Nerds With News & Links - 5/15/09

So now we're on that Twitter thingy. When you click the nerd bird link up in the corner you can get a buncha news and links to cool stuff on the internets. Every Friday we'll compile all the tweets for a big old weekly round-up of comic book fun and shenanigans.

Behold, the week that was:

Drawn & Quarterly will be reprinting the works of Doug Wright. Who's that? Beats me. But Seth says he's one of the greatest cartoonists to ever live.

Remember Doug Wright? His cartoons ran in Canadian newspaper magazines for 35 years and a generation or two of Canadians grew up with his main character, a rambunctious little Canadian boy-cousin of Charlie Brown.

Nipper, as he was called, was born in print a year and a half before Charlie Brown and two years before Dennis the Menace. Charles Schulz and Hank Ketcham, Charlie Brown and Dennis’s respective creators, are enshrined in the pantheon of great cartoonists. Wright, on the other hand, though heralded as “Canada’s best known cartoonist” during his lifetime, has been all but forgotten.

More’s the pity because the creator of Nipper and Doug Wright’s Family was a great cartoonist, says Seth, the author of Palooka-Ville, Clyde Fans and the forthcoming George Sprott. As if it takes one to know one, Seth is a great cartoonist himself. The two facts, that the work of Wright, who died in 1983 at age 65, is great and nearly forgotten, are what spurred Seth on to bring him back into the foreground and set our cultural memory straight.

Read all about the Canadian Charles Schulz HERE.



Danger! Intrigue! Stupidity! Classic Antonio Prohias SPY VS. SPY collections on the way!

From ICv2.com:

Watson Guptill will release three Spy vs. Spy volumes, showcasing the crazed work of Antonio Prohias for Mad magazine, in August. The three Spy vs. Spy volumes, Danger, Intrigue, Stupidity; Masters of Mayhem; and Missions of Madness, are all 192-page 5”x7-1/2” trade paperbacks. Some of this work, which displays Prohias’ genius as artist, storyteller, and graphic designer, has been out of print for over 40 years. Each volume will include an introduction by Mad editor John Ficarra



So, LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS debuted this week. That's what I hear anyway. I didn't actually see it because for some reason Diamond Distributing stiffed my local comic shop. Good one, Diamond. Keep it up and he may just have to find a different distributor. Oh wait.

Speaking of monopolies, Sean Kleefeld speculates on what might happen if Marvel and DC eventually get out of the comic book biz. Basically the end of Diamond as we know it, but creating a new opportunity for scrappy little distributors like Haven. Seeing as the actual comic books earn only a small percentage of their properties' profits, I think this is almost inevitable. But where would that leave every other publisher? From Kleefield On Comics:

So, what happens to Diamond if Marvel and DC go away? If Diamond lost that much business within, say, a twelve month timeframe, they'd either have to close shop entirely or dramatically alter their operations with tons of layoffs and warehouse closures and whatnot. You can't lose over 90% of your business and continue operating as normal. There'd be lots of chaos and confusion within and around Diamond, in which case Haven (distributors) would be ideally situated to step up to the plate and help all the worried comic retailers who don't know whether or not Diamond even got the order they placed, much less will be able to fulfill it.

"Someday all of our library will be available in electronic delivery systems." -Mike Richardson, Dark Horse

Dark Horse and Archie Publications are both jumping into the deep end of the electronic publishing pool. You can download Jughead and the Terminator on your iPhone now. I'm not surprised to see Dark Horse doing this. They're always on the look out for new platforms (what with print being dead and all). But it's something of a surprising move for Archie. How many SONIC THE HEDGEHOG fans are on the cutting edge of technology?