News

Speaking of the party's over, Brian Hibbs looks in the industry mirror and doesn't like what he sees:

Josh Blaylock is back and blogging. The publisher of Devil's Due, which seems to have gone on hiatus after selling many of its characters to Arcana, has moved to a tell-it-like-it-is blog and various ventures like his events company Pop Cultour. Although the most recent years of Devil's Due was filled with charges of non-payment to freelancers, no one can say Blaylock isn't a student of the game. He has some very good advice re S! corporations here, and another blunt post called Will February ’11 Be a Comic Book Direct Market Massacre? Like many industry watchers, he feels the price CUT coming in February is of some concern:

The new issue of Revolver magazine salutes the rock greats who died this year, and has a special painted cover by JG Jones, artists of such things as WANTED and FINAL CRISIS. The cover depicts Ronnie James Dio, Slipknot’s Paul Gray, Avenged Sevenfold’s the Rev, Type O Negative’s Peter Steele, Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell, Metallica’s Cliff Burton, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, Ozzy Osbourne’s Randy Rhoads, Queen’s Freddie Mercury, and Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley and it is available as a free poster in the issue. rocking together in heaven. The cover painting also appears as a free poster

As you may have read, a gunman down in Panama City, Florida walked into a school board meeting, sprayed a V for Vendetta symbol on the wall, walked around with a gun, making a lot of statements, started shooting and eventually was shot by a deputy, then killed himself. (Reports differ on this, but the most credible reports are that he used his gun on himself.) This video is pretty unbelievable, especially the part where a woman sneaks behind him and whacks him with her purse. And gets worse from there.

Brian Fies (Mom's Cancer, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?) writes that he's involved with an upcoming conference on comics and medicine that is looking for papers:

Things are winding down for the holidays. The Beat is no exception. We'll be on holiday starting next week, and this time we really mean it. Almost no internet. We'll have a few elves looking in, but posting will be pretty perfunctory through Christmas. We will be posting some holiday art for the next few days so send us links or JPGs...but only through Friday. After that we're gone, baby, gone. Looking forward, we'd like to note that we're already booking advertisements into 2011. The top banner is sold out until April, and there are only scattered openings after that.

Gabrielle Bell just gets better and better.

The Golden Globes nominations were announced this morning, and comics turned up in two categories. RED, based on the Warren Ellis/Cully Hamner comic, was tagged in the Picture, Musical or Comedy category and The Walking Dead got a nom for Best Series, Drama.

The CBLDF is auctioning off a very interesting item: Frank Miller's Drawing Chair, SIGNED.

Over the years we've published links to many an analysis of convention sales -- what works, what doesn't, what is the real economics. But here's an interesting take from Tony DiGerolamo, writer of JERSEY DEVIL and several issues of BART SIMPSON for Bongo, and a webcomic called SUPER FRAT, among other things. His blog runs on The Webcomic Factory, a joint effort by DiGerolamo and Christian Beranek that publishes various webcomics. I couldn't find DiGeralamo's other writing credits easily on the site, but we hope it's fair to say he's one of those small publishers you see in various artist's alley who have small press genre books -- the kind of stuff that doesn't get as much attention as mainstream or art comics -- sometimes justifiably, sometimes not.

After three years in top management positions, Mark Waid is leaving his current position as COO at BOOM! Studios to go back to freelancing. He'll continue to write INCORRUPTIBLE and IRREDEEMABLE, his hit titles for BOOM!, and Stan Lee's THE TRAVELER. Editor-in-chief Matt Gagnon, who stopped into that position in July, will oversee BOOM!'s creative output. Waid spoke exclusively to CBR with his usual candor about the move, stressing that unlike his tenure at CrossGen, he was leaving on friendly terms.

A lot of changes have been announced over the last month at DC. Here's what we know or can guess.