Children of the Sea and the Eyes of a God

I read Children of the Sea, Vol. 3

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin (which has updated its iPhone app).

Massive "Walking Dead" Collection Due in September

WALK LIKE THE DEAD

Image Comics reprints THE WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM, VOL. 1 just in time for the AMC series

Starting this October, you’ll be able to watch The Walking Dead on AMC. You can prepare to join The Walking Dead by picking up the new printing of THE WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM, VOL. 1 TP on September 1.

THE WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM, VOL. 1 collects the first 48 issues of the ongoing series by writer Robert Kirkman with art by Charlie Adlard and Tony Moore. It weighs in at more than 1000 pages of zombies and the people who try to survive them.

“This is the perfect opportunity to catch up with THE WALKING DEAD before the AMC series debuts,” states Kirkman. “It’s a great way to get started with the series or to catch up with your favorite Walking Dead characters.”

In THE WALKING DEAD, an epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. Society has crumbled, and a handful of survivors lead by Rick Grimes fight to live in a world ruled by the dead.

THE WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM, VOL. 1, a 1088-page black and white trade paperback collecting the first 48 issues of the series, will be available for $59.99 on September 1, 2010. The AMC series debuts in October.


Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of four major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.

Layman and Guillory's "Chew" to Have Special 15th Issue

AFTER THE FIRST COURSE

Image Comics' CHEW marks the first quarter of its run with a special 15th issue

CHEW is a certified hit, and to celebrate CHEW's 15th issue, which marks the end of the first quarter of the book's run and hits store shelves September 29, writer John Layman and artist Rob Guillory are thanking fans with a slew of special features.

"We wanted to do something really special for CHEW #15," says Layman. "Honestly, we never thought we'd make it this far, and we wanted to do something above-and-beyond for the fans and retailers who have supported us."

Layman adds, "We're going 60 issues, and CHEW #15 is the quarter mark of the run. This is a big issue in a lot of ways. We introduce the last two remaining major supporting characters in the book, which would be eventful enough. But there are also a couple of shocking events -- one so big, it's really going to fundamentally change the book. So, we thought we'd commemorate the issue with something special. Extra pages. A tri-fold poster cover. And we're giving you all the goodies for $2.99 -- the same price as a regular issue of CHEW!"

"Nothing will be the same after CHEW #15," declares Guillory. "That's not hype. Not a gimmick. The status quo of this book is about to be annihilated."

CHEW #15 is the final chapter of "Just Desserts" and the biggest story in CHEW history, figuratively and literally. As we reach the one-quarter mark of the CHEW run, the last remaining major characters are introduced and an event transpires that is so shocking and unexpected it changes the book forever, fundamentally and irrevocably.

CHEW #15, a full-color 32-page comic book from Image Comics featuring more story pages and a tri-fold poster cover, will be available for $2.99 on September 29, 2010.


Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of four major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.

Early "Perhapanauts" Collected in August

FIRST BLOOD AND SECOND CHANCES

Image Comics collects the hard-to-find origin stories of the Perhapanauts

How did Big Foot, a chupacabra, the Mothman and an assortment of other people, human and fantastic alike, become part of an organization dedicated to protecting the world from the strange and terrible creatures that lurk in the dark? THE PERHAPANAUTS, VOL. 0: DARK DAYS by writer Todd Dezago and artist Craig Rousseau will answer that question on September 8, 2010.

THE PERHAPANAUTS, VOL. 0 collects in one massive tome, for the first time, the time-lost tales of the Perhapanauts from their hard-to-find FIRST BLOOD and SECOND CHANCES miniseries! See the origins and early adventures of the most mysterious, thrilling and, at times, hilarious paranormal team in comics! This is where it all started! The book also features several back-up stories and a pin-up gallery by some of the industry's finest!

“Arisa, Big, Choopie, and all the agents of Bedlam had the start somewhere,” states Dezago. “DARK DAYS collects their origin stories with all the action, supernatural crime fighting and humor you expect of THE PERHAPANAUTS! We’re pumped to make these stories accessible to new and old fans alike.”

THE PERHAPANAUTS, VOL. 0: DARK DAYS, a 240-page full color trade paperback for $17.99, will be in stores September 8, 2010.


Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of four major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.

Fantagraphics Books Has Significant Objects

from Fantagraphics Books:

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS ANNOUNCES THE ACQUISITION OF SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS STORY COLLECTION

Since its debut, Significant Objects [http://www.significantobjects.com/], the bold online inquiry into the relationship between narrative and the value of everyday objects, has been the subject of speculation by everyone from NPR to litbloggers to The New York Times’ Freakonomics crew. Some theorized about the project’s hypothesis, others about its methods and results.

Some just wanted to know: Will there be a book?

This last question can now be answered: Yes!

A collection of one hundred Significant Objects stories, seductively illustrated by top artists, will be published in 2011 by Fantagraphics Books.

This represents the most pleasing plot twist yet to the story of a very unlikely project that began as an experiment, turned into an experimental literary magazine secretly published on eBay, and currently raises money for youth tutoring nonprofits.

Founded by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker, SignificantObjects.com appeared out of nowhere last summer, and has published an extraordinary series of 200 stories and counting – by William Gibson, Curtis Sittenfeld, Sheila Heti, Colson Whitehead, Nicholson Baker, Meg Cabot, Lydia Millet, Jonathan Lethem, and other talented writers – about ordinary stuff like novelty items, discarded souvenirs, and tasteless kitchenware picked up cheap at thrift stores and yard sales. The goal: To see if commissioning great stories about these insignificant things would increase their value – as measured in actual eBay auctions.

The LA Times’s Jacket Copy blog summarized the project’s questions: “Can a good story make something more valuable? What if it’s entirely untrue?”

Significant Objects and its contributing writers sold piles of flea-market flotsam for thousands of dollars and, as The Economist’s More Intelligent Life blog put it, “proved Walker and Glenn’s theory that stories add immeasurable value to objects.”

The New York Times’s Freakonomics blog gaped at the “supersonic premium” which Significant Objects managed to create. “Is it the intrinsic utility and beauty of a commodity that creates its value,” the Boston Globe’s Brainiac blog queried, “or the stories we tell ourselves about them?”

Some observers suggested the Significant Objects experiment had invented a new business model: “This is just one (fun) example of many of content creators smartly using infinite goods (the stories) to make a scarce good (the trinket) more valuable, and putting in place a business model to profit from it,” according to Techdirt. Cool Hunting speculated that the project had created “the first pay scale for writers based on emotional impact.”

Of course, Significant Objects was never just about the marketplace. Most importantly, it was about writers “finding magic in unexpected things,” as NPR’s All Things Considered put it. The project has published first-rate fictions by best-selling novelists and pathbreaking up-and-comers, by literary stars and experimentalists, writers for The Daily Show and other TV programs, innovative improv comics, cartoonists, journalists, and writers of young-adult fiction, mysteries, thrillers, sci fi and much more.

“The roster of authors is beyond impressive.” — the blog BookSlut

“It’s a heck of a great idea and Walker and Glenn have assembled a really terrific collection of writers to participate” — Media Bistro’s UnBeige blog

“Like a Salvation Army staffed by brilliant writers, Significant Objects has created a new kind of online journal — publishing and selling on eBay” — the blog GalleyCat

“If this is a cynical marketeer’s scam,” a columnist for The Independent (UK) suggested, “then consider me conned. Significant Objects combines one of the oldest of all media — the near-improvised short story — with the reinvigorated writer-reader relationship afforded by Web 2.0.”

The experiment, in short, was a smash hit. With enthusiastic reader/buyers from Texas to Alaska, from New York to California, and everywhere in between, Significant Objects decided to funnel auction proceeds from its second and third volumes of stories to the tutoring programs 826 National and Girls Write Now.

Does the project point the way towards a new business model for literary publishing? Are we 21st-century skeptics in thrall to talismans and totems? Once the auction sales figures have been correlated with, say, narrative exposition strategy, will Significant Objects reveal the key to the relationship between narrative and value?

All of these questions and more will be addressed (and some answered) by the Significant Objects book, which will not only feature one hundred moving, absurd, surprising, and always entertaining stories from the project's three volumes. Thanks to Fantagraphics, it will also feature new illustrations by artists from the worlds of comics, skate graphics, rock posters, children’s books, and the commercial and gallery arts.

The Significant Objects book will change the way you look at things, forever.


About the Editors of SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS
Joshua Glenn is a Boston-based journalist, editor, and cultural semiotics analyst. He cofounded the website HiLobrow.com; he’s been a columnist for the Boston Globe’s Ideas section and a contributing editor to other publications. He edited the nonfiction collection Taking Things Seriously (2007) and coauthored, with Mark Kingwell, The Idler’s Glossary (2008). In the 1990s he published the critical-culture zine Hermenaut.

Rob Walker writes Consumed, a column that mixes business and anthropology, for The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, named by Salon as one of the best nonfiction books of 2008. His work has appeared in many media outlets, from The Wall Street Journal to The New Republic, from GQ to public radio program Marketplace. He is often called on as an expert on consumer culture, most notably in the recent Gary Hustwit documentary Objectified.

About FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS
Fantagraphics Books ( www.fantagraphics.com ) has been the world’s leading publisher of comics and graphic novels since 1976, with titles by Robert Crumb, Charles M. Schulz, Joe Sacco, Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware and many others. In 2007, the company launched its prose division, which includes books by Alexander Theroux (Laura Warholic), Stephen Dixon (What Is All This?), Monte Schulz (This Side of Jordan), and now Significant Objects. For information on all subsidiary rights, contact Gary Groth, President & Co-Publisher, Fantagraphics Books: 206.524.1967 x 217 or groth@fantagraphics.com.

Ikigami Graffiti

I read Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Vol. 5

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin (which has updated its iPhone app).

DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for June 9 2010

DC COMICS
APR100170 BATGIRL #11 $2.99

APR100131 BATMAN #700 (NOTE PRICE) $4.99

APR100190 BOOSTER GOLD #33 $2.99

APR100269 DAYTRIPPER #7 (OF 10) (MR) $2.99

OCT090326 DC DYNAMICS BATMAN STATUE $195.00

APR100181 DOC SAVAGE #3 $3.99

APR100191 DOOM PATROL #11 $2.99

MAR100238 DOOM PATROL WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE TP $14.99

APR100257 FREE REALMS #10 (OF 12) $3.99

MAR100288 GEARS OF WAR TP BOOK 01 (MR) $14.99

APR100249 GEN 13 #36 $2.99

FEB100182 GOTHAM CENTRAL HC VOL 03 ON THE FREAK BEAT $29.99

MAR100248 GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY BIG GAME TP $19.99

OCT090338 HEROES OF THE DCU JOKER BUST $70.00

APR100280 HOUSE OF MYSTERY #26 (MR) $2.99

APR100199 HUMAN TARGET #5 (OF 6) $2.99

APR100233 JACK OF FABLES #1 NEW PTG (MR) $1.00

APR100194 JONAH HEX #56 $2.99

APR100145 JUSTICE LEAGUE GENERATION LOST #3 (BRIGHTEST DAY) $2.99

APR100258 MODERN WARFARE 2 GHOST #5 (OF 6) (MR) $3.99

FEB100245 NEIL YOUNGS GREENDALE HC (MR) $19.99

MAR100191 OUTSIDERS #30 $2.99

OCT090323 POISON IVY 1/6 SCALE COLLECTOR FIGURE $99.99

APR100207 SECRET SIX #22 $2.99

APR100237 SUPER FRIENDS #28 $2.50

MAR100251 SUPERMAN BATMAN FINEST WORLDS TP $14.99

APR100153 TITANS #24 (BRIGHTEST DAY) $2.99

APR100243 TOM STRONG AND THE ROBOTS OF DOOM #1 (OF 6) $3.99

APR100288 UNWRITTEN #14 (MR) $2.99

APR100208 WARLORD #15 $2.99