Preorders through Discount Comic Book Services get a 45% discount, making the book $10.97. Plus, you’ll get a free sketch. The Diamond code is JUN09 0720 if you’d rather order through your local store.

Brian Fies wrote and drew Mom’s Cancer, one of my Best Graphic Novels of 2006.

His next book, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?, is due out later this month. For now, you can see a brief preview online. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Spanning the period from the 1939 New York World’s Fair to the last Apollo space mission in 1975, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? is told through the eyes of a boy as he grows up in an era that was optimistic and ambitious, fueled by industry, engines, electricity, rockets, and the atom bomb. The book also offers an insightful look at a relationship between a son and his father, and the promise of the future, told with the engaging and deeply personal style that is unique to comics art.

Interspersed with the comic book adventures of Commander Cap Crater (created by Fies to mirror the styles of the comics and the time periods he is depicting), and mixing art and historical photographs, this groundbreaking graphic novel is a lively trip through a half century of technological evolution. It is also a perceptive look at the changing moods of our nation—and the enduring promise of the future

I’ll definitely read whatever he does next, but I’m especially interested in this theme, the change from a hopeful technology-driven future to one that’s more pessimistic. Find out more at Brian Fies’ blog.

The Best Fiction list includes Gabrielle Bell’s anthology Cecil and Jordan in New York, complete with excerpt.

Books We Like lists Ariel Schrag’s Likewise, also with sample pages.

Funniest of all, the My Guilty Pleasure feature, “in which notable writers reveal the books they’re embarrassed to love”, launches this afternoon. The first segment will feature mystery novel and superhero comic writer Brad Meltzer praising girly vampire series Twilight.

Allen, Strongman is about a Mexican wrestler. Are you a wrestling fan?

I wasn’t so much before I started working on Strongman, but in the course of researching the Mexican Lucha Libre tradition, I came to appreciate it quite a bit.

How so?

Well, to be honest, I didn’t know a thing about Lucha Libre before I started working on Strongman. So I read a few books and got to thinking that I really need to see this for myself. I took a little side trip to Mexico and caught a Lucha Libre event live. It’s all REAL! The luchadores show up in their masks, the kids gape in awe, the people drink Tecate two at a time and munch on spicy snacks while the luchadores wage melodramatic battles of good versus evil. It’s a loud, close quarters, hilarious, and very entertaining scene. I can totally get the appeal.

Strongman

That sounds like a fun way to research! Is that level of involvement typical for your art?

For me it is. I mean, that’s how I want to approach my work. When I am faced with having to tell a story where the setting is a significant story element, then I think it’s important to go see that place for yourself if at all possible. It’s important to have something authentic to say about these places. For Strongman, I ventured to both Mexico and New York City because I needed to be able to get the sense of place correct. It makes the life that our hero, Tigre, is living all that much more real and believable.

How did you come to work on Strongman? Did you know the writer?

Charles Soule posted an ad on Digital Webbing, and I responded to it. He auditioned about a half dozen guys and decided that he liked my approach the best. While the other guys were just drawing wrestlers in superhero poses, I was drawing wrestlers walking down dark alleys with Eisner-type debris flying around in the wind. Charles has said that he thought my temperament would be better suited to the mood he was trying to achieve than any of the other guys.

Clever approach! Did you take a different tack based on information he provided?

Well, yes and no. Environment and mood have always been a primary interest of mine. My first published work was a story in Steve Buccellatto’s ComicCulture magazine written by Benjamin Raab called “The Lost Tribe”. That was a supernatural horror noir story set in a stygian kind of old Prague. I couldn’t go to Prague for that, but I worked hard trying to get a spooky, creepy feel for the place. So right from the start, environment and mood are evident as predominant artistic concerns. I think I simply have continued that approach in Strongman, and I intend to continue doing that.

Could you talk about how other examples of your work demonstrate that as well?

Like That

I did a short graphic novel called Like That, written by Patrick Rills, that is set in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We have our lovebirds (it’s a romance comic!) hanging out and walking around on the Louisiana State University campus.

I have been providing covers for the Disney/Pixar World of Cars comics coming out from BOOM! Studios. I lived for a time in that part of Arizona along Route 66 where Radiator Springs is supposed to be, and I have taken it upon myself to start taking in auto racing events whenever possible, and I think that helps.

I once did a comic called Transaction that took place during the 1999 WTO protests, which I witnessed first hand. (It was a peaceful protest until the police started lobbing tear gas cans into the crowd!)

I drew a comic written by Joshua Dysart that is set deep in the Louisiana Swamp, and I actually got in a swamp boat and got a tour of the cypress groves out there. That was called How It Gets In, and it hasn’t been published yet. It’s pretty weird and we’ll probably have to self-publish it one of these days.

What’s the premise?

This guy is sitting around his house, abusing himself with the news porn on the television, when a fly emerges from the TV set and he swallows it. He coughs, gags, and then gets up and ventures out into the swamp, that’s when he finds that he has become the victim and the carrier of all that war and filth that TV spews on us.

That’s Josh’s side. My take on it was more personal. For me it was also about how sadness, disappointment, and sickness can divert someone from the single-minded pursuit of art. Josh had something to say, so he wrote it all down. I read it and it spoke to me and I drew it. It was a personal thing, just for fun really. It’s a pure work of art, born into the world through vessels who can’t quite explain how it came to be. (Read it online at Josh’s site.) Josh is a mad man, you know.

He’s one of my oldest friends in comics. I met him shortly after reading his work on Violent Messiahs. He’s a really friendly, positive guy, a cinephile, jazzbo, voracious reader, and I feel a real affinity for his dedication to his work. Did you know that for his recent Vertigo series, Unknown Soldier, he actually went all the way to UGANDA to research the civil war there? And then he put it all into his comic book! That’s the way to do it, I’ll tell you what. I really admire him for his willingness to go half way around the world to make his comic book the best it can be. And Unknown Soldier is a fantastic book.

What else are you working on now?

I am currently finishing up my Bachelor of Fine Art in Illustration. It will be my second degree after my Bachelor of Science in Education.

I’m going to continue self-publishing my personal work, The Inspectre: The Ghost Who Solves Crime, created in collaboration with my writing buddy, Mark Cooper. (That link has some of the images, but the words aren’t posted yet. Sorry, Mark! We’ll have to get on that asap.) It’s actually quite a bit different than the rest of my work. Much more cartoony, in a way.

The art style is based more on expressionistic wood-block printing and the picture books of Lynd Ward. Lots of black, inky shadows and spooky stuff. It’s about a ghost detective archetype struggling to maintain a sense of identity in the afterworld where your habits can overtake you and you can forget who you are and just wind up trapped on a lonesome road or in the corner of a room in an old house. So he finds a mystery to solve, and it turns out that the double cross may be that his need to investigate may simply be the habit that traps him. We’re talking with some companies about publishing it, but we don’t have anything in writing yet, so I can’t say when that’s going to hit. But it will, you’ll see!

I have another project called Guns McMenamin that’s going to be premiered at San Diego this year. It’s an action/comedy series, something like The Dukes of Hazard crossed with The Fast and the Furious. And it’s set in Baton Rouge. I’ll be travelling to Baton Rouge to research the place and prepare for the major set pieces later this year.

And we are planning to do a sequel to Strongman that I’ll start drawing in June.

How do you work with Charles? You’re doing a sequel, so y’all must get along ok.

More than OK! Charles is a good collaborator. He’s challenging but not recalcitrant. Creative, energetic, a little bit gonzo, even. He has quite a few interesting projects that are going full steam ahead, and I think it won’t be long before he’s as out there as Bendis or Kirkman or Cebulski.

What method do you use? How much back-and-forth do you have?

We start with a plot synopsis. I read what he’s got in mind and then tell him if I think it works or not. Then we discuss it at length before he produces a full script. I read that and do thumbnail layouts to see how it all flows, then we have another lengthy discussion about how it’s all shaping up.

If I have a difference of opinion with Charles, then I better be able to explain myself pretty clearly, and sometimes he agrees with me, sometimes not. Eventually, we come to an agreement, and I go back and draw the pages as best as I can. I send pages to him in 20-page packets and move on to the next batch while he letters them and gets them ready for the book. I think our system works pretty well.

What can you tell me about the next book?

As the cloud of guilt and depression begins to lift from Tigre’s life, he decides that he needs to return to Mexico. He finds the place has not changed to his liking in the 30 years since he left. Poverty, violence, civil war. This would never have stood had Tigre remained in his country and continued fighting for truth and justice. Well, he’s back now, and those outlaw gangs and corrupt politicians better watch out!

I’m going to start drawing it in June, it will take about a year to complete, then about 3 or 4 months to produce and distribute…. So I guess it’ll be about late 2010.

Thanks very much for your time, Allen!

You’re welcome. I’d like to say that I’m really happy to speak to you, and I’d like to shout out to my friends and collaborators Mark Cooper, Charles Soule, Patrick Rills, Josh Dysart, and Steve Buccellatto. I’ve always appreciated their hard work and support. And if I don’t throw a word in to my mother and sister, I would be a bad son and brother. I couldn’t be a cartoonist without their support.

The Previews cancellation pages used to be full of reason codes 2 and 6. That’s “will resolicit” (which I usually took to mean “the creators are running later than we expected, but you’ll see the book eventually”) and “sold out” (never a bad reason). Now, it’s all 4s (”cancelled by publisher”, which sometimes means “we can’t afford to do it with those numbers”) and the dreaded 3s (”cancelled by Previews”). That last one means “we didn’t get enough orders to make Diamond enough profit”, and even knowing that they were cracking down this year, I had no idea it would grow this quickly.

Hope Falls
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Take, for example, Hope Falls. The miniseries, written by Tony Lee, had a collection planned for release this year, but it fell victim to “not enough orders”. Yet Markosia is still publishing it — they’ll sell it through Amazon, Diamond UK, and direct themselves.

That’s just one of many. Rumor has it that Diamond’s in trouble, like most companies in this economy, and it’s understandable that they need to tighten up, but driving customers to other venues doesn’t do Diamond’s customers, the direct market comic shops, any good. And having to stay on top of the status of various projects individually in order to figure out who you’ll get it from and when … that’s no fun. It defeats the purpose of centralized orders, whether from retailer to Diamond or reader to retailer.

Another Stupid Wizard Article

Bwa ha ha! Wizard is plugging an article on “How to Get Your Girl to Read Comics”. Leaving aside the assumption that all of their readers are heterosexual males… I’m not sure I believe anyone immature enough to read Wizard magazine would *have* a girlfriend. But the picture shows her holding a huge stack of Marvel, DC, and Image collections. I don’t really think most women are going to be as interested in The Punisher, Invincible, and Green Lantern as they might be in something, oh, non-superheroish. What about indies? Art comics? Manga? Works in other genres, like science fiction or romance? Heck, if you must show superheroes, what about Birds of Prey or Wonder Woman? And if you’re going to be that terribly cliched, go with Sandman and Strangers in Paradise.

What I’m Looking Forward To

Eh, enough griping. Let’s go to things I’m positive about, starting with Venus Capriccio Volume 2. It surprises me no end that, just when I’m ready to give up on all DC publications, I’ve found a couple of their CMX manga series I really like, this one and The Name of the Flower.

Suspended in Language
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If you haven’t read it before, be sure to check out Jim Ottaviani’s Suspended in Language (GT Labs), a true-science graphic biography of Niels Bohr, the father of quantum mechanics. The art is mostly by Leland Purvis with additional work by Jay Hosler, Roger Langridge, Steve Leialoha, Linda Medley, and Jeff Parker, talented artists all. It’s a fascinating example of just how wide-ranging comic storytelling can be.

I’m looking forward to The Big Kahn, by Neil Kleid and Nicholas Cinquegrani, from NBM. When a respected rabbi passes away, his family finds out that for 40 years, he’s been lying to everyone: he’s not even Jewish. It’s a story about grief and faith and family and finding one’s own way. An online preview is available.

My gracious, how the mighty have fallen. Tokyopop has two pages of Previews, that’s it, with 12 listings. It’s a far cry from the days where they’d have page after page, one or two books per.

The Surrogates: Flesh & Bone
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Top Shelf is preparing for the late September debut of The Surrogates movie with a re-release of the graphic novel with a new cover; a new prequel story, Flesh & Bone; and a super-deluxe hardcover containing them both. Good for them!

The Middleman graphic novel The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse (Viper Comics) promises to serve as conclusion to the much-missed TV show. I want to read the comic, but it will only remind me of how much I miss the series.

Peter David’s book about Writing for Comics (Books section) is updated and revised. I don’t know about specific changes, but I thought the first one was pretty good, so I’ll still recommend this version.

What are you anticipating?

The Beast of Chicago
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That’s a tough question. NBM puts out quite a range of great graphic novels. I second David’s recommendation of Lewis Trondheim’s journal comic Little Nothings. I also appreciated the unusual moody gender-bending of How Loathsome.

NBM has released American-made manga with Lea Hernandez’s Rumble Girls and adult (porn) comics with the reprint series of Omaha the Cat Dancer. (I’m still eagerly waiting for the promised concluding volume 8!) Plus, they do reprints of classic comics under their Forever Nuts line.

But of them all, my favorite is the Treasury of Victorian Murder series. Of all the volumes, my favorite is The Beast of Chicago, about H.H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer, and his murder house. The series has been rebooted to cover the 20th century, launching with the story of The Lindbergh Child. I suspect that with its Hollywood focus, the next book, Famous Players, “The Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor”, will be my new favorite.

What’s yours?

The next book, The Truth About Doctor True, is due out at the end of July, but until then, Jack and Benny will be having adventures online at the rate of a new strip every other week. Plus, there are avatars, wallpapers, and news updates.

Sara Ryan had a new installment of her Flytrap minicomic series, this time illustrated by Sarah Burrini. She’s a German artist who’s starting to get work here. In this chapter, “Performance Anxiety”, one of the acrobats winds up having to play her ex’s wedding. The dialogue and character work are terrific, as always, and the art conveys subtle, realistic emotion. Burrini’s quite a talent, and Ryan’s story makes some interesting points about the desire for attention. I wanted to see what happened when the circus showed up at the ceremony, but the real point of the story was friends talking through a tough time. (How nice to see something that passes the Bechdel Rule, too.)

I picked up a charming minicomic from Steve Rolston (One Bad Day, Queen & Country) called “Lost Souls in Love”. It was originally his attempt at a 24-hour comic, but he polished it into a wonderful romantic interlude with a strong sense of place, as two new friends explore a deserted beach.

Other than that, I didn’t buy much. I was looking for some older Archie comics for KC, but no one brings that kind of thing to a show where they have limited space. I did get the second Girls With Slingshots volume and the new Phables collection (strips abut Philadelphia) from Brad Guigar at the halfpixel.com table. I figured it would be a neat nostalgia trip, since I lived in the city for three years. Brad did a lovely sketch of Ben Franklin in the front, although he is not eating a cheesesteak. These full-page strips are based on observations about what makes like in Philadelphia unique, often based on reader submissions. Guigar’s style works very well with this slightly exaggerated real-life humor. Frequent subjects include trash, cars, family, crime, and tradition. Some are touching, some are scary, and some really brought back memories.

I’ve found I don’t do a lot of shopping at shows like this because most times, it’s just easier to order online. Especially if you’re worrying about what will fit in your suitcase on the way back! But I came up with a few new webcomics to check out. Like The Comfort Guide, twisted wordless comedy based on instructional-style images. Or Unemployed Pandas, cute and timely. Or Sea Freak, the story of a tormented undersea mutant who eats people but is really conflicted about it. Or Ellie Connelly, a young woman who investigates the paranormal in a historical comedy strip that’s just starting.

Mostly, I had good conversations. I interviewed Scott Morse, who was a gentleman and a lifesaver, letting me sit with him when I came over dizzy in the afternoon. Instead of convention sketches, he was doing mini-paintings, including one of Batman. It was some grey shapes, then I closed my eyes briefly, and when I opened them, he was putting black over top and it was the hero! I don’t know how he did it. Sheer genius!

A terrific time talking with two young women made me feel old and slow. They were full of information about their comics, creative costumes they made, all these activities they had going. It was inspiring. One was Rachel Dukes, who does several webcomics, but I didn’t catch the other’s name.

With Keith Knight I talked about the future of comics. I found out from Jeph Jacques (Questionable Content) that he’s planning to put out his first book before the end of the year. It’ll have at least the first 250 strips, but he hopes for 500 — it depends on the size and the cost, since it’ll be printed in color.

I also checked in with several indy publishers about their upcoming works. I had a bizarre but eye-opening conversation with someone at Oni about comp copies and why they’re sent as well as whether I should be considered more of a reviewer or an industry professional. It was one of those situations where you realize that how you view yourself may be very different from how others see you. I’ll always consider myself a reviewer first, but that doesn’t mean others agree. I assumed that someone who sent me comics wanted me to talk about them, but that’s not always the case, it turns out. Anyway, I was thrilled to get a copy of the convention-only Scott Pilgrim color special.

Brett at Top Shelf was eager to tell me about the books they have upcoming this year, many of which I hope to cover shortly, because they look nifty! Perhaps most exciting to me was hearing that there was going to be an Eddie Campbell Alec omnibus called The Years Have Pants coming out in September.

I saw a preview of North 40, an upcoming WildStorm miniseries — 6 issues starting in July — by Aaron Williams (PS238) and Fiona Staples. It’s about folks with superpowers living in a rural county, an interesting mix.

Oh, and the Seattle Convention Center has the best con food ever. There’s a creparie on the sidewalk just outside. For lunch, I had a ham’n'cheese crepe followed by a sweet chestnut with creme fraiche for dessert. Yum!

Two years ago, Platinum faked its way to the top of an Entertainment Weekly comic bestseller list by giving away comics and paying retailers to order their book. Here’s more detail on what happened and EW’s response.

The Dark Tower:
The Gunslinger Born

Now, Kevin Melrose raises some questions about the New York Times Graphic Books Bestseller list. In short, how does Marvel’s The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born go from nowhere on the list to #1 to disappearing from the list again, all in two weeks?

Christopher Butcher has one possible answer:

… the NYT Graphic Novel Bestseller lists are equally weighing all of Diamond’s direct-market sell-in with all of the other sales channels’ sell-through. What this means is that every book shipped by Diamond to a comic book store counts exactly the same on their list as every book actually sold by a bookscan-reporting store. It means that, on the week that comic-store-favorite graphic novels get released, their positions on the bestseller list will be abnormally high… but they will most likely never be heard from again. Unless their reorder velocity in a given week is incredibly high… maybe if that item was put on a sale or something?

[...] There was a time period last month where I ordered Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born and received a higher-than-average discount on that book, and for every copy I ordered, I got another copy of the book for free. [...] So the week that all of those discounted copies and free copies of Dark Tower that I ordered shipped to me, the book ALSO appeared on The New York Times Graphic Novel Bestseller list.

Now, Chris has some special caveats and explanation, so you’ll want to read the whole thing, especially as he goes on to say that he doesn’t think Marvel was necessarily trying to do this on purpose. It’s just that a system that measures sales to retailers doesn’t match well with more traditional bestseller measurement of sales to end customers.

Wonder Woman #31

Is this the most useless line in a comic description? “The story that changes Diana’s status quo forever continues!” (Wonder Woman #31) It’s just so emblematic of superhero comics these days — everything changes all the time, with outrageous, unbelievable claims for how important it all is, and it never seems to end. (You would think, if I searched Google for that title name, looking for that link, that DC would come up first. No. It comes up fifth. First is a link to Things From Another World, a shop run by competitor Dark Horse. Something to work on, there.)

I might be interested in The Literals, a new Vertigo miniseries written by Matthew Sturges (whose House of Mystery I enjoy), if I had any clue what it was about. Judging from the description, it’s only intended for those who already read Jack of Fables, where the characters were introduced. Even worse, all three issues are part of a nine-part crossover with that title and Fables. Apparently, the 90s, which were full of this kind of “buy more!” stunt, have returned. (Even better, when I got a press release for the gimmick last week, the headline managed to mispell Falbes [sic].)

The weird thing about reading Previews this late is seeing things that you know have been cancelled and will never appear. Like Wizard’s Anime Insider #68. Or Sista Samurai #3 from Ape Entertainment. So why am I reading the catalog now? Because I like to make a list of books I want to keep watch for, and since these titles are due to start coming out in April, I’m not quite unforgivably late yet.

Man, there’s an awful lot of wannabe superhero and zombie crap in the catalog these days, isn’t there? I don’t know how retailers go through this and make purchasing decisions every month. No wonder they stick to known quantities and old favorites.

From the solicitation for Boom! Studios’ Mr. Stuffins #1 (New Edition):

… the original edition of Mr. Stuffins #1 has sold out at convention after convention as fans asked, “When will issue #2 come out?” … the bear is back in a completely re-drawn and re-colored first issue …

You didn’t answer the question. Why would you bring the question up if you weren’t going to answer it? More, why would you want to remind people that this issue originally came out in April 2007? It’s only a three-issue miniseries. At this point, if you’re going to promise it’s going to be on time, why not go straight to graphic novel?

Lockjaw & the Pet Avengers #1

I cannot read Radical comics. Their art is so slick and painted that the words visually have no connection with them. Plus, the coloring is dark on heavy paper, making them murky. Not to mention my suspicion that they exist only to be movie storyboards, which is why the pictures take such precedence over the text and they’re all so “high concept”. Does anyone read them? Why?

So what am I buying? Manga. All my favorites seem to come out in the same month: Nana, High School Debut, Sand Chronicles, Oishinbo, Black Jack, Parasyte… good reading!

Woof! One down, one to go. Now onto March’s catalog.

Hey, there’s a Marvel book for me: Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers! (Marvel’s links come up second for this title. Newsarama comes first. Hmmm.) Who doesn’t love superhero animals?

Power Girl #1

DC has its own booklet this month due to some kind of printing mixup. What an interesting trial balloon. I admit, it was easier focusing on their products (even though I don’t want any of them) in a separate publication.

DC launches a Power Girl series with the “vivacious art of Amanda Conner”. I don’t think that was the word they really wanted. I think they mean “va-va-va-voom” but were afraid it would make them sound old.

My gracious! Image is selling a Compendium of 48 issues of Walking Dead under one cover. That’s 1088 pages. How do you bind that? Is it printed on Bible-weight paper?

Love Buzz

In the chutzpah department, IDW is putting out a two-book slipcased hardcover set to commemorate their first decade of existence. For only $75, you too can be part of their birthday celebration. That’s like getting an invite and being asked to pony up for an expensive gift without even getting any cake. Seriously, I’m kind of surprised it’s been that long. If you go to the party, don’t forget to thank them for introducing the $3.99 standard issue price!

This month, the highlights are two Oni Press graphic novels: one, Love Buzz, is actually willing to advertise as being for “romantic comedy buffs” (it’s the story of a comic artist’s relationship); the other, You Have Killed Me, is the long-awaited reteaming of Jamie Rich and Joelle Jones, who previously worked together on 12 Reasons Why I Love Her.

1. Making outrageous claims. We’re “one of the only, if not the only, dedicated graphic novel review websites.”

2. Asking you to take too much on faith. The reviewer is anonymous, although claiming to be a professional reviewer and graphic novel creator. How are we supposed to trust him or her? How are we to evaluate their biases? Did they get published through someone or just through enough money around to call themselves “professional”? We can’t tell.

3. Having the wrong motives. The anonymity is “in order not to alienate potential employers, while also maintaining complete autonomy and impartiality.” That ordering is very telling, don’t you think? The first priority isn’t ticking off anyone who might hire them, which is completely the wrong approach for writing good, useful reviews.

Speaking of motives, the site was launched because when the reviewer’s own graphic novel was published, “I was very surprised to discover that there’s limited graphic novel review resources, online and in print.” Ah. You didn’t get coverage, so there must be a gap. Couldn’t be that your book didn’t look like it was worth talking about, could it? Dunno, we can’t judge because Anonymous refuses to say. Occam’s Razor suggests sour grapes, though.

4. Launching with too little content. Right now, the site (which uses a standard blog template, which looks unprofessional) has all of one review. And it’s of a superhero event collection, which calls into question just how Anonymous defines “graphic novels”, as well as his claim to be providing something different. Superhero story reviews are a glut on the net.

5. Insulting the competition. Oh, wait, it turns out that there *are* other review sites (see #1), only he thinks they suck. “What few online graphic novel reviews that exist are usually amateur and would never get within a millions miles of print.” It’s always funny when someone makes a stupid typo when calling other people amateur, isn’t it?

6. Thinking you can change the world. “Graphic novels are finally going to get the attention they deserve.” Whatever would they have done without you?

Now, given all this, why would I want to publicize their efforts? Especially since, with one review and no track record, it could easily fall apart in a month. If you want to be recognized, spend more time on doing the work than making claims to try and make yourself feel special.

Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology contains over 200 pages of stories about Asian superheroes in an attempt to remedy the lack of such characters in comics.

Unlike The Darker Mask, which was text, this book is comic stories. As with any anthology, the quality depends on the contributors, and the list is impressive.

You can keep up with preview videos (animated versions of some of the stories) and other promotion at the book’s blog, or read a preview PDF that explains the book’s purpose at the official website. It’s due out in April. The Diamond order code is JAN09 4645.

The Middleman: The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse — not much hyperbole there! — will be penned by executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (the auteur of the Viper Comics graphic novels on which the TV series was based) and Hans Beimler, with illustrations by Armando M. Zanker and layouts by Les McClaine.

The book is due out in July, in time for the San Diego Con, and it’s being described as a “proper finale” to the series. On the one hand, yay, more stories. On the other, “finale” sounds so … final. I still have hope for the series discovering its audience on DVD and possibly returning. I would love to see more.

Update: Here’s some character design art, and the creator answering some FAQs.

Absolute V for Vendetta
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When originally announced, the project seemed to confuse customers. There’s an existing $30 hardcover edition with 296 pages. The Absolute was slipcased and oversized but just the same 296 pages for $100. Was DC really asking customers to pay an extra $70 just for a bigger print size?

Today, they announced there will be an additional 100 pages in the Absolute with no price change.

This new material includes all of David Lloyd’s silent art pages from the original comic book series, which were not included in the collected editions and have not been seen since the series’ original publication by DC Comics in 1988-1989. In addition, an expanded version of the sketchbook section from the hardcover will be included, as well as all of the back cover art from the original issues.

Along with these new pages, the Absolute edition features the improved production values and coloring from the 2005 hardcover edition for optimum enjoyment of the stunning art and story

That’s a nice bonus. It’s unfortunate that, due to Alan Moore’s dislike for the publisher, there’s no possibility of text-related extras, because customers seem to really like those. The art is amazing, but the story is what sticks with people.

Retailer orders are due Thursday with code JAN09 0275.

Top Cow Productions has announced significant upgrades to its Deluxe HCs of Midnight Nation (NOV082307D) and Broken Trinity (DEC082300D). The size of each collection will be increased to an oversized 8-1/2” x 11” and will ship with a deluxe slipcase containing a 24” x 36” full color poster folded and inserted within. The package will be shrinkwrapped with a sticker containing the book’s UPC/ISBN and price.

Oh, and each book is now priced at $100. For a slipcase and poster? They may call the books oversized, but they’re now only the size of a sheet of copy paper. Note that as of right now, Top Cow’s website still shows the old, inaccurate information.

(I left the babe in there because she’s so representative of the publishing imprint’s work. I don’t know why she’s on the website, though — it doesn’t appear to be an ad for anything or have any label.)

Retailers now have about a week and a half to decide if they think they can still sell any of these books at triple the price. Or to attempt to contact customers to find out if they still want the books. I found out about this because a reader (thanks, Ray!) told me that his mail-order comic supplier had asked him to either confirm his order at the new price or they would cancel it. But what about those retailers that aren’t paying attention? What about customers who don’t hear the news and get sticker stock when their book arrives? They can refuse to purchase it, of course, but that leaves the retailer in a bad spot and may cause hard feelings all around.

Please note, I’m not calling retailers lazy by assuming some may not notice. Retailers are given updates and changes all the time, and it’s very easy to overlook something with all the other tasks they’re also trying to take care of.

This is one of the reasons Brian Hibbs said, in reference to Marvel’s post-order adjustments:

No other solicitation or notification of change holds the same weight as the original “Previews” solicitation. Nothing. Only a fraction of the necessary audience is going to see non-“Previews” solicitations. Whether that be on the retailer level or on the consumer level. I submit to you that all of the changes listed above have transformed each of those projects into something other than was solicited in very real (and probably legally actionable) ways. … These are different projects that we would have ordered differently if we had had the correct information at the time of solicitation. And it has to stop.

One can only speculate why Top Cow would do this. Maybe orders were so low that they needed to increase the income per volume in order to cover the cost of the print run. Maybe they needed more cash fast, and they’re hoping enough retailers don’t notice the change. I’m having trouble thinking of a reason that doesn’t leave a bad taste, although I welcome correction.

It’s done in his storyboard style, with snippets of dialogue printed under or next to the pictures, with no word balloons. On New Year’s Eve, 1999, Larry takes an overdose of pills because his girlfriend has left him, only to have her return and him regret his actions. A friendly doctor tells him he has until midnight to get the drugs out of his system. The result is a chase across rooftops that involves jumping out of skyscraper windows.

Marvel has announced that The Stand: Captain Trips Premiere Hardcover

will be released exclusively to direct market retailers on March 10 at a special Stand Advance Release Opening at 9 PM local time. … [The book has] two stunning covers—one by the red-hot Lee Bermejo and a limited edition gatefold cover by [Mike] Perkins. King fans should know that both editions are available only in comic shops across the country, and through online comics and collected editions sellers.

Which leads me to several questions that aren’t answered in this puff PR:

• How many days later will mass market retailers get their version?
• Or maybe they get some other hardcover, without the Premiere name? You know that Marvel isn’t going to pass up the revenue stream of getting a book with Stephen King’s name on it into mainstream stores.
• How worried should direct retailers be about those “online … collected editions sellers”, since that also describes Amazon? (Although I couldn’t find a listing there yet.)
• How, exactly, do you stop Borders or Barnes & Noble from ordering this book through their Diamond accounts?

08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail contains Michael Crowley’s observations of the Presidential election we lived through last year.

It’s illustrated by Dan Goldman, who’s put a 20-page excerpt on his blog for you to download and check out. The graphic design is stunning, enough to distract from the photo-referenced talking heads art. (That in itself sums up how campaigners are presented.)

I realized, paging through the preview, that I really didn’t want to revisit mavericks and idiots. I had enough of that during the real thing. For those who are missing the constant stream of election coverage, here’s a memento in unique form. It’s due out at the end of this month.

The Hole: Consumer Culture, “a science fiction horror story about the buying of selling of race in America [and] the simultaneous worship and degradation of African Americans in popular culture”, is being solicited in the current issue of Previews. However, at Diamond’s decision, it was moved to the Adult Section. If you’re not porn (and a certain kind of big-breasted porn), this is not a recipe for success. So the creators of the graphic novel, artist John Jennings and writer Damian Duffy, put together a comic strip in response. (Click to see full size.)

The Spirit Archives Volume 26

The Spirit Archives Volume 26, the last in the DC Comics reprint series, was due out last week. It didn’t arrive. Today DC released this announcement:

Please note that all orders for THE SPIRIT ARCHIVES VOL. 26 HC (AUG08 0190) are cancelled. This item will be resolicited at a later date.

According to Amazon, that new due date is June 23. Which will, interestingly enough, put it out AFTER Dark Horse’s tie-in “volume 27″, which is due out May 20.

Maybe they decided that tying a $60 volume into a movie that bombed wasn’t that good an idea. By June, the DVD may be available, and opinions may have softened.

(I recently reviewed the three previous Spirit Archive volumes.)