This just in: Marvel press releases lie!
(The Comics Press) As I noted last Sunday, the funnybook fan press has lately followed a predictable pattern: each month Diamond releases its initial sales figures, which are artificially boosted to favor Marvel since that company doesn't do re-orders. Marvel's PR department then sends out a press release boasting over the awesome sales dominance of their company, which the fan press duly repeats verbatim. Then the adjusted sales figures, which include re-orders, come out and lo and behold, it turns out DC Comics sold more after all. You'd think that after a couple of months, the fan press would figure out what a scam this is, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, of course. Examples abound, but let's go with Digital Webbing for this month's example of the phenomenon in action:

"Marvel Comics' dominance of the Diamond Top 300 sales charts picked up in 2003 right where it left off in 2002, with a near sweep of the highest chart positions. Led by ULTIMATE WAR #3 and ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #34 & 35, 9 out of January 2003's Top 10 titles were Marvel titles.

"January 2003's Top Ten performance marks an improvement over 2002, a year in which Marvel placed an average of 8 out of the Top Ten titles each month."

Note that the above-linked press release makes no mention of the fact that these are only the initial orders. Note also that even though the headline refers to sales, the actual copy pulls a quick bait-and-switch to the top-ten/top-twenty/top-fifty horserace. These are two separate benchmarks; the "sales" in the headline implies a general market dominance, while the top titles listings only capture a piece of the picture. For more complete and accurate numbers, take a look at the adjusted sales figures for November. While Marvel dominates the top thirty or so titles, DC essentially owns the middle of the field, with a variety of niche titles whose combined sales nudge them into first place for sales once the re-orders are factored in. Anyone astute in the butt-simple mechanics of the Direct Sales Market would be able to figure things like this out... but then, this is the fan press we're talking about. What are they going to do, call Michael Doran on his bullshit? Come on.
Posted @ 2:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

This just in: comics make handy scapegoats!
(Comic Books) Gunhild Rbesamen, a German schoolteacher and one of the guardians of a delegation of 90 German students visiting the British town of Merton, placed the blame squarely on comics, movies and tabloid newspapers for harrassment visited upon her charges by local teenagers. Two teenagers were physically accosted but escaped without injury, while others reported being called "nazis" after being asked their nationalities. The Wimbledon Guardian has Mrs. Rbesamen's theories on the causes of the conflict:

" 'As far as I know, the teaching of German history concentrates on the Hitler era. There are numerous comics always depicting Germans as brutal, stupid villains and old and new films about the Second World War are on TV again and again.

" 'Besides, tabloids are obviously very anti-German.' "

Here's an alternate theory: the people giving her students such grief were in fact dipshit teenagers, and their behavior requires no further explanation than that.
Posted @ 2:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

St. Paul prepares for next set of Peanuts statues
(Comic Strips) For the past three summers, the city of St. Paul, Minnesota has commissioned a variety of statues based on Charles Schulz' famed comic strip Peanuts, with one character highlighted each year. Multiple variations of the selected character are created, and are displayed in downtown public spaces. Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Lucy have each gotten the treatment, and now the city is trying to decide between Woodstock and Linus for its next tribute. The St. Paul Pioneer Press explains how the comics-themed tradition began:

"During visits to her late husband's hometown, Jean Schulz has supported the idea of continuing the practice of displaying the artist-decorated statues of Peanuts characters around the city. The tribute started after Schulz, who used his St. Paul childhood as a source for much of his Peanuts material, died in February 2000.

"The formula has been successful in raising money. More than $1 million was raised in statue auctions, enough to pay for permanent bronze Peanuts sculptures, which will be unveiled this spring in a new downtown park."

The St. Paul Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates that the statues have drawn in over a million visitors in the past two years.
Posted @ 2:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

The Cat in the Hat in the museum
(Comics Events) An all-ages interactive exhibition devoted to the work of Dr. Seuss is making the last stop in its ten-city tour, with a stay in Cleveland, Ohio. The Erie Times-News spoke to Karen Pozna, a representative of the Western Reserve Historical Society museum, about the exhibit:

" 'It's great for families, because people can read the history of Theodor Geisel, who is Dr. Seuss, and children can play,' Pozna said. 'Dr. Seuss is just such a creative and imaginative person, the things that he came up with are just incredible.'

"The exhibit designers were equally ingenious. In one spot, visitors can climb into a tunnel where motion sensors trigger a recorded reading of Green Eggs and Ham.

"Another area resembles the house where the Cat in the Hat went looking for rainy day fun. Children can drive the cleanup machine or read copies of the books lying around.

" 'It's a great interactive exhibit where it is OK to touch things, OK to climb on things,' Pozna said."

The exhibit runs through February 3rd; click here for more information.
Posted @ 2:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

The Year in Publishing
(Comics Retailing) 2002 saw an explosion of graphic novel sales in bookstores -- and Publishers Weekly has just offered up a long examination of the phenomenon. There are stories for almost every section of the market, here, including pieces on superhero books, DC Comics' Vertigo imprint, efforts by art-comics publishers to get shelved separately from the children's comics, and spotlight articles on Slave Labor Graphics and Oni Press. It should go without saying, however, that the most important story to hit this industry is the rise of Japanese manga:

"Manga releases dominate BookScan's reporting on the bestselling graphic novels. Manga's dynamic artwork and its science fiction, supernatural and action-oriented plots are attracting hordes of teenagers as well as older readers to the medium. In addition, the enthusiastic support of librarians interested in attracting teen readers as well as video/DVD releases and TV broadcasts of anime (the animated version of print manga) are driving more and more readers to bookstores and comics shops in search of their favorite characters.

"The popularity of manga has led to a jump in the number of titles in the marketplace and more investment by Japanese publishing and entertainment firms in the American market. There are already hundreds of titles being released annually in the still relatively small U.S. market, and that number is likely to increase. Even a small manga publisher like ComicsOne, which publishes the manga version of the hit movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, published nearly 100 titles in 2002."

How much manga reigns over the bookstore trade in graphic novels can be seen by the limited numbers reproduced in this Newsarama story, which contains a list of the top-selling titles for the week ending December 15th. Note that twenty-three of the top twenty-five titles are manga, with Marvel and DC fighting for the crumbs. Even while the rate of growth starts to falter in the Direct Sales Market, elsewhere the arrows all seem to be pointing upward...
Posted @ 1:35 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

I'm with the bandes dessinees
(Comics Retailing) Meanwhile, across the atlantic, France is also seeing a rise in the number of people reading comics, according to that country's Association for Comic Book Critics (otherwise known as the "ABCD"). India's web-portal Sify.com has a brief rundown:

"Over the past seven years, readership of comics, or bandes dessinees as they are called in French, has steadily increased, so much so that now more than one reader in three is casting their eyes over the pages of the two-dimensional stories, the study, by ABCD secretary Gilles Ratier, shows."

I'm sure there's more of the story yet to be reported, but frankly I'm still wrapping my brain around the idea of there being enough comic book critics globally, let alone in France, to justify an association.
Posted @ 1:35 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Hideo Takeda on the rebound
(Comics Events) Hideo Takeda is exhibiting old and new works at The Art Museum of Tama Art University in Tokyo. That the internationally renowned cartoonist, who got his start drawing panels for weekly magazine Asahi Journal, produces new work at all is in itself something to celebrate, given the serious health problems that have plagued him recently. The Asahi Shimbun spoke to the artist for the details:

"The right side of his body felt numb at first, he recalled. He went to a hospital, but was told it was 'nothing serious.' Within a month, the left side of his body became paralyzed. He would later learn that he had actually had two strokes.

"After six months of rehabilitation, he was able to use his right hand again. But the left side of his body has yet to fully recover, he said."

Takeda's illustrations has been exhibited in galleries around the world. Two examples of his work can be seen here and here.
Posted @ 1:35 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

After-Christmas Special
(Potpourri) Having just had my ass kicked by the holidays, I'm in no shape to do the usual extended listings today. Instead, here's the day's entries, with minimal commentary and/or fuss:

• Reporters without Borders are reporting that Afghani publisher Abdul Ghafur Aiteqad, who if you'll recall was detained by the interim government over a cartoon run by his paper Farda, has been released after four days' confinement.

• Doug Marlette, editorial cartoonist for the Tallahassee Democrat, has managed to offend several with a cartoon critical of Islam. The cartoon didn't run in the paper, but was briefly available on the paper's website; hence the brouhaha. "Editorial cartoonist offends readers" -- more dog-bites-man than the reverse on that one...

• Joe Coleman's trapped in the art world -- and he can't get out! (Link via ArtsJournal.)

No, seriously, this Christmas just took the wind out of me like nothing in recent memory. Ugh, is it ever bedtime...
Posted @ 12:45 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

The Best Comics of 2002
(Comic Books) As I noted yesterday, I'm taking a break and heading out of town for Christmas. First, though, let me leave you with a short collection of critical reviews of comics in 2002:

• Time.com's comics critic-in-residence Andrew Arnold gives his picks for the ten best comics of 2002. Note also that Time also declares Lynda Barry's One Hundred Demons to be the third best non-fiction book of the year.

• Over at the New York Times, noted critic and novelist Nick Hornby surveys six recent graphic novels, and likewise settles on One Hundred Demons as his pick of the litter.

• iComic's Greg McElhatton provides a list of some of his favorites, which includes several very good manga titles.

• Comic Book Galaxy's Alan David Doane introduces his website's picks, including both art-comics and genre titles, as well as a short sampling of musings on the past year by a variety of industry professionals.

• Finally, Ninth Art's Paul O'Brien casts an eye back at the year in superhero comics, before concluding that the big event of the year didn't even occur in the Direct Sales Market: the mainstream success of manga on American newsstands and bookstore shelves.

Okay, I'm outta here. Have a merry one...
Posted @ 3:00 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Reno comics fan sentenced for armed standoff in shop
(Comics Retailing) 42 year-old Robert Bailey was sentenced to 12 years in prison last Thursday for barricading himself in a Reno, Nevada comic book store and threatening to set off a homemade bomb made of propane canisters, lamp oil and firecrackers. Bailey was convinced that the shop owner had been selling his comic books, which he had reported stolen from his storage shed two years ago. The Reno Gazette-Journal has the details:

"Bruce Lindsay, Bailey's lawyer, urged the judge to give a light sentence because his client was reacting to the theft of his comic books.

"Bailey tried to work within the system, but police ignored his pleas to investigate the store, the lawyer said. Bailey claimed the store had bought the comic books from the thief.

" 'He's not a predator on society,' Lindsay said. 'He's a man who went mad, who spent his whole life collecting comic books and they were taken away from him.

" 'To him it was his whole life and he lost his life and he went over the edge,' he said."

Judge Janet Berry didn't buy it; Bailey will now have to serve at least four years behind bars before he's eligable for parole.
Posted @ 3:00 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Sunday Scraps
(Potpourri) The following are a series of links that have collected in my notes but for a variety of reasons never made it to this weblog. It's an exceptionally long list this time, so let's get right to it:

• After virtually every comics news site again trumpeted Marvel Comics as having dominated sales in November, the adjusted figures are in -- and once reorders are factored into the equation, DC Comics again took the top slot. Why does anyone even bother reporting the initial sales figures?

• Chicago's top two newspapers, the Tribune and the Sun-Times, are in a full-fledged war to see who can capture the coveted 18- to- 34-year-old demographic with competing tabloids, as the Tribune's RedEye goes head-to-head against the Sun-Times' Red Streak. Now Editor and Publisher's Mark Fitzgerald wonders if Brenda Starr writer (and Tribune columnist) Mary Schmich isn't taking potshots at her own company's efforts.

• Over at Pop Image, comics writer Justin Gray predicts that the increasing interconnectivity of global communications will lead to more emphasis on visual language, which he thinks will only benefit comics.

• Sarah Dyer notes that after some down time, the official Osamu Tezuka website's English-language section is back, and more loaded than ever.

• Susannah Constantine and Trinny Woodall, who host the brutal British television fashion series What Not To Wear, were recently parodied by the equally-brutal comics magazine Viz -- and now they're threatening to sue for defamation. Well, they know how to live by the sword, anyway...

• Nigerian cartoonist Josy Ajiboye, the creator of one of his country's longest-running cartoons, recently launched a ten-day exhibition of his paintings at the Didi Museum in Lagos. The Daily Times of Nigeria has the story. (For more information about cartooning in Nigeria, click here.)

• The Peanuts-themed art exhibit, "Speak Softly and Carry a Beagle: The Art of Charles Schulz," opened this week at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Tennessee. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Ron Wolfe uses the event as an opportunity to remember the strip and its late creator.

• Your Carl Barks-inspired Finnish slang for the day: "duck-chuckling!"

• The Cape Cod Times checks in with the closest the Chatham neighborhood has to the Osbournes, the household of underground cartoonist Ned Sonntag. (Thanks, Egon!)

• Savant's Rob Clough checks in with the mother of all SPX 2002 reports.

• Over at Ninth Art, Wheeler, Johnston and Watson pick the best comic-book covers of 2002.

• From the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists' website, an interview with retired Milwaukee Journal editorial cartoonist Bill Sanders.

• Newsarama checks in with a pair of solid interviews: veteran Archie artist Stan Goldberg and underground legend Trina Robbins.

• Also at Newsarama: Matt Brady talks to Damon Hurd about his new biographical graphic novella, My Uncle Jeff.

• Weblogger (and former Journal writer) Bill Sherman reviews the new Hate Annual.

• It's the guiltiest pleasure in my bookmarks, and I feel like a total geek every time I mention it, but this week's Title Bout -- a merciless look at the week's Diamond Distributors shipping list -- is just fucking hilarious.

• Via Bugpowder comes this link to The Silverfish Gallery, which contains illustrations of the creepy little insects by a wider range of artists than you'd expect to be drawing the damned things, including Bill Plympton, Carol Lay, Tony Millionaire, Donna Barr, Dave Cooper, Eddie Campbell, Ariel Schrag, Evan Dorkin, Ted Rall, Howard Cruse -- jeez, that's a huge list.

• My vote for weirdest comic-strip tie-in product I've seen all month: Kickapoo Joy Juice! It's not just for Dogpatch anymore. (All apologies to whoever I swiped this link from -- I forgot to mark it in my notes.)

• Finally, Franklin Harris links to the Comic Book Geek Purity Test. I'd be tempted to call this the last word in such things, but for a page purporting to chart how big a superhero-reading nerd you are, there's not one single derogatory or insulting question about Gary Groth, The Comics Journal or alternative comics in general. You call this a purity test?

NOTE: I'm taking off to the boondocks for Christmas shortly, and that means ¡Journalista! will be taking a few days off as well. Depending on my still-up-in-the-air schedule, there might be a short entry tomorrow, but otherwise I'll see y'all back here on December 26th, when regular blogging will resume. Whether your end-of-the-year holiday excuse be Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, or Atheist Consumer Binge-and-Purge Day, have a happy one!
Posted @ 3:00 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

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