News

My last post explored how continuities between the cover image of Action Comics #1 and subsequent material could give DC a substantial part of the copyright in the original Superman.  One question left unaddressed, however, was the issue of Clark Kent, not to mention other key elements of Superman’s character and mythos appearing in that historic first issue. In this post, let’s take a quick look at that question and the role it could play in bringing this case to an end.

Despite a lukewarm (or "dismal" as the LA Times put it) box office reception which is blamed with helping Disney get cold feet over The Lone Ranger *, COWBOYS & ALIENS will live on via licensing, if Platinum Studios has anything to say about it. A new press release has announced a deal with KKM Global Brand Strategies which will license all aspects of the property. Oh, except the movie.

An oddball story that has only been seen on comics sites because it contains the word "cartoonist" or "cartoon" and keeps showing up on everyone's google news dump, is still fairly incredible in its own right. However to really get all the excitement you probably need to live in Renton, WA., a quiet Seattle suburb that was rocked by a scandal involving cartoon mockery of the police department.

Robert Kirkman's Skybound imprint at Image -- which includes Kirkman's own books and some new ones like WITCH DOCTOR and SUPER DINOSAUR -- will be getting Asian distribution via a deal with Moving Images, an international media company headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles.

Yesterday marked the first day at the official offices for DC Entertainment West, in Burbank, at a swanky new building called The Pointe. How swanky? It's got an extra "e"on the end for super-swank. DC's SVP Hank Kanalz was very excited about the day:

I cannot describe the excitement we all have on day one. Positively electric!

And well he should be. After looking at a series of pictures he tweeted, you can see that the DC west coast office, complete with archives and bullpen, is now the new and shiny HQ for all things DC. Let's take a tour, shall we?

Mark Evanier reports the death of Del Connell, the sadly obscure creator of a kajillion comic book stories, including Super Goof and Space Family Robinson. Connell recently won the Finger Award at San Diego but was too ill to attend the ceremony:

Is there a more cautionary tale in comics than that of the failing fortunes of Diamond Comics owner and über-scollectorSteve Geppi? Daniel Best reads through some of the court documents on the Montana Estate vs Steve Geppi lawsuit we alluded to the other day, and they are not too thrilling if you are Steve Geppi, the owner of Diamond Comics and once considered the richest man in comics. In a nutshell, back in 2006, a flush Geppi offered the family or Archie artist $1,000,000 for a collection of original Archie art, while attesting that he was worth $20 million, as the attached exhibit shows. As time went by, a few things happened -- Geppi made a series of very bad deals which ate up his money, especially as the economy and the real estate market tanked; and the art also lost a lot of value:

A special birthday shout-out to Jimmy Palmiotti, the best friend and advisor of almost everyone in comics--The Beat included--and creator or co-creator of comics from The Pro, Monolith, 21 Down, Painkiller Jane, Back to Brooklyn, and of course a long, acclaimed run on Jonah Hex.

In the new Axel-in-Charge feature at CBR, Axel Alonso announced that the most senior editor at any comics company anywhere is retiring:

For artists, (and I mostly mean indie artists) Kickstarter is a blessing and a curse. The upsides for creators have been praised by plenty of others: hey, free money! The downsides mostly boil down to stunting your artistic growth and releasing a substandard product into an overcrowded marketplace. That's not a practice limited to Kickstarter by any means, but it's greatly enabled by risk-free money.

Anytime someone comes into a big sum of money, people will start asking what they're going to do with it, whether it's go to Disneyland or start a publishing company. So when WOMANTHOLOGY, the all-woman anthology started by artist Renae De Liz raised an unprecedented $109,000 on Kickstarter -- the biggest comics project ever and the 25th biggest project ever--it was inevitable that people would be asking a lot of questions. Especially since, as I learned myself, the contributors would not be paid. However, De Liz seems to have already answered most of the questions that have been raised.

We're not quite sure who or what the Shel Dorf Awards represent but two things: 1) they will be presented for the first time this year at Detroit's Detroit Fanfare show September 24-25 and 2) we were nominated in the Best Blogger category...so thanks to whoever!