News

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!

News roundup and some personal notes on the rioting.

It's a week of changes for DC. The last remnants of those who are moving West have packed up shop, and the WildStorm offices in La Jolla are closing for good, ending nearly 20 years of history, innovation and comics. To mark the event, an alumni lunch was held. Apparently the turnout was insane. The final group shot awaits, but above is a sampling, with Hank Kanalz, John Nee, and Carla and Jim Lee. Jim Lee tweeted:

The must-read from yesterday is Michael Dean's look at the actual court documents ALSO, Spanish cartoonist Pepo Perez has his own comments on creator ownership, here in the Google translation. That's makes for some awkwardness, but also some great stuff.

When last we saw former Tokyopop owner and publisher Stu Levy, he was in Japan, sleeping in a truck on his way to deliver food to the victims of the March 11th Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that left parts of the country devastated. At the same time that Toykopop was shutting down for good, Levy announced his intention to spend a year making a documentary about the disaster and the survivor's heroic efforts to help others through the tough times. Well, now there's a trailer for this documentary and a Kickstarter page looking to raise $20,000 for post (color grading, etc) and marketing for the film, whose purpose he explains thusly: