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by Brandon Schatz On Monday, the pop culture bereft owner of my shop phoned had asked if I had ordered enough of the “death of...

Dynamite's been doing Sherlock Holmes stories on a fairly regular basis for some time now.  And really, given the recent court decision on Holmes...

I am really really really hoping there will be some kind of big Guardians of the Galaxy display at the Marvel booth this year,...

Oh Harveys. Every year some voting block or other seems to make itself known and this time it's Valiant with some 16 nominations including...

Another decent month for Image, who have all of the top four new entries, including Warren Ellis’s return to creator-owned books. Elsewhere Valiant appear to be going through a radical shift in publishing model, and don’t look too healthy over-all. Stick around after the top 300, as there’s a bit of an extra this month. 149 indie titles charted in the top 300, slightly down on last month’s 151. Overall sales were up at 1,632,573, compared to last month’s 1,688,787 and the average sales this month are 10,957, down on last month’s 11,184. 16 titles went up in sales and 116 went down, with the rest made up of new entries and specials. Image are number one again with an 8.86% dollar share and an 9.96% market share, IDW go up to second place with a 6.38% dollar share and 4.18% market share. Dark Horse have a 5.96% dollar share and a 5.50% market share, Dynamite have a 2.30% dollar share and 2.29% market share and Boom! have a 1.97 % dollar share and 1.84% market share.

Oh yeah and speaking of the mainstream…when Marvel announced a new book via a very perplexed cast on The View, it was unstadnabale bcuase both are owned by Disney. However, The Colbert Report is owned by Viacom, so tonight's Joe Quesada appearance and book announcement is a little more "authentic" if you will. Also, props to Marvel for a creative way around the San Diego Show biz news logjam.

I was asked not too long ago what was something I was proud of writing on The Beat, and it's actually something I didn't write. This post by political communications specialist Brett Schenker entitled Market Research Says 46.67% of Comic Fans are Female from February, was pretty groundbreaking. Why am I mentioning a six month old post? Well, people continue to quote it when they look for demographic information on comics readership, and it represents a solid benchmark in an area where there is shockingly little research. Schenker's research via Facebook, which he's graciously presented here, has been quoted in numerous articles and yesterday it was referenced in this Time.Com piece on the new female Thor. I tweeted it again and it got a whole new set of reactions on twitter from people who hadn't seen it the first time.

By David Nieves Equal to a freeway pile up closure in California where honking and flying obscenities are like pennies overflowing from the change jar...

With October solicitations just around the corner, sources have whispered these sweet secrets in The Beat's ears. Get a jump on what's to come with the...

We've long been among the most vocal supporters of getting a proper US edition of Corto Maltese our. Hugo Pratt's adventure masterpiece is one...

As there will be no industry white paper at San Diego, where Milton Griepp traditionally releases his industry sales figures for the year, he and John Jackson Miller has teamed up for an estimate of the size of the comics market in 2013: $870 million. That's up $135 million from 2012 -- a very sizable increase. With sales this year generally flat it probably won't be a big increase unless something really nutty happens, but that shows that it wasn't just your imagination: 2013 was a pretty swell year for the comics.

If you are like The Beat, you've noticed that the informed writing styling of Steve Morris have been greatly lessened on this site of...