Month: January 2014

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Three years ago Mishka Shubaly was an unknown 33-year-old working in a New York bar with a checkered past, a thing for rock ‘n’ roll and a talent for telling a wicked good story.

Today, it’s estimated that he’s sold more than 150,000 Kindle Singles generating roughly $200,000 in royalties. His fifth Kindle Single, “Beat the Devil,” his 73-page account of his battle with his addiction to rock ‘n’ roll, was just published. To date, all of his Kindle Singles have hit the best-seller lists.

Clearly, I need to start writing Kindle Singles.

(From here.)

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BTW, seeing all this go down—and seeing the results, and this initial package—well, it burns my ass in one way. This is proof positive and absolute that corporate Marvel COULD do the right thing, by all its past creators, if it wanted to—Marvel chooses NOT to. MM will never have the enormous revenue streams the legacy of Jack Kirby has—but Marvel, for various reasons, ended up doing right by all concerned for this MM #1 to hit the shelves. Marvel COULD do right by ALL its seminal creators. THEY CHOOSE NOT TO.

It’s a CHOICE.

Never forget that. This is the clear, undeniable evidence, in our hands.

Stephen Bissette, talking about Marvel’s Miracleman reprints over on Facebook.
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Due to editorial circumstances HAWKEYE will ship two upcoming issues out of its normal numbering sequence. HAWKEYE #16 will go on-sale 01/22/14, while HAWKEYE #15 will go on sale 02/19/14.

I know the reasoning behind this release, I just find it funny still that Marvel didn’t simply swap the contents of the two issues to avoid having to explain this over and over again.
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Very very much liking this Fiona Apple track from an upcoming Starbucks compilation.

It’s a cover of a 1949 song by Austrian film composer Anton Karas, apparently. Can we get an entire album of Apple doing this, please?

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Hey Tom, What made you decide not to have a free digital code inside Miracleman #1?

brevoortformspring:

The need for differences between the material as originally printed, and what we’re permitted to release in the digital space. As aspects of the story are having to be adjusted in order to pass muster in the digital edition (whereas the print edition preserves the material as it was originally presented), it became untenable to link the two together.

“What we’re permitted to release in the digital space.”

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Album fans, get the tissues out: weekly US sales figures have dipped to their lowest level since Nielsen SoundScan first began logging music sales, in 1991. During the week ending Sunday 12 January, only 4.25m units (CD and vinyl) were sold across the US – exceeding the previous lowest figure of 4.49m, from the week ending 27 October 2013.

From here.

These are analog sales, not digital, BTW.

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As someone in the industry what do you consider the best books about comics out there? (I just finished Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story and want to read more about the industry)

brianmichaelbendis:

tales to astonish by ronin ro

cavelier and clay by michael chabon

steranko noir by steranko

the modern masters series from tomorrow

10 cent plague

the art of George perez has a great long interview.  i like the art books that are also a autobio 

Reblogged just to add: Man, everyone who likes to read about the history of the comic book industry should make a point of picking up Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones. Imagine a Kavalier and Clay that’s actually true.

(Also, I’d probably throw Supergods and Douglas Wolk’s Reading Comics onto that list, although the latter isn’t a history-of-comics book and the former tends to drive people nuts, it seems. Oh, and Thrill Power Overload, which is a great history of 2000AD and British comics from the late 1970s through the turn of the millennium.)