Tag: Top News

We get a lot of requests to mention Kickstarters here at the Beat, and rather than slight this one or that one, I hardly mention any. Only the worthiest. But I do HEAR about a lot of kickstarters as they get tweeted and promoted about the web. Here's one that only crossed my radar only recently (probably my fault more than anything, since it got written up in HuffPo, WaPo, Mother Jones and other places no one reads) but it doesn't seem to need much help. Tom Tomorrow, the veteran (no offense) political cartoonist is Kickstartinga compendium of the last 25 years of his comic, "This Modern World" and it's doing very well: it just passed the $250,000 mark and has a few days to go to kick it up a bit more.

As we all know, DC is now a west coast company, and there's a lot of changes happening. Co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee...

At home in the warmer months, recovering from neck surgery, cartoonist Lauren Weinstein gifts us with Flower Voyeur, a slice of the circle of...

Autograph authenticator Steve Grad has a collection of 100s of Star Wars cards signed by the original cast, and he's posted a gallery on...

Just in case you missed my explanation of how manga helped pave the way for a more diverse comics industry, here's a video of me and then-Marvel editor Bobbie Chase in 1996 trying to explain why women might want to read comics. It's from a TV show called The Anti Gravity Room, which was shown on the SfiCi Channel as it was then known, which was a US version of Canada's Prisoners of Gravity. Both shows covered the whole "comics, nerd world" with taped interviews and comics-friendly segments that seem commonplace now, but were unique at the time. I think I co-hosted an episode or two, and I can't wait until those tapes surface.

§ Comics have conquered pop culture (or at least the box office) but what about high culture? While much of the discussion of late...

In December, artist Norm Breyfogle suffered a stroke which left his drawing hand impaired. He'll need months of therapy to hopefully regain his mobility to be able to walk, draw and hopefully work again. And the comcis industry being what it is, generous folks have set up

an Indiegogo campaign to raise $10,000 to help with Norm's therapy. BUT it is not just a feel good campaign (although that would be enough. The Nrm Breyfogle Whisper Campaign also gets you a reprint of Whisper, an early kick ass woman comic from the 80s. Written by Steven Grant, this is a solid book of the era.

As I'm probably too fond of saying, each year's San Diego Comic-Con represents the end of comics' fiscal year, and we're now in a new cycle of sales, renewal and looking forward to the next thing. Although the con was not that memorable on its own, it did mark a new plateau in the direct sales era for comics penetration into the mass media, and for having a variety of voices and genres that the medium has probably has never been seen before. This situation, while far from ideal, still represents a dream come true for a lot of us who have been toiling in the comics industry for a while. I remember as if it were yesterday sitting in various comics industry think tanks in the 90s wondering WHAT could be done to expand the audience for comics, how to bring in genres that weren't superheroes, and how to overcome the tyranny of the "32 page pamphlet" as it was dubbed by either Kurt Busiek or Marv Wolfman, depending on who you ask. These tasks seemed daunting at the time, and it actually took 25 years to get to a place where it could be argued that its true, and everyone at those meetings is a certified old timer now.

§ Controversial cartoonist Ted Rall is embroiled in controversy again! He was removed from the LA Times as a columnist after the Times found...

Via Tumblr, the amazing painter Stephanie Hans has gone totally pink for this variant cover for IDW's Jem comic. Written by Kelly Thompson, with art...

A lot of information on small press, indie. CAF evets have piled up in my inbox. Here's some of the news: • The newly revamped...

Magnetic Press launched last year with an audacious business plan: bringing French graphic novels to the US market. While French materials has had its...