Sea Lion Books Signs Distribution Deal With Diamond

Sea Lion Books, the new publishing house from David and Pascal Dabel, has signed a distribution deal with Diamond Comics Distributors to distribute their new line of novels and graphic novels, which includes works from such bestsellers as Paul Coelho, P.C. Cast and Richard A. Knaak. Pascal and David Dabel are two of the four Dabel brothers behind the ambitious but troubled comics company Dabel Brothers, which helped set off the literary adaptation graphic novel wave.

David Hine Defends His “Muslim Batman” on BBC Radio

Comics creator David Hine discussed his creation Nightrunner, the controversial new Muslim DC Comics character who has been described as the “Batman of Paris”, on BBC Radio earlier this week. It is available online worldwide in streaming audio here.

Make-A-Wish Foundation at New Orleans Comic Con

The Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization which is devoted to comforting terminally ill children by helping to grant their otherwise unreachable dreams, will be appearing at this year's New Orleans Comic Con, promoting their new Electron Boy comic book. Last April, the foundation granted 14 year-old cancer patient Erik Martin's wish to be a superhero for a day by providing him with a custom superhero costume and “villains” to defeat in the guise of the original superhero Electron Boy. Artists from Capstone Comics Publishing have created a comic based on Martin's superhero persona and will be appearing at the New Orleans Comic Con to promote the book. All proceeds go to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

New The Demon Mini-series from Sam Kieth and Scott Ian

Acclaimed comics artist Sam Kieth and writer and Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian are teaming up again, this time to create a The Demon mini-series for DC Comics. The Demon refers to the DC character Jason Blood, an immortal medieval knight and the rhyming demon Etrigan who is cursed to share his body. Kieth and Ian previously teamed up for last year's successful mini-series Lobo: Highway to Hell.

Beetle Bailey Gets a Fashion Line

Beetle Bailey, the long-running newspaper comic strip about an enlisted everyman, has been given a fashion line. Fashion designers Darren Romanelli of the label Dr. Romanelli and Hitoshi Tsujimoto of Japanese fashion company The Real McCoys have teamed up with Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker to create a limited edition line of Beetle Bailey fashions. The line will be unveiled at New York's Project X fashion expo on January 16-18. More details are available here.

This Week @ Good Comics For Kids

This week School Library Journal’s blog Good Comics for Kids had a review of Alice the 101st Vol. 1-2, what the GC4K bloggers are reading this week, covered Top Shelf's new kids line, and the 1/5 roundup of good comics for kids.

This Week @ The Beat

This week PWCW editor Heidi MacDonald’s blog The Beat says Robert Kirkman was 2010's Person of the Year in comics and covers Diamond's December 2010 comics sales number in helpful graphs and raw sales charts, Jim Woodring's giant pen, and Torsten Adair's 2010 Year in Review. Also, enjoy the results of The Beat's all-star Year End Survey one, two, three and four.