Day One San Diego Comic-con

So here we are, Day One of the biggest entertainment celebration on the planet, and there is lots to talk about. I'm not going to talk about the movie and TV announcements right now, since my main point for this blog is to talk about COMICS, you know that medium that inspired the first SD con 40 years ago? It's sometimes hard to find the "comics" at "Comic"-con but they are there, you just have to look under the various Hollywood hoopla.

The first thing I read about that was announced today at the show is: MORE BONE from Jeff Smith! Holy crap, I didn't see that coming. No way. I thought he was done with Bone, and was happy producing his sci-fi adventure Rasl. Looks like Scholastic has managed to convince him he needs to do MORE Bone and I applaud them for it. They've brought seasoned writer Tom Sniegoski in to co-write the first of these new volumes and it looks like he will be the only writer on the trilogy of books that will follow. The good news is Jeff Smith will be doing the art for ALL of these books, and that is what the fans REALLY want. Bone: Tall Tales coming in Summer 2010, followed by the trilogy Bone: Quest for the Spark book one Fall 2010, with two more volumes to follow in 2011. Bone books have sold over 4.5 MILLION copies since going to Scholastic. Damn impressive numbers, no matter how you look at it. Bone is in every public library on the planet (practically) and most grade school and high school libraries too, even those libraries that don't have a good selection of graphic novels ALWAYS have Bone. Congrats to Jeff Smith on that feat alone. I don't know how many copies of the NEW Bone graphic novels we will sell at the shop, but I'm sure they will all be proven perennial favorites. Maybe we will have a BIG Bone release party, like the book stores do when a new Harry Potter or Twilight book hits the shelves. Good idea, I must remember that for Summer 2010.

Next news tidbit that had me interested: IDW. Just that, IDW is THE publisher to watch. They've been growing slowly over the last 10 years, but they have made some major strides in the last couple of years, that started all the way back with the first 30 Days of Night mini-series, and then they bought the Transfomers license, the GI Joe license, the Star Trek license(s), the Locke and Key comics and the Clive Barker comics. So they've been busy as bees, but now look what they have announced:

Bob Schreck is the new senior editor at IDW. All I can say is WOW. That's a BIG deal. Bob was a staple at DC editorial for years, until he was rather unceremoniously "laid off" earlier this year. DC's loss will be IDW's gain I'm sure of it. Last big project Bob worked on over at DC was the All Star Batman and Robin and All Star Superman books. Bob knows just about everyone there is of note in this industry, so I'm sure we'll see some higher profile creators make their way over there soon. IDW has had a nice mix of medium to large names in the stable, but now they can maybe get the BIG GUNS. Time will tell how Bob's hiring will affect IDW's output.

The other big IDW announcement (there was actually quite a few, but this is the second one that really jumped out to me) was the new project entitled Back Roads. Written by Bill Willingham of Fables fame with art by Chicago's very own Gene Ha. (Don't forget Gene will be at the Amazing Fantasy in Frankfort, along with the rest of the art team for a JSA vs. Kobra signing on September 12th). This mini-series could be HUGE. Can't wait! Haven't heard a lot of details as to what this series will be about, but it sounds good to me for those two names on the project alone! Willingham describes it as "Maxfield Parish with guns!" OK, I'm sold!

One other note about IDW's big announcements, they brought J. Scott Campbell to the stage to announce that IDW would be publishing the Danger Girl collections (currently available from Wildstorm, but creator-owned books move around all the time, so there you go) and MAYBE a new mini-series by Campbell. Hm, yeah. I'll believe that when I see it. Campbell has a bit of a reputation of not exactly getting work done in a timely manner, BUT that being said, he certainly has a nice fan base, so if IDW can manage to get a new Danger Girl out with any kind of regularity that could only be a good thing.

Oh, I almost forget a big announcement happened for Moonstone at the con and we weren't even there: Comixology's new IPhone App was announced:

Among the twenty publishers that have already signed up to deliver their titles through Comics by comiXology are many well-known industry icons including:

* AdHouse Books
* Arcana Comics
* Asylum Press
* Bluewater Comics
* Com.X
* Creative Impulse Entertainment
* Digital Webbing
* eigoMANGA
* Evil Twin Comics
* First Salvo
* Image Comics (Active Images, Allred, Kirkman, Wagner, Brunswick, Revel and more)
* Markosia
* Moonstone
* Red 5
* Slave Labor Graphics
* Th3rd World Studios
* Zenescope

Additionally, popular comics writer Robert Kirkman has agreed to deliver his titles exclusively through Comics by comiXology making it the only place to get “Walking Dead” and “Invincible” for iPhone and iPod touch.

The Comics by comiXology App is now available, including over 30 free comics, for $0.99 from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

We are VERY excited about this new opportunity for our comics to be distributed digitally. And we are in pretty good company: AdHouse, Image, Red 5, Slave Labor and Zenoscope, among others. Everyone with an IPhone should go download the app and try it for the fun of it! Report back and let me know how it is! (I don't have an Iphone so I will just have to take everyone else's word for now...)

Many other crazy shit was announced at SD Day one, but these are the news points I wanted to cover, so if you want more coverage go over to Newsarama for the whole damn shebang.

So until tomorrow when we have EVEN more news items to sift through....