News

The winners of the 2010 Webcomics List Award have been announced -- fittingly -- in a webcomic. Winners were chosen by a panel of judges: Although there is not a text list of winners, Brigid Alverson at Robot 6 made a print list:

According to Bloomberg, Borders is inching towards bankruptcy, to the surprise of no one. They are looking to file next week and close as...

Apple's app stores -- the middleman of all middlemen -- have been the target of a stampede of old media magazines, newspapers, books and comics as the vehicle for sales in the new digital era. But several recent moves make it clear that Apple isn't in this game as a helping hand for anyone. Or, to put it in a more neutral light, Apple is a PARTNER, not a platform. The uh-oh feeling started yesterday when it was revealed that Apple had rejected Sony's e-reader app. This app like the Kindle, Nook, and other "storefronts" sent buyers to a website where they could make purchases without incurring Apple's 30% fee.

The SPACE Prize, given to the best publications presented at the SPACE indie comics show held yearly in Columbus, OH., have just been announced, and they are:

Marketing Coordinator Aaron Colter tweeted and social networked yesterday that he and Dark Horse had parted ways. Colter was a whiz at Twitter and Facebook and all the other ways we talk today, and managed these fuctions for DH, but he also was, shall we say, irreverent -- not perhaps the best image for a respected publisher. At any rate, maybe posting stuff like the attached image was a tweet too far.

Although we've been at the Beat blogging game since 2004, this is the first time we've had our own "creator-owned" website at our very own not-gonna-change url. Making it a year has had a few roller coaster moments, but it's been a year of vast learning and satisfaction. Oh, there have been a few pesky problems along the way, and the front page looks wack (because Team Beat hasn't been able to fix the image resizing script yet) but overall we're just happy to be here and incredibly grateful for all the support we've had from creators, publishers, advertisers and of course, readers.

Nominations for the 2011 Joe Shuster Awards, honoring the best in Canadian comics, have just been announced. Winners will be announced at a public ceremony in Calgary, Alberta on the evening of Saturday, June 18th, 2011 at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo which takes place June 17-19, 2011 at the BMO Round-Up Centre. In addition to nominees for various categories, judges chose two cartoonists for induction into the Hall of Fame: Chester Brown and Todd McFarlane.

In today's Borders Death Watch™ News the troubled chain is suspending payments to vendors and landlords.

Jeff Alexander, a mainstay of the DC comics scene and former Executive Director of SPX, died suddenly over the weekend of a heart attack. He's survived by his fiance, Erika. Shocked remembrances poured out:

Art Spiegelman has won the Grand Prix at this year's Angouleme comics festival, meaning he will be the "marshal" for next year's festival, setting the pace for the whole show.

Just to send you off on your weekend, here's Eric Powell of THE GOON with a hilarious and yet sobering video on what is really going on in the comics industry.

MEANWHILE, over at Amazon, some notable statistics emerged from this week's Digital Book World conference. Perhaps most strikingly, Amazon says that Kindle book sales now outpace paperbacks:

In reporting its latest earnings, Amazon