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In the local cable show covering diversity in comics linked to earlier today, Ms. Marvel editor Sana Amanat was interviewed and she mentioned that "she's our #1 digital seller." It's been mentioned publicly a few times that it's among Marvel's best selling digital titles, and over the summer at a Marvel summit it was announced that the first issue had sold more digitally than in print.

Image Expo, the "Apple announcements" of comics is returning for a fourth outing in January on January 8th, once again at the Yerba Buena the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The creator line-up includes Brian K. Vaughan (SAGA, Y: The Last Man), Todd McFarlane (SPAWN), Scott Snyder (WYTCHES, Batman), Emi Lenox (EMITOWN), Jeff Lemire (Green Arrow, Trillium), and Marjorie Liu(Astonishing X-Men) but SPECIAL GUESTS are promised. It would not be a stretch to guess that the above named creators will be announcing new projects from Image.

Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman, talks about how the Amazons origins are tied up with the history of suffrage and birth control and nicely sums up the history of women in comics in a couple of paragraphs:

We've linked to a few of Jed McGowan's wordless comics before—including Hawaii, a best in show among geological comics, and Voyager, a wordless comic about a space probe. Despite the dry-sounding material, Xeris-winner McGowan (Lone Pines) presents them in a visually arresting way. This time out, he's got a story to tell, and it's a strange and eerie one entitled Control Room. What happens when that space probe lands on Mars with several sisters aboard? Hit the link to find out.

Independent Sources is a local to NYC show that spotlights ethnic and local news. Hosted by Zyphus Lebrun, it's put together by CUNY (City University of New York ) and runs on their cable station. Last week's episode, covers various aspects of diversity in comics, with thoughtful interviews with Marvel's Sana Amanat, Image's David Brothers, Morgan Dubin from Abrams Comic Arts, Jonathan Gray, Assistant Professor of English, John Jay College, artist Dexter Vines and yours truly. Aside from my having to terrifyingly reënect walking into a comic shop, it's a sprightly look at the basic issues of diversity and the widening audience for comics. There's also a nice segment on a cosplayer who designed a Rita Repulsa costume and others for curvier women.

I totally stole this from artist/producer Denys Cowan's FB page, but it's an interesting little sidenote, Back in the 90s people still read magazines, and liquor companies would purchase full page advertisements in these magazines. Man, history is SO WEIRD, right? Anyway, Dewars scotch ran a series of profiles of debonair achievers attempting to convince you that if you drank their scotch you would also be a debonair achiever. Cowan, then well known for his Batman and Question comics and about to co-found Milestone Media, was a fitting choice but it did seem like a win for comics at the time. This predated the Rob Liefeld Levis commercial, but both are a reminder that cartoonists as media figures is far from a recent phenomenon.

Last year our good pals at The Devastator magazine made news with an anonymous survey of convention exhibitors that showed average sales of $1300 at the shows surveyed, the differences between indie and comics shows and more. Well, as you MAY have NOTICED, there has been quite a bit of talk of late about exhibiting at conventions, profits and how it is changing. I thought it might be interesting to revisit this survey and after contacting Amanda Meadows at the Devastator, The Beat is proud to be co-sponsoring this year's survey. This survey covers sales at shows this year and general trends in staffing tabling and money making. It's intended for anyone who exhibits at Cafs or Cons, artists, small presses or crafters.

Let me see, we kind of left off last week's parade of Marvel event teasers, as it was beginning to get a little same-old,...

Acknowledging that moving cross country and restaffing an editorial department might be distracting for its staff, DC officially announced it's two month fill-in event today, CONVERGENCE. The event will replace the New 52 line-up for two months, April and May of 2015, with a framing 9-issue mini-series, starting with a zero issue, and spinning into 40 two part mini series. Promo art by Carlos Paguayan and Jose Marzan Jr. The event has been rumored for quite a while, and I'm told it was hatched back in the spring as a way to ease the transition as DC personnel make the move from NYC to Burbank in April 2015. The event was originally run by Tom DeFalco but he moved on and was replaced by ex-Marvel/Teshkeel editor Marie Javins, who worked closely with Dan Didio on the event. The event was announced this morning in USA Today. The whole event is being overseen by TV's Jeff King, (White Collar, Continuum, Stargate SG-1) with Carlo Pagulayan and Stephen Segovia on art on the framing mini, and Dan Jurgens and Scott Lobdell helping oversee things. The 40 two-issues minis will feature a wide variety of writers and artists.

Navigating monthly orders is a bone-numbing pain. I feel as though this is something I write a variation of in most of these columns....

Here’s the sixth part of my interview with the late Steve Moore, with more to follow. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th parts...

By David Nieves 2014 has been quite a year for Aspen Comics, following their 10th anniversary in '13, the house that Michael Turner built made...