Publishers

Although we rarely race to post those "sell out" pr's from comics company, given the controversy over the issue, the sell out of the Kevin Keller issue of ARCHIE is worth reporting on, as is the company's strong stance on sticking by the character.

Now available for pre-order, a new book by Eddie Campbell. This time his subject is finances.

Disney's Facebook-based AVENGERS ALLIANCE game is a new direction for them, Variety writes, as they are putting more effort into these lucrative, reliable social media game as opposed to the volatile console game market:

In case you haven't noticed, Image Comics is gunning for the Big Two this year, in terms of creators and concepts and now, bang for your buck. Jonathan Ross and Bryan Hitch are releasing AMERICA'S GOT POWERS in April, and the first issue will be 38 pages for $2.99, which, they point out, is a lot more story than you get with a Marvel comic.

Awesome. Too little, too late? Do not count out Andrew Stanton and Pixar!

Looks like this really is Earth 2's "New Costume Week." I'm going to go out on a limb and guess Superman and Alan Scott/Green Lantern are going to appear in the next two days, although Jay Garrick/The Flash was mentioned in the solicitation.

INCEPTION whoom whoom music? Check.

Archie just can't stay out of the news! While a million moms may be marching against Riverdale, they are staging their own Occupy movement. Whose side is Reggie Mantle on? Archie Comics has provided us with the actual cover to ARCHIE #365, which comes out in July. Story by Alex Segura Jr. Art by Gisele Legace.

While you might have expected much outcry over the introduction of a gay character into the traditionalist world of Riverdale, reaction to Archie Comics's Kevin Keller has been overwhelmingly positive. But Archie has heedlessly kept hurtling down the highway, hellbent for tolerance, going further and further until it seemed inevitable they would rouse a bear somewhere: Kevin got his own series and even his own wedding issue, one of those flash forwards in which he marries a doctor who helped him recover from injuries sustained in the Iraq war. Well, let your faith in the bigotry of humanity be restored: a pressure group is threatening a boycott of Toys 'r' Us over carrying the offending comic.

Avengers Alliance is now live on Facebook. This is basically Mafia Wars with superheroes. You're a SHIELD agent. You recruit superheroes (initially Iron Man, Hawkeye and the Black Widow) to go on missions with you. The story arc involves chasing around Hydra and meteorite fragments as you beat up henchmen and fight bosses like Whiplash and Viper.

Beyond sweeping a perfect 10 out of the month's Top 10 comic books, DC's "New 52" titles are also starting to show first signs of stabilization in January. The average "New 52" title dropped 7.4% in sales, down from 17.4% in December and 19.6% in November. This gives reason to be cautiously optimistic on the longer-term prospects of DC's relaunched line. The trend should be taken with a grain of salt, however, as DC made a number of changes to its various retailer incentives in January that may be affecting sales one way or another. On Detective Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight, Superman and Aquaman, the returnability incentive was replaced with 1:25 variant-cover incentives. Batwoman, Green Lantern: New Guardians and Swamp Thing, which were promoted with a special-discount incentive from September through December, also switched to 1:25 variant-cover incentives in January. Finally, the threshold retailers were required to meet in January to qualify for returnability on the 37 titles that weren't promoted through variant-cover or discount incentives changed from 125% of retailers' May 2011 orders to 100% of November 2011 orders. With this in mind, let's wait for the February figures to see if the trend holds when incentives are equal from one month to the next.

New day, new Avengers poster. This time Black Widow is face front and the character in the brokeback pose is....the Hulk? Truly, this is the dawning of a new day.