Another indie comics fest is gaining traction, this time in Washington DC, and they want more people to join the party:

Last January we packed 40 D.C.-area creators of comix, fashions, arts, and jewelry, a belly dancer, an improv troupe, and four bands into a spacious bar and called it the Washington DC Counter Culture Festival II. We were mentioned in the Washington Post twice, Daily Candy, Wonkette, DCist, and countless blogs and message boards. We estimated an attendance of over four-hundred people throughout the day and they all enjoyed the wares and the entertainment.

Now we’re coming back with some new bands, new acts, and a mission to send Arlington’s favorite neighborhood bar out with a bang. We are formally extending the invitation to new artists and local retailers to join in the festivities.

The Washington DC Counter Culture Festival III, brought to you by the DC Conspiracy. January 19th from 4PM – 2AM (times may change). The weekend before Dr. Dremo’s closes its doors forever in order to make way for a mid-rise condominium complex. Whether you know it as Bardo’s or Dr. Dremo’s you know what it represents – one of Arlington’s oldest and most celebrated independent bars. We just want to send it off with a bang.

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Empire has the first pics from WANTED. That’s villain Mr. X. Angelina pic in link.

§ My cunning plan is working.

§ Murakami Gala– now that sounds fun! And Kanye was there!

§ Halloween stirs imagination in costume-loving Japan — the mind boggles.

A Halloween street party? “Ah, no, this is cos-play,” says 20-year-old Saori, referring to costume role-play, or the Japanese past-time of dressing up as their favourite animation movie character. “Halloween is different,” Saori says, giggling as she tugs at her hooded cape with cat ears. The cult around fancy dress, and Japan’s love of quirky festivals and eccentric trends in general, may go towards explaining why Halloween has turned from an obscure foreign celebration into a popular cultural event here.

§ Live action AKIRA film now possible?

§ CNet looks at Zuda:

Letting readers vote on the next comic get a year-long publishing contract is unique in the world of webcomics. Perazza and Dave McCullough, Zuda Comics’ tech guru, said that although they’re aiming for a wide range of genres, they’re not interested in presenting mismatched competitions. ”We’ll have filters and registration to screen stuff for mature readers. We wouldn’t match up a Sandmanesque series with a Scooby-Dooesque series,” said McCullough, pointing out that the audiences for Neil Gaiman’s hit graphic novel and the mystery-solving cartoon pooch shouldn’t be mixed.

§ Nerd-themed dating Web sites, etc mean life may be less lonely.

§ The Boston Globe paints a picture of 24 Hour Comic Day:

The artists sketched in near silence. The group was a curious collection of the college-aged, the middle-aged, graduates and drop-outs, the professional and the counterculture, with one clear thing in common: They were working against the clock.

§ Monkey nanny!

ComicsPRO, the comics retailer lobbying group, has instituted an antitrust compliance policy to ensure there will be no collusion:

In a move to allay concerns over any potential retailer collusion, Comics Professional Retail Organization (ComicsPRO), the trade organization for comic book retailers, with the help of legal counsel, has incorporated an antitrust compliance policy into its by-laws outlining the parameters within which independent retailers can confidently deal with each other.

ComicsPRO board member Ben Trujillo of Star Clipper Comics in St Louis went on to explain, “We have adopted a clear policy for managing the relationship between a group of competitors in a way that conforms with the highest legal standards in the areas of antitrust and non-competitive behavior.”

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Hm, will this be the killer app for webcomics? Joey Manley announces what could be a fairly significant venture:

Today, Josh Roberts (owner of ComicSpace and Onlinecomics.net) and I are excited to announce that we have signed a Letter of Intent to merge our businesses into one corporate entity. We will be working with E-Line Ventures, a New Jersey-based ‘double bottom line’ early-stage investment firm (they look at both the financial and social impact of their investments) to secure the necessary funding and support for us to effectively merge and run the combined business.

It’s been obvious to me, and to anybody else paying attention, that my websites are too ambitious, and have grown much too quickly, for one person to manage properly. As some of you know, I’ve spent the better part of two years looking for the right partners to help me step my efforts up. A lot of people and companies have come calling during that time, but nothing felt quite right, for one reason or another.

A few months ago, Josh and I were corresponding on a technical issue, and our conversation sort of veered into this territory. Turned out he was in the same position I was in — and had turned down a lot of the same offers I had turned down, for the same reasons. Josh’s skillsets are quite different from mine, but his goals and plans are very, very similar. Each of us fills a gap in the other’s area of expertise. After brainstorming for a while, we realized that we would make a great team, that each of us would be stronger with the other at his side, and we decided, way back then, to merge our businesses — but only if we could find investors, and get the funding to build out the kind of stable business infrastructure we’ve both been lacking.

E-Line has provided a blueprint for making that dream come true, without our having to sell out our core beliefs. We’ve been working with them for what seems like a year or two now (but has really only been a few months), to bring our vision for offering the most useful, empowering and engaging services for digital comic creators and readers to life. The folks at E-Line not only understood and support this vision, they have complimentary skills to help us make it happen. Those guys rock. You’ll be meeting some of them – as well as some of our own new co-employees — over time.

The websites to be part of the new venture include: ComicSpace.com, WebcomicsNation.com, OnlineComics.net, GraphicNovelReview.com, TalkAboutComics.com, ModernTales.com, Girlamatic.com, Serializer.net, and GraphicSmash.com.

Those last four (Modern Tales, Girlamatic, serializer and Graphic Smash) will continue to operate as separate brands, with their own domains, though they will gets lots of cool new features thanks to our increased development resources.

All of the others — ComicSpace, WCN, OnlineComics, GNR, and TAC, will be merged into one fully-integrated site, combining all the best features from each of the existing sites with many other new features, all designed to empower creators to reach their own goals — find larger audiences, make a living (or at least a little more money) from their webcomics, and reach out to new distribution channels, like mobile and print, etc. — while maintaining full control and ownership of their intellectual property.

That combined will be called ComicSpace.

Details on existing memberships and more in the link.

It looks like sellouts aren’t just the province of the Big Event crew, as Image announces Diamond has sold out of the first issues of Jamie McKelvie’s fantasy SUBURBAN GLAMOUR.

Jamie McKelvie’s SUBURBAN GLAMOUR #1, hot off the heels of his critically-acclaimed mini-series PHONOGRAM, has officially sold out at the distribution level.

“SUBURBAN GLAMOUR is the first work I’ve done completely solo, following LONG HOT SUMMER with Eric Stephenson and PHONOGRAM with Kieron Gillen,” said series writer/artist Jamie McKelvie. “Writing and drawing on my own was initially nerve wracking, but news like this has me very excited.� I’m especially happy there’s a solid readership who will experience the story getting much stranger and far more dangerous for Astrid and company.”

SUBURBAN GLAMOUR is a four-issue modern day fantasy mini-series featuring a teenage girl, Astrid, whose world spirals out of control once her childhood imaginary friends turn out to be real. Her previously make-believe friends reveal themselves to be harbingers for a greater evil centered upon the hometown she’s eager to leave. The mini-series has already received high praise from such sources as FELL’s Warren Ellis.

With the Red Sox having handily dispatched the Rockies, there is nothing to keep you from watching tonight’s PBS’s American Masters focusing on Charles Schulz. All sorts of goodies in the link, including an excerpt from David Michaelis’s controversial new biography, a preview clip, and additional footage including interviews with Lynn Johnston and the little red headed girl, and more. There’s also a link to find out when the show airs in your area.

MUST watching, of course. Variety reviews the show:

It is not an entirely unflattering portrait, but one can see why the Schulz heirs would object, since Michaelis in particular (unlike the testimonials from Schulz’s widow or friends) injects a degree of pop psychology into the analysis — questioning rather unconvincingly, for example, whether the cartoonist’s fascination with the movie “Citizen Kane” amounted to a kind of pathological obsession. From that perspective, the most telling clips come from interviews with Schulz himself, whose simple demeanor reflects a man of considerable wit, who is nevertheless clearly ill at ease with the spotlight.

Schulz’z children, Monte, Amy and Jill and other associates have been making their feeelings over the Michaelis’s biography’s purported inaccuracies known over in a comment thread at Cartoon Brew. It’s definitely thought provoking reading.

I can’t pretend that I knew Charles Schulz at all, but I did interview him once over a decade ago, and the impression I got from a half hour conversation was that the guy never ever let go of anything sad that had happened to him. (The sadness in his voice when he talked about the death of his dog 50 years previously was heartbreaking.) If that was the takeaway from a short talk with a complete stranger, I would suspect that this profound melancholy was a regular part of his character, and it certainly was reflected in his work. I’m sure there were other aspects of his character (his kindness was also well known) but the melancholy was so pronounced that once I got over the shock of actually talking to Charles Schulz, I never forgot it. This view is not incompatible with the kind, caring father remembered by his kids…great artists are complex, and Schulz was both.

After all the recent chatter about sales charts, and trends and whether the “wait for the trade” mentality is to blame for the attrition in sales, I noted Brian Hibbs’ comment:

I’d suggest that this is the best evidence that retailers HAVE been, historically, ordering “right” — that there IS a 2nd (and 3rd) issue drop off, and its not merely that retailers are a Cowardly and Superstitious Lot.

Given that this pattern can be observed going back as long as there have ever BEEN sales charts — which absolutely and emphatically predates even the CONCEPT of “waiting for the trade” — this would suggest that Jesse’s analysis is incorrect.

I wondered how the pattern would look ten years ago, so dug up one of Matt High’s original analysis posts from long ago Usenet. It’s from May 1997, a date I chose arbitrarily, just because it was there. The formatting on the chart is a bit wonky because of all the pyrotechnics I had to go through to get the text reformatted for HTML. (And I’m not that big of a web whiz.) Note that Column 4 is the sales, in 1000s. Column 5 is percentages, but someone an extra zero got added to pad it to two decimal places. I did go in and change the negative numbers to red so you could easily see all the declines. This was just as comics were beginning their big slide, so the declines are perhaps a bit more dire than they would have been a few years earlier.

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Corey Lewis has posted more infor on his new Zuda series in his LJ with some nice concept art:

“REVERSE-ZOMBIE TALE”
Doesn’t mean it’s a story about a world of zombies that are plagued by a “human” virus (although that… would be… cool… FUCK!). ANYWAY, my story deals with your standard zombie virus, but, unlike most all other zombie stories, Dead in the Now is about a person who finds the FIRST “root” zombie, and decides HIMSELF to let the usher in the catastrophe of allowing the undead lay claim to the world. Of course, the steps he takes to build his zombie army, and the moral issues he deals with along the way are the MAIN NOUGAT of what make my comic so awesome.

ZOMBIES. Wouldn’t want to bet against that in the popularity poll.

Speaking of Zuda, Todd Allen analyses the first contestants and discovers most of them are from the print comics world, concluding:

One thing possibly of note as a tangent to the overwhelming presence of established creators: is this a result of the copyright and trademark issue? The established webcomics community is blasting Zuda to no end over trademark control issues. For cartoonists used to the print world, the Zuda contract is nothing unusual and more benign than a boilerplate work-for-hire agreement. Are the webcartoonists practicing a “just say no” policy, and if not, where are they?

§ Over on his blog, Howard Cruse looks back at an 80s TV appearance:

Crumb and S. Clay Wilson being unavailable, it fell to me, a one-time flower-powered longhair who by 1984 had discovered the convenience of a shorter trim, to acquaint a mainstream television audience with what we dope-smoking, acid-tripping counterculture cartoonists of yore had brought forth once we applied our comix-creating impulses to the dispensation of outrageous sexual fantasies, religious transgression, political belligerence and, in my case, cockroach-infested parables on cosmic matters—all in “easy-to-read comic book form.”

§ Have you ever wondered what the state of cartooning was in Brunei? Wonder no more!:

Cartooning is not considered a “real” job in Brunei but those willing to take the leap of passion will find it rewarding.

§ CNN profiles Milton Caniff.

§ Writer Clifford
Meth and artist by Rufus Dayglo, are running an original art contest to promote their new IDW mini-series SNAKED. Details here.

Following up on a previous post here that mentioned a retro Marvel t-shirt, reader “Donnie” found a picture of it.
Cap is definitely Byrne; at first we thought Wolvie was Cockrum, but on second thought the long ears are Byrne-era, too.

Lots of movement in DC’s upcoming movie slate over the weekend as both the FLASH film and the GREEN LANTERN movie got directors.

First up WEDDING CRASHERS helmed David Dobkin says he’s set for the Flash, replacing Shawn Levy.

Levy’s reasons for leaving The Flash were not disclosed, but his dance card is pretty full right now with Night at the Museum 2 looking to go before cameras pre-strike.

Dobkin informed MTV that Wally West will be the Flash in his movie, which “will exist in the same universe as the upcoming (Justice League of America) as a direct spin-off.” That means whomever JLA director George Miller casts as Wally West in his movie will almost certainly appear in Dobkin’s Flash.

He also teased MTV about what The Flash’s tagline might be: “You can’t outrun yourself.”

Before anyone makes the WEDDING FLASHERS joke, the comedy director going over to the superhero franchise follows Tim Story on FF and (sort of) Jon Favreau on IRON MAN.

Next up, Greg Berlanti is set for GREEN LANTERN:

Berlanti will write the script with Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green. Donald De Line will produce; Andrew Haas is exec producer.

Berlanti hopes to make the jump to big-budget fantasy fare after serving as writer and exec producer on character-driven TV series “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Brothers & Sisters,” “Everwood,” “Jack & Bobby” and “Dawson’s Creek.” He previously directed 2000 feature “The Broken Hearts Club.”

From the sound of things, Green Lantern will be Hal Jordan, whatever that means.

Pan’s Labyrinth director interested:

“They came to me once, for the third one,” he remembered of “The Prisoner of Azkaban”. “I’ve read them all, and when I read the books before the movies were done, I always pictured Charles Dickens – they were very Dickens-ian. The situation of Harry Potter reminded me a lot of Pip from ‘Great Expectations’. I saw them as deeper, more creaky, more corroded; then [the stories] were textured very differently when the first two movies came out. They were so bright and happy and full of light, that I wasn’t interested.”

After seeing the last few films, however, the director famed for a shadowy imagination and morally ambiguous characters has begun to reconsider. “They seem to be getting eerie and darker … If they come back to me, I’ll think about it.”

THAT WOULD BE COOL!

It’s looks like Devil’s Due is the latest comic book company to set up a colony in Tinsel Town:

as they’ve hired Stephen Christy to run an LA office, and liase with everyone in sight. According to the Variety piece, DD already has DRAFTED set up at New Line.

Christy will serve as manager of intellectual property development, overseeing adaptations of Devil’s Due properties as films, TV shows and videogames. He’ll also work on developing graphic novels and books for third-party production companies.

Until now, Devil’s Due prexy Josh Blaylock has been shepherding the publisher’s entertainment efforts, working with William Morris Agency, which reps the company.

The story mentions Lost Squad and Hack/Slash as also being in the works. Christy previously worked in development at Marvel and on such shows as “America’s Next Top Model,” “The Real World” and “The Shot.”

Nature is cruel.

Rounding up a bunch of photos or cartooners spotted about the globe, conquering all in their path.

Via Jeff Newelt, photos from the Paul Pope Diesel Party in Hollywood celebrating the release of PULPHOPE
and debuting new original PP screenprints on sale at Diesel’s Melrose location:

Pope, James Jean and David Silverman, director of THE SIMPSONS MOVIE.
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Mocca is throwing a Halloween Party…Happy Hauntings!

Lock your doors, seal the shutters, turn the lights low, and put away mom’s good china because MONSTERS are coming to MoCCA.

First off at 6:30 pm is the Opening Reception for our latest exhibit: “THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT.” Peruse some of the greatest graphic representations of your favorite monsters with the curators of this exciting show. Talk at length about the metaphoric potency of these malformed beasties with us. Share with us which one lived under your bed or in your closet…we’re all ears!

Then at 8:00 pm the lights will drop down low and the volume will go up as we celebrate MoCCa’s 6th Anniversary with our Annual Masquerade Party! The theme this year is, of course, MONSTERS! There’s gonna be rafflin’ and dancin’ and eatin’ and drinkin’ and screamin’ and costume contestin’… all at your favorite New York comics museum.

Cost of admission? Fifteen Bucks for all you can eat and drink all night. Lock your plans in now.

MoCCA is located at 594 Broadway, suite 401. This event is sponsored in part by Yuengling and Oak Beverages.