Rolling Comic Books 2020 Visions

Junji Ito's Lovesickness coming in April

I'm impressed how thorough the database is becoming, still a lot of smaller creators I can't find but there's even serialized magazine listings for the bigger creators.
Didn't realize the Violence Jack was quite long. I liked the look of some of this I've seen years ago but I've come to assume all the best Go Nagai art has a lot of help from assistants.
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/violence-jack/4050-48159/

https://i.imgur.com/EeKnCKc_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

Just tried to read some graphic novel called Gang of Fools which is so bad I'm about to give up. (It takes a lot to get me to that point) Like, I get that it's fun to make a crazy alternate world and skip around a lot with the edgy characters/settings/dialogue, but the artwork is so bad it's unreadable at points.

infinity 8 is fucking amazing btw

Kurt Busiek is sort of producing a series of Marvels-themed one-shots called Marvels: Snapshots, each focusing on a different hero and done by a different creative team, covers by Alex Ross. This is sort of to hype up his new ongoing The Marvels series. Pretty slept on, though I'm sure they'll be collected when finished.

(Not to be confused with the also Busiek-related Marvel #1 one-shot, or the Marvels X series which is a prequel to Earth X, sheesh. All of these have Alex Ross covers for maximum confusion.)

They've all been pretty decent, but this one I just read was great - Marvels: Snapshots - Captain America #1, written by Mark Russell. Taking place in grimy old '70s NYC, focuses on a young black man whose life gets altered when a supervillain "madbomb" attack causes massive violence throughout the city. The other boroughs get "fixed", but not the South Bronx, and his neighborhood and family business go to ruin. As a result, the kid loses out on college and he ends up joining AIM to make ends meet. Good story. (Bleeding Cool review here, to see about half the issue.)

Never read any Ito. Anywhere good to start?

Uzumaki, probably.

Fanta's virtual comicon schedule

Thursday, July 7/23, 4:00pm — Teaching and Making Comics
Ebony Flowers (Hot Comb), Roman Muradov (Vanishing Act), Trina Robbins (Flapper Girls), and Sophie Yanow (The Contradictions) are four vital cartoonists who have taught classes on comics themselves. They speak with James Sturm (Off Season) about their teaching philosophy, and how teaching has transformed their perspectives on the comics canon and their own work.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/I6A6OT1xr6U

Friday, July 7/24, 11:00am — TragiComics
Tom Gauld (Department of Mind-Blowing Theories), Simon Hanselmann (Bad Gateway), John Pham (J & K), Walter Scott (Wendy, Master of Art), and Rikke Villadsen (Cowboy) tackle complex subjects–and they are funny doing it! These five cartoonists speak to Graeme McMillan (The Hollywood Reporter) about how they use humor to process and respond to the difficulties and oddities of life.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/UuQ66Yw7Td0

Friday, July 7/24, 2:00pm — I Am Not Okay With This: From the Page to the Screen!
Cartoonist Charles Forsman (I Am Not Okay With This, The End of the F***ing World), director Jonathan Entwistle (I Am Not Okay With This, The End of the F***ing World), and actor Wyatt Oleff (It, I Am Not Okay With This) trace the evolution of the critically-acclaimed Netflix series I Am Not Okay With This back to its beginnings as an original graphic novel! Moderated by the book’s editor and Fantagraphics associate publisher, Eric Reynolds.
YouTube:https://youtu.be/RhgZSUbXJE8

Saturday, July 7/25, 12:00pm — Spotlight on The Cloven: With Garth Stein and Matthew Southworth
This panel will spotlight the debut sci-fi graphic novel collaboration by author Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain) and cartoonist Matthew Southworth (Stumptown). These two pacific northwestern creators have teamed up to create a one-of-a-kind story steeped in its Seattle roots. The Cloven: Book One is the first installment of this dynamic, atmospheric, and wryly funny graphic novel trilogy by two bestselling and critically acclaimed storytellers. Moderated by the book’s editor and Fantagraphics associate publisher, Eric Reynolds. YouTube: https://youtu.be/KQ-qOo1rGZw

Saturday, July 7/25, 6:00pm — Fantagraphics and IDW: Classic Comics Reprints
Classic comic reprints give readers of all ages a chance to read comic classics in new and exciting ways. Join moderator Karen Green (curator for comics and cartoons, Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library) and panelists Dean Mullaney (The Library of American Comics creative director), Peter Maresca (founder and publisher of Sunday Press), and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics associate publisher) for a celebration of comic classics.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/7hoB7LgbjMU

Sunday, July 7/26, 6:00pm — Masters of Style: Woodring, Fleener, Muradov and Hernandez
The diverse but instantly recognizable styles of master cartoonists Jim Woodring (The Frank Book, Poochytown), Mary Fleener (Life of the Party, Billie the Bee), Roman Muradov (Vanishing Act), and Gilbert Hernandez (Love and Rockets) inspire many admirers and imitators. Join them for a discussion of line, color, abstraction, and the choice to hone (or not to hone) a single visual style of the course of a comics career. Moderated by Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/2ybAhDDsMvQ

https://hermespress.com/products/ditko-shrugged-the-uncompromising-life-of-the-artist-behind-spider-man-and-the-rise-of-marvel-comics-pre-order

I just found out about this. I'm very skeptical I'll learn much from it (and why so expensive?) but the decade worth of correspondence, new interviews with various creators and family involvement are probably enough for me.

This from the amazon page

“WALLY WOOD AND STEVE DITKO GOT ON WELL BECAUSE THEY SHARED A MUTUAL HATRED OF STAN LEE” - RALPH REESE

Ooft, shipping to the UK as expensive as the book.

Hideousness of the computer colours aside, lol that they have a special zoom-in function so you can see the super-janky zaggies on the terrible scan.

The cover on amazon has different coloring so I'm guessing one or both of them is not the final cover.

Also: it's only 208 pages, so where is the cost coming from? Maybe all the letters are scanned? I might wait for reviews before I jump.

https://comicsdc.blogspot.com/2020/07/quarantining-coronavirus-through-comics.html

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dc-comics-dc-universe-hit-by-major-layoffs-1306743

^^ Pulled out of Diamond altogether, switching all their periodical distribution to two mail-order companies, no international distribution to comic shops.

In normal times, this would definitely be a case of pointing and laughing when, like Heroes World, the plan flops. This seems so much more speedily doomed to failure that the only thing that makes sense is that it's intended as a strongarm move to get better terms out of Diamond.

However, decisions from DC that make sense have not been a core business strategy for about the last 15 years.

― an, uh, razor of love (sic), Saturday, June 6, 2020 9:27 AM (two months ago)

This went well, then.

AFAICT they are (at least in part) paying for the sins of HBO Go? Such fun to be part of a big corporate family!

There was an interesting post about this from the comics writer/researcher Peter Sanderson on his Facebook page:

Back in the 1980s Warners apparently toyed with the idea of shutting down DC and outsourcing the publishing rights to Marvel. I was in a Marvel editorial meeting at which we discussed which DC titles we should publish if we got the rights. (I pushed for a "New Gods" book.) Now I wonder if it might come to the point that AT & T decides to outsource the comics publishing rights to DC characters. But who would get them? Marvel? IDW? Dark Horse? Would some characters end up at one company and other DC characters at another?

Shooter had a very brief opportunity to buy DC outright IIRC? And decided against it?

http://jimshooter.com/2011/08/superman-first-marvel-issue.html/

Ahh, yes. Thank you for that.

LOL, of course Shooter decided that one of the seven launch titles would be LOSH.

Wow, so it didn't happen because Marvel was fighting off an anti-trust lawsuit at the time. It would've been mindblowing to my child self to see that happen, I remember having such an interest in that X-Men/Teen Titans crossover story.

That story is incredible! I didn’t know DC was in such dire straits back then.

I dunno if they were in unusual dire straits, so much as adapting to shifting their business to full-sale instead of sale-or-shred - 1984 would have been the time of the first Baxter books, with New Teen Titans experimenting with One Year Later vs LSH trying out parallel stories on the newstand. Crisis was already in prep, and their creative renaissance was ramping up solidly by 1985.

A big boss at Warner Communications would probably have just been looking at some balance sheets, and not giving any shrift to. effectively, a brand new retail channel.

of course marvel filed for bankruptcy in the 90's
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1996/12/28/marvel-entertainment-files-for-bankruptcy-protection/73bb4597-3076-48eb-a113-1b5f8e654a6a/

that was because Perelman bought it for $80million and then ran up $700million debt on toy companies, sticker companies, trading card companies and... pulling out of the distribution market and attempting to run their own distro through a too-small shell company. HMMM

if DC hadn't done their version during a pandemic, they probably would have tried to open a national chain of DC Universe toy shops / theme restaurants as well

DC appointing a new General Manager from the eSports division instead of an Editor-in-Chief, starting Friday 18th September

the Director of Publishing Operations, a 28-year veteran of DC (one of their longest employees) is among the fired, and those laid off are required to work 2-3 months notice.

Odds on print publishing being shut down by Christmas?

No one with any decision-making ability has had any idea what to do with DC in a very, very long time.

Or, well, I guess driving the whole thing into a wall at top speed is a decision of sorts.

a very, very long time

it's only eleven years since Nelson replaced Levitz.

I guess that might feel like a very, very long time if I'd bought more than a dozen or so DC comics in that period tbf

It feels like a very, very long time to me BECAUSE I've only bought a (few) dozen or so DC titles in that period.

waitasec, Batman Inc. ran until 2013, I bought a few dozen too

Hope they at least finish Dark Nights: Death Metal

*looks that up*

Dark Nights: Death Metal #1–7

Writer Scott Snyder
Penciller Greg Capullo
Inker Jonathan Glapion
Colorist FCO Plascencia

Dark Nights: Death Metal: Multiverse's End

Writer James Tynion IV
(artist) Juan Gedeon
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: Legends of the Dark Knights

Writer Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Marguerite Bennett, Joshua Williamson, Peter J. Tomasi, Garth Ennis, Daniel Warren Johnson, Frank Tieri
Penciller Tony S. Daniel, Jamal Igle, Joëlle Jones, Daniel Warren Johnson, Riley Rossmo, Francesco Francavilla
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: Infinite Hour Exxxtreme!

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Last 52: War of the Multiverses

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal The Last Stories of the DCU

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Multiverse Who Laughs

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Secret Origin

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

would be a shame to miss out on this well-planned passion project for sure

it's fun!

^ TBC

Yeah, it's really not.

this was the year I went hard on Ben Passmore and bought a small pile of his work and joined his Patreon.
He's great! BTTM FDDRS is one of the best comics of the last five years.
https://www.radiatorcomics.com/creator/ben-passmore/
https://www.instagram.com/daygloayhole/
his new book, Sports is Hell, looks great.

yeah BTTM FDDRS is some wild stuff

Is there really, even theoretically, meant to be a thing called 'Dark Nights: Death Metal: Infinite Hour Exxxtreme!'. I would not expect sic to lie, but this seems unlikely, even for DC.

https://i.imgur.com/agTaBRa.jpg
Writers: Becky Cloonan and Frank Tieri!

After posting, I regretted not moving it to the end of the list so it would look like I had made it up

I am sorry for doubting you for even a half-second.

The director of the CBLDF was removed last month from his position, 14 years after police investigations into sexual assault complaints against him at conventions. TCJ subsequently reported on sexual harassment & bullying he enaged in at work.

An interim director was appointed today, an "attorney and ethics director" whose previous role involved "work on ethics issues ..advising government officials," and who is a member of the Ethics Committee at Kering Americas. In the press release announcing his hiring, he quotes 'my favorite comic book sequence of all time, the last issue of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol: "There is another world. A better world. Well... there must be."'

The ethics-focused lawyer for the artists' rights org does not cite that Morrison was quoting Asleep by The Smiths.

Ugh. An ugly story

Axed at DC in the last 8 weeks or so:

Metal Men (mini)
Batman's Grave (mini)
Hellblazer
Lucifer
Books of Magic
Amethyst
House Of Whispers
Batgirl
Aquaman
Batman & The Outsiders
Justice League Odyssey
Red Hood: Outlaw
Teen Titans
Young Justice
Harley Quinn
Hawkman
Suicide Squad
Supergirl
The Terrifics
Shazam!
Manhunters: The Secret History (bumped & unpublished)
Event Leviathan: Checkmate (wtf) (bumped & unpublished)

Bumped from May publication but not yet cancelled:
Flash Forward
Generation Zero: Gods Among Us
Generation One: Age of Mysteries
Generation Two: Age of the Metahuman
Generation Three: Age of Crisis
Generation Four: Age of Rebirth
Generation Five: Age of Tomorrow

plus 18x $1 Comics reprints, 4x Facsimile editions, and 5 ongoing Giant Comics for Walmart, including a Wonder Woman 1984 movie tie-in.

They've also confirmed that the TV content on the DC subscription service will be moving to HBO Max, fwiw.

This leaves approx 15 titles still being published as of November; they also had an online "Fandome" (wtf) convention scheduled, but many of the panels are being cancelled due to AT&T firing the talent shortly after pre-recording the panels the other week.

Jim Lee, in a hilariously content-free, management-jargon-filled interview with the Hollywood Reporter, suggests that their publishing strategy going forward will mostly be unpublished inventory and foreign licences, released digitally.

Small note that Batman's Grave being shitcanned is because it's written by Warren Ellis.

I was reading (on and off) almost all of these.

Batman's Grave was okay, basically a compendium of Ellis-isms so your enjoyment is going to be predicated on your patience with his writing tics (which came across to me this time as Neal Adams-noir) and his repugnant reputation.

The current run of Books of Magic was readable. Spurrier's current run on Hellblazer was actually very good and very much worth reading.

I either don't have much of anything to say and/or I did not like the rest.

DC is fucked, badly.