R.I.P. Tony DeZuniga
Jonah Hex co-creator and all-around talented artist Tony DeZuniga died on Wednesday at age 79. He'd been in critical condition since last month, and had been fighting something of an uphill battle, but his death is no less tragic because of it. My thoughts go out to him and his family.
Classic Literature Goes Graphic
This month sees the release of the first volume of the Graphic Canon. It's a pretty cool project, taking a bunch of talented comic artists and having them create graphic versions of classic literature. Seems to be going chronologically, and is pulling all sorts of different pieces of the "canon" from all over the world. Ambitious, bizarre, and full of new comic art! Hooray for trying things!
Selling Like Hotcakes
Two bits of comicbook sales news/info that caught my eye this week. The first was this awesome, super-expensive sale of Batman #1. Way to raise the bar, rich anonymous comicbook collector! Secondly, mixed in with all the buzz and positive reviews generated by the Avengers movie, there's been some chatter about how this won't necessarily translate to increased comicbook sales. What people keep pointing out, though, is that the exception to this rule is The Walking Dead TV series. Which at first confused me, but the more I read/think about it, the more it makes total sense. Ongoing comicbooks and TV series are both serialized mediums, so fans of the show are used to getting a long, developing, linear story and bound to want more of it in between seasons. Whereas Avengers movie fans who aren't existing comicbook readers may not be as interested in investing an indefinite amount of time and money into following even one Avengers title. It's too bad ticket sales don't mean comicbook sales, but I get it.
Speaking Of...
I still haven't seen the Avengers movie myself, but I totally plan to within a week, and when the time comes I am definitely on board for the recent movement to match the price of my tickets with a donation to the Hero Initiative. With all the continuing, intelligent, awesome discussion going on about creator's rights these days, it seems important for each and every fan of the comicbook medium to do what we can, to keep the momentum going so that hopefully, someday, somebody won't get screwed by the Big Two. And for the love of God don't buy Before Watchmen. Any of it!
One Last Awesome Thing
And eight-year-old Batman saves the day. Yes. Yes everywhere.
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