Comicbookland

There is a colorful new way to read Ivanhoe, Moby Dick and The Three Musketeers in the Kobo eBookstore, and it’s not through public domain ePub files.

Digital publisher Trajectory has signed a content distribution deal with Kobo to release a series of illustrated comics of classic novels through the Kobo eBookstore. The series includes more than 120 visual renditions of classics such as The Last of the Mohicans, War of the Worlds, Treasure Island, The Count of Monte Cristo, Huckleberry Finn, Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre.

The video embedded above gives you an idea of what they look like–follow this link to see more at Kobo.
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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Marvel Comics will host a gay wedding this summer. Superhero Northstar will marry his boyfriend Kyle Jinadu in Astonishing X-Men #51. The issue will be released on June 20th.

Northstar came out of the closet in the 1992 comic, Alpha Flight #106. Here’s more from the Associated Press: “In 2002, gay characters Apollo and the Midnighter were married in the pages of ‘The Authority’ published by DC’s Wildstorm imprint. Since then, numerous comic book heroes and villains have been written as gay, lesbian or transgender – from DC Comics’ Kate Kane, aka Batwoman, to Hulking and Wiccan in the pages of ‘Young Avengers.’”

DC Comics will soon reveal that one of its established superheroes is gay. According to The Daily Mail, Twitter readers have been sharing rumors about the character’s identity. Some speculate it could be Bruce Wayne, better known by his nocturnal alter ego Batman.

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Instead of sending out a boiler-plate press release about his new book, author Rob Salkowitz tapped a great comic book artist to create the first illustrated press release this GalleyCat editor has ever received (complete with a comic blurb from Stan Lee.

We’ve embedded the release for Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture above–how does it compare to your average text-based release? Click here if you want to see a full-size version of the release.

Here’s more from his publisher: “What better way to illustrate a visually-driven business – the business of comics – than with a comic-style press release?  … Salkowitz turned to Eisner Award-winning veteran comics illustrator Steve Lieber to craft a four-color one-sheet, which explains the book in the classic comic vernacular, complete with comic book font, eye-popping colors, and even the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

Artist Hannah Friederichs has created a beautiful tribute to the late Maurice Sendak, painting The Avengers comic book heroes in the style of the children’s book author. Click the photo embedded above to enlarge.

If you visit Friederichs’ page, you can download wallpaper versions of the drawing. On Tumblr, you can see some concept sketches and close-ups of the drawing.

Here’s more from the artist: “Two things on my mind today: RIP Maurice Sendak. Yay Avengers. Okay- I put together some wallpapers using the original- I tried to make them as big as possible and cover the major aspect ratios. You can download them here. Enjoy!” (Via io9)

The Reading with Pictures nonprofit hopes to raise $65,000 on Kickstarter to fund their graphic novel project, The Graphic Textbook. Above, we’ve embedded a video about the project–what do you think?

Printz Award-winning graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang has agreed to write the forward. The book cover will be by Ben Caldwell. The editors include Josh Elder, Paul Morrissey and Brandon Montclare. Many other comic artists have also joined.

Here’s more about the project: “Aimed at grades 3-6, The Graphic Textbook features a dozen short stories (both fiction and non-fiction) that address topics in a variety of disciplines (Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, Science) drawn from the list of Common Core Standards used in classrooms countrywide. The accompanying Teacher’s Guide will include Standards-correlated lesson plans customized to each story, research-based justifications for using comics in the classroom, a guide to establishing best classroom practices and a comprehensive listing of additional educational resources. The Graphic Textbook will prove once and for all that comics belong in the classroom by creating a comic that every teacher will actually want to use and a textbook that every student will actually want to read!”

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Fans of The Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man and Wolverine, have something to be excited about. Marvel has launched a new digital comics store called Marvel Comics Shop.

Here is more about the what the shop has to offer from Marvel.com:

-Thousands of single issue titles including classic series such as AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and recent releases like CIVIL WAR, NEW AVENGERS, and ASTONISHING X-MEN.

-Hundreds of collections that bundle your favorite storylines like The DARK PHOENIX SAGA

-Availability of our Marvel Comics 99 cent sales every Monday and Friday!

The shop is powered by comiXology, the company that powers the Marvel apps, and comes out of a new exclusive agreement between the two companies. AppNewser has more: “Marvel has inked a deal with digital comics platform comiXology, giving them the exclusive right to distribute single issue English-language digital comics for the publisher worldwide.”

Legendary Pictures has released the third trailer for its upcoming Batman comic book adaptation, The Dark Knight Rises. We’ve embedded the trailer above–what do you think?

According to Comic Book Resources, Titan Books will publish the official movie tie-in novel by Greg Cox. Both the book and the movie will be released in July 2012.

Here’s more from E! Online: “[Anne] Hathaway gets lots of screen time in the new trailer as both [Selina] Kyle and her feline alter ego Catwoman. She appears to be taking Batman’s side and has no problem getting in on the action. There’s plenty of Jordon Gordon-Levitt‘s mysterious new cop John Blake looking all emotional. We also get to see franchise stalwarts like Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman).”

At the Los Angeles Festival of Books this morning, The Walking Dead creator and writer Robert Kirkman shared pitching advice for aspiring comic book writers.

Using the Image Comics submission guidelines as his main example, he urged writers to find an artist to work on the pitch–drafting a short sample of the comic to accompany the pitch.

Kirkman (pictured, via) urged pitch writers to be “succinct,” a deceptively simple point: “Nobody wants to read that pitch. Everybody wants to find the next new comic and publish that, but nobody wants to spend their time looking for that. The Image Comics submission guidelines (which I’m most familiar with, so I’ll use them as an example) says to do five pages of your comic and a one-page synopsis.”

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In 1938, D.C. Comics wrote a check for $412 to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster as a payment to acquire the rights to Superman. This week that same check sold for $160,000 at auction to an unnamed buyer.

The check was up for auction on ComicConnect.com and received 56 bids. The check was used as evidence in legal disputes over copyright and almost got thrown out in 1973, when the copyright issue was settled.

ComicConnect.com explains: “When the lunch meeting ended, a box of old court documents that had accumulated over the years was handed over to one of the D.C team. When the box was delivered back to the D.C. executive office, the employee was told, ‘Just throw it all out. We don’t need any of it anymore!’”. Via The Guardian UK.

Cartoonist Greg Farrell has drawn a cartoon strip about union contract negotiations at the Strand Bookstore.

Earlier this month, union members at the New York City bookstore voted to reject a contract proposal from the famous bookstore. Follow this link to see the complete comic strip.

The New York Times has more about the negotiations: “The workers, along with the Strand’s roughly 140 other union workers, had just concluded a four-day vote on the management’s latest contract offer. As expected, it was rejected because many of the employees felt that it would have significantly reduced their benefits.” (Via The Awl)