In the midst of all the Before Watchmen noise yesterday – please, someone, tell me that I’m not the only person who’s already exhausted with that particular subject after one day of everyone talking about it – I entirely missed that February 1 wasn’t just the 20th anniversary of Image Comics, but also the 30th anniversary of Diamond Comic Distributors, two institutions that have done more than their fair share – positively and negatively – to shape the comics industry into what it is today (There’s probably some kind of irony attached to those two events being overshadowed by Before Watchmen, come to think of it). Image seems to be having a resurgence these days – deservedly, considering a lot of the projects it’s publishing these days – while Diamond’s future seems far more uncertain considering the threat of digital (Whatever happened to Diamond’s digital plans? Weren’t they supposed to go live last September…?), so it’ll be interesting to see how both anniversary years pan out for the respective companies; will either announce a big overhaul before its next birthday…?

I cannot speak strongly enough about how interrelated I think women and children readers are and how both are extremely important to the future of comics. Women make 80% of the retail purchases in America. EIGHTY PERCENT. And that means that more often than not, if a kid is shopping, it’s with mom. So if the comic industry wants to have a future and hook readers young, they need to target both women and children. If a woman is reading comics, she’ll be more likely to let her kid read comics. And if a kid is raised in a house where one or both parents read comics, I think we all already know that he or she will be more likely to read comics. Kids who never know comics exist are going to have a hard time finding them when they’re at an age that most superhero comics are geared towards. And even better in all of this is the fact that if mom reads comics, she’ll have no problem with her daughters reading comics, which increases the future female readership of comics as well as just the future male readership of comics. There’s no loss here for the comics industry. It just takes foresight. Creating more comics for kids and women, making sure they know they exist, and making sure they’re accessible could genuinely change the future of the industry. Some publishers are already doing a great job making stuff for one or both (Top Shelf and Archaia both leap to mind). We just need a greater segment of the industry to take those demographics seriously.

That’s just one response from Janelle Asselin, former DC editor (now at Disney, working on kids’ magazines, I believe), in an interview over at the wonderful DC Women Kicking Ass tumblr that’s well worth checking out; Asselin talks about her graduate thesis on (the lack of) women in comics, and it’s both eye-opening and depressing. Go read.

Being a child of a certain era – as well as a fan of the 1970s Marvel book The Champions – I was kind of fascinated by Tom Brevoort’s Formspring thoughts on the team, and the series:

CHAMPIONS was the poster child for what Roger Stern used to call “fake books”–books without a viable core concept that worked, that only existed by editorial fiat bringing that particular set of characters together. While there were some fun issues, as a series it was kind of a mess from start to finish. It was originally pitched as an Iceman and Angel buddy-book, but the Editor in Chief at the time wanted it to be a team book–which meant, according to him, that it needed a woman, and a strong guy, and somebody who had their own title to anchor it. That became Black Widow, Hercules and Ghost Rider. And the ostensible concept of the series was that they were “The Team For The Common Man.” Not a common man among them, mind you, and they didn’t really get involved in much that a common man could relate to, but there it is. Five characters with virtually nothing in common who hung out together in a skyscraper because that’s what the book said they’d do.

I read that and thought, at first, “Well, he’s not wrong; Champions was a book without a real hook,” before thinking… well, so was Defenders in its prime, and so was Avengers in the early days, especially in the “Cap’s Kooky Quartet” era. Was the true failure of Champions, then, not that it had no organic reason to exist, but that it wasn’t entertaining enough to make readers overlook that…?

(It also made me wonder how many of today’s team books would pass the “fake book” test – and whether there’s a modern-day equivalent for team books that exist because the franchise has become overextended, as in the X-Men and Astonishing X-Men series.)

Continuing a random but heartfelt series of images of awesome things from comics, with #2:

Walt Simonson turned Thor into a frog. And, perhaps even more awesome, it really worked.

For everyone excited about The Avengers movie this summer, it’s worth remembering that things could’ve been very, very different indeed. Here’s an excerpt on Marvel’s movie plans as was, from 1985′s Marvel Age Annual #1:

Stan [Lee] is mostly involved with live-action movie projects, featuring the Marvel super heroes. Dr. Strange is currently being worked on by the same folks who brought you the movie hit “All of Me,” which starred Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin. Also in the works is a Captain America film, a Spider-Man film, an X-Men film, and even one starring Howard The Duck (Can you imagine Howard The Duck in live-action??). And last but certainly not least, a Fantastic Four live-action feature is being worked on by the same producers who did the highly-acclaimed film “The Neverending Story.” With all that in progress, no wonder Stan is always so busy!

Just think: Of all of those potential movies, only Howard The Duck made it to the big screen. Sadly, the Marvel Age piece doesn’t have any more information about what the other movies would’ve been like, but I can’t help but wonder if the Cap movie ended up as the much-derided 1990 release from the director of Cyborg and Brain Smasher… A Love Story. “What If…?” as the saying goes…

For the design fans amongst you, Brian Wood explains the creation of the cover for his new series with Kristian Donaldson, The Massive, over at io9:

Sketch #1 took the day, and it was my favorite as well. So we passed it along to Kristian for him to make his own and take it to final. It presented a few problems that I could see: it was really crucial to separate the two halves of the cover, so that earth presented as the earth, and not some other planet looming in the sky. Or the foreground coming off like the moon. Or the earth not reading as a planet but some kind of giant rubber ball hanging in the sky.

I also didn’t want a realistically colored earth, with crayola-blue and green. I always favor limited palettes and non-representational color. Were it up to me, I would have kept it black and white.

It’s a really nice insight into Wood (and Donaldson)’s design process, as well as a chance to see some lovely work-in-progress sketches; I’m really looking forward to The Massive – which debuts today in Dark Horse Presents #8 – and this post works as a great tease for the kind of visuals to expect, if not for the story itself.

Suddenly, DC is very, very grateful it’s a leap year. The publisher has told retailers that Justice League #6 will ship two weeks late, with the once-every-four-years February 29th date being the only thing that keeps it within its solicited month of release; this is the second month in a row that Justice League will be shipped late, with the delay doubling in length this time around.

Artist Jim Lee takes a two issue break starting with the March-solicited #7, allowing Gene Ha and Carlos D’Anda to illustrate the next two issues while Lee gets a jump on the next storyarc, “The Villain’s Journey,” scheduled to begin with #9 – an issue that hasn’t been solicited yet. Could we see Justice League take a break for a month in order to give Lee a chance to get ahead on deadlines again, perhaps…?

In an attempt to combat negativity about comics – my own, at least; you guys are on your own if you don’t want to join in – I’ve decided that, every weekday throughout February, I’m going to post one thing I think is awesome about comic books, just to remind myself how many things I just adore about the medium and all it has been and can do. It’s that simple: Every week day, one image of awesome, with little to no explanation behind it. To start off, then, Week Day Awesome #1:

Jack Kirby’s sense of scale and design. I mean, just look at that double page spread from The Eternals #2; even without the captions and dialogue, you’d still know that something amazing and important was going on.

Immediate reactions to the Before Watchmen announcement:

• Wow, that’s a lot of comics. Seven interconnected mini-series, none of which are less than four issues, with an eighth title getting a one-shot to top it all off?
• That’s a fascinating list of creators; whatever you might think of the idea, there’s no denying that this will be the best-looking sub-line of DC’s while it’s running. Darwyn Cooke, Amanda Conner, JG Jones, Jae Lee, Adam Hughes and the Kuberts? I mean, that’s an amazing line-up of artists. Writing-wise, Cooke and Brian Azzarello are interesting choices, and not names you would’ve immediately thought of for this kind of gig (J. Michael Straczynski and Len Wein, on the other hand, seem almost like gimmes). The creative line-up really is a sign that DC has thought hard about this, and isn’t just crapping it out for the money.
• …As, I’d argue, is the timing. If this was just a cash grab, I would’ve expected it around the release of the movie a few years back, or even closer to the New 52 relaunch of the line last year.
• That said, I believe that “We can make money from this” is a reason for Before Watchmen more than the given reason of “As publishers, we have to keep our characters relevant.” Going by that logic, I’ll be waiting for Sugar And Spike: The High School Years and Fireman Farrell: Another Hot Time In The Old City Tonight being announced any day now.
• Also embarrassing in the official press release: Dave Gibbons’ contribution, which may be the definition of contractual obligation and/or backhanded compliment, and definitely doesn’t feel like the kind of “Godspeed, New Project!” endorsement that it was clearly intended to be.

Weirdly, the announcement of Before Watchmen feels entirely appropriate; somewhat embarrassing, downright unbelievable, but those creators, man… too good to just walk away from, convinced that the entire thing is doomed to failure in every respect.

Tomorrow sees the release of Avengers: X-Sanction #3, a series that seems to have (very quickly) befallen the same fate as Avengers: The Children’s Crusade… Namely, the massive event book that people kind of forgot was still coming out. That isn’t to say that either book isn’t selling well – As Paul O’Brien demonstrates, Children’s Crusade has been remarkably steady in terms of sales, even if the book hasn’t stuck to its bi-monthly schedule, and X-Sanction was a top-seller for its first month at least – but there seems to be no real discussion of either book online outside of their hardcore fanbases. Is it just me, or does this seem somewhat surprising, at least in regards to the much-hyped X-Sanction? It’s possible that the announcement for Avengers vs. X-Men took the air of the book’s sails (After all, “X-Man vs. Avengers!” doesn’t seem nearly as interesting once you’ve announced “X-Men vs. Avengers!” as the next round), but… am I missing a lot of people talking about what happened in the second issue and speculating on what’s going to happen in the rest of the storyline, or has the ever-present but what happens next just left this book in the dust while people start thinking about April’s big slugfest?

Here’s a tantalizing “If Only” project… On his (fantastic) Tumblr, The Marvel Age of Comics, Tom Brevoort has shared two unused Jack Kirby Hulk pages from, he suspects, #3 or #4 of the original run, apparently rescued from destruction by Larry Lieber following an argument between Kirby and Stan Lee at some point. This weekend, Kurt Busiek tweeted a truly tempting offer: “@TomBrevoort Do you have enough of that unused Kirby Hulk story to have it finished up and printed? I’ll dialogue it!”

Sadly, reality isn’t in our favor; Brevoort replied that “I’ve got something like six pages of it, but not the opening nor the finale.” Of course, now I’m holding out hope that we’ll instead see an all-new Busiek Hulk project that can include these six pages as some kind of flashback, even if that’s more than likely a victory for optimism over common sense at this point in time…

(Click through to see the Kirby pages under the jump. Oh, and * – This is probably not a factual statement.) (more…)

The long-running legal battle between Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane is finally over, with a settlement that apparently closes the door on a case that had already seen Gaiman awarded co-ownership of Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cagliostro way back in 2002, and now co-ownership in Spawn #9 – the first appearance of those characters – as well as Spawn #26 (featuring the return of the Cagliostro character) and the three-issue Angela spin-off miniseries.

Talking to the Washington Post, Gaiman said that he was “delighted with the case… I’m delighted with the decisions. … And I’m delighted to put it behind me.” He went on to say that he thought that “an awful lot of good things have come out of it. I think the various decisions, particularly the [2002 Judge] Posner decision, were huge in terms of what the nature of dual copyright in comics is. What is copyrightable in comics is now something that there is a definite legal precedent for. There were a lot of things that were … misty in copyright [law] that are now much clearer, and it’s of benefit to the creator.”

McFarlane has so far not released any comment.

Something surprising from Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso’s latest CBR appearance is his explanation for the latest round of Point One issues:

A Point One book is meant to provide an easy entry-point to a monthly series for new readers that is relevant to long-term readers. It counts. Simple as that. If you haven’t read a single issue of Iron Man, here’s a clean, told-on-one sampler. There was a time when the Annuals might have served this purpose, but in recent years retailers and fans lost confidence that they were essential reads. The first wave of Point One books did so well we had to do more. And we’ll continue to do more for any title we think will benefit from it.

The surprising part? That the first wave of Point One books did so well that Marvel “had” to do more… because the direct market estimates tell an entirely different story. Of the twenty Point One books that have already come out that weren’t #0.1 issues, only three were ordered in quantities higher than the previous issue, with sales on the following issues either seeing a small bump that didn’t offset the drop from the .1 issue, or continuing to drop in all but six cases (and in two of those cases, the following issues were Fear Itself tie-ins). Quite how that translates into such a success that the company felt compelled to do more seems a mystery to journey into, some might say; perhaps the collected editions did particularly well, or the digital sales…?

DC is teasing out more details about its Free Comic Book Day offering, with a post on official blog The Source promising preview material from the second wave of ongoing New 52 titles (Batman Incorporated, Dial H, Earth 2, GI Combat, The Ravagers and Worlds’ Finest), “art by legendary illustrator Jim Lee and other top talents” – which sounds, to me, suspiciously like it’ll be either sketchbook material, pages from already released comics or something we’ve already seen in some form – and a brand new story by Geoff Johns, although no artist is listed for that story yet.

The post promises “more surprises to come” about the free book, which’ll make its debut May 5. Will we see more new titles announced between now and then to be previewed in the book? Will the identity of the artist for the new Johns story turn out to be a surprise in and of itself (Any Marvel exclusive artists rumored to be making the jump between publishers anytime soon, I wonder…)? Batteries to power. Speculation Engines to speed.

If you really can’t wait until this summer to see footage from The Amazing Spider-Man, then you’re in luck. Posters started appearing this weekend directing fans to go to TheUntoldStoryBegins, a site that allows you to reserve tickets for sneak footage screenings on February 6 in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, Mexico City, Moscow, Rio, Rome, Seoul, Sydney and Tokyo (Perhaps unsurprisingly, more events are already fully-booked). According to Deadline, those attending the events should expect “other surprises,” but your guess is as good as mine as to what that means.

For everyone who can’t make it to one of those screenings, take some comfort in the fact that, with the event happening a week today, I figure we’re at most two weeks away from the footage making it to YouTube…

Is it wrong to admit I’m a lettering snob? Seeing badly done lettering can absolutely kill my interest in a comic, just as seeing well done lettering can artificially ensure that I’ll be reading for at least a few pages more, no matter how terrible the story (Tom Orzechowski, I kept reading early Spawn for far too long for you, sir). If you think I’m completely crazy, go back and re-read the early days of the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League; there’s an issue in there where John Workman – a spectacular letterer, I think everyone would agree – fills in for Bob Lappan, and it just feels like an entirely different book despite everyone else in the creative team being exactly the same.

These days, of course, it’s easier to have continuity in your lettering with shared fonts and the like, which is why I was so interested in Ron Marz’ interview with letterer Troy Peteri, where he talks about the dos and don’ts of lettering, as well as – and this is where my wonk-iness really comes in – choosing the right font for the project, and what makes good lettering important:

I think people commonly believe that as long as the words are in balloons and on the page, it’s as good as done. They’re not taking into account how word balloons should lead the eye to the appropriate reading order in the panels, or how too much/not enough negative space in the balloons themselves can also make things look amateurish. Same goes for sound FX that look like they’re merely words typed out and dropped on the page. I honestly think that good lettering can make an amateurish effort look less so, similar to the way good visual FX in an otherwise low-budget movie can make that movie feel bigger and better.

These days, I think that we’re seeing more good lettering, but less exceptional lettering, if that makes sense; overall, I think the quality has improved dramatically with digital letters, but that medium tends to lose the individual magic of a Workman, Orzechowski or Artie Simek (Here’s a great column from Augie De Blieck about why Orzechowski is one of the greats, for those unconvinced). But maybe I’m looking in the wrong places: Who’s doing the truly great comic book lettering these days?

Mark Millar would like you to know that, despite rumors that his various movie projects are in trouble – with Jane Goldman confirming that she would not write a Kick-Ass sequel, and Nemesis being mentioned as possibly being put on hold for a time – everything is going just fine:

How many times do we need to go through this? [Matthew] Vaughn is producing [Kick-Ass 2] and Jane was taking about this 2 weeks ago in an interview. He’s got a new director and is doing a George Lucas, guiding the whole thing as he and I work on The Secret Service (which we’re writing at the moment). Could we stop with the scare-mongering please?

Also, Nemesis is fine. Fox deal was just signed off shortly before Christmas and there is no story there beyond an idiot with a blog who follows every tweet I write and whoever writes to me. As Joe Carnahan said himself in all the video interviews last week, Nemesis is doing fine.

Wanted 2 and War Heroes both fast-tracked as reported last November by Universal (google it), Supercrooks screenplay done and ready to get moving after Nacho finishes Windows and Vaughn just bought the rights to Superior. All is well.

Elsewhere in the same thread, Millar says that Kick-Ass 2‘s director will also write the screenplay, and that the project is in good hands, adding “Now RELAX. Empire Strikes Back worked out fine.” Reading between the lines, clearly what Millar is actually telling us is that we should expect Kick-Ass 3 to suck and feature Ewoks.

Thinking about Avengers vs. X-Men the other day, I found myself stuck on the fact that the Fantastic Four wouldn’t be taking part in the event. On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense, because (a) adding another super team to the event seems ridiculous given the number of characters already involved given the size of the Avengers and X-Men franchises these days, and (b) it’s called Avengers vs. X-Men, not Avengers And Their Friends vs. X-Men And Their Friends. But on the other hand, “limiting” the event to these two teams feels artificial given the way that the Marvel Universe has always historically worked, with books crossing over and guest stars appearing when you least expect it, and especially so when you consider that the Thing is an Avenger now, or that it’s very likely that Reed Richards would have something to say about the Phoenix Force coming to Earth (Wouldn’t Nova go to the FF before he’d go to the Avengers or the X-Men, considering past adventures, after all…?).

The real reason there’s no Fantastic Four in the title of Avengers Vs. X-Men, of course, is that the F4 isn’t one of Marvel’s core franchises, and so hasn’t earned its way onto that banner. A harsh truth, perhaps, but a truth nonetheless; whereas the Avengers books (top-sellers for Marvel since Disassembled) have led the linewide events since 2006, and the X-Books have been so numerous that they’ve had their own family to have linewide events of suitable size and success for even longer, the Fantastic Four has always seemed to be on the periphery of storylines that affected the direction of the Marvel Universe: They had tie-in issues to Civil War, but Reed’s involvement in the Negative Zone prison aside, they were pretty much removed from the main action; they pretty much skipped World War Hulk in all but cameo appearances, and had a minor Secret Invasion tie-in mini to show for their troubles, with even less involvement in Fear Itself (the Thing aside, but as I’ve already pointed out, he’s an Avenger now).

Maybe it’s me being old-fashioned and sentimental, but this seems sad, considering the importance of the Fantastic Four to the Marvel Universe both internally and externally; this was the book that started it all, after all, and even within the fictional universe, this is the team that saved the world from Galactus, the ones who discovered the Negative Zone (and Unstable Molecules, which have saved many a Marvel hero from unfortunate accidental nudity at times) and the Microverse, the greatest scientific adventurers around, and so on… These characters should be at the center of every big Marvel event, surely.

And all of this got me to thinking: What’s wrong with the Fantastic Four? Historically, it’s not been a massive seller since… what, John Byrne’s era (although it seems to be holding its own quite well right now, thanks to Jonathan Hickman’s efforts)… but why? Is there something inherently less interesting to readers about the Fantastic Four than there is the Avengers or the X-Men, and if so, what?

Certainly, as a long-running series, it’s arguably the longest-running Marvel title with the least amount of creative peaks (Lee/Kirby, obviously, but then it’s a fallow period until Byrne, and then relatively dull until Walter Simonson’s short-but-still-underrated run, and afterwards a number of well-meaning-but-again-dull efforts until Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo, and then… Hickman? Have I missed anyone truly exceptional out in there? Over 50+ years, that feels low, especially compared to the X-Books or Avengers… Am I misremembering?), so is that the problem: That getting the F4 “right” is just harder than it is for other books, and the failed attempts put people off…? Or is it just that the core appeal of the Fantastic Four – A family who love each other who have dedicated their lives to discovering the unknown – doesn’t have the same appeal as existing in a world in which you’re feared and hated, or being the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?

I have no answers; I’m not even sure if I’m asking the right questions. But there’s something about the Fantastic Four that, in my mind, makes them the core of the entire Marvel Universe, and seeing them treated as something out on the outliers because the market doesn’t seem to want that much more from them, seems like a far, far sadder fate than they deserve.

Reading recent collections of New Mutants Classic, as the logo describes it, I found myself remembering how difficult I found the Bill Sienkiewicz-illustrated issues when they were were first coming out. For the most part, it was the art, which was simultaneously more realistic and less grounded in ideas of a physical reality than what my 10 year old brain was used to at the time – I found it attractive but difficult to parse, to understand exactly what it all meant, sometimes – but Chris Claremont’s writing shifted to match what he was seeing, it seemed, with the stories becoming darker in tone (Professor Xavier has an illegitimate son with multiple personalities! Dani is being terrorized by an unstoppable monster! Cloak and Dagger have appeared and there’re drugs and addiction metaphors!) and less straight-ahead in execution. Re-reading it all now, it feels like bold stuff, a step forward from the Bob McLeod-illustrated issues and an important evolution not only for the book and its characters, but for Claremont as a writer and the X-Men franchise in general, but at the time… these were unsettling comics.

(When Jackson Guice and Kyle Baker came on as the regular art team, a year or so later, that was my era of true New Mutants love; I don’t know if it’s because I was at the right age, or that I could deal better with the more traditional art style.)

Remembering all this made me think about earlier prejudices I’d had about comics and artists in particular that seem ridiculous to me now: I remember thinking that Don Heck was boring, or that Jack Kirby was old-fashioned, for example, as well as being convinced that no-one could draw Guy Gardner as well as John Byrne had in Legends (This isn’t to be confused with my still-existing theory that no-one can draw Captain Britain as well as Alan Davis, although I’m looking forward to Gabriel Hardman proving me wrong in Secret Avengers). It’s embarrassing and weirdly reassuring to remember all of these ideas I had about what worked and didn’t work in comics back then, in part because oh man was I wrong about a lot of stuff, but also, it’s good to see myself learning and getting over snobbery and the like as I get older; I hope that, twenty years from now, I can look back on things I didn’t like and laugh at myself for my appalling taste.

That said, I’m wondering what comic prejudices and phobias you’ve had (and recovered from), dear readers. What used to turn you off, but you hate to admit it these days?

It’s not just DC Comics that’s getting a new lick of logo paint for 2012, it seems; now Oni Press has redesigned its logo, as revealed in Publishers’ Weekly. According to editor James Lucas Jones, the change comes as a result of the publisher’s own evolution:

We’re not the same company we were in 1997, and Art Director Keith Wood has continually raised the bar in terms of our books’ design and packaging. It was time to let him loose on the company’s core iconography. Throughout 2011, Keith worked with Cory Casoni (Director of Sales & Marketing), Joe Nozemack (Publisher), and myself to narrow down the pool of potential designs and refine his initial concepts into the modern, versatile, and downright awesome logo that will soon adorn all of our new comics.

I have to say, I really like the new logo; I’ve been a fan of Wood’s design work for awhile anyway, but I think this logo manages to retain enough of the original Dave Gibbons’ design while seeming more contemporary and, well, stylish. Here’s how it’ll look on covers:

The logo debuts with the first issue of The Secret History of DB Cooper, in March.