Last Update: March 13, 2026
Sale of British comics colelction returned a huge six-figure sum – MSN UK Chronicle
...over 40,000 comics, 20,000 pieces of original artwork, nearly 900 bound publisher volumes and a vast amount of memorabilia..."
Tatjana Wood Obit – NY Times
Anyone who laid eyes on a DC Comics cover from 1973 to 1983 was likely seeing an example of Ms. Wood’s work. She colored nearly every cover for the company, whether the image was for a horror title, a war comic or a superhero adventure. She also provided color guides for the engravers to follow on interior pages. In the days before computer-assisted production, that involved a painstaking process of creating hand-applied dyes and indicating color combinations — denoting the percentage of cyan, magenta or yellow to be used..."
...Karen Berger, who edited Swamp Thing, wrote in an email about Ms. Wood: "Her magnificent and evocative palette was a perfect fit — she was an integral part of the magic of that groundbreaking series. She loved coloring ‘Shvampy,’ as she called him in her thick, gravelly German accent."
The Times profile/obit of Tatjana Wood is a great overview, with several large examples of her work and a couple of photos of her, along with quotations from various comics folks who knew her. She had a truly long career in comic books, and if you'd paid much attention to the industry, hers was a name that came up again and again across the decades.
TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman discusses comic books using martial arts – MSN UPI News
Eastman, 63, described how he studied [Bruce] Lee and other martial artists' fights to learn "the logic of how to stage a fight scene." The comics were first published in 1984, let to an animated series and then the first 1990 movie. "Watching those early martial arts film, certainly the Bruce Lee films which were so inspiring, but the martial arts film, to me I really embraced the idea," Eastman said. "A hit creates this, a punch creates that and a kick creates that..."
Mike Mignola at the London Book Fair
Story at Bleedingcool
University Archives website auction includes rare comic books among 445 lots to be sold – Free P
Lot 163 is the vintage issue of DC Comics’ Superman No. 12 (September-October 1941), encapsulated and graded by CGC with a Universal Grade 6.5. Estimate: $1,500-$2,400. This is one of over 25 lots in the March sale featuring Golden Age comic superheroes such a Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman and others, offered singularly as well as in dealer’s lots..."
Someone has a gigantic Deadpool collection in South Africa – Guinness World Records
Stephen R. Bissette named "Vermont Cartoonist Laureate" – Sevendays VT
It's $1
Status of the $47 million in consigned goods that Diamond Distributors still holds
Story at Bleedingcool
The Trustee has signaled that he intends to use remaining estate assets on litigation and attorney's fees rather than paying creditors..."
Smithsonian Museum adds Action Comics No. 1 and Captain America Comics No. 1 to "permanent home at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History" – Smithsonian
UK Lakes International Comic Arts Festival 2026 "featuring the Maestro Bill Sienkiewicz" – LICAF
Absolute Batman is essential! – Comicbook
Classic Iron Man is back and it's perfect! – Comicbook
Klaus Janson profile – NY Times
For Janson, 74, the show represents how far the appreciation for comic art has come. "Sequential narrative deserves recognition," he said in an interview. "That’s part of my motivation for doing this exhibition and I hope that people walk away from the exhibit with a growing appreciation of what comics can do."
Collection going to auction with books from 6-decades – UK Yorkshire Post
However, after moving house and deciding he needed to refine his collection, father-of-two Mr Kitching has finally decided to sell most of his collection. Divided into 340 separate lots, the collection of more than 6,000 comics spans back to the early 1960s and includes rare first appearance issues for Iron Man, X-Men and the Fantastic Four..."
Changing of the guard: Mike Richardson no longer at Dark Horse – Comicsbeat
Although seeing the head of a company depart after an acquisition is not a surprise, Richardson’s exit is still a shock because he is one of the foundational publishers of the modern comics era. Everything Dark Horse has done – and it is a LOT – are a reflection of Richardson’s vision and management. Just a few of them: Dark Horse supported some of the most important creator-owned titles – including Hellboy and Sin City, and recently the Black Hammer universe. Dark Horse also got into publishing manga way before any MOST other American publishers..."
Back in the 1980s, Mike Richardson, Chris Warner, Mark Verheiden (along with others) came out with a number of books under the Dark Horse label, coinciding with the “black-and-white explosion” of comics titles, when printing costs and distribution had simplified and fans were launching little companies one after another and getting them into shops.
Titles like Fish Police were popular at the time, and some very big winners moved beyond black-and-white printing, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The black-and-white boom eventually imploded, and shops were left with stacks of poorly drawn, mostly amateur looking books. But for a while, anyone with a good idea and some drawing and writing chops had a shortened pathway to getting noticed.
Dark Horse had all of those cards in their hands and played them well. Chris Warner by that time was a veteran Marvel artist, and Verheiden would soon be on his way to becoming a veteran comics writer and later a producer in Hollywood. Mike Richardson did something at that time, when Dark Horse was starting out, that all comic companies now do almost by reflex: pursue alternative media pathways for their comic properties into the broader non-comics market—by which we mean Hollywood. That transition happened quickly with The Mask movie, which Verheiden wrote and which was based on a Dark Horse title created by Richardson.
Mike Richardson "out" at Dark Horse – Hollywood Reporter
Note: for an interesting antecedent to The Mask, consider this 1973 Batman story from Detective Comics 437 featuring a "death mask" that brings out psychotic activity from anyone wearing it.
The "death throes" of the Diamond Distributors implosion – The Comics Journal
Behind the scenes of over-sized Artist Edition books with Scott Dunbier – The Comics Journal
The plan was to sell them direct to consumers because they're expensive, but they're also expensive to print. Eventually, with the help of Cliff Biggers, who runs some shops called Dr. No’s (and the former publisher of Comic Shop News) we came up with the idea of giving a courtesy discount to retailers. Not the full discount, but still a discount, because his argument was that retailers would want to buy these books for themselves. It was a much bigger success than we had thought. I think if we didn't make the initial announcement that it wouldn't be available through comic shops, there wouldn't have been the attention that was paid to it. And so because of that, the first Artist’s Edition, Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer, was really, for an Artist's Edition, a resounding success. It went into a couple of printings. The second book was the first Marvel book we did, which was Walter Simonson's The Mighty Thor..."
Favorite Gold Key adaptations of TV shows – 13th Dimension
...the 1960s was a kind of Golden Age of comic book movie and television adaptations, with Dell and Gold Key especially licensing just about anything and everything based on the latest TV shows..."
Photographs and Comic Books
When I was a kid buying comics off newsstands, TV-show adaptations (like the Gold Key titles) were generally viewed as down-market products, with Disney comics being the main exception. This was also true when it came to trading comics, which was how we gained access to older books, since there were no comic book stores in those days. This attitude meant that Gold Key comics could often be traded in multiples for a single regular DC or Marvel superhero book. On the other hand, there were kids for whom a TV-show adaptation comic was important because of—what I assume in hindsight was—their dedication to that particular TV show. At the time, I disdained those sorts of comic books with photographic covers, reacting as if they were a kind of aposematic signal, a warning of the inferior, cheap contents inside.
Imagine my consternation when I spent some time in Naples, Italy, and saw that country’s fotoromanzo comic books—photo storytelling comics with black-and-white interiors—pinned up at kiosks (edicole) on the streets right next to the many full-color Italian comics and magazines, along with the occasional English-language Marvel comic book (I didn’t see any DC books treated that way in Italy or Greece during the years I was there as a kid). Those kiosks offered a revealing cross-section of the comic formats of the time. At one end were the photo-based fotoromanzi. At the other were the “micro-schema” comic books—usually war or adventure stories with intricately drawn black-and-white interiors in a pocket-sized format. They had violent, colorful covers and, perhaps most importantly, were fairly thick but inexpensive to buy.
Part of the dilemma for Gold Key books—and for comic books in general at that time—was the popularity of certain comic-book art styles, which was one of the main drivers, if not the main driver, of interest in a title for many of us. Alex Toth and other artists whose styles were unconventional compared with the dominant Romita or Neal Adams "look" (this is 1970–1976 era thinking) were grudgingly appreciated because of their sheer storytelling power. It wasn’t articulated that way then, but I think it was a gut response to enjoying a well-told story, supported by all the panel art needed to tell it fully and effectively.
Looking back now at that time and the fashions of the moment, I think those older artists’ styles (like Toth’s) conveyed a misleading surface simplicity. To some of us it “looked wrong” because it lacked the obsessive embellishment of muscles. That tension between comic-book styles is still as common today as it was then, but the use of photographs on comic-book covers has changed. Variant "photo" covers now appear on many 21st-century titles, and the growing influence of AI-generated art shows an increasing fusion of photographic imagery with hand-edited artistic effects shaping the final composition. In a sense, this hybrid approach has its roots in the Gold Key photo-cover comics of the 20th century, which in retrospect almost seem like a tacit admission that the artists involved could not always be trusted to capture convincing likenesses of the television stars whose shows were being adapted. That emphasis on presenting the celebrity "correctly" reflects a divide between comic-book art valued for its expressive qualities and the medium being used to reproduce familiar and unquestionable iconography.
Why the 1996 " Kingdom Come" by Mark Waid and Alex Ross is the best of the Elseworlds projects – CBR.com
Spiderverse 3 "why it's taking a long time" – Gamesradar
600 million copy world sales
One Piece Manga hits 600 million in sales – Game Rant
...with almost 3 decades of consistent serialization. With all the massive success that the series has been enjoying, the One Piece series has just broken a new record that no other manga will ever come close to. It has been officially confirmed that One Piece has hit over 600 million copies in circulation all over the world, and in doing so, it crushes any other anime and manga series worldwide..."
For Comparison: total American comic book sales over the last three decades estimated at $27 billion = 4.5 billion copies (of "floppies" ) sold. That, however, isn't a true picture of copies sold, rather just an equivalent, because it doesn't factor that the total $27 billion number includes periodicals + graphic novels + some digital.
ComicsPro 2026 wrap up – Comicsbeat
London comics scene in March - a lot happening – Bleeding Cool
Wal-Mart underwear choices, Feb 28, 2026
Combining Paramount and Warner Bros means a $79 billion debt load – US News
The Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros Discovery merger will create a combined entity that would have a net debt of about $79 billion, Paramount said on Monday, ruling out any plan to divest or spinoff the cable assets..."
Stuff on the shelves of stores - see more on the Racks pages
"Managing an American Comic Book Shop in France" – Comicbook
...The European market is quite different, but Pulp’s is a classic American comic book shop, offering weekly issues both in French and English for its clientele. While there are multiple Pulp’s in France, united by a deal to import comic books and offer them on the same day they reach the shelves in the US, Pulp’s Bordeaux is the only one outside the capital, Paris..."
...I just want to say that last year we were spoiled. Because it wasn’t a given. Until 2024, it wasn’t easy. There weren’t really any big titles coming out, and you could feel Marvel and DC were kind of searching for their footing. But then came a real renaissance, with Marvel’s Ultimate universe coming back strong, and Absolute being a real success story... "
Tatjana Wood (1926-2026) – Comicsbeat
Karen Berger, Paul Levitz and Nancy Collins remember comics colorist Tatjana Wood – Bleeding Cool
Turning games into comic books – JS Online
UGH! Entertainment today announced it is routing creator intellectual property through Metal Ninja Studios’ Concept to Comic™ production pipeline to adapt novels, tabletop concepts, and game narratives into finished, print-ready comic books..."
"Why New Avengers is exactly right for Marvel" – Comicbook
Marvel is in a place they haven’t been in a long time and that’s second place..."
Are there net sales records that justify this claim? I keep hearing that despite the great sales off DC's "Absolute" line of books, total title sales still favors Marvel who simply continue to publish more books than DC.
Birthday tribute to Norm Breyfogle 1960-2018 – 13th Dimension
Dan Quintana Absolute Batman #16 cover art goes for $100,000 at auction – Dread Central
So, what does Paramount have access to now with a merger deal with Warner Bros? – Comicbook
The list of IP properties is quite long, but the highlights are things like Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC Comics plus DC Studios and HBO.
Paramount already has Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers among other items, so the combined list is going to be massive.
Related: Netflix backs out of Warner Bros. purchase, clearing a path for Paramount - Washington Post
"Resilience" is the word from ComicsPRO – Publishers Weekly
Sales to comics shops hit a new high in 2025 at $2.2 billion, led by an influx of new readers drawn to DC’s Absolute Batman and other relaunched titles, according to industry analyst Milton Griepp. Sales in comics shops are growing even faster than in bookstores, Griepp said, with direct market sales up nearly 30% last year..."
Batman Brave and the Bold movie casting "buzz" – Outlook India
Is Paul Anthony Kelly to be the next Batman/Bruce Wayne for the James Gunn Brave and the Bold movie?
After weeks of online speculation linking him to DC Studios’ search for a new Bruce Wayne, Kelly admitted the idea of playing the Caped Crusader would be a "dream come true."
Using classic Māori images for a comic book – Eurekalert - not much explanation here about the project but the image is interesting.
The ambitious anthology project I Feel Doom loaded with comic creators – Comicbook
Flipping $2500 variants on eBay After ComicsPRO – Bleedingcool
Canadian comics publisher Drawn & Quarterly is moving to new distributor – Comicsbeat
The Comic Book Trust of India plan to promote Indian comic book creators – EDEX Live
Profile of artist Peter Ngyuen "his professional journey" – The Hindu
I love D-list characters! Red Tornado is never going to be as famous as Superman, so they don’t come with that kind of pressure, and it gives me a lot of freedom to play artistically. When we design characters for them, the story line takes priority...." Peter says the job potential as a comic book artist was unknown when he was growing up, and his parents wanted him to be an architect as he loved drawing. He attended a talent search competition helmed by his hero, comic book artist Jim Lee, and was one of the four finalists who got to go on stage..."
The May 2026 DC books – Comicsbeat
Boom to make their comics returnable – bleedingcool
A lot of "ComicsPro2026" coverage at Comics Beat – Comicsbeat
ComicsPRO 2026 is considered the most important annual gathering for comic shop retailers, publishers, distributors, and creators. It is a closed-door, business-to-business conference for the industry, and not a public fan convention (like Comic-Con).
Marvel announces "blind bag" changes – Bleedingcool
DC announces line expansion at Comics Pro – Graphic Policy
Interview with Canadian cartoonist Leo Burdak – The Comics Journal
Comics Journal: I’m curious. I know America in the '50s [had] the backlash to the EC horror comics."
Leo Burdak: Ya, the Crime comics. Tales from the Crypt. Evil comics. My mother had a bee in her bonnet about those for a while. There were all kinds of legends in Dawson Creek about how bad the teenagers were down in the city, which made me curious to get down here. But she calmed down after a while. My Dad was interested in the stuff. Although the English spoken in my parental household was marginal. Superman came as a comic strip in the Free Press weekly. We originally thought Superman was a waiter, or some sort of manservant, otherwise why would they dress him in this silly outfit. Back in Northwestern Czechoslovakia where my parents were originally from they had all sorts of resorts like Banff. They had waiters who dressed like that. Dad reading it assumed it was Supper Man and he was a waiter in some fancy resort...."
I haven't seen a documented date for Leo Burdak's birth date, but judging from his comments regarding comic books, he was likely born in 1937 to 1938. He died in 2021.
DC using ComicsPRO ’26 for announcements for DC’s Absolute line – Comics Beat
New collections of Archie Comics coming from Oni – Broken Frontier
A faux cover for The Amazing Spider-Man #97:
Art and story at 13th Dimension
Dark Horse and Terry Moore to launch new project – Comicsbeat
...to form a new imprint debuting in October 2026. .."
Article describes omnibus plans and other things to come.
Profile of British small-press comics company Avery Hill Publishing – The Comics Journal
IDW's Godzilla vs America – Something
The series of one-shots saw Godzilla crisscross the country, smashing things up in Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and even Kansas City, with each book featuring unique stories of everyone’s favorite kaiju in these iconic locations as told and drawn by artists hailing from there as well..."
The reward offered for recovery of Nicolas Cage's Detective Comics #27 – Tennessean
"Wuthering Heights" goes to number 1 for movie theaters global and US market – MSN Variety
This marks the ninth consecutive No. 1 debut for Warner Bros. following theatrical winners such as "A Minecraft Movie" "Sinners," "Final Destination Bloodlines" and "Weapons." Back in 2024, Netflix (which is currently fighting with Paramount to buy Warner Bros.) had offered a hefty $150 million for Fennell to make "Wuthering Heights" for the streamer. However the director and Robbie, who produced the film with MRC, opted for a smaller budget from Warner Bros. in exchange for a theatrical release and full-scale marketing campaign..."
Inside the Disney/Marvel advertising machine that uses "tone setting exercises" – Hollywood Reporter
...Wonder Man, which bowed all eight episodes on Jan. 27, has been hailed for departing from superhero conventions. It’s full of entertainment industry references and real-life Hollywood landmarks, and even has actors like Josh Gad and Joe Pantoliano playing themselves...."
The meta nature of Wonder Man extended to how it was shot, one of the rare shows filmed on location in Los Angeles these days. To highlight that, the team partnered with Starline Tours for a bus tour of filming locations, and used it to bring a group of influencers to the Hollywood premiere..."
Get into the Public Domain archives that are online at Graphic Chatter
Classic Film, reviews and more Cinemagraphe
Belief-Code, Body Code and T3 Therapy? See sacred-connection.com
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