Fangoria Comics, a brief imprint launched by the Creative Group, which publishes STARLOG and puts on horror conventions, has folded, although much of the material will come out elsewhere (locale unknown.) Thus ends another attempt at pamphlet publiushing — this one was marked by an aborted announcement that the company had acquired Vampirella, the venerable horror vixen. Here’s the tale in PR form:

Scott Licina, newly former executive editor of Fangoria Comics, was informed on August 22nd of the August 17th closing of the comics line at Fangoria Entertainment by parent company Creative Group.  He, the staff and the creators would like to thank their readers and are excited to announce that creator-owned projects like BUMP, beneath the valley of the rage and SHIFTER will continue, with details coming soon.
 
Regarding the closing, Licina noted, “To be honest, we’ve anticipated this possibility for quite some time, long before we finally launched on June 13, 2007 after almost a year of delays on Creative Group’s part; that was after we announced the line in July of 2006 at the San Diego Comic-Con International.  It became more and more apparent with the recent closings of several divisions and the lay-offs that accompanied them, other announced projects like VAMPIRELLA that failed to materialize and the fact that we received virtually no marketing or promotional support in any way, not even in the company’s own FANGORIA or STARLOG magazines, that there may be trouble ahead. But I couldn’t have imagined, after already soliciting and selling subscriptions for titles that ran well into the beginning of 2008, that it would be only two months and four days after our first book hit the shelves that we would be closed down. And on top of it, we were informed about the closing via a three sentence e-mail, and invoices are still outstanding.”
 
Robert Kurtzman, legendary special effects artist, director and co-creator of BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE RAGE had this comment: “The worst part of it from my perspective is that the RAGE mini-series wasn’t allowed to finish, even with only one issue left to print, and that the issue (#4) was already completed and sitting there ready to go to the printer to fulfill orders that were already placed. Simply unbelievable. But I’m happy to announce we will be getting the fourth issue out to fulfill demand and make sure our readers have the chance to get the complete series.”
  
Mark Kidwell, creator of BUMP, added, “It’s a shame really, that things were handled the way they were on the Fangoria Entertainment corporate level. All of the staff and creators at Fangoria Comics are amazing and there were (and are) some incredible stories being produced. Most of these will still be published, albeit by a different and more focused company with an eye toward the same long-term goals.”

Film producer Patrick Durham and film star Michael Madsen, co-creators of SHIFTER, made this statement: “This comes as little surprise, after we’ve seen what Scott has had to go through to get these great comics out and to let people know about them. The SHIFTER comic and crew are looking forward to the positive move we’re making, and can’t wait to start on the new endeavor. After all, it’s the same production house, where the comics are always on time and always look fantastic. We know that the extremely high quality demands we have for SHIFTER will be exceeded by Scott and the team as always, so naturally we’re thrilled to be apart of this new, exciting leap forward. Comics to film, we’ve got some exciting announcements ahead for SHIFTER!”

Licina closed with this remark- “The bottom line on Fangoria? This was fallout from major franchise-wide downsizing by Creative Group. The upside? The creators own their respective properties, series and books, and will be continuing and finishing material that’s already started. Everyone is looking at 2008 with a fresh perspective. And again, we thank the readers, retailers and distributors for all their support, and look forward to releasing more info soon.”

A new festival prize for indie comics has been announced, and will be handed out at this weekend’s Stumptown Comics Fest:

The trophies are ready and waiting to be engraved with the names of their winners. All that’s missing is your vote for the winners in six different categories: Outstanding Art, Outstanding Writing, Outstanding Publication Design, Outstanding DIY, Outstanding Small Press, and Outstanding Debut.

To be part of the Awards, come to the Fest and pick up a ballot with your program on Saturday. Vote for your favorites, and turn it in by 5:00 pm at the front desk. Then join us at the Cosmic Monkey After-Party (Cosmic Monkey Comics, 5335 NE Sandy Blvd) for the Stumptown Trophies Awards Ceremony!

The nominees are as follows. More information and links to the works are available at the Stumptown Comics Fest website, http://stumptowncomics.com/.

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This weekend is the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland! You can see all kinds of info about the indie show in the above link or read these mainstream stories:
Portland Mercury

Willamette Week

If we were in the other Portland, we’d be there!

PR:

This September 29th at 3pm at Stumptown Comic Fest in Portland Ore Shannon Wheeler announces and discusses the sequel to the first opera based on a comic book; Too Much Coffee Man Opera. Stacey Murdock and accompanist Joey Prather will perform snippets from the opera, Shannon will give a brief talk and answer questions from the audience.

The 4th Annual Stumptown Comics Fest will be held Saturday and Sunday, September 29th and 30th, at the Exhibit Hall of the Lloyd Center Doubletree Hotel (1000 NE Multnomah Ave) in Portland Ore. Admission is $5 at the door. The show is a celebration of comic books and the recognition of graphic storytelling as literature.

The Too Much Coffee Man Opera received its premiere performance at the prestigious Portland Center for the Performing Arts in October 2006. The production was a hit with local audiences and critics and will return to the PCPA for an extended engagement in April 2008. The musical score, written by Emmy Award winning composer Daniel Steven Crafts, will be musically directed by Joseph Prather, known for his collaborations and performances with Portland Opera, Portland State University and Central City Opera in Colorado.

The first and second parts of the opera will be performed together, making a 2 act 2-hour performance. The cast will have all the original performers in addition to some new players.

Ah, and speaking of barcodes, Scott King runs the letter Diamond has sent to their vendors:

Dear Vendor:

Please be advised, that, effective for product shipping to Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. (Diamond) as of January 2008, Diamond will require all items to be marked or labeled with the appropriate scanner friendly bar code. Solid packed case quantities of items should also include bar codes on the case label or case markings. The preferred placement of the bar code for printed matter is on the front or back cover.

More in link.
Steven Grant also has some of his always-informed commentary on the barcode matter:

Diamond’s logic in this is a little hard to figure out. According to their public statement, the idea is to make it easier for comics retailers to sell your comics, which suggests this is one of those expenses that will pay for itself in increased revenues. Implicit in the statement are two facts not in evidence: are there really a significant enough number of comics shops that even employ a barcode scanner checkout system, and is a barcode on a comic that isn’t otherwise selling much enough to encourage them to order (not to mention sell) significantly enough additional copies to make it worth a publisher’s while to spend the additional money? I can’t imagine a lot of comics shops, which are frequently fairly touch and go financially themselves, are going to want to shell out for a barcode scanner either, unless Diamond is somehow underwriting them but somehow that stretches credulity. I certainly haven’t been in any comic shops that use barcode scanners. If you’re does, please let me know.

While we always enjoy Steven’s commentary, this one seems to miss some of the salient points. Diamond IS attempting to persuade as many shops as possible to use a POS system, making it as affordable as possible. Bribing them, you might say. Implicit in Steven’s commentary is the basic question of “Why is Diamond doing this?” This is another question we surveyed retailers on in Baltimore a few weeks ago, and while some people gave us a straight ahead answer, others were baffled that we’d even ASK such a question: the answer is self evident. It is the way forward. It will make more money for everyone.

The mechanism for thisk, granted, is not entirely transparent. Brian Hibbs wrote a terrific Tiling at Windmills last week which addressed much of this better than we could:

As you probably know, Diamond is on the cusp of offering an “inexpensive” POS solution, with a DM-specific front-end. Some of you will recall the impact on the general level of professionalism that Carol Kalish’s cash register program (Where Marvel provided, at bulk cost, basic cash registers to a whole fleet of stores who had previously been using the “cigar box” method) had on the DM. A lot of it was incremental, but I think a Right Turn can be measured from that event, and I think the impact of POS upon the DM will be ten times greater. While I personally am unconvinced that Diamond’s platform is the best POS solution available to the Direct Market (As most of you know, I’m utterly in love with the MOBY POS system), it’s fairly clear that Diamond’s program will be a major spur for many stores to finally make the leap, because Diamond are the primary, if not sole, source for so many retailers.

Why is POS such a good thing? Several reasons, but the biggest one for our purposes is that no longer will retailers figure out what sells through based on what they WANT to sell through. With a paper and pencil method — a tally system much like a condemned man counting down the days until his execution on a prison wall — retailers may not even pay attention to books that aren’t on their personal radar. With an objective actual sell through system it may turn out that MOUSE GUARD or JOHNNY THE HOMICIDAL MANIAC sells more month in and month out than the latest Civil War or Countdown spinoff. Instead of spending time (as many retailers do) lookingon the shelves of the store to see what they’ve sold out of (a system prone to many lapses of memory) a retailer can see that they are down to one issue of, say Watchmen or Simpsons Comics, and reorder BEFORE they sell out, lessening the chances of a disappointed consumer walking out empty handed. THAT is how it makes more money.

The catch is that good retailers already noted what actually sold in their stores, and crappy retailers may still not pay attention to facts that go against what they want to sell. these retailers are more accurately hobbyists, and that’s fine. The future lies in the thin wedge of stores that are on the cusp. The converts. POS is a tool to convert more stores to selling a wider range of products.

We realize that this short summary may not have convinced the doubters. This is an important topic and it’s one we hope to return to very soon.

While we know readers love our comparative sales charts compiled monthly by Paul O’Brien and Marc-Oliver Frisch, we also know not everyone is a fan.

Several professionals have suggested in the comments section and elsewhere that the charts are a self fulfilling prophecy: retailers see a comic sliding down the charts, decide it’s a goner, start ordering less and sure enough, the book is cancelled.

We took these comments seriously enough to ask several retailers at the recent Diamond summit what they thought of this idea. The notion that we are somehow killing worthy books by running these charts is a distressing one, and we were open to taking action based on the reactions we got. Did retailers, in fact, base their orders on what comics were doing on the charts?

Among the folks we talked to, the answer was a clear no. “I make my decisions based on what sells in my store, not what’s on a chart,” said one, summarizing the general consensus. However, one person did allow that a BAD store might base their orders on something they read on the internet as opposed to actual sales charts. Depending on the number of bad stores, this could be a factor.

This is something that the advent of POS systems MAY (accent MAY) alleviate. We’ll have more on that in a future post, but for now, suffice to say that anything that gives retailers more accurate sell through numbers is a very good thing for publishers at all ends of the spectrum.

And speaking of these controversial sales charts, Marc-Oliver Frisch addresses many of the main complaints against them in this post:

As it frequently does in this context, the question of the usefulness of the available direct market sales data comes up. And not surprisingly, not everyone’s convinced of it - the most vehement criticisms, in this instance, come from creator Brian Wood (DC Comics/Vertigo’s DMZ, Oni Press’ Local). Wood is arguing, in a nutshell, that the direct market sales index information provided by Diamond Comic Distributors, the sales estimates calculated from it by ICv2.com and others, as well as the frequent publication and analysis thereof, are wrong, harmful and - that’s the impression - generally and wholesomely evil.

You should read the entire post for his thoughts.

Lots of literate stuff going on in LA, this weekend, including the West Hollywood Book Fair on Sunday, but on Saturday, there’s another worthy event taking place, with Mark Waid, Kazu Kibuishi and many more:

September 29th the Los Angeles Public Library’s Art Department is proud to present The Future of Graphic Literature at the Central Library in Downtown Los Angeles. Hosted by Joshua Hale Fialkov (Elk’s Run, Punks, Vampirella), the panel will be a meeting of the minds amongst some of L.A.’s most diverse talent. Acclaimed comics scribe Mark Waid will join the group, including Kazu Kibuishi (Flight), Christos Gage (Stormwatch:PHD, World War Hulk:X-Men, Law and Order:SVU), Ross Richie (Boom! Studios), and Tony Fleecs (In My Lifetime, Postcards).

The discussion will be Q+A style, discussing how comics have changed and evolved over the past decade from specialty shop niche product to something that’s being widely embraced by Librarians, Book Publishers, and Hollywood.

The event will be held at the Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library, in the Mark Taper Auditorium on Saturday September 29th at 2:00 pm. There will be a meet and greet style book signing after the program. There is convenient $1 parking with validation on Saturdays underneath the Library, entrance at 524 South Flower.

For more information on the event, please visit the events page of the LAPL’s website, here: http://events.lapl.org/viewEvent.cfm?eventID=9694.

The Future of Graphic Literature
September 29th, 2:00pm
Mark Taper Auditorium
Central Library
630 W. 5th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90071
(213) 228-7000

Patrick over at UGO has various script leaks on the suddenly fast-tracked JLA movie:

Ever since the JLA movie was announced people have been wondering what the storyline for the film will be about. What unites these diverse heroes to join together? Are there any villains from the Superman or Batman movies that will make their appearances? Finally we have some answers to give you today thanks to a deep cover source that’s read the script for Justice League of America and provided us with answers to some of our questions.

Of course, we know tghat Beat readers have only ONE real question: WHAT WILL JESSICA BIEL BE DOING?

– Wonder Woman is portrayed as the member that acts as defacto humanitarian and face for the League. Our source told us that the best way to describe how she is written in the script is to “think of Angelina Jolie and her relations with foreign countries.”

PR

PictureBox will be set up at The New York Art Book Fair starting this Thursday, Sept. 27th, at 6 pm. The fair will the be open Friday and Saturday, 11-7 and Sunday 11-5. Come see us on the second floor to check out our new books, including Brian Chippendale’s Maggots and Brian Belott’s Wipe That Clock Off Your Face. We are also featuring a very special, 3-D preview of our forthcoming book, Gary Panter. And much much more!

LOCATION
548 West 22nd Street (10th & 11th Aves), NYC

FAIR HOURS
Friday/Saturday, September 28/29, 2007, 11am - 7pm
Sunday, September 30, 2007, 11am - 5pm

Admission is FREE!

ICv2 wraps up the first month of NARUTO’s assault on the graphic novel sales charts:

On the eve of the release of the second three-pronged barrage of Naruto volumes it appears that the first wave of Naruto titles has fared well during its first four weeks in the market. Naruto Vols. 16, 17, and 18 have remained in the top three spots on the BookScan list of graphic novel sold in bookstores for all four weeks that they have been in full release. Though it is difficult to compare sales totals exactly it appears that Volume 18 in the series has sold almost exactly the number of copies that Volume 15 (which was released by itself in July), while Volumes 16 and 17 have sold approximately 84% and 88% of Volume 15’s total respectively. Viz Media’s plan to release 12 volumes of Naruto in four months is calculated to synch the Naruto manga in the U.S. with releases in Japan (see “Naruto Goes Nuclear”).

More in link.

PR:

VIZ Media, one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has licensed the Shonen Jump DEATH NOTE anime series to Adult Swim for domestic broadcast beginning Saturday, October 20 at midnight (EST) on the network’s popular Adult Swim block of programming. New episodes will follow each week thereafter.

Shonen Jump DEATH NOTE is a suspenseful mystery, inspired by a 12-volume manga counterpart (published in North America by VIZ Media), and follows the adventures of Light Yagami, an ace student with great prospects but who is bored out of his mind. All of that changes when he finds the Death Note, a strange notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god named Ryuk. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals mysteriously begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal - or his life?

The unique storyline and complex characters, combined with visually stunning animation by Madhouse, made Shonen Jump DEATH NOTE one of the most popular anime series in Japan and anticipation for the North American release has built steadily since VIZ Media first began publishing the manga series. Shonen Jump DEATH NOTE also spawned two successful live-action films, set for domestic distribution this year by VIZ Pictures, and a plethora of related posters, toys and action figures. VIZ Media will further release Volume 1 of DEATH NOTE, containing 4-episodes, on DVD on November 20.

“The domestic broadcast debut of DEATH NOTE has been patiently awaited by fans across the country and we are pleased to team with Adult Swim to facilitate it,” states William Germain, Director, Animation Production, VIZ Media., “The mix of drama, mystery and action has already made the Shonen Jump DEATH NOTE manga a hit and the anime series takes the characters and plot to the next level with a captivating visual style. We look forward to fans tuning in each week for the latest adventures of L and Light as they struggle to outwit each other and demonstrate conflicting ideas about right and wrong.”

Cool fun goings on over at the Golden Apple in Hollywood. On Saturday 9/29 from 2-4 at the Melrose store Bill Willingham will be signing. This its the West Hollywood Book Fair:

SUN SEPT 30 * 10AM-6PM WEST HOLLYWOOD PARK
- WEST HOLLYWOOD BOOK FAIR –
FABLES PANEL & SIGNING
- BILL WILLINGHAM & JAMES JEAN –
DAVID MACK, BILLY MARTINEZ, MARC ANDREYKO
- WIL WHEATON -
CHRISTINA BOYLAN, MIKE WELLMAN & DON HUSON, E.J SU
JESSICA ABEL, CECIL CASTELUCCI, JOSHUA DYSART
FELIPE SMITH, RICKY & TAVISHA SIMMONS
STEVE BUCELLATO, RILEY HALE

We’re a bit behind in many stories due to injuries, travel, pancakes, etc etc etc. We’re trying to clear out the queue and we’re just going to stick with the task until the next pancake attack.

Well, speak of the devil, we were just talking about his library event and now he has a new job!

Diamond Book Distributors has hired John Shableski as Sales Manager for its growing graphic novel sales to the book trade.

Shableski will be responsible for overseeing sales & marketing efforts to independent bookstores, library and school markets.

John brings twenty-one years of marketing and promotions experience to Diamond, and is recognized nationally as an industry expert on the promotion, sales and distribution of graphic novels for the library market. John formerly worked for the Brodart Company where he held the position of Graphic Novels coordinator along with Marketing and Sales Coordinator for their Tartan Books division.

“John Shableski brings to Diamond Book Distributors and our publishers a wealth of experience, energy and contacts. We look forward to his contributions to help our publishers increase their business in the growing educational and independent bookstore markets,” said Kuo-Yu Liang, Diamond Book Distributors VP of Sales and Marketing.

Diamond Book Distributors is a division of Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., the world’s largest distributor of English-language comic books and related merchandise. Diamond Book Distributors is dedicated to making a wide selection of graphic novels and other pop culture collectibles available to the book market.

Have experienced some travel related “setbacks.” Posting delayed while we ice and elevate.

Some catch-up blogging of photo-filled fests of comical types going places and doing things. Remember when you had to go over to someone’s house and sit through hours of boring slides? Thanks to the internet now you can just click and scroll!

§ PictureBox goes to Greece! Much artwork ensues. (Above)

§ Jeff Smith goes to Spain. This always involves dinner (above).

§ Chris Butcher goes to Japan with the most obsessive set of photos we may have ever seen (above).

ForeWord Magazine writes up a recent graphic novel event for librarians.
\

It may have been the first all-day event for librarians devoted exclusively to the graphic novel. Graphic novel consultant John Shableski and librarians from the Harborfields Public Library, headed by Director Carol Albino, assembled a mesmerizing series of panels and speakers early this month, sponsored by the Suffolk (NY) Cooperative Library System, and coordinated by librarian Barbara Moon.

Shableski set the stage by pointing out that virtually “every major publisher now has a graphic novel imprint and now they’re trying to figure out what works.” He noted that the graphic novel (GN) is to publishing today very much as rock and roll was when it first entered the music industry mainstream: a strange format already familiar to the popular culture but not yet understood by the established distribution channels.

Rex Libris creator James Turner has created a Map of Humanity which you can see in greater detail and even purchase at the SLG website.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

DC Comics’ average numbers slightly recovered in August, thanks to continued strong sales of the “Sinestro Corps War” crossover storyline, solid first-issue numbers of various 52 spin-off titles including the ongoing Booster Gold series by writer Geoff Johns and artist Dan Jurgens, and a sudden, mysterious sales increase for Countdown - or so Diamond would like us to believe, at least. August also saw the final issue of writer Brad Meltzer’s Justice League of America, the debut of the first proper Countdown spin-off title and the latest Flash relaunch.

For the average sales of the publisher’s Vertigo and WildStorm imprints, respectively, August 2007 represented a new historical low, meanwhile - and it’s the third consecutive month you can say that about WildStorm, actually. The number of solicited titles failing to ship went up from none in July to four in August, with All Star Superman, Superman Confidential, Trials of SHAZAM! and Vertigo’s Testament not showing up in stores. To be fair, DC have made a lot of progress lately in that area, but obviously there’s still room for improvement, particularly with the publisher’s line of Superman books.

On an altogether different note, much has been said on the accuracy and usefulness of the Diamond charts, the resulting sales estimates and their analysis of late. Responding to some of the points made goes beyond the scope of this column, so I’ve done it here instead, for anyone who’s interested.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

2 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
08/2001: JLA #57            —  69,451*
08/2002: JLA #69            —  62,577*
08/2003: JLA #84            —  59,130
08/2003: JLA #85            —  58,380
08/2004: JLA #103           —  61,719
08/2004: JLA #104           —  60,750
08/2005: JLA #117           —  87,995 [ 89,163]
————————————–
08/2006: Justice League #1  — 212,581 (+ 30.9%) [251,266]
09/2006: Justice League #2  — 143,412 (- 32.5%) [158,480]
10/2006: –
11/2006: Justice League #3  — 140,939 (-  1.7%) [143,310]
12/2006: Justice League #4  — 136,709 (-  3.0%) [139,123]
12/2006: Justice League #5  — 132,460 (-  3.1%) [133,924]
01/2007: –
02/2007: –
03/2007: Justice League #6  — 130,099 (-  1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7  — 154,984 (+ 19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8  — 130,365 (- 15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9  — 129,285 (-  0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (-  0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (-  5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+  7.0%)
—————–
6 months:   n.a.
1 year  : - 38.2%
2 years : + 76.7%

The conclusion of writer Brad Meltzer’s run gets a nice little sales increase. It’s probably gimmick-driven for the most part, though, because there were three different cover editions of the issue, instead of the usual two; in addition to the usual 1-for-10 one, there was also a 50/50 variant cover edition this time around.

As someone correctly pointed out last month, by the way, that’s indeed “1-for-10,” and not “1-in-10.” After all, the point is that retailers have to order ten units of the regular edition to get one copy of the limited edition from DC. I think I’ve been wrongly referring to them as “1-in-10″ editions for months now, and you have my apologies for that.

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The Walt Disney company has emerged victorious in a 16-year court battle over the rights to Winnie the Pooh. A California appellate court upheld an earlier ruling that threw out the case filed by the family of Stephen Slesinger, who had acquired the merchandising rights to the ursine honey-lover from creator A. A. Milne in the 30s.

A major reason for Disney’s triumph was behavior on the part of the Slesinger legal team: they were caught “dumpster diving” to find evidence and even worse, tampering with the evidence to help their case. The decision may be precedent setting.

“We hold that when a plaintiff’s deliberate and egregious misconduct makes any sanction other than dismissal inadequate to ensure a fair trial, the trial court has inherent power to impose a terminating sanction,” the 54-page ruling concluded.

The battle over the bear has cost the two sides tens of millions of dollars in legal fees and resulted in hundreds of thousands of documents filed in lawsuits that have come before at least four judges in California and federal courts.

“The message is loud and clear that if you cheat in the courts you forfeit your rights to the courts,” said Daniel Petrocelli, Disney’s lead attorney in the Pooh case. “Eventually, all of the cheating came to light and the case was rightfully thrown out.”

The Slesingers can still appeal to the California Supreme Court, so there still could be some legal Heffalumps lurking in the 100 Acre Wood.

PW reports the joyous news that ZOT will be reprinted by Harper Collins:

Acclaimed comics artist and theoretician Scott McCloud will see his classic comics series, Zot!, republished by HarperCollins as an original trade paperback edition in July 2008. One of McCloud’s earliest extended works of fiction, Zot! is a seminal work that reflects the influence of both manga and the emerging alternative comics scene on McCloud’s comics. The book was also instrumental to the creation of Understanding Comics, his groundbreaking theoretical work on the comics medium. The HC book deal was negotiated by the Judith Hansen Literary Agency.

The first 10 issues, which Eclipse printed in full color, will not be reprinted in this volume.

Believe it or not, we still haven’t had time to read the Zuda contracts.But lots of other people have! Johanna has an excellent summary of opinion so far, she catches Chris Butcher’s dire warnings

It’s nice to be paid a page-rate for your work and all, but that $14,000 salary cap ($1000 purchase price plus 52 weeks @ $250/strip) seems to be pretty limiting, in terms of the potential revenue that could be generated off of a successful webcomic. It’s not bad money I guess, but here’s the thing… It’s less than the money you would make doing a half-page of comics art at DC or Veritgo even, and it also involves selling off the intellectual property for your work for an unlimited amount of time (seriously, at $500 a year, Time Warner could quite easily afford to pay you that fuck-off money forever). The idea that you should fully own what you fully create? It’s a good one, and one that I feel should be taken seriously. I also personally feel that every time someone takes a very bad deal like this, it makes it that much easier for publishers to OFFER very bad deals.

Is it a bad deal? We can’t say, not having read it yet, although the analyses we’re reading so far sound pretty in line with what Marvel and DC usually offer. From what we’re hearing, some Zuda creators are getting a different contract, however, so that should be kept in mind.

While the reversion clause sounds pretty onerous, DC does let some properties revert — we can think of BREATHTAKER by Mark Hempel and OUTLAW NATION off the top of our head. Of course, these properties are not exactly V FOR VENDETTA and ROAD TO PERDITION. Suffice to say that if you have something that you really think is the next Ctl+Alt+Del or Pearls Before Swine, Zuda probably isn’t your best bet.

Anyway, more reax:
Tom Spurgeon
T Campbell
Gary Tyrell 0
Gary Tyrell 1
Gary Tyrell 2
Joey Manley with the title “Who Wants to be a Thousandaire.”
More later.

Pretty much everything of interest in the Nate Fisher/Eightball case has been said, until Fisher himself speaks, perhaps, but a few late comments are worth noting. We found these through our own trackbacks (Our story got Boing Boinged yesterday, sending our hits and trackbacks through the roof.) but if anyone knows of any other USEFUL commentary, send us a link.
First, Eric Reynolds has his final say on the matter. We encourage everyone to read it for themselves, as its quite thoughtful. Nut kernal:

I appreciate any parent wanting to protect their children, but in this case, would the child be any less protected if a solution that didn’t include a police investigation and/or immediate resignation had been pursued? To me, that’s the fundamental question.

Another interesting perspective is from a blog called Minivan Diaries, which the sidebar tells us, is written by a mother of four who once planned to be a children’s advocate:

However, at what cost and to what extremes do we go to protect our children? Isn’t it also our job to be good role models for our kids, especially when they are teenagers and they judge our behavior so scrupulously? By rushing to the police, and notifying school officials, she denied the teacher any opportunity to explain himself. He was guilty way before he even had a chance to prove his innocence, or at least his poor judgement. This was a perfect opportunity for a Parental Teaching moment — to demonstrate how adults work out differences by gathering facts, communicating, trying to understand both sides of an issue, and in this case, realizing that people, even teachers are human and they make mistakes.

After reading all of the hullabaloo, it’s pretty clear that mistakes were made on every side. I don’t think anyone would question the right or duty of parents to protect their kids. Hopefully the next time something like this happens, more private discussion will occur before the media decides to have its own field day.

The mighty Canadian Loonie continues its assault on the now-dinky American Dollar :

After sinking steadily for most of the year, the U.S. greenback hit a record low against the euro and declined against the yen yesterday. But nothing hits closer to home, literally, than seeing it fall to a 31-year low against the Canadian loonie, so nicknamed for the bird pictured on its coin. The dollar’s slide is affecting every corner of American life, from corporate earnings to vacation plans. But more disturbingly, it also has the potential to punish the very mortgage holders that the Federal Reserve intended to help with its aggressive interest rate cut last week.

While we don’t understand this kind of money talk, Don MacPherson has more on how this affects outtmost favorite people…COMIC BOOK PEOPLE.:

Eye on Comics inquired with major U.S. publishers about the discrepancy. Image Comics executive director Eric Stephenson said the company is aware of the issue.

“We’ve been reviewing pricing on a quarterly basis, but I think we’re going to address this fairly shortly,” he said.

A Marvel spokesperson issued a similar statement.

“We’re working on adjustments now that should take effect in a few weeks,” said Marvel sales co-ordinator Arune Singh. Exactly what kind of pricing change might arise on the covers of Marvel and Image titles was not made clear.

A DC spokesman declined to comment, stating the company didn’t want to issue a statement regarding pricing at this time. Each spokesperson was asked how a Canadian price is determined, but none offered a response on that issue.

Much more in the link, including how it affects Canadian creators. We canonly say that the Canadians have once again shown themselves to be the most sensible people on earth by heartily embracing the one dollar coin, even though it has a picture of a bird with a name synonymous with insanity on it. That is practical!

Via several blogs, The U.S.S. Catastrophe Shop is up again for a bit — time to grab those minis and limited edition goodies while you can!