For most comic readers of a certain age, there’s a period where Chris Claremont’s X-Men was their favorite comic as a kid; the particular era of Claremont X-Men can vary – Is it the Romita Jr. stuff? The Jim Lee run? What about Paul Smith’s short tenure? – but one thing about Claremont’s X-Men remains consistent: The lettering.

As the page above shows – It’s from Marvel Age Annual #3, by Claremont, Marc Silvestri and Terry Austin, if you’re wondering – Tom Orzechowski managed to deal with all manner of wordy panels and overwriting with ease, making the most filled panels both easy to read and graceful in their design. There’s a rumor that Claremont used to pay Orzechowski extra from his own pocket to ensure that he stayed on Uncanny; I have no idea if it’s true, but if it is, it was certainly money well-spent. Orz’s lettering is my internal model for what good lettering should look like – attractive, clear and never, ever interfering with the artwork no matter how many damn words are going on in the panel.

What’s the latest boldly relevant move from Archie Comics? A story touching on the ongoing “Occupy” movement, titled “Occupy Riverdale.”

Though a date or issue hasn’t yet been announced for the story, it’ll be written by Archie PR exec Alex Segura, who also wrote the four-part “Archie Meets KISS” story that wraps up this week. The art is from cartoonist Gisele Lagace, who’s worked for Archie before and draws and co-writes the gleefully NSFW webcomic Ménage à 3.

As seen in the Jill Thompson variant cover provided by the publisher, working-class Archie Andrews is once again torn between Betty and Veronica, except this time, Betty represents the 99% and Veronica (along with Mr. Lodge and someone that may be Reggie in a fedora) is firmly in the 1-percenter camp. (Also, look at how cool Thompson’s scraggly Jughead looks.)

We’ll pass on more details as we know them, until then, check out the full cover after the jump.

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Marvel’s May solicitations contained this somewhat unexpected item among their Spider-Man offerings:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: PARALLEL LIVES #1
GERRY CONWAY (w)
ALEX SAVIUK (a)
Cover by BOB LARKIN
• He’s Peter Parker: a shy, introverted teen whose life changed forever when a radioactive spider bit him.
• She’s Mary Jane Watson: product of a broken home, concealing her pain with an outgoing party-girl persona.
• They meet, fall in love and get married. This is their story.
• The classic 1989 graphic novel returns!
64 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

Now, there’s no denying that Parallel Lives is a classic Spidey story, and one that a lot of current readers might not even know about. So on that end, a reissuing of the story makes perfect sense. But the timing seems conspicuous, especially since May will be just two months before The Amazing Spider-Man live-action film hits theaters, with Gwen Stacy as Peter Parker’s love interest and no Mary Jane in sight. (more…)

Yes, please:

If this really is a tease for a third Phonogram from Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie and Matt Wilson, I couldn’t be happier. Suddenly, I find myself looking forward to the news coming out of this weekend’s Image Expo just a little bit more…

Looking over the Marvel solicits for May, I find myself thinking about the impermanence of creative teams at the Big Two these days. DC’s New 52 has already taught us that artists can change at a moment’s notice, and that writers will swap out within a few months if sales aren’t great, but there’s something about this month’s Marvel solicits that underscore just how interchangable creative teams seem to be, these days: The familiar writers of Marvel Universe: Ultimate Spider-Man #1 (Dan Slott, Ty Templeton and the Man of Action team) are gone by #2, it seems, replaced by Eugene Son & Jacob Semahn (presumably writers on the show itself), for one thing; regular Avenging Spider-Man writer Zeb Wells is mising from the book for a second month, with launch artist Joe Madureira having been absent from the book for five issues now. All manner of books have fill-in artists, including books that are less than six months old, like Scarlet Spider and Defenders (I’m amused by the Daredevil #12 solicit welcoming “new artist, Chris Samnee,” who’s immediately replaced with the double-shipped next issue by Khoi Pham; Samnee’s a great addition to the Daredevil team, but announcing him as the new artist before immediately revolving him back out just reminds me of the fact that Daredevil – which launched with a team of two revolving artists, will have had five different art teams contributing to the first twelve issues of the series), and even Rick Remender is suddenly co-writing Venom – with Cullen Bunn, which is a pretty damn great writing team, really – without any warning.

Seeing changes like this isn’t surprising anymore; in fact, it’s beginning to seem like the norm, making the appearance of Invincible Iron Man‘s Matt Fraction and Sal Larocca (doing two issues in May) feel all the more impressive for the longevity of the pairing. Remember the days when most super-hero books had a regular writer and artist?

In case you haven’t seen it yet, Kate Beaton has a wonderful Q&A about becoming a webcomics creator up on her Tumblr:

You can’t ask “how can I tell if my comic is good,” because you can’t think about it like that.  You HAVE to know that your comic is good, that it has the potential to be good if it isn’t now, that it has good qualities, that you are not just throwing ideas onto paper and wondering if people will like it because you have no idea.  You have to know what’s good about it, or you won’t know when it’s bad, and you’ll never know how to make it better.  You don’t want to be one of those people who doesn’t have the skills to know whether what they make is good or not.  Self editing is simply something people learn over time as they strive to make their comics better, people with the skill to know the difference.  You need that skill, so don’t be shy about it, look at your comic and think to yourself about what you like and don’t like, and be honest about it.  Then, like everything else, just keep working.

Now listen – even people with the most talent and skill in the world will suck super badly when they start to make comics.  If your comic is bad right now it doesn’t mean that you are bad at making comics.  My first comics were awful.  Everyone’s are.  Some people are awful for a long time then stick with it and get good.  But you have to know you can.

(You can.)

If that last “(You can.)” doesn’t win you over, I give up. There’s lots of good stuff in the Q&A, and it’s as charming as all get-out; go read.

As February rolls on, so does the monthlong celebration of things that just so happen to be awesome in this world of comic books. But, after celebrating the likes of Veronica Lodge, Doctor Doom and the transformation of a thunder god into a frog, perhaps it’s time to think of the nicer things in life…

I’m sure I’ve talked about my love of Brandon Graham’s King City before; it looks great, is funny and smart as hell and manages to recast a number of science fiction cliches and ideas into something new – In short, it’s one of the best comics of the last few years, hands down. But what I’m really thinking about today is the way Graham makes King City into a romance comic, in many ways, whether it’s characters being broken hearted and remembering their relationships before things went wrong, characters in relationships that survive despite outside pressures or sexy bad girls leading our heroes down the road to temptation, King City is full of relationship drama and excitement, all of it done just wonderfully well. It’s one of the sexiest comics of the last few years, too, but also one of the most wistful and melancholy in it’s own way, too. Really, you should check it out if you haven’t already.

If you’re thinking “Is that an unprinted page of Frank Miller/Klaus Janson art from their Daredevil run?” then the answer is yes:

The page comes via Tom Brevoort’s uber-amazing Marvel Age of Comics Tumblr, where he explained:

Here’s an unprinted page by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson from the two-part angel dust story that was originally intended for DAREDEVIL #167 and #168, and which was rejected by the comics code. The story eventually saw print, retooled, as DAREDEVIL #183 & #184, but this page fell by the wayside.

For those who like seeing scans of original art and/or Marvel ephemera, I can’t recommend that Tumblr enough.

Image’s Eric Stephenson on the importance of the Direct Market:

If all the opportunities [comics] have in mass markets right now give us the potential to rise to previously unimaginable heights, the Direct Market is still the foundation for our business.  The Direct Market matters, perhaps more than ever, because it allows everyone with a passion for comics – creators, retailers, readers –  to explore that passion in new and vital ways. Compared to other entertainment industries, the barriers to entry in comics are extremely low. Whether you’re a publisher or a creator or a retailer, you can reach readers with fairly modest resources. Publishers and creators can easily develop new ideas. Retailers can easily test those new ideas and voice their support for material that may be a sleeper one day, but a blockbuster the next. The Walking Dead, Scott Pilgrim, Hellboy, Bone, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Batman, Superman – none of them started out as sure things or even safe bets. The Direct Market has made the chances of success for new ideas more likely, though, and as a result, it’s now more possible than ever before for talent and publishers alike to invest in new creativity.

I’m constantly torn on the Direct Market for reasons that aren’t necessarily the fault of the Direct Market. It feels, at times, too small and too niche in terms of what truly succeeds – the sales for independent publishers is just horrific compared with Marvel and DC, in a way that really doesn’t seem healthy for anyone (but isn’t that market forces? I always wonder) – but, at the same time, it’s because of the DM that we have the Image Comics, IDWs, Dark Horses, Oni Presses etc. of the industry, or the industry at all, for that matter; I think I constantly mistake “This needs to improve” with “This needs to be razed to the ground and started over,” in terms of attitude. The Direct Market is a mess, it’s true, but it’s supported all manner of things that I adore when no other market would have, and maybe I should be more grateful to it for that.

Judging from this interview with Tom Brevoort and Nick Lowe, Avengers vs. X-Men might be more truthfully titled Avengers and X-Men vs. X-Men and Avengers, as Brevoort explains:

There’s nothing that even says that characters — especially characters like Wolverine, Beast and Storm, who just joined the Avengers — will choose one side and remain on it consistently… It’s obviously easiest to see how the X-Men among the Avengers’ ranks might have divided loyalties. What may not be as apparent is how certain members of the Avengers might have greater sympathy with the X-Men’s position, or greater confidence in what Cyclops believes. I tend to think of characters such as Hawkeye, Iron Fist and Luke Cage as guys who’ll naturally root for the oppressed underdog against the majority or “the man,” so there may well be some points where each or any of them need to spot-check what they’re doing and why.

By the same token, the X-Men, as I mentioned earlier, are already fragmented, and this situation may cause them to fragment even further — not everybody in either X-camp is so totally supportive of either Wolverine or Cyclops that they wouldn’t exercise their own judgment and own sense of morals if it came down to it. Even among the Avengers, there may be characters who are taking a sidelong glance at the mutants standing right next to them as the situation gets real, wondering if their loyalties can be completely trusted.

On the one hand: It makes more sense, from a story perspective, that the battle lines aren’t as clear as “This team versus that team.” On the other hand, it does make all the Are You an Avenger? Are You an X-Man? branding (and, kinda, the title of the book itself) seem somewhat ridiculous if Marvel’s own editors are saying that Avengers vs. X-Men is an overly simplistic and not entirely correct way of looking at the conflict two months before the series even begins.

He’s the World’s Greatest Detective, one of the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes and also just a straight-up Super Friend. But one of the things that makes Batman so awesome? The fact that he can stand up to such interpretation so well.

More than any other character, the basic Batman design thrives no matter who is drawing him (I’m tempted to say that only Spider-Man really compares, and even he can stand or fall depending on the artist’s ability to do webs well). Good job, Bob Kane or whoever designed the character originally.

Today’s must-read piece from around the comics internet is as depressing as it is necessary; Tom Spurgeon picks five non-piracy-related reasons to worry about comics today, ranging from the disinterest the corporations owning the two largest publishers in America ultimately have in publishing comic books to the lack of money within the medium. It’s not sensationalist, it’s – as with the best of Spurge’s writing – warm, human and wonderfully intelligent, and the kind of thought-provoking commentary that puts the rest of us to shame. Go read right now.

Great moments in not-staying-on-message: Brian Michael Bendis in this week’s Axel-in-Charge column at CBR, talking about the genesis of Avengers vs. X-Men:

There’s a lot of ways that could go wrong. So Axel, Tom and the guys smartly said, “Let’s get together — just the five writers and the three editors with Nick Lowe.” They all came to my place in Portland, and I stuffed them full of donuts — as was reported last week [Laughter]. And we went there with not much more than “The Phoenix would make a really good MacGuffin for this.”

Axel Alonso, four paragraphs later:

Understand: We’d backed off doing an “Avengers Vs. X-Men” several times before because we didn’t have the right set-up or inciting incident. If we were going to have the world’s two biggest super teams go toe to toe, it had to be over something that mattered, not a McGuffin, and there couldn’t be a clear-cut good guy or bad guy.

More an amusing attempt to save face for those potentially horrified at the Phoenix not being given the “appropriate” respect than anything else, I have to admit that I’m hoping that Bendis is the more honest of the two here: I want the Phoenix to be a MacGuffin, because I feel like the classic Marvel intra-hero slugfests are all MacGuffinned-up, with the inciting incident being something that can be easily left in the background until everyone decides to team-up and save the day. In a story like this, don’t you want less talking and more punching, ultimately?

Sean Murphy recounts the curious fate of his Wolverine ABC sketches:

Last year I drew the Wolverine ABCs.  When it was done, I printed out around 200 sketchbooks of them to hand out to industry friends.  I knew enough about copyright law to know that I was in the gray area, even though they were only meant to be given away as gifts.  I also gave them to people and editors who worked at Marvel–clearly I wasn’t trying to hide what I’d created.  Because I was a pro and because I wasn’t selling them, I figured I’d be fine.  After three conventions of EVERYONE telling me I should sell them, I broke down and sold some.  At the last show that season, I sold the remaining 40 copies or so.

Then Marvel called.  I explained that I didn’t have a warehouse of sketchbooks, I only made around 200 (or close to that) and mostly I gave them away.  I explained how none of the Marvel editors complained when I handed them one, and my lack of hiding the ABCs should show the innocent nature of my endeavor.  I even offered to sign a Cease and Desist, and pay them the money I made selling the last 40.  But Marvel wanted the rights to the ABCs–they wanted to own them and pay me nothing.  I wasn’t willing to do that, so I got a lawyer.  And we eventually came together and agreed to drop the subject if I simply removed them from my site and promised not to make any more sketchbooks.

He goes on to say “My mistake was thinking that it was no big deal … because most people in comics don’t think it’s a big deal.  But most people haven’t dealt with Marvel like I have, and that’s what fueled my involvement in this entire issue. I know people think I’m overreacting–I don’t care… I’m changing my sketch policy because I’m imagining the worst-case scenario.” It puts a new spin on Joe Quesada responding to concerns about the Gary Friedrich lawsuit affecting artists’ sketches by saying “Marvel is not looking to make any new policy announcements through this lawsuit,” when you learn Marvel was looking to claim ownership of sketches earlier, doesn’t it…?

If the fact that a new work week has you feeling a little grumpy, then perhaps you need to consider a new motivational role model… a man who lets little stand in the way of getting what he wants, and remains eager for new challenges no matter what setbacks he’s suffered in previous escapades. Ladies and Gentlemen, the man we should all look to for inspiration:

As much as I may want to explain just what makes Doctor Doom one of comics’ greatest characters – definitely one of the medium’s greatest villains, I think he’d prefer it if I just wrote Bah! Doom needs no explanation! instead. Which, in itself, may make my point.

How concerned is Marvel about leaks from the upcoming Avengers movie? Spoilers (or anti-spoilers, maybe?) under the jump give you an idea of what the answer is. (more…)

Over at the Huffington Post, Archie co-CEO Jon Goldwater explains why his company is, in his words, “the most progressive comic book publisher out there”:

I saw firsthand what happened to the music industry when they didn’t embrace digital, and I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen to Archie. Unlike most direct market-centric comic companies, Archie has always been about being available. On the newsstand. In comic shops. In bookstores. So it made sense to translate that philosophy to digital, both in availability in timing. Despite what some other companies may claim, we were the first to go day-and-date digital, which means our titles are available to digital consumers the same day they hit stores. We also believe in a different pricing model for digital than print.We were one of the first companies to aggressively put out collections and expanded product out there digitally. Our Archie Comics app, which is powered by the team at iVerse, has been downloaded close to 4 million times, and our comics are routinely among the most downloaded titles. Just last year in San Diego, we announced plans to launch the first-ever digital superhero universe with our Red Circle Comics app. The app will be a newsstand app via Apple. The shorthand we use is “Netflix for comics.” Each week, a subscriber will get six pages of our flagship title, NEW CRUSADERS, plus access to our continually-growing archive of Crusaders comics dating back to the Golden Age of comics.

In addition to that, we were the first company to make Spanish-language editions of our titles available to our Spanish-speaking readers, and we’ve just launched a Facebook app – in partnership with our friends at Graphicly – to sell Archie comics to our Facebook fans. Currently, we have over 116,000 fans on our main Archie page, growing significantly each day.

Digital is important for a number of reasons. Mainly, we’re always looking for ways to expand and grow the business. Archie is a global icon and one of the most recognizable brands anywhere. It’d be foolish to just limit ourselves to our existing distribution channels. We want Archie to be available to everyone everywhere. We want to create a one-stop shop — an Archie “superstore” that’ll serve everyone’s needs. That’s the goal. Digital is part of that over-arching plan.

When you factor in things like Kevin Keller being the first gay male lead for an ongoing solo series from a non-underground publisher – demonstrating that it’s not only in distribution that Archie is forward thinking – then it starts to seem like a much more convincing argument, doesn’t it…?

How big will Marvel’s Avengers vs. X-Men advertising blitz be? According to SVP Sales David Gabriel, pretty damn big:

This is the biggest marketing investment that we’ve ever put into a series or an event. You’ll see that online, through social media, and there’s going to be a radio and television component as well… [The Sales Department is] actually treating every issue as an event, because there’s a different fight going on in every issue, and I’m told that they are pushing every single issue through all twelve issues. The story itself has three acts, and each of those acts has a natural marketing hook to it, so they’re pushing those as well.

According to Gabriel, Marvel’s sister Disney subsidiaries ABC and Disney XD are two of the television networks being considered for advertising. The idea of different advertisements for each of the twelve biweekly issues seems particularly impressive, if it ends up happening. Here’s hoping it all pays off for everyone involved.

Well, this is awkward: Dynamite is being sued for Trademark Infringement and Unfair Competition over its Warlord of Mars and Lord of The Jungle titles by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., the company that represents the estate of the writer who created the two characters. The Wall Street Journal reports that ERB, Inc. was originally asked by Dynamite for permission for their series, but such permission was never given; the company would later team with Disney subsidiary Marvel for a series of John Carter comics in support of Disney’s John Carter movie, released next month.

The original novels in both the John Carter and Tarzan series are public domain works in the U.S., although as the suit points out, this isn’t the case internationally; ERB, Inc. additionally owns both copyright and trademark for all material published after 1924, which constitutes a sizable amount for both characters further complicating matters. The lawsuit claims that ERB, Inc. “has no control over the quality of [Dynamite]‘s comic book series” and therefore, “ERB’s extremely valuable reputation may be permanently damaged.”

In addition to Dynamite Entertainment, Nick Barucci’s other companies Dynamic Forces and Savage Tales Entertainment are named as defendants in the suit.

It’s Friday, and it’s the thirteenth entry on the month-long celebration of the awesome in comics, so why not go for something a little spooky, not to mention ooky? Step inside that elevator, dear readers, and press the button marked “13″…

The Thirteenth Floor was a short horror strip that started in the British anthology Scream before jumping over to Eagle when Scream folded. Written by Judge Dredd, Batman and Lobo (amongst many, many other things) writers John Wagner and Alan Grant under the psuedonym “Ian Holland,” and beautifully drawn by Jose Ortiz, the strip featured various ne’er-do-wells being given their come-uppance by Max, the somewhat psychotic sentient computer custodian of a tower block who has somehow managed to turn his thirteenth floor into a holodeck of fear and misery. Funny, gruesome and shamelessly addictive, this is another of the hidden treasures of British comics that’s well worth searching out for those who like things like Creepy or Eerie.