It’s been a long time coming, but Watchmen fever has finally decreased a bit.

Inspired by the marketing on the Zack Snyder film (and eventually transcending the atrocious reviews of the commercial flop), Watchmen has been sitting pretty on the sales charts for nearly a year — at #1, to be exact.

Well, ICv2 has reported that for the first time since June 2008, Watchmen was no longer the king of BookScan’s list of top-selling graphic novels, with the top spot now being taken by Bleach Vol. 27.

Manga has traditionally dominated the list, with only Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis hardcover and Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Vol. 4 representing from the top mainstream companies.

This week kicked off with some interesting news, with Wizard CEO Gareb Shamus announcing that the ailing entertainment company would be assuming the reins of FunFare, a toy magazine aimed at younger children.

Yet at the same time, we’ve also heard reports of even more layoffs, in addition to general complaints about Wizard’s online store. With competition looming in the convention department, and Wizard’s staff and funds shrinking to the point of consolidating into one New York office, what’s the company’s next step?

You may be surprised, but apparently it’s taking over a new convention — in Toronto.

According to the Beat, Wizard has announced that it has purchased the Toronto Comicon. “We’ve always had a strong following in Canada, so buying the Toronto Comicon is something that allows me to give back to our fans. These attendees are known to be serious collectors and comic industry followers,” Shamus said in a press release.  “I am thrilled to offer the guests, celebrities, artists, dealers and exhibitors to our Canadian audience for the very first time.”

Peter Dixon, the former owner of the con, will be “intimately involved” with the new management, who are scheuled to debut the all-new, all-different con in 2010. But with Wizard’s shrinking fortunes, is this a sound reinvestment strategy, or a Hail Mary in the face of opposition from exhibitors like Reed and websites like, well, us? What say you, Rama readers?

Valerie D’Orazio has an interesting article up on her blog about the pop culture magazine Tripwire.

While there had been some cyberspace campaigning to shore up order numbers, the magazine was unable to rank high enough to meet Diamond US’s benchmark. A highlight:

With “Comic Foundry” and “Comics Now!” gone, and “Wizard” seemingly in a not-so-awesome state…I dunno, what is the fate of the comic book magazine nowadays, anyway? Or the pop-culture periodical in general?

It’s a very interesting read, and does pose some interesting questions about comics coverage in general. (And this comes off the heels of another interesting article of Valerie’s for Comixology, in which she wonders what is the “line” that comics coverage shouldn’t cross.)

Just looking at one point she mentions — of the Big Companies having an in-house comics news apparatus — I think that the companies do already have their own outlets (albeit not as all-encompassing as an all-purpose comic news site, as someone who’s covering them on a daily basis). For me, and I say this acknowledging perhaps some subtle bias, I think having a mix of inside and outside coverage is healthy, as it gives both a steady stream of new material from the insiders, as well as a perspective (and perserverence) that truly comes from a neutral but invested reader. What do you think?

Our own Rev OJ Flow has shown off his awesome superhero tattoos here a few times. He’s opted for several characters with relatively small representations. Well, one fan had a slightly different idea:

Yup, that’s an actual chest with an actual tattoo of the tattered Spidey costume, complete with battle damage, as posted at GeekStir. According to the recipient of said tattoo, it took over 9000 minutes, or 150 hours to complete. That is one dedicated Spider-fan.

Curious about the new Kate Beckinsale film, based on the Greg Rucka/Steve Lieber book by Oni Press?

Time to get more curious.

[Link via TrailerHQ]

Whoops - According to Greg Rucka himself (and pointed out below), this isn’t the trailer. At his blog, Rucka writes: “There’s a Whiteout trailer that’s apparently making the rounds at the moment. It is not the official movie trailer, but rather the teaser that WB put together for San Diego the year before last. It’s not bad, but it’s not the trailer.”

The trailer, according to Rucka, will be in front of the film Orphan.

May proved to be a Crisis that wasn’t limited to the pantheon of DC Comics, as comic book sales plummeted by double-digit percentage points.

ICv2 reports that comic book sales dropped 19 percent in May from the previous year, with graphic novel sales dropping 13 percent. The overall drop totals at 18 percent. Here’s some more details:

A lack of potent #1 issues as well as the absence of Dark Avengers certainly didn’t help comic sales this May, a month in which no single title even came close to breaking the 100K barrier.  In contrast in May of 2008, which boasted seven titles over 100,000, comic sales were boosted by Final Crisis #1, Avengers/Invaders #1, Invincible Iron Man #1, and Giant Size Astonishing X-Men #1, all of which made the top ten along with 4 Secret Invasion titles and two issues of Batman RIP.  The paucity of big event titles and strong #1s, the continuing deep recession, and the financial drag of higher cover prices all worked together to help produce the steep decline in comic numbers in May.

The top three comics of May 2009 were New Avengers #53 (94,367 copies sold), Battle for the Cowl #3 (89,170 copies sold), and Wolverine #72 (87,075 copies sold).

This drop is the largest ever reported by ICv2. In addition, April 2008 and 2009 both had five weeks of shipping, whereas May had the typical four.

All right, New York fans — if you dig Steve Dillon, here’s your chance to meet and greet!

The Hero Initiative has announced that on Wednesday, June 24th, the Preacher and Punisher penciller will be hitting Jim Hanley’s Universe in Manhattan from 6pm to 8pm.

All proceeds, both for the $5 raffle as well as the $15 sketches, will go to the Hero Intiative, which helps out creators in financial or medical need. If you’re in the area, check it out!

That’s a terrible attempt at keeping a sad situation light. We missed this last week, but apparently another high profile member of the Wizard Magazine crew has been fired. This time around, it’s Arlene So, a designer that did the flashy layouts the magazine’s features always showed off.

Add this to the troubles we reported on a couple weeks ago with their Amazon Store, the massive layoffs over the last few months, the closing of their upstate New York office, the ending of Anime Insider, the ridiculous turnover of the convention staff, including organizers that were much beloved, the “postponement” of Wizard World LA… the list is getting rather long, and if anything seems to be picking up steam.

With fond memories, as a child, of reading Wizard magazine for the latest in comic news, and fond memories, as an adult, of attending Wizard World cons, this is far from a happy occasion for me. Luckily, with a group like Reed Exhibitions stepping up to bat, and only having to focus on cons, not on the ridiculous overhead of print, that aspect seems to be filled. You’ve heard that video killed the radio star, well it seems internet is killing the novelty mag, and this is the latest hole in its chest.

[via TCR]

UPDATE: Even as we were running with this story, we’re hearing of more layoffs. Bleeding Cool reported on the dismissals of Scott Klein and Darren Sanchez. Klein was company controller, and Sanchez was VP of production and circulation. Bleeding Cool also reiterates what we reported recently: the troubles with Wizard’s online sales. We’ll have more as this develops.

Probably the coolest thing you’ll see on the web today right here. Sorry to apoil the internet for you the rest of the day, but this is just too cool:

In honor of Gundam’s 30th Anniversary, they’ve built a life size model. Unfortunately, this means a war between Earth and the Space Colonies is bound to happen soon, so any teenagers out there in Tokyo should get ready to stumble upon this behemoth and have some natural intuition on how to use it. Everyone else, just drool at the awesome, and click through the link above for more pictures of this bad boy.

[via Twitter]

Sporadic Sequential has posted some rather sad news regarding Nexus, the sci-fi comic being put out by Steve Rude, a criminally underrated artist if I do say so myself.

With Diamond Comic Distributors rules being tighter than ever, Rude and his company Rude Dude Productions has been hit especially hard, as seen by this e-mail:

Steve is then turning his focus to gallery paintings. Steve is a brilliant artist and we’ve been living hand to mouth for the past 3 years. Losing over $5,000 in the last 2 printings we have been unable to pay our mortgage have have no desire to lose our house.

Steve does plan to continue in comics putting out a book direct to trade every few years and using gallery painting as a means to finance his comic endeavors.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us by ordering commissions or purchasing artwork.

Sporadic Sequential has their own good thoughts on all this, as well as a link to Rude’s online store. It’s always a shame when true talent gets strangled in this economy, but the worst thing we can do it is take it in silence.

Tom Spurgeon has reported that allegedly Wizard has made some more significant personnel cuts.

According to Spurgeon, Vice-President of Production and Circulation Darren Sanchez was fired yesterday, after being given the position in 2007. Meanwhile, in-house staff photographer Dylan Brucie allegedly left the company last week, as well. Spurgeon stated that Brucie did a lot of work for ToyFare.

This is only the latest in some shaky reports from the flagship comic news publication of the ’90s, as over the past year they have cut or pushed back major conventions in Los Angeles and Texas, laid off big names like President and COO Fred Pierce and Senior Vice President - Operations Joe Yanarella, and made moves to close down their Congers, N.Y. location to move their significantly diminished staff into their New York bureau.

If you visit Wizard’s Storefront Feedback at Amazon.com, it appears something bad has happened of late. The 90 day feedback shows 23% negative, but the 30 day feedback shows 53%. Exploring the full feedback, 35 out of the 50 most recent are 1 star out of 5. These have some interesting comments attached to them:

“I ordered a $200+ robot dog and they sent me plastic superman figurine!??!!?? I sent the seller 2 e-mails and received NO response and it’s been over 2 weeks! What a bunch of crooks! AVOID AT ALL COST!! Amazon should really consider banning this merchant from the marketplace!”

“they send the wrong toy plus it was a cheaper version,and charge me original price they never answer my emails ,i had to contact amazon directly,but amazon saved the day, till this day i havent heard from wizard entertainment”

“The seller falsely advertised the LEGO Star Wars Clone Scout Walker. When contacted a couple days later a crushed box with a piece of junk metal arrived. I contacted the seller several times & got no response. Even after filing a claim with Amazon the seller still refused to acknowledge the defect/cheating they performed.”

Most other comments are very similar. There are several reports of people receiving a Superman action figure in lieu of their items, several reports of multiple attempts to contact Wizard via email and phone being ignored, or being sent damaged or overpriced product, complete with the lower pricetag on the box. I contacted Wizard to ask about what seems to be a major case of mail fraud, and received this official response from April Wiggins:

“This is an issue that we are aware of and are addressing. During a recent
inventory move we incurred some damage to parts of our inventory. Since many
of our customers are collectors, these items are not suitable. When this
occurs, we send people a free gift (with shipping at our own expense) to
compensate them for their inconvenience. They also receive a full refund on
their order.

Although we send a note attached, it is confusing to some. We apologize for
any confusion and we continue to clear up any misunderstandings. To date,
anyone who was inconvenienced received a full refund and a free action
figure.”

Now, there are zero out of those 35 cases where the same poster has posted again to say anything like, “I got my refund” or “I re-read the paper that came with the Superman figure and realized they sent it as an apology,” so it still seems like something else might be going on. According to an anonymous source within Wizard, the customer service phone number no longer “goes to anything” and the non-replies to the email address are on purpose.

In addition, looking at Wizard’s Forums, the customer service problems appear to have been harrowing them for a lot longer than the last 30 days. A post dated August 8, 2006 is the first to note the non-answering of email and the phone number that’s very difficult to find. The frequency of these style of posts kicked up in March of 2009, with six and a half pages of comments similar to the Amazon feedback. Most of these include statements like, “I’ve been waiting 3 weeks,” “My order shipped with several missing items,” and “I’ve emailed several times with no reply.” These customers are seeing charges come up on their credit cards days or weeks before anything is shipped. They contradict Wiggins’s official statement, saying that after several months they had to dispute the charges with their credit cards in order to get their money back.

A moderator, “Jerry Whitworth,” has gone on this thread repeatedly telling people, “Don’t order from a company you have problems with,” as did moderator “jaydee74.”

One poster, Chris Underwood, even pasted in his entire customer service email experience. He received order confirmation April 30, 2009. He then sent emails that weren’t responded to on May 1, May 6, May 8, and May 9, all with no response.

With all this evidence, it seems something more than a note that is “confusing to some” is the problem. Wizard’s official statement says they’ve been prompt with refunds, but the customers tell a different story. While one has recently noted a refund, it was a full month after order placement (and credit card charge), and still with no communication.

This may be indicative of the larger problem Wizard has been facing over the last year or so. With magazine closings, location closings, and layoffs, things don’t look to be getting better. While Gareb Shamus purchased the Big Apple Con and revived the Chicago Comic-Con name, it is interesting to note that both DC Comics and Marvel Comics are conspicuously absent from the list of exhibitors for this year’s Chicago show, which is only about two months away. Image, Dark Horse, and IDW are likewise missing.

After Rich Johnston surprised (or didn’t) the comics community yesterday with his announcement that Lying in the Gutters was ended at CBR and his own comics blog would be taking its place, it seems Warren Ellis just has to one up him.

At which point, I may as well confess that I’ll be returning to writing weekly about comics and things at bleedingcool.com.

At his blog, he posted the news today. This isn’t a first for Ellis, as he has previously held several internet columns about comics and otherwise. The prolific writer maintains a massive internet presence already, with the aforementioned blog, his ever-hilarious twitter stream, a highly successful webcomic that blends traditional style comic pages with a free weekly delivery called FreakAngels, his own message board that has a mostly non-comics focus and boasts several industry members (check out the remake/remodel threads for a real treat), and that’s just his core set of sites. So if all that, plus the Bad Signal mailing list wasn’t quite enough Ellis for you, well, you have less than a week to add another place.

As a small aside, congrats to Rich and best of luck on your new endeavor with BleedingCool.com

I, uh… well, there’s really no good way of introducing this, is there?

No lie, I can’t really put these two icons together without feeling a little bit uncomfortable. But Marvel has done the impossible, making a two-part comic mixing Eminem and the Punisher! The book is due out May 5.

To me, however, this cover of XXL Magazine is additionally interesting because of the weird history Eminem has had with comics: anyone who has read Wanted will know that J.G. Jones specifically modeled the character of Wesley Gibson off of the Great White Rapper.

Yet when rumors swirled around Eminem possibly taking the role in the comics’ film adaptation, he flatly refused, as he accused Mark Millar of exploiting his name to garner hype for the film: as Rap Basement explained, “since the creator of the comic not only lied about Eminem being attached but didn’t even run it by Eminem’s people, his camp didn’t consider the project anymore.” Also, the genre film Jumper apparently also was considering having Eminem star. I can’t even imagine what that would have looked like.

And yet, at the same time, Eminem also wrote NSFW songs called Superman, and regularly references the superhero in other songs like Rain Man (granted, this was probably more due to the Christopher Reeve jokes rather than any affection for Clark Kent). And of course, in his song Real Slim Shady, Eminem has his own Buttman-style character, which you can see here.

Now discuss.

Mmmm, gotta love slut-shaming comic-book characters. Except I don’t. At all. And neither does the author of this post. (via When Fangirls Attack)

OK, but these are awesome.

While we wait for Phonogram 2.2, the boys have an image from 2.3 up on their blog. And it’s gorgeous.

If you didn’t read the latest arc of Northlanders, you missed out. On art like this.

Warren Ellis swears he will die if you don’t read Ignition City. I did. Did you? What did you think?

The latest dirt on the possible-cancellation of Dollhouse? I’ll be sad it if does truly get cancelled–it’s just gotten better and better each week. But Friday night is a damned inconvenient time to watch TV if you’ve got any sort of a social life.

Speaking of Dollhouse, Racialicious looks at the cast and finds non-white characters the most interesting in the lot.

Finally, if we’re going to talk about “Strong female characters” can we talk about finding some “strong women” to write some of them? I don’t have a problem with men writing female characters in general, but I know there have to be some women out there who’d love to write superheroines, right? Gail Simone can’t be the only woman in all of creation who wants to do so…

For our jet-setting readers, as well as those across the pond:

The Bristol International Comic Expo has announced their guest list, as well as a special one-day event: Small Press Expo 2009. The main expo will take place in the Ramada Plaza Hotel on May 9-10, while the Small Press Expo will take place at the Mercure Holland House Hotel. You learn more (and order tickets) by clicking here.

And now — THE GUEST LIST!

Kevin O’Neill (in association with Top Shelf and Knockabout)
Alan Davis (with exclusive new DR & Quinch print only available at the Expo)
Dave Gibbons
Mark Buckingham
John Charles
Mike Collins
Rob Williams & John Higgins (in association with Com.X)
Gary Frank
Ian Gibson
David Hine
Lee Garbett
John M Burns
Lee Bradley
John Watson
Ian Culbard
Phil Winslade
Hunt Emerson & Gilbert Shelton (in association with Knockabout)
Simon Bisley & Mike Ploog (in association with Reed Comics)
Charlie Adlard
Sean Phillips
James A. Hodgkins
Duncan Fegredo
Neil Edwards
Gary Spencer Millidge
Dylan Teague
Tim Pilcher
Joel Meadows
Shaky Kane
Boo Cook
Al Davison
Laurence Campbell
John McCrea
Dave Shelton
Martin Hayes
Jock
Asia Alfasi
Ian Sharman
Tony Lee
Ferg Handley
Peter Hogan
Steve Cook
Robert Deas
Kris Justice
Kat Nicholson
Liam Sharp
Dan Boultwood
Andie Tong
Emma Vieceli
Ian Edginton
Paul Grist
Graham Bleathman
Henry Flint
Lew Stringer
Lee Townsend
Andy Diggle
Siku
Roger Langridge
Jim Boswell
Gary Erskine
Bambos!
Jon Davis-Hunt
Cy Dethan
David Baillie
Kirsty Swan
Paul Gravett
Ilya
Stephen Baskerville
Jason Cardy
Emily Hare
Mike Carey

Plus SP Expo comics from:
Steve Tanner (Time Bomb)
Howard Hardiman (Cute But Sad)
David Goodman (Zip Gun)
John Anderson (Soaring Penguin)
Paul Rainey (There’s No Time Like The Present)
Tom McNally (Semiotic Cohesion)
Willie Lengers (Itch Publishing)
Tom Meddings (Unedible)
Will Morris-julien (Butternut)
Michael Burness (Unico Comics)
Stephen Paul Coffey (Best of What’s Left)
Luke Paton (The Adventures Of Kez And Luke)
Andrew Cheverton (Angry Candy)
Dan Barritt (Ragadabah)
Nic Wilkinson (Insomnia Publications)
Isaac E C Lenkiewicz (Duh Brain Comics)
Amsel Von Speckelsen (Underfire Comics)
Chris Denton (Massacre For Boys)
Chin-Hsuen Lee (Tpcat Comic)
Steve Tillotson (Banal Pig)
Geoffrey Banyard (Fetishman)
Richard Scott Butler (Cherubs Comics)
Sally Jane Thompson (IndieManga)
Mathew J Pallett (Stir Fried)
Samantha Borras (Inspired)
Chris Lynch (Monkeys With Machineguns)

As you may have read on the Mothership today, there’s an awful lot of discussion regarding digital comics and alternative distribution.  And what you might have already read in the past few weeks is that struggling series — like Spider-Girl or Blue Beetle — are bravely trailblazing new means of reaching out to new readers and retaining the die-hards.

The question is — is it viable?

Let’s look at Exhibit A: Going digital. You probably saw the article which says that, according to an open poll by the Mothership, there’s a great many people out there who are willing — nay, anticipating — making the shift to digital comics. And it’s clear that Marvel is making some progress towards getting that growing demographic. The online debut of Spider-Girl is a great example of all this: this is a title that has been saved several times from cancellation. But of course, resources are limited, and if a book doesn’t work and isn’t tied within the framework of your larger universe, you gotta try something new (even if that something new doesn’t necessarily work). Innovation is the name of the game!

But that said — why lose the obvious zeal of the readership of a Spider-Girl or a Blue Beetle? So you take that character, keep aboard the best of the creative talent associated with the character — and you put a series up with a far cheaper platform. Printing ain’t cheap, and putting books online cuts out the middleman of publishing and distribution, so to speak. If they love the title enough — and, more importantly, you can’t get it anywhere else (so Wolverine, arguably not as great an investment unless done by a top-tier creator) — wouldn’t people flock to the product, no matter what the format?

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By Filip Sablik

This week is yet another busy one here at TC HQ, so rather than one long form entry I thought I’d jot down a few scattered thoughts. Particularly since I’m already a week behind my normal Blog@Newsarama schedule.

Topic 1: I had an interesting conversation recently where the conversation of what the correct price point for digital comics is. Should it be the same as the printed comic so as to not disadvantage brick and mortar comic retailers? Follow the iTunes model of 99¢ per issue? Or is it free? The person I was having the conversation with made a very compelling argument for the 99¢ price point citing research, which indicates that 99¢ is the threshold of what most people consider “not real money”. In other words, at under a dollar most people don’t even think about it as a buying decision, it’s just an impulse. In the end on a store like iTunes they may spend $5-6 in less than $1 increments. Conversely if you gave them the same items grouped together at $5 you’d have fewer people purchase it. Interesting stuff! Personally I suspect the only correct price point for the internet is FREE. The real question for most publishers is how to effectively monetize what we do while giving away our bread and butter for free. That and how to do it without hurting our retail partners in the direct market.

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As promised (I hope), this should be my last offering related to the recent WATCHMEN release.

In a GQ issue with a little something for everyone (trying to make it in the publishing biz with Lenny Dykstra sounds more awful than any horror story I’ve caught in recent years about the comics industry), the April 2009 issue of GQ has a feature entitled “The 20 Graphic Novels You Should Read (After “Watchmen”).”

The men in tights are kept to a minimum (Batman doesn’t even get a mention that I’m aware of, save for citing Ed Brubaker — Superman and Madman earn high marks one time each), and it’s a respectable look at how comics aren’t just kids stuff, a noble venture by a magazine geared to get male consumers everywhere to buy $300 Hugo Boss t-shirts.

Of course 20 items isn’t even going to scratch the surface, but what additional suggestions would YOU make to a mainstream publication like GQ?

South Park tackled the comic book superhero genre with mixed results on their March 18th episode. Simultaneously taking digs at The Dark Knight, The Spirit, and the up-to-the-minute Watchmen, the concept of a city’s masked hero fighting injustice with an Atlas-like sense of self-importance was mocked rather well despite a rather unsatisfying ending.

Click the link to get the episode in full, and swing back by here to let us know what you thought of “The Coon.”