You have to remember that a certain number of individuals in the comic industry are largely there because they’ve managed to somehow transform abilities with art or writing into a career that guarantees them an extended adolescence. Their worldview is colored or informed by the simplistic moral narratives which they spend the best part of their creative lives delineating, and they are often careful to avoid any information which would prove disruptive to that way of seeing things.

That’s Alan Moore, from a recent interview. He’s talking, specifically, about Frank Miller, but am I the only one who thinks that there’s an ironic resonance in those words about Moore himself…?

You know what comics as an industry doesn’t have enough of, especially compared with the book industry? Author tours to support new releases. Into that mysterious breach, then, steps Brandon Graham, who’s promoting his new Image series Multiple Warheads: Alphabet to Infinity with a four-city (and state!) tour over the next few days. He’ll be appearing at the following stores, starting with Anaheim, CA’s Beach Ball Comics this evening:

Beach Ball Comics
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
5:00 pm until 7:00 pm
3024 W Ball Road Suite G
Anaheim, CA 92804
(714) 826-6127
@BeachBallComics
www.cornerstorecomics.com
http://www.facebook.com/events/384321781637008/

Austin Books
Thursday, October 25, 2012
4:00 pm until 7:00 pm CDT
5002 North Lamar Boulevard
Austin, TX 78751
(512) 454-4197
@AustinBooks
www.austinbooks.com
http://www.facebook.com/events/370404009700444/

Starclipper
Friday, October 26, 2012
6:00 pm until 9:00 pm CDT
6392 Delmar Boulevard
Saint Louis, MO 63130
(314) 725-9110
@Starclipper
www.starclipper.com
http://www.facebook.com/events/482181911812107/

Chapel Hill Comics
Saturday, October 27, 2012
5:00 pm until 7:00 pm EDT
316 W Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
(919) 967-4439
@chapelhillcomic
www.chapelhillcomics.com
http://www.facebook.com/events/283670415066127/

Each of the stores will have a variant edition of the first issue to the series, created specifically for the tour; you can see the wraparound cover at the top of the post. If you’re anywhere close to any of these locations, you should make the effort to stop in and see Graham; if you’re not, you should pick up Multiple Warheads anyway. Graham’s a great creator.

Considering all the reports we’ve seen in recent months about an uptick in comic book orders compared with previous years, it’s worth wondering how retailers feel about the industry these days. After all, they are the ones who get to see whether things are actually selling or not… Thankfully, ICv2 has asked them:

Comic retailers were cautiously ecstatic about sales at the end of Summer 2012, after 12 consecutive months of growth for periodical comics, according to a recently released report in ICv2’s Internal Correspondence #80.  The caution comes from having seen both high and low points across recent decades, but the “return to floppies,” as Things from Another World’s Andrew McIntire described it, has reassured comic retailers that their core business has a future despite the growth of graphic novels and the more recent surge in sales of digital comics.

The caution apparently comes from those with long memories who recall the busts that traditionally follow the booms, thankfully. Even though publishers seem to be pushing us back towards the 1990s with the amount of variant covers we’re seeing, it’s nice to see that retailers aren’t exactly chomping at the bit to follow suit.

Mike Romo has a really nice post up over at iFanboy about what keeps him returning to comics, even at his most disinterested:

There are lots of great reasons to be a comic book fan, and I find myself celebrating different reasons at different times. Sometimes I’ll be on a creator kick, especially new books start out with different teams, giving me the chance to explore new creators or return to the comfort of an old favorite. Other times it will be my taking a chance on a new character or returning to an old one after hearing that the book is “getting good again”. That’s the benefit (and, perhaps, curse) of being into comics–there are always good reasons to stay with them.

It’s very easy to be disillusioned with comics as an industry and business, and as a culture, for whatever reason – Marvel NOW!’s lead book being delayed with it’s second issue being one such reason for throwing your hands up about the industry, just to pick something announced today – but it’s always worth remembering that the comics that made you fall in love with the whole shebang in the first place are still around, and there are always new ones, somewhere, that’ll make you fall in love all over again.

Eager to know more about [SPOILER]‘s nefarious plans involving [SPOILER]‘s [SPOILER] from the last page of Uncanny Avengers #1? Well, you’ll have to wait a fortnight longer. According to Diamond’s latest shipping update, the Marvel NOW! book, by Rick Remender and John Cassaday, has moved release dates from Nov. 14 to Nov. 28.

Also on the move: Red She-Hulk #59, also an early part of Marvel NOW!, shifts from Nov. 7 to Nov. 14; as do Powers Bureau #1, Brilliant #5 and Scarlet #6 (so it’ll be a big day for Brian Michael Bendis-written Icon books). Full update here.

If the trailers for Lego Batman 2 were your thing, but you didn’t want to actually play the videogame, perhaps you’ll find yourself interested in this…

Yes, it’s the cut scenes from the game re-edited (with new material, I’m guessing) into a DVD/Blu-ray movie release, Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes United, which is due to be released next year. I have to admit, I’m in if only because Lego Flash and Lego Martian Manhunter look awesome.

The idea of a Marvel editor focusing on one book is…pretty outside the realm of possibility. We have a LOT of books to put out. Just looking at my own schedule, I’m currently editing two on-going series and two miniseries while assisting Nick on seven on-goings and three minis. Add to that the fact that a number of those on-going series will put out more than 12 issues per year, and you can see why the idea of focusing on just working on one book is a little foreign to me.One book would not be enough to fill up my day editorially. Sure, I would like to have a little less so I could devote a bit more to each project, but that is natural. We all do our best to get as in-depth and immersed in the world of every book we can. Naturally, I am a bit more involved in the books I edit than the ones I assist on, but I can get pretty deep into those as well. I think it’s all about balance, figuring out how much you can devote to each book without selling any of them short.

That’s Marvel’s Jordan D. White, talking to The Beat’s Steve Morris about what it means to be a Marvel editor; it’s a pretty great interview, which you can check out here.

This week sees the release of DC’s National Comics: Madame X, the latest and seemingly-final issue of the National Comics series of one-shots that was announced this May. With no National Comics issues solicited for November through January, it appears that the series of books put together by the West Coast division of DC Entertainment to retool obscure characters and provide them with pilot episodes in comic book form has quietly disappeared after publishing the four titles announced at launch.

It’s possible that National was always intended to be released in short waves, with breaks in between, and as such it’ll return at some point. But considering that the line/series has never broken the Top 100 in terms of sales, it’s even more likely that the plug has been quietly pulled on the experiment. If that’s the case, it’s a shame; I like the “pilot” format one-shot, and even moreso, like the chance to see non-marquee creators and characters get their day in the sun. If National Comics has gone away, I hope something similar comes up to replace it soon.

Colin Smith, of the always-worth-reading Too Busy Thinking About My Comics blog, looks at the opening pages of each strip in last week’s Marvel NOW! Point One issue to see how well they hold up as introductions to the introduction (Part one, part two). Suffice to say, he’s harsh, but fair; here he is talking about the first page of the Secret Avengers tale, which is the first page of the comic itself:

In what’s an inexplicably soporific opening to Point One’s framing tale, Spencer and Ross give every sense of  being determined to try the patience of anyone but the most committed of fans. There’s quite literally nothing that’s visually or emotionally compelling about the page. Who could possibly be enthralled by a single frame in which almost a hundred charmless words are used to describe a time traveller’s economic crimes? What is there to be snared on in the four somnolent panels in which three characters wander down barely-illuminated corridors while spouting an intimidatingly dense mass of exposition. It’s not that the symbolism of their bromidic journey isn’t relevant or obvious; at least some of the hidden secrets of the Marvel Now! project are going to be uncovered. But it’s a dull, dry, overloaded beginning not just to this particular story, but to the collection as a whole. With 52 words in the first panel alone, and a clear commitment to telling at considerable length rather than showing, it seems no-one involved with Nick Fury: NYSE was thinking about reaching beyond the fannish consumer. When the most impressive aspect of a comic’s first side is the contrast behind the shade of green used for the window in the final frame and the stultifyingly narrow pallet of purple applied elsewhere, it’s hard to feel any measure of optimism for what’s to come.

Ouch.

He’s much more complimentary about the openings of Young Avengers and FF, and guardedly complimentary about Steve McNiven’a contributions to Guardians of The Galaxy. Go, see for yourself.

Is Storm about to get her own solo series as part of Marvel NOW!? Here’s Axel Alonso, answering a question about Marvel’s apparent lack of racial diversity in the already-announced NOW! titles:

Whether it’s Black Panther at the forefront of “New Avengers,” Nick Fury at the head of “Secret Avengers,” the Falcon, Sunspot and a few surprises featured in “Avengers,” Storm in “Wolverine and the X-Men,” “Uncanny X-Force,” and a series I can’t talk about yet, Miles Morales as the one-and-only Spider-Man of the Ultimate universe, there’s a variety of African American, African and Afro-Hispanic characters playing important roles in our books.

What are the odds that the “series [he] can’t talk about yet” in regards to Storm is a solo book…? On the one hand, it seems unlikely – Marvel seems to prefer team titles to solo books in recent memory, and the idea of giving a black woman a solo title seems like it’d be doubling down on the “not white males” factor that they tend to stay away from in the solo titles they do have. But, then again, we have seen new (re-)launches for both Red She-Hulk and Sif in Journey Into Mystery, suggesting that perhaps things are loosening up over there, and Storm’s profile is as high as it’s been in years, thanks to Avengers vs. X-Men and Brian Wood’s X-Men run. Could it finally be her time to shine on her own?

Rich Johnston points out that The Age of Ultron makes a surprise appearance in this week’s Marvel NOW! Point One, and in doing so, reminded me of this question: Now that we’re in Marvel NOW! territory, are we ever likely to see continuations for the Watcher storyline or the Coldmoon/Dragonfire short from the last Point One oneshot? I suspect that the Watcher one, at least, may be a moot point considering its writer (Ed Brubaker) has left Marvel for creator owned lands – See also Captain America’s flashforward to a seeming Martian invasion at the end of Captain America: Rebirth -  but the Coldmoon/Dragonfire thing seems like a particularly odd loose end to have dangling out there for so long…

Although, if nothing else, having three sections of Point One go unfinished for so long (Age of Ultron being the third) does give an automatic upgrade to the Marvel NOW! Point One special issue: At least we know where and when all those shorts are going to be continued.

Chris Arrant makes the case for ceasing ongoing monthly publication, and going to a series-of-mini-series format with comics, a la Hellboy:

For the Big Two it’s hard not to deliver comics month-in, month-out (especially when you actively employ a rotating menagerie of artists on a single book), but it creates a disjointed reading experience for those reading the single issues. Is it a deal-breaker for readers? Obviously not, but it has severely diminished the artistic continuity of books and minimized the importance of a single continuous artistic vision for comics. Instead we get three issues of Artist A, four issues of Artist B, and then a juicy one-off by Artist X. They’re all great in their own right, but imagine if the scheduling were there to allow Artist A, Artist B and Artist X their own space to deliver a larger vision.

That this comes in the wake of finding out that both Avengers and All-New X-Men have new artists within the first six issues of their Marvel NOW runs just makes this piece seem even more timely…

Someone’s going to have to help me with this. Here’s the latest promo art from Matt Fraction and Howard Chaykin’s 2013 Image series, Satellite Sam (yanked from their Tumblr, yesterday):

So: Retro fetishism and a woman in lacy lingerie and suspenders. So far, so Chaykin, right? Here’s my question: Why does it look as if both characters are floating and weightless? Is it because of the coloring, and the way the shadows are done (Note the fact that the lighting on the woman suggests the light source is to the left of the reader, but the shadows suggest the light source is behind the reader)? Is it the angle of the shot (Either the woman is standing on the man’s hand, or that’s crazily bad perspective, and I can’t tell which was intended)? It’s a really problematic image, and I can’t work out why. Help?

Wondering where the next generation of comic book readers will come from, if not the Big Two? Turns out, the answer may be the mainstream book market:

At the New York Comic Con Penguin Books’ Rich Johnson told ICv2 that Penguin was launching a new kid-targeted line of graphic novels that will be published under the Dial/Dutton line… Why is Penguin making this move now?  Johnson explained, “Clearly it’s a huge, growing market, the kid’s graphic novel market.  You see those titles making the bestsellers list all the time.  So we are looking to do work in that area to get more kids reading comics.”

Makes me think of Macmillan’s First Second line (although that isn’t exclusively kid-targeted), who have been putting out some of the best graphic novels for all ages audiences quietly for more than five years now…

Here’s something I really wouldn’t have thought I’d find myself writing even at the beginning of this week: Could Warner Bros and DC end up getting all of the Superman rights back?

After all, Warners scored a significant legal victory in yesterday’s summary judgment against the Peavys in terms of the Shuster half of the rights, and we’re just weeks away from the November 5 hearing that appeals the ruling to award Joanne Siegel the rights to her husband’s half of the character – Not to mention, Warners has filed a lawsuit against Marc Toberoff, the attorney representing both the Peavys and Siegels, for misconduct in the case that, if successful, could throw the Siegel ruling into doubt at the very least.

While such a reversal of the Siegel ruling would likely be challenged – Laura Siegel Larson, Jerry and Joanne Siegel’s daughter, released an open letter to “Superman fans everywhere” last week that made it clear that she wasn’t going to give up the fight anytime soon – it’s beginning to look increasingly possible that Warners could actually somehow manage to hold onto the entire Superman character rights for awhile longer than expected. Who saw that coming?

This is big news for DC Comics and Warner Bros:

On Wednesday, a federal judge in California granted the studio’s motion for summary judgment on the question of whether a 1992 agreement with Jean Peavy, the sister of Superman co-creator Joe Shuster, precludes the estate’s attempt to terminate a copyright grant… Judge Wright has determined that the Shuster heirs won’t be able to terminate their share of the Superman copyright.

Which is to say, Warners and DC will continue – barring appeal, which surely has to come, right…? – to own at least half of Superman, with the other half going to the Siegels, per a separate termination motion. Warners has so far refused to comment on the ruling, but Marc Toberoff, attorney for Peavys, issued a statement where he said that he and his clients “respectfully disagree with its factual and legal conclusions, and it is surprising given that the Judge appeared to emphatically agree with our position at the summary judgment hearing.”

Developing.

What is going on with Cartoon Network’s DC Nation block? We know that it’ll be back in January, but why did it go away in the first place? Bleeding Cool’s Brendon Connelly has a list of the four reasons that have been leaked from sources likely to know, from the second suggestion that there’s something going on with DC’s use of the Milestone characters to a more serious falling out between CN and Warner Bros over the block as a whole:

Work on Beware the Batman was not pleasing Cartoon Network, and an unannounced Justice League show wasn’t cutting it either, so the partnership started to disagree about future directions. Rather than plough on, they’ve decided to burn off the episodes so far produced, dissolve the block and deal with each future DC-themed show on an ad-hoc, one-by-one basis.

That’d be a shame, if true – and it’ll be interesting to see what comes of Beware the Batman if it’s really not pleasing the CN executives…

What is Tony Stark doing in Guardians of The Galaxy? Brian Michael Bendis explains:

It’s more about that he’s a futurist, and he’s an explorer, and he’s a scientist, and an adventurer. You could certainty see Tony getting to a place in his mind where number one, he needs a vacation more than anyone on the planet. But number two, more like a working vacation, and thinking, you know what, I kind of hit a ceiling with my technology. I want to go out and explore some new stuff and see things from a new perspective, and really look at the Earth from a new perspective, and come back and see if that doesn’t help him break past whatever ceiling he’s hit with his work.And plus, we’re going to have some fun with Tony trying to live out his William Shatner/Captain Kirk space-girl fantasies. So Tony will come out here to be part of the Guardians, to explore the ideas that the Guardians had put in his head during AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, that the Earth is a very important part of the cosmic civilization for the next generation. So Tony literally needs to go out and look at it from their point of view to see what he can do to help. And so he gets to have space adventures, he gets to live the William Shatner/Captain Kirk, he gets to explore, he gets to invent, and Tony gets to see the world from a different perspective.

When Tony’s with the Avengers, he’s always top dog, alpha male, he’s always kind of in charge. Here, he’s going to be a fish way out of water. Even though he’s been to outer space a few times, this is living in outer space, which is a completely different thing. And basically living on a pirate ship!

Much more about what Bendis and McNiven are doing with the title in the interview at Marvel.com, including the part where Bendis explains that one of the differentiators for this series is that he’s going to give the team a more Earth-based agenda. Because that’s what you really want to see in a series set in outer space: More Earth.

Best news of the day? That would be that Bandette, the MonkeyBrain creation of Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover, has a brand-new spin-off series Bandette: Urchin Stories launching today:

Bandette is the star of the show, but her world is populated by a wealth of other amusing characters. Who are they? What are their dreams? Their idiosyncrasies? Their loves and hopes and, for gosh sakes, what food pictures are they posting to Instagram?!!? Get to know all the supporting characters from Bandette in these short stories by a wealth of talented guest artists.

First up, Tobin and the spectacular Steve Lieber reveal more about B.D. Belgique, the “most harassed police inspector of all time”:

As someone who loves Bandette, this is a great, great thing indeed.

Not only has comic book culture become mainstream culture, but now comic book thinking is becoming the mainstream thinking of tomorrow, according to Fast Company:

“What matters is clarity,” says Scott [McCloud]. “And clarity depends on the choices you make. You must make five key choices when showing and telling any story: choice of moment, choice of frame, choice of image, choice of word, and choice of flow. That’s it.”

From a leadership perspective, choice of moment is perhaps the most critical in creating clarity. Choice of moment is about deciding which moments to include in the story and which to leave out. “So much of it is about editing,” Scott says. “You can spew, but you have to edit. Pull out the long knives, folks. William Faulkner had it right when he said that in writing stories, you have to kill your darlings.”

Okay, TED Talks. Now I want to see you bring in all manner of comic book creators talking about non-comic book topics. You can do that, right…?