Archive Page 2205

June 2024

Vancouver comics festival bans Jewish artist

Story at Times of Israel

A comic book festival in Vancouver said it has banned an Israeli-American artist [Miriam Libicki] because of her past service in the Israel Defense Forces, after apologizing for allowing her to participate this year. The Vancouver Comic Arts Festival then deleted its statement apologizing for allowing Miriam Libicki to exhibit at the event, which took place earlier this month, after the Canadian Jewish News published an article calling attention to the affair..."

Digital Comics and Private Equity

Story at Financial Times

These aren’t the cartoons of your childhood. Comics are big business in Asia, particularly if they are published online. So much so that the largest private equity transaction in Japan this year is for a digital comic distributor. Blackstone on Tuesday said it would launch a tender offer for Infocom, reportedly valuing the online comic company at about $1.8bn. Other comic fans will be paying attention: a deal could set the tone for rivals looking to list..."

Private equity probably means that an organized investment fund (often as limited partnership) will buy and restructure the company with the idea to purchase, improve and invest, with an exit strategy to turn a profit.

Deadpool and Wolverine movie gets China release date – Straits Times

Helps to add potential earning power to what's turning into the biggest shot at realistic blockbuster earnings for a superhero film in a long while. If this film tanks there may not be a decent-budgeted superhero film for a long time.

Marvel comics has a new logo and some people don't like it

Story at Gizmodo

Which begs the question, is this really necessary? For a visual medium, Marvel Comics’ new banner is strikingly bland and derivative, aping the earlier Marvel Studios logo in a weird stab at brand synergy. This is mostly just confusing as our existence in three-dimensional space does most of the hard work for us in determining what is a comic book and what is a film. So why do it? The answer’s a depressing one. The erstwhile House of Ideas seems to have finally come full circle in that its comics—comparatively inexpensive magazines of weird design and concept—are now chasing their own film adaptations for credibility’s sake....."

Spider-Man 3 film and no Peter Parker? – Beebom

Russell Crowe, superhero movies, and "pathos"

Story at Boundingintocomics

The link between Blade Runner and Nolan's Batman movies – Fandomwire

DC Comics September book list – Comicsbeat

McFarlane Toys does Sgt Rock and Batman figures

Story at Comicbook and you can buy it on Amazon

Donate your 80,000 comic books for a "fabulous" tax break – Forbes

First quarter publishing sales are "flat" – Publishers Weekly - "Non-fiction sales are struggling" – Publishers Weekly

Darkwing Duck kickstarter project – Comicsbeat

The fifteen greatest comic books – Screenrant MSN

Concentration on the most popular books of the 2000's, but with a pullback to Dark Knight Retuns and Watchmen.

James Gunn and rumours about cancelling Batman II

Story at MSN CBR

If you have the money, you can live like Bruce Wayne – Fast Company

It’s all part of the Wayne Enterprises Experience, a weeklong invite-only interactive luxury shopping adventure that brings the Batman comic to life for ultra-wealthy customers..."

Pattinson's Batman II and Batman III to shoot back-to-back next year – Comicbookmovie

Artist Yanick Paquette says "Photoshop is dead to me"

Story at MSN CBR

It's been going around the internet that Adobe (who makes Photoshop) has a new user agreement which de facto means any artwork produced using their software (like Photoshop) means the art can be used for Adobe's AI learning.

A revolt across the internet by artists is another effort to stop the AI juggernaut which threatens to suck up everything visual and make it a tool (despite copyright law) for anyone wishing to emulate any artists style. Computer driven synthesizing of popular artist styles helps to fuel the reaction by artists to Adobe. But, in response, Adobe protests "thats not what we meant!"

At Adobe, there is no ambiguity in our stance, our commitment to our customers, and innovating responsibly in this space. We've never trained generative AI on customer content, taken ownership of a customers work, or allowed access to customer content beyond legal requirements. Nor were we considering any of those practices as part of the recent Terms of Use update..."

Deadpool and Wolverine movie passes $1 million in ticket pre-sales

Story at Comicbookmovie

Frank Miller American Genius film – Comicsbeat - Screening happened June 10

...a documentary, Frank Miller; American Genius, produced and directed by Silenn Thomas. The film covers Miller’s entire life and career, and will be showing in Cinemark Theaters tonight for one night only, with a livestreamed introductory conversation between Miller and Rosario Dawson..."

Frank Miller American Genius film imdb page

Frank Miller is doing a new Sin City graphic novel – Yahoo News

The Tom Holland ‘Spider-Man 4’ – MSN Fandomwire

Batman’s 85th Anniversary gets new Funko NFTs – Insidebitcoins

Musician Leland Wayne to release The Metroverse comic books

Story at MSN Rolling Stone

You'll need a truck: 2,000 9.8 slabbed Aftershock Comics for sale – Bleedingcool

Batman Arkham Shadow released onto Youtube

Related: all the big summer gaming IP releases this summer – Variety

"A Rare Glimpse Inside Eminem’s Massive Comic Book Collection"

Story at MSN Fandom Wire

Being a massive fan of Marvel and DC comics, the 51-year-old happens to own one of the rarest and most priceless comic books in history....

"

It's not Action Comics #1

Is Hollywood able to recover? – Hollywood Reporter

"The Summer Box Office Crisis: Is the Sky Really Falling This Time?"

The deficit has reignited the sky-is-falling debate over the future of theatrical, and whether it can survive the post-pandemic world and the rise of streaming. Box office observers agree that the ecosystem is incredibly fragile but hang on to the hope that moviegoing will pick up in the coming weeks when all-audience tentpoles Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4 and Deadpool & Wolverine come out, followed by Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in early September..."

The numbers indicate a massive contraction in the audience size for theater films.

The coming Avengers line-up: Steve Rogers, She-Hulk, Monica Rambeau, Hawkeye

Story at Gamesradar

Petrol Head comic getting film adaptation – Comicsbeat

Webtoon to go public – Lelezard

Marvel's Midnight Suns game is planned to go free beginning later this week

Story at Comicbook

Investment strategy: comic books, VHS tapes, whiskey – Market Watch MSN

In recent years, collecting has surged, both as a pastime and, perhaps more significantly, as an investment strategy. The headlines in news outlet after news outlet have underscored this phenomenon — "The Most In-Demand Investment Might Be Your Baseball Card Collection," declared The Wall Street Journal — as have some truly eye-popping sales. One case in point: A Mickey Mantle 1952 rookie card went for $12.6 million in a 2022 auction. Three decades ago, that same card sold for $50,000..."

First page art of the first Dan Dare goes to auction

Story at Downthetubes

Multiversity "Says Goodbye" – Multiversity

There’s no way to sum up my feelings about the last almost 13 years of my life, an inordinate amount of which was spent thinking about, working on, or stressing about Multiversity Comics. The site has been with me, to quote the greatest characters in all of comics, in brightest day and blackest night. I’m not going to even try. I’m just going to share some vignettes from that time that illustrate why it was all entirely worth it..."

GalaxyCon 'Hot Comic Summer' variant editions – Yahoo Finance

Ahsoka #1, Image Comics' Hack/Slash: Back to School Trade Paperback (TPB), and Mad Cave Comics' Gatchaman #1

More at the GalaxyCon "raw comics" page

April's top selling comics

Story at icv2

The eight top comic book selling websites – MSN Personal Finance

Ebay, Facebook Marketplace, Heritage Auctions, etc.

The best Batman Comic? Batman Year One gets huge artists edition

Story at Polygon

For almost 40 years, Year One has been the definitive origin story for Batman, serving as a grimy, grounded foundation for the likes of Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder, and Matt Reeves, not to mention the makers of the Arkham games, Gotham the TV series, and, thanks to Batman: The Animated Series, the entire DC Animated Universe of the ’90s and ’00s. And IDW’s Artist’s Edition, produced in partnership with DC Comics and Penguin Random House, promises to shed light on the making of the most influential Batman comic ever drawn, by reproducing David Mazzucchelli’s original page art in its original 14-by-21-inch size.

Buy it via Amazon

Page at IDW about their DC oversized artists editions for Year One plus a five-story Neal Adams book.

Comic shop etiquette – Bleedingcool

I was shocked that this Free Comic Book Day was not going well. We had people who had abandoned their pull box, not responding to our repeated calls, show up to get the free comics on Free Comic Book Day — one person who was getting all the Spawn titles before just disappearing. I even said, "Hey. I called you multiple times and never heard back about your pull box." He just replied, "Oh, I have been busy working." I bit my lip to stop myself from saying, "but not too busy to show up for free comics." I repeatedly told him the comics in his pull box were now on the shelf and in the back issue bins. Did not seem to care..."

Marvel's August book list – Comicsbeat

Don Perlin has died

Story at NY Times

Memorial Day weekend box office not so hot: Furiosa tanks

Story at NBC News

Article points out that there's not been a $100 million box office opening weekend in a quite a while. And then there's this:

Experts say this summer could see total ticket sales barely crossing the $3 billion mark compared to last summer’s $4.1 billion domestic haul..."

The summer will need a Barbie, Oppenheimer or Top Gun II of some kind to boost those numbers.

Get into the Public Domain archives that are online at Graphic Chatter

Lewis Wilson Batman

Original page May 29, 2024 | Updated July 30, 2024