Women in Comics & Sarah Lightman

A one day conference, ‘Women in Comics’ will take place on the 25th October 2009. With its unique collection of 20th Century Women’s Art, The New Hall Art Collection provides the perfect venue for a gathering of practitioners, academics, curators and enthusiasts. Women comic artists will speak about their work, and broader discussion will include the representation of women in comics. The event will run as part of The Cambridge Festival of Ideas week and is supported by The University of Glasgow.

Speakers include; Dominique Goblet and Paul Gravett, Woodrow Phoenix and Corinne Pearlman, Kate Evans, Dr Mel Gibson, Sarah McIntyre, Dr Ann Miller, Asia Alfasi and many more. For more details see

http://www.art.newhall.cam.ac.uk/events/comics.html

Sarah Lightman will also be exhibiting ‘In Memoriam’, diary drawings from her on-going autobiographical graphic novel in The New Hall Exhibition Space, 19th October- 14th November 2009.

Nostalgia & Comics needs you!

Richard Cowdry (of Bedsit Journal fame) writes about Birmingham’s Nostalgia & Comics and their push for more small press submissions.

This is great news, as decent shops that are welcoming to, and actually engaging with small press and indy creators are not only rare, but can have a hugely beneficial effect on the scene and artform. One word of encouragement, one extra comic sold, can make all the difference to someone who is just testing the waters… or to seasoned self-publishers for that matter.

I was in Nostalgia & Comics just the other day and picked up a bunch of cool new books, and a very pleasant experience it was too.

Alan Moore on Marvelman

Alan Moore shares his thoughts on the possible Marvelman book.

I decided that while I’m very happy for this book to get published—because that means money will finally go to Marvelman’s creator, Mick Anglo, and to his wife. Mick is very, very old, and his wife, I believe, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. The actual Marvelman story is such a grim and ugly one that I would probably rather that the work was published without my name on it, and that all of the money went to Mick. The decision about my name was largely based upon my history with Marvel—my desire to really have nothing to do with them, and my increasing desire to have nothing to do with the American comics industry.

Tokyopop lose Kodansha licences

Tokyopop announce;

“The Japanese publisher Kodansha, from whom TOKYOPOP has licensed many terrific series over the years — Chobits,Love Hina, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Rave Master, Initial D,Kindaichi, Life, GetBackers, and Love Attack, to name a few — has decided to let all existing contracts with TOKYOPOP expire on all manga series that they have licensed to us. As a result, Kodansha will not renew any licenses with TOKYOPOP for any new mangavolumes.”

Precocious Curmudgeon has a more complete list of affected titles.

Comics aren’t literature apparently.

The Cool Kids Table has a brief post on the recognition of comics as literature by a conservative thinktank co-founded by Lynne Cheney.

Above – a page from Tales Designed to Thrizzle by Michael Kupperman.

Cartoonist not fired

Although this may not appear to be news at first glance, a Pulitzer winning editorial cartoonist keeping his job is indeed big news in this particular economic climate.

It appeared initially that Matt Davies, cartoonist for the Journal News, had been included in the newsroom’s 25% staffing cut, but the Journal reversed its decision.

Matt told Alan Gardner of The Daily Cartoonist;

I am not going anywhere. My paper looked down the cold and terrible barrel of not having an editorial cartoonist on staff and just couldn’t do it. The paper’s readers owe a big thanks to my editor Henry Freeman who quietly worked to ensure that my position was revived and ultimately kept alive during a particularly bruising round of downsizing in our newsroom. The clear message is that no matter how small a newspaper payroll needs to be in order for a paper to turn a profit, a decent staff cartoonist who connects with the audience is a smart part of that profit strategy. While I am of course personally relieved, my thoughts are with my talented and venerated colleagues who didn’t survive the cuts this week.

Nicaraguan cartoonist Pedro Molina put it quite nicely when he said in the comments;

I’m sorry for Matt, one of the finest cartoonist working today, but I feel more sorry for the newspaper industry, once again trying to save their golden eggs by killing the goose that lays them.

The Disney/Marvel relationship

Here is some informed speculation that goes beyond the ‘Spiderman with mouse ears’ chatter that seems to be about at the moment. Head over to ICV2 to read up on the implications for movies, television, retail, licensing, games, theme parks, live entertainment, conventions and, uh, oh yeah! Comics!

It’d be naive to assume that the merger is more about a creative strengthening than making money, but this is starting to feel to me like finding more ways to saturate more media more completely with characters (not comics, don’t confuse the two). My worry is that this saturation is going to get pretty old pretty quickly. I’d like to echo the sentiments of ICV2;

Let’s hope Disney on Ice is one of the divisions where they look for Marvel synergies last.

150 Million year old Squid Ink?

Check out this story from the BBC about paleontologists drawing with 150 million year old squid ink.

Astonishing.

Tokyopop and online comics

From ComicBookResources, an interview with Tokyopop marketing director Marco Pavia;

Last year, when Tokyopop underwent a major restructuring, it suspended most of its original manga series, leaving a number of incomplete stories in limbo. That state of suspended animation ended last week, when Tokyopop Director of Marketing Marco Pavia announced that Tokyopop will complete most of the series, includingEarthlight, Afterlife, and Gyakushu, online. Each volume will be posted for free, one chapter per week.

Johanna Draper Carlson has an analysis;

Whether or not the books make it to print depends not only on reader/fan demand but “they also have to prove popular with our retail partners. As I said earlier, buyers often base their buying on how the previous volumes sell.” That is, if bookstores won’t commit to the books, and if previous volumes didn’t sell (no matter how long ago they were released), it doesn’t matter how many readers ask for it.

Disney to buy Marvel for $4 Billion

This is an interesting development. Disney is going to buy Marvel and all of it’s 5000 characters. I wonder where this is going. Given Marvel’s recent film outings, and the resources available to Disney, I’m sure we’ll start seeing the market getting fairly well saturated with Marvel media in all its guises. Ike Perlmutter, Marvel CE said;

“Disney is the perfect home for Marvel’s fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses,” said Marvel Chief Executive Ike Perlmutter. “This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney’s tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world.”

I have a hard time trying to visualise how much $4 billion is in relation to other enormous sums of money, so I’m happy that David McCandless over at informationisbeautiful has whipped up this handy visualisation that contextualises enormous sums of money.