NPR: Begun, The Digital Age of Comics Has

... And the previous age of comics, whatever it was called (the Modern Age? The Bronze Age? Copper? Iron? Molybdenum?) ended with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with publishers, creators, retailers and fans exchanging lots of puzzled expressions and a collective shrug.

Comixology offers its own app, through which comics from indie publishers like Image, Dark Horse and Top Cow can be purchased alongside Marvel, DC and BOOM! titles. There's also a web viewer, for those who don't own any of the compatible mobile devices.

And those who just hate Apple.

Another platform for downloading and reading digital comics, Graphic.ly, features fewer titles, but unlike Comixology allows readers to download them onto their desktop computer (a web viewer is still in the works). Navigation is easy, the colors are crisp, but what the Graphic.ly folks are really playing up is their social networking/community building elements — friend requests, and what have you.


Read the article here.
Source: NPR

Comic News: ICv2: Hastings Entertainment Adds Comics

It may not be a true “nationwide” chain, but with Hastings Entertainment adding periodical comics to its product mix in up to 150 stores in 21 states, it’s as close to a true national chain of comic book shops as the U.S. has ever gotten. The Amarillo-based chain sells, buys, resells, and rents a variety of media products including DVDs, video games, pop culture merchandise and music. The decline in CD sales has evidently prompted Hastings to add periodical comics to a product mix that already includes graphic novels—converting space that was previously given over to music to comics..

Read the full article here.
Source: icv2.com

iFanboy's A Taste of Comics #7 - Burgers

With C.B. Cebulski out traveling the world in the name of comics, Filip Sablik, Russ Cundiff and Ron Richards pick up the Taste of Comics baton and have a rousing discussion of recent meals, great comics, a discussion about Digital Comics as well as talking about the great american dish: Burgers.

Listen to the podcast here.
Source: iFanboy

Westfield Comics Highlights Pilot Season: Stealth

Comic Highlights This Week: Everyone that’s been waiting for those White Lantern rings will want to pick up Brightest Day #1; Mike Allred draws iZombie #1; Kirkman & Silvertri’s Pilot Season continues with Pilot Season Stealth #1, with art by Sheldon Mitchell; the critically-acclaimed Archaia Comics series returns with Secret History Book 8; Twilight wraps up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer #35; the Search for Bruce Wayne continues in Batman and Robin #12; both Zorro: Matanas and Astro City Dark Age Book 4 wrap up with #4 this week; the Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine #1 gives you yet another opportunity to read even more adventures starring the two; and there’s always a plethora of other great comics in stock, too!

Source: Westfield Comics

What the Con: Image Comics Announces WonderCon Plans

Image Comics is bringing wonder back to WonderCon, April 2-4, 2010. Fans will have a chance to meet Jonathan Ross, the entire Man of Action crew, and pick up convention exclusives at booth #407!

An exclusive creator's edition of TURF #1 will be available at booth #407, and writer Jonathan Ross - popular UK television host and patron of cult entertainment - will be on hand for autograph sessions Saturday and Sunday. You won't be able to find this edition of TURF #1 anywhere else unless you make your way to Forbidden Planet in the UK!

When you visit the Image booth, you'll find Man of Action - Joe Casey (Godland), Joe Kelly (I Kill Giants), Duncan Rouleau (The Great Unknown), and Steve Seagle (Soul Kiss, The Crusades) - the creators of BEN 10 and the upcoming Cartoon Network series GENERATOR REX. We'll also be joined by ELEPHANTMEN creators Richard Starkings and Moritat, JERSEY GODS creator Glen Brunswick, and SAVAGE DRAGON auteur Erik Larsen! Top Cow creators Sheldon Mitchell (Pilot Season: Stealth), Michael Broussard (The Darkness, Artifacts), Rick Basaldua and Nelson Blake II (Witchblade) will also appear.

Read the full press release here.

Source: CBR

---

Nerdage: ComicsPRO Annual Members Meeting Nears

Representatives from several top comics publishers will meet with comic-book retailers this week at the ComicsPRO annual members’ meeting in Memphis, Tenn. Representatives from DC Comics, Image, Top Cow, Boom! Studios and more will meet with retailers to discuss concerns and ideas.

The meeting begins with a meet-and-greet Wednesday night, followed by a DC Comics-sponsored day of programming on Thursday. Friday features more presentations and discussion sessions with all publishers, and the meeting wraps up with a breakfast presentation and closing statements on Saturday.

ComicsPRO, the largest organization of direct-market retailers, will honor individuals who help bring comic books to market on Friday night with the first ComicsPRO Industry Appreciation Award.

Robert Kirkman, creator of “The Walking Dead” and Image Comics partner, is the meeting’s keynote speaker, scheduled to speak on Friday. Image Comics, the industry’s third-largest publisher, is making its only retailer-focused appearance of 2010 at the ComicsPRO meeting.

ComicsPRO has more than 140 members comprising more than 180 storefronts in 36 states and six Canadian provinces. Stay tuned to Nerdage throughout the week for live updates from the ComicsPRO meeting.

Source: NewsOK

---

Comic Geek Speak Talks Top Cow's May Releases

With the help of Brad Milyo from the Half Hour Wasted cast, the Comic Geek Speak team look at March Previews for books shipping in May, including Velocity and other Top Cow books.

Listen and download the podcast here.

Source: Comic Geek Speak

---

Newsarama: Image & Top Cow's June 2010 Solicits

Berserker Volume 1 Trade Paperback
story RICK LOVERD
art JEREMY HAUN
cover DALE KEOWN
JUNE 16
176 PAGES / FC / TRADE PAPERBACK
$14.99

Produced by Milo Ventimiglia and DiVide Pictures!
The lives of Aaron and Farris, two young and completely different men, are turned upside down when they discover an animalistic and uncontrollable rage living inside them. Meanwhile, two mysterious organizations seek them out for their newfound strength and power for their own purposes. But what good is strength and power when you can't tell friend from foe?

From screenwriter Rick Loverd and artist Jeremy Haun (Chuck, Detective Comics) comes a raw, bloody series in the spirit of Wanted!




ANGELUS #6
story RON MARZ
art & cover STJEPAN SEJIC
JUNE 16
32 PAGES / FC / LIMITED SERIES
$2.99

The ARTIFACTS lead-in series concludes!
The final battle for the mantle of the Angelus reaches its climax as Dani Baptiste takes on a foe who knows her every weakness, inside and out. Will Dani have to sacrifice everything dear to her, even her humanity, to survive?




IMAGE'S HACK/SLASH OMNIBUS, VOL. 1 TP (new printing)
story TIM SEELEY
art STEFANO CASELLI, DAVE CROSLAND & SKOTTIE YOUNG
cover TIM SEELEY
JUNE 9
300 PAGES / FC
$29.99
At the end of every horror movie, one girl always survives... in this case, Cassie Hack not only survives, she turns the tables by hunting and destroying the horrible slashers that would do harm to the innocent! Alongside the gentle giant known as Vlad, the two cut a bloody path through those who deserve to be put down... hard!

See the full solicitations here.

Source: Newsarama

---

iFanboy's A Taste of Comics #3 - Seattle

After a long break, A Taste of Comics is back! Join C.B. Cebulski, Russ Cundiff, Filip Sablik and Ron Richards as they discuss their most recent meals and restaurants, the comics that are really working for them (including 20th Century Boys, Joe the Barbarian, and Afrodisiac) as well as take a look at the emerald jewel of the northwest, Seattle and all the food that can be had while attending Emerald City Comic Con (Here's a tip: try the salmon!).

Listen to the podcast here.

Source: iFanboy

---

Newsarama: Matt Hawkins Comments on the Impact of the Comic Book Movie Decade on Publishing

Some of the changes to comic book publishing are obvious since Hollywood started salivating over their wares. But a lot of changes influenced by the film industry have happened without most loyal comic book fans even realizing it.

The biggest and most apparent shifts within the world of publishing have happened just in the last year. DC Comics is now calling itself "DC Entertainment," reporting directly to Warner Bros. Pictures Group. Marvel now runs its own movie studio under the umbrella of Disney's entertainment conglomerate. And comic book's top writers, like Brian Michael Bendis and Geoff Johns, spend much of their time nowadays consulting on scripts for movie projects and TV shows.

But other changes to the comic book industry have trickled down to even smaller publishers in ways that are less noticeable to readers, but all-too-apparent within the industry.

For smaller publishers, one of the reasons for working with Hollywood is that there's a real boost in sales of the source comic books when films are made.

"Anytime you have a mass market film or TV show or video game, you have a surge in sales of the comic," said Matt Hawkins, president of Top Cow, the publisher behind the Wanted comic book that became a hit film. "Anyone who tells you there's not is just lying."

Another reason publishers sometimes desire Hollywood involvement is the potential for owning licensed characters that can be used for merchandise and other media. From Sin City action figures to Watchmen T-shirts, merchandising of comic book characters gets a huge boost from feature films.

But Hawkins said that, despite many comics companies moving in that direction, it's not always easy to capitalize on licenses when the characters are unknown and less identifiable.

Read the full article here.

Source: Newsarama

---

Twitter Report: Ron Marz Comments on the Great Amazon Glitch

On Amazon.com, omnibus collections started showing up for flea market prices, and order cancellations have begun going out to customers like Ande Parks, who thought he caught a great deal on some "Daredevil" hardcovers he appeared in.

It's all in the Twitter Report for March 8th, 2010.

Amazon.com pt. 1: @ronmarz Everybody enjoying their "Yeah, you're not gettin' that" letters from Amazon?
-Ron Marz, Writer ("Green Lantern," "Witchblade")


Source: MTV Splashpage

---

Previews World: Top Cow's Angelus #1 & #2 Sells Out

Top Cow has announced today that the first and second issues of the six-issue miniseries Angelus have sold out at the distributor level. Written by Ron Marz (Witchblade, Magdalena) and featuring art by Stjepan Sejic (Witchblade), the Angelus mini-series finds Danielle Baptiste returning home to New Orleans and coming to grips with her new role as the Angelus — the human bearer of the primal force of light.

"I'm just incredibly pleased at the news of Angelus #1 and #2 selling out," said Marz. "This series is really the culmination of something we started planning more than three years ago when we introduced Dani Baptiste in Witchblade #100. We wanted to grow her into a character that readers could connect to, so that when she finally assumed the mantle of the Angelus, we'd have someone the audience cares about. Hopefully the success of the first two Angelus issues is an indication we did that."

Read the full announcement here.

Source: Previews World

---

Associated Content: Comic Books in the Digital Age - Can Graphic.ly Get You to Pay for Digital Content You Can Have Free?

Graphic.ly is a strange name for a company; it's an adverb. I doubt that you have ever seen a business named, for example, "Rapidly Plumbing;" and if you did, you'd assume that the person who named the company doesn't speak English as his first language. As I recall, I had been Twitter searching art-related subjects and the Graphic.ly name popped up in the timeline. When I first read it on my computer screen, the name made me curious enough as to wonder what the eponymous Graphic.ly app Beta they were pimping might be all about.

Speaking of those publishers, they've got Top Cow and Marvel on board, as well as some others in the mix; with many more purportedly on the way. What with my being a Marvel guy at heart, I am admittedly excited at the possibility of having eternally mint interactive copies of the Machine Man collection that I have lost not once, but twice. Unfortunately, I can't see that happening at the cost of 99 cents per issue. If I am going to pay that much, I want the real book; since that's about how much Machine Man issues go for anyway.

So, can Graphic.ly create such a superior product and community experience around their application as to convince us to start buying our comic books in their digital format?

As always, the consumers will determine whether or not the Graphic.ly experiment is a success. What I can report at this point is that they've got a great application and some pretty big ideas. I sincerely hope they're not the type of big ideas that will scuttle the ship in the shark-infested waters of internet commerce before it ever leaves the harbor.

Read the full article here.

Source: Associated Content

---

Bookgasm Covers The Crazies

To tie in to Breck Eisner’s film THE CRAZIES (itself a remake of George Romero’s 1973 thriller), Top Cow Productions and Image Comics teamed up for a four-issue miniseries based on the movie. Rather than a straight adaptation, the creators — all of whom differ issue to issue — opted to tell a self-contained prequel, each focused on a mostly different set of secondary characters in the flick’s small Iowa town.

In the first, a poor farmer and his angry pigs are in the spotlight. In the second, another farmer — this time, of diseased cows — takes center stage. The third features the head of a funeral home. All these paranoid guys go nuts, with their stories ending on the points presumably that the film picks up.

The fourth and final issue finds a band of well-armed rednecks taking aim at the zombies who’ve infiltrated their Ogden Marsh turf. It’s the most action-oriented of the bunch, and probably what you would’ve expected the entire run to be. As a whole, the series carries the feel of good ’70s horror comics, like something James Warren would’ve published, and I hope these get collected into a trade paperback down the line.

Scripts and art are solid throughout, even though the creative talents have limited amount of space — roughly 22 pages — to tell each tale.

Source: Bookgasm

---

USA Today: No Escape from 'The Crazies'

For the next two weeks, horror fans everywhere will get a heavy, multimedia dose of blood-spattered, carnage-filled promotions.

The Crazies, a remake of legendary filmmaker George A. Romero's 1973 low-budget cult classic, won't officially hit theaters until Feb. 26. In the days leading up to its release, however, fans will be inundated with story preludes, previews and promos in widespread locations from comic book stores to Facebook.

In addition to the actual movie, there will also be four comic books, digital motion comics, a Facebook game application, an e-mail game and an iPhone application based on the film.

The four comic books, produced by Top Cow Productions and American Original Press, will come out in two-issue installments on Feb. 17 and 24. Written by industry rising stars Ivan Brandon, Josh Fialkov, Brian Reed and Marc Andreyko, the comic book tie-ins present deeper preludes to some of the events depicted in the film.

Read the entire article here.

Source: USA Today

---

Newsarama: Filip Sablik Reacts to iPad

With Apple's announcement of their new iPad device, the comics industry is abuzz with the potential for digital comics.

Creators and publishers of comic books have anticipated the Apple tablet ever since rumors began surfacing late last year, because it offers a vertical e-book reader that has a color screen -- something important for the experience of reading comic books.

Newsarama contacted artists, writers and executives at a variety of comic book publishers to find out their reaction to the news, and their thoughts on how it will affect comic books.

Top Cow publisher Filip Sablik responds:

On a personal level I'm excited as all get out. I'm a big Apple addict (as my wife can attest) and what Apple does incredibly well is - a) make technology appealing and sexy and b) makes it easy to use. They didn't invent the personal computer, they didn't invent the mp3 player, and they didn't invent the smart phone, but they sure made them appealing for tech and non-tech people alike.
I'll be in line to pick up one of these when it comes out. It'll be great for traveling - I can listen to music, watch movies, read books, and surf the net all on one easy to use device? Great. Most of my work is done over email and my email is in the cloud through Google. So is my calendar. With a bluetooth keyboard, I can essentially replace my laptop with this device on road trips. Are there things that I'd like to see on this still? Certainly. A built in camera for Skype or taking photos would be nice. Flash would be nice. But it's the first generation of this device and looks like a pretty spectacular start to me.

Right now, I'm cautiously optimistic. Digital distribution is another potential revenue stream for publishers. Not everyone is going to go out and buy an iPad initially, it's like when the iPod first came out. It wasn't until the third generation iPods came out that it really took off.

I'm sure it will be part of our strategy and the strategy of most publishers in one form or another, but I don't think you'll see any publisher investing a massive amount of time and energy into it until the revenue stream proves itself with sales.
Long term I definitely see the appeal for many folks to have digital subscriptions to comics, magazines, and so on. If the price is low enough, the process is easy enough (easier than stealing), and the product looks great then I don't see why it can't become a nice outlet to capture new readers.

On the direct market side, I think there's no immediate reason to panic. If the feedback on Newsarama has shown us anything, it's that diehard comic collectors aren't eager to make the switch. They like collecting, they like the physical product. Perhaps some of them will use digital to sample books they've heard good things about at a lower entry point. In the long run, I suspect we will see a great emphasis put on trade sales and savvy retailers will look at ways to partner with digital distributors to drive sales for hard copies back into their stores.

Go here to see more reactions from comics' pros and publishers.

Source: Newsarama

---

Friends of the Cow: Hastings Having Online Sale for Dallas Comic Con

Our friends over at Hastings are having a sale that runs through Sunday online in honor of Dallas Comic Con.

25% off all action figures, graphic novels and manga at GoHastings.com.

Click on the flyer above for the special promo code.

---

GeekWeek: Ron Marz on the Comic Book Script Archive

Tim Simmons realizes that reading comic book scripts isn't exactly everyone's bag, but if you're an aspiring comic writer or artist, the Comic Book Script Archive is a great resource for getting a peek at how the pros work. You also can't go wrong studying a writer like Mr. Marz.

He was honored when, last week, Ron popped him a message asking if he would like to host a script or two of his-- Being stellar, he ended up hooking up not one or two, but four scripts: Angelus #1, Broken Trinity: Witchblade, Dragon Prince #1, and Witchblade # 132.

If you're an aspiring writer or artist, take particular note of the Dragon Prince script, since you can compare it to the final version, which Top Cow has graciously offered for you to read online...free!

Source: GeekWeek

---

Friends of the Cow: Adrian Nicita Talks Riot Shell with Broken Frontier

Riot Shell is an all NEW online comic series, created by Adrian Nicita and revolves around a girl who can transform her arm into any kind of weapon she desires. Nicita Designs and Comic Idol have put together a 6 page preview as a jump on point and the best part is...the rest is up to... YOU!

BROKEN FRONTIER: People might know you as the webmaster for many Top Cow creator websites, like Marc Silvestri, David Nakayama and Romano Molenaar. Is that what you do, mainly?

ADRIAN NICITA: Yes. I mainly design websites and logos, but too many to mention. They haven’t all been comic based but that’s where my passion lies. From a design aspect, I love creating sites for comic books and their creators as I get access to some really amazing artwork. I am currently working on a new site called stormbringers.com for Korby Marks, the creator of Stormbringers. The rest of my free time goes into comicidolonline.com; the official home of Riot Shell.

Read the rest of the interview with Adrian to learn more about Riot Shell here.

Source: Broken Frontier

---

Filip Sablik on Blog@Newsarama: "Proactive, Not Reactive"

Top Cow Pubisher Filip Sablik takes to Newsarama with another guest post, Proactive, Not Reactive.

Like most people in the US, I was stunned and horrified by the horrible damage suffered by the people of Haiti after they were hit with a 7.0 earthquake last week. And like many, I did what I could do to aid in the disaster relief efforts by donating to a worthy charity. It got me thinking, why do we wait until a disaster to help out the little guy?

Would the people of Haiti be suffering in the same way now if we had been proactive in helping their improvised nation raise their standard of living and infrastructure? In this Op-Ed from the New York Times, David Brooks points out that a similar earthquake in San Francisco killed 63 people as opposed to the 72,000 reported killed in Haiti by CNN. Brooks suggests that the tragedy in Haiti is a result of poverty, not a natural disaster. Further more, we aren’t tackling the problem in the most effective manner.

But why do we wait until over 70,000 people die in Haiti before mobilizing into action?

Is it part of human nature? Or something inherent about living in a country where despite economic hardship, we’re all living comfortably compared to much of the rest of the world?

This train of thought brought me to other parallels (albeit smaller in scale and importance).

Read the rest of the post here.

Source: Blog@Newsarama

---