Let’s ease into the turkey glut with this delightful cultural mashup.

VIa PR, longtime comics vendor Joseph Koch announces a big comics swap meet out in Sunset Park. Given the number of folks we hear complaining (ourselves included) about how to, er, dispose of comics books that they literally cannot give away, this could be a lively event:

Where: 206-208 41st St., Brooklyn, NY 11232 (Corner of 2nd Avenue)
When: Saturday December 12th and Sunday December 13, 11am to 5pm.

Joseph Koch & Neat Stuff Collectibles present the largest single vendor buying and selling event in comics history! We have 1,000,000 comics to sell, and are looking to buy MILLIONS more! NOT ONLY COMICS, we’re looking to buy and sell all kinds of collectibles and memorabilia, including:

Comic Books, Sports Cards and collectibles, Non-Sports Cards, World’s Fair items, James Bond, Original Comic Art, Music Memorabilia, Puzzles, Lunchboxes, Toys, and Games. You name it, We want it! BUYING, Selling, and Trading EVERYTHING! Paying Top Dollar! $$$$

Has your comic store given up on selling back issues? They only carry a few issues here or there? Don’t fret. Back issues do have a home in NYC – in Brooklyn! 3/4 million sorted books, 200,000+ for $1 each. Is your comic store not interested in buying your collection, because they don’t sell back issues? Bring ‘em to Brooklyn!

The hot and hip outer borough, Brooklyn is the primordial home of Pop Culture: In 1999, Victoria (Posh Spice) and soccer star David Beckham named their first child “Brooklyn”. Over 50 years earlier, Jack (King) Kirby, co-creator of Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the X Men, and the entire medium-revolutionizing Marvel Comics Universe – knighted the American member of the Nazi-fighting Boy Commandos “Brooklyn”. Bring us your Neat Stuff to sell and star in your own “Brooklyn Antiques Roadshow”!

Go to www.nycomicwarehouse.com for more information and updates.
Sponsored in part by Forbidden Planet New York.

The A.V. Club’s Onion’s month-long series of looks back gets to comics with 25 Best Comics and 5 Best Archival editions. As the first official, thought out “Best of” for the Aughts of Comics, it’s a solid list, if genre heavy…NO SCOTT PILGRIM? Really???? The book that summed up the decade’s mishmash of media and influences in comics form? And… NO MANGA? That’s seriously F’d…unless there is a separate manga list.

BTW, anyone who gets all math pedant and says “The decade ends in 2011!” can not only kiss my Indian Pocahontas, but stand in line for the lonely life they have earned. Math and sociology are two different topics, yo.

Artist Vinnie Tartamella wrote us a line yesterday to say that the Bluewater comics biography of Barbara Walters, for which he painted the covers, was slated to be discussed on The View, this week. He thought it would be either yesterday or tomorrow. According to people close to Walters, she’s seen the comic and loves it and might even write an intro for the collected edition.

Getting a comic mentioned on The View or Oprah has often been seen as the crowning glory of comics mainstreaming — reaching the audience of middle-aged women who like to sit around and be busybodies is the final quadrant for the graphic medium to hurdle — it would all be gravy after that. Speculation over what GN might be suitable for Oprah’s book club — and the millions of sales that follow — is a popular topic among comics types, with something like PERSEPOLIS or LOVE & ROCKETS popular choices. So the Female Force comic making the grade (I believe comics have been mentioned previously on The View, but what hasn’t?) is…ironic, let’s just say.

MUST READ ALERT! Marc-Oliver Frisch talks to probably the most powerful person in comics whom we have never seen interviewed before: the New York Times’ George Gene Gustines. As the main comics reporter/reviewer at The Paper of Record, Gustines has an incredible influence over what the rest of the mainstream media thinks about comics — the explosion of the gay Batwoman story to hundreds of outlets is but one example. He’s also involved with reviewing comics and the Times Graphic Books bestseller list. He’s probably the single most influential comics journalist in the country – yet the only picture of him we could find was this dinky little one from a blog.

Luckily, the interview shows that Gustines is smart, knowledgeable and passionate about comics. (And we’re not just saying that because in the interview he says he reads The Beat religiously.) The entire interview is a must read — Frisch, aided by Michael Dean, asks unusually substantial questions for an online interview, and lets the revealing discussion run long. So just a few pull quotes:

When a publisher wants to break something big, they sometimes offer it to me first. I have to figure out if it’s a story that makes sense for the Times and then I have to convince my editors of that. Thankfully, the more I write, the better a sense I have of what makes a good story. That also, in turn, helps me earn the trust of my editors not to come to them with something that’s too “inside baseball.” (I’ve had at least one pitch where I thought, not even comic-book fanatics would care about this. Why do they think Times readers will?)

[SNIP]I don’t think it’s limiting (at least not in a bad sense). It’s more along the lines of there’s a certain level of story that the comic book publications or blogs can do that I can’t. The stories I write have to be for a more general audience. For instance, at one point in my career, I was sincerely pitched a story about the death of the other-dimensional version of a popular comic book character. That is not a story I can write for the paper.

One of the most interesting parts of the discussion is when Frisch questions Gustines on whether the mainstream media ever runs negative reviews of comics. On the one hand, reviews that are always positive cheapen the material. On the other hand, when a mainstreamer DOES post critical comments – we’re thinking specifically of David Hajdu on GENESIS — they are often criticized by the comics media for not knowing the territory. On the other other hand, panning crappy comics in the New York Times seems like a waste of space when there are so many deserving books that should get the exposure. Our own thought is that we still need to get to the place where comics are considered a mainstream medium, and not something that is still — pow! bam! — being discovered.

…and we should not do that. The artist of POPGUN WAR and OMEGA THE UNKNOWN is interviewed by Nick Gazin for Vice. According to the piece, he’s working on a new book called THE WRENCHIES:

The Wrenchies is a post-apocalyptic, science fiction, fantasy, super-hero, secret agent coming-of-age epic with some existential bullshit thrown in. The Wrenchies are these children in a screwed up futuristic world who resurrect ancient heroes also called the Wrenchies. The whole thing was brought into being by a demon slayer named Sherwood, who opened a door to a secret world when he was a boy. The story is really about this kid Sherwood who has this crazy adventurous life but is now sort of a stoner asshole who causes the entire world to go to crap. It sounds really convoluted but hopefully it will be radical when I am finished with it.

Much more delicious drawing in the link.

If there is one thing the comics industry of late is lacking, it’s demographic info we can all sink our teeth into and shake around like a chew toy. Valerie D’Orazio hinted about a study a few years ago (maybe buried somewhere in Marvel’s SEC filings?); Johanna alludes to a 1995 DC reader survey; Diamond also conducted a recent reader’s survey. But the results of costly surveys in recent years are not really available to the general public because a) they are costly and b) that is proprietary info right there. However, we just received an email from one Megan Milliken, and she is running an online survey, which is opt-in and thus less reliable, but, what the heck. Megan explains:

I am a University of Chicago graduate student conducting research on comic book readership. I’m interested in demographic trends of comic book readers as well as the medium’s effect on readers’ consumption of other cultural goods and participation in civic activities.  I’m motivated to do this research first and foremost because I am an avid comic book fan who has derived a great deal of pleasure and inspiration from both the content itself and the community. I’m interested in how comic books have impacted readers and hope to see what it is about a comic book that keeps a reader coming back month after month.  That said I have two surveys (the first is for under 18 respondents, and the other is for respondents that are 18 and over) that I have assembled. It is intended for comic book readers as well as non-comic book readers as I would like to compare responses between these two groups (so please pass it along to the norms as well).

We took the survey ourselves and it doesn’t take long, so help Megan out and maybe we’ll find a thing or two about why we are reading these darned things anyway. So pitch in and pass it along:

18 and Over Under 18

§ The great Seth will make anyone whose work was ever improved by an editor feel like a piece of sh•t:

For example, I don’t know how anyone can stand to work with an editor. I don’t really know how fiction writers have become used to that idea. I can understand working with a proofreader: that makes sense to me. But even working as a prose writer, if there was someone changing around all the sentences in an article I had written and as a result of that it turned out to be a better-written article, I’d have to conclude at the end that I wasn’t much of a writer.

§ We are as happy as Laura Hudson is that Superf*ckers will be collected. James Kochalka’s completely delirious superhero parody could probably be redrawn by Ivan Reis and only a few people would notice. Cover, above.

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He may still be on his Dollhouse cancellation-induced drinking binge, but Joss Whedon will need to clean up and dry out to get the Vanguard Award from the Producers Guild at their annual awards in January. The award recognizes big thinks in new media and technology, such as previous winners George Lucas, James Cameron and John Lasseter.

Whedon was typically humorous even in a press release:

“This is an honor I didn’t expect and probably don’t deserve,” said Whedon. “The truth is, I’ve never actually guarded a van. But I am a super-total visionary, so that fits. I’m ready to take my place next to the guys who made ‘THX 1138′ and ‘Tin Toy’ (Did they ever do anything else, btw? They showed such promise.). This is a time of radical change in media delivery and content, and I’m honestly proud the PGA has singled me out as someone who sort of knows what’s going on.”

Have we been quoting him too much? Anyway, whatever, a video of a sand painting prompts McCloud to ponder the decade about to pass:

We’re getting close to the end of a decade and a lot of people have been trying to sum up the experience. Short of putting “B.O.B.” on endless repeat, I think a big part of what’s made this decade interesting can be summed up pretty nicely in the phrase “Ukraine’s Got Talent.”

As someone who spent the entire decade of the ’90s trying to convince comics industry players that kids liked to read comics — while editing comics featuring the world’s most popular characters, no less — I can only nod and smile tightly at Chris Butcher’s latest blog post. Butcher has mostly been on blogging hiatus of late but he comes back with a 40 megaton bomb on the recent retailer discussions about whether there are enough kids’ comics. The entire essay must be read in full, but Butcher’s main point is that what most retailers are asking for isn’t comics for kids, but comics that they read as kids:

I’ve seen this happen myself, and with both moms and dads and daughters and sons, when it comes to getting kids some comics. Sometimes it’s because the parent liked comics as a kid and wants to share that with their children, sometimes it’s because the teacher told them it’ll get them reading. Sometimes it’s just to keep them quiet on a long car ride or plane trip. But the only time I’ve ever encountered someone who wants to buy their kid a comic exactly like they read as a kid? Die-hard superhero fans. It’s that defensiveness again, not only are superhero comics awesome and modern mythology and whatever, but they’re the only comics that they want their kid reading. I’ve seen some pretty appalling behaviour too, parents outright refusing to buy a young reader something they’re actually interested in (Simpsons, Disney, NARUTO) because the parent used to Looooove Spider-Man as a kid and hey you liked the movie didn’t you champ remember we saw all three come on get a Spider-Man comic. It’s upsetting, but it’s how they choose to raise their kid and that’s fine, I’m not going to be paying their therapy bills.

Indeed, I had the same kind of reaction when reading the various laments over the lack of comics for young readers. Bongo’s Simpsons comics collections are barely ever mentioned in polite direct market company, but have years of sales totals that anyone but Alan Moore would die for, to cite but the most obvious example.

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Cartoon Brew, the essential Cartoon blog by Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi, has a fascinating post on TV animation in the ’00s that mirrors many of our own ongoing discussions over comics:

How many shows debuted in the past decade that were entertaining, made a lasting impact on their audience, and have a shot at being remembered by future generations? A handful of American shows come to mind as standouts, most of which were cult favorites rather than mainstream successes—Invader Zim, Superjail, Venture Bros., Samurai Jack, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Yo Gabba Gabba. (A comprehensive list of TV shows can be found on Wikipedia.)

Compare this to the 1990s when we saw the debuts of TV shows that were cultural phenomenons like The Simpsons, The Ren and Stimpy Show, South Park, Beavis and Butt-Head, Batman: The Animated Series, Dexter’s Lab, Rugrats, The Powerpuff Girls, Spongebob Squarepants and yes, even Family Guy. It seemed like we were on the cusp of a new era of “creator-driven” shows that were free from the meddling impulses of network execs. It’s little surprise that these shows are the ones that audiences still discuss nowadays.

We’d never really thought of the ’90s as a wonderland for animated TV, especially when there are so many MORE toons these days, and every cable channel has gotten into cartoons. On the flip side, Cartoon Network now is live action, audiences are smaller than ever and there are three shows by Seth McFarlane on.

What’s especially interesting in regard to cartoons is the lack of new blockbuster characters — something that the comics industry also laments. To be fair, sometimes it takes 20 years for a character to become a household name — Deadpool being the latest example. But in the world of animation, things normally move much faster. The merch is part of the plan from the gitgo.

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IDW has collected all kinds of imprints over the last year or so — Robert Bloch, the Library of American Comics, Worthwhile Books, Blue Dream Studios, EA Comics, and so on. And now, Desperado is joining the IDW banner. Under the guidance of publisher/editor Joe Pruett, Desperado has been its own publishing company, then a studio at Image, then its own publishing company, and now an IDW imprint. One upcoming Desperado title we much desire to see is their Art of Tony Harris compilation. PR below:

IDW Publishing and Desperado today announced a publishing agreement, which will bring Desperado’s impressive roster of talented creators and expansive catalog of books to IDW under a new imprint. 

Founded in January 2005 by Eisner Award-winning comics veteran Joe Pruett, Desperado quickly established itself as a high-end publisher of art books, graphic novels, and comics. Desperado titles have been nominated for five Eisner Awards and won two since 2007, and repeatedly feature the comic industry’s top creative talent.

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§ Over at io9, Graeme McMillan has an insightful post entitled Why James Rhodes Is Comics’ Ideal Black Hero:

If there’s one rule for black superheroes, it’s that they’re never the stars of the show (Or, at least, not for very long; attempts like Black Lightning or the Milestone books are always, sadly, done in by falling sales). Yes, you could make an argument that Black Panther contradicts that, but I’d just invoke the “He’s the exception that proves the” clause and move on quickly*. Despite headlining his own books twice in his career – something that doesn’t really mean anything, no matter how good those books were; remember, Marvel once published Street Poet Ray and Power Pachyderms, so anything goes there – Jim Rhodes is, and always will be, a sidekick to Tony Stark’s Iron Man.

David Brothers comments as well.

§ Librarian Robin Brenner looks at her circulation stats to figure out what’s really popular and there’s a pretty good chance that something on the list will surprise you. For instance, CASE CLOSED is really popular. On second thought, you will either be surprised or find something to back up your long-held beliefs on this list.

§ Rich Johnston sends a chill down our spines with the disturbing news that the exhibitor lottery for hotel rooms for San Diego Comic-Con 2010 has already taken place Of note: The Hyatt is no longer on the hotel list. Oh dear god, this year’s Hoteloween is going to be brutal.

§ The end of the decade, as normal humans account it, draws nigh, and Tom Spurgeon is kicking things off with The 83 Best Superhero Projects Of The Decade We’re Leaving.

§ A short, nice interview with First Second’s Mark Siegel.

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Gabe at Desert Island writes to tell us of two bitchin’ prints by Marc Bell and Al Columbia which are available for order for $30 each.

Maybe your readers will enjoy these small-edition handmade prints from two of the most exciting art-comics guys around. They’re both signed, a steal at $30, and won’t be around for long.

The Al Columbia print is particularly unique, as each print was individually soaked in Tea and baked in an oven to better emulate the damaged aesthetic of his current book.

These would make fine gifts for the person who enjoys absurdo-abstractionist fantasy or creepy deconstructed children. Click for larger images.

Fangirls now have bragging rights over fanboys, as TWILIGHT: NEW MOON shattered the opening day box office record — previously held by THE DARK KNIGHT — with $72.7 million. It also set a midnight showing record with $26.3 million. The weekend take of $135.6 milliion was the third biggest ever — behind DARK KNIGHT and SPIDER-MAN 3 — and the biggest November opening ever.

These stunning numbers have left Hollywood dazed and confused — how could a movie with an audience that is 80 percent female beat out “four quadrant” movies like Dark Knight and so on? Inconceivable! Variety has beaucoup analysis:

Heading into the weekend, rival studios believed “New Moon” would have trouble going north of $110 million, since it is driven by only two out of four quadrants of the moviegoing audience: Females under 25, and those over. Even Summit execs might have agreed.

But the ferocious appetite for the franchise among girls and younger women proved those predictions wrong. Of the females turning out, a full 50% were under 21.

“This blew away a lot of preconceived notions about who you should play to, and how you get to a certain group,” Summit prexy of distribution Richie Fay said.

Despite Friday’s huge numbers, “New Moon” declined only about 41% on Saturday, the same drop “Twilight” had sen. That indicates that the fanbase has grown, since “New Moon” did so much more for the weekend.

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Ken Krueger, a co-founder of the San Diego Comic-Con and an influential figure in comics publishing and retailing on the West Coast in the formative era of the Direct Market, passed away over the weekend. Krueger owned Alert Books in Ocean Beach and helped Shel Dorf and other comics enthusiasts get what would eventually be known as The Con up and running, and by all accounts, was a level-headed, stabilizing force. He also managed the warehouse for Pacific Comics, one of the early indie comics publishers and distributors, and helped publish the first work of many important figures. One of them, Scott Shaw writes:

Jim Valentino just shared the sad news that Ken Krueger, who was not only one of the founders of the San Diego Comic-Con — and who also attended the very first science-fiction convention in NYC on July 4, 1939 — has died. No details of Ken’s death are available yet, but Ken recently appeared at SDCCI’s ‘09 for its 40th anniversary. Although he was not in good physical shape (to be kind), Ken’s mind seemed sharper than ever, with a memory for details of the past that were quite impressive. Ken published my first comic book story; he also published the first pro work by SF author Greg Bear, GARBAGE PAIL KIDS painter John Pound, Dave (ROCKETEER) Stevens, Jim (Image Comics) Valentino and others. I and many of my friends owe him a lot. When Pacific Comics was a major comic distributor, Ken oversaw the operation of their warehouse. Ken was a down-to-Earth guy who never sought titles or fame, but added legitimacy to the formation of Comic-Con due to his experience in fandom and as a publisher and retailer.

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Gareb Shamus has purchased another convention, the New England Con in Boston. According to the PR, it’s a 35-year-old show run by Larry Harrison, owner of Harrison’s Comics & Collectibles, and Jimmy Tournas and dates will be announced.

Given Shamus’s recent track record of aggressive competition with existing shows, it would seem the move to Boston enters a rather low-key market. But a Google check of the principals raises more questions than it answers.

A search for “new england comic con” and Larry Harrison yields almost no results. Dig around a little and you get a “North East Comicon” site run by Harrison’s Comics which looks to be a modest one-day hotel/dealer show set for January 10 with Ethan Van Sciver as a guest.

Adding to the confusion, there’s a listing for the Boston Comics Spectacular which announces

THE BOSTON COMIC SPECTACULAR IS NOW The New England Comic Con – Boston’s Longest running show gets a new promoter and a new name! http://www.necomiccon.com/ .

The Boston Comic Spectacular shows a previous event in September, again with Van Sciver.

There is also an existing Boston Comicon, with the next event set for April. The last one was held in October, to some local interest.

No matter what this show’s pedigree and provenance, it is NOT Shamus’s first foray into Beantown: A Wizard World Boston was held in 2005, to what most attendees thought was a very, very disappointing turnout. (At the time, the Sunday of the show was described to us as “The slowest day I’ve ever seen.”)  A second WW Boston, planned fro 2006, was canceled.

Is this going to be another battlefront in Con Wars? What event is Shamus going to plan THIS confab against? It could go up against the same weekend as Reed’s Pax East, also held in Boston, but Shamus already planned his own Toronto Comic-Con against that. DEVELOPING, Hell yeah! Complete PR in the jump.

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Speaking of Kazu Kibuishi, he has a nice post up examining what the contributors to the anthology FLIGHT #1 have done in the five years since it came out. At the time, the fresh new cartoonists within were hailed as a new force in the industry — and they have mostly gone on to very productive careers in animation and comics. Kazu didn’t include last names, so they’ve been added:

7 out of 19 have worked on completed films, either as production designers or story artists:
- Enrico Casarosa (Ratatouille, Up)
- Jake Parker (Horton Hears a Who!)
- Vera Brosgol (Coraline)
- Khang Le (Monster House)
- Chris Appelhans (Monster House, City of Ember, Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox)
- Phil Craven (Kung Fu Panda, the forthcoming Kung Fu Panda 2)
- Clio Chiang (the forthcoming Princess and the Frog)

11 out of 19 have published one or more graphic novels (or will have a graphic novel published in 2010):

- Enrico Casarosa (The Venice Chronicles)
- Kazu Kibuishi (Daisy Kutter, Amulet, the forthcoming Copper collection)
- Jake Parker (Missile Mouse, forthcoming Scholastic GNs)
- Vera Brosgol (forthcoming First Second GN)
- Jen Wang (forthcoming First Second GN)
- Neil Babra (Hamlet)
- Bengal (Meka, Naja)
- Dylan Meconis (Wire Mothers: Harry Harlow and the Science of Love, Bite Me!)
- Derek Kirk Kim (Good as Lily, The Eternal Smile)
- Rad Sechrist (Tom Sawyer)
- Kean Soo (Jellaby)

It’s certainly an impressive body of work — especially where comics for kids are concerned. But as Kazu notes, it perhaps wasn’t as much a movement as some very talented people who came together. And of the 12 who had webcomics running at the time, only 3 do now.

§ Tucker Stone is at it again.

§ Is someone making a book of Stan Lee’s tweets? They should.

The reason I always say “good night” is I don’t want you staying up for hours denying yourself sleep, desperately waiting for my next tweet

§ Jog examines the ORIGINAL Astro Boy.

§ Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is also doing the happy dance that there will be no 20000 Leagues remake.

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