Christmas 2007 (actually January 2nd 2008), and it seems Ray has made an annual occurance out of writing people a book. And having it professionally printed. ISBN and everything. Teodor’s face in Panel 5 is actually perfect.
I laughed about this one for hours.
Get ready, tomorrow’s strip is intense.
– Chris
Ray shows up a little late for Christmas in 2006 (actually January 2nd 2007), but brings a gift that makes it all worthwhile.
– Chris
While the TCAF site is being overhauled I didn’t have a handy archive of our Festival posters anywhere, so I’m going to post them here. Gallery below, full-size versions behind the cut.
©2009 Evan Dorkin. From Dork #5 & Dork Volume 1: Who’s Laughing Now?. 78
For Christmas 2004, Chris Onstad was in the middle of a storyline and did not acknowledge Christmas directly. He did provide a gift to readers on Christmas Eve, in the form of a page of guitar tabliture for a song from the Achewood world. Written by a man who has gone insane on moonshine, about a boy who wastes his life looking through a shop window until he too goes insane. The song is called “Sullivan’s Bear and Dried Bird.” He follows it up with a strip where Ray needs to tell Charlie Brown that he is in fact, dead, and died when Charles Schultz did years prior.
For Christmas 2005, Achewood went on hiatus and Onstad posted a bunch of photos from around the house, and some from his sketchbook. It’s good stuff. But he did do a Christmasy strip the week before, and that’s what you see above. Click on it to keep reading btw, the punchline is great.
– Christopher
I hesitated posting about today’s big DC “news”. I did it yesterday and I kind of don’t want to make a habit of giving them a lot of attention—negative or otherwise—because they’re a multinational corporation who doesn’t need it when I could be focusing on excellent books from smaller publishers. It’ll do wonders for my hits though. And seriously, as much as I love posting about something just to rag on it, I’m a genuine fan of the artist of this cover, JG Jones. I own lots of his comics and think he’s a really talented artist.
But.
But this cover is already out to a wide lead for “ugliest comic book cover of 2010,” and… and I gotta say something. Maybe there’s still time.
The 5 Things Wrong With DC’s War Of The Superman #0 Cover:
1. Superman should not look like a petulant teenager. He also might be cross-eyed here.
2. Supergirl is making a kissy-face on the cover. Seriously. All the dudes on the cover are angry or serious, the girl on the cover is giving her best come-hither. The teenage girl.
3. Are those seriously hairs on the art? Like the art that DC released today was scanned with hairs on the scanning bed?
4. Not Jones’ fault (I hope), but that logo is terrible. There are 3 different fonts in that logo. WAR has 5 different text effects on it, including a bevel. Bevel. Bonus problem not related to the design: I seriously cannot believe this is DC’s entry into Free Comic Book Day.
5. It’s just not a good cover. Washed out, oddly static, the figures aren’t moving in the same direction and don’t come from even roughly the same point, the expressions don’t match up, it’s poorly ‘blocked’ meaning it looks like the woman in the upper-right corner looks like she’s standing on Superman’s shoulder… The whole thing feels like it’s been art-directed to death, or not at all. I can’t tell which.
I have solicited comics before, for free comic book day. You gotta get the art in early to make a very early deadline for a May book. Maybe it’s just rushed, or otherwise not the final. Or maybe this really will be the ugliest book DC releases in the new year.
– Christopher
©2009 Evan Dorkin. From Dork #5 & Dork Volume 1: Who’s Laughing Now?. 77
It is one year later, Christmas Eve 2003 and not much has changed for Ray. He is still a poor friend, as he has killed himself and caused Roast Beef to do the same, chasing after him to hell. They are at a Friendly’s Family Diner In Hell, in this storyline. It’s a pretty good storyline, actually, which starts on December 1st. It has famous bluesman Robert Johnson in it too.
Bonus: On Christmas Day 2003, Chris Onstad started a week of guest-comics. The first one is a Christmas comic by ScaryGoRound and Bad Machinery creator John Allison, featuring Phillipe. Enjoy!
– Chris
Accepting their official announcement at their blog and the unembargoed interviews at AICN at face value, DC Comics today announced that they will be developing:
Perhaps the most important factor about this announcement is that there is no mention of the business or publishing intent behind this move. In fact the creators go out of their way, in the interviews at AICN, not to tie this to any business/publishing strategy other than “DC Likes To Try Different Stuff!” The only intent mentioned is a creative one, with both writers mentioning that a lack of ‘continuity’ will allow them to focus on the characters and the story. At DC Comics’ blog, it is specifically mentioned that this move is intended to create a “new continuity”.
In the responses to this article at PW’s The Beat and The Comics Reporter, it is mentioned (many times) that this is one of maybe 3 or 4 “new continuities” developed for these characters within the past 5 years, including the top-selling All-Star Comics line (developed by Bob Schreck, who was fired by DC with the line being all-but-discontinued).
So that’s about as neutral as I can be, let’s start digging deeper than face-value now:
It’s pretty clear to me that DC is attempting to develop a continuity-light series of graphic novels featuring their core characters, to introduce new readers to their IP, and re-capture the attention of lapsed readers. They’re phrasing the move in terms that their existing, painfully hardcore readership can understand, like “new continuities”, in the hopes that the Direct Market-shopping fans of their IP will still support this new format, to give them a large non-returnable sales-base with which to expand their mass market sales. (As a refresher, book sales through comic stores are “non-returnable”, and 10,000 non returnable sales (my prediction) is a great base from which to set your print-run and distribute the work to the larger market, which can return unsold books for a full refund (and which sticks publishers with lots of unsold books).)
Now assuming that what I’m saying is correct (and this is unproven analysis), the success of this endeavour in the book market is going to come down to education, and as The Beat intimated, a lot of hard work on the part of DC’s book distributor Random House. Long story short, DC has got to educate Random House that these two works, above and beyond the 20+ Batman and Superman comics collections being released every season, are the ones that are going to appeal to the broadest possible base. Then Random House needs to educate booksellers (primarily the buyers for the chain bookstores) that above and beyond the 20+ Batman and Superman comics collections they present every season, these two are the ones that will appeal to the broadest possible base. THEN the chain bookstores need to inform their employees, then those employees need to inform customers, who are going to go to the GN section and see 60-70 other BATMAN and SUPERMAN collections on the shelf. That’s a hell of a lot of work, I’d be amazed if they pulled it off.
I’ve touched on the biggest problem with this endeavour: DC releases a LOT of Superman and Batman collections every season. But it’s more than just the quantity (there are dozens). It’s that the vast majority are continuity-heavy, new-reader-unfriendly, confusingly designed and numbered, and thin. And bad. Talk about market confusion. It sounds like these ones are going to be ‘thin’ as well; in his interview at AICN Superman writer JMS talks about how the first book is “well over 100 pages”. A128 page graphic novel, even in hardcover, has a spine that’s not-quite 2/3 of an inch… they’ll disappear on the shelves. Gary Frank and Shane Davis create artwork for their regular line as well, and their styles aren’t particularly unique or noteworthy; these books will look like everything else DC publishes. Their best bet? Significantly changing the size and design of these books… but with them trying to appeal to their hardcore fanbase, they risk alienating the folks who simply cannot deal with books that don’t line up on a shelf, or fit in a longbox.
Actually, it’s worth noting that for the past year DC has begun to release oversized hardcovers of stand-alone books, all featuring Superman or Batman or related characters. Killing Joke, Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?, Red Son. Perhaps that’s a clue.
As I mentioned, this is all speculation and analysis, but looking at the announcement as it stands, it seems like a half-measure at capturing a new audience (at best) with product that’s indistinguishable from their regular releases, or recent initiatives. Possibly worse. Or, and this would be the worst, perhaps there really is nothing more to this than accepting the announcement at face value. Perhaps this is just about introducing a new continuity of Superman and Batman stories, to sell more Superman and Batman comics. Maybe this move is as deep as a puddle.
I don’t know which answer would be more depressing. Anyway, it’s hard to get too worked up about it though; today’s announcement was fanboy-bait with few details and lots of emotion and hype. Developing, as they say.
– Christopher
©2009 Evan Dorkin. From Dork #5 & Dork Volume 1: Who’s Laughing Now?. 76
