Helping Hand

The comics biz is a small thing in the face of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Comics fans, creators and retailers are of course going to be affected by the tragedy along with everyone else, and the industry has responded as best it can to help the recovery.

DC Comics' senior VP of sales and marketing, Stephanie Fierman, says the publisher will help retailers get back on their feet by not charging them for DC items. The company also "will be announcing a comprehensive set of actions next week, after consulting with our customers,” Fierman says. Marvel officials, including editor in chief Joe Quesada, say the company is working on its own to plan to help out, while Diamond Comics Distributers announced plans to help affected comics retailers recover. Among creators, writer Peter David announced he'd donate his royalties from the upcoming Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1 to disaster relief. Other efforts include a charity auction at the Brian Michael Bendis message board, artist Rob Liefeld donating the auction proceeds from the original art to Teen Titans #27 and artist Jon Kovalic auctioning off art from his Dork Tower series.

Anyone who knows of additional efforts within the comics biz to help out the victims of Hurricane Katrina can email me at tmclean@reedbusiness.com and I'll post the links here. You can also go to www.redcross.org or www.operationusa.org.

BLOG PANEL REVISITED: For anyone who missed the comics blogging panel I took part in at Comic-Con in San Diego, blogger Ian Brill has a posted a recording of the panel. The sound quality's not the best, but you can hear most of what's going on.