News

It would probably be fair to say that a lot of people were snickering a bit when it was announced that Jazan Wild (real name Jason Barnes) was suing Heroes for similarities between his carnival plot and theirs:

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, lists similarities including a carnival that can magically appear and disappear to collect protagonists, a young boy who develops special abilities, a carney or hero running through the woods chased by a mob, a circle of mirrors tied to the key plot, similarities in dialogue, and more.

As anyone who has been reading comics or watching tv for more than, oh, five minutes can attest, none of those elements are particularly novel or special. Fact: we edited a carnival story once ourselves and at least one of those elements was in it.

• Today's must read: Michael Cavna interviews Steve Tippie, Tribune Media's VP of licensing on the end of Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip: ...

We're back from our little working vacation, but sadly, we're more tired than ever! How does that happen? The Beat feels relaxed for about five seconds upon returning home, but then. the stress of catching up on everything we missed erases all progress. Plus, there is so much to see. Within five minutes of alighting at Penn Station we had already seen TWO men wearing eye bandages!

Heroes is cancelled, a surprise twist in the Siegel vs Warners legal battle and video from the Doug Wright Awards.

The fifth annual Glyph Comics Awards were handed out this weekend in Philadelphia at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention. The big...

Jill Thompson's Scary Godnmother has become something of a Halloween classic, with two animated specials that are still shown on Caqrtoon Network, and a...

Housekeeping notes: • The OLD Beat is up at a new URL: whenmonkeysattack.com. Believe it or not we're still trying to get all the old...

Ever since the cutbacks at Viz on Monday, the online chatter has been surprisingly quiet. People close to the situation have mainly been in...

That sound you heard recently was the iPad landing in America and thousands of bookstores and comic book shops across the country closing and locking their doors for the last time. That’s what happened – right? The world changed overnight and everyone is reading all their books, magazines, comics and newspapers on a digital devices. So, wait – that didn’t happen? I can still walk into a bookstore and pick up a chunk of dead tree and enjoy a good read? Cool. The world of publishing is changing – just not as fast as everyone thinks. The biggest change is that for the first time in publishing history consumers are being asked to invest in an expensive piece of hardware to allow them to read a book. Yes, audio books require either a cassette or CD player, but those were devices that most people already owned. To read an e-book you need a new device to view the books. Reading a book on a computer just doesn’t cut it. A book is easily portable so the device also needs to be portable.

o "Getting Jerked Around by Some Editor at a Big Publisher Is Almost Like a Palette [sic] Cleanser for the Real Shit That's on Deck" Joe Casey talks in detail about his recent experiences at DC Comics, without holding back. The interview, conducted by Tim Callahan, is a must-read if you're interested in the present state of creativity in U.S. mainstream comics. I've enjoyed Casey's work since he took over Cable in stealth mode back in, oh, 1997 or something. I remember a lot of Casey comics that didn't succeed, but not many that were boring. No matter what he does, Casey is one of a select few American mainstream comics writers that keep coming up with mad, cocky idea comics and just won't compromise, no matter how often they keep running into walls and have the rug pulled right out from under them. And I love him for it, because that's precisely why a failed Joe Casey comic is still a thousand times more interesting and rewarding than anything successful by, say, Geoff Johns. He also made a film recently, titled Hit Parade. o "Pat, It’s True That You Have What Can Be Considered a Controversial Past" I don't know Troy Brownfield, and I'm not aware of what's going on at Newsarama, so maybe there's a perfectly good reason why they chose to conduct and run this appallingly, offensively spineless piece on Canadian artist Pat Lee, formerly of Dreamwave Productions, the way they did.

As word of the layoffs at Viz spread yesterday -- 60 people laid off and the entire New York branch closed -- the reaction around the industry, at least as expressed by Twitter and Facebook status updates -- was complete and utter shell shock. Viz personnel we contacted for confirmation were devastated. While the exact cause of the downsizing and the effects it will have on Viz's publishing plans are just emerging, a few manga reporters were commenting:

PW is reporting that there has been massive layoffs at Viz Media -- up to 60 people or 40% of the workforce have been laid off. ... We are of course saddened by these departures and sincerely appreciate the hard work, passion and dedication of those that have moved on, but we feel confident that with these changes, VIZ Media will be more streamlined and able to withstand the climate of the economy at this time. With the American manga market already in flux, this has to be seen as a body blow to the category as Viz was consistently the best selling American comics publisher, dominating the best seller charts with such mega-hits as Naruto and One Piece. ... Sources tell PW that as many as 55 people were laid off at Viz’s San Francisco headquarters and it appears its small New York office, which had about 5 staffers, has been closed.