Virgin Comics shuts down New York office, whole operation next?

One of the panels Ben and I hit up at New York Comic Con was the Virgin Comics panel featuring the announcement of thier deal with Stan Lee. While it was awesome to see the godfather of comics, I was very skeptical about how things were going to work out. Attempting to launch a major comics line isn’t the easiest thing to do in this day and age, where if you’re not Marvel/DC/Image or a hip indy line, people aren’t going to take you seriously.

Well, part of my skepticism was warranted as Virgin Comics announced today they are closing their New York operation to move operations to their Los Angeles branch. From Newsarama via a Virgin press release:

“The Company is currently working with management to restructure the business and will release its future plans in the next few weeks.

Sharad Devarajan, CEO, said, “We remain excited about the business and partnerships we have built through Virgin Comics and are working towards a restructuring that properly takes the business forward. The decision to scale down the New York operations and concentrate on core activities is due to the current macro-economic downturn and is in no way a reflection on the dedicated and valuable employees we have had the privilege to work with.””

You can read the full Newsarama article here, but when you’re restructuring a comic line and closing down offices, that can’t be good. My guess is that by the next NY Con, Virgin will be deflowered and non-existent.

Dark Knight script reveals future of Harvey Dent…or does it?

Interesting read via VH1 today about whether Harvey Dent/Two Face dies or lives at the end of The Dark Knight. As the movie climaxes, we see Dent laying on the ground after taking a bit of a spill and soon afterward, there is a funeral for Dent. Of course, comic fans understand that characters can be revived at any time and that anything is explainable in our medium, continuity be damned.

However, The Dark Knight script went on sale the other day and during that scene, the following is written in the stage direction:

“Dent lies at the bottom of the hole, his neck broken. DEAD.”

As the article points out, people are speculating that means Dent is dead and not Two Face but take that for what it’s worth. So the question will continue to be asked with the announcement of the next Batman movie, who will be the villains?

NasonNotes: DC unleashes movie news, IPhone app, X-Men graphic tease

Some notes from a trip ’round the internet today:

-DC announces third Batman, relaunch for Superman, two additional films: No big surprise here as DC announced they are making a third Batman movie which will hopefully live up to the incredible box office the second film is currently doing. The film will be part of a four-pack of films DC is launching by 2012 in hopes of eventually building towards a Justice League flick.

What I thought was interesting was the admission that Superman Returns sucked and that they are relaunching the movie franchise to take on more of a ‘darker’ tone. For Superman? Dark? Are you kidding me? I can’t stand the Supes character and think that irreparable harm has been caused to this icon over the past 10 years…at least. I’m sure Ben will disagree, but they’ll have to do a lot to make me care about this relaunch.

-First comic book app for Iphone is coming: The IPhone is awesome, but I don’t know if I’d ever read a comic on it.

Another big X-Event?

-Marvel announces Spider-Man/X-Men mini: This looks interesting. Marvel announced a four-issue mini that tracks both entities through their careers from the start through current day. On the surface, it seems random but check out the info. Looks intriguing.

-Marvel releases interesting X-Men tease: Ben can speak more to this than I, but we might be on the precipice of another major X-event. Know those black-and-white Sin City-style teasers you’ve been seeing? Well, the House of Ideas dropped one featuring (we think) Gambit with the words ‘Have I ever heard of Jean Grey?’

Episode 2 – “Kirkmania!”

Everyone in comics is talking about the “Kirkman Manifesto” and we couldn’t wait to get in on the discussion.  In a special edition of Ben & Josh’s Near Mint Comic Show, the boys sit down to discuss Robert Kirkman’s mission statement, their reactions, and what it says about the state of comics.

Ben & Josh are moving but the Podcasts keep rolling …

With both of us moving in the next week, we knew it might be a while before we could get back “in the studio” so we released this conversation as it’s own Episode.  We’ll be following up with another full-length Episode in the next couple weeks featuring news, reviews, and a look ahead upcoming releases.

Ben rants on iFanboy

I’m not an online Ranter.  

I’m really not.  

But today, I just couldn’t help myself when Warren Ellis, Simone Bianchi and Axel Alonso teamed up to ruin my morning with a big bag of suck called Astonishing X-Men #26.  Read my review and check out what else I’m reading at iFanboy.

The first podcast is uploaded!

The first episode of Ben and Josh’s Near Mint Comic Show is now LIVE on ITunes and Switchpod! Rejoice!

Topics Include:

-Who are Ben and Josh?

-A discussion of our week’s pull list and what we’re excited/not excited to read.

-Some recent Top Picks of ours.

-Plenty of witty banter and side notes!

Click here to listen via ITunes or Libsyn.

Ben and Josh started a podcast…wait, who’s Ben and Josh?

If you stopped upon this site on purpose, thanks for doing so. If you’re here by accident, WAIT!!!!! Don’t go

Josh w/ Mark Guggenheim, Bill Heder, & Tom Brevoort at NY Comic Con 2008

yet!

Here’s the deal: my buddy Ben and I have been comics fans for years. We’ve collected, watched the various movies/cartoons and even attended a few Cons in our day and with backgrounds in media and entertainment, doing a podcast seemed like a natural progression. Ben was the driving force as he is a podcast fiend (zombie?) and is a technical whiz at setting everything up and making it sound great. Me? I’m just a Spider-Man fan that likes some other stuff, the perfect foil for my comics-addicted friend.

So that’s that. You can learn more about us by listening to our first ‘cast, now on ITunes or on Switchpod. New shows will be out every few weeks and we’ll post info about those and more here on our blog site.

Thanks for listening and Excelsior/Huzzah!

-Josh