The News Blog of Comics Culture
While Walking Dead and Saga lead the chart again, the big story this month is Jonathan Hickman’s East of West, blowing expectations out of the water with a strong debut. There aren’t that many new titles this month, although Image have four strong debuts, headed up by the infuriating Sex (you’ll see). Elsewhere it’s largely a month of consolidation, with many titles holding within a few percentage points of last month’s sales.
Tweet Youth in Decline is another in the exploding field of Risograph-based micro-publisher run by Ryan Sands, perhaps best known for his Umezu-obssessed blog Same Hat and his zine Elecric Ant. Youth in Decline kicks off with Frontier, a new serial anthology where each issue focuses on a single artist. Frontier is a quarterly art [...]
TweetI’ve already pegged this as potentially the debut of the year, and with Liberator #1 now available for pre-order, we get a sneak peek at the new artistic team.
TweetNaked honesty: I’m too wiped out from this weekend’s MoCCA Festival to write much about it. It was a blast. But here are the winners of the inaugural MoCCA Awards of Excellence, as chosen by judges Karen Berger, Gary Groth, Nora Krug, David Mazzucchelli, and Paul Pope. I had to jot them down and maybe [...]
New books that are out just in time for MoCCA, which will be held at the Lexington Armory this weekend. This is what folks emailed us, and if the past is any indicator about five seconds after this post goes up a million voices will cry out in terror at not having emailed me, so expect a part two later today!
Following last week’s gridlock over signing up for tables at this year’s Small Press Expo, organizers have announced that they’ll be expanding the show floor to include the ENTIRE ballroom at the Marriott Bethesda North Hotel & Conference Center. Althugh it seems like a logical development, the announcement makes it clear that attendance must stay commensurate with floor size and this is an experiment:
Walking Dead continues to dominate, but Star Wars and Saga both go from strength to strength. Strong debuts for Shadow Year One, Legend of the Shadowclan and the new GI Joe book are interspersed with increased sales for My Little Pony, Adventure Time and Hellboy. Elsewhere is the usual clutch of Image debuts, while further down a few series return to the charts after a period away.
Well, not so much guests as awesome people who will be there. Among the ones we’d like to call attention to, the French genius Boulet, graphic memoirist Miriam Katin (who is having her book release party in NYC tonight), animator/illustrator Peter de Seve and the all-around great Michael Kupperman. But you know, really everyone on this list is swell.
Speaking of TCAF, announcements are coming thick and fast. More guests \have been announced since last we checked in, including Rutu Modan, Lisa Hanawalt, and C.F., Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Boulet, Jarrett Krosoczka, Frederik Peeters, Patrick McEown , Lauren Barnett, Dennis Lo, Patrick Alexander, T Edward Bak, Ulli Lust, and the Australian Caravan of Comics: Bruce Mutard, Mirranda Burton, Scarlette Baccini, Marijka Gooding, Patrick Alexander, Gregory Mackay and Dan Hayward. As the travelled the furthest crew, you can help pay for their trip via this IndieGogo campaign.
Walking Dead sees a big rise as expected, while Saga and Buffy sandwich the new Star Wars book, and Invincible’s one hundredth issue. Elsewhere, it’s a good month for all-ages comics, and Image have their usual batch of debuts. Dynamite have a poorer month than usual for sales drops, but a round of relaunches are on the horizon.
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.
It’s pretty much as you were in a fairly quiet month for new books. Boom’s dollar-book Deathmatch and the return of Hellboy, alongside a new Adventure Time spin-off and Brian Wood’s new book Mara are the notable debuts. Walking Dead, Saga & My Little Pony top the chart again, elsewhere the Image Firsts reprint programme features strongly, and a few long running licensed books end ahead of relaunches.
You may not know the name Boulet, but this French artist is one of the most prolific and talented cartoonists working. Maybe you will recall his disgustingly accomplished 24-hour comic from last year, The Darkness. Or his blog, which includes English versions of his comics. That first link is getting a printed version in the US, courtesy of AdHouseIt’s due in April to tie in with Boulet’s 2013 US tour, and will be printed in a limited quantity. Hopefully this is only the first US edition of Boulet’s work to see print. Here’s a wee preview:
Tweet ¶ Ape Entertainment has teamed up with the publishing house Sirius to publish an ongoing Poison Elves series which will launch an adults-only imprint at the usually family-friendly Ape. Poison Elves is the life work of the late Drew Hayes, who died in 2007. The series ran from 1991 until 2004. It’s definitely a [...]
Tweet Is this the week of new small publishers? Yes, everyone is doing it. Here’s yet another: Feral Planet a newish company started by Michael Friedlander, formerly of FPG, a fantasy art trading company. They have a new project with Mike Ploog and Joe Jusko involved….an oversized lushly illustrated book called Goliath which they are [...]
TweetSmall boutique publishers are popping up everywhere, and here’s a newish one from the UK: Great Beast, which was founded by Adam Cadwell and Marc Ellerby, and they’ve just released two nice looking graphic novels. You can buy the physical books (which have top notch production) or space-saving digital versions. Cadwell passed along some info [...]
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