• The weekly comic strip “Tom the Dancing Bug” by Ruben Bolling won the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ 2009 award for Best Cartoon in a ceremony that took place in Tucson on June 26. The list of winners can be seen here.
“Tom the Dancing Bug” is distributed by Universal Press Syndicate to about 50 newspapers and also appears in Salon.com. One of the characters from the comic strip, “Harvey Richards, Lawyer for Children,” is in development at New Line Cinema, where a live action comedy is planned.
• There seems to be a lot of legal issues surrounding Frank Frazetta’s artwork. Now, there are also a lot of press releases concerning the legal issues over Frank Frazetta’s artwork.
• Sandy Bilus unearths Marvel’s 1993 Annual Report — prepared at the zenith of the Ron Perelman era, it was presented in a comic book format, and the graphics provide a picture of a very, very different company 16 years ago (click for larger image).
Sweet Christmas! Can you believe it? A mere six percent of Marvel’s revenue was from licensing, while nearly half — 48.2 percent — was from trading cards! (Marvel owned Fleer at the time, and it was the height of trading card madness.) Wow, that sure didn’t last. Did anyone think it would?
Today Marvel is mostly a licensing company, with net sales in 2008 at $676 million. Much more in the link.
