Here’s some fun with math, courtesy of ICv2:

Diamond reported graphic novel sales down 5.7% in March, and a 12.6% gain in April.  Those percentage changes are based on the wholesale value of Diamond’s shipments to comic stores for those months. But the retail value of the Top 300 graphic novels, calculated based on our estimates of the quantities sold in those two months tells a different story, with graphic novel sales up 24.4% in March and 27.0% in April.  That’s around a 30% difference in the March rate of change, and over a 14% difference in April.

The difference, apparently, comes from distributor sales appearing down due to liquidated stock even though customer sell-through was actually up. Confusing, perhaps, but as the site puts it, the bottom line is that “graphic novel sales in comic stores are even better than the 9.5% year over year increase they showed for the first four months of 2012.” Did we somehow back into the beginning of another boom, and if so, how…?

Fans of The Walking Dead TV show, I want an hour of your time. It’s not for me, I should point out, but so you can listen to the latest Nerdist Writers Panel podcast, with guests Glen Mazzara, Scott Gimple and Angela Kang – each a writer on the AMC series – talking about the writing of the show’s second season and throwing out some hints about its third. The show is required listening for me every week anyway, but this one is particularly fascinating considering its subject matter. Go listen.

I hope everyone who wondered who the Green Lantern was in DC’s FCBD issue has seen this month’s DC solicits:

GREEN LANTERN ANNUAL #1
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art by ETHAN VAN SCIVER
Design cover
On sale AUGUST 29 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T
• The conclusion of “THE REVENGE OF BLACK HAND”!
• Everything changes here! EVERYTHING!

And not just that one, either…

SUPERMAN ANNUAL #1
Written by KEITH GIFFEN
Art by CAFU and others
Cover by TYLER KIRKHAM and BATT
On sale AUGUST 29 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T
• Abducted by a group of mysterious aliens, Superman is dragged to a remote alien galaxy to take part in THE GAMES, a world hopping game of cat-and-mouse where players are hunted for sport.
• Can even the help of a mysterious new GREEN LANTERN overcome the might of an alien empire?

If the new GL is making his debut in Superman Annual and not the Green Lantern series, then that’s an interesting way to (a) bring some attention to what otherwise looks like a generic one-shot, and (b) tie the various DCU families together before next year’s Trinity War storyline. But would they really dare do it…?

Oh, Axel Alonso, you big tease… From his Axel-in-Charge column on CBR:

I can’t recall anyone coming to us with an interest in those UK characters. That said, I am interested in some of those characters – Death’s Head, for instance. Be cool to see what Warren Ellis or Garth Ennis would do with him. I’m also intrigued by the 2099 Universe – thought at this point, maybe it needs to be 3099. In the current market, either would be a challenge, but given the amazing sales of “Avengers Vs. X-Men,” and the fact that we’re entering into another daring period for publishing, who knows what we might attempt?

Not only is the idea of a “another daring period for publishing” at Marvel an interesting tease in and of itself – Does this mean that Alonso would consider the current period conservative? – but specifically mentioning Death’s Head and 2099 by name is either a great red herring (Personally, I think 2099 is kind of burnt out these days unless it’s a massive reworking; wasn’t Timestorm a relative failure fairly recently…?) or a surprise hint of things to come.

Definite must-read of the day is Chris Eckert’s oral history of DC’s Countdown to Final Crisis, constructed from various interviews given about the project by those involved with its creation in one way or another, along with commentary giving historical context from Eckert:

[Editor Mike] MARTS: For the first four books, we’ve brought in Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, Adam Beechen, Sean McKeever, and Tony Bedard. These are our key writers who will be working with Paul in the beginning, but also that doesn’t stop us from bringing other writers in to work on the project… If we choose to crossover with another storyline or a book which is being driven by another writer, we can allow that writer to come onboard and tell their portion of the story inside Countdown and working with Paul. That way, there will be a real feeling of cohesiveness between the series and Countdown, but it also allows the writer to maintain some level of input and control over the character they’re writing on a monthly basis.

In case anyone is curious, this never happened.

MARTS: [The artistic lineup is] pretty much set…the artists that readers will see over the first ten or so issues are for the most part our “core” group: [Jim] Calafiore, Lopez, Saiz and Magno.

Calafiore drew four issues (50, 45, 39, 36), Lopez drew parts of three issues (48, 43, 37), Saiz drew six and part of a seventh (51, 46, 38, 34, 30, 19, 12) and Magno drew eight (49, 44, 42, 33, 27, 25, 22, 8). In all, the “core” group had art appear in only 21 out of 51 issues, with the bulk of the series drawn by eleven other pencillers and a total of sixteen inkers.

It’s a brutal, spectacular, depressing look at a series that sums up what may justifiably be called DC’s lowest point in recent memory. Seriously, go read and feel bad about comics.

Looks like Marvel’s The Avengers might have to add “Earth’s Most Successful Movie Heroes” to their resume:

Marvel’s The Avengers from Disney broke $100M in its second weekend for the first time in movie history (beating Avatar‘s 75M). Saturday’s number is about $43.1M after Friday’s was $29.1M for an estimated weekend total of $103.2M with Sunday’s expected $30.9M. That’s down only 50% from its massive opening a week ago. The projected domestic cume now is $373.2M for its first 10 days of release. The international figure is $628.9M after adding $95.4M from overseas this weekend playing in almost every movie territory. Disney says Avengers will cross $1.002B worldwide Sunday. Yowza! That makes Avengers #11 on the all-time money making list, past The Dark Knight (not adjusted for premium ticket prices or inflation). And it should shoot up to #5 very quickly. It will be the first Marvel film and fifth Disney release to reach $1B.

Seriously, everyone involved should be feeling very happy right now – and, hopefully, a movie this successful will translate into renewed interest in the comics in some form, right…?

Deadline.com reports Friday afternoon the CW has officially picked up Arrow – the Green Arrow-based hour-long drama.

30 year-old Canadian Stephen Amell plays the title role. The series is helmed by David Nutter, who directed the Smallville, Supernatural and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles pilots, and written and executive produced by Andrew Kreisberg, Greg Berlanti and comic book veteran Marc Guggenheim.

More importantly to our readers, CW has also picked up The Carrie Diaries, a Sex and the City prequel series.

CW’s official description follows after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the last week or so, I’ve been thinking about the lack of commentary on message boards, Twitter, etc. about Marvel’s AR app since the release of Avengers vs. X-Men #1. For all the hype, I found myself wondering if the bloom had fallen from the rose so early, and most fans weren’t bothered one way or another about the extra content… and then, thankfully, David Gabriel and Peter Phillips, both SVPs at Marvel (in sales and digital media, respectively), show up to tell me I’m wrong:

Peter Phillips: [The reaction has] been fantastic! People are clamoring for more. We are receiving great feedback not only from consumer response in downloads but through customer service, media outlets and conventions. Marvel had an overwhelming positive response last month at C2E2.

David Gabriel: The program has proven so successful, that we looking to integrate AR into collected edition, as well as other comics. AR content will definitely be used in the upcoming AvX collection available in November. The collection will contain all original AR applications along with new content created exclusively for the hardcover.

So now we know. I admit that I find myself a fan of AR in theory, but not so much in execution, so far. But what about you, dear readers? Is it something you’re enjoying, or are you wishing that you could see that AR logo disappear from the rest of the series?

Stan has thick fingers (like the people in Jack Kirby’s drawings do, oddly enough). Stan’s glasses are bi- or possibly trifocals, tinted like the windows of a sports car, and the arms rest high up on his head, well above his ears. He’s wearing a tan cashmere sweater, tan slacks, tan Nikes. His hairline is implausible.

It’s hard to be fully charmed by someone when you know ahead of time that they have a reputation for being charming, but Stan is pretty charming. He asks me to talk a little slower because he doesn’t hear as well as he used to; otherwise, he seems remarkably sharp for 89. He punctuates each answer with a grin, as if smiling is a resting state he’s returning to.

Must-read of the day: Alex Pappademas’ profile of Stan Lee for ESPN’s “sports and pop culture” website, Grantland. It’s a wonderfully nuanced look at the co-creator of Marvel Comics that is neither puff piece nor brutal attempt at a take down, but something that admits the confusion of the Smilin’ Stan/Corporate Stooge stereotypes that Lee is often characterized with. A really, really fun piece; go read.

Almost a week later, Brian Hibbs considers Free Comic Book Day:

The other majorly (seemingly) secret is that “Free” Comic Book Day comics aren’t actually “free” to the retailers — we pay anywhere between 20 and 39 cents per giveaway book. Retailers are also “forced” to buy a selection of books — the “gold” sponsors, of which this year, there were ten of these that we have to commit to having books in stock of.

This isn’t so brutally heinous except when its titles that you can’t sell as a store — like, for Comix Experience, a good example of “Transformers.” We don’t sell a single copy of “Transformers.” Not even a subscription order (“Atomic Robo” has those!) — but because IDW is a Premier (front of the catalog) publisher, and, therefore semi-automatically a “Gold” FCBD participant, I’m obligated to give away “Transformers” comics that aren’t even within the demographic alignment of my store, or what I’d like to represent to the general public.

I believe that the FCBD committee needs to seriously rethink the way stores become “participating” stores — I totally understand the value in demanding that stores have a range of the “official” free giveaways, but mandating that we stock things that we don’t/can’t/won’t sell seems absolutely counter-productive.

Retailers have to stock the Gold level books? I didn’t know that, but at least now I understand the difference between Gold level books and the others (Also, that’s ridiculous for the very reason Hibbs mentions: What good is it forcing a store to buy something they literally won’t even be able to give away?).

After the Nick Barrucci interview yesterday, ICv2 continues to talk to indie publishers with a three-part conversation with IDW’s Ted Adams (Part 1, 2, 3) about the state of the publisher and the state of the industry:

I know I just keep saying the same things over and over, but really the direct market reorders and pre-orders have just really been great.  I’ve been doing this for a long time, but the last time I saw this level of excitement and optimism in general was back in the heyday of Death of Superman or launch of Image Comics.  I’m not saying numbers are anywhere near what they were in those days, but it does feel like there’s this sense of optimism in the industry and the impression that sales are up.  If you talk to comic retailers you get a generally positive reaction from them.

Wait, are we… not dying as an industry for once…? I don’t know how I feel about that.

Considering that Marvel currently has (a) a record-breaking movie that everyone is talking about, and (b) wrested control of the Diamond chart back handily, thanks to an event that is going gangbusters, it’s got to feel weird over at DC right now to lose the magic that they’ve seemingly had since the September relaunch, right…? Especially when you see Marc-Oliver Frisch lay it all out like this, over at the Beat:

Sales of the average DC Universe title are at 32,897 units in March, which is well within the spectrum of the last few years, as the average-sales charts at the end of the column show. Likewise, DC’s total unit and total dollar sales are firmly back in familiar territory. Of the individual “New 52″ titles, 18 sold fewer than 20,000 units in March, up from 14 in February. Also notably in this context, the overall DC Universe imprint had 32 titles below the 20K mark in March 2012, which is three more than it did in March 2011 and more than twice the number from March 2010.

Even discounting the lower-selling licensed adaptations, which were published by WildStorm prior to 2011, it’s still 15 DC Universe titles below 20,000 in March 2010, versus 22 in March 2011, versus 29 in March 2012. So while the top-selling series remain relatively stable overall, there is a considerably bigger drop-off the farther down the chart you go.

…Ouch.

Go and read all of Frisch’s column for more detail on the winners and losers at DC right now (and, as ever, to get depressed about Vertigo).

Well, thanks to the end of Avengers Assemble #3 (as released yesterday), looks like we have a better idea of what Bendis’ post-Avengers project is going to be. Spoilers for the comic and the movie, everyone (copious white space left to protect those avoiding such things). Read the rest of this entry »

Despite some less-than-favorable press from sources including Newsarama itself, AMC’s reality series Comic Book Men — set at Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in New Jersey — has been renewed for a second season, as has Walking Dead post-show The Talking Dead, hosted by Nerdist’s Chris Hardwick. Both will run for 16 half-hour episodes.

The lack of females in the Comic Book Men cast was a point of contention during its first season, with Smith indicating on Twitter that the plan was, “Saving them for season 2, to have somewhere to go story-wise.” Premieres dates aren’t yet publicly known for either show, but will likely coincide with the forthcoming third season of The Walking Dead.

Joss Whedon is now officially the director and writer of the movie with biggest opening weekend of all-time, and he spoke out Wednesday about the success of Avengers on long-running fan blog Whedonesque.

Balancing his trademark self-deprecation and irreverence with genuine sincerity, Whedon thanked his fans, writing, “What doesn’t change is that I’ve had the smartest, most loyal, most passionate, most articulate group of — I’m not even gonna say fans. I’m going with “peeps” — that any cult oddity such as my bad self could have dreamt of. When almost no one was watching, when people probably should have STOPPED watching, I’ve had three constants: my family and friends, my collaborators (often the same), and y’all.”

Whedon also commented on the impending box office battle between Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, stating that if the latter outgrosses his Marvel Studios film, he will “feel sad,” but “Our successes, whoever has the mostest, are a boon to each other. We’re in the business of proving that superhero movies aren’t just eye-candy (they’re eye-TRUFFLES!).”

His full commentary, along with faux Q&A, is here.

ICv2 has a great interview with Dynamite Entertainment’s Nick Barrucci (Part 1, 2, 3), in which he addresses the state of the industry in general as well as Dynamite in particular, focusing on periodicals, collections and upcoming projects like this:

We are very excited about Prophecy.  Prophecy is our first huge crossover.  The majority of retailers that I spoke with at the Diamond Seminars said that having a focused crossover was the best thing we could do.  They were extremely supportive of the fact that we tried something different.

I did make the joke to each of these retailers: we did what you wanted.  You say you want one event title, just one series, with no spin-offs, and one cover.  We gave you everything you wanted and this is a situation where we’re absolutely giving you what you’ve said you asked and we’re doing no variants at all. If this doesn’t sell, I can’t believe you moving forward and we’ll just have to go back to the way we do standard business that we’ve done to date.

Valiant has released the first artwork from its new Archer & Armstrong series, and… Man, just look at that awesome Mico Suayan cover:

The August-launching series features writing from the great Fred Van Lente and art from the equally wonderful Clayton Henry. Here’s a taste of what to expect:

Kick-Ass 2: The Movie is go… almost:

Universal is in talks with Matthew Vaughn to make and distribute Kick-Ass 2, the sequel to the 2010 cult hit movie based on the Mark Millar-John Romita Jr. comic-book miniseries. Vaughn directed, produced and self-financed the action movie, which was distributed by Lionsgate and grossed $96 million worldwide on a budget of $30 million. He is only producing the sequel, but has handpicked Jeff Wadlow, who helmed 2008’s Never Back Down, to direct.

The sequel will adapt not only the Kick-Ass 2 comic, but also the upcoming Hit-Girl mini, and is intended to start shooting in September. Over at Millarworld, fans seemed underwhelmed with the choice of Wadlow as director, leading Kick-Ass co-creator Mark Millar to offer the following:

Vaughn is the toughest judge I have ever met. He’s a strictly no bullshit guy. He told me he had his eye on Jeff for this eighteen months back. He knows what he’s doing. His track record speaks for itself. And the script is seven shades of fantastic. I’m very, very happy.

More news on the project, he promised, would come soon.

Bryan Hitch makes another DC variant cover appearance with this cover for Action Comics #10:

Thought #1: So, America’s Got Talent is six issues, right? So we’ve got, what, until San Diego before DC announces a special Bryan Hitch-illustrated project, do you think?

Thought #2: Isn’t it kind of amazing how iconic the t-shirt and jeans look already is for Superman, less than a year after it debuted? How did that happen?

This just in from the The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same department, from a Rolling Stone article on Marvel Comics from 1971 (The “Stan” being mentioned is, of course, Stan Lee):

Stan is under contract to Magazine Management and his job is to produce comic books that will make them money. Readers think of Stan as such an idealist, they are shocked to learn that money is a consideration. He had just gotten a letter this morning that said, “I’ll never read another comic book, and screw you Stan. We always thought that money didn’t mean that much to you, and if you drop the Silver Surfer because of money, it means you’ve been fooling us just like everybody else has, and up yours.” Stan said he wanted to sit down and write the guy, but there was no return address. He wanted to tell the kid that if they didn’t make money, the comic book department would be closed down, and then they wouldn’t be able to do any good at all.

The whole article, scanned and posted at John Byrne’s forum, is worth a read. There’s just something about that paragraph in particular, though, that seems particularly in synch with current attitudes towards Marvel and the cravenness of things like Avengers vs. X-Men or whatever. Same as it ever was, however.