* The headline says it all: ICv2’s Digital Conference In Depth. CBR’s Kiel Phegley presents an exhaustive report from Friday’s retailer/press/publisher confab at the New York Comic Con, and it’s filled with eye-opening information beyond the dire sales stats that headlined the initial reports: July and August, the traditional summer-event blockbuster months, had notably weak sales; manga publishers are losing money hand over fist by providing no legal digital venue for readers to turn to; the iPad is a big deal (surprise!); anecdotal evidence suggests digital sales may help print sales in some early and isolated cases. Provided your interest in the ICv2 conference extends past 9am the following morning and goes beyond haranguing everyone for not reporting on it properly before cobbling together a report from their reports, this is worth reading from start to finish.

* Meanwhile, John Parkin at Robot 6 has a thorough round-up of the con’s big news.

* Also at Robot 6, Kevin Melrose a dedicated round-up on Marvel’s strange semi-announcement about dropping the price of new titles next year.

* Brian Michael Bendis made several announcements the effect of which seems to add up to “Even less Powers than usual,” so I’m not really that thrilled about any of them; that said, I’ll check out an Alias reunion with Michael Gaydos, absolutely.

* According to the NYCC Del Rey/Spectra panel, George R.R. Martin is just five chapters and two months away from finishing A Dance with Dragons. I’ll believe it when I see it, but yay.

* Alan David Doane’s series of interviews with retailers about DC’s restoration of the $2.99 price point continues with Earthworld’s J.C. Glindmyer. Meanwhile, writing at his own site, Brian Hibbs expresses what it seems like a lot of the retailers Alan has spoken with believe: Scrapping the $3.99 price point is a good idea, but its institution “broke the habit” of collecting those series for a lot of readers in such a way that they probably won’t return.

* Tim O’Shea interviews Renee French about H Day, her new PictureBox graphic novel. Turns out it’s inspired by the imagery that came to mind when she had migraines. In other words, this oughta be good.

* Wow, this is a pretty terrific line-up for the new Studygroup12 anthology: Trevor Alixopulos, T. Edward Bak, Chris Cilla, Max Clotfelter, Farel Dalrymple, Eleanor Davis, Vanessa Davis, Michael DeForge, Theo Ellsworth, Jason Fisher, Nick Gazin, Richard Han, Aidan Koch, Amy Kuttab, Blaise Larmee, Corey Lewis, Kiyoshi Nakazawa, Tom Neely, Jennifer Parks, Karn Piana, Jim Rugg, Tim Root, Zack Soto, Ian Sundahl, Jon Vermilyea, Angie Wang, Steve Weissman, and Dan Zettwoch.

* Frank Santoro takes us to layout school. The “lose the center” concept hit me like a ton of bricks.

* I love Brian Chippendale’s Puke Force.

* Danny Boyle wants to direct a third 28 Days Later movie. I want him to! (Even though Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later was the better film.)

* The Scissor Sisters are writing the songs for a musical adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City.

* Real Life Horror #1: The Republican Party’s repeated intimations of militarization have disturbing implications–wait, what? Oh, Jesus.

* Real Life Horror #2: As Glenn Greenwald runs down a number of jaw-dropping factual reasons why this isn’t in fact the case, I think it’s impossible to overstate the damage that the concept “America is the greatest country in the world/in history” has done to America. If we’re the greatest country on Earth, how bad could our problems possibly be, right? We’re a nation of Lord Summerisles, proclaiming “They will NOT fail!”

* Anders Nilsen presents “What Doesn’t Kill You…”: variations on a theme.

Tags: A Song of Ice and Fire, fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin

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