The News Blog of Comics Culture
TweetLots and lots of personnel announcements over the last few days. ¶ Image has hired Todd Martinez as their new Sales & Licensing Coordinator. For 14 years, Martinez was manager of the pioneering Bay area comics shop Comics Relief. According to the PR: As manager, he worked extensively with other retailers, book market representatives and [...]
Wow, Ultimate Con-Wars is heating up with this interview with LA Inc SVP Senior Vice President Michael Krouse and avp of Media Relations & Communications Carol Martinez. Krouse is the driving force behind LA’s bid for the San Diego Comic-Con — an ongoing wooing that Krouse has been pressing for years. And in this interview he lays it all on the line, baby, he”ll work.
By Matthew Murray
Dynamite grabs the top indie comic spot this month with the first issue of their adaptation of Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet script. However, issue 2 sees a fairly large drop, and people seem unsure if the market can support the five Green Hornet titles Dynamite plans on launching.
Elsewhere on the chart Green Hornet Year One written by Matt Wagner is the second biggest indie launch of the month, The Guild and Terminator are Dark Horse’s newest launches, and Zenescope shipped a lot of books.
IDW had a 3.61% market share, and 4.02% dollar share, Dark Horse had 3.33% market share and 4.76% dollar share (gotta love those trade paperback sales), Dynamite had 3.08% market share and 3.40% dollar share, and Image had 3.01% market share and 3.22% dollar share.
I’ve listed every indie title in the top 225, every Dark Horse, Image, and IDW title in the top 300, and a selection of other titles.
Thanks to icv2.com and Milton Griepp for permission to use these numbers, which can be found here.
Joining the elite three-time (Stardust, Kick-Ass) club for comic book movie directors, Matthew Vaughn has signed on to direct X-Men: First Class after a lot of back and forth. Bryan Singer was originally on board to direct but he pulled out due to scheduling — the helmer of the first two X-flicks will stay aboard as producer. Vaughn had been rumored for a while — he was originally scheduled to direct the third X-men movie before pulling out at the last moment himself, leaving Brett Ratner to have his way with the franchise.
During his six years as Marketing Manager at Marvel Comics, Jim McCann definitely established himself as a strong candidate for Nicest Guy In Comics, and certainly helped out The Beat on many occasions. This Thursday will be his last day on staff at Marvel, however, as he leaves to pursue his writing career with both regular Marvel writing gigs and a stiking creator-owned project, THE RETURN OF THE DAPPER MEN, coming this fall from Archaia. As McCann mentions in the interview, he long had a background in writing, but his outgoing nature usually ended up spinning him towards marketing jobs, but now he’s sticking with the path to what he wants to do.
McCann has definitely been in the middle of some of Marvel’s wildest rides over the last six years, and when he suggested an “exit interview,” we thought it would be a good way to look back on them. Plus he suggested a music number to end it all, so we had to go along. You won’t find too much muckraking here -—McCann could easily segue into inspirational speaking -— and things might get a little sappy at the end, but not every one can be a tearjerker!
You fine readers of Heidi’s blog can’t tell, but this column is being written on vacation in Western Canada. So, for once, the helper monkey is watching hours after everyone on the net (including the Beat) has been posting and tweeting about tonight’s episode. After the jump… Meet The Candidates (and I don’t mean Robert Redford or Phil Mickelson).
Briefs & Boxers: 05/05/10
Tweet[Editor's note: we enjoyed Marc-Oliver's blogging and reviewing so much at his own site we asked him to contribute something once a week here, as well. Welcome again, M-O. ] o “The Weight of Dead Plot” New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane reviews Iron Man 2 and is relieved, “to find a comic-book hero who [...]