News

Anders Nilsen's acclaimed BIG QUESTIONS has won the second Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize. The award recognizes the best graphic novel, fiction or non-fiction, by a living American and is sponsored by Penn State University Libraries and administered by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.

Dirk Wood has earned a promotion to VP of Marketing at IDW. That means we'll be hearing his gravelly-voiced uttering for a long longer. Many congrats to Mr. Wood!

Indie comics publisher About Comics is no publisher manqué: the company has published books by Gail Simone and Charles Schulz. But it's also a small indie comics company in a world where the margins for that are getting tinier and tinier. To that end publisher Nat Gertler—who marks inventing 24 Hour Comics Day among his other achievements—has formulated a new publishing plan. Although About has a strong slate for the year with never before reprinted comics by Schulz and a new comic by MEN IN BLACK creators Lowell Cunningham, Gertler is no longer going to offer new products to the direct market. Instead About's offerings will be available via print on demand...and of course electronically.

We really don't link to our comics coverage over at PW Comics World as much as we should, so we are here to remedy that, especially when an issue as jammed as this month's comes out. Some highlights:

Classic parody video gone; e-re-issues continue; what are Fraction and Aja cooking up? And more.

Marvel's Junior Art Director Rich Ginter -- the man responsible for many of their ad campaigns and advertising materials, such as this stylish Defenders campaign, is moving to Disney in California, Twitter tell us. There he'll be a Digital Designer, where he'll be "working on their comic/magazine apps & designing stuff for that and new apps."

If you're a student of comics history the phrase "National Comics" conjures an image of Jack Liebowitz chomping on a cigar while urging teenaged creators to sign contracts...but if you're not, it means a new edgy anthology from DC Comics which will launch in July and run "pilot stories" based on some of the DCU's more "off beat" characters, like Kid Eternity, Madame X, and so on. First up, Eternity, above. Creative teams below:

We're getting word this afternoon that a little shake-up at the DCU editorial staff has taken place. Senior Editor Bobbie Chase has been promoted to Editorial Director and current Executive Editor Eddie Berganza has been moved to a different position.

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.