Sad news as James Kochalka ends his American Elf daily diary comic after fourteen years:

Why quit now? “I feel like I created a great work of art, but I felt it maybe wasn’t right to include my family without their consent,” Kochalka says he has finally decided, referring to his wife, Amy, and their two young sons. Indeed, the diary-style comic documented life with his family, friends and cat, from mundane moments to angsty reflections to lightbulb-going-off epiphanies. Another factor, Kochalka says, is that “‘Elf’ has so consumed my mind for 14 years, I’ve hardly thought about anything else.”

The final strip will appear on December 31, although Kochalka says that he may one day return to it.

Over at iFanboy, Jim Mroczkowski wonders aloud whether the Comicsinternet became a nicer place to be in 2012:

At the risk of jinxing it, things seem to have quieted down considerably, at least around here. Around this time last year, I posted about the trolling problem in our little community, and that post brought out more hatred and vitriol than I ever realized existed; it was like I posted a sign that said “Don’t Feed the Bears” and everyone got together, tied me to a tree, and fed me to the bears. It literally put me off contributing to iFanboy for most of the year. Today, however, I cannot remember the last time I saw a comment and thought, “Ugh, this guy again. Why doesn’t he find something else to spend his time on?” In the end, the iFanbase remains one of the most positive and supportive on the internet. Those of us who work to keep it that way sincerely thank you; because of you, we have nothing to complain about.

Outside of iFanboy’s comments section, of course, there are idiots who seem to think that a plot development they don’t like in Amazing Spider-Man is something that it’s perfectly alright to issue death threats about, so perhaps things aren’t so rosy in 2012 after all. (For my money, between the craziness surrounding Dan Slott lately and the whole Fake Geek Girl thing that refused to go away, I think 2012 showed a worrying uptick in trolling and the extents to which trolls would go on the Internet, but that’s just me.)

There is, surprisingly, a plot connection between Uncanny Avengers and Cable and X-Force. It’s one that hasn’t received a lot of attention, and something that we can only hope doesn’t launch a trend for the Marvel NOW! line. Graphic spoilers for both books (but especially today’s Cable) under the jump. (more…)

Start your speculation engines, Marvel fandom. From Matt Fraction’s Tumblr:

Assuming that this is a tease of a new series to build on the Hawkeye success, this is obviously Good News (Fraction and Aja’s Hawkeye remains one of the best mainstream comics around, in my opinion), something outside of what you might expect from Marvel in terms of tone and visual aesthetic but all the better for that; you can tell that these guys are following their particular muse(s) instead of trying to toe some imaginary editorial line or whatever.

The idea of Fraction trying to replicate the trick with Black Widow or another character is an interesting one, if only because it’ll be interesting to see how important Aja is to the final product (The Javier Pulido-illustrated #4 and 5 of Hawkeye were a lot of fun, but definitely felt like a different book to me, in some intangible way that’s hard to explain; the pacing seemed different, and the iconography more… fantastic, if that makes sense?) and how the new artist – whoever that may be – impacts the direction of the new book.

I’m also reminded of Mark Waid and Indestructible Hulk; he’s on record as saying that he was basically told by Marvel to repeat what he did on Daredevil when given the Hulk, and while there’s reason to feel cynical about that just a little (It suggests that some feel as if what Waid/Rivera/Samnee et al are doing is an easily repeatable commodity, in some way), it’s also heartening if you choose to read it that way; certainly, the idea that “do what you did with this other book” is a welcome one if it’s meant in the sense of “We trust your instincts and will give you the space/support you need to work it out.” For those of us who are all too cynical and snarky about “Another X-book?” and similarities in tone or outlook across the Marvel line, this is exactly what we should be hoping for, surely?

(Also: If Fraction is getting another book to repeat Hawkeye with, just as Waid got Hulk to repeat Daredevil on, here’s hoping that (a) Marvel’s noticing that Stephen Wacker’s office is coming up with some gold in those thur IP hills, and (b) it heralds a new wave of creative risk-taking throughout Marvel as a result.)

Tom Spurgeon has launched his annual Holiday Interviews series with a conversation with Alison Bechdel that’s a must-read. Here she is, talking about the pressure she felt with this year’s Are You My Mother to follow up the critically-acclaimed and financially successful Fun Home:

It was difficult working in the shadow of that book, which was so strangely successful. I wasn’t expecting that. I spent a lot of time in my life adjusting to being a successful cartoonist who was considered part of the mainstream after a career in the shadows. That was kind of traumatic. I didn’t want to repeat Fun Home. I felt like I had to push myself, to do something different and more complex. Actually, I don’t know if I was conscious of doing something more complex. I wanted to do something different. I was very anxious…  Even though I was working with this knowledge that I’m in the shadow of this work that people like, it was mostly the weight of expectation that was daunting. When I was working on Fun Home, no one knew I was doing it. There was no pressure, zero pressure. With this book, I knew that people were waiting for it. I had already sold it. [laughs] So there’s financial pressure. But knowing that there was an audience waiting for this book was very inhibiting.

It’s an amazing interview, and a great start to a series that’s always a highlight of the year. Go, read.

After discussing future plans for Invincible at CBR, Robert Kirkman turns his attentions to the size of the digital comics audience:

I don’t really know the hard numbers off the top of my head, but I know when [The Walking Dead] started at comiXology, we were doing 5% and as we’ve continued to work with comiXology and branched out into other digital platforms, we’ve seen digital sales go from 5% of print sales to we’re getting close to 25 to 30% of print sales. The digital market is jumping and rising and growing exponentially while the print market continues to grow. I can say that I’ve seen that on all of my other books too, books like “Invincible.” The digital market continues to double over time, while the print market is completely unaffected. While I will say that there’s a lot of retailers out there and people who are hardcore fans of print comics that see digital as a threat, I can say that I’ve seen no end of evidence that that’s not the case at all, that we’re seeing a growing digital audience coinciding with a growing print audience and the two seem to be feeding off of each other in a way that seems to bring more sales to both, which is a really exciting and uplifting thing to see for the industry as a whole.

Are we possibly (finally?) at the point where we can all agree that – unlike almost every other medium – the digital comics audience seems to be additive to the analog market, and not a replacement? And, if so, does that mean that publishers can start experimenting with digital pricing without upsetting the delicate balance that is the Direct Market?

Over at the Beat, Steve Morris talks to Cullen Bunn about pitching the upcoming Fearless Defenders to Marvel, and the development process that ensued:

My initial proposal was only one page. I knew, though, that I wanted a good part of the book to be about how Valkyrie would choose the members of the team. That was the note that I really wanted to stick to. I think that building the team relatively slowly gives every character a chance to find a place and voice in the group and in the book as a whole. Beyond that, the proposal definitely had room for editorial input. The collaborative nature of comic books is something that I enjoy, and I love seeing where new ideas can take a book. Sometimes, some of the suggestions I’ve been given have really challenged me, but I think it takes the series in some unexpected directions… The biggest development is something that occurred because of the timing of the book. Because it took a while for the series to be approved, I decided that Valkyrie was procrastinating when it came to the task of choosing allies. She simply didn’t see anyone worthy of becoming a Shield Maiden. This, I think, paints Valkyrie in a much more interesting light, and I love the idea of exploring her definitions (right and wrong) of heroism.

Bunn is a really interesting writer (Those who haven’t tried his Sixth Gun series from Oni with Brian Hurtt, you should fix that immediately), and Fearless Defenders is a book with a lot of potential; it’s nice to get a look inside its origins.

Following C2E2 2011, Brian Michael Bendis declared that he was “con retired.” Though he’s still a very busy guy — and recently welcomed a new addition the Bendis family — he’s returning to the convention scene as of July 2013, as he explained earlier today on Twitter:

alright! coming out of con retirement! I will be a guest of san diego comicon this year! see you there X, spidey, guardians & powers fans!

— BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (@BRIANMBENDIS) December 17, 2012

As he noted, he’s got a lot to talk about now, especially with the recent additions of All-New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy to his schedule. But given the mass media saturation of San Diego, some Powers TV news would certainly be appropriate, right? Feel free to speculate wildly through the holidays and beyond.

Congratulations, ComiXology, for having the third highest grossing iPad app of the year according to Apple.

Comics by ComiXology ranked just under DragonVale and Slotmania HD in terms of iPad apps that have brought in the most money throughout the year; alongside Pages and Quickoffice Pro, it’s one of only three non-games apps to make the list, somewhat surprisingly. No surprise, then, that the company describes itself as “one of the leading drivers of the iPad economy.” May 2013 be just as productive for them.

On his Facebook page, Dan Didio was asked “Are the Spirit, Doc Savage and the Avenger still at DC? Will we see them again?” only to respond with, “Sorry to say but none of these characters are still at DC but here’s hoping that another publisher gets them back in print soon.”

Calling Dynamite! You can add to your list of pulp heroes currently under your wing.

That Doc Savage and the Avenger have slipped through DC’s grasp isn’t the biggest surprise, necessarily; they were barely with the company, outside of First Wave, a short-lived ongoing series and a reprint book or two. Losing The Spirit, though… That feels like a bigger deal. Is that only for new material, or does it mean that the publisher’s 25 volume Spirit Archives series will never see print again as a casualty of this as well…?

Remember that time when Marvel hired Angel Medina to draw Mighty Avengers but he quite because he thought the book was boring…?

My buddy actually met Angel at the Philly con a few years back and a discussion was had about how Quesada offered him an Avengers book.  The book was Mighty Avengers — this is true, you can actually find a number of sites reporting that at the time.  It would have been the Venom Bomb/Symbiotes storyline that was instead drawn by Mark Bagley.So what happened?  Angel got bored.  He wasn’t crazy about the line-up, as far as he was concerned, they were not “THE” Avengers.  But the real killer was Bendis.  Despite the success of their previous collaboration on Sam and Twitch, Angel said it was just too boring to draw pages and pages of the Avengers standing around talking.

The Internet even has one of the pages Medina penciled before quitting:

Over at CBR, Bryan Hitch talks about why he left Marvel and it’s… not just unexpected, but a little melancholy, really:

[Age of Ultron] wasn’t intended to be my “swan song” either, really. My then current contract expired at the end of 2011 and whilst drawing “Ultron,” I’d also been writing a six-part “Ultimate Captain America” series I’d started drawing. It was fully written, and I was drawing the first issue in the gaps between Ultron scripts coming in. “Ultron” sort of kept expanding, and I was never wholly sure of what the full scope was as I was never involved in any planning or plotting for it. We knew I had time for about five issues before my deal expired, and I was happy to extend a short while to complete the series if it ran to six or maybe seven issues, as seemed possible. It was politely indicated to me that it wouldn’t be necessary and thank you for the work, and so, as planned, off I went to the heady world of creator owned and [America's Got Powers]

In fact, I only found out it had become a ten-issue series when I saw the recent announcements.

Despite Marvel coming to me and asking for the Cap series, rather than my pitching it to them, it was constantly being sidelined and eventually dropped to my disappointment. Since “Ultimates” ended, I’d been less and less involved in a collaborative process at Marvel. They now had their various brains-trusts, architects or whatever the gang was calling themselves, and that was what led their creative process. It seemed a very closed shop and not what it was like when I signed up to do “Ultimates” at all. I felt like they wanted an illustrator not a creator, and that was very frustrating to me. I’d submitted several proposals for various series, getting nowhere; Cap was dropped, and I didn’t even feel involved in the story I was working on. It really felt like I wasn’t contributing the way I wanted to be.

Obviously the work I did there over more than ten years is a true high point in my career and, in looking at the Marvel movies, clearly influential, but I guess there’s a time when you feel like you don’t know anybody at the party anymore or nobody’s laughing at your jokes and it’s time to call a cab. Possibly, had I known the Ultron series was longer than the five issues I’d originally thought and if I hadn’t had the Cap book pulled from under me, I may never have considered moving on, but stuff changes I guess.

The surprising part is, going by the above, Marvel turning down Hitch’s offer of drawing the complete Age of Ultron series (not to mention ditching a written-and-part-drawn Ultimate Captain America series, and later in the same interview, turning down a Hitch/Joss Whedon Spider-Man pitch), which… doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me, especially considering that Hitch finished drawing his part of the book in 2011, suggesting that scheduling wouldn’t have been a massive problem. The melancholy is all in the way Hitch talks about it; you can tell that he stopped feeling valued at the publisher outside of as an art robot, which is sad on all manner of levels. Here’s hoping that creator-owned treats him far kinder.

(Go check out the full interview, by the way; it’s got a lot of interesting stuff.)

The final Marvel NOW! “Next Big Thing” press conference of the week is all about Nova, debuting in February from the creative team of Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness. We’ll be live on the line, asking questions and providing frequent updates, so keep hitting “refresh” on this page for the latest — things should start a little after 3 p.m. eastern. Interior art from Nova #1 is here.

“We sort of begin at the beginning,” Loeb says of Nova #1. “Ed and I are a huge Nova fans. Rich Rider fans, and the Nova Corps, and all of that amazing stuff that had been going on for decades.” Loeb called where Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning took the character “absolutely epic and heartbreaking.”

(more…)

Admit it – You didn’t know that “Wonder Woman” could be a verb, could you…? Well, friends, you need to read Katy Waldman’s piece at Slate about Wonder Woman-ing and how it just might make your life better:

“Would it be possible to pick up the cleaning any sooner?” I asked.

“I’m sorry,” the woman replied politely, “but we’re very busy this week, with the holidays approaching. A lot of people are dropping off their nice clothes.”

“Ah,” I said. And then: “Could you hold on one moment? I need to make a phone call.”

Of course, I did not need to make a phone call. I needed to go outside, assume the Wonder Woman pose for 90 seconds, and then bend this uncooperative dry cleaning operative to my will.

This is just glorious. Henry Flint’s cover for 2000AD‘s Free Comic Book Day 2013 issue, courtesy of the 2000AD Twitter feed:

I’ve spent a lot of this year telling people that 2000AD has been on a high recently, but with new Dredd and Zombo, as well as reprints of Indigo Prime and DR & Quinch… People: This is already one of the must-have FCBD releases of next year. It’ll be amazing.

Given the infinite nature of the Internet, asks Shaenon Garrity, why are there certain types of webcomics that seem to be absent?

And yet, despite all the thousands of comics knocking around in the tubes, some genres remain surprisingly underrepresented. Not entirely unrepresented, of course; in a field where math comics become mega-blockbusters and something as bizarre as “Homestuck” attracts cosplayers and slash fiction, there really is something out there for everyone. And yet there still exist near-virgin territories of webcomicking into which the enterprising artist could make considerable inroads, and here are three that strike me as particularly hopeful.

Now I know to add “create a critical, political webcomic for kids” to my To-Do list for 2013.

Well, that didn’t last long. A couple of days after announcing that it wouldn’t be reprinting Saga #7, nor any other single issue that it believed had been under-ordered by retailers originally, Image Comics announces a reprint of Saga #7:

Image has reversed its no-reprint decision on Saga #7 and will be offering the second printing at promotional discounts to encourage bigger orders, Image publisher Eric Stephenson announced today.  Retailers ordering over 25 copies of the second printing will receive an 80% discount, and orders under that quantity will receive the normal max discount on Image titles.  Stephenson also said that if Saga #8, which has already passed the Final Order Cut-off Date, also sells out, it will also be reprinted.

If this sounds like a complete reversal based upon the reaction of retailers to the initial announcement… Well, it is:

He apologized for the tone of the original announcement that reprints would be curtailed.  “For those of you who found the tone of that newsletter condescending or abrasive–you have my apologies.  In communicating my frustrations to Jen, that inadvertently got passed down to you, and that shouldn’t have been the case.”  He also apologized for the lack of notice on the new policy.  “We also should have given you more of a heads up on how we were handling this, so that you weren’t completely blindsided by a sudden change in policy and again, that’s on me,” Stephenson said.

This coming Sunday, Philadelphia’s most famous comic shop, Locust Moon Comics will be hosting the Locust Moon Comics Festival at the Rotunda in West Philadelphia. The focus of the festival will be independent writers, artists, and creators of the area and celebrating creator-owned books.

“[The festival is] important to us because we think there’s something really special happening in the Philadelphia comics scene, and we want to create a place where all these diffuse talents can come together with their compatriots from this city and all over the world,” said Locust Moon owner, Josh O’Neill.

He spoke to Newsarama along with partner Chris Stevens about the festival and what it means to them and the creators. “We want people to walk into the festival and see that there’s a small-scale revolution happening here, that comics is a medium that can be explored in infinite directions and the horizons are always expanding, and there’s something really special happening in this city that doesn’t get nearly enough attention,” O’Neil says. “We want our festival to be a lot more than a comic convention — we want it to be a true CELEBRATION of comic books and comic creators. We want the joy we all share to be palpable and present for anybody who wants to wander in.”

“It’s going to be a real celebration of comics and the medium, with a healthy mix of local creators and folks coming in to town like Jim Rugg, Brandon Graham, and Farel Dalrymple,” added Stevens. “We’ve got festival exclusive prints from Jim and Farel and Mark Robinson, and guys like J.G. Jones will be there doing their thing.”

This event is the most recent of O’Neil and Steven’s many efforts to unify, accelerate, and publicize the up and coming Philadelphia comic scene. “There’s a really rambunctious spirit to the Philly creative communities,” O’Neill says. “It’s not about getting noticed by some publisher or label or gallery, it’s not about becoming the Next Big Thing, it’s about making your work and pushing it out there into the world.”

Over in the New Statesman of all places, Colin Smith talks to Al Ewing and Henry Flint about the creative resurgence of 2000AD this year:

A comic that’s approaching its 36th year in print might be expected to be heading for heritage status, safely churning out approximations of old glories for an ever-diminishing audience. But no one could hold on to such an assumption after interviewing Flint and Ewing. Both speak enthusiastically, for example, of their involvement in the recent Trifecta crossover, in which a trio of apparently quite separate strips by entirely different creative teams were slowly revealed to be telling the same story from multiple perspectives. The equivalent of three prime-time cop shows reaching mid-series before unexpectedly beginning to merge, Trifecta presented the reader with an unusually complex and inventive cross-narrative about a coup in Judge Dredd’s beloved Mega-City One. An experiment the likes of which the comic had never seen before, it’s been greeted with unanimously positive reviews.

Yet no matter how enthused by that experience Flint’s been, he’s still playfully sure that the next Zombo series will be, all “modesty set aside… brilliant”. But then, as Ewing argues, “the best thing we’ve done together is always the newest thing”.

Both Ewing and Flint are talents to pay a lot of attention to in the future. 2000AD, on the evidence of recent issues, is also something that should be considered a must-read once again. Here’s to more of all three in 2013.

It will be appealed, of course, but for now, Marc Toberoff has seemingly been cut out of the pie when it comes to Superman rights:

Not only has the judge ruled that, “…the copyright termination notice served by the Estate of Joseph Shuster on November 10, 2003, is deemed invalid and ineffective,” but Marc Toberoffs, “…rights-encumbering agreements—including the 2001 Pacific Pictures agreement, 2003 Pacific Pictures agreement, and 2008 consent agreement—are deemed invalid and unenforceable.”  This means he no longer has a claim on Superman – DC Comics have all but won the case, with a few more outstanding issues yet to be resolved.