News

A tiny bit of justice at last. A ton of people this week commented that writing about how hard it is to make a living doing comics while simultaneously not paying your cartoonists is a seriously dick move. And Village Voice editor Tony Ortega has decided to scramble up all that egg on his face and give everyone some breakfast:

The 2011 Eisner Award nominations have just been announced, and every year is colored a bit by the make-up of the judging panel, but this year's nominations seem to have gone out of their way to recognize some new faces and names -- the leading vote getters were The Return of the Dapper Men with five and Morning Glories and Locke & Key with four each. It's a vastly eclectic list, and recognizes the incredible diversity of today's comics industry.

After a year-long stint with Random House as their book distributor, Radical Publishing is back at Diamond, we are told by press release. The announcement is a bit of a no-brainer, considering that Radical was at last month's Diamond Retailer Summit.

As we predicted last week, the Rob Granito team is attempting to get their second act rolling with a round of tell-all interviews. You may recall (it was all so long ago and little noted) that Granito is a person of dubious artistic skill who has been going around to comics shows for 15 years selling copied art that he's passed off as his own. Now, Comics Cube reports a letter is making the rounds:

As mentioned in a previous item, this week's Village Voice is the Cartoon Issue, and the centerpiece is a longish article called If Cartoons Are So Big, Why Don't They Pay?; it's one of several recent prominent articles -- like the recent Marvel profile in the em>NY Times -- that focus on the rather frugal level of profits one can expect from publishing comic books in America.

Industry veteran Robert V. Conte has long been a behind-the-scenes comics player as owner of Chikara Entertainment, a print broker and book packager who helped with the shift to cheaper Chinese printing, which has allowed many of the lavish but affordable comics reprint series currently available. Conte has announced he's shutting down his business to spend more time with his family. However, he'll stay in the comics world as part owner (with Gary Esposito) of several retail concerns, Brooklyn Comics & More and Manhattan Comics & More, Inc. The latter took over the Cosmic Comics spot on 23rd St.

Archaia is having a busy WonderCon, with a bunch of announcements. Yesterday's big story was a GN based on IMMORTALS, an upcoming mythology inspired movie, and today's is an anthology based on The Storyteller, another Jim Henson project from the past -- this one is a little obscure but fondly remembered by many -- basically an old dude would sit there with a dog and tell...stories. Seems ripe for an anthology.

Voting in the 2011 Inkwell Awards, honoring the best in the art of inking, has just been opened. The nominees are below; the awards will be presented...well, the PR doesn't really say. There are some amusing categories below -- Klaus Janson needs more attention and Todd McFarlane is small press -- but giving the hard working inkers of the world some props is always a good thing.

What is normal, anyway?

[Chris Sotomayor is a successful and well known colorist for Marvel and other publishers. Recently he began a series of interviews he called "The Dirty Dozen" where he asks industry figures questions about their careers from a business standpoint. The themes are among those that we've recently been exploring here at The Beat as the career paths for cartoonists become more tangled -- here is more opportunity than ever, but the way to get there is not always clear. Although the interviews appear first at his site, Chris has graciously allowed The Beat to reprint them. Up this time, writer/artist Jimmy Palmiotti.]

In spite of all the gloom and doom you get from looking at sales charts, in reality the comics business is holding its own, mostly due to the perseverance and savvy of retailers such as those polled by Ada Price in this long piece for PW. The bottom line: Although times are tough, by being cautious, stores are staying healthy:

Back in August, 2010, we told you all about the story behind OBLIVION, a graphic novel concept by director Joe Kosinski (TRON: LEGACY) that was optioned to Disney Studios for a cool $500,000. It seemed like a lot of money for yet another "celebrity comic" so what was so hot about it? At the time we wrote: