News

This long PR piece based on a Wired article gives you lots of details but here's the logline: hyphenates Steve Niles,, Brett Gurewitz and Matt Pizzolo are starting a new venture called Black Mask Studios that will distribute comics via a hybrid print/digital model. Niles (creator) will be the creative director, filmmaker Pizzolo will be President, and Bad Religion guitarist Gurewitz will use his Epitaph Records as the engine for the venture.

March 23rd is the deadline for voting in The 2012 Eisner Hall of Fame Awards. There are 14 nominees; four will go in:

It's my mother's 75th birthday!

Ryan Matheson, the American who was arrested, detained, abused and charged with child pornography after a single image was found on his computer on the Canadian border, has had criminal charges dropped after making a plea bargain to plead guilty to a non-criminal procedural charge. It's a big victory for the CBLDF and civil rights. The CBR story above has more details:

Hey there, The Beat will officially be appearing on Saturday at WonderCon on this panel:

Congats to Matt Bors on becoming the first alt-comix type to win the2012 HERBLOCK PRIZE, and its $15,000 cash award.

The comics world lost one of its greatest visionaries with the passing this morning of the French artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud. One of the most influential artists of the last 40 years, Moebius died at his Paris home after a long illness at age 73.

"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."

Following on what seems to have been a successful run with the Ultimate line, starting in June, Marvel will include a digital download code with ALL its books selling for $3.99. Marvel's moving ahead in this regard is interesting, since DC's John Rood has indicated that redemption of their combo packs has been "astonishingly low." In contrast David Gabriel says Marvel's program has been a big success.

The nominees for the 2012 GLyph Awards—honoring the best in comics' portrayal of African Americans—and as you might expect, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN by Bendis and Pichelli garnered a ton of noms. The awards will be presented on May 18 at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC) in Philadelphia.

As many have noted, DC rolled out its brand spanking new website yesterday, with a whole new look, new logo and new commenting system. Among the many improvements, new sections for major characters, and subsections for videos, live social media updating and the like. (What, no Pinterest?) The site seems to be the work of the West Coast branding/web team, and although useful and streamlined, it does match the corporate vibe of a lot of DC rollouts of late.

Every month, Diamond publishes a list of comics for which previously solicited orders have been canceled. The reasons for the cancellations are varied. Sometimes it's Diamond—orders too low; sometimes it's the publishers—book is sold out or out of stock or just...canceled. And a lot of the time, the orders are canceled, but only to be re-solicited when a release is more feasible. With that in mind, here's this month's list, with the codes in effect: