News

There are some well-sourced rumblings out there that DC is ending its First Wave line. The First Wave books centered around several pulp heroes, including Doc Savage, The Spirit, the Blackhawks, and Rima the Jungle Girl. The reason isn't entirely clear, but the stand alone DOC SAVAGE and SPIRIT books were selling below 10K copies, which is well into the danger zone on today's comics.

Following the shock at his death, a well-justfied outpouring a remembrances of Dwayne McDuffie flowed out yesterday. A few words kept appearing over and over: respect and honesty. In a business where pettiness and jealousy are motivations far more than we'd like to admit, McDuffie seemed to rise above all that.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America annually presents the Nebula Awards to the best in those genres. The complete list of nominations is here but we'll mentioned two. Barry Deutsch's HEREVILLE: HOW MIRKA GOT HER SWORD is nominated in the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy category. And SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD was nominated for the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation.

Speaking of literary awards, the LA Times Book Awards announced their finalists yesterday and the new graphic novel category yielded the following honorees:

CBR is reporting the tragic news that creator Dwayne McDuffie has died of unknown causes. In addition to co-creating the Milestone Universe and its signature character, Static, McDuffie had a long career as writer, editor and producer, story editing the popular Justice League of America cartoon and most recently writing the All-Star Superman movie. As CBR reports, he was in full stride as a creator:

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,...