Publishers

by Paul O'Brien The big launch for July is the new ongoing X-MEN series, which duly makes its debut at the top of the chart. Also this month, as the X-books' "Second Coming" crossover ends, the Daredevil-centred SHADOWLAND event begins. The Young Avengers return in AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. And from the Icon imprint, there's the debut issue of Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev's SCARLET. Needless to say, Marvel were once again the top company in the direct market, leading DC by 43% to 35% in terms of unit share, and 39% to 32% in dollars.

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Yet another step towards complete digital distribution as Marvel and Graphic.ly announced a deal to sell Marvel Comics via graphic-ky's desktop application. Single issues will be available via both digital download to desktop and some mobile devices, including such titles as Iron Man; Kick Ass; Amazing Spider Man; Captain America, and Astonishing X-Men. While comics have been getting establish on handheld devices, selling them via a stand-alone desktop client has been having a harder time getting off the ground; this should change that. Desktop downloads have the advantage of being readable when offline of benig able to be shared among devices.

Vanessa Davis and her delightful Make Me a Woman are coming to several towns near you in the coming months:

Via David Chelsea , his art for the annual Wonder Woman Day auction:

This year’s piece of original art (or one of many others contributed by superstar cartoonists like Jamie Hernandez, David Lloyd and Roberta Gregory) can be yours. You can view the piece big here. The Wonder Woman Day silent auction will take place Sunday October 24th at Excalibur Comics in Portland. You can also bid online. Details at the Wonder Woman Day website.

For everyone wondering if mainstream comics are so tired that "the general zeitgeist seems to be that mainstream comics are spent right now" maybe this is part of the reason why.

Drawn & Quarterly is also having a warehouse sale, with nearly all titles in stock 30-40% off. Lots of great stuff from Chester Brown to Lynda Barry to Kevin Huizenga.

Few creators beside Richard Sala have the chops to pull this off as it should be pulled off:

Fantagraphics will present the following new books:

They said it couldn't be done. Arising from a shambling mess of over-spending, poor planning, and bad management, against all odds the Spider-Man musical -- and its titanotheric top line of talent, including theater heavyweight Julie Taymor, guitar god Edge and immanence manifest Bono -- are actually coming to Broadway. Earlier in the week, the very first perplexing set concept art emerged, which you can see above. And today, Friday, a song from the musical will be performed for a mass audience for the first time, when Reeve Carney, who plays Spider-Man, sings one of the songs on Good Morning America. If you happen to be up and about at 7 am, you can even watch the taping.

Fantagraphics has just announced via PR the publication of a long-lost but much alluded to comic strip by William S. Burroughs and British artist...

A new clip from RED, the Bruce Willis-starring movie loosely based on RED by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, has been released, and to the surprise of no one, it features what is the most eagerly anticipated aspect of the film: Dame Helen Mirren blowing shit up. We're told RED has been tracking very well and may even be the graphic novel base hit that perks up an otherwise painful year.