A few bits of information that I found to be interesting from Heidi MacDonald & Douglas Wolk's article in the October 18th issue of Publishers Weekly ("Comics Publishers Look Ahead"):
Pantheon's slate for 2005 includes a book from Chip Kidd, another book from Marjane Satrapi, and a memoir from a French comic artist, David B., called Epileptic.
Marvel says that their experience with Marvel Age titles in Target has been "positive but modest". I have a few of the Target Marvel Age titles; they're very handsome with their oversized art, and impossible to store. they all clock in at 96 pages, so for the ones that are supposedly collecting 6 issues of material (e.g. Emma Frost, Runaways, Spider-Girl) there's some editing/removal of content o get the page count down. Still, at $5 a pop they're a good value for your comics dollar (presuming you're into super-heroes, of course...)
Terry Moore has aspirations to write prose. Also, the first Strangers in Paradise collection has gone through 13 printings and has been translated into seven different languages.
DC is planning another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume next year; I knew that Moore and O'Neill had plans to do another volume someday, but if there's going to be a new collection sometime next year I'd think that work on the new comic would have to already be underway, wouldn't it?
Marvel is pinning much of its publishing hopes for next year on the Elektra and Fantastic Four films, which doesn't seem very wise to me, since previous movies based on Marvel characters haven't shown a huge upsurge in demand for the comics (Spider-Man and X-Men to some extent, yes, but not so for Daredevil, Hulk, Punisher, Blade...). Granted, they also talk about seeking out the elusive 12-14-year-old boy market, but their approach always seems to involve their super-hero properties. I suppose it's the old adage about how when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...
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