On The Shelves: 1/31/07
Reading is fundamental. Don’t waste your time reading bad comics out of habit! My weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 1/31/07. The full shipping list, as always, is available at ComicList. [NOTE: Not all of these titles will actually arrive in all stores. If your LCBS offers a pre-ordering service, be sure
Numbers Game: Shuffling Deck Chairs on the Titanic
Marc-Oliver Frisch’s always enlightening sales analysis is now posted at The Beat, looking at DC’s estimated numbers for December 2006, and buried towards the end is a very interesting breakdown of the Average Sales per Title of their three primary imprints. I’ve spotlighted the DCU as a point of interest: DC UNIVERSE 12/2003: 29,26312/2004: 36,92512/2005:
Marketing Monday: First Things First
Among the myriad challenges comics publishers of all sizes face, one of the biggest — and most frustrating, personally — is marketing. Way too many publishers believe that marketing is little more than sending out badly written press releases and snagging previews, reviews and interviews from Wizard, Newsarama, Comic Book Resources, et al. While some
Blogaround Challenge 2007 Update
…and the Massive Archaia, Viper & Spider-Man Giveaway! 3 Prize Packs, 33 comic books…FREE SHIPPING!!! On your own blog, in a post titled “Blogaround Challenge 2007”, write a brief review of three blogs that are not currently on your personal blogroll. Mine the blogrolls of your favorite blogs, Google’s Blog Search, the Watchtower, or the
Free Comic Book Day 2007
This year’s Free Comic Book Day is on Saturday, May 5 — the same weekend Spider-Man 3 opens — and the list of comics that will be available is pretty impressive. My initial thoughts on some of them: Archie Comics (Gold): Archie Comics Little Archie 2007 Archie Comics (Silver): Sonic the Hedgehog 2007 My son
Suburban Dysfunction & Blaxploitation
Ghost World By Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics Books, 1998; $11.95) I skipped the movie version of Ghost World when it came out because I could tell from the previews that it wasn’t my cup of tea; stories of suburban angst make my skin crawl (ie: I hated American Beauty), suburban teenage angst even more so. But,
On The Shelves: 1/24/07
Reading is fundamental. Don’t waste your time reading bad comics out of habit! My weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 1/24/07. The full shipping list, as always, is available at ComicList. [NOTE: Not all of these titles will actually arrive in all stores. If your LCBS offers a pre-ordering service, be sure
Amazon POD Update: Raves for Sale!
Last month I posted a brief item about Amazon’s Print-on-Demand services, offered in partnership with BookSurge, suggesting it might be “worthy of consideration for potential self- and micro-publishers.” On Friday, Slate posted an interesting article entitled “Raves For Sale” that reveals one of the options available to its customers is “a personally crafted review written
"There’s no accounting for taste"
Our new seal and motto: “de gustibus non est disputandum”
CBC’s Massive Archaia, Viper & Spider-Man Giveaway
…and the return of the Blogaround Challenge! Back in September 2005, Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag of Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog issued the Blogaround Challenge, asking comics bloggers to poke around the blogiverse and write a short bit about the blogs they came across, the goal being “to meet new bloggers and see new stuff.” (My entry is here.) Since