Last Update: April 1, 2025
Auction has copies of X-Men #1, Tales of Suspense #39, Incredible Hulk #181 together – D Journal – i.e., first X-Men, first Iron Man, first Wolverine.
Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson
Mary Jane Watson and Venom – Marvel Inc
Hollywood Box Office isn't performing the way the industry predicts for itself
Case in point, the assuredness that Deadline Hollywood (which has changed a lot since Nikki Finke, the founder, left it) is able to say that Snow White would stay number #1 at box office in the second weekend as five competing films (including the Statham A Working Man) was about to hit: "...none of them ... will be able to put Disney’s embattled Snow White to sleep, that live action take of the Disney 1937 toon [to] do around $20M hopefully in weekend 2." Instead, weekend #2 was $14,331,715 and Statham's movie, based on a Chuck Dixon story, was number one.
"2025 box office is off to a terrible start" – Los Angeles Times – Mar 25, 2025
A goodly portion of movie and entertainment reporting in general is "wish casting," but if June and July are lousy, there will be a torrent of "is Hollywood dead?" articles, and then the question will remain, does Hollywood really know what's going on with itself?
From about a year ago:
2025 box office will be "roaring hot" – The Wrap - April 9, 2024
"Hollywood Contraction Hits Entertainment Executive Jobs: This Is A Full-Scale Depression" – (Deadline Hollywood) – March 18, 2024
AI generating mountains of images in the popular style of Studio Ghibli – Washington Post
Studio Ghibli, headed by artist Hayao Miyazaki, is known for its dreamy watercolors and intricate illustrations — each frame in a Ghibli film is drawn and colored by hand, the studio has said. Sometimes artists spend months working on a single scene. Miyazaki himself has railed against the use of artificial intelligence in art...."
Miyazaki responded by saying that AI-generated artwork was "an insult to life itself " – Yahoo News
Popularity is "AI-driven nostalgia art..." – Psychology Today
ChatGPT has over one million users in 24 hours generating Ghibli AI art – MSN Economic Times
Interview with Paul Pope
Story at The Comics Journal
Interview talks about the reissue of the book Pulphope: The Art of Paul Pope and a lot of other topics about art, comics, and the economics of it all.
Remembering eccentric cartoonist "The Mad Peck" – The Publics Radio
Snow White at $142,770,989 million – The Numbers
"Catastrophic Flop" – Yahoo Entertainment
More about SnowWhitopocalypse
Supergirl promo by James Gunn – UPI News
Supergirl is due in theaters on June 26, 2026.
This is the James Gunn promo on Instagram - basically a photo of Milly Alcock reading a comic book.
Superman roller-coaster at 6-flags is shutting down – Entertainment Weekly
The return of the "real" Legion of Super Heroes – Bleedingcool
...not just the Darkseid/Absolute Omega Legion..."
Chris Evans appears in Fantastic Four: First Steps? – Superherohype
How the Chat GPT AI presented the important historical event
Backstreet Boys fist fight over Alien vs. Predator number one – People.com
He was a big comic book collector, and I went through a really bad acne phase when I was a teenager. I was 14 or 15, and he kept calling me pizza face. And he had just picked up an Alien vs. Predator number one," he recalled.
I was like, 'Call me pizza face one more time,' And I held the comic book over the sink at Kevin's apartment with a lighter. I didn't realize that the flame was at its highest, so it burst into flames. I'm like, 'Oh, s---, s---!' To make it worse, then I turn the water on. So now it's it's burnt and it's soggy, and he came up and put me in a headlock and just started punching the back of my head...."
Ebay.com 9.8 CGC Alien vs. Predator number one at about $210.00
Big fat list of comic book links from recent news – The Comics Journal
Comic book publishers in the UK form a trade association – Comicsbeat
Judging by the article on this move, there are strong reasons for the association to exist. More about the UK Comic Book Trade Association and the issues of Generative AI
Galaxy Con March 29, 2025
See photos enlarged
Best Selling Batman #158
Bestselling title of the week: Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb's Batman #158 – Bleedingcool
The unmolested cover to Batman #158
Maybe the Blade reboot is going to happen after all – Newsweek
Chad Stahelski, who directed the first John Wick film and was producer on the last one, appears to be named to direct the reboot of "Blade" starring Mahershala Ali. On the other hand, as the article points out, Stahelski is a busy guy and when will he have time to do Blade?
Could the new Jason Statham action movie A Working Man knock out Snow White this weekend? – The Numbers – if it does, that's a terrible sign for SW's future which already looks grim. Disney's Snow White still has an advantage with best theatre position, though, and the big push of promotion that washed across the world leading to the premier.
Meanwhile, Captain America New World Order is now at $403,037,129 for global take. Predictions are saying the film may end its theater run with $425 million, which is simply awful for a movie that probably cost $380 million to make with production and promotion costs. Reportedly Cap4 was made at least twice with reshootings galore, and if the $380 million estimate is right, it would mean it needs $760 million to break even (since theaters keep half of ticket money).
But, there is the official tally that it only cost $180 million to make with a break even at $420 million is being circulated, but I've seen no one who looks at these things actually believing that $180 million is a true production budget for Cap4. Why? Because even with the $180 million as a true production cost, there's still the estimated $100 million spent on promotion, putting the film at $280 million with a break even at $560 million.
This matter is an area called "Hollywood accounting" and it contains mysteries.
Sonja the Red
Red Sonja film clearing USA release hurdles – Superherohype
The completed film, a Bulgarian location production, is R-rated for violence and features Matilda Lutz as the steel maiden and is directed by M. J. Bassett. The story is written by Tasha Huo and is supposedly linked more tightly to the comic book rendition of the character versus, say, the 1985 Red Sonja. On the other hand, the writer also has said some things about updating the character for 21st century audiences. The cast is pretty heavy with female cast members (Huo said the film script features "great female friendship") so whatever the story is about, it's not just Red Sonja surrounded by muscular men on a rampage.
Another try by Grok that looks better
The perennial question of the industry for the last years: why aren't there more new comic book readers?
Answer: Maybe because young people don't know how to read
The growing ranks of the functionally illiterate– Hilarius Book Binder
Most of our students are functionally illiterate. This is not a joke. By "functionally illiterate" I mean "unable to read and comprehend adult novels by people like Barbara Kingsolver, Colson Whitehead, and Richard Powers." I picked those three authors because they are all recent Pulitzer Prize winners, an objective standard of "serious adult novel." Furthermore, I’ve read them all and can testify that they are brilliant, captivating writers; we’re not talking about Finnegans Wake here. But at the same time they aren’t YA, romantasy, or Harry Potter either. I’m not saying our students just prefer genre books or graphic novels or whatever. No, our average graduate literally could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read. They just couldn’t do it. They don’t have the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read, and most certainly not the attention span to finish...."
Movie theater decline means changing the rules: let people smoke pot and stay on their phones – NY Post
In the last couple of years, I'm seeing a lot of people surreptitiously watching their phones and playing games while sitting in a dark theatre. They bought a ticket and they're not really harming anyone except there's a field of little rectangles of light all around you as you try to concentrate on the cinematic event unfolding above your head.
The suggestion to make dope-smoking in the theatre allowed will turn showings into what "midnight shows" were like in ye days of olde, clouds of smoke and stink filling the space. If theaters have a hard time getting a family in through the doors now, just wait until they implement this brainstorm.
Famed international movie director Ridley Scott publishing a 4-part graphic novel comic book titled "Modville" – MSN LA Times
"...debuts during a tough time for comics. Can it survive?"
The story is set more than 150 years into the future populated with people and artificial humans (known as mods). Created by Jesse Negron, co-written by Joe Matsumoto and with art by Hendry Prasetya and Eko Puteh, and there's covers from Bill Sienkiewicz .
The "daunting" part of this is a difficult comic book market landscape:
Of the 40 most popular graphic novels in 2024 (based on units sold), only four titles weren't published by the leading comics companies — which include Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics, IDW Publishing, Dark Horse Comics and BOOM! Studios. Those titles include "Dog Man: The Scarlet Shedder" by Graphix, "Uzumaki" and "Chainsaw Man, Vol. 1" — both by VIZ Media — and "Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze" by Titan Comics. This trend is seen with periodical comic books too, with only four franchises outside of Marvel and DC able to crack the top 50 comics of 2024. Those all happened to be well-known ’80s titles such as Image's G.I. Joe and Transformers, IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dynamite Entertainment's Thundercats...."
The article, which is pretty thorough, talks about Ridley Scott's influence on shaping the series and some art direction that he contributed. His company Scott Free in involved in the publishing.
Get into the Public Domain archives that are online at Graphic Chatter
Time to go to Disney World? Goofy 4 Mickey
Classic Film, reviews and more Cinemagraphe
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