Culture

In honor of today being International Tabletop Day,  myself and fellow Beat staffer Victor Van Scoit have decided to share some of our own personal-favorite tabletop games. As criteria, we've decided to stay away from oldies like “Chess,” “Monopoly,” and “Dungeons & Dragons,” because there are a TON of other games out there. We have also decided to only share games that are still available for purchase if there are any readers who wish to experience these games for themselves.

The Scott Eder Gallery in Jersey City has a super cool show opening tonight;  Graphic Alt Comics with art by Gabrielle Bell, Tommi Parrish, Mary...

“Five years ago, Marvel was in charge, and they ruled everything I did as a retailer. It was ‘Marvel first.’ Now, they are the bastard children of the industry. I’ve lost probably 25% of my comic readership because 25% of my Marvel fans got tired of my higher cover prices, the non-sequitur storylines, the almost incomprehensible X-Men this and that… Marvel has done nothing to drive the industry towards us.”

The Retailer's View returns with a warning about the future of the comics industry... and a look at what can hopefully be done to fix it.

Looking back, Berger could see how the idea was very much in Shelley Bond’s and Vertigo’s interests. “The thing about Grimm Fairytales, the real fairytales, are that they are frick’n scary and bloody,” she said. “There is something domesticated about them nowadays… And I think most people today have their ideas of fairytales because of Disney.”

"I remember the absolute last copy of the first print run, which I sold at Comic-Con. It was to a middle-aged, straight woman who was buying it for her teenage, gay son. She told me that she was getting the book for him because she wanted him to know his history and lineage, and she couldn’t tell that story to him herself. She thanked me for creating the book for the both of them and I promptly burst into tears. Then we hugged it out. It was an incredible moment."

“It was quite a challenge because it was unlike anything DC had done,” said Bruning. Though they had been in the industry for years, they didn’t know how to deal with online talent and online competition. In many ways, they had to “rebuild” and rework their established view of comics.

“You can count the comic book editors on one hand who are so influential to the medium and whose vision for their material is so strong that they really define a brand that gives the audience that kind of confidence. And one of them is here to my left, Karen Berger.”

The exhibit features over 300 pieces on display, including original comic book art and movie props and costumes.

“If we have it that one culture can’t tell the stories of another culture, we restrict ourselves.”

Sometime after this, Pixar contacted Alcaraz. “They invited me for a ‘little-chat,’” he said. When they asked for his help to work on the movie, Alcaraz was stunned. “I was thinking, ‘wow universe, you have a sick sense of humor.” But, Alcaraz saw this as a great opportunity and accepted it. “I wanted to make sure this wasn’t going to be the Aladdin for Mexicans.”

Over the last month or two I may have alluded to an outside project I was working on and it was this: The 100...