal. While there's no doubt but that the global recession has impacted the comics industry — especially with customers dealing with price increases — quite frankly, there wasn't a lot to cut back. There's a good living to be made in comics, and many people do, but no one is buying a yacht — or not very many anyway. And maybe comics are a survival industry because it seems like everyone is just one or two issues away from square one.

Right. My turn for the annual forward looking column. 2011 saw DC bet the house (and possibly the entire Direct Market) on a massive relaunch -- and win. It also saw the emergence of digital downloads as a multi-platform trend that seems to be gaining momentum. What should we be looking at in 2012?

Today marks Charles Addams' 100th birthday, so we, along with Google, celebrate this influential cartoonist!

Richard Alf, one of the co-founders of the San Diego Comic-Con and a busy comics dealer of the early 70s, has died of pancreatic cancer at age 59, it is being reported. While only a teenager, Alf provided financing and transportation for early con founders, as well as inspiring Shel Dorf with their shared love of comics.

We don't know HOW we missed this story when it originally broke as we're such huge fans of The Brick Testament at Stately Beat Manor. Lest you forget, this is one man's crazy 10-year quest to retell the Bible using Legos a gargantuan task of posing and photographing, not to mention compression. When the book came out in November, we were all over that shit, and so, originally, was massive ass market retailer Sam's Club and religious bookstores, who thought that a version of the Bible told in colorful brick would appeal to children.

By Todd Allen You may have heard some good buzz floating around about the relaunch of the old Liefeld-verse title Prophet.  Believe the hype.  And...

Today, we keep seeing attempts to bring back limited versions of the newsstand comics rack.  2011's Barnes & Noble program being the most prominent to get a little press.  Interestingly, in recent weeks, both Jim Shooter and Chris Clarement have made comments about the demise of the newsstand system.  Coming from these two, the opinions are a bit more interesting as both were on the top of industry when things shifted over from the newsstand to Direct Market in the early-to-mid-80s.

As we've mentioned here several times, there have been no more important graphic novels published in this century than PERSEPOLIS by Marjane Satrapi and FUN HOME by Alison Bechdel. Both found large audiences well beyond the traditional ones for comics, and both have become oft-imitated -- but never duplicated -- by book publishers trying to cash in on the "graphic novel" trend. (The number of graphic autobiographies exploring ethnic roots alone is staggering.)

Chocolate Apple 1991-2011, a manga released at the just passed amateur manga show Comiket -- which drew some 500,000 people -- presents the author's heartfelt appreciation of the late Steve Jobs and his creations, while portraying Jobs as a cute Japanese girl.

Curse of the Wendigo is a graphic album coming out tomorrow from Dynamite written by Mathieu Missoffe and drawn by Charlie Adlard. Missoffe is a French screenwriter who moonlights in comics (an increasingly American thing to be doing, it would seem). Adlard is probably most familiar to comics audience as the artist on Walking Dead. As you might guess from the phrase "graphic album," Curse of the Wendigo was originally published in France by Soliel in 2009. Yes, the same Soliel that Marvel was publishing translations of a few years back.

I look back and recall the interesting events of 2011. What's my choice for the biggest event of 2011? Read and find out!

Let's start the new year out with a "what if." Over the years, there have been a ton of early-to-mid-'80s rumors about various Marvel creators having proposals in to revamp the DC characters. Some of the stories involve Steve Gerber and Frank Miller pitching new versions of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as Crisis on Infinite Earths was being planned (and that The Dark Knight Returns spun out of said pitches). I've heard Howard Chaykin and Walt Simonson's names attached to similar rumors.