Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email me at david@multiversitycomics.com.
Lately, there has been a lot of uproar about the role of artists in the medium, both in terms of respect through payment and also through criticism, and much of it is deserved. Somehow, we’ve gotten to a point where artists are looked at as secondary creators, like some random fanboy’s idea of Banky being a tracer is a real thing but expanded to all artists. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of her points and some of it may be a touch on the idealistic side even though they are utterly fair, it’s well worth a read.
She also has a follow-up where she talks about the treatment of artists of color and female artists, and how they tend to get lower rates of payment for their work. I’m not sure of the uniform validity of this – I don’t have page rate numbers in front of me for all artists – but I doubt she is making all of this up, and worst case scenario, she has great advice for creators of all ethnicities and genders to follow when sorting through what projects to take on.
– Hey look! Thrillbent has opened a storefront, complete with PDF, DRM-free copies (and collections) of their books. Not only that, but these new PDF copies will come complete with bonus material, click-through links, essays and all kinds of other things that add to the experience. AND flagship book “Insufferable” from Mark Waid and Peter Krause will follow the “Private Eye” paradigm, allowing users to pay-what-you-will for the collection. You can get it for free. You can pay for it. It’s your choice. This is definitely a situation where they’re putting their money where their mouth is, and I applaud Waid and John Rogers for once again being forward thinking creators.
– Speaking of digital comics, Image is now taking Paypal for digital comics purchases. Awww yeah!
Oh! And “Aw Yeah! Comics” from Franco and Art Baltazar will kick off their new Thrillbent for Kids line, which I think is totally awesome!
– Looking for a fun Kickstarter project to support? Check out “Unit 44” from Wes Locher and Eduardo Jimenez. It’s a smaller Kickstarter project, but its story about what happens when a storage unit filled with Area 51 gear goes unpaid by one of the government goons in charge of it (and then a couple ridiculous rednecks pick it up in auction) looks to be a whole lot of fun, which is something sorely missing from comics these days. It might be your cup of tea, so throw it a click through and tell ’em Grand Pappy Harper sent ya.
– Did you know that Comic Book Resources’ Comics Should Be Good! branch is counting down the 50 best X-Men stories? I certainly didn’t! Enjoy losing part of your day to reading this and catching up with old friends (although the word epic is thrown around rather haphazardly in this piece).
