Update: Atomic Comics owner Mike Malve has released an official statement confirming the abrupt closure of the chain’s four stores.

In the letter, sent to members of the comic book industry as the final installment of his weekly newsletter report, Malve discloses that he has filed for bankruptcy and he and his family are also losing their home, though “I have always been and will forever be an extremely optimistic person and will look at this situation as an adventure.”

Malve compared his experience to the struggles that Starbucks has faced.

“When the economy went sour, low sales could not support the higher rent at these high visibility locations,” Malve said. “The leases at these particular stores which had originally provided the consumers with greater visibility and more foot traffic to our wonderful world of comic books, the higher overhead proved to be too much for Atomic as we faced declining sales.” All of Atomic’s four stores were larger than the average comic book shop, including a mall location at the Chandler Fashion Center.

The full text of the letter can be found on Robot 6, with Malve also noting the difficulty of recovering after an uninsured driver plowed through the window of their Mesa store (their biggest location) in October 2006. Local newspaper the East Valley Tribune noted that Atomic’s online sales and eBay store had been dormant in recent months.

Original story: Several reports on Twitter and Facebook state that Atomic Comics, a chain of four comic book stores in the Phoenix, AZ metropolitan area, has shut down as of Sunday, Aug. 21. The stores had been in business up until that date.

Word first surfaced in the late afternoon, with unconfirmed rumors quickly growing into conversation among several comic book professionals. John Layman, writer of Image’s Chew and a resident of the area, wrote “Hearing stories about Phoenix’s Atomic Comics stores closing shop. Absolutely heartbreaking, horrible news.” Rob Liefeld and Skottie Young, among others, also relayed the news.

As of the writing of this post, there has been no official confirmation on the store’s website, Facebook or Twitter account; nor from the personal Twitter account of Atomic Comics owner Mike Malve. Writer Ben McCool, of Image’s Choker and Pigs, stated on his Twitter account that he received a text message from Malve confirming the closure.

Atomic Comics has been one of the highest-profile retailers on the national scene for years, regularly attracting big-name creators for events, scoring nominations for the Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award and serving as the model for the shop in the 2010 film adaptation of Kick-Ass.

There are still many details left unknown about the situation, like the exact nature of what led to the closure (though it’s easy to speculate given the trying economic times and the struggling direct market), and what will happen to the chain’s four stores’ worth of inventory, as there appears to be no liquidation or going-out-of-business sales planned. Newsarama will have more on the situation as it develops. (Full disclosure: I was an employee at Atomic Comics from 2002 to 2004.)

Marvel Studios may have Comic-Con in San Diego this year, but they made a strong showing Saturday afternoon at the D23 expo, the second-ever convention held by their parent company, Disney.

May 2012′s The Avengers closed out the nearly three-hour Walt Disney Studios presentation, including an exclusive clip and surprise appearances from Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill) and Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, duh) — director/screenwriter Joss Whedon, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo and the rest of the cast were busy filming, with Feige noting that there are two weeks left in production. The show had advertised appearances from “Avengers cast members,” but didn’t announce any individual actors in advance.

Avoiding Avengers movie news all together? Don’t click through to the jump. Interested in a description of a cool (yet not especially spoiler-y) sequence shown at D23? Go right ahead!

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Joss Whedon’s The Avengers is still busy filming in Cleveland and as expected, more footage and images have surfaced. These feature stars Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans in action.

The picture comes once again from ComicBookMovie.com and shows Thor and Captain America not only in their costumes but in a dirty fight. (The site has several other shots posted, some more spoiler-y than others.) Thor’s costume looks roughly the same from the one he wore in his solo film but the biggest complaint about Captain America’s new costume in the first image we showed you from the set was the characters helmet. Interesting that it’s not on during the fight, when he’d need it the most. Of course, he does look pretty roughed up so it could have flown off at some point.

The video, via the Huffington Post, is basically the images in motion. I won’t say too much but it’s a fight scene with villains so watch at your own risk. (There’s also an aerial view of another take on their website.)

What do you think of the footage (if you watched)? And what do you think of footage from The Avengers as well as several videos from the set of The Dark Knight Rises surfacing online like this so far away from the release date of both films?

The Avengers, starring Hemsworth, Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlet Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo and more hits theaters May of 2012.

Are we headed into a manga resurgence? Viz’ Alvin Liu believes so, judging from these comments from his ICv2 interview:

I think manga went through a down cycle and in two years we’re actually going to be back in an upcycle. I have a lot of long-term confidence in the medium.  Manga is comics.  I’m not one of those who draws hard lines between manga and comics.  At the same time the way comics have evolved in Japan, there’s a different grammar to the form.  I have a lot of belief in the power of that form that has come from there and actually in very interesting ways is spreading around the world inspiring new creators who are not Japanese.  One of the things that came out of the last big manga wave was the development of non-Japanese creators inspired working within the manga grammar.  That, actually in two years, we’re going to be seeing more of. I do think we’ll be seeing that sort of new generation I was referring to begin to grow again bringing us different kinds of energies and tastes so that we’ll be maybe seeing slightly different kinds of manga.

I’m always fascinated by the line between “manga” and “comics”; Liu says that he’s not drawing hard lines between the two, but goes on to suggest that manga isn’t defined by geographic origin, but, perhaps, sensibility…? I can see that – I still remember the whole weird definition comedy behind “Original English Language Manga, after all – but wonder if that doesn’t just make manga a genre, in that case?

Over at CBR’s new weekly Axel Alonso interview spot, Marvel’s editor-in-chief confirms that we should pretty much expect an ongoing event mentality for the foreseeable future:

“Shattered Heroes” is both an epilogue to “Fear Itself” and a prelude to where the Marvel Universe is headed in 2012. Ditto for the new X-Men books, “Uncanny X-Men” #1 and “Wolverine And The X-Men” #1. Both are epilogs to “Schism” that introduce a profound new status quo to the X-Men Universe and a prelude to where it’s headed in the future. I’ve long wanted to see the X-Men more integrated into the Marvel Universe, to see them bumping shoulders with heroes like the Avengers, and this is our shot. When you see a bomb explode in “Avengers,” you can see the mushroom cloud in “Uncanny X-Men.” That’s what we’re building toward in 2012 — an event that encompasses all the Marvel heroes, where they all have an equal role and stake in the outcome… In this current market, readers are looking — first and foremost — for connectivity. They want their reading experience to fit into a larger puzzle. We see evidence of it in feedback and the ordering patterns. That’s not to say we can’t launch a new series that completely stands on its own two legs — we do so all the time — but it’s a lot harder.

It’s funny; we always talk about “event fatigue,” and then events sell through the roof – Marvel is essentially keeping Fear Itself going for at least another six months after it ends by adding it to the title of the Fearless mini, so it’s clearly working out for them – but I can’t help and wonder what happens long term when the branded aftermath of one event is there purely as prologue to the next one. Doesn’t this kind of thing just completely devalue the idea of events as… well, events?

The first trailer for the Nicolas Cage-starred, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor-directed sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is now online, and, well, it’s definitely worth a view for the last clip alone.

Here it is, prefaced by a short introduction from Neveldine and Taylor:

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is scheduled to hit theaters on February 17, 2012.

The young actress chosen to play Selina Kyle in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming The Dark Knight Rises may enjoy playing the role but that doesn’t mean wearing the costume is easy.

The Hollywood Reporter posted a video of Hathway from an appearance on Chelsea Lately (although the video isn’t working for me) recently where she discussed her fitness regimen. ”I’m like living on kale and dust for training,” Hathaway told the late night host. “The catsuit’s unforgiving, man.”

Every woman who’s worn the Catwoman costume knows that but Hathaway also mentioned that it takes a lot of motivation just to get into it every day. “It takes three of us, and the movie shoots a little over six months. It’s not just focus my efforts for one day, I have to really get into it,” she said.

Though it sounds like she’s having a tough time, the actress did say she’s now enjoying her workouts to stay in shape for the skin-tight role. ”The last time we talked about how much I really don’t like working out, and I’ve kind of fallen… I really like it now. Ugh, I’m that person, like I came to L.A., got a bikini wax, went blonde and love working out!”

When host Chelsea Handler asked if she’d given up alcohol for the role Hathaway said, “I gotta have a little fun. My character is [bad], so if I were perfectly behaved, I wouldn’t be honoring her.”

Hathaway has also been recieving extra attention from the paparazzi thanks to the high-profile role. She rapped about it on Conan. Seriously, watch it:

Has anyone looked at the DC Nation column in this week’s DC books yet? My attention was caught by this excerpt in particular:

We are certainly happy to have stoked the fires of speculation about The New 52. Carefully planned snippets of sound bites and visuals were designed to grab the fans’ interests in June (when the books were first solicited) and cause it to burst by August 31st when Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1 hit the stands. With every announcement comes another round of speculation, but truth be told, no one will be certain until they are holding the books in their hands.

First off: Is Dan Didio boasting that, by releasing constantly changing images that provoke speculation and confusion, he’s played the entire comics internet?

Secondly: I’m sure he meant to say “no one outside of DC will be certain,” right? Because as it is, he’s really adding to the “flying by the seat of the collective publisher pants” feeling that many have worried about, when it comes to the launch, especially when you get creators saying this kind of thing in public…

Hey, Brian Michael Bendis! Happy birthday! How are you celebrating this year?

That’s great for all your fans, but isn’t there something we can get for you, instead? Oh, there is?

Uh… Okay. I mean, we were thinking about a cake or something, but sure, we can do that…

Here’s a bit of a left-fielder: Sally Avril, also known by her alias as the attempted crimefighter Bluebird, will be appearing in 2012′s The Amazing Spider-Man feature film. Kelsey Chow, from Disney XD’s sitcom Pair of Kings, will be playing Avril.

Bluebird would definitely be one of the more obscure characters from Spidey canon to appear in a movie. She was a background character that appeared as part of Flash Thompson’s entourage back in Amazing Fantasy #15, and was then fleshed out as a major supporting player in Kurt Busiek and Pat Oliffe’s acclaimed ’90s series Untold Tales of Spider-Man, where she misguidedly took on the superhero identity of Bluebird.

It doesn’t look like we’ll see that side of Avril in the movie, though. In an interview with Daemon’s TV, Chow calls the role a “very small, little thing” that only took a day to shoot. Still, it’s clear that the film, directed by Marc Webb, reached deep into the bench to round out it’s cast. Could Jason Ionello be far behind?

The Amazing Spider-Man is scheduled to be released on July 3, 2012.

Excuse me while I steal this blog for my soapbox even more than usual, but… Well, let me tell you what I thought about yesterday’s Justice League of America #60. No, wait, I can’t, because my local store didn’t get any copies. In fact, JLA was just one of a staggering thirty-eight titles that my local store was shorted by Diamond yesterday, with others including all but one of the Flashpoint tie-ins for the week, Generation Hope and X-Men: Schism and the deluxe We3 hardcover with additional story pages.

Apparently, this isn’t even an uncommon occurrence these days. Sure, most weeks don’t see 27% of the titles ordered not show up in time thankfully, but from asking around, it seems that it’s far, far more rare that Diamond shipments show up complete to any store in the area than show up missing at least one title or with a number of damaged copies (Another local store apparently had more than 100 books arrived damaged this week). From what I’ve heard, this is just the way things are these days: Retailers order books, and maybe they’ll show up on time, and maybe they won’t.

This is insane. I get that Diamond is essentially a monopoly and therefore can get away with this kind of behavior because of that, but, I mean, seriously. Retailers have pretty much no recourse here; they can (and, I’m sure, do, on a regular basis) call up their Diamond rep and complain, but beyond that, what can they do? They can’t go elsewhere. So who can fix this? Readers? Publishers? Everyone ganging together and demanding that Diamond improves shipments? I have no idea, and really just wanted to vent my frustration on behalf of the various retailers who, it seems, are getting completely screwed by their distributor here. Consider this an open thread for retailers to commiserate, Diamond reps to explain why distribution is so spotty, and everyone to agree that this kind of thing is what may make DC’s day-and-date New 52 more of a success than they might have expected.

Now that Marvel is teasing The Forgiven – You saw the tease on the main site yesterday, right? – you could be forgiven (Sorry) for getting this apparently new team mixed up with The Fearless, The Worthy or The Mighty, all of whom have been introduced in Marvel books or solicits over the last few months. At first, I thought this was a weird repetitive naming convention all sprouting forth from Fear Itself, but then I realized what’s really going on: Marvel is clearly going through budget cuts that are affecting new titles for series, leaving only definitive articles and adjectives instead of actual titles.

We’re lucky that this only seems to be affecting “new” ideas right now, but I think we as a comic book community owe it to Marvel Comics, the Walt Disney Corporation and the entire comic industry itself to pledge to support Marvel through this trying time, before the cutbacks affect existing titles. Please. Think of the children.

Although, to be fair, I doubt that Marvel would really have too much problem with a whole new series of teaser campaigns.

Once a week I sift through the millions of Etsy listings to find the best in geek chic for Blog@ readers. I showcased some fancy Catwoman art last week in honor of the reveal of Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises. This week the remake of Fright Night hits theaters and instead of using this as an excuse to search for David Tennant related items on Etsy, I chose to stick with the film’s theme of hunting vampires.

You won’t see the Boys and Girl Scouts of America handing out this merit badge. And that’s exactly why you need it. User StoriedThreads will help you inform everyone of your accomplishment with this Vampire Hunter Patch. Measures three inches and runs $7.  (more…)

Good news from Marvel: They’ve announced that they’re lowering the price of the debut issues of both Wolverine and The X-Men and Uncanny X-Men to… $3.99. Well, okay, still pricey, but at least they’re not $4.99 anymore, and the price drop comes without a drop in content according to the press release. So, what prompted this turnaround?

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I can’t help but wonder whether X-Men: Schism #1 not making the top 10 for July was involved in this decision (It was just outside, at #11). For the debut of an insanely-hyped event book from Marvel to miss the top 10 entirely is embarrassing for Marvel, and given the talent involved – Jason Aaron and Carlos Pacheco surely made up for the familiarity of “It’s Wolverine vs. Cyclops – again!” – the only real explanation for it being outsold by, say, War of The Green Lanterns Aftermath #1 has to have been that it was $4.99. So does this reduction mean that Marvel may be moving away from a $4.99 price point for the near future, or just that they’ll be saving it for more successful franchises like Fear Itself and Avengers?

This part of Image publisher Eric Stephenson’s latest interview at Bleeding Cool has me curious:

We publish the books that are pitched to us – we don’t hand out assignments. I don’t work at Marvel or DC, so I can’t tell you how they do things there, but I do know we don’t get many pitches from women. When we do, I give them the exact same consideration I would give a pitch from a man. It’s either good or it isn’t, and that’s really all I care about. I mean, maybe I’m not like everybody else, but I don’t really sit around and separate people into different groups. It has nothing to do with political correctness, it’s just not how I’m wired.

The curious part: Why doesn’t Image get many pitches from women? Even if you don’t take Eric at his gender-blind word, what’s to lose in pitching to Image? Is it some idea of what Image comics are like? Did stories about not being able to afford to publish series scare potential creators off, considering what tends to thrive in the direct market? Do webcomics just seem like a better option? I’m really wondering what’s going on here, because as Womanthology demonstrates, the creators are out there. Is there something about Image that’s scaring them off?

Well, I guess we can all get settled in for another year+ of political comic book stunts again, with the announcement of Boom! Studios’ Decision 2012, in which fans – whether comic book or political – get to pre-order a biographical comic of the presidential candidate of their choice, with the most highly-ordered seeing print. No, really:

The whole concept of comic book’s first straw poll is that the comic book with the most pre-orders wins. That means that if you are a supporter of a particular candidate and you want him or her to win, you need to make sure you tell all your friends to pre-order your candidate’s comic book before September 29th, 2011.

I don’t know whether this means there will be lots of unseen material for the losers, or whether the stories will only be created once a winner has been chosen, but… this is either an awesome idea or a terrible idea. I mean, it’s A Death In The Family meets U Decide meets Bluewater’s political biographies and, if nothing else, that’s not what anyone was expecting, right…?

(In all seriousness, I’m fascinated by the outreach potential for this; the website includes a quick “What are comics, anyway?” in the FAQs, so clearly this is meant to go beyond the direct market faithful, so on that basis alone, I’m pulling for Boom! here.)

After five years of being a DC exclusive creator, Brian Wood is looking for new creative challenges, and he’s hinting at what that means to CBR:

As my two big Vertigo books come to an end, I feel like I accomplished something, that I proved something about being a creator-owned writer. If only to myself, and for myself, I proved that I could do it, I could build a career from scratch doing virtually only creator-owned work, support myself, my family, buy a house, etc, etc. And having done that I now feel like I can relax a bit and take on some work for hire projects and not feel that my identity as a creator-owned guy is compromised. During my exclusive time at DC I produced twenty-two volumes of creator-owned work, something to be proud of.

So by the time NYCC has come and gone, the full scope of my post-DC exclusive work will be revealed. Right now it seems roughly 50/50 between creator and company-owned work, and my intention is to never dip below 50% on the creator owned.

I’ve said elsewhere that Brian Wood’s career to date in many ways represents the realization of the Warren Ellis Forum dream*, in that he was able to support himself and his family, and make a niche for himself within one of the Big Two publishers, pretty much solely doing his own creator owned work. Sure, there were occasional WFH projects, but when you look at Wood’s career, it’s really been all about what he wants to do, rather than taking on projects like Flashpoint: Whatever or Fear Itself: Some Random Mini-Series in order to “get his name out there.” In the career he’s built, he’s consistently managed to challenge himself and grow as a writer, and as a result, it feels like he’s got a much clearer individual voice than most writers of his generation. I’ll be fascinated to see his licensed and WFH books in the future, as well as his new creator owned work.

(* – Maybe Brian K. Vaughan fits in here, as well? Also, Mark Millar, of all people, but that might take a little bit more explanation.)

You’ve seen Captain America come to life on the big screen thanks to director Joe Johnson and actor Chris Evans but that was a period piece. How will Cap look in modern times in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers film? Now we know.

Celebrity-Gossip.net captured pictures of the actor on set in Cleveland, Ohio recently where The Avengers has been filming. “The Captain America hunk donned a pair of sunglasses along with a black cloak as he shot scenes on the mock 42nd Street set,” they wrote. But of course, he did eventually have to take them off to shoot and that’s how we get our first look. Three more shots after the jump! (more…)

Okay, this is pretty awesome. To promote Daredevil #1, Marvel has put out an audio version of the issue, with character voices provided by Marvel editors Tom Brennan, Ellie Pyle and Jordan D. White, and panel descriptions read by the issue’s writer, Mark Waid. As editor Steve Wacker explains at the start of the recording, it’s an impromptu read-through, so don’t expect a perfect radio play, but it’s a really nice idea for a book about a blind hero – and, if nothing else, hearing Waid’s panel descriptions is a treat.

For those of us who assumed that the Marvel Season One OGNs might be primarily based at a Disney Store audience, David Gabriel has an interesting response during an iFanboy interview on the line:

I want to be clear that the direct market is still our #1 source for getting this type of material out to all consumers. It’s up to us and our retail partners to work on methods of driving new faces into those stores. This content in everySeason One story is what we believe is perfect for bringing new readers into both comics and comic stores.As far as book store markets go, while of course we are all dismayed at what has happened with Borders, keep in mind that there is still a vibrant market for graphic novels out in the world. The point here is to get fresh new content out there and work with those existing book market retailers to do what we can to make this as successful a launch as possible.

Don’t forget, the fans are still out there, the readers and consumers still exist. They will find places to go and our job is to now get these titles into as many outlets as possible so they have the widest selection.

I’m not sure whether the “the direct market is our #1 source” is meant to be a reassurance to DM retailers, or just a statement of fact as to the way things are right now. Certainly, saying “our job is to now get these titles into as many outlets as possible” implies pushing outside of the DM, and the Disney Store seems like an obvious next step for Marvel. Digital, too, but there’s every possibility that Marvel might be purposefully lagging on that to see how DC’s linewide day-and-date goes when it launches in September.