What was the biggest comics industry story in 2025?
The whole Diamond Distribution mess, hands down. I saw some folks answer the attacks on free speech; those are absolutely a big deal and indeed a much larger story... but it's also much larger than just the comics industry. We have indeed seen cartoonists' speech clamped down on in 2025, and I don't think that should be taken lightly, but they weren't singled out any more than any other journalists. So the entire Diamond Distribution saga -- everything from the original Chapter 7 to driving publishers out of business to newer distributors trying to fill the gaps to lawsuits about back stock and payments to... -- that strikes me as the biggest comics industry story of 2025.
What will be the biggest comics industry story in 2026?
2025 was insanely turbulent just in general. Not only was distribution radically disrupted, but publishers has to figure out on-again-off-again tariff issues repeatedly as many of their vendors and suppliers had radical shifts in how much they had to charge thanks to that walking shitstain in the White House. On top of which, we're in a Jenga-style economy where a single nervous brick can spell disaster. All of this means a great deal of business uncertainty. To mitigate that, I think publishers are going to lean into known quantities and we will see a large number of licensed and cross-licensed material. We're going to see more Batman/Deadpool type books. I recall seeing an announcement about a Fantastic Four/Planet of the Apes crossover for early in the year already. We're going to see more publishers farm out previously licensed material to other publishers as well -- Titan just announced they're going to put out an omnibus edition of some of Marvel's Conan comics. There's going to be a lot more blurring of lines of who's allowed to print what characters because publishers are looking for more known quantities that have an inherent fanbase built in from another IP holder.
What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2026?
I don't harbor guilt about any of the pleasures I indulge in. I don't hide something I like or feel embarrassed about liking it because I'm not the intended and/or typical audience.
That said, I haven't seen/heard about any upcoming comics projects that I'm especially excited about. I still enjoy the comics I regularly read, but I'm not aware of anything out of the ordinary in the works there. I have seen several announcements about some upcoming action figures from Fresh Monkey Fiction that have me pretty interested, though. They have a not-Buckaroo-Banzai they've shown off a prototype for, and there are some digital renders of their Red Riding Hood that could be easily repainted into an Alice in Wonderland. (I'll do the custom myself if they don't make an official one.) Plus they're planning on some generic thug/criminal types characters that will be useful as well. I've been happy with the handful of their figures I already have, so I'm looking forward to seeing what things materialize from them.
Do you have a local comics shop? What do you like (or love) about it?
I haven't done a local comic shop since COVID started. I'm still very concerned about my health and try not to go anywhere I don't have to. Virtually all of my comic purchases these days come from either MyComicShop.com or Bookshop.org. Between the two of them, pretty much everything is available and it's all delivered to my front door, so I don't have to worry about catching COVID again just in order to read some new comics.
Over the weekend, I re-watch Charlie Chaplin's film Modern Times. I'm not a huge Chaplin fan -- his Tramp character is a jerk to everybody, and he often punches down from even his lower position as a tramp -- but Modern Times does offer some interesting commentary on life here at the end of 2025. Working in a job that drives him crazy, dealing with automation, a wealthy business class that idles away their time in the office while simultaneously yelling at employees to work harder and faster... the parallels are easy to spot.
What stood out in this viewing, though, was that Chaplin's boss at the start of the movie is 'busy' putting together a jigsaw puzzle in his office while the workers toil away on the factory floor. The boss soon tires of the puzzle and reaches for the funny pages of the newspaper. And what is plainly visible is a full page showcasing the Tarzan comic strip...
I did some digging but couldn't pinpoint which specific installment it was, but Dave was able to help me out and discovered it was the October 7, 1934 strip...
That's a Sunday strip, of course, and it was Hal Foster doing the artwork at that time. While the daily strip had begun in 1929, the Sunday strip had only been running since 1931. It had been started by Rex Maxon, but Foster took over the Sundays beginning on September 27, 1931 and stayed on them until 1937 when he left to start Prince Valiant.
Modern Times began filming on October 11, 1934 so it seems likely this particular scene was one of the earliest ones shot and they simply used the most recent Sunday paper that was available. If filming had begun much later, they likely would've needed more lead time to prep the paper. You see, in the earliest 'talkies' the sound engineers had a lot of difficulty with newspapers. The microphones were either so close/sensitive that they picked up all the paper rustling noises that would overshadow people's voices, or the microphones were so far away/weak that they couldn't even capture people speaking in the first place. There was some time, then, where any large papers used on film were basically soaked to dampen the rustling noises.
(One of the films where this abundently evident -- to me, at least -- is in the Marx Brothers picture The Cocoanuts. The large map Groucho holds during the viaduct/vy not a chicken joke is visibly drenched. The Cocoanuts was technically a few years before Modern Times so things may have improved by the time Chaplin was filming but he wrote and directed it like it was a silent picture, having all of the sound added in afterwards. This was an artistic choice on his part; he felt that having the Tramp speak would ruin much of the character's appeal. But as a side benefit to this, he didn't need to worry about how loud the newspaper rustling might be since there was no audio being recorded during filming in the first place.)
In any event, I find it interesting/entertaining to come across older movies and shows that feature comics as background props, and see if I can track down what exactly they are. (Although obviously this time, I had some help! Thanks again, Dave!)
What stood out in this viewing, though, was that Chaplin's boss at the start of the movie is 'busy' putting together a jigsaw puzzle in his office while the workers toil away on the factory floor. The boss soon tires of the puzzle and reaches for the funny pages of the newspaper. And what is plainly visible is a full page showcasing the Tarzan comic strip...
Modern Times began filming on October 11, 1934 so it seems likely this particular scene was one of the earliest ones shot and they simply used the most recent Sunday paper that was available. If filming had begun much later, they likely would've needed more lead time to prep the paper. You see, in the earliest 'talkies' the sound engineers had a lot of difficulty with newspapers. The microphones were either so close/sensitive that they picked up all the paper rustling noises that would overshadow people's voices, or the microphones were so far away/weak that they couldn't even capture people speaking in the first place. There was some time, then, where any large papers used on film were basically soaked to dampen the rustling noises.
(One of the films where this abundently evident -- to me, at least -- is in the Marx Brothers picture The Cocoanuts. The large map Groucho holds during the viaduct/vy not a chicken joke is visibly drenched. The Cocoanuts was technically a few years before Modern Times so things may have improved by the time Chaplin was filming but he wrote and directed it like it was a silent picture, having all of the sound added in afterwards. This was an artistic choice on his part; he felt that having the Tramp speak would ruin much of the character's appeal. But as a side benefit to this, he didn't need to worry about how loud the newspaper rustling might be since there was no audio being recorded during filming in the first place.)
In any event, I find it interesting/entertaining to come across older movies and shows that feature comics as background props, and see if I can track down what exactly they are. (Although obviously this time, I had some help! Thanks again, Dave!)
Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...
Joe Sinnott, dressed as Santa Claus. 'Nuff said!
Today, I'm just going
with Christmas-themed comics I
don't have. (Obviously, this is nowhere near exhaustive!)
