§ Nice Art: Moebius drew a pretty dope Galactus. This is from that Silver Surfer graphic novel written by Stan Lee that those submarine sailors were fighting about in the OG Crimson Tide. Dude had a point.
§ In news so ironic that you could eat it with a spoon, Paramount has decided that publishing is cool again and will launch their own imprint, Paramount Global Publishing. Why is this ironic? Well, you see
Paramount, now part of the giant Skydance, was the longtime owner of Simon & Schuster and couldn’t wait to sell off the publishing company. After a deal with Penguin Random House was blocked by the government, S&S was sold to private investment firm KKR. In addition, for a brief period of time, Paramount executives changed the name of the company to Paramount Publishing, a decision that was unpopular with S&S employees.
The new Paramount team sees book publishing as a way to expand “how fans engage with the company’s revered content while also creating new opportunities to develop original IP.” Operating under the products & experiences division, PGP “will develop complementary publishing content inspired by its iconic portfolio of brands and franchises as well as generate new IP through the creation of original stories,” according to the announcement.
IP Paramount controls includes Star Trek, Ninja Turtles, and Mission Impossible – and soon maybe everything at Warner Bros. So lots of fans to engage with, for sure. I don’t doubt that Paramount Global Publishing will eventually (or quickly?) turn to graphic novels, so maybe that will be part of the ORIGINAL IP they wish to create? Like S&S was already doing? Anyway, Paramount will be caught up in maneuvering the WBD acquisition for a while, but there will be books along the way after all!
§ Speaking of WBD, Puck reports that WBD ceo David Zaslav’s MASSIVE payout for selling the company after drving down its value has attracted some ire from stockholders.
Zaz’s “problematic” pay pushback: Unfortunately for our guy David Zaslav, outrage seems to be growing over his potential $886 million golden parachute for flipping Warner Bros. Discovery to Paramount. (I know… how can such a C.E.O. windfall be bad if Zaz’s buddies David Geffen and Barry Diller think he’s a genius?) Today the influential ISS proxy firm recommended that shareholders back the WarnerMount deal but not Zaslav’s “problematic” and “extraordinary” pay, particularly the $335 million in so-called “tax gross-ups” that are “inconsistent with common market practice.”
The stockholders are being too harsh! Just think what he could do with that $855 million! He could release the Batgirl movie and still have $755 million to spare! Or is it, as one producer put it, that he is an“absolute vacuum cleaner, sucking cash out of the company while leaving its creative teams and executives begging for scraps.”
§ I know you all read SKTCHD, but a few things of note: The SKTCHD print annual is coming out, and it has a cat on the cover! Instant sale.
SKTCHD BOOK 2025 is a print annual collecting five of my favorite pieces from the year for the site and its podcast, Off Panel, as well as a special, book-only Ten Thing column, all in one glorious tome. All the writing is by me with the design by my wife Amber Harper, and it results in a 152 page book that’s A5 sized and printed on 80 lb uncoated paper and a 110 lb uncoated cover. It all adds up to my favorite of these books yet.
§ David Harper also wrote an article that I very much wished to see: what has all the crazy sell-outs and instant hot books of ‘26 meant for the creators of those books? So, Your Comic Has Become a Speculator Hit –
For all the conversation about this topic, that was something I hadn’t seen addressed in the hubbub about it, or at least I hadn’t until now. That’s because I reached out to a bevy of creators whose comics were part of this recent trend to learn what it feels like from the inside. While some of the response was roughly what I expected, with creators describing the sudden uptick in interest as “surreal” and “confusing,” what I learned from these creators surprised me.
In my mind, there was going to be a specific flavor of response, a complicated one driven by the fact that creators want people to both buy and read their comics, as speculators will certainly do the former but often not do the latter. But while there was some of that, what creators had to say was unexpected to the point it made me reassess what I thought I knew about this subject. But I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.
Surreal and confusing. That’s the plan. That’s the goal.
§ The fine people at Kids Comics Unite wrote a piece about what they learned from tabling at MoCCA, and it is a very solid look at what works as well as a missed opportunity for a strong CTA. Good advice for those about to table!
Jade is acting as our project manager this year (in addition to being our creative director — she’s got a lot on her plate!). She is super organized and helped us come up with a comprehensive list of our goals for the show; what new promo materials we needed to create; and a checklist of everything we needed to remember to bring.
Thinking through what we wanted to accomplish in advance was critical. Though as you’ll see at the end of the article, we still forgot a few things and learned some lessons on how to do it even better next time!
§ I get all my news from LinkedIn these days and this just showed up in my feed: cartoonist Rian Granger got an internship at Marvel and drew the cutest announcement about it!
§ Speaking of surreal and confusing and chaotic and uncertain times, I got an email saying Volante Designs was shutting down. They are a company that made attractive apparel based on well known pop culture properties, like Star Trek uniforms and a Doctor Doom coat. They were also going to start publishing a comic. Their announcement didn’t really get into details but painted a general picture of economic hardship:
I also completely appreciate the desire to try to save us, and many of you are already doing so, insofar as we can be saved. Crowdfunding won’t be our silver bullet. The situation we are in, and the external economic factors, have put us in a position that we can’t continue on in the same way. The next best step for us is for me and Willow to clear out our current stock while we figure out what is next for us. I can’t imagine being done making clothing, but we also can’t continue to support a company at our current operating scale.
Running a fashion company was always going to be difficult. It is not an industry known for easy work or high margins. We had a good run. We will of course fulfill all open orders, and all pre-orders (we learned long ago that pre-orders are too risky of a business model if the garment isn’t already beyond 50% through production). We will maintain any open B2B obligations. We will not be releasing any new products. I wish I could say Volante Design is ending… it’ll just be ‘Volante’ now. But… that’s not the case. I know we have been hyping up our comic for months now, and I want to say that was very real up until very recently, when it became clear that we would have to announce our closure. It just didn’t feel right to launch a big crowdfunding campaign and turn around to make this announcement in a few weeks. Perhaps someday, when the time is right, we will finish up that issue and release it to you all. But for now, our focus is on liquidating our current inventory and helping our team move on with as much grace as we can muster.
I don’t know anything about the specifics of why Volante had to shut down but it did give me a feeling that a certain era of fannish culture has ended. While there is currently a con boom going on – and god knows there were a lot of booths selling fannish apparel at WonderCon – the previous “MCU-era” is kind of over. I dunno. This just gave me a vibe. Anyway, I hope they get things in order and get to put out that comic some day.
§ I wrote about Wild Signal, the new company from Mike Rauch and Ronald Wimberly the other day, but PW has more:
With its minimal budget and word-of-mouth success, Boys Go To Jupiter is also proof of the sustainable economic model that the Wild Signal team is hoping to pursue.
“That film had basically zero budget, and I think the box office at this point is around $205,000,” Rauch says. “But if he had gone and got funding for that in the millions, even a small $5 million budget, like what a lot of indie animated features are getting right now, then it wouldn’t have been a success for those folks. But for him, this is a great success! When I was at Cartoon Network, if there was a consumer products opportunity and it was going to make a million dollars, that wasn’t enough. But because we’re not operating at the same scale and pipeline that something like Cartoon Network does, we can take on projects that have that smaller but passionate audience because that will be enough to sustain us and to sustain the artist.”
§ PW also had more on Bill Schanes taking over the Bud Plant catalog:
One of Bud’s Art Books’ greatest strengths is Plant’s reputation among fans and clients, observes Schanes. “People love Bud and they love his company,” he said. “One of the things that historically has made Bud’s Art Books unique is Bud’s integrity and insights into all things comics, illustrated books, and art books. If we can do justice to that, I believe we’ll have something that can go forward for many more years to come.”
Plant is ready to step back and let Schanes take the spotlight, but acknowledges that there will be much he’ll miss. “What made me the happiest was selecting the covers for the catalogue and getting the catalogue out,” he says. “I would get opinions from others, but selecting the cover was my creative part. I really enjoyed finding a really groovy piece of artwork to share with our customers. That was very rewarding.”
BTW, both the above were written by Christian Holub, who was formerly at EW but is not at PW, which is awesome news for my linkblogging efforts! And for Christian and PW.
§ A little bit older link, but ICv2 talked to Christina Merkler and Cameron Merkler about the latest at Lunar, including the need to expand that warehouse:
We talked a lot in our last interview about capacity, and you were talking then about trying to find a site for a new building. What’s the status of your ability to handle all this new volume?
Christina: We’re in talks right now with somebody who’s going to be building a bigger building for us, but we have two opportunities. We’re trying to find the opportunity that’s going to give us the most opportunity for the growth, and the way that it’s actually set up as a building.
Right now we do have an auxiliary warehouse, but we need the room. It’s going to take a good year, year and a half for that building to be built. We’re making changes and moving things around and creating the efficiencies that we can within the old warehouse.
Oni and Drawn & Quarterly will be going to PRH 1st of August, around that time, between August and September [Oni is going to PRH on August 1, D&Q on September 1, see “Oni Signs” and “D&Q to PRH”, ed.]. That will free up some space for us. That’s how we’re able to add VIZ and Yen Press in August, September.
§ I like to end KnB with the goofiest headline I could find from my peers but…I couldn’t find anything silly enough How is that possible? Truly it is confusing and surreal.
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