Comic book creators are almost universally freelancers and so exist outside of the insurance provision that many of us are lucky enough to take for granted. Therefore, there is a need for a support system to help those creators who find themselves in need of help. The Hero Initiative is that support. In their own words they are…

The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book creators in need. Hero creates a financial safety net for yesterdays’ creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. It’s a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment.

This December the Initiative, in collaboration with DC Comics and legion of artists, have put together a fund raising project called the The Justice League of America 100 Project:

Backcover blurb: See 100 of comics’ greatest artists provide their take on comics’ GREATEST Super-Hero team – the Justice League of America! All these stellar artists drew original covers for DC Comics’ Justice League of America #50, which were auctioned off to benefit The Hero Initiative, the charity that provides for older comic creators in medical or financial need! Now they’re ALL collected her for the first time!

Hard cover and soft cover collections of the 100 are available from the Hero Initiative website. I fully recommend this collection as mine arrived in the post yesterday morning. There are a range of images from fully painted images so simple pencil sketches. My favourite probably has to be Mark Buckingham’s Aquaman and Atom piece.

Yes, you can see the each piece on the Hero Initiative website, but they look a LOT nicer in the real collection (nudge, nudge, hint, hint).

The auctions that the back cover blurb mentions are still on going. The first auction was on Dec 3rd at Meltdown Comics, but there are two more on Jan 20-22 at Tate’s Comics, FL and Feb 17-19th at Orlando Megacon. Details of which pieces are auctioned at which event are listed on the Hero Initiative website along with details of how to put down a proxy bid.

DC Comics have released their solicitations for month seven of the New 52 slightly earlier than normal because of the Christmas vacation. The big news is that Gene Ha is replacing Jim Lee. Calm down!, it’s just for two issues (one presumes its to give DC’s co-publisher a bit of a breather). Many of us half expected something like this would happen, but I am impressed that they’ve got an artist of Gene’s calibre to pitch hit for them. Gene Ha’s art last graced the interior pages of a Justice League comic in Justice League of America (vol. 2) #11, the issue which won the 2008 Eisner for Best Single Issue.

Gene Ha will pencil Justice League #7.  The splash at the stop of this post is the preview inks for pages 4 and 5 while the images below are pages 6 and 7. The story is a prologue to “The Villain’s Journey”, the new title’s first present day arc, which begins in Justice League #9 and features the return of regular artist Jim Lee.

Meanwhile, over in Justice League Dark, their regular artist Mikel Janin returns from his own vacation and takes us into a crossover with I, Vampire – the modern retelling of Andrew Bennett’s fight against his vampire kin.

Justice League (vol. 2) #7

• Credits: Writer: Geoff John; Artist: Gene Ha and Gary Frank; Cover Penciller: Jim Lee; Cover Inker: Scott Lee; Variant Cover Artist: Gary Frank
• Solicitation copy:Now that the team’s origin story is complete, starting with this issue we shift to the present-day Justice League! What has changed? Who has joined the team since? Featuring artwork by Gene Ha, the story also reintroduces the team’s greatest champion: Steve Trevor! Also starting in this issue: “The Curse of Shazam!” featuring a story by Geoff Johns and art by Gary Frank! Discover Billy Batson’s place in DC Comics – The New 52 as we reveal his all-new origin story!
• Published:12 March 2012
• Length:40-pages
• Cost:$3.99

Justice League Dark #7

• Credits: Writer: Peter Milligan; Artist: Mikel Janin
• Solicitation copy:Straight off the shocking events of last month’s I, VAMPIRE #6, vampires across the world have gone berserk, attacking anyone and everyone with a pulse. Fearing her apocalyptic vision of the future has come to pass, Madame Xanadu mobilizes the team to intervene. But everything the JL Dark members know about how to slay a vampire is useless, for the world has changed. It’s a crossover that had to be, continuing into this month’s I, VAMPIRE #7!
• Published:28 March 2012
• Length:32-pages
• Cost:$2.99

Justice League International (vol. 3) #7

• Credits: Writer: Dan Jurgens; Penciller: Aaron Lopresti; Inker: Matt Ryan; Cover Penciller: David Finch; Cover Inker: Richard Friend
• Solicitation copy:With the Signal Men defeated and Earth saved from certain annihilation, the members of Justice League International expected to bask in glory and appreciation. Such is not the case as a new threat, one far more dangerous than anyone dared suspect, emerges and attacks with dire results, forever altering the team and sending it in a bold, new and unexpected direction.
• Published:7 March 2012
• Length:32-pages
• Cost:$2.99

Batman Beyond Unlimited #2

• Credits: Writer: Adam Beechen, Derek Fridolfs, and Dustin Nguyen; Artist: Norm Breyfogle, Dustin Nguyen, and Derek Fridolfs; Cover Artist: Dustin Nguyen
• Solicitation copy:The excitement continues in this oversized title chronicling the adventures in the Beyond Universe and making their print debut here! One of Batman’s most explosive villains is back! In an effort to regain his status in the criminal underworld, however, he loses the one thing he loves best...and now all of Gotham may pay the price! The new Justice League Beyond adventure continues, as the League goes in search of AWOL member Micron – who may or may not have gone native while investigating Kobra! A larger, darker secret is about to be revealed...and it could spell doom for Earth!
• Published:21 March 2012
• Length:48-pages
• Cost:£3.99

Young Justice (vol. 2) #14

• Credits: Writer: Greg Weisman and Kevin Hopps; Artist: Christopher Jones; Cover Artist: Christopher Jones
• Solicitation copy:Aqualad visits Atlantis with Superboy and Miss Martian. But can they stop an insidious new menace that threatens to plunge the undersea kingdom into civil war?
• Published:31 March 2012
• Length:32-pages
• Cost:$2.99

John Siuntres has interviewed ex-Justice League of America James Robinson for his Word Balloon podcast about Robinson’s new Shade series and his upcoming Justice Society series. Robinson couldn’t say much about the JS, but did hint that he’d be following-up his development of Solomon Grundy from his appearances in Starman. As to the rest of the series, all he would say was:

It’s not what people are expecting, but hopefully they’ll come around to liking it.

He was also asked about his experience on the Justice League. He described writing the League as “tough” when navigating the shifting-sands of DC Universe events and reveals that he’d initially wanted Wally West as the team’s speedster and not Jesse Quick.

Interestingly Robinson reveals that, before the New 52 reboot was finalized, he and his League team were going to shift onto a second Justice League title while the main book went off in a different direction (presumably with Johns and Lee). Many of the elements we saw in his last issue, Justice League of America (vol. 2) #60 (Oct 2011), were to have been played out in that second title. Long time fans might remember that Robinson’s version of the Justice League was originally meant to have been a second League team running parallel to Dwayne McDuffie’s tenure on the main title. However, McDuffie was fired and Robinson’s series was turned into Justice League: Cry For Justice and he was drafted onto the main title as McDuffie’s replacement.

I’m liking the Shade series, but it feels like a hold over from the old DC Universe. It’s themes of legacy and generations don’t really fit with the bright, new forgetting-what-made-them-distinct New DCU.  In the podcast, James Robinson points out that books like Geoff Johns’ Teen Titans and Infinite Crisis, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, and probably also his own Starman series (or specifically the Jack Knight character) never happened in the new DC Universe. Which beggars the question that if the Knights were never Starman, does the Shade series even take place on the current Earth-Zero? Wouldn’t it better be set on Robinson’s new Earth-Two?

DC Exec John Rood has revealed DC’s best selling Digital Titles in the wake of their move to day-and-date digital distribution and its no surprise that the Jim Lee and Geoff Johns Justice League series leads the pack. The top ten are:

1. Justice League #
2. Batman #1
3. Detective Comics #1
4. Action Comics #1
5. JusticeLeague #2
6. Batman #2
7. Detective Comics #2
8. Justice League #3
9. Action Comics #2
10. Superman #1

Rood doesn’t given absolute numbers.

The headline is the list above, but its a comment about the ratio of digital sales to print sales that caught my eye:

But consistency is the right word — especially consistency in the digital end. There has been no shake up of numbers when you look at the percentage of physical sales by title. So if something is selling 6% of its physical sales digitally for issues #1 and 2, then it’s about 6% in issues #3 and 4. And if another title has been selling at 16% of print sales in the early titles, the latter titles have stayed at the same level. So there’s been no fluctuation. And the fact is that the makeup is largely the same and the performances you’ve seen in the data provided is largely the same in digital as it is in physical, yet we know from both anecdotal and primary research that this is a different audience. It suggests that the people might be different [for digital and print] but their tastes and their demos are largely the same.

On one level this is quite surprising, one would have naively have expected them to be different audiences with different habits, but is appears that their habits are actually the same. That is, the drop-off/gain-of readers is driven by the quality of the material and not by the medium that it was delivered by. It’ll be interesting to see if this changes over time as the digital audience – one hopes – grows.