Tag: Comic-Con International

Comics Lowdown: Graphic novel sales are up, floppies are flat

The comics market is growing, but monthly comics are not. Also: A week of great comics articles from NPR!

By the Numbers: The comics market increased by 5% to a total of $1.085 billion in 2016, according to an estimate by Milton Griepp of ICv2 and John Jackson Miller of Comichron. Graphic novels sold in bookstores accounted for almost all the growth, however; they were up 16%, while sales of monthly comics in comic shops, on newsstands, and in digital format remained flat. Griepp saw the graphic novel growth as evidence that the market is expanding, as more women and children find graphic novels, while Miller credited Marvel’s Star Wars comics and DC’s Rebirth event.

Whatever Happened to comiXology? Three years after the largest digital comics service was purchased by Amazon, they still have plenty going on, says comics-biz maven Rob Salkowitz, including using Amazon’s “affinity marketing” (if you liked this, you’ll like that) tools, expanding to foreign audiences, and bringing in new readers via the ComiXology Unlimited, Kindle Unlimited, and Prime Reading programs.

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Comics Lowdown: More Manga, Scary Stories and an Inside Look at North Korea

A North Korean cartoonist looks at the lighter side of defection, an American cartoonist turns down an Iranian award, and Humanoids announces an all-ages horror graphic novel.

Struggles and Smiles: Former North Korean animator Choi Seong-guk was surprised at how different the comics were when he defected to South Korea: “When I first saw South Korean cartoons, I just didn’t get them,” he says. “There were no stories about patriotism or catching spies or war. They just seemed useless to me.” There were a lot of other differences too, including some idioms that he misunderstood. Now he has turned his experiences into an online comic that depicts both the funny and the serious side of the lives of North Koreans at home and in South Korea.

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Frank Miller’s ‘300’ prequel due next year

Check out new preview art for ‘Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander.’

Entertainment Weekly reports that Frank Miller’s 300 prequel will arrive next year from Dark Horse Comics.

With quite the mouthful for a title, Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander will “focus on the Persian emperor Xerxes, the so-called ‘King of Kings’ who raised a massive army to invade Greece in the fifth century B.C. to get revenge for his father’s death and become a god,” according to EW. “The title suggests the story will also look forward to the rise of Alexander the Great, who destroyed the Persian Empire a few centuries after Xerxes’ reign.”

Miller has talked about doing the comic for a while, at least as far back as 2009-2010.

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Comics Lowdown: Comic-Con to Stay in San Diego

Plus: Udon to publish Daigo manga, another comics shop is robbed, a comics professor quits his job

It’s official: Comic-Con International will remain in San Diego for now, resisting the blandishments of other cities such as Los Angeles and Anaheim, which have been trying to woo it away. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced on June 30 that the city has signed a three-year deal with Comic-Con that will last through 2021; the current contract ends after next year’s show. Faulconer made a pitch for expanding the convention center, something that has been talked about for years now; the City Council recently refused his request to put a special tax on the November ballot to fund an expansion. Con-goers get a bit of a break in this new contract, though: The last contract held all hotel rooms to their 2016 prices for the duration, and the new one only allows a 4% increase over the 2018 price over the subsequent three years.

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Timm & Klein honor ‘The King’ on San Diego souvenir book

Comic-Con International’s annual publication will pay tribute to Jack Kirby, in honor of his 100th birthday.

Every year Comic-Con International in San Diego pays tribute to various anniversaries in their annual Souvenir Book, which features artists contributing pieces related to whatever comic or pop culture phenomenon is celebrating a milestone. With the upcoming 100th birthday of legendary comics creator Jack Kirby, this year’s edition will feature a cover by Bruce Timm of Batman: The Animated Series fame (which is also celebrating an anniversary) that honors the King in two ways.

Timm and award-winning letterer Todd Klein pay homage to Kirby’s cover to Superman’s Pal: Jimmy Olsen #141:

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Sonny Liew, ‘Kill or Be Killed,’ ‘Saga’ top this year’s Eisner nomination list

Fantagraphics and Image Comics receive 20 nominations each.

Comic-Con International has announced the nominees for the 2017 Eisner Awards, presented annually in San Diego at the convention.

Sonny Liew’s The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye tops the list with six nominations, while Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples’ Saga tied with Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Kill or Be Killed tied with four nominations each. On the publisher front, Fantagraphics and Image Comics both received 20 nominations each, the most of any publisher.

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Believe the hype: These Public Enemy figures are awesome

Based on designs by Ed Piskor, the set includes Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Professor Griff and Terminator X.

One of the coolest pieces of merch I saw coming out of San Diego this year (besides that Flex Mentallo towel) was this box set of Public Enemy action figures based on designs by Hip Hop Family Tree creator Ed Piskor. I was afraid they might be an SDCC exclusive, but they are available to the rest of the world as well.

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Hear more than 20 comics-related panels from SDCC

Hear panels featuring Peter David, Daniel Clowes, Howard Chaykin and more.

If you missed Comic-Con International in San Diego last week, Jamie Coville has you covered. Like he’s done for the past several years, he attended and recorded several of the comic-related panels form the show. These include the spotlights on special guests Howard Chaykin and Peter David, some of the Comics Arts Conference sessions and “The Best and Woirst Manga of 2016” featuring our own Brigid Alverson.

You can find them all on Jamie’s website.

BOOM! drafts Dennis Hopeless to write WWE comic

BOOM! Studios will offer a more realistic take on the WWE superstars, starting with a comic about the Shield.

Before Comic-Con International kicked off, BOOM! Studios announced a partnership with World Wrestling Entertainment to create comics based on WWE superstars. Not many details were revealed at the time, although they did share several comic images featuring WWE superstars. At the con itself, they revealed the focus of their first comic, their overall approach and the writer who will help bring it all to life.

IGN reports that during the con, BOOM! announced Spider-Woman writer — and WWE fan — Dennis Hopeless will write WWE: Then. Now. Forever., a 40-page one-shot starring Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins set during their Shield days. Shield, not SHIELD. So no, they won’t be cast as secret agents or space pirates or gladiators in Rome; the only Roman Empire that’ll be featured is the dwindling piece of the WWE Universe that still cheers for Reigns. The comics will be more realistic takes on the superstars, rather than putting them into a fictional universe like the last round of WWE comics did.

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Jeff Smith, Keith Knight, Peter Kuper and more turn their pens to the presidential election

With Comic-Con and the Republican National Convention occurring in the same week, The Guardian enlisted several cartoonists to draw their renditions of Trump and more.

Comic-Con International wasn’t the only convention happening in the United States last week; there was another convention with crazier, more colorful characters living in a fantasy world — the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. To mark this confluence of events, The Guardian asked several comic artists to turn their artistic talents to that other convention and the upcoming election.

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‘Southern Bastards,’ ‘Paper Girls’ and more take home 2016 Eisner awards

Other winners include ‘Bandette,’ ‘March Book 2,’ ‘Two Brothers’ and ‘Over the Garden Wall.’

Both Southern Bastards and Paper Girls took home multiple awards last night at the 28th annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Southern Bastards won for best continuing series, while Jason Aaron took the Eisner for Best Writer. Paper Girls was named Best New Series, while Cliff Chiang was named Best Artist. Other winners included Bandette, the second March book and Peter Kuper’s Ruins.

Here’s the complete list of all nominees, with the winners bolded:

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DC, Gerard Way share more details on the ‘Young Animal’ line

At Comic-Con International, the former My Chemical Romance singer showed new artwork for “Shade The Changing Girl” and “Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye,” and news of a pretty stellar back-up coming to Carson’s title.

DC Comics and singer/Umbrella Academy write Gerard Way plan to make the DC universe weird again with the Young Animal imprint. Way, along with writers like Cecil Castellucci and Jon Rivera, will put their own unique spin on several DC mainstays, including the Doom Patrol, Shade, Cave Carson and even Gotham in the new line of comics.

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