Business News

Well, bam, 2015 is off to a rousing start, with news breaking this morning that San Diego's IDW has acquired Atlanta/PDX's Top Shelf, with Top Shelf's Chris Staros to remain as Editor in Chief, while partner Brett Warnock retires from comics to run a food and nature blog. Top Shelf will remain as a separate line at IDW, while Leigh Walton, Chris Ross and Zac Boone will all stay on at the new imprint.

It's the final Humble Bundle of the year and it's $555 worth of Dynamite Comics for a pay what you want model. THIS IS...

Among the information revealed by the disastrous Sony documents leak, of most interest to comics types is a series of emails in which Sony and Marvel discussed a Spidey crossover. . This was widely rumored earlier this year, and yep it was true. Studio head Amy Pascal and Sony Pictures president Doug Belgrad discussed an offer from Marvel to produce a new trilogy of Spider-man movies, and a possible appearances for the webslinger in Captain America: Civil War. But alas:

Over at PW I reported on Consortium starting to distribute Alternative Comics and Secret Acres to bookstores. They currently distribute Uncivilized, Toon Books, Nobrow...

Insiders have been whispering that Hasbro the toy making giant, may buy Dreamworks Animation. The two companies would definitely find some of what they're missing in one another.

We've been talking about how the comics industry is doing well, and people seem to be making good on their business plans. But there are still cautionary tales. One such tale is Kaboom Test Labs, a two store cain located in Albuquerque, NM that abruptly closed shop this weekend. The main site has only a note that the owners were leaving New Mexico; a Facebook page where disappointed customers wondered what happened has been removed.

Every once in a while I mention the "small companies banding together to survive in a hostile environment" strategy, and here's a perfect example. Aspen Comics, the long running company founded by the late Michael Turner, has acquired Big Dog Ink as an imprint. Both Aspen and Big Dog publish primarily periodicals, and that really is a tough business plan these days unless you have well known IP, and even then it is no cakewalk.

Things are changing rapidly in comics retailing, and as we mentioned previously, this year's ICv2 conference which will be held the day before New York...

We here at The Beat have long been a fan of Tim Beyer's analysis of comics and comics-based entertainment trends at The Motley Fool and he's just launched his own site to expand on that called The Full Bleed:

ICv2 will once again hold a conference the day before New York Comic-Con officially kicks off, on Wednesday, October 8th. This year's conference has...

ICv2 has a new report on the size of a market, this time the hobby game market—games like Magic, Warhammer,various card capture games, D&D...

Wizard World just released its Q2 SEC filings, reporting income up sharply on an increased slate of shows. You'll recall that Wizard World is...