Hey there, this week is mostly about The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, for me. Hopefully I’ll catch up on the backlog of posts soon. Thanks for reading!
– Chris
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Shipping May 16, 2007
Hi there folks. These are the comics that are scheduled to ship to The Beguiling Books & Art in Toronto, Canada this week. These books may not show up at all retailers at the same time, but if you see a title here it’s probably at least worth asking your local retailer about.
Here’s my top 7 for this week, and links to more info cos I’m a bit too tired to do much more than that right now:
MAR073498Â 30 DAYS OF NIGHT EBEN & STELLA #1Â 3.99 – Props to my friend Kelly Sue DeFraction on her new mini-series with Steve Niles. More at: http://www.kellysue.com/blog/2007/04/11/hey-kid-wanna-buy-a-nine/
FEB070258Â BATMAN BLACK AND WHITE VOL 3 HCÂ 24.99 – I like superhero comics when they’re like this: artistically innovative, editorially hands-off, and continuityless. I’ve got the first two hard covers, and this one collected various shorts and back-up stories should be good. http://dccomics.com/comics/?cm=7136
DEC063568Â MISERY LOVES COMEDY HC (MR)Â 24.95 – It’s Ivan Brunetti time! Schizo 1-3 plus a fuckload of other material. Hopefully this will be a big heavy reminder for him to keep doing comics… http://fantagraphics.com/artist/brunetti/brunetti.html
FEB073160Â MOUSE GUARD VOL 1 FALL 1152 HC (C: 0-0-1)Â 24.95 – I’m not actually convinced that this holds together. That said, I’m looking to give it a go, and from what I hear the packaging on this one is gorgeous. http://www.davidpetersen.net/mouseguard/index.htm
MAR073788 NARUTO VOL 14 TP (C: 1-0-0) 7.95 – I’m really going to have to catch up on this one day… For now though, I’ll just let it pay my salary. http://www.shonenjump.com/mangatitles/n/manga_n.php
FEB070235Â PLAIN JANESÂ 9.99 – The first release in Vertigo’s MINX line-up. I’ve had an ARC of this for a little while and just haven’t found time to read it, but the reviews I’m reading all seem to be tending towards “Solid, if unspectacular” which seems very Vertigo-y in a lot of ways. Still, I’m rooting for this line for a couple of reasons: more comics for girls, more concerted effort to market comics at girls, more opportunities for creators working outside of the monthly superhero comic paradigm. http://dccomics.com/minx/
OCT062127Â ULTIMATES 2 #13Â 3.99 – Who had May 16 in the pool? Despite myself, I want to see how this ends. Also this week: All Star Batman and Robin #5. Which I think is like “doubling down” at Blackjack. http://marvelcomics.com/catalog/?book_id=5715
Full list after the jump:Â Continue reading “Shipping May 16, 2007”
Canadian Steve MacIsaac gets a Xeric Grant
Congratulations to Canadian Steve MacIsaac and his comic Shirtlifter, they managed to snag a Xeric Grant! Steve is, I believe, unofficially debuting the second issue at TCAF this summer, and I rather liked the first issue. You can check out my review of the first issue here. To find out more about Canada’s Steve MacIsaac (and read a bunch of his comics for free), check out his website at http://www.stevemacisaac.com/.
The rest of the Xeric Nominees for this year have been covered quite nicely by Heidi MacDonald at The Publishers Weekly Blog. Congrats to all of them too, but someone’s gotta give props to the Queer Canadian artists. 🙂
– Christopher
Comics Festival 2005: Free Online
Lost in the crazy of one of my previous posts was the note that, in honour of Free Comic Book Day, we put the very first edition of Comics Festival! up online in its entirety. There’s lots of cool stuff in it, you should go check it out if you’ve got some time to kill reading comics…
– Christopher
P.S.: Just because I’ve already been asked: We don’t have plans to put this year’s Comics Festival online until sometime after TCAF. Sorry… :-/
Is it time for another post bitching about Dark Horse?
Pick up Buffy #3 this week (which is selling amazingly well for us) and flip to about half way through. See, we’re seriously happy about these sales, and gaining all these new readers and turning them onto other books, but every issue we sell creates a problem for us (mo money, mo problems). In the book itself is an advertisement for other graphic novels: DISCOVER DISCOVER HEROES DARK HORSE JOSS WHEDON BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and it lists three books:
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS VOL 1.
NOT AVAILABLE UNTIL JULY 18.
SERENITY TP
OUT OF PRINT. BACK IN STOCK JUNE 13.
JOSS WHEDON’S FRAY: FUTURE SLAYER TP
OUT OF PRINT. BACK IN STOCK JUNE 27.
and previous letters columns have mentioned:
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: TALES OF THE SLAYERS
OUT OF PRINT. NO BACK-IN-STOCK DATE.
All of these are books with stories by or co-written by Joss Whedon. All of them are getting a huge promotional push right now, thanks to the phenomenal sales of Buffy: Season Eight. All of them are completely unavailable for at least a month, if not longer (and if not much longer in some cases).
I’ve bitched about Dark Horse’s inability to use their trade paperback program to properly capitalise on media events in the past, lots, but after they were almost able to meet demand for 300 (periodic multi-week outages of product, but not so bad if you were expecting it and just front-loaded a few hundred copies of the book) I figured they’d turned a corner. Not so, as you may have noticed above. The thing is, Dark Horse have actually been really good about keeping the single issues in print, and new printings of Buffy: Season Eight #1 and #2 are due in this week! But every single Joss Whedon trade paperback they publish is gone-daddy-gone, and 5-8 weeks from store shelves. Not to belabour the point, but this is totally unacceptable when the heat for the series is on NOW.
A big part of the problem is overseas printing, which I’ll be upfront and say I am totally in favour of. Better quality, lower prices, making the publishing of comics occasionally profitable: I’m on board. But the real root of the problem is inventory management and cashflow. Dark Horse’s backlist has become far, far too big for them to keep in print, and in order to maximise the return on their investment they’re needing to find cheaper, slower printing solutions. If massive outages of Sin City, Hellboy, 300, and now the Joss Whedon backlist haven’t shown them that this solution is if not entirely untennable than at least massively unprofessional, I don’t know what will.
Guys, please, find another solution. Do anything else. But please stop keeping your hottest product out of our hands for months at a time, you’re fucking killing us over here.
– Christopher
P.S.: BUFFY: TALES OF THE VAMPIRES with a story by Joss Whedon in it is currently in stock at Diamond. I don’t think it’s been mentioned in the letterscolumn/advertising yet.
Livejournal Feed: cbutcher
…forgot to mention! Thanks to Greg McElhatton, the LJ feed for this blog is working again. If you want to read me on your LJ friendslist, rather than coming here and enjoying this beautiful design (thanks again Nadine!) you can do so once more. The settings are at http://syndicated.livejournal.com/cbutcher/profile.
– Chris
Svetlana Chmakova Profile
We’ve done 3 or 4 events with Canada’s own Svetlana Chmakova at The Beguiling, and she’s always been a wonderful and gracious guest. In advance of Anime North, Canada’s largest manga and anime convention, The Toronto Star just did a profile of Svetlana and her work, including Dramacon for Tokyopop, Adventures of CG for CosmoGirl Magazine.
I… think… the print version of The Star actually has a comic strip by Svet in it, though I’m not sure? I’ll check when I’m at the store later today. But yeah, it’s a nice little profile and I’m glad Svet is one of the new creators really making a go of the OEL manga thing. Though I don’t talk about it as much due to drama my fears regarding the Tokyopop contracts are still there, and I’m really happy when it looks like a creator within that system is succeeding and branching out beyond it.
More at: http://www.thestar.com/article/211329
– Chris
Midnighter #7: A great comic, actually…
Hey there. I just finished reading Midnighter #7 by Brian K. Vaughan and Darick Robertson, on the advice of my co-worker Kai. It’s a really great little comic, I was kind of amazed at it. I already liked Vaughan quite a bit, but this has seriously improved my estimation of his abilities. I don’t want to oversell it, it’s really just a wonderful little gem of a thing, but it’s an excellent example of the strength of the 22 page floppy comic when in the hands of someone who knows how to use a short story for maximum impact. Darick Robertson turns in some lovely artwork as well.
If you get a chance, give it a read.
– Chris
A Conversation about Free Comic Book Day
Hey Chris, how you doing?
Oh, not bad. A little stressed. Got a lot going on this weekend.
Really? Like what?
Well, Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, for starters. This year I published a book for FCBD. It’s called Comics Festival! 2007, and it’s chock-full of Canadian creators doing brand new comics.
That sounds pretty cool.
Oh it is, it is. It’s got covers by Darwyn and Mal, which are both awesome, and I’m super-proud of the content too. I think we did a great job on it.
Sounds good, can I check it out online anywhere?
Actually, funny you should ask. I just completed a website for the book. If you point your browser to http://www.torontocomics.com/tcaf/fcbd/Â you can find out all about the book, including contributor biographies, information on selected stores that are guaranteed to have the book in stock, and some general info on Free Comic Book Day.
Cool! Hey, I just checked and it says you’ve got a different book online for free…
Yes, we do. See, we did another Comics Festival back in 2005, and I decided the time was finally right to put the whole thing up online. If you head to http://www.torontocomics.com/tcaf/fcbd/2007/05/comics-festival-2005-part-0.html you can now read 2005’s Comics Festival completely free of charge, just the way God intended. It’s a Free Comic Book Day, even for people that can’t make it out to a comic book store tomorrow.
That’s really great, I’m glad you could do that.
Me too, I just wish it didn’t take two years. Still, I think the material in there is really strong, and holds up well. Kagan McLeod’s strip in particular is one of his best.
So what’s The Beguiling doing for Free Comic Book Day?
Actually, we’re having a little mini festival out in front of the store. 16 different comics creators will be dropping by throughout the day to sign comics, including many of the creators in Comics Festival! like Cameron Stewart, Ryan North, and Kean Soo. Oh, and J. Torres, the writer of Legion of Superheroes in the 31st Century will be there too. You can find out more about it at The Beguiling’s website, http://www.beguiling.com/ .
Isn’t Scott McCloud coming soon, too?
Actually, Scott McCloud is droping by Toronto on Sunday night! He’ll be doing his lecture for Making Comics, and signing. Tickets are $10. Oh, and he’s dropping by The Beguiling Monday night as well, for a signing at 6pm, which is free, but 2 hours less lecturey.
Let me guess, all of this info is at http://www.beguiling.com as well?
You’re getting good at this!
I’ve had a lot of practice. What’s up after that?
I’ll probably sleep for a couple of days, and then start worrying about Anime North.
I was kind of hoping that maybe you’d start blogging again. Something other than a press release, or a shipping list.
Hey, me too pal. That’s just the way it goes. Hopefully I’ll see everybody with meaningful content next week. Until then, thanks for hanging out for a little while.
Any time.
– Christopher
