News

There's been some concern over Marvel's sales in the last six months or so. "But AVX is frickin' huge," you say. And it is. But that might be masking Marvel's inability to sell comics that aren't part of a crossover/Event. Marvel's Next event is the pseudo-relaunch of Marvel NOW! and nobody's quite sure what to make of that just yet. Last week, Brian Hibbs penned a column expressing concerns about Marvel NOW!'s viability and the poor general state of Marvel's and non-Event top list and mid-list. I think it's time to compare some of the numbers on this.

This super sweet story about artist Karl Kesel and his wife adopting a baby and then selling his Silver Age comics collection to pay for medical bills is a great way to end the week. The Kesels had been assigned a drug affected baby and this meant their child was born with a methadone addiction and has to be hospitalized for six weeks:

A couple of new surveys reveal some interesting book buying trends. In the bad news category, weekly sales are down 32% from 2011but that's mostly due to last summer's Borders sell off, Publishers Weekly reports.

Lobo-co-creator, Roger Slifer. Slifer, who was struck by a hit-and-run white sedan in Santa Monica, Calif., on June 23, remains hospitalized and faces a very long recovery. As of last Friday, he was moved to Barlow Respiratory Hospital, a facility that specializes in respiratory issues. Slifer still cannot breathe on his own, but it is hoped that in 3-6 weeks he'll be able to do that, and can start rehab in 3-6 months. Slifer's cousin, Emma, has further updates on his medical condition on Facebook.

Yet another good-looking new creator-owned imprint is coming, this time from Ivan Brandon.

It's a sign of the length of the Comic-Con Recovery Process that even though I thought I could wrap this all up on Tuesday, it's taken me another four days and many many packets of Vietnamese Instant Coffee (Cà Phê Hòa Tan) to have the energy to write my thoughts. If you don't want to read them you can listen to much the same thing in the PW Comics World More to Come podcast. While I'm pretty sure everyone has purged the week of July 11-15th from their mind entirely —and I just about have forgotten it all myself—for the sake of completeness, here's what I thought and observed and smelled and saw and heard:

Recent record-setting prices for original comics art could just be the beginning as the art world continues to perform.

By Todd Allen That teaser from Tuesday was indeed Shadowman.  Looks like Valiant is doing a launch, not a spin-off as November will see Shadowman...

A Lassie animated movie? A new Casper cartoon? It's all speculation, but DreamWorks has just purchased licensing company Classic Media for $155 million. Classic Media, which was founded by ex-Marvel CEO Eric Ellenbogen and ex-Broadway Video's John Engelman in 2000, has long been one of the biggest behind-the-scenes media entities, amassing a huge library of legacy characters including the Harvey and Western libraries, in addition to The Lone Ranger, Lassie, and many many more.

By Jeff Trexler

-- Whatever the merits of the latest summary judgment motion in the dispute over the Superman copyright, its supporting exhibits bring together a number of important documents in two accessible filings.

Without going into overdrive over covering every minute detail of the life of the mass murder which took place during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises , it is very slowly being revealed that there was a Batman connection:

Seriously. I feel like it is New Year's Day again now that you-know-what is over. I can clean the closets, file things away, start NEW projects and just get on with life. BONUS: Comic-Con was so early this year that I actually have five weeks of summer left!