• More discussion about the decision by Diamond Distribution, the largest distributor of comic books to comic book shops, to raise its minimums, potentially pushing many small circulation books out of the comic shop market. Although Drawn and Quarterly had slowly been moving away from the serial comic/floppy format, the news that two series by Kevin Huizenga and Sammy Harkham were being cancelled seems to confirm the effect thie Diamond decision will have on small publishers and cartoonists. Tom Spurgeon talks about why this is a bad idea. Dirk Deppey notes that publisher Last Gasp is also a distributor and the only one with both access to comic shops and a large catalog of alt comics.
  • In related news, on the occasion of the graphic novel conference attached to this past weekend’s New York Comicon, ICv2 released a few reports on graphic novel sales. The upshot is that graphic novel sales (especially Alan Moore- and Batman-related) were up in 2008, while manga sales and floppies were down. This despite a downturn during the last 3 months of 2008. Click here for a list of the top ten non-manga and superhero graphic novels of 2008. Although there is only one Canadaian artist represented in the list, Canuck publisher D+Q has 3 books placed. Overall, retailers seem optimistic about the market.
  • Bryan Lee O’Malley is profiled in the New York Times. He was also probably interviewed a million times over the weekend by smaller outfits. Here he is on a video from Comic Book Resources. The Shusters blog’s Jason Truong has links about other Canadians who don’t happen to have a highly-anticpated movie based on their work coming out (top image comes from a report about Dale Eaglesham going exclusive with Marvel).
  • Not New York: Michael Cho has some basic tips about comics inking. You can also read the latest installment of his webcomic here.