Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

Pirates vs. Gorillas? It's hard to tell who to root for on the cover of Tom Strong #32.

(Standard disclaimer about pirate-fighting gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

Review: Flower & Fade

Flower & Fade
by Jesse Lonergan
NBM/ComicsLit, $13.95

It's a pleasure to sometimes find a graphic novel I'd heard nothing about from a creator I knew nothing about, and have that comic turn out to be quite good. Jesse Lonergan's recent Flower & Fade is just such a graphic novel. It tells the story of a relationship--one between protagonist Kyle and his pretty neighbor Erika--from beginning to end, starting with the initial infatuation and hitting all the beats through to the bittersweet end.

Lonergan tells his story through a series a vignettes, each leading off with a title and a date over a six month period. There are no thought balloons, but Lonergan has a way with both dialog and emotions expressed through body language that gets across how the characters are feeling and relating. The art is an important part of the story; it may appear simple at first glace but really isn't, and Lonergan does a good job at pacing and moving the eye through the story; he also makes a great use of using blacks and contrast to set the tone.

Most importantly, Flower & Fade has a ring of truth about it. Many times I saw episodes from past relationships of my own being reflected in the story I was reading. It may not be a world-changing graphic novel, but Flower & Fade succeeds quite well in what it sets out to do.

Rating: 4 (of 5).

YAFQ: Omnibuses?

Today's Yet Another Friday Question concerns the latest craze in trade collections: omnibuses, those massive collections of previously collected comics.

From Runaways & New X-Men hardcovers to Star Wars & Buffy paperbacks to massive Palomar & Locas hardcovers of L&R material, omnibuses are a great way to get a lot of material you like under one cover. Many people will even buy material they already own just for the convenience of having it in one place.

Our question for you all today is:

What new omnibus edition would you like to see published?

I'd like to see an omnibus collection of Matt Howarth's various Bugtown material. It's all one connected narrative, but it was published in so many disparate places and much (if not most) of it is out of print. I'd gladly slap down a wad of bills for a nice hardcover.

How about you?

Update: Both John Jakala & David Welsh recently addressed this topic!

Shameless Friend Promotion

Pal Sara Ryan has not one, not two, but three new comics coming out, just in time for ComicCon:

Click is a story that fills in the gap between her two well-received YA prose novels. It's drawn by Dylan Meconis (who also drew the recent Wire Mothers from GT Labs).

Einbahnstrasse Waltz is a stand-alone story about a high school orchestra trip to Europe, drawn by Cat Ellis (an animator making her sequential comics debut).

And there's the third issue of her irregular ongoing Flytrap, with art once again by Ron Chan.

Sure I'm biased, but I'm sure they are all three fabulous. If like me you can't make it to ComicCon, there should be online ordering info available soon.

New This Week: July 25, 2007

"In brief" is now the default format for New This Week. Highlights instead of a more exhaustive list. Hope it's good for you!


Run, don't walk, down to the comic store today and get yourself a copy of the first volume of the reissued Gon, Masashi Tanaka's wonderful manga from DC/CMX. Seriously, this is up there with Yotsuba&! as one of my favorite fun mangas of all time. Heck, I'm buying it again and I already have the first editions!

Avatar have the first issues of two new Warren Ellis comics: Black Summer (which actually started with a 'zero' issue) and Doktor Sleepless. Just ignore the multiple covers.

A new issue of Buffy, a stand-alone issue about the pseudo-Buffy from that Angel episode, and the last penned by Joss himself for a while.

Wait wait, two issues of All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder in the same year?!

And on the same day as a new issue of Queen and Country?!

After too long of an absence from sequential story telling, Mark Crilley returns with the first volume of his new Miki Falls GN series.


So get thyself to thy local comical shoppe!

New Library Comics: Week of July 16, 2007

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Abbott, Wes. Dogby walks alone /Hamburg ; Los Angeles : Tokyopop, c2006

Alexander, Jed. Yellow baby /Gainsville, Fla. : Alternatve Comics, 2003- no. 1

Aragones, Sergio. Sergio Aragonés solo. /New York : DC Comics, 2006.

Ashihira, Hinako. SOS /San Francisco, CA. : VIZ, LLC, c2005.

Bell, Marc. Worn tuff elbow /Seattle, WA : Fantagraphics Books, 2004- no. 1

The blend. /Victoria, B.C. : Bad Sign, 2002-2003. no. 2

Brown, Jeffrey (Jeffrey David), 1975- Cat getting out of a bag and other observations /San Francisco : Chronicle Books, c2007.

Cheung, Man Wai. Top speed /Fremont, CA : ComicsOne, 2004.

Crumb, R. Home grown funnies /Milwaukie, WI : Krupp Comic Works, Inc., 1971.

Crumb, R. XYZ comics /Milwaukee, Wis. : Krupp Comic Works, c1972.

Daisy handbook. /[Plymouth, Mich.] : Daisy Manufacturing Company, 1946-1948. no. 1

de Leon, Franz. Vagabond /Toronto, Ont. : Helikon Comics, 1995- no. 1

Delisle, Guy Aline and the others /Montreal Drawn & Quarterly 2006

Fisher, Mindy. Undeciluna /Cleveland Heights, Ohio : Love Bunni Press, 2004- no. 1

Frick, Carl Vaughn. Watch out comix. /San Francisco, CA : Last Gasp, c1986- no. 1

Griffith, Bill, 1944- Yow comics /Berkeley, Calif. : Last Gasp, c1978- no. 1

Highly dubious. /[Halifax, N.S. : s.n.], 2001- nos. 1-2

Howarth, Matt, 1954- Crazy for the girl /Providence, R.I. : Brave New Words, 1992

Howarth, Matt, 1954- Star crossed /New York : Helix-DC Comics, 1997. nos. 1-3

Howarth, Matt, 1954- Temple snare /Seattle, WA : Mu Press, 1990.

Howarth, Matt, 1954- Weirdfall /San Antonio, Tex. : Antarctic Press, 2005- nos. 1-3

Howarth, Matt. Afternoon in the sun. /Levittown, PA : Matt Howarth, c1976.

Howarth, Matt. Con and C'Thulu: The cardboard condo concert. /Seattle : AEON, 1996.

Howarth, Matt. Con and C'Thulu: Uberdub /Seattle : AEON, 1996.

Howarth, Matt. Scan /Plymouth, MI : Iconografix, a division of Caliber Press, 1992. nos. 1-2

Howarth, Matt. Those annoying Post brothers : disturb the neighbors. /Seattle : AEON, 1995.

Howarth, Matt. Video Hiroshima : jungle cunning. /Seattle : AEON, 1995.

Jademan collection. /Hong Kong : Jademan, 1989- nos. 1-3

Jademan kung fu special. /Hong Kong : Jademan (Holdings) Ltd., c1988- no. 1

Marcucci, Massimo. Ombre arcane : i misteri dei musei. /Ravenna : Alta Fedeltà Edizioni, c2004.

Miniburger : dirty dozen & the lucky 13th. /Ljubljana, Slovenia : Forum Ljubljana, 2004.

Mousli, L. G. X. Lillian, 1960- Lilli & Poldi : das erste Jahr /Berlin : Jochen Enterprises, 1997.

Panel (Columbus, Ohio) Panel. /Colmbus, OH : Panel, c2003- Fall 2005

Paper Rad (Artists' collective) Pig Tales Cartoon Workshop /Brooklyn, NY : Don Nadel, 2007.

Parisi, Paolo, 1980- Chernobyl : cronaca a fumetti : [di cosa sono fatte le nuvole] /Levada di Piave (Treviso) : BeccoGiallo, 2006.

Pop art funnies /Detroit, Mich. : MPH comics, [2004]- nos. 6-8

Q-Ray. Wang /Melbourne, Vic. : Q-Ray Comics.

Shrigley, David. Who I am and what I want /San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2006.

Twisted sisters comics. /Northampton, MA : Kitchen Sink Press, c1994- nos. 1-4

Vox pop. /Fairfield, CT : Vox Populi Comix, 1999- no. 1

Wacky adventures of Cracky. /Poughkeepsie, N.Y. : Western Pub. Co. no. 1

Wendy, the good little witch. /Sparta, Ill. : Harvey Picture Magazines, 1960- no. 82

Wide awake (Greenville, S.C.) Wide awake. /Greenville, SC : J Chris Campbell nos. 3, 5

Wild penny : a collection of comic shorts. /[Richmond, Va.] : Young American Comics, 2001- nos. 1-6

Willingham, Bill. Fables /New York : DC Comics, [2002- no. 1 Special Edition

Market Share: So What?

Warning: Rambling rant ahead.

The big news from the June sales figures from Diamond was that Marvel trounced DC on market share, 44% to 27% (in dollars). But why should that matter?

In practical terms it doesn't. Unless you hold so much of the market share that you can dictate terms of the market (like Microsoft in operating systems, or Apple in digital music sales), being #1 in market share doesn't mean much. Let's face it, after the Heroes World fiasco, any threats that Marvel might make about leaving Diamond won't be very convincing.

What really should matter is profit. And that's what's missing from all the sales figures, because we have no idea how much it cost to produce any of these comics. Does Marvel make more profit from an issue of The Dark Tower than DC does from Justice League of America? We'll never know.

Sure 52 was a huge seller for DC week after week, but how much did they have to pay Waid, Morrison, Johns, Rucka, Giffen and all the artists involved for each issue, not to mention all the editorial time necessary to push out a weekly series. (There are also opportunity costs involved; would DC's relaunches of Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman et al. have floundered so badly if editorial's attention hadn't been distracted?)

Never mind the fact that the Diamond numbers are just one segment of the total comics market these days, and they present a very short term glimpse at that. I still maintain that one of the most successful comics of recent years must be Fables, given its strong trade sales in both the direct market and regular bookstores, and its seeming evergreen status.

Market share doesn't really mean much. Look at how many years General Motors was the #1 automobile seller in North America, yet for many of those years, especially recently, they were losing money hand over fist.

In my experience, those who tout market share position or gains do so because that's the only good news they have; it distracts from the fact that they aren't making profit.

Unless making profit isn't your goal; which is the case at both DC and Marvel.

Positioned as it is as a minor part of the Time-Warner publishing empire, DC's goal isn't to make money. It's to a) protect the trademarks of their iconic assets (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.); and b) generate content that can be exploited by other arms of the empire, like movies and television. Any actual money made from publishing comics is probably nice, but I bet there are many years in which the DC Comics division operates at a loss.

Similarly, Marvel's goal--until recently--was to make money from licensing their characters; now that they're making their own movies, it'll be to generate content that can be exploited on celluloid. Again, profit from publishing comics is nice, but the potential money that comes from a successful Iron Man movie is far greater than any that can be made from an Iron Man comic book.

And where does all of this leave us, the readers? Unless we own stock in Marvel or Time-Warner, it shouldn't matter one lick. As long as there are comics being published that we want to read, it shouldn't matter where the big two stand against each other in terms of market share.

Except...

When the big boys are playing market share games, they are likely to push out an enormous number of titles month after month, in the attempt to crowd each other off the shelves. This has two effects: One, Marvel or DC may keep a marginal selling title around a little longer just to keep shelf space (and I stress 'may,' as they are just as likely to cancel it and put something else in its place). Two, they potentially push titles from other publishers off the shelves, other publishers who do rely on profit (or at least breaking even) to survive.

The good news is that the trend--at least in dollar sales--is in growth. But in the direct market served by Diamond, most of the growth seems to be going to Marvel & DC, and there doesn't seem to be much trickle-down. If everybody were playing the same game, "Let's Make Profit," then things might be different. But Marvel & DC aren't playing for profit, they're playing for visibility, operationalized as market share. It's like a bunch of eight-year-olds playing tag on the same field that a bunch of junior high kids are playing tackle football.

Somebody's going to get stomped.