Tag: Quick Hits

Quick Hits | ‘Demon Slayer,’ Dav Pilkey, Bill Watterson top 2023 graphic novel sales charts

Plus: ‘Monica’ wins in Angouleme, the Bram Stoker Awards ballot and more.

Pulling information from Circana BookScan, ICv2 has listed the top 20 graphic novels sold in 2023 in the superhero, manga and “author” categories. They’ve also posted lists of the top adult and kid’s graphic novels.

Looking through the lists (which don’t provide exact numbers, just rankings), it looks like the first volume of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba by Koyoharu Gotouge is the big winner, topping both the manga chart and the adult graphic novel chart. Or maybe I should say “a big winner,” because over on the kid’s graphic novel chart, Dav Pilkey rules supreme, as Dog Man and its Cat Kid Comics Club spinoff took 13 of the 20 positions, including the top 3.

Also, I’m not exactly sure how the superhero and author categories are defined. For instance, the Invincible Compendium shows up on the author list — which makes sense, given how popular the Amazon show is — with Robert Kirkman listed as the author. But I would have expected it to be on the superhero list, given it’s about superheroes and Kirkman isn’t the sole author.

Then for superhero graphic novels, IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin hardcover topped the list, followed by Tokyopop’s Nightmare Before Christmas: Battle for the Pumpkin King manga. I think you could make the argument that the Last Ronin is a superhero title, but the Nightmare Before Christmas manga seems like it’s in the wrong place. But maybe I’m misunderstanding the catgeories.

All that aside, sales numbers for comics disappeared during the pandemic when the industry went from a single distributor to multiple distributors, so seeing any kind of data like this is appreciated and interesting.

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Quick Hits | Posy Simmonds wins the 2024 Grand Prix at Angoulême

Plus: News on the Eisners, Brett Lewis, Bill Griffith and more.

British cartoonist and illustrator Posy Simmonds has been awarded the Grand Prix at France’s annual Angoulême International Comics Festival. Simmonds beat out Daniel Clowes and Catherine Meurisse to capture the prize, and is only the fourth woman to be awarded the Grand Prix in its 50-year history.

Simmonds, 78, has done it all in her career, including comic illustration, daily press cartoons, weekly comic strips, best-selling albums, children’s books and screen adaptations. Her debut graphic novel, True Love, is one of the first British graphic novels, and she went on to create the well-regarded Gemma Bovery, Tamara Drewe and Cassandra Darke. She began her career doing comic strips for the Sun, the Times and the Guardian, where she spent the majority of her career. Later in life, she would start creating children’s books, and her most famous, Fred, went onto become an Academy Award-nominated short film, Famous Fred.

“I always think in a perfect world, the gender of a prize winner shouldn’t be remarkable,” Simmonds told the Guardian. “But it’s an imperfect world and the comics and bande déssinée world has always been a masculine milieu, a bit of a boys’ club. But, bit by bit, especially over the last decade, women have infiltrated it, so I’m pleased to be one of them, of course.”

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Quick Hits | Massachusetts police officer searched an 8th grade classroom for a copy of ‘Gender Queer’

Plus: News on IDW, Fantagraphics, Joe Sacco, Jim Lee, Chris Gooch and more.

In a chilling chapter in the ongoing culture war against LGBTQ+ books and graphic novels, several sources reported that a plain-clothes police officer searched an eighth grade classroom for a copy of the graphic novel Gender Queer in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

The officer notified the school he was coming and was accompanied by the principal as he searched for the memoir by Maia Kobabe, which has topped the most banned book list for the last couple years. The search reportedly took place after school hours and was the result of a single complaint by a community member.

“Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia. What are we doing?” Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told the Berkshire Eagle.

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Quick Hits | ‘Chivalry’ wins at the Locus Awards

Plus: #ComicsBrokeMe, Lambda Literary Awards, Hoopla adds manga and more.

Awards | Chivalry, the short story by Neil Gaiman adapted into a graphic novel by Colleen Doran, has won a Locus Award in the category of “Illustrated and Art Book.” The graphic novel, which was published by Dark Horse, was up against several traditional art books and a few other graphic novels like The Night Eaters in the category. Artist Charles Vess also won another Locus Award in the category of “Best Artist.”

Industry | Writing for the Daily Beast, Chris Kindred talks to several comic creators about the #ComicsBrokeMe hashtag that Shivana Sookdeo created after the death of Ian McGinty and the stories they shared about working in the comics industry.

“The act of creating hundreds of well-illustrated pages takes serious time, significant strain on the body, and mental stamina. So many of us have sustained significant damage to our health trying to make ends meet,” Sookdeo told Kindred.

The article also notes the creation of the Cartoonist Cooperative, a creator-run organization trying to address these issues within the industry.

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Quick Hits | ‘Dilbert’ fallout

Also: news on Dina Norlund, Cartoonist Cooperative, the Minicomic Awards and more.

With the comic strip Dilbert being dropped by both newspapers and its distributor after its creator’s racist remarks on YouTube, many newspapers have a gap to fill on their comics page. The Washington Post will fill their Dilbert-sized hole with Heart of the City by Steenz, and Women Write About Comics caught up with the cartoonist at the Emerald City Comic Con to talk about the change.

“I think it’s a big deal because of two reasons,” Steenz told WWAC. “Reason number one is that I’m Black, and he hates Black people. [laughs] No, but it’s a nice way to just stick it to him, you know? But it’s also a big deal because we still rarely see a new influx of creators and syndicated comic strips, and I would like to see more of that. Obviously, legacy comics are there for a reason. Everyone’s going to want to keep reading Zits, everyone’s going to keep reading, you know, Jump Start, because those creators are still around and they want to keep making those comics. But I also want to see some new things. You should be able to get a newspaper and find someone new and not just have the old standards.”

In related news, the Associated Press spoke with several cartoonists about Scott Adams and his remarks, including Candorville creator Darin Bell, who is running a response to Adams in his comic strip this week.

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Quick Hits | Dilbert dropped from newspapers after Scott Adams’ racist rant on YouTube

Plus: Copyright office changes decision on AI comic, manga legend Leiji Matsumoto passes away, and news on Dan DiDio, Joseph Illidge and more.

Several newspapers, including those owned by Gannett and Advance Local, have pulled Dilbert by Scott Adams after the creator posted a racist rant on his YouTube channel. In the video, Adams referred to Black people as a “hate group” and encouraged white people to “get the hell away from Black people.”

“…this is a decision based on the principles of this news organization and the community we serve. We are not a home for those who espouse racism. We certainly do not want to provide them with financial support,” Chris Quinn, an editor for The Cleveland Plains Dealer, said. Other Advance Local papers in Michigan, Oregon and other states have followed suit.

USA Today, which is a Gannett paper, said in a tweet that “we lead with inclusion and strive to maintain a respectful and equitable environment for the diverse communities we serve nationwide,” and included an image that said they would no longer carry Dilbert.

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Quick Hits | Variant covers exploded in 2022 as number of new comic releases increased year over year

Plus: News on ‘Gender Queer,’ ‘Adora and the Distance,’ and more.

The always essential Comichron by comic sales guru John Jackson Miller has a number of charts up about 2022 comics. With distribution scattered amongst numerous players now, it’s harder to pin down sales numbers for many titles, but Miller has been keeping track of the number of new periodical releases, which gives an indication of the health of the overall comics market:

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Quick Hits | Rest in peace, Tim Kennedy, Aline Kominsky–Crumb

Plus news on Hunter Gorinson, Steve Ditko, Anders Nilsen, Angoulême and more.

Archie Comics artist Tim Kennedy, who collaborated artistically with his twin brother Pat, has passed away. No cause of death has been reported.

The Kennedy brothers began working for Archie in the late 1980s, after graduating from the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Graphic Design. They’ve been regular contributors ever since, drawing classic Archie stories as well as projects like the popular Life With Archie, which showed two alternate takes on Archie marrying Betty and Veronica.

“For decades, the Fabulous K Bros have dazzled fans around the world, bringing some of the funniest and most difficult stories from idea to the page,” said Archie Comics President and Editor-in-Chief Mike Pellerito. “No matter the challenge of illustrating a difficult scene with a giant Ferris wheel, intricate architecture, spaceships, car chases or any other wild story idea, they handled it seemingly with ease. Over the past decade or so I think their work has become some of the best and most versatile at Archie.”

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Quick Hits | Graphic novels face scrutiny in Texas schools

Plus: Todd McFarlane wants ‘Batman/Spawn’ to be the biggest comic of the century! ‘Still Alive’ wins another award! And a look at Alan Moore’s funny funnybooks!

Book challenges | A police officer employed by Katy ISD, a suburb of Houston, Texas, removed a copy of the graphic novel Flamer by Mike Curato from high school shelves after a woman filed a criminal complaint alleging the district was providing “harmful” material to minors. The removal occurred last month, when school wasn’t in session, and was later returned to shelves after police concluded “the claim was unsubstantiated.”

The book had previously been challenged, reviewed and approved for high schools by a committee after earlier challenges by parents — although it was removed from junior high shelves at the time. The woman also threatened to report the district to the Texas Rangers if they didn’t remove the book.

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Quick Hits | Behind the scenes at Oni Press

Plus: News on Ron Zimmerman, Paul Coker Jr., Frederik L. Schodt, Ed Brubaker and more.

Publishers | Although it might be hard to believe that there’s anyone left at the Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Company to speak anonymously at this point, Popverse has an interview up with one such staffer, who gives more details on what’s been going on behind the scenes — and offers some context about that not-at-all-thought-out statement that was released on social media. The statement, the anonymous source says, came from parent company Polarity. “They thought it was so good. They did not listen to anyone who told them it was not, and then we reaped the whirlwind of their failure, like pretty much every week this month.”

This unsurprising account by the anonymous staffer follows several rounds of layoffs and departures from the Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Company. Associate publisher Michelle Nguyen left the company voluntarily, following the layoffs of James Lucas Jones, Charlie Chu, Alex Segura, Amanda Meadows, Jasmini Amiri and Henry Barajas in July.

Publishers | Both The Beat and Popverse have reported that webcomics platform Tapas Media has laid off several staff in what’s being described as both a consolidation with sister companies Radish and Wuxiaworld, as well as a shift toward more user-generated content. Bleeding Cool reports that Tapas Media Chief Creative Officer Michele Wells is one of the people impacted by the layoffs. All three companies are owned by Kakao Entertainment, which acquired them in 2021.

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Quick Hits | Hotel strike impacts Comic-Con events

Plus: Rick Veitch, Noah Van Sciver, Jeff Smith, Coagula and the infamous Hall H line!

Conventions | Both Voice of San Diego and ICv2 report on the workers’ strike at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel in San Diego, which is adjacent to the convention center where Comic-Con International is held every year and where many CCI events and panels are held. According to Voice of San Diego, workers and management have been negotiating for months, but could not come to an agreement.

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Quick Hits | Rest in peace, Kazuki Takahashi

Former Wizard/DC employee Pat McCallum passes away. Plus news on Asaf Hanuka, Luke Healy, Molly Knox Ostertag, Gene Luen Yang and more.

Passings | Manga artist Kazuki Takahashi, who created Yu-Gi-Oh and worked on the Secret Reverse manga for Viz and Marvel, has passed away. The creator, whose real first name was Kazuo, was found dead after an apparent snorkeling trip in Okinawa Prefecture, according to the Japan Times.

Passings | Former Wizard Magazine Editor-In-Chief and co-founder Pat McCallum has passed away. In addition to his work on the long-running comics magazine and price guide in the 1990s and 2000s, he was an Executive Editor for DC Comics from 2011 to 2019.

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