Author: ComicMix Staff

Marvel names Axel Alonso Editor-in-Chief

Marvel names Axel Alonso Editor-in-Chief

  • News
  • January 4, 2011

Via press release:

Marvel Worldwide, Inc announced today that it has promoted Axel
Alonso to Editor-in-Chief, Marvel Entertainment. In this new role, Mr.
Alonso will report to Dan Buckley Publisher & President, Print,
Animation & Digital Divisions, Marvel Worldwide Inc. Mr. Alonso will
oversee all day to day aspects of Marvel’s Publishing division,
including advising on the editorial creative direction, developing new
storylines and brainstorming new initiatives. Additionally, Mr. Alonso
will work on creative aspects of development of larger corporate
initiatives involving Marvel’s popular library of characters. The
announcement was made today by Joe Quesada, Chief Creative Officer of
Marvel Entertainment.

Mr. Quesada stated, “It’s with
tremendous pride that I announce Axel Alonso’s promotion to
Editor-In-Chief. For over a decade, Axel’s been instrumental in bringing
fresh new voices to Marvel and reinventing our biggest characters like
Spider-Man, the X-Men, Wolverine and so many more. He’s fought to create
unique imprints like Marvel MAX while also bringing fresh new voices to
the Marvel family.”

Working in comics for over 15
years, Mr. Alonso began working at Marvel in 2000 as a Senior Editor and
was promoted to Vice President, Executive Editor in 2010. Overseeing
acclaimed runs of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and X-MEN, in addition to
shepherding groundbreaking projects such as X-STATIX and RAWHIDE KID,
Mr. Alonso developed a reputation for bringing readers the unexpected
and the electrifying. He also oversaw cross-promotional projects such as
the creative collaboration between Marvel Entertainment and ESPN The
Magazine on their recent NBA Preview issue, which drew attention across
the world from mainstream media for it’s innovation.

“Marvel has a great history of the most dynamic and memorable EiCs in
comics history and I’m honored to step into this role,” said Axel
Alonso. “I’ve been blessed to work with some of the most creative men
and women in the world, bringing to life some of the most compelling
stories you’ll find in any medium. This new role provides me with
exciting challenges and prospects I’ve never encountered before, but I
know one thing—Marvel’s getting even bigger in 2011.”

“Most of you know Axel from his high profile job as Vice President,
Executive Editor and the man behind some of our very best and edgiest
books,” added Joe Quesada. “Time and time again, Axel has proven that he
is one of the very best story editors in the history of our medium and
one of the finest people I know. And, like everyone here at Marvel, he
has one single focus, bringing you the best stories with the best
characters in all of comicdom. That’s why I have no doubt that Axel
will bring Marvel Comics to greater heights than it’s ever known!”

As part of this strategic initiative, Joe Quesada will focus on his
duties as Chief Creative Officer, overseeing Marvel’s creative endeavors
in film, television, publishing, digital and more. In his ten-year
tenure as Editor-In-Chief, Mr. Quesada was instrumental in Marvel’s rise
to prominence as a global entertainment juggernaut and the increased
profile of the comic book medium. Mr. Quesada brings his expertise and
experience to further strengthen the Marvel brand as a leader in
worldwide entertainment.

ComicMMXI: ComicMix Predicts 2011

ComicMMXI: ComicMix Predicts 2011

  • News
  • January 1, 2011

Now that we’ve taken a look back at the year – and boy oh boy, was that an interesting year – we can now look over the rainbow at what’s coming down the pike. Intelligent theories meet best guesses with a dash of wild-eyed visions; crystal ball, there’s so many things I gotta know… what’s coming in the New Year?

We’ve seen what the growth figures have been like for electronic reading, and now we can say there is no sign of slowing down. An estimated 70 different types of e-readers are expected to be on display at the Consumer Electronics Show later this month, and rumors have it that Apple is looking to purchase 65 million screens for iPads in the coming year, where book reading platforms are in the top 5 and two comics reading apps are in the top 20.

With the departure of Paul Levitz, Karen Berger is now the longest serving editorial employee at DC. But she’s on the other end of the country from where the action seems to be moving, and her sales figures haven’t been super-inspiring. Yes, Sandman moves lots of trade paperbacks a year– but what has she done for them lately? How many Big Events can they shove into the ever-narrowing pipeline? What if Green Lantern bombs? How do these new kids on the block respond? More THUNDER Agents? We will be told Wonder Woman is being given a bold new direction by a
new writer. This time the jacket will have fringe on it. The
DCU will get a few steps closer to being right back in the silver age.
Kyle Rayner and Wally West should buy some plots next to Ryan Choi any
day now.

How many Thor miniseries came out last year, in preparation for trade collection in time for the movie release? How about Captain America minis? Will the Spider-Man musical take flight – or will somebody get killed? Spider-Man himself will not die. Marvel’s Fear Itself will tie into Phobos being angry that daddy Ares was killed during Siege. The Avengers line-up will change and a new Avengers title will rise. Then, towards the end of 2011, we’ll have more Avengers mini-series than Richie Rich has tax shelters.

And then there’s the sword of Damocles hanging over the entire print industry. Steve Geppi’s financial problems are still touchy, not noticed as much because everybody’s had a softer year than most. Right now, we get the impression that Diamond’s treading water and has been able to refinance any cash flow problems, but shutting down their West Coast warehouse has to worry some folks about their future viability. But the real problem is with the Borders Book Chain: they closed the year not paying its creditors and returning tons of warehoused product. Sadly, Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million aren’t doing all that much better.

The Green Lantern movie will be better than Spider-Man Turn On The Dark… we think. The Green Hornet movie will not. Please, please, please prove us wrong.

Beware the FINAL PICKLE. It’s coming.

Dr. Mid-Nite, Dr. Doom, Dr. Who, and Dr. Strange will start a competing talk show to take on the syndicated The Doctors. The show will however fail when Dr. Doom’s “Top Ten Super Health Tips for 2011” begin with SUCCUMB TO DOOM’S WILL!

The JLA line-up will change and spin-off into a new title, and no one will buy that book either. DC will quickly reconsider their no-crossover policy to jump on the Avengers bandwagon. Marvel will laugh.

Reed Dies. Sue Dies. Johnny Dies. Ben Dies. Franklin Dies. …. H.E.R.B.I.E. Dies. His parts will be distributed at random in the “final” bagged edition of Fantastic Four.

With the entire Disney Animated Universe being milked dry by BOOM! (and, increasingly Disney-owned Marvel),
look out for Avatar’s cleaning of the wonderful world of DiC.

Odin will return from the dead in a very angry state of mind. And a new pair of glasses.

Stan Lee’s characters for BOOM! will be forgotten by the summer, but don’t worry… Striperella will hit the shelves in the fall. And get ready to forget Stan’s new Archie titles!

The Walking Dead series will end with a unique twist: It was all a dream. Then Tom Welling shows up.

Marvel’s relaunching of the CrossGen Line will prove once and for all there was a good reason CrossGen went out of business.

Robert Kirkman will release only 17 new IP’s for Image.

And the surprise of the year: that Aunt May is going to outlive Miss Grundy.

How about you? What does your magic 8-ball reveal?

(Marc Alan Fishman, Mike Gold, Glenn Hauman, and Alan Kistler contributed to this piece.)

ComicMMX: 2010 in Review

ComicMMX: 2010 in Review

  • News
  • December 31, 2010

So, that’s it for 2010. And what have we learned tonight, Craig?

Digital is coming, hard and fast. Comixology just announced (via press release) that at the moment there are more than five thousand comics in its store, and that that application has been downloaded over one million times from iTunes. You know what they aren’t saying? How many comics they’re actually selling. Heck, it’d be interesting to find out how many comics they’ve been giving away for free.

We do have some industry numbers: while graphic novel sales fell an estimated 20%, digital comics sales increased over 1000%. And it’s not just comics, either; Amazon announced that the Kindle has now outsold Harry Potter at their site– best guesses say they’ve sold 5.4 million to date. Barnes & Noble has announced that the Nook line of eReaders has become the company’s biggest bestseller ever in almost 40 years. And the iPad was the most wished for and most given (in dollar volume) Christmas gift this year, adding to a total of over 10 million sold in less than a year since its debut.

Archie’s polyamorous. Betty, Veronica, and Valerie? Daaaaaaaamn.

It seems there’s actually  a price point at which the fan base will say, en masse, “Holy cow, that’s just too expensive for me to buy.” DC says that’s $3.99. Marvel says that’s for DC Comics, their readers will gladly pay $3.99. We’ll see.

We all wondered what would happen when the best selling comics dipped below 100,000 a month. Now we’re wondering what will happen when the best selling comics dip below 50,000, the industry-leading Life With Archie magazine notwithstanding.

That’s the story of the year. Life With Archie goes magazine-sized, gets distributed to WalMart and Toys R Us and Target and such,and rapidly becomes the best-selling comic in America!

We also used to wonder when the manga boom would end or the market would become oversaturated. That would be “2010.”

DC President Paul Levitz may be too young to retire, even after having been in the industry for four decades. But he only quit his day job, as the legion of Legion readers are gladly aware.

America still loves zombies. We guess they’re deathless.

Nothing, apparently, can kill Batman – short of Joel Schumacher, of course. Nevertheless, he feels he now needs backups of himself all over the world.

Conventions are still going strong, and can make a huge impact. NYCC is hitting San Diego attendance numbers of three years ago, and Chicago’s one year-old C2E2 is hitting numbers of NYCC two years ago.

If superhero themed porno movies is all the rage, how come no one’s made one for Iron Man? You would think it’s just waaaay too easy to do. And let’s not even get started on Captain Hammer. Heck, Nathan Fillion might even reprise the role himself– he’s done porn before. Kinda.

What’s the biggest story of 2011? Ha! Watch this space.

What about you? What do you think were the big stories of 2010 in comics?

Happy 3rd anniversary, ComicMix!

Happy 3rd anniversary, ComicMix!

  • News
  • February 10, 2010

Boy, it’s been a long three years. And that’s not even counting the months of prep beforehand. But on this day in 2007, ComicMix went live. (We were supposed to debut the day before, but went down for a few hours because of a previously undiscovered security hole. We went back up the next day, and we’ve been moving along ever since.)

Over three hundred and fifty comics installments and seven thousand posts later, we’re still at it.

There are a lot of people we’d like to thank– the hundreds of contributors and the thousands of commenters, our tech providers at CrowdFusion, our print partners at IDW, all the press people who’ve covered us and interviewed us, the wide and varied sources who feed us tips and stories both on and off the record, everybody who’s ever linked to us or retweeted a post.

Through the heartache and ulcers, the many many many late nights, and all the things that go along with creating in some of the most vibrant art forms ever created, we’re still at it. We don’t know what tomorrow may bring… but we’re glad you’ve been here for the ride.

Thank you for supporting us. We try to be worthy of your attention and your commerce.

ComicMix Six: Favorites (and not-so-favorites) of the decade

ComicMix Six: Favorites (and not-so-favorites) of the decade

  • News
  • January 18, 2010

And then one day you find ten years (and two weeks) have got behind you…

Since everybody thinks it’s the end of the decade, we’ll do a recap of the decade to go along with our recaps of 2009. This is
by no means a definitive list of “the best of the decade”, just our disparate takes
on what stuck out in the minds of everybody here at the Mix as to what happened in the last ten years. Backwards ho!

Best Ethnic Replacement for Milquetoast Hero of the Decade: Jaime Reyes, Blue Beetle

Ted Kord fans (yes, all 28 of you…) slow your roll! I am one of you! Need proof? I totally own the original Ted Kord action figure from back in the mid 90s! But let’s face it guys, Ted wasn’t doing much since his Justice League Extreme days now, was he? So, leave it to DC Architects Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and Judd Winick (ok, one architect, one great noir writer, and that guy from MTV) to give Ted a swansong, and smear his boring white-guy-noggin all over a castle wall. A short time later, yet-another-space-bound-artifact came crashing down into the DCU, at the feet of second generation Mexican immigrant Jaime Reyes. Poof! The DCU has this generation’s Vibe! Jaime is the perfect addition to DC’s general melange of milquetoast major leaugers. Jamie’s got “Benetton Ad” written all over him, as he lives in the southwest (El Paso, Texas, I tell ya whut.), is best friends with a slacker named Pedro, and all but spews Spanglish in between beetle battles. Jaime’s Blue Beetle is a far more marketable sort, trading Kord’s wits and a powerfully dorky light/air gun for slick alien techno-armor with a disposition for deadly demolition by way of any number of fun action-figure accessories. Jaime enjoyed an ongoing series for a few years, but has seen his stock rise with recent appearances on Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon series. And just to kick sand in our collective Ted-loving-faces? They gave Jaime Ted’s old ride. Ay, dios mio. –Marc Alan Fishman

Favorite Idea Wasted of the Decade: The Illinois Spaceknights, Civil War

We know the story well enough, don’t we? Nitro done blowed up Stamford, and Tony Stark done led ole’ congress to pass the Superhuman Registration Act. What with a plethora of newly discovered super-powered people… something had to be done with the excess. Welcome to The Initiative! Marvel opted to train every Tom, Dick, and Butterball with powers in a military style bootcamp. After graduation came placement into any one of 50+ super teams, each to be covered under the Fifty State Initiative. Now, it’s no secret I’m a loyal native son of the Chicagoland area… So, imagine my surprise that the state housing the nation’s third largest city would be protected by… The Spaceknights?

Now, color me confused here folks. Illinois has no connection to NASA, where one might THINK a connection to “Spaceknights” might be relevant. Since the Civil War ended in 2007, nothing else has come of the aforementioned Illinois superteam. But I guess they’re not alone. Wikipedia lists no less than 25 other states not only in the dark… but without totally horrible team names like “the Spaceknights”… Hell, at this point, I’d sooner hope they are disbanded, and redubbed “the Windbags”. Epic Fail anyone? –Marc Alan Fishman

Most Forgotten Book of the Decade: 1602

Remember this book? Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, gorgeous colors by Richard Isanove, did gangbuster sales? Now, alomst completely forgotten. Didn’t make many people’s best of decade lists, wasn’t mentioned in sales material for Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader (okay, competing publishers, but still, that doesn’t matter to booksellers) and it seems to have dropped off the radar. Which is a shame, because it seemed more like the Marvel Universe I knew and loved than anything else Marvel published in 2007. —Glenn Hauman

Most overlooked of the decade: Street Fighter (UDON/Image)

Yeah, we know. A comic based on a fighting game series? But here’s the thing: UDON’s team borrows the best elements of a kung fu movie, layers on the manga-esque melodrama and soap operatic intertwining ensemble cast storylines, glues it together with a heaping dose of love for the source material, and then polishes it until it shines with stylish and flashy artwork. I can’t speak to how well it works if you don’t know the game, having known how to pull a Hadoken my entire life, but if you like Street Fighter even a little bit, it’s a heck of a ride. —Matthew Weinberger

(more…)

Comic MMIX Year-End Picks: Favorites (and not-so-favorites) of 2009, part 1

Comic MMIX Year-End Picks: Favorites (and not-so-favorites) of 2009, part 1

  • News
  • January 6, 2010

Now that 2009 is officially over, we can do a year in review. This is by no means a definitive list of “the best of the year” as we’d never come to a consensus, just think of it as our varied and individual take on what stuck out in the minds of everybody here at the Mix. After all, as the song says, it’s a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world. Onward!

Shortest Death of the Year: Kyle Rayner. Green Lantern Corps #42/43 (DC)

For those who know me well, I was offered quick condolences when I picked up Peter Tomasi’s Green Lantern Corps
#42. Kyle Rayner, my personal favorite ‘Super Hero’ was given a
decidedly trite death; sacrificing himself with an exploding Alpha
Lantern Core in order to blow up a smattering of not-so-easy-to-kill
black lanterns and their Nekron inspired construct. Gaping plot hole be
damned! Sure Mr. Rayner was one of two honor guardsmen, who we’d
‘assume’ knew how to wield the emerald light with a little flair, might
figure that the ring could make a nice bubble to contain the
aforementioned big-bada-boom, and NOT include himself… But it was far
sappier dramatic
for Kyle to tell Natu (his current, non-refrigerator-bound-beau) and
Guy (his best-buddy-with-a-bygone-bowlcut) that he ‘wuved them. And
guess what? Not twenty pages later, Kyle was resurrected by Star
Sapphire Miri Riam, who showed us yet another unknown power from the
crystal spewing pink ring club. It seems that ‘True Love’ allows a Star
Sapphire to combine hearts, and save a dead lover. I guess Miri wished
she could have done that when he husband died, a few issues ago.
Whoopsie! –Marc Alan Fishman

Most overlooked of the year: Final Crisis Aftermath: Run (DC)

It’s easy to hate event books–especially one as polarizing as Final Crisis–but it’s hard to deny that sometimes damn fine things come out of them. Zero Hour gave us James Robinson’s Starman, Secret Wars gave us Spider-Man’s black costume (even if it was retroactive), and now Final Crisis has given us Run, a tale of the Human Flame, the most unrepentant bastard in the DC Universe, on the run from the Justice League following the death of the Martian Manhunter. It’s funny, it’s fast-moving, and it’s smart as a whip, thanks in equal measure to Matt Sturges’ (Blue Beetle, JSA All-Stars) script and the perennially underrated pencils of Freddie E. Williams II (Robin). Besides, it has the Condiment King. Who can say no to the Condiment King? –Matthew Weinberger

Favorite dialogue of the year: from Irredeemable #5 (BOOM!), written by Mark Waid, when the winged Gilgamos meets the black super-hero Volt:

“I know you! You’re Black V—“
“That’s the other guy.”
“From Philadelphia?”
“That’s the other other guy. Look, I am solidly aware that an electromagnetic African-American super is a total cliché. My apologies. I didn’t order this power off the menu, I swear.”

–Howard Margolin

(more…)

Marvelman / Miracleman to the Big Screen?

Marvelman / Miracleman to the Big Screen?

  • News
  • April 30, 2009

A highly placed source with one of Hollywood’s leading film production companies has revealed to ComicMix that an agent for a Scottish businessman has been offering around to studios and producers the purported feature film rights to Marvelman, the superhero property whose rights status has been in limbo since publisher Eclipse Comics went into bankruptcy in the middle of Neil Gaiman’s iconic run as its writer more than twenty years ago.

Any movement tending to resolve the rights to Marvelman – and to bring it back into print – would be welcome news for fans who have been following the Marvelman saga for more than two decades and been put through a roller coaster ride of ups and downs as a litany of claimants to the rights to Miracleman have continually come out of the woodwork.

When the title was first brought into the United States from England, Eclipse Comics prudently changed Marvelman to Miracleman to avoid obvious potential trademark issues with Marvel Comics, and the series has continued to generate interest in the comics world more than twenty years after it was last published. One top comics editor, speaking not-for-attribution, told ComicMix that “If a publisher could actually be assured that they had the rights to publish the title, and most importantly, if Neil would license the rights to his scripts and would agree to finish the scripts for the story he started but never got to finish, the book sales would be through the roof – we’re talking astronomical. The fact that the title got into the Gaiman/McFarlane litigation has kept it in the spotlight. And Alan Moore wrote issues of the title before Neil, and Alan still has a bit of a following. But Alan isn’t the key to the deal. It’s all about Gaiman.”

(more…)

Review: ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’

Review: ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’

By Allan Lamberti

Easily one of the highest anticipated returns for this fall season, Terminator has been a franchise that has kept fans interested since the mid 80’s (despite the backlash against the third film). When the television series was announced, fan curiosity piqued immediately, and we all became hooked to the all-too-short first season. From the clever time-traveling aspect of the pilot (that does in fact work well within the continuity of the films), straight through to the awkward season finale (clearly shortened due to the writer’s strike), they sold the fans on another season to watch the continuing saga of the Connor family.

The first episode of this season, entitled “Samson and Delilah,” gets off to an interesting start. Picking up immediately where the first season ended, a group of men attack Sarah (Lena Headey), John (Thomas Dekker), and terminator Cameron (Summer Glau). The men are killed, but as a result of the battle, Cameron’s chip is damaged and her mission has been altered from protecting John to terminating him. Ms. Glau, doing her best Schwarzenegger impression from the first film, is hunting them through the streets while they are injured and on the run. We also see the return of Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) who is hiding in Sarah’s former lover’s ambulance hoping to get the Connor’s to safety before Cameron finds them. FBI Agent Ellison (Richard T. Jones) returns, as does the other terminator Cromartie (Garret Dillahunt, who has been promoted to series regular). We also meet Shirley Manson of the band Garbage, seemingly playing an evil corporate version of herself.

The good: the action and effects budget has certainly been amped up for this season, a very good sign that Fox actually has some faith in the show continuing on for a longer run. The actors have also grown into their roles a lot more. Ms. Headey is still very capable in her interpretation as Sarah, while Mr. Dekker is gradually becoming a better future-leader John Connor. Ms. Glau’s Cameron actually behaved far more like a “classic” terminator should, slow-moving and menacing – my guess is that the show runners made the decision to tone down the more comical aspects of her from last season and make her more like the film terminators we’ve come to enjoy. While Cameron’s “panic” and begging while pinned between the two trucks was becoming slightly ridiculous and stupid, thankfully the writers had John do the right thing in not listening to her.
 

(more…)

Native Americans in Comic Books

Native Americans in Comic Books

  • News
  • July 20, 2008

Michael Sheyahshe has a new book that features interviews with ComicMix creators Tim Truman and John Ostrander and explores the role of Native Americans in comics.

According to the website for the book:

Native Americans in Comic Books, published by McFarland Publishing, is a unique study and critique of the way in which we Indigenous people are represented in the popular medium of comic books. This work takes an in-depth look at the world of comic books through the eyes of a Native American reader and offers frank commentary on the medium’s cultural representation.

 

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks