I’m not quite the last person in the world you’d expect to start a blog, so there are still a few left for those of you who may have been thinking about getting one.

Eddie Campbell gets himself a blog, which makes me happy.

Is it stupid to say that I owe my whole interest in comics to Dave Cockrum? On one hand, sure; I mean, the comics that got me addicted and kept me addicted weren’t any that he had any direct involvement in - partially because his high profile work was before my time, and partially because I didn’t really get into his style until later on, when the surface shininess of people like John Byrne had lost its sheen (I was a shallow child, I admit it). But on the other hand, it was X-Men that really popped my cork for the first time, and he’s pretty much one of the three people who’re responsible for the All-New, All-Different characters that were my early favorites (Especially Nightcrawler, a favorite of both Cockrum and the kid who was me at the time); Hell, he’s kind of indirectly responsible for the way the entire mainstream industry turned out, thanks to his work on that book and those characters. Without Dave Cockrum, who knows if another comic would’ve caught my eye, or whether I would’ve ended up passing comics by altogether?

This weekend, as well, I read about the death of Jerry Bails on Wednesday last week. For those who don’t know who he was, go read Tom Spurgeon’s obituary and get yerselves educated. He was the man who created comics fandom as we now know it - the good parts, at least - and, let’s face it, also played a large part in shaping what the industry is today. It’s been a crappy weekend because of the loss of these two, you know?

So, Dr. Bails and Mr. Cockrum, rest in peace. And Paty, if you’re reading this, as much as I’ve snarked about your behavior in the past, my thoughts are with you.

Back to snark later, but for now, I’m going off to read some early X-Men once again.

Retailer website ICv2.com posts an extensive, four-part interview with Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley that covers everything from the state of the industry, and his company’s moves into chains like Blockbuster, 7-Eleven and Walgreens, to efforts to reach female readers to Civil War and plans for 2007.

Buckley is pretty forthcoming in the Q&A, noting that sales in the chain outlets haven’t been “explosive,” but “that might be due to the fact that we’re so used to the hobby market. We are happy with it, it’s a good trial, awareness, growth business and it gives us an opportunity to get in front of a lot more people.”

Other items worth noting:

On movie tie-ins: “When I first got here, Spider-Man 2 was coming out and we had a lot of Doctor Octopus product, and we just flooded the market. We ended up with something like four different limited series. …We’re learning that we need to gear up the product and more properly balance it. The bookstores are where we get the most benefit, as far as mass market consumers stepping in.”

On genres other than capes and tights: “One thing we’ve identified is that we do really well with our genre and our genre is getting bigger in graphic fiction. But there’s definitely some interest from other categories. Our category’s gotten bigger, but the only genre where we have sophisticated genre development is our superhero action adventure stuff. So looking at the growth in the bookstore business, we can see between the sales of manga and what we’re doing, there’s interest.“

On Marvel, post-Civil War: “Civil War really upped the ante from a performance standpoint and for what the consumers expect. I’m not saying, ‘More big events;’ I’m just saying, ‘How do we keep growing the business?’”

Go read the whole thing, starting here.

The big publishing news this weekend was the announcement of DC Comics’ entry into the teen girl/not-quite-manga market with its new Minx line of graphic novels.

According to an article in Saturday’s New York Times — what happened to Monday’s edition being reserved for comics news? — the line will launch in May with six black-and-white books, all retailing for less than $10. The Minx books will be overseen Vertigo VP-Executive Editor Karen Berger and Senior Editor Shelly Bond.

Perhaps a little surprisingly, DC is preparing to put out money — $125,000, according to The Times; $250,000, according to Newsarama — next year to publicize the line, and has hired Alloy Marketing + Media, the company that promoted The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Gossip Girls (and “packaged” How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, the novel by Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan that was pulled from stores last spring).

“In terms of consumer marketing, it’s got to be the largest thing we’ve done in at least three decades,” DC’s Paul Levitz told The Times. “It’s not large by the scale of consumer marketing and advertising as it’s done in America, but it’s a large-scale commitment, I think, for a publishing company in general.”

Although the Times story only mentions two of the line’s creators — novelist Cecil Castellucci (Boy Proof) and artist Jim Rugg (Street Angel), on The P.L.A.I.N. Janes – others include: Clubbing, by Andi Watson (Geisha, Love Fights) and Josh Howard (Dead@17); Good as Lily, by Derek Kirk Kim (Same Difference and Other Stories) and Jesse Hamm (Comics to Bore and Confuse You); and Re-Gifters, which reunites the My Faith in Frankie team of Mike Carey, Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel.

Online reaction to the line ranges from excited to skeptical to critical.

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Judd Winick’s take on the Big Red Cheese gets some press thanks to Scripps Howard News Service:

“Come on! People call him ‘The Big Red Cheese,’ ” comic-book writer Judd Winick said. “Even Aquaman doesn’t have a disparaging nickname.”

Nevertheless, when Winick started writing for DC Comics years ago, his goal was to tackle one of the oldest franchises in comics: Captain Marvel.

And now he’s getting his chance with “The Trials of Shazam,” a 12-part miniseries that sets out to redefine the character for a new generation of readers. “Trials” has been a hit for DC Comics so far.

The redefining includes a new costume, a different purpose and, DC hopes, more prestige.

They even managed to find someone to quote who likes the new take on the character. A preview of the fourth issue is up over at the mothership, along with a preview of the first issue of Jeff Smith’s long-awaited Shazam! mini-series.

On his blog, Neil Gaiman not only provides a link to the above image from the upcoming movie adaptation of Stardust, but also points out that he’ll be answering fan questions about the movie on the official Stardust website:

Meanwhile, over at http://www.stardustmovie.com/ the first signs of life have been seen. If you head over there you’ll see a photo of me on set, and a form to fill in if you have any Stardust questions. For now, I’ll be the one answering the questions.

(Next week will be the first “test screening”, where we find out what an audience thinks of the film, what it likes and what it doesn’t. I’ve never been involved in one of those before. Fingers crossed.)

If the lull between volumes of Scott Pilgrim has you needing a Sex Bob-Omb fix, Bryan Lee O’Malley has posted a “vaguely autumn-themed” strip he created for Toronto’s NOW magazine.

Via Clifford Meth on the Nightcrawlers forum comes some very sad news — Dave Cockrum died this morning due to complications related to diabetes:

With a heavy heart, I regret to inform you that Dave Cockrum passed away this morning. After a long battle with diabetics and its varied complications, Dave died in his sleep early this morning.

Dave’s many creations—including some of the X-Men’s staple characters—brought tremendous joy to his legion of fans. For three decades, he was a beloved fixture at comics conventions across the country where he would sketch for a pittance and encourage would-be creators. Those of us who knew Dave personally will remember him as one of the sweetest, jovial, most generous individuals in the comics industry. I’ll miss my friend very much.

There are no details of services at this time. Dave asked to be cremated and his widow Paty is burdened with the news, so well wishers are asked not to call. Email can be sent to magnetorampant@yahoo.com

Mark Evanier remembers his friend at his own blog:

A fine friend and a fine artist, Dave Cockrum, died this morning from complications relating to Diabetes. Dave had been ill for some time and undergoing dialysis treatments. Still, here at Mid-Ohio Con (that’s where I am), his friends and fans are shocked to hear that we’ve lost him.

Dave was one of the first people I knew to make the transition from drawing for free for fanzines to drawing for pay for the comics those fanzines were about. Years later, that would become a fairly common segue but in the early seventies, fans were fans and pros were pros and the former rarely became the latter. Dave did, starting first as an assistant to established artists, especially Murphy Anderson. When Murphy was asked to draw a Legion of Super-Heroes back-up story one day, he begged off — “too many characters” — and recommended Dave. Cockrum not only got that job but became the feature’s steady artist and creative heart, helping to redesign the Legion and create new characters. Among his many strengths, he was a superb inventor of new costumes. Later, he did the same thing — only with greater success — when he and Len Wein revamped the old, cancelled X-Men strip into the new, highly-successful X-Men franchise at Marvel.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Paty and the rest of the Cockrum family.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator and Astonishing X-Men writer Joss Whedon will be on Fanboy Radio later today, no doubt talking about Buffy, Firefly and the end of his run on X-Men, as well as the upcoming Buffy season 8 comic and his stint on Runaways.

The show begins at 6 p.m. CT and will be replayed at 1 p.m. CT Wednesday.

Valerie D’Orazio has had a hell of a couple of weeks. She has, in fact, had a hell of a life, as her blog Occasional Superheroine illustrates (Go to the bottom of the page and work your way up, if you haven’t already read it). I’m not breaking any news by identifying D’Orazio’s identity, as Rich Johnston revealed that at the start of this week (with her permission), even though the blog itself uses psuedonyms for all involved, including the publisher she worked for (DC), perhaps for obvious reasons; the blog reveals things about DC editorial and internal practices that I’m sure they would rather have kept quiet, which is just one of the reasons (and one of the more minor of the reasons) why it’s such a brave and important piece of writing.

Needless to say, it’s also the kind of thing that gets a lot of attention.

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Retailer and Newsarama contributor Brian Hibbs lets slip an interesting comment about the most recent issue of Civil War in his most recent blog post:

In the “Retail intelligence” category, we’ve had a 20% drop in sales (not orders, SALES) between issue #4 and #5. That’s 20% of a REALLY BIG number, so, y’know, owie. The various tie-in comics are off by about that same amount, too. The wait for #4 didn’t seem to bother anyone too badly (only 3% there, which COULD be within normal mini-series ranges), but a lot of people seemed to have jumped off this one.

I’m curious. Is this something that other retailers are seeing as well? Because 20% is a hell of a drop from one issue to the next.

Rian Hughes has updated his website, and in the process, released all manner of graphic design work for DC that we’ve never seen before. Like what, you ask? Well, what about a logo for Batwoman? Or the cover to the first issue of Darwyn Cooke’s Spirit series? And that’s saying nothing about the rest of his amazing font, logo and design work that’s available on the site. Well worth going to check out.

Minnesota’s Lavender magazine has a brief Q&A with Curbside cartoonist Robert Kirby, co-editor of The Book of Boy Trouble anthology:

You’re a contributor to The Book of Boy Trouble, as well as coeditor. As a creator, what’re the differences between working with a page, or pages, and a (usually) six-panel strip, as you do every other week in “Curbside”?

I really enjoy the chance to break out and do longer-form stories, sometimes in collaboration with writers like D. Travers Scott, author of One of These Things Is Not Like the Other, which just won the Lambda Literary award for Best Gay Men’s Mystery.

You simply have more time to tell your story and more space to stretch out your drawings in a six-pager, which is a chief reason I started up Boy Trouble in the first place—to have that opportunity.

On the other hand, I do have to be more concise, and wrap up these longer stories within their page count, whereas in “Curbside,” because it’s a continuing story, my narrative can ramble a bit—for example, go off into a character study for an episode or two, as I see fit.

Related: Prism Comics review of the anthology

Just when you thought most everybody had released their year-end lists, The New York Times comes out with its modestly titled “100 Notable Books of the Year,” and the San Francisco Chronicle breaks out its “Holiday Goodies Between Covers.”

The Times selections, listed in alphabetical order, includes just one graphic novel: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.

The Chronicle picks, part “Best of” lists, part gift recommendations, include two graphic novels: Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese (Fiction), and Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon’s Pride of Baghdad (Science Fiction & Fantasy).

The iZ Reloaded blog has put together a handy list of (mostly) ’80s cartoon introductions you can find on YouTube. Among the 77 clips are the openings to Dungeons and Dragons, Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle, The Incredible Hulk, Macross, Robotech and Silver Hawks.

Although I watched Shazam! as a kid, I didn’t remember the opening, which featured Mary Batson transforming into Mary Marvel … so she could move a chair to vacuum.

(Via TV Squad)

Thanksgiving is gratitude expressed in food.  Today, that seems to have evolved into a celebration of “comfort food.”  Everyone has a favorite Thanksgiving dish — my mom’s corn pudding, for example — and, in the same way, I think everyone has a favorite “comfort book.” 

So, since I’ve got the Thursday feature, I asked my colleagues to contribute to a comics-flavored Thanksgiving potluck.  They’d list some favorite side dishes and favorite comics, and I’d provide the main course.

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It’s Thanksgiving! Or, it will be when you read this, anyway (Unless you read this after Thanksgiving, in which case, never mind). But thanks to the magic of the internet, I’m writing this the night before, looking to give you something to do in case that whole “giving thanks” thing doesn’t quite work out for you. And what might that something be, you ask? Well, how about learning how to be a comics creator? Abhay Khosla gives a pretty good rundown of the websites to help you on that topic over on the Image forums that should be seen, checked out and then the source of you thanking him for all the links for the next few days.

Yes, thanking him. It all gets back to thanks giving, after all.

This is “Point/Counterpoint in the Blogosphere…” where we take a look at what has YOU talking. Twice a week, I’ll be showcasing two related discussion points about a particular topic, to help you keep up with some of the hot topics in comic fandom.

Last week, blogger and new comic writer Kevin Church wrote something called A Handy Primer For My Fellow Neophyte Comics Creators, a piece devoted to proper etiquette and common sense when dealing with negative reviews.

Point:

Via livejournal, creator Rikki Simons posts a rebuttal to Kevin’s primer.

Excerpt:

In fact all of these points expect point two — do not immediately assume they are a moron — I mostly disagree with. I don’t think they’re morons. I think they’re often just full of themselves. Critics, take your lumps, just like we do. You cannot post a review to a blog with a comments section turned on or your e-mail made public without expecting to hear from the author if they disagree with you. Your review is not any more immune from recrimination than an author’s books are.

Counterpoint:

Lyle at Crocodile Caucus responds to Simons’s rebuttal with his post Reviewing the Reviewer.

Excerpt:

I find it interesting that Simons seems to think that the only motivation anyone ever has to write a negative review is to allow the reviewer to demonstrate their superiority to the artist with their cutting put downs, as if the working principle is “Those who can’t belittle those who do.” instead of a desire to discuss their enjoyment of pop culture in more detail than “That series is the greatest!”

It’s an interesting discussion, go check it out!