§ National bookstore chain Borders is getting shakier and shakier, and yesterday’s news that CEO Ron Marshall was ankling the joint did nothing to cheer anyone up.

Borders, which has been under a cloud of speculation about its long-term financial stability, has struggled to improve sales in a difficult market for book retailing. It has posted disappointing results amid price pressure from big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and competition from online booksellers like Amazon.

The company announced that sales fell nearly 14 percent over the 11-week holiday period ended Jan. 16, compared with the period a year earlier. By comparison, Barnes & Noble, the country’s largest bookstore chain, said that holiday sales fell 5 percent during a nine-week period ended Jan. 2.

§ Financially troubled printing giant World Color Press has found a buyer, ICv2 reports.

Wisconsin-based Quad Graphics has acquired World Color Press, the Canadian corporation formerly known as Quebecor that is responsible for printing the majority of comics in North America along with magazines like Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone. World Color Press stockholders will receive 40% of the combined company, which will be listed on a U.S. stock exchange (Quad Graphics is currently privately held). Under the deal, which is expected to close this summer, the combined company, which will have 30,000 employees, will be #2 in the industry behind R.R. Donnelley & Sons.

§ Manga publisher Go! Comi . which produced such things as Wendy Pini’s Masque of the Red Death, and Aimee Major’s Japan Ai is having some tough times.

Go! Comi is riding out a pretty tough storm in the publishing industry right now due to a combination of economic downturn and digital theft, both of which have had a devastating effect on even the biggest publishing companies.  A lot of small-to-medium publishers (we fit into medium, at this point) have had to scale back their operations, let employees go, double up workloads, and put many of their books on hiatus or cancel them entirely.  It would not be unreasonable to assume Go! has had to do some of these things itself, though I can’t get into specifics there.  :-X  

§ Old news but worth noting: Platinum Studios has secured another $5 million in capital — holding on for the movies finally paid off.

Awareness for Platinum Studios’ properties has increased significantly over the past year due in part to the upcoming film “Dead of Night,” an adaptation of the beloved Italian comic book “Dylan Dog,” which has sold over 56 million copies worldwide. In a poll conducted in December 2009 by MTV.com, “Dead of Night” ranked fifth amongst all comic book movies audiences were anticipating for 2010. The results came unexpectedly to MTV.com since the film was accidentally left off the list of nominees and all votes for the picture were write-in votes.

While Bluewater is often just thought of as that make-a-buck-quick company that puts out the funny bios, they’ve been getting a lot of heat lately for a business plan that asks for a huge investment by creators. The new round of controversy began when Newsarama ran a fairly benign interview with publisher Darren G. Davis. The comments to the article indicated an ongoing problem of creators not getting paid, which led to another story, called BLUEWATER Responds to Claims of Non-Payment by David Pepose:

Earlier this week, we ran a story on Bluewater Productions, and their expansion from political biocomics to series ranging from Logan’s Run to Lady Gaga to Jesus himself. Yet a number of commenters raised questions about Bluewater, particularly alleging that the company had not been paying creators. When readers raised questions, we got answers — here’s the formal statement from Bluewater president Darren G. Davis when asked if this was true:

While asking a publisher for a statement isn’t really investigating whether there was any wrongdoing, especially when the exact same statement ran four months ago even this defense was troubling:
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Since it’s Archie Comics day here at the Beat, here’s some later news and notes.

* The artist on the Elizabethan Archie painting is Terry Petersen.

* In looking for some Archie comics art to accompany my piece earlier today, I came across the amazing blog post by John K. John K. is to rugged individualism what dropping peyote in the desert is to going on vacation, so it’s always worth a look.

* Dan Nadel has posted a response to the MoCCA statement that sheds a bit more light on the situation.

* Finally in actual publishing news, Archie has announced an exclusive worldwide distribution deal with Random House. PR:
 

The agreement with Random House Publisher Services marks the first time that all Archie paperback titles will be available from one source for both domestic and international trade bookstore distribution. Distribution of the Archie paperback line through Random House will commence on September 1, 2010. The direct comic store distribution of the Archie comics, digests and graphic novels will continue through Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc.
 
“As Archie expands our business globally, we are thrilled to partner with Random House Publisher Services to bring the Archie brand to the world,” said Jon Goldwater, co-CEO of Archie Comics. 
 
“We are delighted Archie Comics will be joining the RHPS client team this September,” said RHPS President Jeff Abraham. “We have developed a strong traction in the graphic-novel category with our bookseller customers, for whom this category is among their fastest-growing. We believe they quickly will find selling the beloved Archie characters and storylines profitable and fun.”

 
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Indie comics mainstay Top Shelf, publisher of such critically acclaimed books as BLANKETS, FROM HELL, BOX OFFICE POISON, and LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, has gained a new minority owner, more funding and a first look deal via a partnership with new media entrepreneur John S. Johnson, and independent film producer Anthony Bregman. Although on the face of it, it tends to back up the fact that just publishing good graphic novels is not a big money making enterprise in this day and age, it ’s pretty clear that teaming up makes good business sense in this day and age. Founders Chris Staros and Brett Warnock will remain in charge of the company.

PR below:

Johnson, and Likely Story, Bregman’s film production company, have purchased a 33% interest in Top Shelf Productions, Inc. Johnson will join the board of Top Shelf, and Likely Story will get a first-look deal for all new Top Shelf publications for possible film and TV development.

This deal represents a supportive investment in the company; one that leaves Chris Staros and Brett Warnock as majority stockholders (and firmly in control of the company), but also brings to bear the resources, skills and connections of John and Anthony in helping the company expand and grow over time.

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You may recall that last April there was great chagrin at Fox when a near-perfect workprint of WOLVERINE was uploaded a full month before the film’s planned release. The world will never know how much the film’s box office was impacted by this theft, and how much was impacted by the fact it was a pretty weak movie except for the hot guy-on-guy action.

Now, after an intensive nine-month investigation, a 47-year-old Bronx man has been charged:

Gilberto Sanchez, 47, was arrested at his home at about 6 a.m., according to Ms. Eimiller. Mr. Sanchez was indicted last Thursday by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on charges of uploading the unfinished copy of the movie to a Web site, Megaupload.com, last spring.

If convicted, Mr. Sanchez faces three years in prison and a $250,000 fine or twice the gross gain or gross loss attributable to the offense, whichever is greater, according to the United States attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Lisa E. Feldman, an assistant attorney in that office’s Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes unit, will prosecute the case. She said that Mr. Sanchez had been released on bail.

Although Sanchez must face the rule of law, he looks like a patsy in this case — the file in question was traced to an Australian FX house, and that baby didn’t just fly over the Pacific. How did some schmoe from the hood get hold of a WORKPRINT, which only an insider would have access to? Did it fall off the back of a truck?

Hopefully, the hunt for the REAL criminals is ongoing. Too bad O.J. SImpson is in jail, or he could help.

While DC reps remained mum about the price and format of the Earth One OGNs, they announced last week — such elements being important clues to the intended audience of said projects — Amazon was not as tightlipped, and the listing for EARTH ONE: SUPERMAN by JMS and Shane Davis reveals that it will be 128 pages for $19.99. JOKER-sized, as Robot 6 points out.

Collected Editions also runs the numbers and with a discount, an OGN would run you less than six issues of a $3.99 comic. THE JOKER is selling for $13.50 on Amazon right now.

Evidently, DC sees real growth potential in OGNs, as IGN learned that several licensed comics would be moving to that format, namely the WARCRAFT series, which started out gangbusters but fell prey to standard attrition as time went on.

Blizzard’s fantasy and futuristic universes are about to get shaken up, courtesy of a comic book revamp by DC’s Wildstorm Comics. Today the publisher announced it intends to refocus its efforts on a series of original graphic novels, cancelling its current ongoing series endeavors for both franchises.

“While WildStorm and Blizzard loved the stories being told in the regular monthly comic-book series, we decided that the graphic novel would be a more suitable medium for the tales we wanted to tell next,” said Hank Kanalz, VP & General Manager of Wildstorm. “The larger format will give our artists and storytellers more room to explore Blizzard’s rich, varied worlds and flesh out the characters that inhabit these places.”

WELL NOW. The plot thickens. The WARCRAFT issue currently on sale will be the last pamphlet; details of the book relaunch are forthcoming.

A couple of things strike us about all of this. Licensed, manga-sized books have sold pretty well at other publishers so this is surely a viable format. However those were in B&W and manga-sized, a proven formula. A $20 hardcover is another matter. The net effect of all these moves is to spotlight an implied doubt over the continued viability of the floppy at DC — we’ve heard a few rumblings that more and more Vertigo projects will be going straight to the trade, as well, and looking at the numbers that Vertigo and Wildstorm periodicals are selling, it makes sense to try another format.

In a larger sense, DC has been in a tiring holding pattern ever since 10 Days That Shook The World™. Until the new publisher or publisher/president lineup is announced, everything is on hold. That’s one-third of the whole year without forward motion, which can’t be pleasant for a lot of people. BUT jungle drums are saying there will be a publisher announcement early in 2010–which could be in the nick of time.

Related: Marc-Oliver has a summary of Joe Q’s continued resistance to the OGN:

[F]rom the financial standpoint of a commercial artist, if I’m looking for a way to maximize my time versus how much money I make versus how much exposure I get—an OGN doesn’t make sense. […] I could do a year’s worth of work and put it out as one graphic novel, and I’ll be on the stands in perpetuity (if it’s good) but promoted for really only one month. […] And that’ll boost my career for that month. The book will come out and sell to fewer people because I’ve had to put something like a $40 price point on it. […] And let’s not forget, what if the OGN isn’t all that good?

Again, we can certainly understand how the numbers run this way at Marvel but…are there NO STORIES IN THE WORLD OF MARVEL that could best be told in one shot? Is that idea completely alien to everything about the way Marvel works?

Developing.

¶ Marc-Oliver Frisch is now link blogging! He notes that Marvel will be publishing their own bargain-priced, entry-level line of reprints, sort of like DC’s After the Watchmen promotion:

The books mentioned are Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca’s Invincible Iron Man #1 (which will be free, to kick things off), Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting’s Captain America #1, Eric Shanower and Skottie Young’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz #1, J. Michael Straczynski and Olivier Coipel’s Thor #1 and, finally, one of the various adult-oriented Punisher comics published under the Max imprint—it may be one by Garth Ennis, or the recent relaunch by Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon.

¶ Speaking of Thor, it’s confirmed that Matt Fraction will be writing the book, with John Romita Jr on the art.

GB: Tell me a bit about Thor and how you viewed him as a fan – was he a key character for you growing up? MF: There was one run– Walt Simonson’s– that I thought hung the moon but, weirdly enough, the character wasn’t a favorite particularly beyond what Walt did. And then, as an adult, a few years ago, I was at a friend’s house and saw a Kirby/Giacoia original Thor page on his wall and… and it was like an array of lock tumblers just clicked into place in my head. Like — the art, the character, the myth, the potential — the whole thing came to me in a weird revelation. I got obsessed with the character because for the first time I felt like I figured out, I sort of innately understood, just what you could do with Thor. How big it was, what the potential was, what the book was really, or could really, be about. For the first time I knew what Thor meant. Believe it or not, this is just one of several completely insane-sounding stories that have happened to me regarding Thor since I fell into the big guy’s orbit. I’ve reconciled myself with just buying the ticket, taking the ride, and sounding like a mental patient until I’m done.

¶ Dash Shaw has been chosen as one of 12 filmmakers for the January 2010 Sundance Screenwriters Labs, a prestigious program that helps young filmmakers develop the scripts for their projects. Previous particiants include Quentin Tarrantino, Darren Aronofky, etc etc. Shaw’s project?

Dash Shaw (writer/director) / Slobs and Nags (U.S.A.): Told with hand-drawn animation, a disconnected family is thrown into chaos when the scientist father loses the test subject of his experiment with appearance-altering technology.

Shaw’s animation for The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. on IFC have been well received, so a full length animated feature would be…full of possibilities.

UPDATE: Shaw talks about the project on his website and reveals that Frank Santoro is contributing on the art end. This gets better and better! Above, a cast drawing.

Today’s big DC news story is WAR OF THE SUPERMEN, the big Superman event for 2010 everyone has been speculating over. James Robinson and Eddy Barrow kick things off with a Free Comic Book Day issue.

While surely notable, the announcement of a new crossover storyline has failed to ignite the website-crashing uproar that yesterday’s Earth One, aka “Ultimate DC” announcement did. And now the retailer perspective — via Brian Hibbs and Chris Butcher is coming in. If this were just another reboot, people might be a little interested, but the fact that it’s a GRAPHIC NOVEL LINE reboot is what has people sitting up.

Hibbs — a pamphlet man to the end — runs numbers and concludes that the revenue stream for an OGN series is less than the revenue stream for a periodical-to-collection model. Actually, it’s a little hard to argue with this — it’s the TV-series-to-DVD argument. Both delivery systems work, and make for two separate revenue streams. Yet no one releases long, complicated stories as a series of direct-to-DVDs. They do however release the occasional standalone story.

But on some matters, it seems to us, Hibbs misses the mark:

The bottom line is that customers are much less likely to plunk down for a Big Ticket item than they are for a periodical, which is one of the reasons that the OGN doesn’t, to my mind, make a ton of sense. And while it is possible that the “bookstore reader” will flock to superhero-OGN work… well, I kind of don’t think that will happen… and, even if it does, I have a hardish time picturing them wanting it again and again — because this theoretical 2x a year strategy IS a periodical, just much slower than usual.

Go into a bookstore and you see that book series are an extremely lucrative staple of the publishing world, albeit mostly, these days, for women and YA.

Now, we DON’T KNOW any of the business details of the Earth One books. Are they YA? Are they $9.99? Are they tankoubon? Or are they $30 deluxe packages? If the former, it’s a very, very different publishing model from the latter, and one that is a proven success — just not yet with superheroes.

Butcher comes at it from a slightly different angle, while also pointing out the lack of format information that would make this line’s target much clearer. Butcher offers informed speculation:

It’s pretty clear to me that DC is attempting to develop a continuity-light series of graphic novels featuring their core characters, to introduce new readers to their IP, and re-capture the attention of lapsed readers. They’re phrasing the move in terms that their existing, painfully hardcore readership can understand, like “new continuities”, in the hopes that the Direct Market-shopping fans of their IP will still support this new format, to give them a large non-returnable sales-base with which to expand their mass market sales. (As a refresher, book sales through comic stores are “non-returnable”, and 10,000 non returnable sales (my prediction) is a great base from which to set your print-run and distribute the work to the larger market, which can return unsold books for a full refund (and which sticks publishers with lots of unsold books).)

Hibbs’ post has a long and lively comment section which interested parties should read.

Bonus: J. Caleb Mozzocco speaks from a reader’s perspective.

It’s been no secret that even as comics have been enjoying better-than-those-around-them economic results in the Great Recession, a few companies have been late with creator payments. Bleeding Cool has been doing the best job of covering these stories, and interviews Devil’s Due head Josh Blaylock on what is a huge debt, blamed on the elephant in the room: bookstore returns.

We’re still dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars in book store returns that rocked us in late 2008 and into 2009, right in the middle of an already aggressive restructuring. This lasted for almost the entire year, and subsided only a few months ago. Now we’re dealing with debts incurred by the distributor from those returns that are still being passed down to us. To stabilize the business all of these debts had to be set aside, to be paid off over time, while we focus on expenses related to current titles. This will continue for approximately another year by my estimation. Were it not for the returns I believe we would have had a very solid year, but as it is for much of the rest of the world. We showed a loss for 2008 and will as well for 2009, which is the case for many companies right now. Payments will be made to termed-out debts either as publishing profits come in or when there is a cash influx of any other sort that would allow it.

Blaylock is pretty upfront abut the problems, to his credit.

Today, Rich digs into the Dabel Brothers’ ongoing problems paying creators and finds that Dynamite, which has just acquired the Dabel business, will go about trying to make things right:

. Dynamite has instigated a deal to all those owed money by the Dabels that either they will find a compromise payment that will settle all matters in full, or Dynamite will make a downpayment on the debt and commit to paying the full debt off over time. Considering that Dynamite had no legal necessity to pay a bean, and that the debt was solely down to the Dabels’ operations, this is one hell of a step up for the company.

We agree: That’s a very upfront move by Dynamite.

Marvel Studios Chairman David Maisel plans to step down after the Disney deal goes through, the trades report. President Kevin Feige will remain and report directly to Disney Studios boss Rich Ross.

Maisel will retain an exec producer credit on movies developed while he was on board — IRON MAN 2, THOR, and THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA.

According to Variety, Maisel , who once worked for Disney in Business Development, was instrumental in getting Marvel their $525 million revolving credit line which enabled them to start their own studio, and supposedly it was he who initiated the entire Disney-Marvel deal.

Although it may look like Maisel is getting the short end of the stick, don’t shed a tear — he’s walking away with $20.4 million after the Disney acquisition.

Diamond will be holding its next retailer summit in the Midwest, as it’s announced a team-up with Reed’s C2E2, to be held this April in Chicago. Most recent summits have been held in conjunction with the Baltimore Comic-Con, and in Las Vegas.  PR below:

After successful events in Baltimore, MD; Ft. Wayne, IN; Las Vegas, NV and elsewhere, Diamond “takes the show on the road” to the Windy City when a new version of the Diamond Retailer Summit berths at one of the industry’s most anticipated events: C²E², a.k.a. the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo.

The much traveled fantasy adaptation imprint run by the Dabel Brothers has been acquired by Dynamite Entertainment. Les and Ernest Dabel have made a name for themselves over the past decade by making deals with the top authors in fantasy and SF to adapt their works to comics format — George R. R. Martin, Laurell K. Hamilton, Robert Jordan, Orson Scott Card, Jim Butcher — the list goes on and on. Their latest hit is IDW’s Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. Over the years, the Dabels have teamed with a multitude of publishers to package books and periodicals: Devil’s Due, Alias, Image, Marvel, Del Rey, and IDW, making Dynamite their 7th partner.  While the books have often sold extremely well, the business arrangements haven’t always been smooth, with freelancers owed money from several projects, according to a recent report at Bleeding Cool.

However the new deal with Dynamite is a different sort of deal for the Dabels, according to the PR. Instead of packaging the books, Dynamite is taking over creative and production control of the line, leaving the Dabels, presumably, to do what they do best: negotiate deals with some of the world’s most popular authors.

Although no specific titles are mentioned in the PR from Dynamite, the books will begin shipping next April.

Dynamite Entertainment announced today that they have signed a comprehensive agreement with Dabel Brothers Publishing to transition all of their titles to the Dynamite brand. 

Dynamite will immediately assume creative development, production, printing, marketing and sales for all titles handled by Dabel Brothers Publishing.  This includes books that were in the works and projects not yet announced.  For the bookstore market, all graphic novels (unless pre-existing agreements prohibit from doing so) will be published by Dynamite and distributed through Diamond Book Distributors.   

“Dynamite has impressed us with their ability to market their titles to such a broad audience,” says Vice President, Les Dabel.  “We are extremely happy about this transition, and I am stepping back now to let Dynamite do what they do best.”  

“We look forward to working with all of the distinguished authors on their great works and helping to bring them to a larger audience,” stated Dynamite President, Nick Barrucci.

Founded in 2004, Dynamite Entertainment is home to several best-selling comic book titles and properties, including Red Sonja, Project Superpowers, The Boys, Army of Darkness, Battlestar Galactica, The Lone Ranger, Zorro and more.  Diamond awarded the company a “GEM” award for Best New Publisher in 2005 and another “GEM” in 2006 for Comics Publisher of the Year (under 5%).  Dynamite has also been nominated for several industry awards, including the prestigious “Eisner” Award, and consistently works with top flight and fan favorite creative talent such as Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Garth Ennis, Jim Lee, Michael Avon Oeming, Matt Wagner and many others. 

The first books will be shipping in April 2010, with subsequent titles shipping thereafter.

Variety reports that Italian producer Domenico Procacci’s Fandango has purchased Igort’s Coconino Press.
As you might guess from the name (taken from the setting of the seminal comic strip Krazy Kat) Coconino publishes literary European comics, so a film teaming is kind of like Miramax buying Drawn and Quarterly, if we get our Italo-culture references right. Coconino was also the European packager of most of the Ignatz line of comics, published in the US by Fantagraphics. According to the article, Procacci is active in books and music, but he’s especially hot for…what else: Graphic novels!

As for Italian graphic artists, the idea is to foster a level of local excellence, which Procacci finds “somewhat below par right now in this field, considering Italy’s illustrious past.”

“I want to create a pool of young talents, because I think that there could be some potential filmmakers among the artists making graphic novels today.”

As examples, he cites Gallic comicbook artist Riad Sattouf whose hot teen sex-themed helming bow “The French Kissers” unspooled in Cannes, and also Belgrade-born Gallic illustrator Enki Bilal’s ambitious 2004 English-language sci-fier “Immortal (Ad Vitam).”

According to the piece, Igort’s 5 IS THE PERFECT NUMBER is slated for a movie adapted by Marco Mueller.

A few links making the rounds related to the health of various sectors of the comics business.

§ In Boston, while book industry sales are “in freefall”, comics sales are strong enough to support new retail outlets:

They couldn’t find a single financial backer willing to risk a penny on a comic book store, but the pair knows something about their kind: namely, that comic book fans, who number more adults than kids these days, are serious about their reading material. Look no further than the man who posted a comment on the store’s Facebook page praising the recommendations of the “in-house sommelier.’’ Reed has faith that the business, which has seen heady peaks (hello, Stan Lee) and crushing lows (television nearly wiped it out half a century ago), is poised for another revival.

§ Meanwhile, in Japan as the above scary chart shows, this writer believes the manga industry is in “Dire straits.” In the above chart, magazines sales (red) are plunging, while tankōbon sales (blue) are flat:

The very notion that the health of a medium can be measured by the number of blockbusters it produces is itself increasingly obsolete – in music, books and other media, markets are increasingly centred on the so-called “long tail,” with modern distribution allowing vast numbers of niche titles to be economically supported where before only a few very popular titles could ever find commercial success. Having low or high sales is thus not a measure of how “good” a title is, but instead merely reflects the size of the particular niche a product serves.

§ Meanwhile, Canadian Business magazine salutes the success of Drawn & Quarterly:

While Oliveros is reluctant to claim credit, D&Q was pivotal in that transition. Its titles were lavishly, lovingly produced, and mainstream media outlets took breathless notice of this blurring of publishing boundaries. In 2004, The New York Times noted D&Q’s (along with its closest competitor, Seattle’s Fantagraphics’s) role in shaping the renaissance of the comic book form. Crossover success was concomitant: the titles started to appear in traditional bookstores where, suddenly, every self-respecting independent and chain devoted a section to graphic novels, and major publishing houses started getting into the game. D&Q’s fastest bestseller, Chester Brown’s Louis Riel, an improbable “comic strip biography” of the controversial 19th-century Métis leader, sold 10,000 copies in its first season, and to date has sold more than 36,000, more than most bestselling books in Canada. Publishers Weekly called it a “major achievement.”

While comics and trading cards were once joined at the hip in the Speculatory Era as twin collectibles, the trading card industry has faded over the years into more of a pure hobby and less of a game for flashy high rollers. Since we hadn’t been keeping up, we were a bit surprised to come across a story commenting on the news that Topps had lost the NFL license. Players Inc, the NFl players branding arm, declined to renew Topps’ license.

Since we still have a few old Topps football cards tucked away in a binder, this was saddening in many ways. But, this concise rundown shows it’s been a pretty tumultuous year for the trading card business in general, with far fewer sports licenses, increased competition for those remaining, lawsuits, cancellations and other juicy stuff. In August, Topps got an exclusive on MLB baseball, right from under Upper Deck’s nose, prompting Topps owner Michael Eisner to talk about protecting the children:

“This is redirecting the entire category toward kids,” Topps’ Michael Eisner told the Times. “Topps has been making cards for 60 years, the last 30 in a nonexclusive world that has caused confusion to the kid who walks into a Wal-Mart or a hobby store. It’s also been difficult to promote cards as unique and original.”

If we had to guess, we’d imagine that when actor-musician-model Tyrese Gibson wanted to join the infectiously lively world of graphic novels, he wasn’t aware that part of this world is nitpicking bloggers, commentators and message board fans who fact check every utterance. But in a long interview at CBR, he and collaborator Mike Le address some of the complaints over quotes and talk about the future of MAYHEM. Specifically, Gibson refutes previously quoted claims that MAYHEM was the first comic for iTunes, which, as we all know, isn’t so.

Tyrese: That’s a misquote. The reporter misunderstood what I said. What I said and what I meant was this is the first time in history that Apple has teamed up with a creator to develop a digital comic book for iTunes. I know there have been many digital comic books way before “Mayhem,” and I am aware of other digital comic books that have been sold on iTunes.

In another quote, Gibson shows he understands multichannel delivery:

Tyrese: Let me say this, I strongly hope the digital sales drive consumers to discover comic books, which then drives them to their local comic book stores to buy more comic books. Digital comic books do not have to mean the death of printed comic books. I believe they can co-exist and help each other thrive. In this recession, anything that can help bring more traffic to comic book stores is a blessing.

Over the summer watching the MAYHEM experiment was vastly entertaining, and it’s safe to say the program had some pluses, but also pissed off a lot of people with, to put it mildly, over-aggressive marketing tactics. The bottom line is that quality was not one of the big selling points of the project, unfortunately, and what really fuels repeat business is a good story. However, it’s good to see Tyrese & Co. addressing some of the issues they raised. And their teaming with Apple is part of the Jobs Crew’s greater recognition that comics are a major part of the future business model for digital downloads.

Somewhat related: for the first time book app downloads have surpassed game app downloads for the iPhone:

In October, one out of every five new apps launching in the iPhone has been a book. Book publishers from Your Mobile Apps to Softbank are adapting books for sale in the AppStore at record rates. Flurry believes that Apple is poised to take market share from the Amazon Kindle in eBooks, in spite of the iPhone’s smaller four-inch display compared to the Kindle’s six-inch display. If Apple is actually working on a larger tablet, as rumored, it could steal even more market share.

Hurry Tablet!!!

It seems that the Wizard Universe Message Board, home to seditious postings on bad customer service, personnel changes, joyless conventions and other, hoi polloi, topics, has been shut down, part of a total reworking of the Wizard Universe family of sites. Ex-Wizardeer Sean T. Collins has more:

The board was launched in 2006, at the start of Wizard’s often-shaky attempt to maintain a web presence in a comics-news scene increasingly dominated by online outlets. The WUMB was a priority for then-Editor-in-Chief Pat McCallum, who mandated daily posts from all editorial staffers as a way to increase the sense of community with readers of Wizard’s publications (at the time, there were four monthly magazines). McCallum and many other high-ranking editorial figures — among them, Wizard Editor Brian Cunningham, ToyFare Editors Zach Oat and Justin Aclin, VP Joe Yanarella, Anime Insider Editor Summer Mullins, WizardUniverse.com Editors Rick Marshall and Jim Gibbons, and Wizard and WizardUniverse.com Managing Editor, uh, me — posted on the board frequently, even though its hosting on an outside company’s server prevented its hits from being counted toward Wizard’s main site.

As mentioned, the move comes in the midst of many format changes and relaunches for Wizard roducts both in print and online. For instance, the long running price guide has also been dropped from the print magazine:

However, as the WUMB thread shows, many of Wizard’s most die-hard devotees saw the section as key to the magazine’s identity — a magazine about comics, as the opposed to general nerd-friendly pop culture touted by Wizard over the past few years and at Shamus’s GeekChicDaily e-newsletter. Coupled with the apparent move away from comics-focused conventions toward nerd-celeb-heavy shows that seems to be the Shamus/Wizard strategy for its Con War with Reed Exhibitions, the price guide’s elimination is another step away from the traditional Wizard brand, and a step toward some future Shamus 2.0, less dependent on the comics industry and its customers.

WUMB spin-off Panels on Pages has its own eulogy by Jason Kerouac.

Finally, in other Wizard-related news, Comic Foundry makes a zombie return from the dead with Last-minute Halloween Costume! Be the SCARIEST CHARACTER IN COMICS! MEEEEEow.

Newsarama, the long-running comics news site, has been purchased by TopTenReviews, a content aggregation site out of Ogden. UT, it was announced today. The site, along with Space.com, and LiveScience, were sold by Imaginova, a science news web publisher which purchased Newsarama in 2007.

Although Imaginova purchased Newsarama with an eye to beefing up their consumer offerings, it was not always a great fit, editorially, with reader complaints about formats and technological issues along the way.

More information, via PR, in the jump.

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Another giant IP deal unfolded yesterday, as Viacom/Paramount/Nickelodeon acquired the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for $60 million.

Created in 1984 by two New England indie cartoonists, the Turtles have gone on to be an enduring kids brand, with movies, cartoons, cereals, toys and probably something everyone who was a kid in the ’90s owned at one point. Most recently, 4Kids Entertainment was producing an animated show, giving the Turtles yet another run near the top.

Now, Paramount plans a NEW show for Nick in 2012 as well as a new feature film that same year. The Turtles’ very successful toy license with Playmates will also continue.

The Nick deal included nearly $10 million as a buyout for 4Kids, which owned the TV rights for the franchise.

The rest — $50 million — went to Mirage Group, the previous owners, including co-creator Peter Laird, probably best known in this space as the funder and organizer of the Xeric Grants for deserving indie comics.

While it’s not quite clear who else is involved in the Mirage Group, Laird had been the sole creator involved in the franchise since buying out his co-creator Kevin Eastman in 2000.

On his blog, Laird explains his reasons for the sale, mainly burnout at running a global franchise — Laird is 55 — and the desire to get back to drawing. The entire statement should be read for context, but it does get into such interesting territory as how his take differs from Nickelodeon’s and more. But it is certainly not the end:

One comment — which I have seen online several times — expresses the sentiment that this sale will mean “the end of TMNT”. This baffles me. Unless I am completely naive, the sale to Viacom could very well mean a brighter future for the TMNT property than was previously feasible.

On a final note (at least for this statement), please understand that I sold the TMNT property, not Mirage Studios. Mirage still exists, and it’s still my company. It just doesn’t own the TMNT intellectual property anymore. I’m not sure what its future will be. For a little while, it will be helping with the transition of TMNT over to its new owners. But after that…? I don’t know. What I am hoping, however, is that this little core group of creators sticks together, both as friends and collaborators. And I think that is certainly possible.

Eastman and Laird remain the only two indie comics creators who ever got filthy rich from their creations, and they did it by holding on to the copyright and having a very, very savvy agent who made them terrific deals. Eastman spent an awful lot of his money, and it’s believed that the Laird buyout actually bailed him out of a lot of debts he’d run up. However, even allowing for the other entities of the Mirage Group, $50 million is a nice payout after having already made millions and millions of dollars.

Congrats to Peter Laird, and here’s hoping he enjoys his newfound spare time.

A print ad in Wizard magazine announces the dates and venue for the Toronto Comic-Con (formerly Paradise Con) as March 26-28, 2010. However, a picture of Warren Ellis floating at the bottom does NOT mean he’ll be at the show, asl Ellis blogged:

First I’ve fucking heard of it.

I’m presuming this is some kind of impossibly convoluted but innocent mistake, as opposed to “well, if we just SAY Warren Ellis is showing up, then he’ll HAVE to.” But I’ve had no contact from Wizard World about this or any other show, so, god knows what actually happened for this to have somehow gotten printed…

Ellis WAS once a guest at the Paradise Con, so it might be logical to assume he could POSSIBLY be again, but that doesn’t mean he will be.

The revamped Wizard World convention slate currently includes this weekend’s Big Apple Con, Anaheim April 16-18 (the same weekend as C2E2), Wizard World Philadelphia June 11-13, and Chicago August 12-15.

We heard a lot of scuttlebutt this weekend regarding how Wizard shows are going about getting some of their guests, including reports of poaching. Several announced guests for this weekend’s Big Apple Comic-Con have yet to get their travel arrangements, and several others who were invited pulled out when such arrangements were not forthcoming.

In addition, Celebrity Authentic, which handles a number of A-listers including Christian Bale, announced a few weeks ago that they were pulling their guests out of Big Apple for unnamed reasons:

Please be advised that due to circumstances beyond our control, we have canceled all talent scheduled to appear at the Big Apple Comic-Con including Willem Dafoe, Taylor Kitsch, Jamie Campbell Bower, Cameron Bright, Robert Patrick, Lynn Collins, Ioan Gruffudd and Scott Speedman. We realize that this comes as a great disappointment for we were all looking forward to the show and these talented artists. This is the first time we have had to cancel a scheduled show appearance for our talent however, we must take this necessary action.

Finally, there is the matter of attendance. According to the New York Post, the show expects “20,000 to 30,000 people,” and “700 companies from film, TV, video games, toys and comics.” Which should be interesting, since the capacity of the venue, Pier 94, is 6500, according to this website.