I was perusing some of the other comic book sites recently and one thing I noticed over at CBR.com was that one of their listed sponsors was alexrossart.com, which is the site for comic book artist and painter Alex Ross. I spent some time at his site and one of the things that struck me was that he seems to have a very good business sense. Or he has at least hired someone with a very good business sense. His site is very polished, he has a good amount of recent updates, and is using his site as an additional revenue stream.

In that revenue stream, one of the things that caught my eye was the prelim and unused sketches Ross is selling. He has art that wasn't used for projects and first drafts of other sketches that went on to become covers or pages in comics. A very innovative idea in that some would toss out those sketches while here we see one trying to sell it as a one of a kind item.

Comic book creators are very much part small business owner, another part entrepreneur, salesman, PR agent, etc., etc., etc. You got to love what it takes to make it as a successful independent creator. Some excel at certain aspects of the business side of things while others bury their heads in the sand. One would appear to need at least a certain amount of all these things to truly succeed, or at least a whole lot of talent to make up for it.

Heritage Auctions is all set to break the World Book of Guiness Records for the price of a comic sold. They are expecting it to go over $350,000 and the comic in question is Detective Comics #27, the first appearance of Batman.

This latest auction, set to take place February 25-27, is a very exciting one for classic comic collectors. An enormous amount of high profile comic books are being offered up, such as Marvel Comics #1, Green Lantern #1, as well as comic strips and art such as the original cover to Thor #132 by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta. The cover to Thor #132 is set to start at twelve grand, which seems small since I've seen some recent cover art go for three to six thousand.

These classic comic books have two big things going for them. The nostalgia of an era where brand new characters and worlds were being created regularly and now the fascination of the kind of money it takes to secure them. We all have fantasies of finding such items at a garage sale or in our grandparents attic, and it is funny to hear that such situations are still occurring now and again. Keep your eyes peeled as that box in the attic may just contain a record breaking comic book.

You can see more about the auction at the Heritage Auctions site

Ah, Free Comic Book Day. It is such a delight for comic book fans to go to their favorite local comic book shop or two and pick up some free comics. We're already seeing some of the offerings, with Asylum Press putting out the latest with a sample from their lineup. Their comics are not for the young, or even the faint of heart, so I hope we avoid another Gordon Lee incident.

The full lineup of 2010 FCBD comic books are up over on the official FCBD site so go check them out and make a checklist of the ones you want to get and then give to spread the love of comics.

Marvel has taken on a pretty cool endeavor to help retailers know what Marvel titles to buy for their store fronts. For years, Marvel (and other publishers) would send out advance issues of their comic lines via UPS to comic shops all over the United States. Costly? You bet, but needed for retailers to gauge which comics they wanted as well as being a way to showcase to customers what comics were coming down the pipe.

Now, instead of getting a hard copy, retailers can access a new site that will allow them to preview the comics marvel produces online. For quite some time, comics have been moving to a digital format, with more and more of the process of creating a comic going electronic an this is just another aspect of that process. I know there will be those that say that reading it online is not the same as holding it in their hands, but it would seem that this is a win win for both retailers and Marvel. Marvel can save a lot of money by not sending out countless hard copies, some of which found their way onto auction sites, retailers can get an advance peek in a rather quick and painless fashion, there is less waste for the environment, I could keep going on.

I'm hoping to get a peek myself at the site, but you need a Diamond Distributors ID to get registered, so I'll just have to imagine it for now. Some publishers would have just cancelled sending previews to store fronts, so it was great to see Marvel take the step to put something else in place that serves not only retailers, but the bottom line as well.