A long weekend is here! To help get the time to go by, here’s the news you might have missed.
Around the Blogs:
4th Letter – Are they scanning Marvel’s comics from inside the House of Ideas?! – Pretty fascinating and sad bloggers had to solve this for them.
Around the Tubes Reviews:
What Culture! – Batman #6
The Fandom Post – Bone Vol. 1: Out From Boneville
CBR – Glory #23
Spandexless – One Model Nation
Call to the Pen – “21” The Story of Roberto Clemente
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT PROUDLY PRESENTS…THE SPIDER!!!
IN COMIC STORES EVERYWHERE MAY 2012!
February 16th, 2011, Runnemede, NJ – The Spider, one of the greatest pulp characters of all time is now re-launched into the 21st century! Dynamite Entertainment proudly presents The Spider #1, which will hit comic book stores everywhere in May 2012! The series will be written by acclaimed writer David (Black Panther: The Man Without Fear) Liss and drawn by Colton Worley, with covers by Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Francesco Francavilla and Ron Lesser!
In The Spider #1, the world knows Richard Wentworth as a decorated war hero and the son of a wealthy industrialist – but only a few confidants know the truth. As New York City slides into violence and despair, Wentworth has transformed himself into a force of justice as The Spider! With only his wits, his technology, and his pistols to aid him, he fights a one-man man war against crime, but when a mysterious new villain threatens the city with an unspeakable horror, it may be more than even The Spider can handle. How far will a sane man go to restore order to an insane world? Find out in The Spider #1 when it ships in May!
“Part of what always made The Spider so cool was the sheer scope of destruction caused by his villains,” says The Spider writer David Liss. “The Spider’s enemies thought nothing of demolishing city blocks, killing thousands, turning countless innocents into mindless slaves. Faced with crime this insane, The Spider had turn himself into a force of equal ferocity, destruction and ruthlessness. He’s the most badass and take-no-prisoners of the pulp heroes because he has to be, and it’s been absolutely awesome transferring that kind of sentiment from the 1930s to contemporary times. Some things have been updated, but he’s still the kind of vigilante that makes the bad guys wet their pants.”
“This book has it all,” adds artist Colton Worley. “It’s got action, pulp, noir, horror, romance…everything you could ever want in a story all in one place. And helping to create the world that David Liss has set up has been a great experience.
“Dynamite has propelled The Spider into the 21st century at breakneck speed,” says CEO and President of Argosy Communications Joel Frieman. “Please fasten your seat belts.”
“David [Liss] and Colton [Worley] are a perfect pairing for the Spider,” states Dynamite Editor Joe Rybandt. “The moment we saw Colton’s first pages from #1 we spread them around like proud new parent’s showing off pictures of our first-born, they were that amazing. All thanks to the incredible script by David of course. The time is right for a pulp revival and we’re leading the charge.”
“I have wanted to publish The Spider comics for some time now,” says Dynamite Entertainment President and Publisher Nick Barrucci. “But I wanted to make sure that the comic book had a dynamite creative team! And with the dream team of David Liss and Colton Worley, The Spider #1 will be a must read for all comic book and The Spider fans! Check out the awesome interior pages from Colton Worley for issue #1!”
The Spider was created by Harry Steeger at Popular Publications in 1933. He fought crime by donning a black fedora, a black cape, a trademark ring and a brace of .45 automatics to terrorize the criminal underworld, while driving in his sleek black specially outfitted Daimler.
The Spider novels were mainly written by Norvell W. Page, who filled them with danger, impending doom, fantastic villains, and great action!
Join the conversation on Twitter with #TheSpider and on Dynamite Entertainment’s twitter page at http://twitter.com/DynamiteComics
To find a comic shop near you, call 1-888-comicbook or visit www.comicshoplocator.com
For art and more information, please visit:
About Dynamite Entertainment:
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT was founded in 2004 and is home to several best-selling comic book titles and properties, including The Boys, Green Hornet, Vampirella, Warlord of Mars, Bionic Man, Game of Thrones and more!
In addition to their critically-acclaimed titles and best selling comics, Dynamite works with some of the most high profile creators in comics and entertainment, including Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Garth Ennis, Michael Avon Oeming, Mel Rubi, Marc Guggenheim, Stephen Sadowski, Mike Carey, Jim Krueger, Greg Pak, Brett Matthews, Matt Wagner and a host of up and coming new talent!
DYNAMITE is consistently ranked in the upper tiers of comic book publishers and several of their titles – including Alex Ross and Jim Krueger’s PROJECT SUPERPOWERS – have debuted in the Top Ten lists produced by Diamond Comics Distributors. Several of their titles have also hit The New York Times Best-Sellers list: The Boys, Vampirella Archives, Robert Jordan’s New Spring and Wheel of Time graphic novels. In 2005 Diamond awarded the company a GEM award for Best New Publisher and another GEM in 2006 for Comics Publisher of the Year (under 5%). The company has also been nominated for several industry awards, including the prestigious Eisner Award.
AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER—THE PROMISE PART 1 TOPS BOOKSCAN AT #1!
February 16, MILWAUKIE, OR—In an amazing show of demand for Dark Horse’s newest graphic novel, Avatar: The Last Airbender—The Promise Part 1 soared to the top of the Bookscan charts last week!
Written by Gene Luen Yang, author of the National Book Award-nominated American Born Chinese, Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise Part 1 marks the continuation of Airbender and the link to its upcoming sequel, Legend of Korra!
Ever since the conclusion of Avatar: The Last Airbender, its millions of fans have been hungry for more–and it’s finally here! This series rejoins Aang and friends for exciting new adventures, beginning with a faceoff against the Fire Nation that threatens to throw the world into another war, testing all of Aang’s powers and ingenuity!
Avatar: The Last Airbender—The Promise Part 1 is a must-have for any Airbender fan! This is the latest release in an ongoing partnership between Nickelodeon and Dark Horse to bring you the very best in Airbender books.
Avatar: The Last Airbender—The Promise Part 1 is on sale now!
Avatar: The Last Airbender—The Promise Part 2 is on sale May 30th
About Dark Horse Comics
Since 1986, Dark Horse Comics has proven to be a solid example of how integrity and innovation can help broaden a unique storytelling medium and establish a small, homegrown company as an industry giant. The company is known for the progressive and creator-friendly atmosphere it provides for writers and artists. In addition to publishing comics from top talent like Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Neil Gaiman, Gerard Way, and comics legend Will Eisner, Dark Horse has developed such successful characters as the Mask, Timecop, and SpyBoy. Additionally, its highly successful line of comics and products based on popular properties includes Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aliens, Conan, Emily the Strange, Tim Burton, Trigun, Serenity, and Domo. Today Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent comic-book publisher in the US and is recognized as one of the world’s leading publishers of licensed comics material.
Marvel is celebrating they’ve crossed 3 million fans on Facebook. So, that motivated me to find out exactly who their fans are. Using some magic I looked at their statistics for over a dozen countries from all over the world (though a third of their fans are from the United States) comprising a data set of 2,315,300 individuals out of their fanbase of 3,200,000 (covering 72.35% of the total).
Gender
Comics are thought of as being the entertainment for men and 98% of the data set let us know their gender. As expected men dominated with almost 77% of them being male.
Education
As far as percentages of those who answered, men were a higher percent of college graduates but the women were better represented in college and high school. The overall majority with a little of 70% are college graduates.
Age
The largest chunk of fans are between the age of 18 and 30 and interestingly there’s an uptick in men 18-21 before a drop off while women drop off right from the beginning. In the end we can say, comics aren’t just for kids.
Relationship Status
The stereotype is that comic book fans are single dorks who have issues with the opposite sex. The majority of those in this data set are single, but men skew more so than women and women tended to be in relationships more.
Marvel Celebrates 3 Million True Believers On Facebook!
All day long, Marvel is celebrating over 3 million fans on the Marvel Facebook Fan Page, and thanking you – the Marvel Universe! Be sure to head on over to www.facebook.com/marvel for your first look at exclusive art from upcoming comics, news, & previews from Marvel video games all day long! And that’s not all because we’ll have even more Mighty Marvel surprises up our sleeves that you’ll have access to ONLY through our Facebook fan page! Don’t forget to check us out on Twitter, YouTube, GetGlue, and Google+ to further enhance your Marvel experience because this is YOUR UNIVERSE! With so many ways to get your daily dose of all things Marvel, there’s no reason not to get involved! But in order to get your exclusive look on tons of great Marvel stuff, stay tuned to www.facebook.com/marvel! With over 3 million fans strong on Facebook, thank you for making yours Marvel!
Image Comics congratulates Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura on their receiving the International Manga Award for their comic book I KILL GIANTS. The Japanese Foreign Ministry announced that Kelly and Niimura had won the prestigious prize on Tuesday.
Originally published by Image Comics in 2008, then released in an oversized hardcover collection in 2010, I KILL GIANTS tells the story of Barbara Thorson, an acerbic fifth-grader so consumed with fantasy that she doesn’t just tell people that she kills giants with an ancient Norse warhammer — she starts to believe it herself. The reasons for Barbara’s troubled behavior are revealed through the course of the book, as she learns to reconcile her fantasy life with the real world.
“We do a lot of books I’m extremely proud of, but this is one is way up there,” said Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson. “The outstanding work Joe and Ken did on I KILL GIANTS is proof positive of how great this medium is. That something so moving and heartfelt can be both a critical and commercial success should be an inspiration to creative people everywhere. It’s nothing short of an honor to be associated with such an extraordinary piece of work.”
Kelly and Niimura will receive their award in a ceremony on Friday, followed by a ten-day tour of Japan, during which they will meet with Japanese cartoonists and publishers and visit areas hit hard by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami last year.
ABOUT IMAGE COMICS
Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of five major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline, Skybound and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.
The long weekend is almost here….. that is all.
Around the Blogs:
The Mary Sue – DC’s Own VP of Sales Talks the DC Comics Nielsen Survey and Why It Was Not “Representative” – So why release the survey and why not make this clear from the start?
DC Women Kicking Ass – There. are. Batgirl. Converse. Sneakers. – Why are all the guys in hi-tops?
Around the Tubes Reviews:
MTV Geek – Axe Cop Volume 3
CBR – Batman #6
Complex – Review: “Batman” Continues To Deconstruct The Caped Crusader Piece By Piece
ROGER LANGRIDGE’S SNARKED #5
Written & Drawn by Roger Langridge
SC, 32pgs, FC, SRP: $3.99
COVER: Roger Langridge
Diamond Code: DEC110944
BRAND NEW ARC! GREAT FOR NEW READERS! Roger Langridge — the Harvey Award winner behind THE MUPPET SHOW and THOR: THE MIGHTY AVENGER — begins the second arc of his critically acclaimed side-splitting adventure! The journey continues as Princess Scarlett, baby Rusty, the Walrus and the Carpenter, and the fearless Snarkhunter Crew hit the high seas in search of the missing Red King. Swashbuckling, laughs, crocodiles — this issue has it all!
PLANET OF THE APES #11
Written by Daryl Gregory
Drawn by Carlos Magno
SC, 32pgs, FC, SRP: $3.99
COVER A: Carlos Magno
COVER B: Damian Couceiro
COVER C: Andrew Huerta
Diamond Code: DEC110925
Alaya and Sullvian, one ape and one human, raised as equals by The Lawgiver. Now they face each other as leaders of their respective forces, forces engaged in bloodthirsty battle. Captured by the Apes, and made prisoner by the woman who once was her closest friend, Sullivan struggles to break free before Alaya can execute her terrifying plan! Writer Daryl Gregory and artist Carlos Magno will have you wanting to “get your hands on these damn dirty apes!”
