Comics A.M. | Chris Roberson speaks on his split with DC Comics

Comics A.M. | Chris Roberson speaks on his split with DC Comics

Chris Roberson

Creators | iZombie writer Chris Roberson discusses his ecent public announcement that he would no longer accept work from DC Comics and his subsequent dismissal from his last writing job for the publisher. 'Well, this has been building over the last few months, and mostly had to do with what I saw DC and Time Warner doing in regards to creator relations. I think the first thing ' you have to understand that when I first started working for DC in 2008, the Siegels had just recaptured half of the copyright for Action Comics #1 and I felt very good about that. That seemed like a very positive step. And then over the course of the last few months there has been the counter-suit against the Siegels' lawyer, Marc Toberoff, and I was less sanguine about that, and starting to get a little itchy about it, and then there were just a few general things about the way that it seemed that DC regards creators now that are working for them ' and I can talk about that more in detail ' but the real kind of proverbial straw that broke the camel's back was the announcement at the beginning of February of Before Watchmen, which I just thought was unconscionable. And so I had already signed a contract by that point to do six more issues of iZombie, of which three of them had been turned in, and so I just made the decision to go ahead and turn in the remaining three, not wanting to jeopardize the livelihood of my collaborators Mike and Laura Allred. But once I turned in the last one, even though I had other work lined up, I would have to at least ' if only for my own peace of mind ' let people know that I wasn't happy with it.' [The Comics Journal]

Watchmen

Creators | Heidi MacDonald offers an analysis of the Before Watchmen/creators rights debate, with an emphasis on plans for Watchmen's 15th anniversary that both Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons had agreed upon with DC Comics ' plans that were later abandoned after DC pulled a story from Moore's Tomorrow Stories anthology that was being published by its Wildstorm imprint. 'I point this out to show that Moore has not ALWAYS been The Great Wall of No. Maybe the things that happened aren't what you or I would revolt over, but it's Moore decision to make. And he made his ground rules clear going in.' [The Beat]

Conventions | San Diego hotel owners have overwhelmingly approved a controversial plan to an additional 1 percent to 3 percent room-tax hike to help finance the expansion of the San Diego Convention Center viewed as essential to keeping Comic-Con International in the city. [NBC San Diego]

Retailing | Canadian retailers are surveyed about what affect blockbuster comics adaptation (well, superhero adaptations) have on comic sales. More interesting, perhaps, is their generally positive assessment response to 'How's business?' with answers ranging from 'steady' to 'absolutely fantastic' to 'strangely, better than ever.' [National Post]

Diamond Comic Distributors

Retailing | San Francisco retailer Brian Hibbs explains why he decided to partner with iVerse and Diamond to sell digital comics via the web. 'All I know is that I'm sure as hell not going to promote digital within my individual physical sales environment. I think that's plainly counter-productive to my physical print-based business. The internet, however, is different. I'll be surprised if even 1% of my regulars read this blog posting, or even an aggregation site's picking up on the 'story.' But there are hundreds, thousands, lots! of readers reading these words who will never set foot in my store for the simple reason that you're nowhere near me whatsoever. SOME of you are interested in digital comics.' [Savage Critics]

Retailing | Connie Lewis profiles Mimi Cruz, the longtime manager of Salt Lake City's Night Flight Comics, which has been mentioned in both Sin City and an Archie comic. [KSL.com]

Robert Kirkman

Creators | Hero Complex reports on the Robert Kirkman panel at this past weekend' Festival of Books in Los Angeles. [Hero Complex]

Awards | Complications have arisen in this year's Eagle Awards, as the front-runner in the Best New Talent competition was removed after accusations of swiping. [Forbidden Planet]

Comics | We heard a while ago that Cheryl Blossom would be afflicted with breast cancer in an upcoming Life With Archie comic, and now there's another Archie Comics first coming up: 'something sudden and quite violent occurs for a fan-favorite character.' That's pretty vague, but the cover of the comic suggests a violent crime, maybe a mugging. [USA Today]

Collecting | Kelly Knox gets the comics-on-paper bug and consults an expert, Brandon Zuern, store manager of Austin Books & Comics in Austin, TX, about the fine points of collecting comics. [Geek Mom]

• April 26, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
• Tagged: Alan Moore, Archie, Archie Comics, awards, Before Watchmen, Brian Hibbs, Chris Roberson, collectibles, comic retailers, comics a.m., comics creators, comics industry, Dave Gibbons, DC Comics, digital comics, direct market, Eagle Awards, events, Fairest, Heidi MacDonald, iZombie, Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, movies, robert kirkman, San Diego, san diego comic con, san diego convention center, Tomorrow Stories, watchmen

3 Comments

If crybaby Chris was this good at self promotion a year ago, his comics at DC might have sold better.

If I had worked for DC I would have quit when they announced the new 52.

Interrogative: what is worse, a company that abuses its own creators, or people who defend it on the Internet

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