News

The Beat endorses the CBLDF -- the freedom you save may be your own. Clothe yourself, smell good, bid on some great art and then hang out at one of the best parties Comic-Con has to offer.

It's official....as everyone expected, Borders, the book chain that spearheaded the rise of graphic novel sin the good years, has failed to find a buyer and will be liquidated, perhaps as soon as this Friday.

Don McGregor is the writer of such Bronze Age classics as Black Panther and Killraven, and the first direct sales graphic novel, Sabre. Clifford Meth reports that family health emergencies have forced him to sell some of his art collection, including iconic pages from the above series:

Continuing our spotlight on this year's Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer awards, we come to David Marquez, artist on SYNDROME and DAYS MISSING Vol 2 for Archaia. London-born but living in Texas, Marquez was on track to become a high school teacher before deciding to pursue his love of art and applying for a job in the animation department on A SCANNER DARKLY. Since then he's worked on a a variety of indie comics projects.

Trolling the internet while on vacation, I was chilled down to the bone (impressive given the 100+ temperatures in Texas) to see on the announcement on the Center for Cartoon Studies website that the Xeric Award would be no more. Since 1992, Peter Laird of the amazeballs black and white comic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (self-published in 1984) has granted two awards a year to a cartoonist or project for its excellence.

Continuing our look at this year's Russ Manning Award Most Promising Newcomer nominees, we have Adam Hines, author of the extraordinary DUNCAN THE WONDER DOG, a meditation on consciousness that uses a dense, collage art technique and expressionist storytelling. It's set in a world where animals can talk, but any idea that this is going to be a cutesy anthropomorphic tale should go right out the window. Duncan has already won a Xeric Grant, the LA Times Book Prize for best graphic novel and the first Lynd Ward Prize, and it's nominated for the Harvey Award, making it one of the most honored graphic novels of recent years.

Each year the Russ Manning Award is presented to a new artist of merit. Past winners include Jeff Smith, Dave Stevens, Scott McCloud, and many other future Hall of Famers. We thought we'd take a look at this year's nominees and show off some nice art along the way. Up first: Janet K. Lee.

Former Marvel editor John Barber has been named to the Senior Editor position at IDW, taking over their Hasbro licenses. Barber worked at Marvel as an editor for six years, and has a background in webcomics, which should fit in well with IDW's strong digital presence. In addition, IDW named Tom Waltz as senior staff writer and Alonso Simon was named assistant editor.

Oi. Think Archie Comics is a place where no one ever says a bad word? Think again. As revealed by TMZ, Archie Comics has filed papers alleging that co-CEO Nancy Silberkleit has been harassing employees and should not represent the company at San Diego Comic-Con:

First Comics is coming back in a relaunch led by co-founder Ken Levin and Larry Young.

Artiest Renae De Liz (THE LAST UNICORN) is putting her energy where her mouth is and compiling WOMANTHOLOGY, an anthology of female creators, with a lineup that includes:

Gary Carlson and Chris Ecker's retro Big Bang Comics, a throwback superhero series published by Image in the 90s has been licensed by Pulp 2.0 Press for a new edition. If you liked the Zebra Batman cover we posted earlier today, you'll like Big Bang, as it regularly included contributions from Golden Agers Shelly Moldoff, Mart Nodell, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. Pulp 2.0. Press is another retro publisher that puts out new editions of classic pulp material, including digital editions. You can see how this would work out.