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In what has to be considered a shock, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Kevin Tsujihara has been named CEO of Warner Bros. replacing Barry Meyer and beating out TV head Bruce Rosenblum and film head Jeff Robinov, The three has been locked in an internal battle to see who could outlast who, and Bewkes went with the far less known Tsujihara. Nikki Finke has some of the gory details, which seem as intent on causing Rosenblum and Robinov's privates to shrink to post-icy-dip size as much as business considerations:

Short version, the last remaining book retail giant plans to close as many as a third of its stores over a 10-year period—although that may be an optimistic projection, as well. Slowed by the rise of digital and a lack of new malls, B&N oipened only two stores in the last fiscal year, and it's end of year profits were well below what was expected. While the Nook ereaders has been a bright spot, sales there have slowed as well. So a leaner meaner BN seems to be in the cards.

§ Must Read: Tom Spurgeon catches up with First Second editor Calista Brill, whose essay on giving up on a comics career turned into a 10-alarm internet fire last week. Verbalizing these painful issues of a career in comics was something of a shock for many:

X-Men: First Class does something I haven’t seen a superhero movie do before. It’s not just a period piece, that’s unusual enough, but it also places its fantastic characters, Gump-like, in the middle of historical fact. Captain America: The First Avenger, released concurrently, went back in time to place its difficult-to-like protagonist in his proper context, but then wove a fantastical story around him involving ancient Norse artifacts and a guy with no face. First Class not only places its characters in history, it puts them at the center of the darkest, most traumatic events of their time.

Becky Cloonan, she of making universally acclaimed mini-comics when not drawing Batman, Swamp Thing, Northlanders and Demo fame, has just announced that this year she'll be...

Retailing advocacy group ComicsPRO has announced their annual Industry Appreciation Award nominees which salute "those who have been simply the best at what they...

In 2008, the Siegel family won a historic courtroom victory. So why did they risk it all on an appeal? An encounter between Jerry Siegel's widow, Joanne,  and Super Boys author Brad Ricca provides a telling clue.

By now, it seems a lot of people have taken advantage of Kyle Baker's decision to put his stellar body of graphic novels up for free online. While it's a windfall for readers, at Robot 6, Corey Blake asked "Does ‘free’ devalue comics?" While free sampling is a staple of marketing, it also has drawbacks:

For reasons unknown—but probably just for the good of society—Kyle Baker (Deadpool, Plasic Man) has put most of his creator-owned body of...

In case you missed yesterday's blockbuster news, the irrepressible Rob Liefeld took three days out of his schedule to write a screenplay called ICONS about the early days of Image. Hitherto shown only to close friends, the screenplay turned up at the website Dreammoviecast where you can read several sample pages up along with Liefeld's own dream casting choices. I don't want to spoil all the surprises but here are two:

Lots of stuff so let's get to it! § Sometime Beat contributor Laura Sneddon looks at 2013 in Comics and even though this list is mostly front of the Diamond catalog, there's a lot to be excited about.

Do you have what it takes to juggle a bunch of monthly comics, dealing with freelancers, Diamond, retailers and the comics press? If you're...