Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan
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.”
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.
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.)
I don’t think in my twenties I had a long range vision of what I was about. We have no idea of what it’s like to not be in our twenties. But then, that’s what makes the first book kind of interesting to look back on. It feels to me that it was written by some person other than myself. Most of the problems between generations in our society derive from how easily we forget our frame of mind in one phase after we’ve moved on to the next.
Meanwhile, over in a part of Big Two comics that it seems no-one’s paying attention to – or, at least, not those in the parts of the Internet I tend to frequent – DC’s Earth 2 series is turning out to be this strange, slightly confounding thing.
It feels, in some way, as if it’s a comic that’s taking its lead from online fandom, even as it’s also being ignored by that same fandom. For those who haven’t been paying attention, since new writer Tom Taylor came onboard three issues ago, the following things have happened:
(Taylor has also seemingly abandoned both Hawkgirl and Green Lantern, although the end of the most recent issue suggests that that latter won’t be true for much longer.)
The changes/new characters, being introduced so quickly can’t help but be read as Taylor reshaping the book from what Robinson was intending to whatever he wants it to be. But what is that?
There’s something about the broadened demographics of the new cast and fan service of bring back Lois and Jimmy that feels very… I don’t know, unusually self-aware for a DC book. I keep coming back to a comparison with Marvel’s Young Avengers – specifically, Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers – which doesn’t serve Earth 2 very well at all.
YA spoke to/was aware of/played up to and against the expectations of its audiences, both the “mainstream superhero” and “online fandom” groups (which are very different in terms of demographics and expectations of the genre) in a way that was far more organic and invisible than Earth 2 is doing – if that’s what Earth 2 is actually doing, of course.
Earth 2 is an oddly (and, for me, charmingly) clumsy book, and one that is undergoing a very public, very obvious makeover right now. I can’t help but feel as if its intentions are good, even if its purpose seems to be slightly obscure currently. It’s something worth keeping an eye on, if only to see where it ends up at the end of this transition – but not something where I can confidently recommend that everyone involved will enjoy either the transition or its eventual destination.
Like I said, it’s a confounding book.
