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Via PR, some info on this year's Eisner Award ceremony, including the fact that the event will start one half-hour earlier than usual, at 8 pm, meaning the ceremony should wrap up before 11 pm. Presenters include Jonathan Ross, whose making out with Neil Gaiman a few years provided perhaps the best Eisner ceremony moment ever. This year's fest is being sponsored by Syfy, meaning we'll probably see the stars of some Syfy show presenting an award or two.

The nominees for this year's Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailing award have been revealed and they are as follows:

After teases over the last few weeks, details on the new Monkeybrain Comics imprint from Chris Roberson and Allison Baker have been announced. The line launches on July 4th with five titles: Aesop’s Ark by J. Torres and Jennifer L. Meyer Amelia Cole and the Unknown World by Adam P. Knave, DJ Kirkbride and Nick Brokenshire Bandette by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover Edison Rex by Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver October Girl by Matthew Dow Smith The line will be distributed digitally, exclusively with ComiXology. As Roberson explained in a press conference this afternoon, it's essentially an Image Comics like deal: Monkeybrain will take a small cut for packing and marketing, but all copyright will remain with the creators. According to Roberson, the line is very focused on completely creator owned projects. "Neither writer or artist can be working in a work for hire capacity. We do ask the projects that come to us if it's a collaborative team, that everyone share share some level of ownership in the property."

In a surprise move, Tony Daniel announced his exit from Detective Comics over on his Facebook account. Why is this so surprising? If you look at the May sales estimates, Detective Comics #9 is sitting at 96K copies. Easily over 100K if you factor in UK sales. If you ignore the Batman Annual, it's DC's #4 title. Batman, Incorporated looks to have outsold it by 470 copies in the US, so there's a decent chance it will be DC's #3 title when the July numbers come out. OK, so you do have some "Night of the Owls" boost going on right now. It's been the #5 book for DC most of the time. That's a big change on a pretty successful title.

In a surprise move, Tony Daniel announced his exit from Detective Comics over on his Facebook account. Why is this so surprising? If you look at the May sales estimates, Detective Comics #9 is sitting at 96K copies. Easily over 100K if you factor in UK sales. If you ignore the Batman Annual, it's DC's #4 title. Batman, Incorporated looks to have outsold it by 470 copies in the US, so there's a decent chance it will be DC's #3 title when the July numbers come out. OK, so you do have some "Night of the Owls" boost going on right now. It's been the #5 book for DC most of the time. That's a big change on a pretty successful title.

Tally ho and chocks away to a new awards ceremony celebrating British comics! God Save The Queen!

All the apologies in the world for today's Beat outage. I finally figured out how to get it back online. Our Elite Tech Team is working on a more secure and long-lasting solution but in the meantime, Python, Apache, and MySQL are refusing to play nice. Man, I missed the Beat. It was scary not having it around.

Top Cow publisher Filip Sablik has told friends that Friday will be his last day at Top Cow, where he was publisher for the last 4 years of a 6 month stint. But fear not, Sablik has a NEW job at a comics publisher which he'll be announcing at Comic-Con. Jessi Reid, Top Cow's Social Marketing Coordinator, will be taking over Sablik's duties at Top Cow.

Marvel have revealed that issue #692 of Amazing Spider-Man will bring 'Alpha' to the World. But what is Alpha?

Veteran comics writer Roger Slifer is fighting for his life after being struck by a hit-and-run driver in Santa Monica, CA. it's being reported on twitter and elsewhere. Best known as the co-creator of Lobo, Slifer, 57, has worked as an editor and writer in the comics, animation and video game industries. According to reports, Slifer was struck by a white sedan at Fifth Street and Colorado Avenue early Saturday morning and taken to Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center, where he remains in critical condition with a serious brain injury.

Archie Comics has just made a hire and some promotions that solidify their role as a fast-track comics publishing company. Jim Sokolowski has joined the company as SVP - Sales and Business Development. Additionally, Harold Buchholz has been promoted to Senior Vice President – Publishing and Operations; Paul Kaminski has been named Executive Director of Editorial and Alex Segura has moved up to Vice President – Publicity and Marketing.

Yes, the world is a little stunned by the announcement of Matt Groening quitting Life In Hell. It isn't like this hasn't been threatened though. Back in November of 2009, roughly two and a half years ago, the Chicago Humanities Festival had a panel on the declining market for Alt Weekly comics. Groening was there. Lynda Barry was there. Chris Ware was there. Jules Feiffer was even there. And back then, Groening was already talking about quitting.