Even the failure of a major book retail chain couldn’t put a damper on this year’s San Diego Comic-con international. Attendance is capped at about 130,000—still not a bad crowd—and the show featured big announcements about forthcoming graphic novels, digital delivery and more than a few blockbuster movies and TV shows. And publishers contacted by PW Comics World seemed happy with the sales of books at their booths and the number of media outlets on hand to write about them.
Yes, there was plenty of movie news: Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming The Adventures of Tintin, the opening of the Captain America blockbuster, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, The Amazing Spider-Man and much ado about Joss Whedon’s forthcoming Avenger’s film. But there were big book announcements as well, starting with on the return to publishing of Frank Miller, whose newest graphic novel, Holy Terror, will be published in the fall by Legendary Comics, the comics imprint of film producer Legendary Entertainment. Former DC Comics editor Bob Schreck is running the Legendary Comics line and plans new (and revised) books from Paul Pope as well as Matt Wagner.
Don't forget to check out photographs from Comic-con and photos of kids comics at the show.
DC Comics literally had its own track of programming just to respond to all the questions and speculation about relaunching its entire list with new #1 issues, new storylines and some tweaks to classic uniforms--that will always get the fanbase all riled up. Popular comics and TV writer Brian K. Vaughan is moving to Image to release a new science fiction series called Saga with art by Fiona Staples and on preview night Dark Horse announced a trio of new comics series by non-comics creators. Later this year Dark Horse will release comics by YA novelist PC Cast, Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello and Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro.
Josh Hayes, Diamond Book Distributors director of sales and marketing, said it was a “good show for announcements” and ticked off projects he liked and books he expected to do well: The Legendary Comics launch; Image’s Morning Glories series, naturally Kirkman’s The Walking Dead (both the comic and the TV Show). He also pointed to books like Philip Gelatt and Tyler Crook’s Czarist thriller Petrograd; and Brian Hurtt and Cullen Bunn’s supernatural western Sixth Gun (both from Oni Press) and Ignatz winner Nate Powell, who has books coming from both First Second (The Silence of Our Friends, written by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos) and Top Shelf (Any Empire).
Marvel plans to begin simultaneous release print and digital editions of limited number of series, joining Archie and now DC Comics, which will begin “day and date” print and digital release in September with the relaunch of its entire line of comics. And among the biggest manga events, Viz Media has launched VizManga.com, a new manga portal site, offering for-pay digital access to 40 initial series; and the 39 member Japanese Digital Comics Association, announced plans to launch JManga, an industry-sponsored manga portal, and in this case, a mostly free, promotional website meant to be the opening salvo in a collective effort to lure fans away from illegal scanlation sites.
Cartoonist Keith Knight said he had good sales on Saturday, “a great spike” but “Sunday was good too.” Fantagraphics publicity director Jacquie Cohen said sales at their table, “were strong this year,” and she was pleased with the media. A non-superhero comics publisher, Fantagraphic tends to get more mainstream media than comic industry media, Cohen . “We got great comics press.” Cohen said Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit and Los Bros. Hernandez’s Love & Rockets #4 sold “stacks” of books. NBM publisher Terry Nantier said Kids line Papertcuz was about to publish Ninjago, a wacky martial arts lego-world toy character, and they were already getting advance orders for nearly 100,000 copies of the new graphic novel series, “we’re very excited.”
Drawn & Quarterly had, as usual, a stellar lineup of books, led by Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant collection, which sold out well before the end of the show, as did a new edition of Dan Clowes’ The Death Ray. Despite the usual competition from Hollywood glitz, D&Q associate publisher Peggy Burns said sales showed no signs of slowing down.
In addition to the aforementioned Oni books, Oni publisher Joe Nozemack was quick to hand us a copy of Ray Fawkes’s One Soul, a fascinating conceptual tour-de-force that manages to follow the lives of 18 characters systematically placed throughout its panel grid. U.K. based Fanfare Ponent Mon was showing off four books. Its Eisner nominated anthology, Korea: As Seen by 12 Artists; Jiro Tanaguchi’s Zoo in Winter (in a hardcover edition)and Summit of the Gods Vol. 2; and Farm 54 by the Israeli sister/brother creative team of Galit and Gilad Seliktar. And Top Shelf publisher Chris Staros showed of a strong list that included a new deluxe hardcover edition of Craig Thompson’s 2003 Blankets (Thompson signed at the Top Shelf booth as well as signing at the Pantheon booth to promote the upcoming publication of Habibi); Kagan Mcleod’s Infinite Kung Fu and the lastest volume of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 1969.
Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkland, big man at last year’s Comic-Con, was back again announcing new projects coming out of his Skybound imprint at Image Comics. Kirkman announced Thief of Thieves, written by Kirkman and Nick Spencer with art by Shawn Martinbrough. It’s the story of a thief who is addicted to stealing so he decides to only steal from other thieves. Thief of Thieves will debut in February 2012. The Infinite, a time traveling science fiction series, will launch next month with art by Rob Leifeld. Super Dinosaur, Kirkman’s first all-ages, is the story about a dinosaur “with big robotic arms that shoot missiles,” Kirkman said at the panel, “who wouldn’t like that?” Skybound will publish the sixth issue Super Dinosaur in November and will release its first book collection shortly thereafter.
Skybound also plans a series of annual standalone hardcover titles to be called The Album that will also be simultaneously published in the U.S. and in France. The first book in the series will be called The Passenger and it’s the story of a cargo ship trapped in outer space. And certainly not the least of his announcements, The Walking Dead comics will feature a new story arc called “A Larger World”, in which communities of survivors of the zombie apocalypse begin to discover each other.
Zenescope director of licensing and speciality sales Jennifer Bermal said the Philadelphia house had relaunched its website and was hosting a popular promotion at the booth. Visitors to the Zenescope booth could take an online “test” to see who was “good” and who was “evil”-- a very important distinction in the world of Zenescope fairy-tale horror stories. Bermal also cited strong sales for The Dream Eaters Saga, a Zenescope universe cross-over series and cited its deal to produce nonfiction graphic novels for the Discovery Channel. “Sales have been good,” Bermal said about book sales at the booth, “better than last year.”
Abrams ComicsArts had designer and comic book polymath Chip Kidd on hand (in addition to editor Sheila Keenan and designer Neil Egan) as well as long list of new titles. And although it was not announced at the Abrams panel (instead it came out during the “Remember Harvey” panel), among the biggest announcement is a graphic biography of Harvey Pekar by his widow Joyce Brabner (no artist as yet), acquired by Abrams ComicsArts executive editor Charles Kochman. Brabner told PW Comics World the biography will alternate chapters with interviews with “a wide variety of people about what they learned from Harvey or from his stories.” Brabner says the stories can be about meeting Harvey or about how his stories may have affected their lives. People can email her (Harvey.pekar.estate@gmail.com) with their Harvey stories, but remember, she said, “they have to be prepared to demonstrate to me just how they affected you.”
Kochman had many more titles to announce for 2011—among them, Yiddisheit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land by Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle; and PS Magazine, a collection of the comics from the preventative maintenance magazine produced by Will Eisner for the U.S. Army. There was also The Art of Dan Clowes: Modern Cartoonist, a collection of published work, sketchbooks and unpublished material, that will be edited by Alvin Buenaventura, publisher of the acclaimed indie comics anthology Kramers Ergot. The book will include essays on Clowes by Chip Kidd and Chris Ware and will accompany a museum exhibition of his work that will open in Oakland, Calif. In addition Kazu Kibuishi, editor of the Flight anthologies, will edit and contribute to Explorer, a new anthology of color comics organized around the theme of a mysterious box. Kibuisihi is building a small media empire. In addition to the Flight anthologies, Kibuishi is working on volume 5 of his fantasy/adventure series, Amulet, published by Scholastic/Graphix. Amulet Volume 4 will be published in September and Scholastic has just acquired volumes 6 and 7 of the series. In addition, Kibuishi’s agent Judy Hansen, tells us that Warner Bros. and Overbrook, Will Smith’s production company, have optioned Amulet for a film adaptation.
Abrams was far from the only major book publisher that found Comic-Con a good place to promote authors and sell books whether comics or prose. HarperCollins, Disney Publishing, Chronicle and DK were all on hand. Scholastic threw a stylish bash on Thursday to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Jeff Smith’s Bone, and Executive Editor David Saylor noted that Bone has spearheaded a growing line of graphic novels for kids and tweens, with books by Raina Telgemeier, Kazu Kibuishi and Jake Parker.
While Comic-Con remains the biggest sales show of the year for most publishers—“It blow the others away,” said Top Shelf’s Chris Staros—there were some grumbling that the increased focus of attendees who are standing in line for hours for autographs or panels has lessened traffic for comics. The word in Artist Alley was that sales were mostly flat.
However, comics stayed in the spotlight despite all the competition. One of the highlights of the show was the Tr!ckster exhibit space just across the tracks from the convention centers, where there were daily symposia, art shows and books, posters and toys for sale by creators. At night the place became the big gathering spot for cartoonists. Co-founder Scott Morse, whose day job is as an animator at Pixar, was very happy with the turnout and sales although he noted that “we learned a lot. Next time we’ll be tweaking things, like opening later in the day.”
