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Barry Blair and Aircel Comics
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Independent
Barry Blair passed away earlier this week. A very talented writer-and-artist, he was one of the founders of Aircel Comics with the backing of Ken Campbell. The imprint got its name from Campbell’s refrigeration company. Barry had a house stockpiled with a number of artists eager to create comics and they were all put to work churning out books for Aircel with titles like Elflord, Samurai and Warlock 5.
For a couple of years their books were very successful and featured work by Blair, Pat McEown, Dale Keown, Dave Cooper, Jim Somerville, Guang Yap and others during the black and white boom of the mid-1980s. When the market soured, Campbell was eager to shed the imprint. Rather than shut it down, he made a deal with Malibu Comics President Scott Rosenberg to take it over. Malibu was the parent company to Eternity Comics.
As part of the deal, Malibu would run the imprint and Barry would provide 4 books a month - a new book every Tuesday either by him or his studiomates or in some form of collaboration. In addition, Malibu would also sponsor Barry’s green card - he wanted to move out of Canada to New York City and found a place in the shadow of the United Nations building. For a couple of years, Malibu published a wide variety of Aircel books - Barry’s own adventure books, Dave Cooper’s wild parodies, and even a Jim Somerville zombie book.
Read More 
| Bleeding Cool
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Female Force Series Includes JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyers
Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Editorials, Independent
Bluewater Comics recently announced a JK Rowling edition of their Female Force series, set for a December release.
Unfortunately for Harry Potter fans, Twilight creator Stephenie Meyers is ahead of that curve, having her own biographical issue released in November.
While I have not had the privilege of reading the Hilary Clinton nor Sarah Palin issues, I just can’t bring myself to give the series a chance. Maybe it’s the awkward art, or perhaps it’s just the title, Female Force—whatever it is, I can’t imagine as to why either sets of fanatics will be willing to shell out money for it. Let’s see if the Potterheads and Twihards prove us wrong.
Read More | E! Online
Doc Savage, Lester Dent and Hard Case Crime
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Reviews, Independent
You might already know Lester Dent. He’s the creator of Doc Savage (which he wrote under the pseudonym of Kenneth Robeson). Doc was a very successful pulp hero (and later star of a line of equally successful paperback reprints of his pulp adventures). Sadly, the magical success of Doc in the pulps has never transitioned well to neither comics nor the movies.
What you may not know is that Dent also wrote a hard-boiled crime novel called Honey In His Mouth. It doesn’t star Doc Savage.
One of my favorite publishers, Hard Case Crime, publishes hard-boiled crime paperbacks. Some of them are new, but some are reissues of old classics that are worth rediscovering again. Their backlist of stuff is incredible and includes works by Lawrence Block, Richard S. Prather, David Drake, Max Allan Collins, Roger Zelazny and Donald E. Westlake. All their books feature great cover paintings that recall the classic hardboiled style of paperbacks from a couple of generations past.
Read More | Hard Case Crime
Amazon Kindle-Gate: Purchased copies of Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 disappear
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Wireless / WiFi
I have no idea what to even say about this, other than that we are severely, severely disappointed with Amazon and how they are allowing their publishers to treat Kindle users. In a nuthsell, Kindle users who purchased George Orwell’s 1984 and/or Animal Farm found yesterday that those two titles had mysteriously disappeared from their Kindles, and that they were credited $.99 for each purchase. Why? That’s because the publisher decided that they no longer wanted to sell the books on the Kindle Store. Now, that’s all fine, but did they really have to take it away from those who had already made the purchase?
The Kindle edition books Animal Farm by George Orwell. Published by MobileReference (mobi) & Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell. Published by MobileReference (mobi) were removed from the Kindle store and are no longer available for purchase. When this occured, your purchases were automatically refunded. You can still locate the books in the Kindle store, but each has a status of not yet available. Although a rarity, publishers can decide to pull their content from the Kindle store.
Read More | Amazon Kindle Mysterious Orwell Refunds
Scribd Adds E-Commerce
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Internet
Pay attention, starving novelists. Scribd has begun beta testing an e-commerce platform to sell documents. The site, which already claims 60 million readers and millions of documents, will allow the publishers to set prices and DRM options, and receive 80% of the revenue. Scribd’s objective is to obtain new content and they plan to work on an iPhone app. Prices are currently set from $1.00 for a graphic novel to $5,000.00 for a market research report.
Hearst to Launch Newspaper e-Reader
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Misc. Tech
Publisher Hearst Corp. is intending to come out with an electronic reader for magazines and newspapers. While media group chief Kenneth Bronfin wouldn’t give out many details, he says that it is because of an investment that the company made with E Ink, the company that supplies Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader electronic ink technology. Hearst will sell the e-readers to publishers and receive a portion of the revenue. Look for the new device, which should be about the size of a standard sheet of paper, later this year.
Read More | Physorg
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