Sunday, July 04, 2004  
More headlines in the press

:: Posted by max @ 7/04/2004 04:19:00 AM
Co:Thought Balloons



The Toronto Star

Comics meet their nemesis

Technology has enabled artists to become independent, but online comics struggle to make money Big publishers increasingly rely



In the world of comic books, superheroes get remade all the time. There was the campy Batman of the 1950s who turned grim and gritty in the '80s. Green Arrow gave up his gimmicky toys. Superman's appearance and backstory have been tweaked many times over the years. This malleability of characters has served comics companies well, as it keeps them relevant for a new generation of fans.



Now, comics are facing their fiercest foe yet: technology. The two-dimensional, paper-based medium — essentially unchanged for decades — is slowly, reluctantly adapting to a digital world. Illustrators have put away their pencils, online artists are proliferating, comic heroes are crossing over into an increasing number of effects-laden movies and comic fans are downloading pages illegally. Needless to say, not everyone is happy with the transition.-->>



the Globe and Mail

Holy catfight, Spidey!

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and DC's Catwoman will be duking it out at the box office this summer, as the comic-book companies' long-time arch-rivalry leaps from page to screen, CHRIS LACKNER writes

The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote; capitalism and communism; Pepsi and Coke -- for the most part, old rivalries die hard. When Halle Berry's leather-clad Catwoman graces the silver screen on July 23, the spotlight will return to another epic rivalry. For the better part of the last century, DC Comics and Marvel Comics battled for the ink-stained hearts of comic-book fans, but they have never clashed head-to-head in Hollywood.



Ottawa told to foot store's legal bills

Vancouver gay bookstore challenged customs' power to seize, censor material

A B.C. judge has ordered the federal government to pay a small Vancouver gay bookstore hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund a constitutional challenge to the power of Canadian customs to seize and censor imported material. The advance order for the payment to Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium is the first application of a recent landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling, known as Okanagan Indian Band, beyond the context of aboriginal rights. It paves the way for a new era of litigation by individuals and groups that could not otherwise shoulder the massive costs of constitutional litigation. "The test is not dire financial straits," Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett of B.C. Supreme Court said in her recent decision. "Having reviewed the evidence, it is clear the Little Sisters cannot genuinely afford to pay for this litigation, or any reasonable aspect of it."-->>



Eye Weekly Toronto

THE PANELIST: The object is

BY GUY LESHINSKI

From the earliest issues of his oversized comic book, Acme Novelty Library, Chris Ware's work has smouldered with a love for the object. Each new volume betrays his fetish further, is printed on thicker stock in more opulent colours and is bound by hard covers impossibly dense with eye-quaking detail. His books are tactile articles to be coddled and venerated. With the current issue of McSweeney's, which Ware edits, his obsession reaches another apex. McSweeney's is the New York imprint, founded by one-time cartoonist Dave Eggers, that has become the knowing voice of young, urban sophisticates. In the publisher's tradition of exposing nascent literary movements, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #13 (US$23) is an all-comix issue, though in place of McS's standard irreverence is an awe of the comics form that borders on the unseemly. The full-colour, hardcover book has a cloth spine laced in goldleaf gearwork. It comes wrapped in a foldout poster teeming with Ware's mechanistic strips, and bios of the book's contributors in typically microscopic type. Two stapled minis, one by haiku cartoonist John Porcellino and another by Fort Thunder's Ron Regé Jr., are tucked into the folds.



London Free Press

Comics taken seriously

A spotlight of Comic shop owner Brahm Wiseman

A London reflection of the billion-dollar film industry, which has churned out such hits as the X-men, Spiderman, Batman, and Superman movies, is in a 1,288-square-foot shop with the iconic name Heroes. Heroes, at 179 Dundas St., stocks trading cards, action figures, T-shirts, lunchboxes, books, toys, collectibles and novelties, but everything revolves around its core -- the business of comic books. "Hollywood has jumped onto comic books as a cheap source of screenplays," says owner Brahm Wiseman. "Not many people realize that American Splendor, Ghost World, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Road to Perdition, Men in Black, Mask and many others were all comic books first before they were movies. "And there's definitely been a big effect on sales. More 20-year-olds are getting into comics through the movies. I do promotional tie-ins to movies to sell stock." Heroes and similar stores in London are participating in an annual international free comic book day Saturday. During the event, aimed at generating interest and, naturally, business, visitors get free comics -- up to four in Heroes' case, and more depending on how many they buy.-->>



Heroes not a sure thing

A look at the box-office track record of movies adaptations of comic-books

Even if everyone needs a hero now and then, not every superhero is needed or embraced. When producers create films based on comic books, they spin a roulette wheel. You can strike it rich with a Spider-Man, Batman or Superman, but fall flatter than flat with a Blankman, Meteor Man or Supergirl. With a $404-million US box-office take in North America alone, Spider-Man is the box-office champ among comic book heroes. Columbia Pictures hopes to break its own record with Spider-Man 2 and analysts, including Brandon Gray at Boxofficemojo, are confident the filmmaker will succeed.



Georgia Straight [BC]

Summer Books Summer Books Archives

Free Comics Boost the Luck of O'Reilly

Last summer, Sean O'Reilly took what he calls "the biggest gamble of my life". The Coquitlam schoolteacher had just paid to print up 1,000 copies of Kade, his first comic book, and had driven to San Diego for what has become one of the largest comics conventions in the world. He had rented a booth for the gathering's five-day duration at a cost of US$2,000. There was just one problem: he had nothing to sell. "So there I was, at this convention to sell comic books, at this empty booth, with nothing but a banner saying Kade," recalls O'Reilly over a juice at a Commercial Drive establishment. "I was terrified and feeling like an idiot, wondering 'What did I just do?'" Fortunately, an hour before the end of the con's kickoff event, the boxes of Kade #1 arrived. And a year later, O'Reilly is an industry success story. His company, Arcana Studio (www.arcanastudio.com/), currently publishes three bimonthly titles, with each averaging print runs of five to six thousand copies. (In comparison, a popular title from second-tier publisher Image might sell about 9,000.) More importantly, Arcana has been asked to participate in the third annual Free Comic Book Day this Saturday (July 3).
   
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