Panel Mania Preview: Ray Bradbury Adaptations from Hill and Wang

Following their 2009 adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Hill and Wang is publishing adaptations of Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Ray Bradbury’s The Martin Chronicles: The Authorized Adaptation by Dennis Calero includes fifteen of the interconnected stories from Bradbury’s book, which follows man as they travel and settle on Mars with the ancient, dying race that inhabits the planet. In Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes: The Authorized Adaptation by Ron Wimberly, two boys, Will and Jim, discover the dark magic and evil at work in the traveling sideshow, Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show, that comes to their town a week before Halloween. This preview includes a selection of pages from each book. Both books will be released on July 17.

Viz Expands iPad Manga App to iPhone, iPod Touch

Viz Media has expanded its iPad app to include support for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The Viz Manga app features over 200 titles. All manga currently on the iPad are also available for the other devices, and readers who buy a book on one platform can sync them across all platforms.

First Second Evolves for the Internet with Webcomics Imprint

Macmillan's graphic novel imprint First Second Books has launched To Be Continued..., a book imprint that specializes in serializing its titles online as Web Comics before releasing them in print at a later date.

‘PW Comics Week’ Goes Monthly; More Web Coverage Planned

After nearly six years of weekly publication, PW Comics Week, Publishers Weekly’s email newsletter on comics and graphic novel publishing, will switch to a monthly schedule effective beginning next month. Although we are changing the frequency of the newsletter, the change will not diminish our overall comics coverage. Publishers Weekly will continue to cover graphic novels and comics in the book industry and traditional comics industry, publishing news and feature stories through the PW website and PW Daily as well as in our new monthly graphic novel newsletter.

Dark Horse Launches Comics App and Digital Store

After updating its software to comply with Apple's revamped app guidelines, Dark Horse will launch the Dark Horse Digital application for iOS devices and the Dark Horse Web store on April 27. The application will feature more than 250 comics priced from from free to 99 cents to $1.99.

W.W. Norton to Publish Revised Edition of 'R. Crumb: The Complete Record Collection'

In November W. W. Norton will publish a new and revised edition of R. Crumb: The Complete Record Collection, a slip-cased hardcover edition of a book originally published in Europe that collects every album cover ever created by Crumb.

Comics Briefly 04/26/2011

2011 Hugo Awards Nominations For Graphic Stories, Dark Horse CEO Speaks to ICv2 About Layoffs, Archie Comics Available Digitally in Spanish, Comixology & Stan Lee Create Digital Comics Japan Benefit Anthology, Barnes & Noble Launches Digital Comics App for Nook, Afrodisiac Free Online, Spider-Man Musical to be Satirized on Law & Order: CI, Comic Books Live Reading in NYC, This Week @ Good Comics For Kids, This Week @ The Beat

Panel Mania: Celluloid

Celluloid, Dave McKean’s first solo graphic novel since the 1998 work Cages, is a pornographic work of art. A woman, whose partner is stuck at work, arrives home and discovers a film projector. The film presents a blurry scene of a man and woman having sex. When the film burns out a door appears that leads the woman to a series of fantastical sexual encounters. Celluloid will be released by Fantagraphics on May 25th.

Comics Reviews: 4/25/2011

Ivan Brunetti’s Hard Won Lessons

Yale University Press has just published Ivan Brunetti’s Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice, a slightly revised edition of a booklet originally published in 2007 as an insert in Todd Hignite’s Comic Art magazine. The volume is a distillation of the cartooning course Brunetti has been teaching at the University of Chicago and Columbia College for several years now. At 88 pages, the book is far briefer than many that similarly promise to teach aspiring cartoonists the techniques of the trade. But to borrow a phrase from another cartoonist, Brunetti’s book is like concentrated orange juice: a potent dose that, like Brunetti’s own comics, values concision in the service of maximum personal expression.

Digital Comics Aren’t Just For Adults Anymore

One of the less hyped but most crucial uses of the smart phone and the digital tablet has been that of babysitter. It’s common to see kids playing Angry Birds, and there’s the widely reported story from December about kids racking up large fees on power-ups for “The Smurfs’ Village” game. Where video games venture, comics are never far behind. Kids’ comics have also entered the digital world.

Panel Mania: Even The Giants

In a series of elegantly drawn panels excerpted from his forthcoming work, Even the Giants, Jesse Jacobs eerily invokes the isolation of the Great White North, in a new graphic novel noted for both its beauty and its experimental drive. Even the Giants will be published by AdHouse in May.

Comics Briefly 4/19/2011

Layoffs at Dark Horse, Dash Shaw, Daniel Clowes and Jim Woodring Live in LA,Neil Gaiman Reading in NYC, Texas Library Wins Graphic Novel Giveaway Worth $20,000, Full Moon Free Online

Comics Reviews 4/18/11

Manga Pioneer Tokyopop Shuts Down U.S. Publishing

Continuing a rocky year for manga publishing, Tokyopop announced that it is shutting down its Los Angeles-based U.S. publishing division effective May 31. A Hamburg, Germany, office which handles European publishing and global rights will remain open, and film and television projects will remain unaffected.

Digital Manga Guild Ramps Up Quickly With New Licenses

Hikaru Sasahara, CEO of Digital Manga Publishing, first floated the idea of the Digital Manga Guild—recruiting manga fans to work in teams as translators—less than six months ago, and the idea is starting to take concrete shape. Sasahara has acquired 508 manga titles and hopes to start signing agreements with translation groups this week.

Big Books Dominate at MoCCA Festival

The busy spring schedule of major indie comics shows kicked off in New York with the 10th Annual MoCCA Festival last weekend. Held as a fundraiser for the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art in Soho, the event was one week before Stumptown, a similar event in the similarly comics-heavy Portland, OR, and four weeks before The Toronto Comics Arts Festival.

Life in Comics: The Lottery

Last month, I think I saw the comics community at its ugliest. Gossip columnist Rich Johnston exposed a plagiarist and pretender named Rob Granito, who for years has been copying other artists’ work and selling it as his own, as well as claiming false, easily disproved credits. That was not the ugly part. In fact, it was a public service. Artists deserve to have the integrity of their work, and consumers deserve to get what they think they’re paying for. What was ugly were some of the responses to the exposé.

More Graphic Textbooks from Flat World Knowledge

After introducing the college world to graphic textbooks with his Atlas Black management series, Texas Tech University management professor Jeremy Short returns with two new textbook/comics titles: Tales of Garcon: the Franchise Players and University Life: A College Survival Story, his latest efforts using comics to create textbooks for college level students.

Photo Mania: MoCCA 2011

If you weren't able to visit the historic Lexington Avenue Armory in Manhattan this past weekend to see the MoCCA Art Festival, don't fret! We were on hand throughout the weekend at MoCCA taking pictures and enjoying the spring-like vibe, the programming and panels and, of course, the excellent selection of indie and self-published comics, graphic novels and mini-comics. Here are a few photographs of the artists, publishers and fans that attended MoCCA 2011. Most photos are by Jody Culkin unless noted otherwise.