News

The expected tsunami of San Diego news is well under way, and we'll start our annual mega posting tomorrow. In the meantime apologies for the erratic Beat posting schedule of late due to conflicting deadlines on a variety of fronts; juggling all this stuff seems to take as much time as getting it accomplished. Despite all the problems, I hope you can stick with me. Of course, I'll be in San Diego to report on as much of it as one human possibly can -- we'll have a few stringers and correspondents on the scene as well and hopefully we can dig a little into the behind the scenes of the hype and hoopla.

It would have pleased Harvey Pekar, I think, that his passing yesterday was noted in every media outlet from the New Yorker to EW, and not just because they made a movie about him, but as a literary figure of worth and stature. Harvey's life's work was in showing that the ordinary was important, and a working class existence was not a prison but a journey through the profound and beautiful that anyone could experience if they took the time. He found that beauty in simple, quotidian things and experiences that others might have found trivial or mundane, but in the end his message was that what else is there? Life as it is lived is the most precious gift of all.

The Cleveland Plains Dealer is reporting that underground comics legend Harvey Pekar died last night. Pekar's wife, Joyce Brabner found him dead at about 1 am. Pekar had battled lymphoma previously, as chronicled in Our Cancer Year, but the cause of death is awaiting an autopsy. Pekar was best known as author of American Splendor, an autobiographical comic that adapted Pekar's lowly life as a filing clerk at the Cleveland VA into a journey of humor, drama and insight as memorable as any fictional hero, hiring artist friends such as R. Crumb, Gary Dumm, Frank Stack and others to illustrate his stories. American Splendor was an early self-publishing success story of sorts -- while its acclaim gained Pekar enough notoriety for him to become a semi-regular on the David Letterman Show (until erratic on-air behavior got him banned) he still had to work at the VA to rely on getting a pension and continuing to make a living -- indie comics was not a cash cow.

This year's Harvey Awards nominations have just been announced -- nominees are chosen by open ballot among comics professionals, with final ballots due Friday, August 7th. Named in honor of the late Harvey Kurtzman, the awards will be presented August 28, 2010 in Baltimore, MD, in conjunction with the Baltimore Comic-Con. While past Harvey slates contained many examples of assumed ballot box stuffing -- the Nascar and Gemstone scandals spring to mind -- this year, voters seem to have nominated things that are actually great, like Asterios Polyp and R. Crumb. You go, Harveys!

Diamond has released the Top Ten and market share information for June. Here's the periodical and GN lists. Marvel and DC split the periodicals while DC, as usual, dominated the GN list.

Via PR, the Eisners this year will have two hosts -- returning in the Alec Baldwin role, we have Bill Morrison. And portraying...

San Diego Preview Night kicks off in exactly two weeks. A fortnight. And as of today we have exactly ONE PRESS RELEASE FROM A COMIC BOOK...

Announced via PR yesterday, Devil's Due, the long-running indie publisher is leaving Diamond as their distributor, for both books and periodicals, and...

Hope and Tintin, Anime Expo's diminished manga presence, and what is Marvel thinking of NEXT for their digital publishing?

While this week's news cycle is sure to churn fiercely, here's everything you need to get you up to speed from how to watch an argument on the internet to obligatory Lermontov references to the vagaries of the passage of time.

Ken Quattro uncovers the transcript of testimony in the 1939 lawsuit DC vs Victor Fox. The suit involved C suing the other publisher for a Superman knock-off which has been producer by the Eisner./Iger shop and then 22/year/old Eisner was called on to testify, an event covered in both the Andelman/Eisner biography and The Dreamer.

About half an hour ago a memo was sent to Zuda creators announcing that the original digital comics line was being shut down. A few of the better known Zuda titles, such as I Rule the Night, Bayou and HIgh Moon will be folded into the newly announced DC Digital program.