The News Blog of Comics Culture
Tweet Everyone’s talking digital comics, and they’re going to get a thorough investigation in October as part of a one-day ICv2 Comics & Digital Conference, to be held Thursday, October 7, right before this year’s New York Comic-Con. In previous years, ICv2 has sponsored graphic novel conferences before NYCC and also put on a Transmedia [...]
Following lengthy discussion and behind-the-scenes debate, Diamond has announced that street dates are available for all retailers now: comics will be shipped Tuesday for a Wednesday on-sale. A $5-a-week charge for retailers who opt in will go towards a “mystery shopper” program to make sure street dates aren’t broken. Stores who don’t want to participate can stick with Wednesday delivery.
We’ll have more on this story with industry reactions in today’s PW Comics Week. PR below.
After a couple of basically strong episodes, the Fresh Blood just didn’t congeal this week. The gestalt was off. True Blood’s chi is out of whack, and, quite frankly, people, it didn’t leave me anxiously awaiting the finale. Many of the scenes were good on their own but just as many felt awkward and immaterial, leaving the whole episode lacking in narrative center. Take the opening scene: Bill’s blood bond to Sookie leads him to Fangtasia where he has a fun little run in with Pam. Starting off with a fight scene between two distinct characters that rub each other the wrong way and don’t interact often was nice. Particularly when Pam mocks Bill’s pretense of being in a normal, monogamous relationship with Sookie then outfoxes the stronger, older vampire by spraying silver flecked water in his eyes.
Wow, shit gets very, very personal in this installment.
Acclaimed animator/cartoonist Nina Paley has sent around word of hew new webcomic, Mimi and Eunice, and by sheer coincidence, the topic is the matter which we’ve been much discussing of late.
Paley is best known for her handmade animated film, SITA SINGS THE BLUES, which was made for next to nothing, hailed as a triumph everywhere, but held up from commercial distribution because of copyright issues in the music Paley used for the film. And as Paley writes on the website for the film:
It looks like the first ever Read Comics In Public Day was a big hit. Co-founder Brian Heater has a roundup of pictures and links and such. We’ve heard glowing reports of meet-ups around the globe. Proof that COMICS ARE A FORCE FOR THE GOOD OF ALL HUMANKIND!
Tweet Sounds like CCI: San Diego isn’t the only comics show having some growing pains: There were HUGE lines and crowds at this weekend’s FanExpo in Toronto, according to the CBC: Even though they had already purchased tickets for FanExpo, many people were told they would have to wait outside because the crowd was at [...]
From Baltimore last night, the winners — ASTERIOS POLYP, David Mazzucchelli and The Rocketeer took home three, CHEW, and THE WALKING DEAD two each in various combinations. Despite ongoing controversy over the nominations, the winners were strong selections, very close to this year’s Eisner winners, at least on first glance.
If you were following our live tweets of the Harveys last night, (and those from ComixMix and JahFurry) you saw portions of Mark Waid’s keynote speech transcribed. While claiming it was a “vodka-fueled rant,” Waid delivered a heartfelt, if off-the-cuff, talk on the importance of the idea and the supremacy of comics as a medium of ideas. He started off with remarks on the history of copyright, stating it was a means to allow ideas to go into the public domain where they could remain powerful. “No one would say we’d be better off if Shakespeare plays weren’t allowed to be read and performed in high schools,” he used as an example. While not advocating piracy, his main argument seemed to be that it’s already done, the genie is out of the bottle, and struggling to keep ideas protected isn’t as important as finding a way to profit from those ideas.
Tweet The rest of Harvey night was a little bit crazy. The night was set up for triumph — after the taxing San Diego party circuit, everyone was looking forward to just sitting down and catching up, in the much loved, laid back Baltimore atmosphere. Unfortunately this goal was not shared by the freaked-out bartenders [...]
TweetWe’re at the Harvey Awards banquet with Ramona Fradon, Michael Golden, and many other stars. We’re live tweeting the winners at www.twitter.com/comixace. Please follow along.
In a world gone mad, there are still a few things you can count on, and comics at Baltimore Comic-Con is one of them.
We got in last night for our annual dinner at the Rusty Scupper, this time with a bunch of Brooklyn compadres — why do we have to drive four hours to see people who live a few miles away? Oh well, it’s Con World.
As we write, Read Comics in Public Day, celebrating the ninth art on The King’s birthday, is well underway. A Flickr pool has been set up and people around the world are participating, with meet-ups going on in Australia, London, New York, Boston, Alaska, San Diego, and beyond.
The brainchild of Brian Heater and Sarah Morean, the goal of the holiday is to publicly proclaim comics solidarity and post the results to the internet.
And don’t forget the one for Ladies!
Tweet Apparently some politician in Baltimore is using kids reading comic books as the result of a lack of teachers and money for education. Perhaps she should be shown around the Baltimore Comic-Con to see what a fine, upstanding bunch of folks read comics. Thank god she never saw Yaoi.
…but this is okay…
Although the bus sped off before we could get a good picture, this ad for HSBC Bank had a pretty snappy blurb that went something like “Japanese adults buy more comic books than American children do” with a picture of a Sumo wrestler reading a manga.
VERY TRUE.