Last Update: September 14, 2025
Interview with Phillip Russertt of indy comics distributor Philbo
Story at Boundingintocomics
"Free Comic Book Day" rights to be sold
Story at Bleedingcool
End of the line for the Diamond Previews catalog – Bleedingcool
"The best Comic Book Store in the World" – The World
Garcia said she only shops at Akira Comics, even though in Madrid there are several other comics stores. "It’s a fantasy-land. You become immersed in another world." Akira is like no other comic store on Earth — which is partly why it won Best on Earth at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, the biggest yearly comics industry gathering hosted in major cities around the globe. If you walk around the 9,000 square foot Akira store — the largest in the world — you soon will find a life-size facade of a Hobbit house. It’s a replica of Bilbo Baggins’ place, from "The Lord of the Rings" fantasy series..."
The shuffling of the corporate megaliths: Paramount to buy Warner Bros Discovery? – Reuters MSN
Paramount Skydance is preparing a bid to buy Warner Bros Discovery... potentially bringing together two storied Hollywood studios and reshaping the entertainment industry....The audacious bid, coming just weeks after Skydance bought Paramount Global... bringing together DC Comics superheroes like Superman and Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants, science-fiction franchises like The Matrix and Star Trek and two major news networks, CBS News and CNN."
Warner Bros Discovery is estimated to have a $30 billion debt load, and Paramount-Skydance has an estimated $12 billion debt load, so the merger, while bringing together a huge platform of entertainment properties, also combines a gigantic pile of debt that is larger than the GPD of many countries.
The best PS3 superhero games? – Hardcore Gamer MSN
- Jurassic World Rebirth at $861,944,197 worldwide - released July 2
- F1 at $621,102,895 worldwide - released Jun 27
- Superman at $614,444,108 worldwide - released July 11
- Fantastic Four at $515,664,437 worldwide - released July 25
- Weapons at $254,415,584 worldwide - released August 8
What's left of Summer Box Office 2025
These numbers mean Superman and Fantastic Four are at #47 and #52 for all time superhero comic book movie earnings on the Top Super Hero Movie List
Independent Publishers Group contacting comics shops as new distribution player – Comicsbeat
DC's Red Hood series gets canned – Bounding into Comics
Reading for pleasure continues decline – LA School Report
Even as children’s publishing explodes with new talent and excitement from fans online, new distractions and diversions are precipitously driving down the share of young people who read for fun....Over the course of two generations, from 1984 to 2023, the proportion of 13-year-olds who said they "never or hardly ever" read for fun on their own time has nearly quadrupled, from just 8% to 31%...."
Where's Gotham for next Batman movie? Not in USA – Manchester UK News MSN
Legal battle between the new Diamond Distributors owners and comic book publishers intensifies in court – Bleedingcool
Apparently, to properly follow the bankruptcy laws in order to claim the comic book inventory sitting in Diamond's warehouses, the publishers (135 altogether) were supposed to file certain forms in Maryland (where Diamond is/was) but having failed to do so, Diamond's new owners can claim the stock and sell it off. How this works out in court is a different matter, but according to the Bleeding Cool article (which contains a good deal of detail) the new Diamond owners are systematically making legal actions against the 135 publishers.
Rare Marvel Comics Collection coming to auction – Newspoint (auction at Richard Winterton Auctioneers)
"Long lost" vampire comic book by Anne Rice is brought back to publishing – MSN Nerdist
So why did the final issue of Queen of the Damned never come out? Innovation Comics went into bankruptcy because of the big “comics crunch” of the mid-’90s. This rapid decline in comic book sales, largely due to the ’90s speculator boom, led to the demise of many publishers. This happened just before the final issue of Queen of the Damned went to print in 1994...."
Let me tell you about when comic books were "dangerous" and "banned" – MSN Ash and Pri
The Mark Spears' Monsters #1 sells 300K+ copies – Comicsbeat
According to Keenspot, this makes MSM the largest selling independent comics ever by a single creator.
The 2025 Ignatz Award Nominees – Small Press Expo
What's an honest comic book store to do? Many shops selling new books before release date – Bleedingcool
"Death of Batman stories" on overload in coming DC books – Bleedingcool
Bazooka Joe and Wonder Woman Team Up! – PR Newswire
The most powerful word in marketing? "Fan" – Forbes
Bazooka Joe is Back! – Forbes
This actually has very little to do with the news story:
The experimental comics art of Greek-Belgian Ilan Manouach "comics people generally hate what I do" – The Comics Journal
Tom Holland used internet to see what the fans wanted for next Spider-Man movie – Variety
The trouble around the release of Batman #1 this week – Comicsbeat
"Blind as a Bat" variant cover distribution for Batman #1 has some comic book retailers quite upset – MSN CBR Resources
Bankrupted Diamond's inventory back in court controversies – Bleedingcool
Newspaper Comic Strip News: Beatle Bailey, Peanuts, Popeye
Story at Daily Cartoonist
Long-time superhero artist Amanda Conner getting a museum exhibit in Florida – Fox 13 Tampa
Imagine Museum web site - St. Petersburg, Florida
Superman...a killer? – Bleedingcool
Please don't put Pattinson's Batman into the DCU – Comicbook
When's the next Superman movie? 2027! – Deadline
James Gunn is back writing and directing, with David Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult expected to return as Superman/Clark Kent and Lex Luthor, respectively...."
"The story that should terrify the American comics industry" – Comicsbeat
We’ve known that at the Beat for a long time, but Alt’s New Yorker piece suggested to me that US publishers are completely unequipped to even begin to fight back against manga’s hold on the youth of today...."
Batman and Shonen Jump? – Comicbook
- Jurassic World Rebirth at $855,582,615 worldwide - released July 2
- Superman at $611,548,613 worldwide - released July 11
- F1 at $613,841,545 worldwide - released Jun 27
- Fantastic Four at $506,626,180 worldwide - released July 25
- Weapons at $235,172,687 worldwide - released August 8
Winding down Summer Box Office 2025
These numbers mean Superman and Fantastic Four are at #47 and #52 for all time superhero comic book movie earnings on the Top Super Hero Movie List
Marvel comics Wednesday Sept 3 book release list – Marvel.com
Clayface movie set images – Comicbookmovie
The "incredible value" of DC's Compact Comics Line – IGN
The idea with the DC Compact Comics line is pretty simple. These books are small in size and big on value. They focus on reprinting contemporary, new reader-friendly stories like All-Star Superman and DC: The New Frontier at a smaller page trim than standard DC trade paperbacks. They measure about 8.5” tall by 5.5” wide, making them more akin to manga collections or YA graphic novels like Dog Man...."
Uh oh
"After high hopes, Hollywood's summer box office falls flat again" at MSN Los Angeles Times
Judge Dread - the art and design of Robin Smith – The Comics Journal
Article on "how the sausage is made" in regards to comics for well known UK magazine 2000 AD. The article at TCJ is about the book Cover Story - The 2000 AD Design Art of Robin Smith with example rough sketches by Smith for various covers with finished art from the likes of (among others) Brian Bolland.
It is when crass commercialism invades the world of art that Cover Story comes alive. It's a reminder of the constraints that forces the hands of the artist. You can try and do the best work you can but you always end up serving several masters at once. That doesn’t mean "art" is impossible to achieve in such conditions, some of the covers therein are (to me) very fine pieces of art. But they are not "fine art." They are something else. Not a hot dog, but not a painting aiming at the eternal5. These ads on the cover are a reminder of the birthing process of comics, across newspapers and magazines, as part of a giant commercial enterprise..."
Wonder Woman at top of weekly best selling list – Bleedingcool
BBC asks: What if the Frankenstein monster in a new Frankenstein movie was simply too good looking to be a Frankenstain Monster?– BBC News
Loni Anderson, 1980, CBS "The Fantastic Funnies"
"How to Read Manga" 1995 – The Comics Journal
The essay no yomikata co-authored and published by Takakarajima-sha, 1995, pp. 38-51.
Comic book restoration business wins lawsuit – Philly Voice
Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) on the losing end after eight years of court combat.
Emily and Matt Myers, who own a comic book restoration business, will auction rare comics after winning a $10 million defamation lawsuit against a company that had accused them of making fakes... Some of the comics that are up for sale came straight from the "evidence bag" of the long-running court cases...."
Cartoonist and publisher Mort Todd, né Michael Jon Delle Femine, has died – Daily Cartoonist
"It's okay for superhero movies to not make a billion dollars" – IGN Yahoo News
Comic book fans rejoice: 2025 was a good year for superhero movies.... The obscene expectation that franchise movies should easily clear the billion-dollar threshold lest they be deemed abject failures is a blight on the film industry..."
The first part of this article's point of view is good, that is, that (as they call it) the "mythical billion dollar benchmark" is an unnecessary burden on genre filmmaking and doesn't address real issues in the perception of success in boxoffice.
But the article never goes all the way through to the nub of the questions around billions or less in box office, which is whether a film can make back the money it took to produce it, and whether it can also turn a profit in the process and thus make it worthwhile for investors to pony up production money.
The article also fails to deal with inflation. It talks about films from decades ago that had lower box office earnings than today, but, conversely, had higher profits, but can't explain why that is.
Likely an AI generation, the article doesn't have the wherewithal to actually address these issues, but just rattles off an attack on an artificially constructed straw man, that earning less than a billion, in the popular conciousness, makes a film "an abject failure." The article also ignores any the simple math that determines that, at least when it comes to the numbers, how 2025, or any other year in filmmaking, is a "good" or "bad" year.
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