Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email our team at either david@multiversitycomics.com or brian@multiversitycomics.com.
– Jason Latour drops some knowledge on Tumblr (via Twitter) on the importance of making mistakes with your art, underlining that it isn’t necessarily pristine pin-ups that make you a great artist, but putting in enough time and effort as a sequential artist to fail your way to greatness, and that the artists who you hold near and dear to your heart had mistakes that you can learn from equally as easily as their successes. It’s a good read for aspiring artists.
– Susana Polo at Publisher’s Weekly wrote about the Valkyries (a fan network of women who work in comic shops), and how they’ve become true comic tastemakers, citing their support of books like “Sex Criminals”, “Lumberjanes” and “Batgirl” as major reasons why those books have been as successful as they have been. The Valkyries are a movement as much as they are anything, and I mean that in the best ways, not the ways that make people uncomfortable. While I do think Polo’s quick brushoff of the idea that people will say this is a correlation rather than causation is a bit unfair – to say that any of the books that were mentioned had as much to do with the Valkyries as the article suggests takes away from the work the creators have done – it’s pretty hard to argue that this group doesn’t drive fan interest in notable ways. It was very interesting to see that Boom! Studios reached out to them to support “Lumberjanes”, and equally heartening that the group wanted to ensure the book was good before going down that path. A cool little piece that’s well worth a read.
– Robot 6 did a write-up on the online Kamalacon that’s going on throughout Tumblr and beyond. This online convention (mostly through the eponymous Tumblr) is celebrating the one year anniversary of “Ms. Marvel” and what the character has done to change things for Marvel and for themselves as readers of comics, amongst other things. It’s a great read and a super cool movement. Make mine Kamala!
– Bleeding Cool has the story from a DC retailer roadshow that Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher and Babs Tarr’s “Batgirl” will have its collections numbered as Volume One, will be simultaneously released in hardcover and softcover and will be released in June. I like all of that besides the June part. I saw recently that “Gotham Academy” is having its first trade released then, but I personally think they’re doing both books a disservice by not releasing trades for them sooner. Those books will thrive in trade, but the sooner the better. Alas.
