The News Blog of Comics Culture
Fangrabs is a comics rental site. You pick up the books in your queue have them mailed to you, you read em and mail em back. Just like Netflix. They have over 6,500 titles to choose from, including manga, Walking Dead, DC, Marvel. etc. Several plans are available, including $15 for two books a month and unlimited plans starting at $20 a month.
Tweet While we’ve been reporting a mini-trend of good news on comics shop openings of late, there is also attrition, as we’ve just learned that Manhattan Comics has closed. Located on 23rd Street, at the former location of Cosmic Comics, the second floor shop had a long history, but on his FB page owner Robert [...]
Following in the steps of a recent micro-trend, another comics shop has opened, the Spider’s Web at 887A Yonkers Ave in Yonkers, NY. According to this earlier story, its run by Paul Borrero, a longtime collector and Spder-Man fan who felt the area needed a place for kids and adults to collect comics.
Tweetby Eric Stephenson [Image publisher Eric Stephenson spoke at the luncheon session of the 2013 Diamond Retail Summit, Image kindly provided the text of the speech.] Just a word of warning: This is going to seem like I’m all over the place at first, but trust me, it will all make sense in the end. [...]
Diamond reports that for the last two years, their number of accounts has gone up by 1% each year—a tiny amount, to be sure, but at least it isn’t falling. Here’s some recent stories about NEW stores opening up, and one old one reopening—proof that indie bookstores and comics are not domed quite yet.
TweetComiXology’s Chip Mosher of Marketing and PR moderated a panel with Jeremy Atkins of Dark Horse, Dirk Wood of IDW, Mel Caylo of Archaia, and addition Hunter Gorinson of Valiant Comics with the goal of sharing tips and pro experience with indie creators and future marketers on Friday, March 29th at WonderCon. The result was [...]
TweetMike Molcher is the PR Co-ordinator for Rebellion, meaning he is the man directly responsible for promoting their comics, 2000AD and Judge Dredd Megazine. If you’ve noticed over the last few months that more people are talking about 2000AD, be it the recent ‘Trifecta’ storyline, or the ‘gay Judge Dredd’ teaser which got picked up [...]
More free comics are being given away than ever before! Diamond has announced that 4.6 million free comics were ordered for this year’s Free Comic Book Day, to be held Saturday, May 4th. That’s up from 3,500,000 in 2012 and 2,700,000 in 2011.
The somewhat uneven performance of Marvel’s graphic novel program is a frequent topic of analysis when we talk about graphic novel programs here. Both the Diamond and Bookscan numbers for 2012 showed Marvel — the #1 publisher overall in the Direct Sales market — surprisingly far back in the pack where books are concerned.
Diamond will once again be holding its annual retailer summit at C2E2 this year, from Wednesday, April 24 to Friday, April 26. The event is only open to retailers and a few industry professionalss but the schedule includes breakfast, dinners and, of course, a hearty lunch. The full schedule can be viewed here.
Speaking of ComicsPRO here’s a link I found in the coverage, a slideshow put together by Papercutz marketin diector Jesse post on the power and potential of kids comics. The slideshow is embedded above but he does a walk through on his blog and although Papercutz-centric material is there, it’s really big on stats and charts and studies. For instance:
My annual write around on the yearly meeting of the retailing organization ComicsPRO was in PW yesterday, including new president Thomas Gaul’sfirst interview. As usual, reports from the show were all about positivity and productivity and good sales news.
On Sunday, our pals at Green Brain Comics in Dearborn were shocked upon awakening to find a mini-van had crashed into their store. Although it looked dramatic, and took out an 8-foot long shelf of kids comics —and a bathroom, setting off a flood— the shop was in good enough shape to reopen today.
TweetThere’s been controvery over the past few days following DC’s decision to hire Orson Scott Card, a pioneer in contemporary homophobia, as one of the writers on a new digital-first Superman anthology series. And although the internet has been going back and forth on the subject for the past few days, the first active step [...]
Mouse Guard artist David Petersen has a very thorough post on a topic that we haven’t seen explored too much, despite its ubiquity: how to exhibit at comics shows if you are a creator. The whole post is full of very solid advice, from where to get an affordable retractable banner to how to get going. Just some common sense real world advice. Two excerpts on vital matters:
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