Comics Lowdown | All hail the king as ‘King Spawn’ #1 sells nearly 500,000 copies

Spawn continues its big comeback with big numbers. Plus: news on censorship in Texas, Tim Drake’s big revelation, Kim Dwinell, ‘Chickaloonies’ and more.

Todd McFarlane’s Spawn is coming back in a big way this year, as the creator launches a universe of titles built around the character. Spawn’s Universe #1 set a sales record for the 21st Century for Image Comics, and it looks like the first issue of King Spawn has already broken it, with a reported 497,000 pre-orders.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, that puts King Spawn #1 in the same neighborhood as DC’s Action Comics No. 1,000, which has pre-orders of an estimated 504,000 copies, and Detective Comics No. 1,000 with its 574,705 copies. So it’s a respectable neighborhood.

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Comics Lowdown | Jud Meyers placed on administrative leave at IDW

Plus: News on SDCC, DC’s writing workshop and the winner of the 2020 Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award.

Publishers: Jud Meyers, who was named publisher at IDW last week, has already been placed on administrative leave, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Jerry Bennington, who was named president of IDW last week, will assume Meyer’s duties in the interim. No reason was given for why Meyers was placed on leave. The Beat has more background, including information on a past lawsuit against Meyers by his former business partner, comics retailer Carr D’Angelo.

Conventions: The local San Diego news station KUSI looks at the loss of revenue to the city of San Diego due to the cancellation of the San Diego Comic Con. Clifford “Rip” Rippetoe, the president and CEO of the San Diego Convention Center, says the cancellation of the event meant a potential loss of $166 million to the local San Diego economy across restaurants, retail and taxes. He notes the convention center has had to cancel about 100 shows this year so far due to COVID-19.

Speaking of Comic-Con, Variety is calling the virtual convention “a bust,” based on the amount of activity on Twitter about the convention being down compared to last year, as well as the YouTube views of panels. The Beat points out that from a comic perspective, the YouTube numbers for “comics-based panels are way way above what they would have reached in person.” Also, almost a week later, those panels are still available for people who want to view them.

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Check Out The Wonder That Is Todd Klein’s Logo of the Day

In 1977 Todd Klein was hired by DC Comics, and hit the ground running designing logos immediately. To this day he is designing logos like a madman.

As Klein recently noted: “Logos continue to evolve, but the challenge remains the same: capture a potential buyer’s attention with a logo that is readable, bold, attractive and exciting. I hope to continue to find ways to make that work.”

Klein more recently found another way to entertain through Logos of the Day. Klein gave me permission to feature a few.

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Logo of the Day #1265: ARMOR WARS designed by John Workman for the first issue dated Aug. 2015. Image from John’s files, © Marvel

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Logo of the Day #1259: THE VIKING PRINCE designed by Ira Schnapp for THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #23 dated April-May 1959. Image from printed cover found online, © DC Comics.

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Logo of the Day #1262: X-CALIBRE designed by Todd Klein for the first issue dated March 1995. Photocopy of original logo from my files, image © Marvel

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Logo of the Day #1264: GREEN ARROW designed by Steven Cook for the first issue dated Nov. 2011. Image from printed cover found online © DC Comics.