News

Here.

With 200 Borders stores going into immediate liquidation following the chain's bankruptcy, I took a Presidents' Day stroll to our local to survey the sadness first hand.

This spring's Xeric Grant winners have been announced. Founded by Peter Laird, the Xeric is presented to worthy cartoonists to provide them with funds to print their projects. A total of $31,158 was awarded for seven comic book projects.  The Foundation has awarded in excess of $2.4 million to comic book creators and nonprofit organizations since its first grant cycle in September 1992.  

Presented by Diamond based on sales impact and overall quality, the 2010 Gem Awards reflect the same bestsellers we've been talking about here for a while: SCOTT PILGRIM, WALKING DEAD, BRIGHTEST DAY, SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE, KICK-ASS. Complete list below:

A fire broke out on NYC's St. Marks St. this morning, in the same building as St. Marks Comics:

As part of its bankruptcy proceedings filed this morning, Borders has announced that it will close some 200 stores nationwide -- you can see if yours will be hit in this interactive map. Chicago has been particularly stripped, with half their 430 stores set to close. According to documents, Borders has $1.29 billion in debt and $1.27 billion in assets; it hopes to boost the bottom line by closing these 200 stores which were losing $2 million a week for the company

UNKNOWN SOLDIER led the 2011 Glyph Award nominations, with six nods. The awards are presented each year to "the best in comics made by,...

As expected, Borders has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Jim Milliot and Judith Rosen report:

The new DC Entertainment has added another high-powered ex-Disney West Coaster to its roster as Courtney Simmons has filled the position of SVP of Publicity. The current New York-based publicity team of David Hyde, Pamela Mullins, and Austin Trunick will report to Simmons, who has worked for Disney, Sony and Lego -- we'd say that covers it all.

John Shableski, sales manager at Diamond Book Distributors, is leaving the company to start a new line of GNS for JeffCorwinConnect, PW reports. In his three years at Diamond, Shableski had worked closely with book fairs, libraries, and indie booksellers to get more graphic novels on their radar. In his new position, he'll join Animal Planet personality Corwin in starting a line of YA GNs for the trade and educational markets:

As comic-cons become bigger and bigger, pop culture events one things is true: Media members like to complain about things. Nasty publicists, poor access, no Wi-Fi, crappy coffee in the press room. The same is true of the toy sphere, and at this year's Toy Fair, the toy media felt they got the short end of the pogo stick. It was definitely an odd situation. As big companies rely on fan media to get the word out about their products to the lucrative collector markets, the way they do it is being constantly reinvented.

Joanne Siegel, the widow of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and inspiration for the Lois Lane character, passed away today at age 93. Her death comes only a few days after Jerry Siegel's childhood home in Cleveland, OH was restored and the streets in front of it honorarily renamed Joe Shuster Lane and Lois Lane.