Detective Comics Wins GLAAD Media Award

From DC’s The Source:

This past Saturday, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation took a moment to honor writer Greg Rucka and artists J.H. Williams III and Cully Hamner’s work on DETECTIVE COMICS’ Batwoman by naming the book the year’s “Outstanding Comic Book” at their 21st Media Awards, held in New York City.

A description of the awards, from the GLAAD site: “The GLAAD Media Awards elevate and promote fair, accurate and inclusive stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues, people and allies that have increased awareness, understanding and respect for the lives of LGBT people. The GLAAD Media Awards also fund GLAAD’s work to amplify stories of LGBT people and issues that build support for equality.”

I have a feeling that this will be the first of many awards this year for the Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III run on Detective Comics. Congratulations to everyone who was involved with the production of this title. Other titles up for the award included X-Factor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Secret Six, and Madame Xanadu.

J.

GLAAD honors DETECTIVE COMICS as Outstanding Comic Book/The Source

JMS to Take Over Writing Wonder Woman… and That Superman Guy Too

The above pic is not at all related. It was just a chance for me to post one of my favorite covers ever.

J. Michael Straczynski via DC’s The Scource:

For as long as I’ve been doing conventions (starting in the early Cretaceous period, when it was just me and a handful of pterosaurs on a panel debating whether or not mammals with opposable thumbs were really necessary to the writing of quality comics, a point still hotly debated today), there has always been the same question from folks in the audience: “Is there any one character who is your dream character to write for?” The answer has always been the same: Superman. When I first came over to DC, that dream was realized in part by Dan DiDio’s gracious invitation to write the first of potentially many Superman original graphic novels. Now the dream has come fully true with the opportunity to write for the mainstream title, in a story that returns Superman to his roots in a way that will have the whole country talking about him in ways that we haven’t seen in a long time.

Similarly, the chance to write Wonder Woman — the nearest analogue to Superman in the DCU — is massively exciting. She’s a vital, powerful character, and we hope to bring a more contemporary sensibility to her character will retaining everything that makes her unique.

That DC is willing to jump-start these two runs in the pages of their respective anniversary issues is a great opportunity and a vote of confidence in what we have planned for these characters. I’m looking forward to this with more excitement than words can convey.

It’s gonna be a blast.

Well, it looks like Grant Morrison won’t be taking over the monthly Wonder Woman book (yet?) as many of us were speculating last week. Turns out that honor is going to J. Michael Straczynski starting in July with issue #601. This news kinda came out of nowhere but I must admit it’s an interesting choice. His current run on Brave and the Bold has been quite entertaining in my opinion and it will be good to see JMS break out of the confines of the one and done story format in the DC Universe. No artist has been announced as of yet but hopefully Nicola Scott will be remaining on the book.

Oh, I almost forgot, JMS will also be taking over the writing chores for some character called Superman as well starting with issue #701.

Read more about this news by clicking here and here.

J.

CCW*TV vs George Lucas!

Well…not exactly.

Official Movie Poster for "The People VS George Lucas"

Hey folks, Elliott here with a fun bit of news. A couple months ago, the folks behind the indie documentary The People Versus George Lucas approached Jose and I and asked for permission to use some clips of our show in their film. The movie is a chronicle of Star Wars fandom, specifically those who weren’t all too pleased with how Lucas created the ‘special editions’ and prequels. I don’t know how much of an appearance Jose and I make, but the director tells me we do pop up in the film TWICE! It debuts at SXSW March 12, 2010.

You can view the trailer over on the Geek To Me blog!

Can CCW*TV: The Movie be far behind?  Hmmmmmmm….

Persona 3 Portable to be Realeased in North America in July

And the Saga Continues

Tom Brevoort via Twitter via Robot 6:

We heard from a number of retailers who got stuck with books chasing rings and decided to do something. We’re not making any money on the deal, but we are helping our retailer partners during a tough economic time. Making sure that our retailers can keep the doors open if they tied up a lot of cash on inventory they can’t move. We’re doing this because we’re in the business of selling content rather than Cracker Jack prizes. And we need retailers to be able to keep the lights on and afford to order next month’s books. [Marvel won’t be accepting trade-ins for unsold Dark Reign and The List books] because there, what we were selling and what the retailers were buying were the books. But DC can if they want to! Retailers ordered those books for the content–that’s part of the job, knowing your clientele. I think smart retailers know how to gauge the interests of their clientele most of the time and order appropriately

I don’t know about you guys but I believe this has become fucking ridiculous. Head over to Robot 6 to read the rest and then come back here and let us know your thoughts.

J.

CCW Question of the Week

This week’s question:

What are your thoughts on this?

Official Marvel Press Release

In an effort to provide assistance to comic retailers in 2010, Marvel is offering retailers an opportunity to turn unsold comics into an extremely rare Siege #3 Deadpool Variant!

Retailers – for every 50 stripped covers of the following comics sent to Marvel, you will qualify to receive one FREE Siege #3 Deadpool Variant. The 50 stripped covers can be any combination of the comics listed below and all submissions need to be received at the Marvel office at the address below by Tuesday 2/16/2010. Also included with the stripped covers must be your store contact information including Diamond Account # and email address.

Stripped Covers To Be Sent:
Adventure Comics #4
Booster Gold #26
Doom Patrol #4
Justice League Of America #39
Outsiders #24
R.E.B.E.L.S #10

Address To Send Submission:
James Nausedas
Marvel Entertainment, LLC
417 Fifth Avenue, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10016

Information To Be Included With Submission:
Store Name
Store Address
Contact Person
Email Address
Phone Number
Diamond Account #
List of stripped covers being returned and their quantities

All the directions above must be adhered to in order to receive the free Siege #3 Deadpool Variants and the submissions must be received by Tuesday 2/16/2010 in order to qualify.

Please note that this is not a Diamond-affiliated promotion and Diamond should not be contacted. Retailers will be contacted via email once Marvel receives the submissions. Retailer with further questions should contact helpme@marvel.com

To clarify: those titles were all the Blackest Night tie-in books that were part of DC’s ring promotion.

As for my answer, I will either devote an entire post to this in the next day or may just wait for the CCW*TV tapings on Sunday. I haven’t decided yet. Either way this doesn’t really sit well with me.

More info can be found here.

J.

F*ck Kick-Ass and Give Me Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Holy shit did this picture put a smile on my face (Thanks Ironmuskrat). Chances are if you like the Scott Pilgrim comic (published by Oni Press) you probably have a smile on your face as well. Talk about capturing the characters perfectly. This is THE comic book movie I am looking forward to the most this year. Ya, I’m kinda sorta looking forward to Iron Man 2 and I could really give two shits about Kick-Ass. But Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? Awesome cast, awesome director (Edgar Wright) and awesome source material. I couldn’t really ask for anything more. Well…except for maybe a trailer. Hope we don’t have to wait till San Diego to see one.

One more pic and the film’s info can be found at the link below.

J.

First Official Photos: Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World/Slash Film.com

A New Manga First Printing Record Set in Japan

From Anime News Netowrk:

The Japanese publisher Shueisha is producing 2.85 million copies of the 56th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece pirate manga — the largest print run that any Japanese manga has ever had in its first printing. The volume will ship on December 4. Since the manga began in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1997, Shueisha has printed 176 million copies. The previous volume, volume 55, sold 1,487,845 copies in its first week and 1,720,884 copies in the first five weeks.

Now, that’s just for one volume. To put that into perspective for our American readers Marvel Comics, the number one publisher in the U.S., sold 2.66 million total units in all of October. Those numbers can be found here. The top selling comic in October was Blackest Night #4 which sold 137,000 copies.

The American comic industry has had it’s ups and down for the last couple of decades but it still has a long way to go. Can you imagine the day where Amazing Spider-Man, Detective Comics or Invincible could individually sell 2 million copies? Ya, neither can I.

J.

Anime News Network

Final Fantasy XIII Launches March 9th, 2010