The News Blog of Comics Culture
The Los Angeles Times has reported on the passing of Ray Bradbury. He leaves behind 11 novels, over 400 novelettes and short stories, at least 45 collections, numerous dramatizations, and various work. Wikipedia has an incomplete bibliography, and the Grand Comics Database lists the various comics adaptations.
DC is making a bigger leap into the digital comics space… tomorrow (6/7/12). They’re starting an original series of weekly Batman digital comics, titled “Legends of the Dark Knight.” The $0.99 comics will be out of continuity adventures, with each issue debuting on Thursday. They aren’t skimping on the creative teams, either.
Becky Cloonan’s self-published work The Mire has just come out, and is already receiving much critical acclaim. I stood up with her to talk about the story, as well as her general approach to writing and self-publishing.
Once a year, booksellers, librarians, and assorted biblios assemble at Book Expo America, the largest publishing trade show in North America. 2012 marks the tenth anniversary of the graphic novel pavilion at BEA, and while many graphic novel publishers are absent, there are many more “mainstream” publishers offering an amazing multitude of titles, genres, subjects, and audiences!
This year, John Hogan of Graphic Novel Reporter hosts The Hottest Graphic Novels of 2012! panel, where a team of five diverse individuals recommend a variety of graphic novels due to be published in 2012! Last year’s selections got lots of press and accolades, and quite a few of the titles below seem to be just as interesting and intriguing!
Houston, we’re leveled out. It took seven months, but as of April 2012, it looks like DC’s superhero line of comics, relaunched under the “New 52″ banner in September, have mostly settled into what we love to call “standard attrition.” The average “New 52″ drop in April was 2.9%, which is a good number, at this stage. Thanks to a number of low-selling titles ending in March, the average sales figures for the publisher’s comic books are slightly up on March, even.
Overall, this means that the numbers are still significantly up on this time last year. The average DC Universe comic book sold an estimated 35,264 units in April 2012, for instance. The last time DC hit that point prior to September 2011 was in July 2010. Likewise, the total unit sales figures for the DC Universe imprint are the highest since October 2009. Total DC Universe dollar sales are actually lower than they were in August 2011, one month before the relaunch, but back then, the imprint had 80 titles on sale, to be fair — in April 2012, it was 60.
There are some comics that really should have digital editions. American Flagg! is a 15 minutes into the future classic of dystopian (not _quite_ cyberpunk) science fiction that put Howard Chaykin into the spotlight with First Comics in the early 1980s. A political satire featuring military industrial complex taking over, government regulation of cable television, the outlawing of sports (leading to an underground basketball league), subliminal messages, a talking cat,some Nazis, and a fair amount of sex, Flagg! is a hugely influential book.
It’s only gossip for now but we can but hope:
Yes yes, more side-news about the gay marriage between Northstar and KJ. But this time it also acts as a reflection on Marvel’s current publishing policy.
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