Here's reprinted info. on this year's San Diego Comic-Con. From everything we read, the biggest concern was whether Hollywood and the gaming industry has taken over Comic-Con and the difficulty in finding and meeting the creators of smaller indie comics at the mega event. Ultimately, we think Comic-Con is good for the industry, but it should resist being swallowed up by other, competing forces.
Art Show Note: "Icons: Interpretations in Comic & Gaming Pop Culture" opens this Saturday Aug. 2nd from 7-9pm with an opening reception at Comics & Classics. Come support local art!
Comic-Con International 2008 Bursts at the Seams
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on July 29, 2008 Sign up now!
by Douglas Wolk, Calvin Reid and Laura Hudson -- Publishers Weekly, 7/29/2008 12:42:00
AMFor the first time ever, 2008's Comic-Con International was a complete sell-out--there were no passes available at the gate, and the San Diego Convention Center was jammed wall-to-wall for the entirety of its July 23-27 run. The curious thing regarding this is that quite a few of its attendees had no particular interest in comics. CCI has become a crucial spot for movie, TV and game studios to promote forthcoming major releases; there's still a huge chunk of the show that's devoted to comics, their artists and their publishers, but the banners promoting it in downtown San Diego don't have pictures of comic book characters on them any more.
The biggest book of the show was a trickle-down effect from the biggest movie of the show: Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel, came out over 20 years ago, and still sold well over 500 copies between various dealers on the floor (one of which marked up the $20 paperback to $30); the longest line at the con was for a showing of a few minutes of footage, whose attendees were rewarded with Watchmen T-shirts. Even MAD magazine got in on the action: a special giveaway issue of MAD included a Watchmen parody drawn by Glenn Fabry.
Comic-Con's biggest debut, though, wasn't a movie tie-in—it was a music tie-in. Comic Book Tattoo, a 480-page, LP-sized anthology of comics inspired by Tori Amos's music, was the anchor of Image's booth; the company sold around 400 copies of the $30 paperback and a generous stack of the deluxe $150 hardcover edition. (It helped that Amos was present for a panel to promote it.) Image also sold around 100 copies each of the Popgun 2 anthology and the long-awaited hardcover reprint of Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! The Image-affiliated collective of artists Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Bá, Vasilis Lolos and Rafael Grampa were the buzz cartoonists of the week—after the Eisner Awards on Friday night, their table boasted trophies for Best Anthology (5), Best Limited Series (The Umbrella Academy) and Best Digital Comic (Sugarshock).
Oni Press announced a handful of forthcoming projects, notably Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe (the lines for O'Malley's signings were impossibly long) and Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth's detective series Stumptown; First Second debuted Chris Blain's Gus, and sold a sizeable stack of copies of Eddie Campbell's The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard. Fantagraphics blew out piles of the debut of the Hernandez Brothers' Love and Rockets: New Stories, and featured constant signings at their booth; Drawn and Quarterly reported an excellent year, including debuts of books by Rutu Modan and Ron Regé Jr., and signings by Lynda Barry (the lines to get her book What It Is signed included a lot of other cartoonists).
Both the DC and Marvel booths were constant hives of activity, thanks to a perpetual stream of in-booth signings and events. They weren't selling their own books, though, and canny shoppers tended to head toward the end of the hall, where various vendors had large selections of Marvel and DC graphic novels discounted by 50% or more. DC also unveiled a new sub-imprint, Vertigo Crime, and announced forthcoming Batman projects to be written by Kevin Smith and Neil Gaiman. (If they sell one for every San Diego cosplayer in a Nurse Joker outfit, they'll do just fine.) The Batwoman series still hasn't been officially announced, but it's the worst-kept secret in comics; art collectors' jaws were dropping over the pages by J.H. Williams on display at the Naked Fat Rave booth.
At Marvel, the biggest announcement was a joint venture with Stephen King and Scribner to produce an online motion comic called N, based on an unpublished short story from King's upcoming prose collection Just After Sunset. N will be released in 25 installments by screenwriter and Young X-Men writer Marc Guggenheim, artist Alex Maleev, and colorist Jose Villarrubia. N is designed for viewing on the web and on more advanced cell phones such as the iPhone, with the first episode now available at nishere.com. N will be also be published as a comic from Marvel in early 2009.
Dark Horse was having a pretty good week of its own: Hellboy 2 may not have had quite the runaway success of The Dark Knight, but Hellboy creator Mike Mignola was effectively a rock star at the Con in terms of the mob scene at his signings, and so was an actual rock star: Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, who announced the second Umbrella Academy series and promoted it with an onstage conversation with Grant Morrison. (Morrison was the con's Conversationalist-in-Chief; he also had onstage chats with Deepak Chopra and Stan Lee.) And anything with Joss Whedon's name attached, from his Web musical Dr. Horrible to Dark Horse's Buffy series, set cash registers ringing at this show. Is he a mass-culture star or a comics creator? As far as Comic-Con's audience is concerned, there's not really a difference any more.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Boom! Launches Disney Imprint
Very exciting news out of Comic-Con for those of us who love comics and Disney's Pixar. We're looking forward to The Muppet Show: The Comic Book, especially!
Reprinted from Publisher's Weekly Comics Week Post
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on July 26, 2008 Sign up now!
By Laura Hudson -- Publishers Weekly, 7/22/2008 2:28:00 PM
By Laura Hudson -- Publishers Weekly, 7/22/2008 2:28:00 PM
Boom! Studios announced the formation of Zoom, a new children's comic book imprint for licensed Disney properties, at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday. The new line, which launches in spring 2009, will publish original comics based on Pixar films like the animated hit movie Wall-E, and also on The Muppet Show.
According to Boom! publisher Ross Ritchie, the imprint’s first title will be The Incredibles, a four-issue miniseries based on the Pixar animated movie about a superhero family. The comic book will be scripted by Kingdom Come writer and Boom! editor-in-chief Mark Waid, with covers by The Spirit artist Darwyn Cooke.
Waid expressed excitement over stepping back into his former role as a superhero comics writer. “As someone who has written The Fantastic Four in the past, it seems like a natural fit. I still feel the itch to dabble within the superhero genre. Plus, The Incredibles is probably my favorite animated movie ever.”
With the dominance of superhero titles in comics shops, “The Incredibles is the most obvious book that will have an audience in the direct market,” added Ritchie. “There’s also a big crossover with comic book fans who are also Disney fans, and that will drive sales as well.”
A miniseries based on the Toy Story movie is slated to follow in the spring as well as the first of four one-shot comics based on characters from The Muppet Show. Centering on Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fonzie and Gonzo respectively, the comics will be written and drawn by Fred the Clown creator Roger Landridge.
Other titles planned for 2009 and beyond include Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., Cars and Wall-E. Each four-issue miniseries will be collected into a trade paperback and sold both at mass market bookstores through Boom!’s distribution deal with Perseus Books and in direct market comic shops.
The licensing deal with Disney has been two years in the making, said Ritchie, in part because of the approval process involved in licensing high-profile Disney properties for new content. All Zoom comics will feature original stories that take place within the world of each property, rather than translating existing plots. “We are not doing any adaptations,” said Ritchie. “That’s huge, especially with licensed characters.”
Waid lauded the creative latitude Disney offered to the comics creators handling its properties. “They were after us to not feel bound by style sheets,” Waid said. “They don’t want us to try and emulate the faux 3-D graphics; they want it to look like line art. And with the Muppets stuff, they're letting us go crazy with that.”
Waid calls the child-oriented imprint the result of his and Richie’s commitment to making sure that comics find their way to the next generation of readers. “As much as I appreciate that we have hundreds of thousands of hardcore superhero fans, I'm smart enough to realize that we're going to die off,” particularly now that the comic book readership has become so dominated by adults.
“I hope that [a Zoom comic] will be the first comic for some six-year-olds—the age I was when I got my first comic— and that it helps them fall in love with the medium and progress with it as they get older,” said Ritchie.
According to Boom! publisher Ross Ritchie, the imprint’s first title will be The Incredibles, a four-issue miniseries based on the Pixar animated movie about a superhero family. The comic book will be scripted by Kingdom Come writer and Boom! editor-in-chief Mark Waid, with covers by The Spirit artist Darwyn Cooke.
Waid expressed excitement over stepping back into his former role as a superhero comics writer. “As someone who has written The Fantastic Four in the past, it seems like a natural fit. I still feel the itch to dabble within the superhero genre. Plus, The Incredibles is probably my favorite animated movie ever.”
With the dominance of superhero titles in comics shops, “The Incredibles is the most obvious book that will have an audience in the direct market,” added Ritchie. “There’s also a big crossover with comic book fans who are also Disney fans, and that will drive sales as well.”
A miniseries based on the Toy Story movie is slated to follow in the spring as well as the first of four one-shot comics based on characters from The Muppet Show. Centering on Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fonzie and Gonzo respectively, the comics will be written and drawn by Fred the Clown creator Roger Landridge.
Other titles planned for 2009 and beyond include Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., Cars and Wall-E. Each four-issue miniseries will be collected into a trade paperback and sold both at mass market bookstores through Boom!’s distribution deal with Perseus Books and in direct market comic shops.
The licensing deal with Disney has been two years in the making, said Ritchie, in part because of the approval process involved in licensing high-profile Disney properties for new content. All Zoom comics will feature original stories that take place within the world of each property, rather than translating existing plots. “We are not doing any adaptations,” said Ritchie. “That’s huge, especially with licensed characters.”
Waid lauded the creative latitude Disney offered to the comics creators handling its properties. “They were after us to not feel bound by style sheets,” Waid said. “They don’t want us to try and emulate the faux 3-D graphics; they want it to look like line art. And with the Muppets stuff, they're letting us go crazy with that.”
Waid calls the child-oriented imprint the result of his and Richie’s commitment to making sure that comics find their way to the next generation of readers. “As much as I appreciate that we have hundreds of thousands of hardcore superhero fans, I'm smart enough to realize that we're going to die off,” particularly now that the comic book readership has become so dominated by adults.
“I hope that [a Zoom comic] will be the first comic for some six-year-olds—the age I was when I got my first comic— and that it helps them fall in love with the medium and progress with it as they get older,” said Ritchie.
Friday, July 25, 2008
McCain and Obama to Get their own Graphic Novels
I love politics and I love comic books, and yet I'm not sure what to think about IDW's efforts to bring the two together. I'll withhold judgement until I see them, but anything that promotes comics in mainstream America is good with me.
Reprinted from Booksellers This Week
Reprinted from Booksellers This Week
BTW News Briefs
July 23, 2008
McCain & Obama to Get Their Own
Graphic Novels
The Los Angeles Times reports that senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) are getting their own comic books. The Times said, "IDW Publishing, a comics company best known for horror titles (most notably 30 Days of Night)
and adaptations of movies and television shows, is going into the beltway
world by publishing Presidential Material: Barack Obama and Presidential
Material: John McCain, a pair of graphic novels that chronicle the life of
the two men who both want to be riding on Air Force One for four
years."Jeff Mariotte, co-owner of San Diego's Mysterious
Galaxy and author of a number of graphic novels, wrote the Obama book,
which is drawn by Tom Morgan. The McCain book is written by Andy Helfer and
drawn by Stephen Thompson. According to the Times, both books will be priced
at $3.99 and will be in stores on October 8.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
August Group Show "Icons"
With the success of our solo art shows, we are charging forward with our first group art show "Icons: Interpretations of Comic & Gaming Pop Culture." We plan to have 10-15 local artists represented in this show. The response so far has been very enthusiastic, and we thank in advance the Jacksonville artists for supporting our efforts here at Comics & Classics, especially Ed Dansart and Brian Gray at www.theouterbox.com.This show begins with an opening reception August 2nd from 7-9pm and continues throughout the month of August. For questions or to submit artwork for this show please contact Kimberly at info@comicsandclassics.com or Ed Dansart at edbot5000@yahoo.com.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Brian Michael Bendis Drops by Comics & Classics
When strange and wonderful things happen, sometimes you can't help but think, "Hey, am I dreaming? Is this real?" Comics & Classics just had one of those odd moments. Brian Michael Bendis visted us just less than 30 minutes ago.
In town to visit family, Bendis dropped by to pick up a few books. Wondering what the mega-talent for Marvel Comics is reading these days? Michael bought Scott McCloud's Zot!, Alex Robinson's Too Cool to be Forgotten, "Univeral War One," and "Final Crisis Rouge's Revenge." Oh, and he picked up a copy of Rob Jones' "Perfect Storm #1." Rob was, of course, pleased as punch!
The guys here wanted to smash me because I didn't get a photo, but since Michael had riden over from the beach on a bike, I didn't think he would appreciate me whipping out a camera and snapping pictures of him or hasseling him for autographs. I am considering framing his credit card receipt (...... just kidding). So, how cool is that, huh?
In town to visit family, Bendis dropped by to pick up a few books. Wondering what the mega-talent for Marvel Comics is reading these days? Michael bought Scott McCloud's Zot!, Alex Robinson's Too Cool to be Forgotten, "Univeral War One," and "Final Crisis Rouge's Revenge." Oh, and he picked up a copy of Rob Jones' "Perfect Storm #1." Rob was, of course, pleased as punch!
The guys here wanted to smash me because I didn't get a photo, but since Michael had riden over from the beach on a bike, I didn't think he would appreciate me whipping out a camera and snapping pictures of him or hasseling him for autographs. I am considering framing his credit card receipt (...... just kidding). So, how cool is that, huh?
Friday, July 11, 2008
Movement Comics Promotes Fresh Artistic Talent
Friends of the store Movement Comics is always on the look-out for fresh artistic talent! We at Comics & Classics commend them for their support of artist and writers in the comic industry here in Northeast Florida and worldwide!
Reprinted with permission by Movement Comics:
MOVEMENT COMICS is based on creator owned characters and projects. Do you have a comic creation that you would like to expose to the world? MOVEMENT COMICS is always taking submissions and contributions. Please do not feel limited to the genres you see on our site already, we enjoy the entire range of creation from the sacred to the profane. If we think your creation is something special we will post it on our site and make sure you have proper credit and links and/or help you publish it in print and get distribution.We looking forward to your comments and suggestions.Contact us at MovementPR@aol.com
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Rob Jones Art Show Opening
Friends and customers gathered last night for Comics & Classics' third monthly art show. This month's featured artist is Rob Jones, pictured here with Katie McDonald, Katie's mom and yours truly.
Rob's work can be seen through July and online at http://www.perfectstormcomic.com/.
As posted earlier, Rob will be at Club TSI in downtown Jacksonville, as part of a larger group show of local artists, which has been rescheduled from July 11th to August 8th. More info. to come on this event.
Any inquires about Rob's pieces for this show can be sent to Kimberly at info@comicsandclassics.com.
Next month will be our first group show, ICONS: Interpretations of Comic and Gaming Pop Culture.
We are currently taking submissions for the show, which is scheduled to open August 2nd. Submissions and questions can be sent to the above email or to Ed Dansart at edbot5000@yahoo.com.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Rob Jones "The Girls of Summer" at Comics & Classics
Rob Jones brings sexy back Saturday night at Comics & Classics! Come and join us for the opening of his show "The Girls of Summer" Saturday night, July 5th, from 7 - 9pm. They'll be food, drinks, and plenty of sexy pin-up art for everyone!
Also, join Rob at club TSI in downtown Jacksonville on July 11th for a group show!
See Rob's art at http://www.perfectstormcomic.com/! Come out Saturday night and show your support for local artists.
1722 Third Street North, Jacksonville Beach, FL
904-242-2632
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