I used to call Alias the next CrossGen, because their combined late books, overloaded slate, and tendency to flood retailers made them look like they weren’t long for the world. Now, they’ve got a competitor for the title: Speakeasy. The publisher seems to have decided that it doesn’t need to do anything in order to make a profit. It doesn’t need to promote titles (press mailings have declined greatly, based on my own experience). It doesn’t need to risk taking […]

Comics Should Be Good tracks the changes that happened to Nightwing #115 between solicitation and publication. DC seems to have truncated Devin Grayson’s storyline with Dick Grayson undercover as a villain working for Deathstroke. Just from the copy CSBG provides, it looks to me like they took connections to Villains United out of the title. We know Grayson was concerned about crossovers having ill effects on superhero comics; maybe that’s the kind of thing she was talking about.

Ian Brill interviews Warren Ellis on Fell‘s format for Publishers Weekly. The book is unusual, 16 pages of single-issue comic story + 8 pages of supporting material for $2 US. It’s something of a breakthrough in giving fans what they’ve said for years they wanted — a cheaper, satisfying read — and more Image comics will be following its model in the coming year. Retailers should also be pleased that this format is real competition for those “waiting for the […]

Rustle the Leaf is a cute environmentally themed strip about a talking leaf and his friends the acorn and the raindrop. I know, it sounds drippy, but the presentation is well-done and I appreciate its sense of humor. I like the way the characters are drawn floating fairy-like through the settings even as they take slaps at stupid human behavior. It has the potential to please both the already self-satisfied environmentally aware and the iconoclast who takes pride in not […]

I’m not familiar with the work of Jonathan Baylis, a new comic creator, but he’s sent along the following announcement, which sounds pretty cool: I’m happy to announce that my 3rd comix story, “So… Only Nixon Could’ve Gone to China“, has been published in the literary anthology The Florida Review. It’s the first comix story they’ve published in their 30-year history. It’s probably a rare thing to find in a magazine shop, unless you really scour the specialty magazine stores. […]