Here’s Axel Alonso talking to CBR last week, about the upcoming Age of Apocalypse series spinning out of Uncanny X-Force:

[I]t can’t be dismissed as an alternate reality story because it has its roots in “Uncanny X-Force”; events in this story could very well cause a ripple effect in the Marvel Universe in the future.

This kind of thinking, of course, has its roots in the idea that only books that “count” will appeal to fans, and an alternate reality story is exactly the kind of thing that doesn’t “count.” In fact, it’s something that’s even been designed to not “count” in terms of the bigger continuity, because it takes place in a different reality altogether. But at the same time, isn’t the point of setting something in an alternate reality to ensure that it can be – if not “dismissed,” then at least set aside and considered separate from the mainline reality with all of its attendant continuity?

The idea of creating a book in an alternate reality but then hinting that it really might be about the mainline reality as well feels somewhat self-defeating, and the very definition of “aiming to please two audiences, but just ending up disappointing everyone.” Here’s hoping that Alonso’s tease ends up to be empty.

As has been known for a while, Darkseid is the bad guy in the first arc of The New 52′s Justice League, though he hasn’t been seen yet in the first two issues. That changes with Justice League #4, scheduled for release on Dec. 21 — which The Source reminds us is the first comic book appearance since early 2009 for the ruler of Apokolips.

DC’s publicity blog also has the first image of Darkseid as redesigned by Justice League series artist and DC Entertainment co-publisher Jim Lee, and, well, here it is. (Click to enlarge.)

I’ll admit, Frank Miller’s Occupy Wall Street tirade didn’t make me think much beyond “Well, I guess he really has become that cranky old reactionary that people have been stereotyping him as for years,” but the resulting uproar has me wondering where everyone’s line is for the old “I try not to let my opinion of the artist affect my opinion of the work” dichotomy.

I’ve seen a lot of people offering up variations on “Well, if that’s what Frank thinks, I can’t support his work anymore!” – which begs the question, “Did you somehow miss Holy Terror?” – but I’ll admit, there was nothing in the rant that made me think that his work was any lesser, especially his earlier work. There’re many, many creators who I feel like I wouldn’t like in person whose work I enjoy, and the reverse is also true: There are many creators whose work I don’t enjoy at all, whose interviews and the like I eagerly seek out because I enjoy their personalities. But the two are separate in my head, for some reason, and even if someone whose work I like says something exceptionally offensive, I’d still consider buying their next book if I liked their work. But am I a freak for that? Where is your line for cutting off creators – and what would make you reconsider that ban afterwards?

As if Top Shelf launching not one but two digital comic apps wasn’t good enough news – In addition to the “regular” Top Shelf app, there’s also one dedicated to their all ages books, Top Shelf Kids Club – the publisher is also promoting their digital offerings with a pretty great sale on digital graphic novels. $1.99 for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1910? $1.99 for the first collection of The Surrogates? That’s a really good deal. But I admit, I’m waiting for the great digital deals on the Eddie Campbell books…

Something in the press release from Marvel yesterday, announcing the digital download codes to appear in every issue of the Ultimate Comics line as of next year:

The Ultimate Comics line made history in 2010 with the first line of comics to be offered digitally on the same day print editions hit stores, beginning with Ultimate Comics Thor #1.

If you read that and thought, “Wait, what?” then join the club – not least of all because the Ultimate line actually went line-wide day-and-date in February of this year with the “Death of Spider-Man” storyline in Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates. Look, there was even a press release about that, too.

The real “first line of comics to be offered digitally on the same day [as] print editions” is, of course, Archie Comics, which went day-and-date in January this year. So, why did Marvel’s PR include this completely untrue piece of information, especially when it’s so easily disproven?

I’ll admit it; I am entirely biased in favor of Chris Claremont’s X-Men run. It’s the comic that made me a collector, the first comic I got obsessive about and, for that matter, the first comic I ended up dropping in frustration back when they were stuck in Australia and Havok was being an ass. No wonder, then, that I’m so excited about the prospect of a documentary about the run, from the same people behind the Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts and Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods movies:

Comics in Focus: Chris Claremont’s X-Men will take an in-depth look at Claremont’s monumental run. It will explore the behind-the-scenes origins of notable characters like Wolverine, Storm, and Phoenix, as well as the challenges of creating art within a corporate system. The film will include new interviews with many of the biggest players involved, including Claremont, Louise Simonson, Ann Nocenti, Art Adams, and Jim Shooter. Particularly notable is a roundtable interview featuring Claremont, Simonson, and Nocenti, together for the first time in 10 years. The film will also include new interviews with contemporary artists inspired by Claremont’s work, including Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron, and Chris Bachalo.

The movie is currently looking for funding on Kickstarter. Personally, I’m hoping some eccentric millionaire comes forward and funds the whole thing, and then demands it be turned into a lengthier TV series…

Over at Millarworld, Tony Harris is sharing the original inkwash and finished painting for an upcoming cover to DC’s The Shade miniseries:

Click through for the finished painting. Spoilers: It’s lovely. (more…)

Here’s a fun alternative to polybagging a comic to keep the cover a secret, courtesy of IDW’s Chris Ryall:

I’ve been really enjoying IDW’s GI Joe “Cobra Civil War” storyline to date, and there’s something about this particular special cover that really appeals to me. Looking forward to the big reveal, when it comes.

From the same Comics Alliance post that announced that the Ultimate line was also going to include download codes in its print editions, here’s Marvel’s VP of sales David Gabriel:

If the digital comics going same day as print had taken off like this monster sales horse and destroyed the in-store comic shop sales of those print books… they wouldn’t have sold out each time we did another one. The retailers wouldn’t have been looking across the board for second prints on those books. Reorders wouldn’t have been coming in on the books. I think people thought at the beginning that everyone was just gonna turn to digital to get the book and not go up to a retail shop, and we watched that not be the case time and time again.

The leaked credits for next week’s Incredible Hulk #2 are, for more than one reason, kind of stunning. Firstly, Marc Silvestri couldn’t even manage two issues before needing help? Secondly, there were five pencilers on the book? Considering Marvel books are only around 20 pages each these days, that’s four pages per penciller on average, which is kind of amazing, when you think about it (Two of the pencilers, Michael Broussard and Eric Basaldua, are just credited with “pencil assists,” so it’s unlikely that they drew full pages solo, but still).

It got me thinking about page count and work rate, unsurprisingly. If superhero books are just 20 pages per month now, then that seems perfectly achievable for anyone producing a page a day – A book would be finished in four weeks, with weekends free, at that rate. I can’t believe that Silvestri has become quite so slow as to need so many assistants to finish Hulk, and considering that he’s still apparently penciling #3, I wonder if there’s more than meets the cynical eye about the number of people drawing #2…

A lot has been said about The Family Circus cartoonist Bil Keane passing away at age 89, and here’s a bit more: I grew up in the Phoenix area, where Keane lived and the strip took place. As goofy and antiquated as The Family Circus might have been, I loved it as a kid, and it was a significant part of our culture — his artwork would pop up in various places, notably the Sugar Bowl in downtown Scottsdale. Here’s an article from 2006 by my former co-worker Amanda Myers that captures a visit to Keane’s house.

Even before today’s release, Marvel’s Point One had its fair share of detractors, whether it was people complaining about the cost – Admittedly, $5.99 might seem a little steep for a book of previews – or the disparate nature of the various books being previewed makes for something less than a coherent read, even with the bridging sequence by Brubaker and Pulido. Me, I actually enjoyed it, but the complaints made me wonder: Is there some way to do a preview book “right”?

For what it’s worth, I thought the previews in Point One were better than the previews at the end of Fear Itself #7; more complete reading experiences, and less like after-thoughts rushed into production (Seriously, that Hulk one read oddly to everyone, right?), and I think having the longer strips offer a better idea of what the actual series is going to be like. Point One reminds me of DC’s Countdown to Infinite Crisis, from years back, and I thought that book also worked well enough, but I admit, the preview format I’ve always wanted someone to bring back is the old Marvel Age Annual. Does anyone else remember that, with one page of all-new comic strip for each monthly book, in addition to an interview hinting at what’s to come in the next year?

As a preview of what’s to come, it worked well, in part because it didn’t feel the pressure of having to work as an extended narrative, and the interview material took away the awkward expositionary aspects things like the Fear Itself previews had to shoulder. I find myself wishing that Point One had been closer to that than what it ended up being, but even then, I’m sure it would’ve had to have dealt with people complaining about how overrated it was. Is it possible that preview books are just fated to never find a receptive enough audience all ’round?

Over on his Formspring, Marvel VP of Publishing, Tom Brevoort, explains the cancellation of Destroyers before it was even solicited:

We’ve been saying for months now that we’re going to be putting out fewer limited series, and instead focusing on our core monthly titles in response to where the marketplace seems to be right now. That’s what we’re doing. And that means that some projects that were initiated earlier are going to fall by the wayside. But at least among the best of those in terms of ideas, there’s nothing saying that we can’t revisit them later if conditions change.

What’s particularly depressing about this is that, if this is the start of Marvel looking at focusing on “our core monthly titles” instead of minis, it doesn’t bode well for the publisher’s variety; consider the push over the last year or so to double-up on ongoings (Captain America becomes Captain America and Captain America & Bucky, Thor becomes The Mighty Thor and Journey Into Mystery, Uncanny X-Men becomes Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine and The X-Men, Avengers becomes Avengers and Avengers Assemble). While Marvel is adding more ongoing books to its slate, it’s focusing on that “core” concept very heavily, and focusing almost entirely on characters who already have their own their own series. If this is really what is going to take the place of minis like Destroyers, or All-Winners Squad, Victor Von Doom or even “upgraded” minis like Alpha Flight, then the company’s bottom line might improve, but I worry about the narrow focus of their books.

Another day, another story about Marvel cutting costs. This time, it’s apparently upping the number of trade paperbacks that the publisher doesn’t have to pay creator royalties on. Rich Johnston explains:

In the section where they mention trade paperback royalties, the split between Marvel and the creators seems the same as the old agreement, but they’ve actually increased the percent of books that are exempt from royalties due to the ambiguous “returns, anticipated returns, promotional copies and damages.”  It used to be 25%, now it’s 30%.

What sticks out to me about this is that Marvel doesn’t do promotional copies of its books. Marvel doesn’t do comp copies to reviewers or other media in the same way that DC or other publishers do – ie, actually having promotional copies available at all. So, unless (a) Marvel is about to start releasing comps – which really wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially with the upcoming OGN Season One line next year – or (b) Marvel is expecting the number of damages and returns to increase sometime soon for no immediately apparent reason, this really does look like it’s simply slashing creator royalties to save money, pure and simple. That’s going to hurt, but leaves me wondering two things:

1. How big are collection royalties at Marvel in the first place?
2. Will this change make lower-selling collections profitable, where they might have been making a loss under the 25% figure?

Of course, we may never find out…

There’s a line in this report about iVerse raising $4 million in funding that caught my eye:

Among the product offerings iVerse plans to enhance are its PLUS feature, which allows streaming video content for digital comics on iOS.

After getting over my first response of “Streaming video content for digital comics? Oh no, it’s Motion Comics all over again!”, I started wondering what uses streaming video could have for digital comics. Some creators have, in the past, talked about the idea of embedding extra information into digital comics, so that readers could get a more involved reading experience – Could this be a possible use for this kind of thing? Or what about a video (or audio) commentary track, page-by-page?

iVerse has, sadly, somewhat fallen to the wayside as ComiXology and Graphic.ly have become more popular platforms for digital comics, but this kind of innovation could point to a way that they could make a comeback, as well as a way forward for digital comics as a format. It’ll be interesting to see what (if anything) comes of this new round of funding, and experimentation.

Remember when certain parties tried to argue that Superman #712 wasn’t pulled at the last minute because of concerns over its portrayal of a Muslim American superhero, but instead because DC editorial just couldn’t handle the idea that any modern Superman would rescue a cat from a tree?

From this week’s Action Comics #3:

On the plus side, you could always read this sequence as the ultimate meta-commentary, with the angry mob representing DC editors upset that Grant Morrison and Rags Morales have ruined the reputation of the New 52 Superman only three months into his very existence.

We may never get an official confirmation that Marvel has dropped their regular superhero books to 20 pages, but unofficial confirmation comes via Matt Fraction, who has given two interviews promoting next month’s Defenders book in the last week where he talks about the publisher dropping its page count, with quotes like this:

And industry-wide, everyone’s going down two pages. I learned to write comics in 16 pages, so 22 pages always felt pornographic. Going down to 20 is much more comfortable [for me], but it’s changing everything in a real way. And there are people that realize it, and people who don’t — who say, “it’s just two pages.” That’s 10% of a book. By the time you get to the end of six issues, that’s a whole other issue you’ve lost. I think you’re going to see people rising and falling on this. It’s a very different world, a different format, a different time signature.

The question is, with pagecounts officially falling, I wonder if we’ll see more Marvel books at a $2.99 price point as a consequence?

The Comics Reporter brings word of the passing of comic book historian Les Daniels. For me and many others, his oversized tomes Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics and DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes were invaluable resources in the days when such information wasn’t easy to come by. Daniels also worked as a writer of five vampire fiction novels including Yellow Fog. And definitely check out this link over on The Comics Reporter, for a thoroughly before-its-time passage from Daniels’ 1971 book Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America.

Variety reported on Friday that Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro is director J.J. Abrams’ choice for the villain of the much-anticipated Star Trek sequel.

The trade magazine says that Del Toro has met with Abrams about the part, which is currently being kept a secret — perhaps, even to Del Toro. Now, the natural speculation is that the role wouldn’t be kept a secret unless it was someone that fans would identify — with the obvious implication being Khan Noonien Singh, previously portrayed by the late Ricardo Montalban and one of the most recognizable Star Trek foes thanks to 1982′s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (the second film in that franchise). If true, this would make good on our two-and-a-half-year-old request to make Khan the villain of the Abrams-helmed sequel. Of course, there’s every chance that Del Toro is being targeted to play someone else from the Star Trek mythos or an entirely new character, so feel free to speculate as wildly as you feel is apt.

Odds are the details of this situation will shake out sooner rather than later — the sequel is expected to start production early next year.

There’re a couple of fascinating snippets of information in Vaneta’s latest conversation with DC’s John Rood and Bob Wayne for those of us wondering just what the digital comics market is shaping up to be, in these new day-and-date days (And I’m not talking about the snarky implication that Marvel is offering a “Trojan Horse” to retailers with their Avenging Spider-Man combo-pack promotion). (more…)