News

How far would you walk for a copy of your favorite comic? Would you do it with a group of friends? How about a road trip? People wander in pub crawls, sometimes in costume, so why not do it for comics instead of cheap beer?

What are the odds that TWO books about sharks from TWO indie cartoonists would come out in one year?

Famed kitsch painter Thomas Kinkade, who claimed to be the most collected artist in the world, has died at the sadly young age of 54. Like anyone who was rich and famous, he had a controversial side: gallery owners accused him of unfair business practices and he was known to like a tot or two.

Every once and a while, news takes you completely by surprise. Were you expecting James Robinson and Philip Tan to be teaming up for a He-Man comic? Neither was I. And yet, it has been announced.

There is always some shock when the Eisner Award nominees for the year are announced. This thing got included, that thing was left off. It's natural. In recent years the judges have seemingly gone the way of recognizing more things in more categories and spreading around the wealth then singling out a few books/creators for TITANIC-level encomiums. Even the PR for this year's nominees praised the list's diversity—and 26 different publishers were mentioned, 15 with one nomination each. But as always, there was one omission that seemed to stun a lot of people, us included.

It is the time of the month when industry figures fret about the Future of Comics. No slight intended—we do it all the time, too, and a few remarkable clear and essential posts about The Way It Is have just been made. So let's review:

Yesterday's initial sales charts left no doubt that so far 2012 has been a strong year for comics sales, but the numbers were also flat from last March -- five Wednesdays in 2011 vs four in 2012, perhaps? The numbers prompted a vague shadow of worry to cloud the brow of Milton Griepp at ICv2:

You'll recall that a few weeks ago, the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs sued Dynamite over their ongoing lines of Tarzan and John Carter comics. Although the earliest works in each series are in the public domain, ERB, Inc. sued on the basis of trademark infringement, claiming that Dynamite's Lord of the Jungle was infringing their trademark for "TARZAN LORD OF THE JUNGLE" and so on. Well, Dynamite has responded, and it's pretty much a blanket denial, as you can see above. Dynamite's defense is pretty simple: the books are in the public domain, and ERB, Inc., doesn't have a trademark to infringe. For instance, ERB didn't file a trademark claim for Lord of the Jungle until March, 2012, although a shadowy company called ETT Corp. had filed one a few years earlier.

The Avengers are fighting the X-men, yes, but why? As someone who hadn't read any 616 Avengers or X-men for a while, would I even be able to understand Avengers vs X-men? I figured it out and so can you - for your convenience, a (mostly AvX spoiler-free) guide to understanding Marvel's newest comics event.

While looking for a comics cover for a sick alert, I realized that the heyday era of the doctor comic was definitely the early '60s. Licensed comics were such a big deal then, especially for Dell/Western. They licensed just about anything. The BEN CASEY and Dr. KILDARE comics were based on popular TV shows of the time. Dr. KILDARE lasted about 9 issues, BEN CASEY 10, although it did spin off into a comic strip which was written and drawn by Neal Adams.

This year's nominees are up led by Marvel's DAREDEVIL, with six noms, and Jim Henson/Ramon K. Perez's TALE OF SAND with five. This year's judges were reviewer Brigid Alverson (Graphic Novel Reporter, CBR, Robot 6) , retailer Calum Johnston (Strange Adventures, Halifax, Nova Scotia), librarian Jesse Karp (LREI, New York), cartoonist Larry Marder (Beanworld), comics historian Benjamin Saunders (University of Oregon), and Comic-Con board of director Mary Sturhann. They added two new categories while dropping four:

Regular posting will resume....hopefully.