abstractgeek

April 14, 2013 6:51 pm I find it interesting that everyone (including bkv) concluded that the potentially offensive part was the homosexuality and not the graphic nature of the images. while there has been sex in the comic before it was hardly as graphic as a bukake money shot, or even a blow job. sure the images were small, but very clearly front & center in the panels in question. and they were really not in any kind of story context like the sex in the space brothel issue (which had what certainly seemed like some gay sex to me). Its not like someone thought a steamy embrace between two men might be offensive, it was shots thats are pretty much right out of porn. if the sex was heterosexual, they would still be straight out of a porno. But the reaction was that it was a double standard between straight and gay sex as opposed to a double standard for r rated and x rated images, which wouldnt really be surprising or garner much in the way of headlines. This story got picked up by some LGBT news sites. I dont know if the bukake community would have given the story as much traction.

April 2, 2013 10:49 am Fighting American was created many years after Kirby & Simon were fired from Timely. It was a response to Atlas reviving Captain America in 1954 with Stan Lee and John Romita. I think Kirby's Sky Masters comic strip deserves to be on here. With inks by the legendary Wally Wood, I think it is easily among Kirbys best artwork. Special nod should go to Kirbys visualizations for Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light film project, In addition to being amazing examples of Kirby's later design sensibility and fascination with gods, they were used by the CIA to free hostages in Iran in the actual events that inspired the film Argo. I wish they would have used the Kirby art in the movie.

January 16, 2013 5:14 pm movies may have little impact on monthly sales in comic shops, they have a huge impact in bookstores outside the comics market. Infinity gauntlet became the #1 selling tpb (beating the walking deads that typically sit at the top of the list) for a few weeks after the avengers movie, and that was just a tease of the character. Watchmen sold huge numbers the year the movie came out. Movies have an impact on sales, just not in shops

December 14, 2012 12:08 pm Now that is most likely a diamond issue. if they ordered 200 and only got 7. there was a screw up on diamonds end

December 14, 2012 12:03 pm print on demand is considerably more expensive than standard printing. the reason image has issues with second prints is because the smaller print runs of second prints means a larger cost. print on demand is very expensive. a full color 28 page comic at ka blam printing would be 3.46 a copy. way too high for anyone to make a profit unless cover price were $10 and then no consumer would buy it.

December 14, 2012 11:55 am i know diamond gets a lot of shit around here, but this has nothing to do with them. Diamond takes the orders from retailers and passes them on to the publisher. they are middlemen. they dont decise what retailers order, or what publishers print. The "bizarre front heavy ordering" system is pretty much how most retail merchandise is ordered. virtually every new product in every store is ordered prior to manufacture, thats how supplers set their orders. Every book, dvd, cd etc that went on sale at any retailer this week was ordered by the retailers months ago. CONSUMERS dont have to order in advance, even with diamond. only retailers. If you have to preorder your books its because the retailer has chosen to pass on the responsibility of inventory management to you, usually in exchange for a discount of some kind. Again thats the retailer, not diamond.

October 10, 2012 6:13 pm so Marvel makes and announcement and the reaction is 1. They are changing something, that's it, I'm out 2. They aren't changing anything, that's it I'm out. you know forget the New 52 and Marvel Now, I think its the fans that need a reboot/restart/rewhatever that's it im out

August 3, 2012 11:21 am does anyone else make a little game of these by scrolling down the images, avoiding the signatures and credits to try and guess who the artists is on the style alone? the only one i guessed this time was sean murphy

July 16, 2012 1:18 pm Qhile this is an amazing achievement, it's a bit misleading. 383,612 was across 8 regular covers (even more if you count the high priced chromium and all the retailer incentives) dividing that by 8 is an average of about 48,000 a cover. Walking Dead usually sells just north of 50,000 copies a month. While I doubt fans will buy all of them, many will, and many will buy a few. I don't read Walking Dead and I almost bought the Quitely one and the chromium one (if it wasnt &9.99 i would have) though the Darkness issue it beat had multiple covers, and really every big book has several incentive covers. This figure is also first printing initial orders, not multiple printings, which shows there was strong retailer support up front more so than consumer support. Justice League apparently sold over 400,000 copies (unknown how much of that was digital) and the Obama Spider-man sold in excess of 500,000 copies. its still an amazing achievement. imagine how much the reboot of Walking Dead that features a younger (perhaps unmarried?) Rick vs the Obamazombie (Zombama?) will sell...

July 16, 2012 9:58 am or perhaps at time Kirkman wasnt an Image partner or an evangelist for creator owned work. Back then he was just about making comics (for Image AND Marvel), now he is about spreading the word!