New Comic Foundry Magazine Up
posted by Brian Cronin at 5/03/2006 12:04:00 AM
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Previous Posts
- A Costume Preference
- For the record...
- Comics' magna opera: Part Two - the auteurs
- Guest Review - Guts and Ralph
- Outrageous Retcon of a Beloved Comic Character's O...
- Spider-Man Marriage Puzzler
- Free Comics You Should Read - La Maggie La Loca
- Comic Book Urban Legend Revealed #48!
- A new day brings us a nice new column!
- What I bought - 26 April 2006
- Comics Should Be Good accepts review copies. Just click
here to see where to send the comics.
Anything sent to us will (for better or for worse) end up reviewed on the blog.
- COOL POINTS LEADERS (through 5/18/06)
- 1. Omar Karindu - 2
- (tie) 2. Greg Burgas - 1
- (tie) 2. Dan Coyle - 1
- (tie) 2. John Donald Carlucci - 1
- (tie) 2. Johnny Triangles - 1
Blogs Should Be Good, Too
- Delenda Est Carthago
- Snark Free Waters
- The Daughter Chronicles
- Ink & Drink
- The Lithium Age
- Filing Cabinet of the Damned
- Dance of the Puppets
- Ed Cunard's The Low Road
- The Comics Reporter
- Tales To Mildly Astonish
- Precocious Curmudgeon
- Fanboy Rampage (Retired)
- Yet Another Comics Blog
- The Great Curve
- The Johnny Bacardi Show
- Brill Building
- The Comic Queen
- Dean Haspiel's Blog
- Pardon My Wench
- Listen To Us, We're Right
- Suspension of Disbelief
- Chris Butcher's Comics.212.Net
- Dave's Long Box
- The Shrew Review
- Progressive Ruin
- Comics Worth Reading
- Crocodile Caucus
- Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog
- Jog - The Blog
- BeaucoupKevin
- Polite Dissent
- Near Mint Heroes
- Tom The Dog
- (postmodernbarney.com)
- The Savage Critic(s)
- The Pickytarian
- A Store Called Riot
- And Plus...
- The Absorbascon
- "Seven Hells!"
- Dial B For Blog
- Sean Maher's Quality Control
- LeftyBrown's Corner
- Comics Ate My Brain
- The Comic Treadmill
- Return to Comics
- Noetic Concordance
- All Ages
- Crisis/Boring Change
- El Blog de Jotace
- Trusty Plinko Stick
- Size Matters
- Double Articulation
- Dave Ex Machina
- The Fortress of Soliloquy
- Nobody Laughs at Mister Fish
- Revenge of the Blog
- Train of Thought
- Focused Totality
- The Hurting
- What WERE They Thinking?
- Greta's Book Reviews
- Mark Evanier's News From Me
- Kelvin Green's Brainsplurge
- Lady, That's My Skull
- Neilalien
- 2 Guy Buying Comics
- Howling Curmudgeons
- Blog THIS, Pal
- Clandestine Critic
- Ringwood
- House of L
- I Am Not the Beastmaster
- Chris's Invincible Super-Blog
- Written World
- Love Manga
- Comics-and-More
- Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge
- The Last Shortbox
- Legion of Super-Heroes Blog
- hypnoray
- Zilla and the Comic Junkies
- Don't Cross The Streams
- FLOG: The Fantagraphics Blog
- Seduction of the Indifferent
- X-Ray Spex
- Bastarður VÃkinga!
- Estoreal
- Graphic Novel Review
- The Rambler
- Mah Two Cents
- Prep Time Posse
- Reporting on Comics and Legends
- Just Imagine
- Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun!
- Johnny Triangles
15 Comments:
Nice piece. A rather trivial question, though: was Silver Surfer #50 really the first gimmick cover? I've repressed most of my comic memories from back then, but I could've sworn the supergleam foil craze started with a big name book - those Spider-man hologram covers, maybe?
The internet???
I enjoyed your list and thought it was a fine piece of writing. But . . . the internet? The #1 change in the comic book world over the past quarter century?
That seems a bit of a reach.
The Internet has changed both how comics fans interact with one another (and with pros), but also how comics professionals at every level do business. In that, it's exactly like the effect it's had on every other industry and pasttime in the world.
Those who think comics are going through another Golden Age are sadly and deeply mistaken. Any Golden Age, by very definition, must be accompanied by strong sales. Sales of comic books today are dismal. An event like IC sells around 250k and issue. In the real Golden Age of comics, this was nothing. A million or more a month was not unusual. Even the Silver Age had better numbers. The big 2 typically sold around 250k a month even on 2nd tier titles like Aquaman or Nick Fury.
" I really enjoyed your piece in the new CF+, Brian. Wish I would have thought of it!"
Thanks, Chris!
Hey, everybody, speaking of the Comic Foundry, you all should check out this piece that Chris did in the same issue!
http://www.comicfoundry.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=210
Oh, and Tim Leong told me the topic for the article! :)
"Nice piece. A rather trivial question, though: was Silver Surfer #50 really the first gimmick cover? I've repressed most of my comic memories from back then, but I could've sworn the supergleam foil craze started with a big name book - those Spider-man hologram covers, maybe? "
Thanks, IL.
As for the special covers, Silver Surfer #50 beat all those Spidey books.
The only other "special" cover that preceded Surfer (of any note) was Legends of the Dark Knight #1, where each issue had a different color covber.
There may have been another one that I missed, but none as big as Surfer. Surfer was the one that changed everything.
" The internet???
I enjoyed your list and thought it was a fine piece of writing. But . . . the internet? The #1 change in the comic book world over the past quarter century?
That seems a bit of a reach."
I dunno, I think #1 and #2 were probably the two easiest picks.
I mean, heck, where are you telling me that!!!
"Those who think comics are going through another Golden Age are sadly and deeply mistaken. Any Golden Age, by very definition, must be accompanied by strong sales. Sales of comic books today are dismal. An event like IC sells around 250k and issue. In the real Golden Age of comics, this was nothing. A million or more a month was not unusual. Even the Silver Age had better numbers. The big 2 typically sold around 250k a month even on 2nd tier titles like Aquaman or Nick Fury. "
I don't buy the "Golden Age means strong sales."
I don't see how that follows necessarily at all.
Hey Brian,
Nice piece.
My only problem with it, and that site in whole, is all the text appears on the far left hand side of my window - right up against the edge.
Maybe the designer could add a centimetre or two of white between the text and the edge.
A nitpick maybe, but it did put off my enjoyment of the pieces.
Cheers,
Ben.
"I don't buy the "Golden Age means strong sales."
I don't see how that follows necessarily at all."
Well then, feel free to keep using terms you don't understand to make your point. That's fine.
Man, that last comment was mean! I also don't see how Golden Age follows strong sales. In the Golden Age of comics, they cost a dime and were pushed hard to kids, who have gobs of disposable income (even back in the 1930s and '40s). We can't accept that we're in a Golden Age because the term almost always denotes a time in the past when everything was great. Sure, sales were stronger even back in the 1960s, but the quality was poor and even the accessibility of comics was not as broad as it is today. That's why we're in a Golden Age right now.
Golden Age = anything that happened before I was born or when I was a kid. Is that the only definition? If so, then Manimal is the greatest TV show ever, because it was on during the Golden Age of television, the early 1980s. But no one would argue that.
Sorry if that came across as mean, but a Golden Age, by very definition, requires prosperity. Comics are not prospering (nor are they very accessible, but that's another argument altogether). They are not attracting new readers or dollars, but merely strip-mining the wallets of aging fanboys who latched on during the 80s and 90s.
And I don't think it's up to us to define a Golden Age. It's up to the coming generations of comic book readers, if there are any to define. But from a strictly monetary standpoint, which is one aspect which is required in the definition of an era, this is not Golden.
That doesn't mean you can't like em though.
For full disclosure's sake, editor Chris Allen added the intro to the piece himself (where I presume the Golden Age discussion comes from).
Just for full disclosure's sake...hehe.
Anyhow, I'm still not buying "propensity" as a neccesary term for "Golden Age." I think the more appropos term is "flourishing," in which case you could suggest that "flourishing" should be read as commercially flourishing. Which is understandable. I just don't think it HAS to be commercial.
Well, I think it's arguable that "some say" that comics are entering a new Golden Age.
I'd probably agree. Manga is selling in huge numbers and bringing in thousands of new fans.
Independent comics are comin' closer and closer to being accepted as, like fine ahrt. (Which is a mixed blessing) and more and more of them are deserving of being called fine art. (Which is cool by me.)
Mainstream comics are still re-re-re-re-re-re hashing the same ideas that Gardner Fox and Jack Kirby had fourty years ago to ever-decreasing sales to an inherently insular audience, mind. But the Golden Age can go on without them.
I tried telling them Comic Foundry folks about my problem with the text being right up against the window edges, but it turns out you have to sign up to leave a comment/complaint/suggestion.
Could someone else pass it on for me?
Cheers,
Ben.
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