Dig Comics

Year in Review: Tokyopop tackles digital

Part three in my Year In Review on the LA comics scene. [Part 1, Part 2]

At this point, it’s hard to argue against the notion that digital comics are inevitable. They’re the future. The near future. For many, they are already the present thanks to various legally dubious means. Just as the music industry had a difficult transition accepting the reality, so too are comics publishers. Over the last year, North American comics publishers have been taking a casual to slow walk toward maybe actually embracing the way it is now. And even with tepid experimentation, there has been tremendous growth during a tough year for the print side. Manga publishers from both the East and West have been criticized for being even more reluctant, and plenty argue that shrinking sales are due to readers heading to pirating sites that translate and upload manga years ahead of official North American releases.

Fortunately over the last half year, the feet dragging is coming to an end for Los Angeles manga publisher Tokyopop.

First came the legal action. In early June, Tokyopop joined the Japanese Digital Comics Association with over 30 other manga publishers, both in America and in Japan, to fight digital piracy. This bold move was initially met with frustration among readers who read illegally translated and distributed manga, due to a lack of legitimate digital alternatives. But what has followed since has been a strong move to create just that. (more…)

Year in Review: Archaia arrives

Continuing my Year In Review of local LA comic book movers and shakers. Yesterday, we looked at Boom! Studios successful Boom! Kids imprint and their line of Disney comics.

Today, we look at comics publisher Archaia Comics. Originally set up as a banner for the self-publishing efforts of writer/artist Mark Smylie and his high fantasy series Artesia, it expanded into a full on publisher in the middle of this past decade, launching the anthropomorphic fantasy series Mouse Guard by David Petersen to much acclaim. More comics were announced until the young publisher seemed to become overwhelmed by its own plans, almost completely grinding production to a halt. It appeared as if Archaia was going to be another in a long line of comics publishers who have abruptly vanished. Then came news of the acquisition of Archaia by Chicago-based media company Kunoichi. For a time this didn’t seem to change anything, but then Archaia came back. In the past year, they have firmly landed on solid ground and proved themselves to be a dependable publisher of quality comics and graphic novels, with an eye to innovation in the digital comics space. (more…)

Year in Review: Disney Comics go BOOM!

You’d think that with their over $4 billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment a year ago this week, the Burbank-based Walt Disney Company would have brought things in-house for comics featuring Disney characters. Instead, Disney has licensed a small but highly acclaimed line of comics to Los Angeles comics publisher Boom! Studios over the last year plus. And with their Boom! Kids line, Boom! has helped resurrect the all-ages corner of the comic book industry, something that many feared was a lost cause. Not only is this good news for increasing variety, but it’s absolutely crucial in making sure that another generation doesn’t slip by without learning and internalizing the language of comics. (more…)

So you want to read Spider-Man comics

We’re in the thick of the holiday season. Shopping is probably inevitable for a lot of us. If you or someone you know thinks Spider-Man is pretty cool but is clueless as to what to read first, I’ve put together a great big list as a checklist or reading order guide.

Marvel Comics has been publishing The Amazing Spider-Man since 1963, so being a little overwhelmed about what to get is understandable. Peter Parker (right) is pretty confused by it all too. And he’s lived through it.

So, here’s my Reader’s Guide to Amazing Spider-Man with every graphic novel that’s been published from that comic book series, what’s inside, and in what order you should read it. I’ve also included cover prices and if there are alternate ways to get the stories (soft cover, hard cover, etc.). After the list, I’ve also included a recommended reading list if you’re only interested in the most universally loved material instead of everything. Please feel free to join in the conversation if you have any favorites, questions, corrections or suggestions.

Just a note for those of you Spidey-savvy enough: this list only focuses on the Amazing Spider-Man comics series from 1963 to present, and for the most part does not include spin-offs like Web of Spider-Man or the relaunch series like Ultimate Spider-Man or Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (both of which are great ways to read Spider-Man too but they exist in their own universe apart from Amazing Spider-Man, and as such, they’re pretty streamlined, self-contained and easier to figure out where to start – although if you’re not sure, post a comment or email and I’ll be glad to help out).

I’ve also got similar Reader’s Guides to Uncanny X-Men and Fantastic Four. And I’ll be posting more here as time allows. Any requests for comic book series to cover?

TokyoPop enters mockumentary arena

Congratulations to my old sketch comedy cohort Yuri Lowenthal and Los Angeles manga publisher TokyoPop‘s Stu Levy and his co-director Steven Calcote on the success of their mockumentary Van Von Hunter!

The feature-length film screened at Hollywood’s MockFest film festival in Hollywood last month, and ended up winning Best Director and a special “audience award” for Best Film. Yuri Lowenthal, an accomplished voice-over actor, played the title character and was nominated for the What A Character themed award. The film was also an official selection at this past summer’s Fantasia International Film Festival in France.

You can buy the movie on DVD (in regular flavor or Special Edition 2-disc). The entire film is also available on Hulu:

Inspired by and based upon the manga series created by Mike Schwark and Ron Kaulfersch, Van Von Hunter is a live-action comedy that follows its title character on a journey deep into the heart of manga and anime fandom. From the mythical world of Dikay, to the cold, hard streets of Hollywood, then across the ocean to Tokyo, this Van-tastic voyage is also filled with cameos of top manga and anime personalities as it embraces otaku culture around the globe.

Diversity is the key

Marvel Comics announced details late last week of the launch of a new imprint that will focus on genres other than superheroes. Marvel’s CrossGen line will cross into genres not typically associated with the publisher of Spider-Man, Iron Man and Captain America.

Outside of their Marvel Illustrated line of comics adapting classic novels like the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Pride and Prejudice and Treasure Island, more modern adaptations of Stephen King’s Dark Tower and Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, and other sporadic attempts here and there, this is the first concerted effort to reach outside of their known superhero material since the publisher was releasing westerns and monster comics in the 1960s.

The CrossGen imprint is actually a resurrection of a publisher that failed and was purchased by Marvel’s new parent company Disney in 2004. CrossGen Entertainment came onto the comics scene with some daring moves. Instead of relying on freelancers, CrossGen relocated their talent to the company’s Florida compound and provided them with a salary, health insurance, 401k and other benefits largely alien to most creative types in the comics industry. They also were among the first to aggressively reprint their comics every 6 months or so in soft cover graphic novels (or “trade paperbacks”) targeted to book stores, now an industry standard. They were the first publisher to experiment with digital comics, with an online portal similar to Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited service. They also had a school and library outreach program with some of their material available in special lesson plan editions. Unfortunately CrossGen didn’t survive long enough to see these distribution channels mature to the point they have in the last 5 years and the company’s chutzpah ended up burying it.

Considering some of the trash talk thrown out by CrossGen’s president when the company was on the rise, it’s almost too ironic that its properties are now being published by Marvel. Still, the company put out some good looking books. They had a knack for attracting strong talent and putting out quality books that filled niche holes in the industry at the time. And now Marvel is using those properties to expand their line into new areas, a long overdue move that major competitor DC Comics knew to do back in the ’90s with the creation of the Vertigo imprint (even if it has typically limited itself to more mature readers content).

But with the struggling economy, is now the time to launch new initiatives? Marvel is keeping things modest with just two 4-issue series priced at $2.99 (versus their nearly standard $3.99 cover price). And they’re putting worthy talent in place to help garner interest. Mark Waid (Kingdom Come, The Flash) remains a hot writer, and is actually getting a second go at Ruse (pictured above), a Sherlockian mystery set in Victorian England. Mike Carey (Lucifer, The Unwritten) will write the more overhauled Sigil, a sci-fi war epic.

Initial response seems positive so far. CrossGen garnered an enthusiastic cult following in its day. (Disclaimer: I loved them.) And based on online responses so far, most seem eager to see these books return. Of course as we’ve seen, online enthusiasm doesn’t always translate into sustainable sales. But then sometimes it does.

When comics’ largest publisher launches an imprint that brings more diversity in their line of books, it can’t not be a good thing. Hopefully execution will match the good news. Hopefully retailers and readers will embrace the books. Time will tell.

The two new books are scheduled for a March 2011 release.

LA Comics distributor warehouse closes

Despite the bustling comics scene here in Los Angeles, it’s not all sunshine and ponies.

Diamond Comic Distributors, by far the biggest and most powerful international distributor of comic books and associated products delivering to comic book stores and specialty shops, is closing its Los Angeles distributor center/warehouse this March. How does this effect us readers? Probably not much, at least directly. That is, as long as your local shop can still get their shipment of new comics. And afford it.

The final shipment from the LA center will be the first week of January. After that, the southern California area (and beyond) will instead be serviced by a Diamond distribution center almost 2,000 miles east, in Olive Branch, Mississippi. In their notice to effected comic shops, Diamond stated, “based on our quality control monitoring of shortages, damages, and overages, the Olive Branch facility consistently scores on par with Los Angeles”. Given the errors and frustrations some local stores have had with Diamond, that’s probably not very comforting. According to Bleeding Cool, this brings the count of Diamond’s warehouse facilities to 4, down from 24 at one time.

The same week the Olive Branch center takes over, Diamond begins it’s new Day-Early Delivery program for all of its customers, where instead of comics arriving to stores Wednesday morning to go on sale that same day, comics will be delivered Tuesday with a street date of the following day. This should help pad out any delivery delays during the transition. However comic shops must pay a fee to be included in the program, which apparently pays for “secret shoppers” to make sure stores are obeying street date rules. So if they don’t pay in, stores will instead receive their boxes of comics early Wednesday morning for a same-day scramble to get comics sorted, counted, displayed and pulled for subscribers.

Another factor is that some stores opt to drive themselves to the distribution center and pick up their orders, instead of paying for UPS to drive comics to their store. With the LA distribution gone, will stores be forced to pay for deliveries? Diamond says no, for now. A pick-up location will be determined for those stores, at no additional charge. While that’s great, I can’t imagine that’s something they’ll keep doing forever. What’s the point of closing a distribution center if you still pay the rent on a pick-up location?

Comic stores often operate on a slim profit margin, especially smaller stores. With shrinking sales, will these new fees force some stores to rethink doing business?

And what of Diamond’s Los Angeles employees? If they’re willing to relocate to Mississippi, some may still have a job. According to ICv2: “Long-time Diamond Regional Manager James Nash will relocate from Los Angeles to Olive Branch. Other staff has been encouraged to apply for positions in Olive Branch after their tenure in Los Angeles ends at the end of March.”

LA Comics: In defense of the comiciness of LA

L.A. Comics #1 (1971)

New York gets all of the credit. Sure, the comic book industry was born there. Sure, the largest publishers are based there. Sure, hundreds of artists live in and around there. But that doesn’t mean Los Angeles is bupkis.

Not to start a pissing contest (because truthfully, LA would lose this one), but I don’t think LA gets trumpeted enough for its rich comics community. And thanks to a healthy creative spirit (and yes OK, the lure of Hollywood), it’s only getting stronger.

So join me now in a quick survey of

DC Comics is currently moving their now-defunct WildStorm and Zuda imprints to Burbank, and merging them into their new digital comics division. Marvel Studios, the Hollywood arm of Marvel Comics, calls Manhattan Beach their home. One of the largest North American publishers of manga, Tokyopop, has its main headquarters here in the Variety Building on Wilshire. Stan Lee lives here, where he runs POW! Entertainment. Also in town is Boom! Studios, who have partnered with Stan Lee on new comics, and are also publishing Disney comics. It’s definitely worth mentioning the great publisher Archaia Comics, home to Mouse Guard, Tumor, Return of the Dapper Men, and other critically acclaimed reads, which has an office in mid-Wilshire. Down in Gardena is Digital Manga Publishing, which has just released manga like Vampire Hunter D on the Nook (possibly the first to do so). Bongo Comics, publisher of Matt Groening’s Simpsons comics, is in Santa Monica. There’s also Marc Silvestri’s Top Cow Productions, publishers of Witchblade and The Darkness, and the late Michael Turner’s Aspen Comics, produces Fathom. And in West LA is Platinum Studios, they publish Cowboys & Aliens, soon to be a major Hollywood movie.

We’ve also got some fantastic comic book stores in every area of this sprawling city with a great variety of style and approach to retailing: Meltdown Comics on Sunset, Golden Apple on Melrose, The Secret Headquarters in Silver Lake, House of Secrets in Burbank, Hi De Ho in Santa Monica, Earth-2 in Sherman Oaks, The Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach and tons more!

LA is also the home to one of the most important non-profit organizations helping the comics industry today. The Hero Initiative raises money to give back to comic creators who have fallen on hard times. They have provided over $400,000 to comic creators in need.

Because of animation studios like Nickelodeon, there are tons of artists that cross over into comics in this town. There are countless artists, as well as artist studios like Latchkey Studios. And the Comic Art Professional Society (CAPS), a networking organization for creators that meets monthly in Burbank. Seriously, there are too many artists to list, so I’ll just point you to Tom Spurgeon’s massive list of Comics By Local Scene 2010. Scroll down to Los Angeles and be impressed (although I see at least one who no longer lives here, so don’t take it as the bible.)

The newspaper biz isn’t left out either. The Creators Syndicate is one of the largest independent distributors of comic strips, representing B.C., Andy Capp, Archie, Heathcliff, Rugrats, Liberty Meadows, and others.

LA is also pretty well represented in the comics journalism corner of the industry. Comic Book Resources, probably the #1 source for comics and comics-related news today, has their headquarters within spitting distance of Golden Apple. G4 has also been known to cover comics, like on “Fresh Ink Online” and “Attack of the Show”.

We can’t really be beat in the comic convention arena. A 3-hour drive south is all it takes for San Diego’s Comic-Con International. Even closer is the Wizard World Anaheim Comic Con. Even closer still is the new Long Beach Comic Con. And word recently broke of a promising new convention, the Comikaze Expo, scheduled for next November in the LA Convention Center.

And every week there are comics events going on all over the city.

So yeah. Not bad!

And I’m sure there’s plenty more that I’m missing. Please tell me about it in the comments or email me.

Women Not Welcome: Newspaper comics

It’s strange, but it seems like newspaper comics strips are seeing less and less strips about, created by, or targeted toward women. Maybe I’m just imagining it, or creating a pattern where there isn’t one, but if so I’m not the only one.

Ah, who needs over half the population?

Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse ended a nearly 3o-year long run in 2008. Fortunately it’s still around, as the comic is starting over from the beginning for a new generation, with slight modifications or “fixes“.

But this year saw the end of the legacy strip Little Orphan Annie, originated by Harold Gray in 1924. So beloved was this strip, that in 1945 New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia famously read it to children on his radio address during a 17-day strike that halted newspaper deliveries across the city (NPR story). When it was cancelled this past summer, it was only appearing in 20 papers.

Perhaps more notable was the end of Cathy by Cathy Guisewhite this past October. Starting in 1976, this strip was the first, and for a long time remained the only one created by a modern single woman talking directly to modern single women.

And on January 2, 2011, another legacy strip, Dale Messick’s Brenda Starr, Reporter, will come to an end. It’s currently being created by writer Mary Schmich, a reporter herself who started working on the comic in 1985, and June Brigman, a fine illustrator if ever there was one, who joined in 1995. The strip began in 1940, although it took some convincing because the editor wasn’t keen on the strip’s creator being a woman. Sadly, like Annie, Brenda Starr will be running in less than 20 papers when it comes to an end.

We’ve come a long way since 1940, so maybe it’s time to retire these strips and make room for new ones that speak more directly to today’s women.

So what’s come up to replace these female strips? Not necessarily new female strips, according to Daily Cartoonist Alan Gardner. Back in October, following the cancellation of Cathy, he did a study to find out what editors chose to put in their Cathy‘s spot. Apparently most chose Dustin by Steve Kelly and Jeff Parker, a new strip about a kid that moves back in with his parents after college. So basically young men making another comic about a young man. Not very encouraging. But the second most-chosen was Stone Soup by Jan Eliot, a comic about a single mother raising her two daughters. The strip started in the 1990s.

So it’s not a total lost cause. But… considering the conventional wisdom of the impending death of newspaper comics and newspapers in general, it might be a lost cause for everyone. When things are bleeding badly though, it’s the perfect time to try something drastic. Editors and syndicators should take the opportunity to be experimental. Kick off the dust of the old funny pages format and take a radically rejuvenated approach to reaching out to new readers. What’s the worst that could happen? The readers you’re already losing leave? Maybe you’ll get them to take a second look.

Copyrights and comics

As a preview to their upcoming Comic Book Comics #5 by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, Evil Twin Comics has posted a 6-page excerpt titled “The Grabbers”. It does an excellent job encapsulating and presenting copyright law and how it has effected the history of comic books. The piece focuses on Superman, so this is a great prequel to that BBC Superman documentary where we see Superman’s creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster a few years after the events depicted at the end of this comic.

The comic also covers the legal shenanigans involving Bob Kane (Batman co-creator), Bill Finger (Batman, Robin and Joker co-creator), Jerry Robinson (Robin and Joker co-creator), Joe Simon (Captain America co-creator), and Jack Kirby (co-creator of Captain America and half of the rest of the Marvel Comics superhero universe).

What’s amazing (and kind of sad) is that a lot of these legal battles are still being fought.