* I whipped up a nice long thumbsucker analyzing Axel Alonso’s promotion to Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Entertainment for Robot 6. I hope you’ll take the time to read it. The nutshell version is there are some big question marks even (perhaps even especially) pertaining to the areas where we have the most information by which to judge him, but also a lot of reason to be optimistic in terms of his approach to creators. One thing I didn’t include because because I’m not sure what its actual import is but which still seems worth noting as a positive for the biz: He’s the second Hispanic Marvel EIC in a row. (Memo to Iron Man editor Alejandro Arbona: Patience, grasshopper.)
* I suppose I shouldn’t’ve been, but even so I was surprised by the dominance of media tie-in titles on the list of 2010’s bestselling graphic novels for the Direct Market (as sold through monopoly distributor Diamond). The Walking Dead, Scott Pilgrim, and Kick-Ass leave a grand total of one slot open on the list, which was taken by a book that got over largely on the strength of a fortuitous “it’s Superman meets Twilight” blurb in the press.
* On the periodical comics end of the list, events still sell–that’s really the only lesson you can draw. Well, that, and books called X-Men #1 trigger some sort of lizard-brain response in the direct Market. One more: The Direct Market is all but a three-man industry at this point, with Brian Bendis, Geoff Johns, and to a lesser extent Grant Morrison dominating.
* Yesterday was the big Game of Thrones presentation at the Television Critics Association press tour. This bums me out because it means that yesterday would have been the day George R.R. Martin made his two big surprise announcements (one surely must have been the release date for A Dance with Dragons, but that pesky plural really has thrown me for a loop beyond that) were it not for his awful-sounding bout of urosepsis over Christmas. It’s also a bit of a bummer because the 15 minutes of footage screened for the assembled critics will likely never air publicly since it used existing film scores as a stopgap soundtrack. The most in-depth summary I’ve seen of the footage is from Chicago TV critic and über-nerd Maureen Ryan. It sounds like it was basically very very good, allowing for some quibbles of the strength of various wigs and Peter Dinklage’s English accent. (Via Westeros.)
* UPDATE: The series debuts April 17th.
* Here’s Drawn & Quarterly’s Fall 2011 release slate. Daniel Clowes’s The Death-Ray and Brian Ralph’s Daybreak are the big ones for me.
* Chris Mautner runs down six overlooked books from 2010, including my co-#2 best book of the year, Gilbert Hernandez’s High Soft Lisp.
* Alright, I really have no excuses for why I didn’t wise up to Zak Smith/Sabbath’s big “Gygaxian Democracy” experiment, but now he’s croudsourcing things a sea monster can do, so you know I’m all over it.
* Real Life Horror 1: Don’t forget that my representative, Peter King, is okay with terrorism as long as it’s English and Irish children you’re blowing up.
* Real Life Horror 2: Freedom.
* Finally, I’m happy to use Geoff Barrow from Portishead’s anti-record industry twitter screed as an excuse to post the video for “Chase the Tear.” (Via Maura Johnston.)
Tags: A Song of Ice and Fire, Carnival of souls, comics, fantasy, Game of Thrones, gaming, George R.R. Martin, links, music, real life, TV
It’s ironic that Zak Smith’s blog about playing D&D with Pornstars ends up being more or less straight-up porn for you. 🙂