The News Blog of Comics Culture
TweetDiamond and Wizard have renewed their age old pact with Diamond’s commitment to giving retailers drinks and snacks at June’s Philadelphia Comic Con, this press release tells us. Diamond will sponsor a hospitality suite at the show. Read on with an UPDATED press release. Diamond Comic Distributors and Wizard Entertainment announced today a renewal of [...]
TweetDiamond will be holding its next retailer summit in the Midwest, as it’s announced a team-up with Reed’s C2E2, to be held this April in Chicago. Most recent summits have been held in conjunction with the Baltimore Comic-Con, and in Las Vegas. PR below: After successful events in Baltimore, MD; Ft. Wayne, IN; Las Vegas, [...]
TweetIt’s Black Friday, people. Remember to be kind to the harried and overstressed retail employees.
TweetVIa PR, longtime comics vendor Joseph Koch announces a big comics swap meet out in Sunset Park. Given the number of folks we hear complaining (ourselves included) about how to, er, dispose of comics books that they literally cannot give away, this could be a lively event: Where: 206-208 41st St., Brooklyn, NY 11232 (Corner [...]
TweetIf there is one thing the comics industry of late is lacking, it’s demographic info we can all sink our teeth into and shake around like a chew toy. Valerie D’Orazio hinted about a study a few years ago (maybe buried somewhere in Marvel’s SEC filings?); Johanna alludes to a 1995 DC reader survey; Diamond [...]
TweetRemember how for years and years everyone said “If we could only advertise comic books on TV, everything would be solved!” Well, as announced on Vertigo’s Graphic Content blog, Vertigo is doing just that with a TV spot for their initial Crime Line releases that is currently running on BBC America. You can view the [...]
TweetEarlier this week it was announced that BOOM! Studios had signed a deal with Haven Distributors to distribute BOOM!’s second printing comics. BOOM! is the LA-based publisher of both original and licensed comics, and they have recently had several critical and sales success, including books based on Pixar, Disney, Fox, and literary sources, such as [...]
TweetHopefully we won’t be posting too much any more about the whole FTC guidelines for bloggers things, but here’s a story from Business Week that explains the amount of money changing hands at times, and turns out it’s a lot more than a measly $4 comic book: More than 75,000 people follow Jason “Shoe Money” [...]
Tweet§ Morning must-read: Over the weekend, Maltdown Comics in LA had a huge manga sale — 2000 titles on sale at $1 each — and Deb Aoki asks owner Gaston Dominguez-Letelier about the state of manga in his shop. The overage is the result of unwise buying early on, he says; manga still sells, but [...]
TweetRetailer Chris Butcher has this Tuesday’s must-read post on how Diamond’s new 2009 policies have left the DM less flexible and less relevant… …things seem “stable” but really, that’s just a convenient lie that we’ve all bought into. Things aren’t stable, behind the scenes (and sometimes spilling onto message boards and websites) people are very [...]
TweetOne thing we learned is that there WILL be a WINTER MEN collection!. As Chris Butcher writes: 5:17pm: Hey look, it’s THE WINTER MEN TP (page 107, $19.99, 176pages). The beloved, beautifully drawn mini-series by Lewis and John Paul Leon. We did okay with this mini–it never set any sales records or anything–but really it’s [...]
Tweet The Daily News talks to Tyrese Gibson, whose MAYHEM comic goes on sale today: Gibson has been trolling the Internet, reading the harshest criticism and vowing to convince naysayers that he isn’t some celebrity dilettante dabbling in a get-rich-quick scheme. He gets so worked up during his interview with The News that he refers [...]
TweetFrank Santoro has posted an important essay on the end of the direct market as a conduit between comics for art and comics for commerce : The bridge is over. From 1975 to 2005, the Direct Market was the bridge from the old world “Comics-as-ephemera”, returnable periodicals model to the new world “Comics-as-Literature” bookstore model. [...]
TweetPosted by Evie Mile High Comics’ Chuck Rozanski appears to be the first out of the gate with the annual “where are the comics at Comic Con?” lament, and Val D’Orazio has a further discussion. My personal flash-assessment, having not been there this year but having gone in the past and following the news from [...]
TweetVia PR, the nominees for the annual retailing award have been announced: SAN DIEGO, Comic-Con International (Comic-Con), the largest comic book and popular arts event in the United States, has announced its list of nominees for the prestigious Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award (The Eisner Spirit Award). This year organizers are happy to [...]
TweetRemember near the end of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND when the ET research team tentatively plays the five note theme that has been haunting the UFO-chasers…and waits, and waits and then the mother ship ANSWERS BACK? Well that’s kind of what happened at The Beat yesterday! When we wrote about the marketing clout [...]
Recent Comments