Comings & Goings old

ComiXology's collection of media mavens continues with the addition of Peter Levin to the advisory board. Levin is the CEO of Nerdist Industries, and has worked with Nikki Finke and the Angry Birds in the past. Other advisory board members include ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp, former DC publisher Jenette Kahn, and former ZDNet head Jeff Ballowe. So as you can see, this advisory board doubtless has a lot of advice.

After months of searching for the right person, Wizard World, the convention/website company, has hired John Macaluso as CEO. Macaluso, whose background is in the apparel business, was already on the board. We had a brief chat with Macaluso about the news last week, and he's excited about the role. "We're going to be running a better company and fans are going to see a difference in our shows."

"Speak of the Devil and he shall appear." On Wednesday, we were discussing how books were shipping on time, but there were a lot of fill-in artists. Now it's Friday and DC has announced two more "Guest Artists."

IDW has hired a new marketing and PR person, namely John Schork, who has joined the company as Associate Manager, Marketing and Public Relations. The position opened up when AnnaMaria White left to start her own PR company. Schork was formerly an assistant editor at Dark Horse. In his new position he'll work with IDW's Director of Marketing Dirk Wood and Marketing Coordinator Chloe Zuanich on industry outreach and social media.

With The Shadow already scheduled Dynamite is now scheduling their second pulp adaptation, The Spider. The Spider was effectively The Shadow's nastier little brother. Originally created to tap into the popularity of the Shadow's pulp magazine, The Spider amped up the Shadow's format: more violent, more lurid, wider-ranging schemes from the villains, more outright "weirdness" in the "Weird Tales" sense of "weird." The other major difference was that The Spider had a more streamlined backstory: only one identity and a much smaller circle of sidekicks/assistance.

When last we left the status of Ashes, the original graphic novel crowdfunding to the tune of $32K, artist Jimmy Broxton was no longer on the project and writer Alex de Campi wasn't sure if there would be a new artist or if she'd be refunding the money to everyone who contributed via Kickstarter. Turns out, there will still be a graphic novel and there will be multiple new artists.

In the 4th "New 52" writer shuffle of the week, DC has announced Gregg Hurwitz as the new writer for Batman: The Dark Knight, as of issue #10. I suspect they really mean co-writer on that, as I'm under the impression artist David Finch, for whom the title was created pre-relaunch, has a pretty good amount of input on the plot.

You knew you couldn't go much more than two weeks without DC shuffling creative teams on the not-as-new 52. This time, it really is more of a shuffle than wholesale replacements, though, as three books get a new writer and DC's announcing things a little further out.

The newly resurgent Valiant Entertainment is taking action to get the retail community on it side, hiring former retailer Atom! Freeman to the position of Sales Manager and starting a campaign to contact all the 2500 retailers in the US. This kind of goodwill tour should pay off quite a bit—in our experience, all it really takes to befriend a retailer is to listen and then maybe learn.

In comics, were one privy to what goes on in the editorial suite, you could probably do "The Hour In Creative Differences," not "The Week." That said, there have been a couple cases of creative differences that have bubbled to the surface in the last week or so: the circumstances of how John Rozum came to leave Static Shock and the demise of The Infinite from Robert Kirkman and Rob Liefeld.

Well now the circle is complete. Former DC online VP Ron Perazza has joined comiXology as Vice-President – General Manager of Publisher and Creator Services. At DC, Perazza was responsible for the ambitious Zuda imprint and behind many other forward-looking initiatives. Since leaving DC last year he's been a bit of a free agent, but presumably his non-compete is over, and comiXology is the perfect place for him and furthers their place as the driver of the digital comics era.

After announcing a book for Free Comic Book Day and a lot of teasing, the relaunched Valiant has announced it's first title. X-O Manowar is launching on May 2nd. That's actually the Wednesday BEFORE Free Comic Book Day. X-O's high concept is, roughly stated, Conan in Iron Man's suit. Essentially, a Visigoth warrior/barbarian is abducted by aliens and ends up with the aliens' most advanced weapon in the universe suit of armor. It's also been a popular concept a couple times around, particularly during the first Valiant run. Between the two previous Valiant launches, here's a quick partial list of creators who've worked on X-O: Jim Shooter, Steve Englehart, Barry Windsor-Smith, Bob Layton, Bart Sears, Jackson Guice, Mark Waid, Dwayne McDuffie and Scot Eaton. Which is to say, "no pressure."