§ Nice Art: Olidraws has been drawing a lot of fanart of Miguel O’Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099 from Across the Spider-Verse. In this they are not alone; as far as I can tell (the wreckage of Twitter) it seems the breakout character of this masterpiece animated film is the villain. I mean, he’s definitely a snack, sure. But funny how it’s the dark, broody, narcissistic ones who always get the girls, boys and enbys, isn’t it? But then again, Oscar Isaac.
§ A few people whom I respect told me “Heidi, you need to do Kibbles and Bits again!” the other day, and thinking about it…they are correct. I’m not promising every day, but more than, um, three times in a year is possible. I have a specific set of tools I use to do this, and I hadn’t dusted them off in months. Luckily they are all still working, although I discovered a lot of sites had gone to the big wayback machine in the sky, as always. My primary tool for doing this is a Chrome plugin that hasn’t been updated in nine years…but incredibly, it still functions! That could end any day now, but I’ve never found another program that works as a scratchpad with links and quotes properly formatted that imports directly into WordPress. I guess because I’m the ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD who needs such a thing.
While I was doing this I also realized K’n’B is a thing I need to do, not just for you, but for me, however I will save that for a different rambly format.
§ Let’s start out with a topic that much busied us earlier in the year: sales charts! Lore Olympus Vol. 4 was #5 on the Bookscan bestseller list this week – once again that’s all books, general fiction, not graphic novels. Thus far it has sold more than 26,000 copies in its first week. Dog-Man #11 was #3 on the chart – so far it had sold more than 713,000 copies.
§ For some reason, the Amazon Best Sellers: Best Children’s Comics & Graphic Novels list came up in my feed. This is a constantly updating feed, but at the moment, Wimpy Kid and Big Nate have been joined by Catwad. Dog-Man is not listed here, probably because of some metadata glitch.
§ This made me wonder if David Carter is still doing his Amazon graphic novel best seller lists…and…sweet baby Grogu, he is!!! Given the lack of sales charts we all moan about, this is an important metric to ponder. In case you’re wondering Saga #66 Kindle Edition was #1.
§ ICv2 has all kinds of interesting things on it. Like a report on IDW’s latest SEC filings, which reveal they lost $200,000 in the last quarter. But good news! That wasn’t as bad as the previous quarter.
IDW Publishing lost around $200,000 on declining sales in its fiscal Q2 ended April 30, 2023, an improvement from the $300,000 loss in Q2 2022, according to IDW Media Holding’s Q2 release. The Q1 loss was $335,000 (see “IDW Publishing Loses $335,000”). IDW Publishing sales were $1.9 million, down from $2.3 million in the year ago quarter, a decline the company attributed to a difference in sales to Scholastic. The company’s entertainment division had no meaningful sales.
§ ICv2 has also presented a series of interviews with executives in various ends of the digital comics business, including Jessica Malloy, VP of Marketing at Marvel Digital Media. Her answers are a bit bland, but it’s not often you see a Marvel exec publicly discuss anything, so enjoy!
I know you have a number of webtoons on Marvel Unlimited and just one on Webtoon. Why did you choose to put most of them on Marvel Unlimited? And conversely, why is Eternals: The 500-Year War on Webtoon?
For the most part, it’s true that in the US we have been focused on releasing the vertical format to fans on Marvel Unlimited. Internationally more than a handful have been distributed as part of Korea’s WEBTOON platform thorough our publishing partner Sigongsa, including Eternals: The 500-Year War. As far as our distribution strategy on Marvel Unlimited, we like the ability to have a dialogue with our readers and react more quickly by having Infinity Comics on our own comic platform. We’re coming up on 2 years of Infinity Comics on Marvel Unlimited in September, and we believe the format is resonating with fans.
§ Nice art from Ines Estrada and that’s my way of saying that TCJ.com is excerpting a print conversation between Estrada and John Porcellino. For some this will be a dream team up. For others, it will be just a dream.
JOHN PORCELLINO: This latest batch of zines [you sent], it’s very interesting to me, especially that essay, the Cartoon Spirituality one. It’s almost uncanny. It’s weird how it’s the same thoughts that I’ve had about alphabets and communication and symbols and the way comics function in that way.
INÉS ESTRADA: Yeah, that’s cool. Maybe these are things that are floating out there in the collective consciousness? And I just grabbed them and gave them some form. It just kind of came out. I didn’t really plan for it that much. I also did it in a week. [Laughs.] I wasn’t forced by any deadline this time. It just happened. It’s just things that I’ve been thinking about again, for all my life. But more specifically now that I have so much time to just think, and that I don’t draw that much. But I still want to draw. I’m trying to find a new meaning to keep drawing and stuff. And the idea of the essay is thinking about what drawing is, and what cartooning is, because it feels [like] cartoons and cartooning are [considered] something very cheap and irrelevant, and I think they’re a lot more important than that, they’re actually very powerful.That’s why I use examples of cave paintings, and Egyptian gods, and call them cartoons and cartoon characters. Because to me, that’s what they are, they’re drawings that are representing figures, they’re expressing a concrete idea that is not abstract.
§ Mark Evanier...wow, I hadn’t looked at Mark’s blog in a year! What is wrong with me. Anyway, he has some thoughts on the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby business we’ve all been writing about. But is also reminds us that he’s been working on a biography of Jack Kirby for a long time. Evanier worked for Kirby for a long time and he’s probably the #1 living industry expert on Jack’s career and thinking. MARK, YOU NEED TO FINISH THIS BOOK. Time is growing shorter constantly.
My opinion of Stan Lee is complicated and not easy to explain. It falls somewhere between “He did everything” and “He did nothing.” It includes massive disappointment with some (not all) of the things he said over the years, some (not all) of the things he did. It became clear to me at times that he did not believe in the phrase, “With great power comes great responsibility.” With the exception of one ugly falling-out we had, Stan was very nice to me…as he was nice to almost everybody when his reputation and continued employment were not at stake. He could be a charming man and I absolutely understand why some people love(d) the guy. But I think that the notion that he was the primary creator of those properties is utter…what’s the word I’m looking for here? Oh, I know: Bullshit.
§ On Friday I attended a screening of DESTROY ALL MONSTERS at the Japan Society. It was part of Escape from Tribeca, a kind of psychotropic offshoot of the venerable film festival. In a talk before the movie, someone described Destroy All Monsters as the Avengers: Infinity War of kaiju films…it features no less than 11 of Toho’s star set wreckers, and reunited all the star filmmakers of the studio. Even as a child, I think I only tuned into this (back when linear tv came through a tube) towards the end, because the first hour of investigating some kind of alien menace is a bit turgid. But when all the giant lizards and insects teams up to take on King Ghidorah in a Mt. Fuji showdown…wow!
I have to say, I always thought this was one of Akira Ifukube’s best scores as well. Ifukube is a very talented composer and this inspired me to start listening to some of his other work and wow!
§ I actually went to a screening at the regular Tribeca Film Festival, as well. SHORTCOMINGS, the film directed by Randall Park and written by Adrian Tomine based on Tomine’s graphic novel. Park and Tomine and the cast were on hand to do a brief Q&A and I was able to congratulate Adrian after the movie, and he deserves all his flowers. This is a warm hearted comedy about the way people mess up their lives, with a lot of laughs. It felt very true to life – we’re all going to see someone we know in it whether it’s Ben, the confused protagonist who doesn’t know how to stop being an asshole, or the annoying performance artist who takes pictures of her pee-pee every morning.
The very good news is that the film is getting a theatrical release on August 4! It’s great that a movie by and about Asian Americans is getting into theaters.
§ More good news! The Nimona movie is debuting on Netflix on June 30th! I can hardly believe it. This animated films, based on ND Stevenson’s award winning webcomic/graphic novel, had such a long tortuous road to getting made, it’s astonishing that it actually happened. Empire has an early review and some stills and a recap of the journey. The cast includes Chloë Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed.
Once upon a time, Nimona was being created by Blue Sky – the animation studio behind the Ice Age franchise and Spies In Disguise – adapted from ND Stevenson’s fairytale-trope-subverting graphic novel. Then it was felled by, of all things, a mouse. When Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, the animation giant soon shut Blue Sky down, cancelling Nimona with it – despite the film reportedly being 75% complete. All was thought lost. But then, in its darkest hour, came a shining knight: Annapurna Pictures, who revived the film at Netflix (albeit not with true love’s kiss).
§ Netflix will also be the home of a loooong gestating adaptation of The Killer, a French graphic novel series by Matz and Luc Jacamon. And it’s directed by David Fincher! Gee, did you ever think Fincher would direct something called The Killer? Wild! It stars Michael Fassbinder and Tilda Swinton.
David Fincher’s long-in-the-works movie based on Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon’s French graphic novel series will be coming to Netflix by the end of the 2023 movie schedule, bringing with it a story about a deadly assassin with a change of heart, and other dilemmas.
Always a pleasure to read these — thanks Heidi!
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