The News Blog of Comics Culture
TweetI just don’t think Diamond gets digital. They’re trying, but they keep throwing some really odd things out there. This latest bit has me somewhere between scratching my head and insulted. It was recently pointed out that Diamond was going to start selling digital copies of its Previews catalog. I went for a look, sure [...]
Not meaning to bury this news in the Friday afternoon graveyard, but wanted to get it out there: the long awaited Black Mask Studios transmedia/alternate distribution comics company set up by writer Steve Niles, producer Matt Pizzolo (Halo 8) and Epitaph Records’ Brett Gurewitz has finally gone live and announced its debut projects.
§ Viz evp of Publishing Alvin Lu has left the company after 13 years, ICV2 reports.
Lots of news emerged from Warner Bros. yesterday besides getting a new CEO.
On the most germane to our continuing investigations, Amazon, the Wonder Woman pilot being scripted by Allan Heinberg, has been put on hold for a while. It hasn’t been killed, but it “needs more time.” On the plus side, an off-season pilot may be ordered so it can go in as a midseason replacement. On the non-plussed side it’s yet ANOTHER superhero project that WB has put on hold or dithered over or fretted about.
In what has to be considered a shock, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Kevin Tsujihara has been named CEO of Warner Bros. replacing Barry Meyer and beating out TV head Bruce Rosenblum and film head Jeff Robinov, The three has been locked in an internal battle to see who could outlast who, and Bewkes went with the far less known Tsujihara. Nikki Finke has some of the gory details, which seem as intent on causing Rosenblum and Robinov’s privates to shrink to post-icy-dip size as much as business considerations:
Short version, the last remaining book retail giant plans to close as many as a third of its stores over a 10-year period—although that may be an optimistic projection, as well. Slowed by the rise of digital and a lack of new malls, B&N oipened only two stores in the last fiscal year, and it’s end of year profits were well below what was expected. While the Nook ereaders has been a bright spot, sales there have slowed as well. So a leaner meaner BN seems to be in the cards.
By now, it seems a lot of people have taken advantage of Kyle Baker’s decision to put his stellar body of graphic novels up for free online. While it’s a windfall for readers, at Robot 6, Corey Blake asked “Does ‘free’ devalue comics?” While free sampling is a staple of marketing, it also has drawbacks:
Following the announcement that iFanboy founder Ron Richards would be moving over to Image Comics, moie changes at iFanboy were announced today. Longtime iFanboy contributor Paul Montgomery will be filling Richards’ editorial duties at the site, including joining the podcast.
As we reported last night, the story of Platinum Studios, the bizarre IP company founded by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg on his peripheral involvement in having published the MEN IN BLACK comic book, has gotten seriously bizarre, with shareholders and acting president Chris Beall banding together to attempt to oust Rosenberg from the company after a series of what they claim are flagrantly fraudulent money shifting and credit card embezzlement—all from the coffers of the publicly traded company. While we don’t know the whole story, we can piece together some of it.
Tweet We’ll have a more retailed report on this in the morning, but the short version is that shareholders in Platinum Studios—one of whom is suing Scott Rosenberg—held a shareholders meeting today with the express purpose of ousting Rosenberg as chairman. No one from Platinum showed up and the following letter from Platinum president Chris [...]
Some recent publishing moves: Carol Burell, formerly editorial director at the Graphic Universe division of Lerner Publishing, ankled the company to join Abrams Comic Arts as an editor last month. As editor, Burell took a small educational publisher’s comic line and grew it to produce both outstanding original comics (Guinea Pig) and great international pick-ups (the much lauded Little White Duck: A Childhood in China.) Basically she was there as children’s comic became a growing market and helped Lerner become a player in the field. At Abrams, the powerhouse publisher of Wimpy Kid and My Friend Dahmer, she’s in a position to do even more. We won’t lie: Carol is one of our favorite comics people and this was a fantastic move for Abrams.
This is the third year of our Comics Industry Person of the Year poll, and the winner was pretty much a landslide. Every year we ask the participants in our survey to name who they thought was the person who made an impact or set the pace, and to comment anonymously (or on the record) and it was a clear choice this time out. With many people saying it was the Year of Image, Image publisher Eric Stephenson was the runaway winner—and the Saga team of Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples were definitely the Team of the Year, with a significant number of votes.
Tweet Well, it turns out that Tokyopop wasn’t really dead…it was just resting. Since the manga pioneer closed up its LA office nearly two years ago, there have been eyelid flickers like a POD program for some popular ongoing manga and back issue sales via Right Stuf, creators reprinting or finishing their OEL books at [...]
TweetYes, much like the annual tradition of looking at last year’s sales lists, it’s time for another annual tradition: scratching your head and wondering why Marvel does so well selling monthly comics but is a failure in the graphic novel/trade paperback category (relative to their monthly sales). Diamond released its list of the 500 top [...]
Colleen Doran spills the beans gives some metrics on what everyone knows—Nielsen’s Bookscan Numbers are way low. Especially, it seems, where comics are concerned. She cites several books she has worked on, comparing her royalty statements and Bookscan numbers:
TweetYou new there were going to be some changes when it was announced that Vertigo was going to be having some changes. Shelly Bond getting elevated to the Vertigo Executive Editor slot was step number 1. Step number 2 appears to be Vertigo now reporting to Hank Kanalz, the new “Senior Vice President of Vertigo [...]
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