Harold Sipe's Blog, page 684

"This year promises to be the first time digital comics will make a significant impact on retail..."

"This year promises to be the first time digital comics will make a significant impact on retail sales of comics and will receive enough publicity and attention from the media to finally create the level of awareness that will lead to strong sales of digital content. The publishers are very interested in capturing this new market because if they do not, their competitors will. Just like there is a struggle right now for Diamond's Top 10 Publisher list in paper comics, there will be the same s...

Playdom has by far the most acquisitions so far this year among...

Playdom has by far the most acquisitions so far this year among all social gaming companies, today announcing it has bought established branded game developer Merscom for an undisclosed amount.

The company previously bought Argentinean Facebook game developer Three Melons, and invested $5 million in another developer from that country, MetroGames. Today's announcement suggests Playdom is getting serious about branded social games. The move could put it in more direct competition with other...

Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to...

Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.

He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all...

"Harold Sipe is the writer of Screamland, as well as the writer of the new Garters & Ghouls..."

"Harold Sipe is the writer of Screamland, as well as the writer of the new Garters & Ghouls series from IDW, an adaptation of the popular game–AND Harold is an old buddy of ours AND a North Carolinian AND a former customer in the store! No offense, but when customers make it into comics we are always super proud. If you were not a customer of ours, there is still time to buy something and rectify this."

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I'll be a...

"Marvel Studios is currently taking meetings with writers and directors to work on small scale movies..."

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Marvel Studios is currently taking meetings with writers and directors to work on small scale movies based on some of their third tier characters. The movies would cost in the range of 20 to 40 million dollars (very small when we're talking studio films) and would allow them to take risks with less obvious characters and with interesting talent.

Filmmakers are being offered their pick of characters whose names are only familiar to comic fans. Properties like Dr. Strange, Ka-Zar, Luke Cage...

"By now I'm sure you're familiar with all the inane blather being spewed about the iPad...."

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By now I'm sure you're familiar with all the inane blather being spewed about the iPad. Questions such as "Will it replace a laptop?" and "Is it the end of netbooks?" have been beaten to death in columns and reviews across the Web.

Who cares? Could there be more meaningless questions to analyze? There will always be something coming along to "kill" some other technology. I'm more interested in the good the iPad will do.

One forgotten industry in particular could benefit a lot from it. Yes...

Written by "30 Days of Night" co-creator Steve Niles...

Written by "30 Days of Night" co-creator Steve Niles and Adam Jones, guitarist for the band Tool, the six-issue series will send FBI Agents Mulder and Scully to Alaska just in time for the long season of darkness to take over the region. While investigating a strange murder, the pair discover (as usual) that all is not what it seems in the case. (via 'X-Files/30 Days Of Night' Comic Debuts: Your First Look At Mulder & Scully Vs. The Barrow Vampires!)

"The Further Adventures of the Whistling Skull is a thoroughly...

"The Further Adventures of the Whistling Skull is a thoroughly modern book with dark, twisted roots. Its pulp inspirations are buried in landfills with original copies of PHANTOM DETECTIVE and WEIRD MYSTERY, but the book digs a little deeper into its characters than your grandfather's pulps ever did. And in our world, a guy who wears a skull for a face is the closest thing to normal you'll find." – B. Clay Moore (via C2E2 Day 2: Crowds, CASANOVA, Whistling Skull | The Beat)

This sounds like a...

"According to today's yesterday's ICv2 White Paper panel at C2E2, digital comics —..."

"According to today's yesterday's ICv2 White Paper panel at C2E2, digital comics — namely digital comics for mobile devices — brought in at least from $500,000 to $1 million in 2009. Most of those comics were sold on the iPhone or iPod Touch, with growing numbers on Sony's PSP, along with a few other devices. Given that most of distribution systems from the iPhone were in place on the more-than-500,000-sold iPad at launch, that number is expected to grow in 2010."

- ICv2 Panel: Digital...

The first time I rode out into the middle of nowhere Kansas I...

The first time I rode out into the middle of nowhere Kansas I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I did have a kind of attack, a panic attack. That was a while ago though; I don't have panic attacks anymore. I got treatment. I worked through it, mostly. I can still feel them floating just around the edges when I drive for too long. I never really enjoyed driving.

The thing about Kansas that I thought was going to kill me as the sky.

We never traveled when I was a kid. We were too poor. ...