heidi macdonald

The weekend is here! Put down your paperwork, throw your stationery out of the window, and do a victory spin in your office chair, because it’s time to catch up on that greatest of all media: comics! What’s been going on this week? There’s so much comics that there’s no way anybody can keep up with all of it — so Weekender is here to catch you up on some of the stories you may have missed, and some of the best writing about comics from the past few days.

The big story of the week is the acquisition of leading digital comics retailer ComiXology by Amazon.com. ComiXology has facilitated over 200 million downloads of digital comics, making it the largest provider of American comic books from nearly every major publisher as well as small press and independent creators. Amazon.com is one of if not the biggest retailers of, well, everything in the world, including a leading seller of digital content in the form of music, video and electronic books. What does this acquisition mean for Comixology and the American comic book industry as a whole? To address these questions and ask even more besides, Senior Editor Andy Khouri is joined tthis week by Heidi MacDonald, Editor-in-Chief of comics news and culture site The Beat; Matt D. Wilson, ComicsAlliance contributor and the writer of the digital comic book Copernicus Jones, Robot Detective; and Alison Baker and Chris Roberson, publishers of Monkeybrain Comics, an imprint with an exclusive digital distribution deal with ComiXology.

While the mainstream superhero comics audience remains predominantly male, it shouldn't be news to anyone reading this blog that women like comics, too. They write them, read them, draw them, blog about them and show up in healthy numbers at comic book conventions...