Culture

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.

Well, we made it to another year. Amazing! Thanks to my fine writers and editors: Torsten, Todd, Jen, Shannon, Kate, Marc-Oliver, Paul O., Paul M. and Bruce for all their hard work. Thanks to Synsidar for the copy-editing help. Thanks to all my wonderful friends and pals who kept me sane: Zena, Nisha, Amy, Charlene, Desi, Trish, Sara, Elim, Dave B., Frank B., Charles, Calvin, Suzu, and everyone else who helped out. Special thanks to Ben McCool, for living up to his name. But the biggest thanks of all to all of you who make The Beat a part of your daily ritual. I'm entering my 10th year of running a daily website and to say that it isn't a lot of work, would be inaccurate. But knowing that so many people enjoy coming here every day is what inspires me to keep going and to improve things. Bigger and better things are coming for The Beat in 2012...and hopefully for each and every one of you reading this.

Listen to Heidi MacDonald, The Beat herself, discuss 2011 in comics on a special year-end edition of More To Come, the PW Comics World podcast! As you may or may not know, Heidi has been one of the hosts of our bi-weekly comics news podcast for the past several months. In this episode, Heidi MacDonald and her co-hosts PW Comics World editor Calvin Reid and I discuss the biggest trends and events of the past year, including...

Waste not, want not: although the Wonder Woman costume designed for Adrienne Palicki didn't help the show fly as a pilot, producer David Kelley must have realized that a newly designed Wonder Woman costume is the kind of thing you keep in the closet for a rainy day. on Harry's Law, another show he produces, Erica Durance showed up wearing the costume -- playing a woman who THINKS she's Wonder Woman. So it's both Kelley making an in-joke...and being thrifty and green by recycling! Well played.

The increasingly corporate nature of comics has been a continuing topic for the last couple years. Marvel sold to Disney. Warner pulling DC in a bit closer. Trying to maintain quarterly sales figures in a hit-based medium (also known as Events and/or line extension). Forbes has a piece called "The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value." It's partially a review and partially a response to the book "Fixing the Game:Bubbles, Crashes, and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL." This piece (and the book) contrasts the old Peter Drucker maxim "the only valid purpose of a firm is to create a customer" the current credo of "the singular goal of a company should be to maximize the return to shareholders."

Ruminating on the year past, cartoonist/educator Steve Bissette considers the story of how creator owned comics can be sunk by just one stuck cog -- in this case a rather large cog named Alan Moore. Just to bring everyone up to speed, 1963 was a very early Image project re-imagining the origins of Marvel, written by Moore and illustrated by Steve Bissette, John Totleben, and Rick Veitch, with additional art by Dave Gibbons, Don Simpson, and Jim Valentino and published in 1993. The final issue was to have been illustrated by Jim Lee, but Lee took time off in the middle, Moore decided not to finished it and...blah blah blah. Time passes. And, Bissette and Moore have a bit of a falling out, as chronicled in a series of interviews, here and there. However, last year, a 1963 follow-up — Tales of the Uncanny - N-Man & Friends: A Naut Comics History Vol. 1 — was to be produced by Bissette and published by Image. Well, things didn't work out, as Bissette posts. In addition, there was to be a reprint of 1963. After months of negotiations, Moore "pulled the plug" — meaning 1963 will never be reprinted ever again.

Over the holiday Chris Arrant had a fantastic two part survey of what-ever-happened-to comics, including no-shows like such as All-Star Batgirl and All-Star Wonder Woman, and done-but-long-shelved books like Batman Europa and Daniel Way and Darick Robertson's Deathlok: Detour, it-sounded-ike-a-good-idea-when-we-were-talking-about-it-in-the-bar projects like Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips' vampire pirates book Black Sails (above) and something best not thought about too much called "Frank Miller's Jesus."