If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

Mark Andrew Smith and Matthew Weldon’s New Brighton Archaeological Society is in stores this week.

Not familiar with the backstory? The book came out of Popgun 2007 (and you can read an interview about it here). And while we’re talking Popgun, in advance of Popgun Three (due April 1), Smith has a full 32-page story up for free with luscious art by Johann Leroux. Called Japanese Wasp, it’s a monster/superhero tale worth checking out. Plus, y’know, free comics.

So in honor of all of this, I bring you PREVIEW IMAGES! You’re welcome.

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If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

The Deformitory

by Sophia Wiedeman

48 pages, 4 3/4″ x 7″,$8

www.sophiadraws.com

Are those claws on the girl on the cover of The Deformitory? No, far worse. And what’s a deformitory? Sophia Wiedeman takes us there in her book that recently won the Xeric grant, a source for self-publishing comics founded by Peter Laird, co-creator (with Kevin Eastman) of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Among Xeric grant winners, what sets Wiedeman within the sphere of rising stars is her agility as a storyteller, her willingness to tap into our common insecurities and turn them into fiction in refreshingly new and weird ways.

The book revolves around Delores, a Kafka-like city dweller stuck in the rut of working in an office. Instead of turning into a cockroach, her hands, overworked from typing, turn into claws, each literally with a mind of its own. These claws have faces and they can talk. With cute little eyes, they could pass for muppets.

Desperately lonely, Delores finds the bright side of things and instantly becomes friends with them, giving them names, Cornelius and Buster. It’s as if Kafa’s Gregor Samsa, upon awakening to find himself a cockroach, decides to enjoy being an insect. 

Delores loves hanging out with her new friends, getting lost in conversation on the subway, buying three lattes when she used to buy only one. Wiedeman’s delicate line work helps to beautifully sustain the story and evokes vulnerability. It reminds me of the work of Gabrielle Bell who taps into the surreal quality of life in the big city.

But being a misfit is not all fun and games. If Delores thought she had problems before, her new claws have further ostracized her from her normal routine. They’ve taken control too as they guide her to The Deformitory, a secluded place where they suggest she can find peace. It looks like a tower out of a fable and functions as a condo for freaks. It also functions as a plot device that allows us to see other poor souls like Delores. 

We get an overview of some of the tenants early in the book before we know who they are and it’s fun to see them as they weave their way through the story. There’s one subplot about a rivalry among mermaids which is very engaging. It speaks to the cruelty we all can easily inflict upon others and it’s done with a nice dose of dry wit. The slug at the end of this subplot, who bears the rejection from the ugliest of mermaids, returns home to the apartment she keeps with Delores. Both of them engage in some numb housemate pleasantries just as Delores leaves for a fateful date which will prove her undoing.   

It is during this date that the claws, the seemingly innocent Cornelius and Buster, show their true colors by attacking the young man Delores is having dinner with. The power to this tale resides in what happens between Delores and her claws so much so that I could see taking the risk of just telling the story between the three of them and the few characters directly related to it. Paring down to the essentials would add to that Twilight Zone vibe in the main plot. Nevertheless, The Deformitory is a very satisfying read and demonstrates the handiwork of a sly writer.

This is my first review with Newsarama and I look forward to many more. I am a cartoonist and writer with an interest in literary and art comics and pop culture in general. If you’d like your comic considered for review, feel free to contact me.

While I’ll take a more specific look at the Wonder Con schedule later today, it caught my eye that Blog@’s own Brian Andersen — creator of our serialized webcomic So Super Duper — will be speaking at the San Francisco con!

(This is Brian. Hear him roar.)

Brian will be one of a seven-person panel called “Self-Publishing Queer Comics.” If you’ve got an LGBT comics idea, this is definitely a panel to hit. Other panelists include Jane’s World creator Paige Braddock, Hard to Swallow’s Justin Hall, Andy Hardell of Monday fame, Gravity Faggot creator Johnny Nolen, and Sean Z, creator of Myth. The panel will take place at 2-3pm on Sunday, March 1st.

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

By Bon Alimagno

The last few weeks have brought upheaval to the comic book industry, ignited by changes in the distribution policies of Diamond Comics Distribution. A lot of the coverage portrayed this as the death of the indy comic and the exile of many publishers from the direct market. Harris Comics is uniquely positioned to weather this storm, entirely due to our dedicated fan base and a very strong online sales operation. For the rest of the industry the way I look at can be summed up by the saying, “One door closes, another opens.”

There were a lot of changes put in place, some big, some small, and a few won’t be noticed. There are two that will have far-reaching effects across the industry. One deals with limiting reorders of pamphlets past 60 days, a rule that greatly hinders the ability of comics to use word of mouth and good press to grow sales after initial publication. (Thankfully, this rule change was not applied to Harris’ most successful source of reorders: trade paperbacks.) Another essentially means that a $2.99 comic book must sell a minimum of roughly 2000 copies to receive distribution. (This threshold doesn’t affect Harris’ regular editions, but does greatly impact everything else we publish: limited editions, art prints, etc.)

I’m not sure if it has sunk into the mind of the average comic shop goer what setting these rules mean. The new rules place a huge emphasis on initial sales, in a direct market largely resistant to anything different and new. A year from now it’s very likely what few non-superhero comic books you are used to seeing at your local comic book shop may disappear unless you frequent one that already features a wide ranging selection. The direct market is a vicious cycle: comic book shops are widely considered the best place to buy superhero comics, so most of the people who frequent these shops are people who read superhero comic books. Retailers who order comic books do so on a non-returnable basis. They have to place their bet on what comic will and won’t sell. If they bet wrong they are stuck with extra inventory that may never move. More often than not they’ll place their bet with a sure thing, something with a consistent track record or built-in fan base. Retailers then order mostly superhero books. Anyone looking for anything else will more often than not find a very limited selection appealing to their tastes, so they stop coming, leaving the store increasingly in the hands of superhero comic book readers.

Non-Big Four publishers will often find their books under ordered. In cases like that, they’ll hope that word of mouth and positive reviews stir interest in their titles and lead to reorders. Except now reorders are limited to sixty days, not that much time to grow an audience.

I’ve read some people say these new rules place the burden of marketing a comic book more where it should be: with the publisher. True enough. Yet how many publishers have the marketing budget to do substantial publicity? (How many of these critics have ever seen a Wizard ad rate card?) And how many comics can receive attention in a market already oversaturated with news from the Big Four? (God help you if you debuted a comic the day Batman died AND President Obama appeared on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man.) For better or worse the few column inches granted each comic book in Previews may be the most cost effective advertising available to a publisher. And now even that will likely not be available to them.

That all sounds bleak for anyone who doesn’t have an X or a Bat on the comic book they publish. But really, this is an opportunity to refashion the direct market into one that serves not one genre but all subject matter. I don’t know how we’ll get to this promised land, but here’s what I think it’ll look like:

*A small subset of the current direct market, let’s say the 500 stores that already do order a variety of material, become the foundation for a new direct market. These stores will look more like Rocketship in Brooklyn, New York and Isotope and Comic Relief in San Francisco, California: more bookstore than hobby shop. These stores will attract a diverse audience, one willing to read an entire medium’s worth of stories, instead of limiting themselves to a single genre.

*Publishers cease trying to compete with Marvel and DC since they’re getting distributed to stores where they don’t have to. There’s less pressure to publish heavy stock, glossy, full color comic books that look collectible. They turn to thinner, cheaper stocks and much more black and white. Print costs decrease and the comics themselves are cheaper and never exceed $2.99.

*A distributor, maybe Haven, maybe one that doesn’t exist yet, serves these stores and these publishers more effectively than Diamond ever could. Diamond’s infrastructure is fashioned to move hundreds of thousands of Spider-Man issues around the country with ease, but dozens of Vampirella limited editions with difficulty. A distributor that serves this new direct market properly would be just the opposite: making it easier to distribute fewer copies and ending the need for minimums. Profit margins per item may be small, but due to volume add up to making it worth it – essentially a “long tail” method of distribution instead of one so heavily concentrated on initial orders.

The easiest answer to so many of the industry’s distribution problems is moving to a fully digital model, one that requires no distributor and no comic book stores. But something is missing here. I love walking into a comic book store and browsing through a jungle of shelves. At least once a year I go to Jim Hanley’s Universe because they seemingly order everything and I try to look at, well, everything. I am always surprised by something new I’d never seen before: a new voice, a new artist, even a new shape and size to the comic itself. What we’re facing is a direct market where the surprises grow fewer and far between, where what we see is a retread of everything that has come before. If this medium is to grow it can’t condemn itself to that. Marvel is right, we must “embrace change,” though we must make it our own.

Bon Alimagno is Director - Publishing & Editorial for Harris Comics, publishers of Vampirella.

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!