1. Moviefone’s Drew Taylor highlights ten good films you likely didn’t see in 2012, while Indiewire critics pick the ten best films you definitely didn’t see, because they went undistributed. Indiewire also warns you about the films you shouldn’t see, plus the site offers an A-Z summary of women in film in 2012 and an assessment of LGBT representation in American films of the year.

2. 2012 is looking like a best-ever year for Hollywood box office grosses, both domestically and internationally. Among the studios, Universal did have its best year ever. And among individual films, The Avengers easily takes the 2012 box office crown, while Zero Dark Thirty is heading toward the critics’ poll crown, followed by The Master.

3. The Economist Group has a slew of revealing digital publishing charts that look back on 2012, and while 2012 was a tough year for newspapers, some, like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, are at least still profitable, while the Washington Post’s multiplatform model may be one to keep an eye on in 2013. Newsweek’s shift to online-only status (ending not with a whimper but a hashtag) marked 2012 as a digital year for magazines, and most recently, Spin and the 126-year-old Sporting News announced they’ll only be available online in 2013.

4. Fifty Shades of Grey cleaned up in 2012 print book sales, and Amazon’s rankings show that Gone Girl put up a good fight too. The e-reader market shrunk noticeably this year, with tablet sales rising correspondingly. Apparently indie bookstores are still doing ok through all of this.

5. Billboard looks back on the year in music, one it calls tumultuous. According to iTunes downloads, it was a good year for Adele and Carly Rae Jepsen, while Britney Spears out-earned all other women in music.

6. VentureBeat has a series of bleak charts detailing 2012 video game sales. In brighter news, Mass Effect 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II sold well, while the game that people spent the most individual time playing was Borderlands 2. Back to bad news, Call of Duty is under scrutiny for the amount of time Newtown shooter Adam Lanza spent playing it.

7. YouTube had a big year, from news to ads to lip-sync vids to Gangnam Style. Looking ahead, we should keep an eye on Maker Studios, channel renewals, and Iran’s YouTube. Plus, as always in internet video, porn.

8. Google’s annual report on searching reveals the trends borne across 1.2 trillion searches in 2012. We also visited Google a lot in 2012 simply for the awesome doodles. Using all search engines, we apparently sought out Facebook the most (haven’t most of us found it already?). We also sought out a lot of GIFs.

9. Once we figured out where Facebook was, we talked about the presidential election and Duck Dynasty a lot there. Even dead people found things to like on Facebook. Over at Twitter, its year in review offers a personal perspective, and over 200 million users are now laying the groundwork for 2013’s results.

10. News for TV Majors has its own Best of 2012 critics’ lists post, and here are some other informative posts from the past two weeks: Value of Older Demos, Mazzara Leaving Walking Dead, Hulu’s Direction, Nielsen Twitter TV Rating, ABC Making C7 Deals, TWC Dropping Ovation, Nielsen Buys Arbitron,  Newtown Impact, Media Violence, Newtown Analysis, Amazon Gets TNT Shows, Golden Globe Noms, Top Rated & Buzzed Shows, Regional Sports Surcharge, Ownership Vote Delayed.

1. The MPAA is touting findings that the shutdown of Megaupload was a huge blow to piracy while battling against research claims that box office revenues have been negatively impacted by Megaupload’s disappearance. Such anti-piracy rhetoric will step up a notch in January, thanks to a new initiative with internet service providers, and MPAA head Chris Dodd is turning to Silicon Valley for more help along those lines.

2. While plenty of Oscar bait is still coming down the pike, we now have the shortlists for live-action shorts and documentary nominations. Of the shortlisted docs, Searching for Sugar Man is gaining some early awards momentum. Among scripted films, Beasts of the Southern Wild impressed in Indie Spirit Award noms, Zero Dark Thirty turned on the National Board of Review, and the Gotham Awards rewarded Moonrise Kingdom.

3. Tax credits are again in the news, with New York job numbers showing a boost from production tax breaks and one small Georgia town experiencing revitalization thanks to production credits. However, one Michigan city is now on the ropes due to banking on tax incentives that the state subsequently eliminated. Back in Hollywood, LA production might be slowly on the rise.

4. Disney preceded its big Netflix deal with the announcement that it is shuttering its online movie service, offering a blow to transactional VOD prospects. It does seem like subscription streaming is coming to dominate, and along those lines, details are emerging about Verizon and Redbox’s upcoming Instant service, though we won’t see it until next year. Meanwhile, good old Blockbuster will now start selling mobile phones, because it has just about nothing else going on.

5. Internet ad spending will soon surpass ad spending in all newspapers and magazines, and a striking chart shows that the decline of newspaper ad revenue has outpaced the growth of Google’s ad revenues. That would be why the New York Times is trimming staff, as not even a paywall is making up the difference. A UK study says journalists are keeping their chins up, though.

6. With the death of The Daily, it’s clear that magazine apps are struggling. Will Richmond sees video as key for the future of magazines, while Jeff John Roberts thinks BuzzFeed might point the way toward a viable business model, with BuzzFeed’s CEO touting the value of social advertising over banner ads and hoping that branded content experiments will work.

7. YouTube is aiming for professional standards in everything from its new production facilities to its interface redesign, which enhances the focus on channels, along with funding channel marketing efforts and expanding onto airplanes and into Japan. This is working well enough that big media companies are seeking ways to get on board. (And pardon the plug, but some of us wrote here on Antenna recently about the new YouTube production facility.)

8. MySpace is planning to relaunch (again) and take on Spotify; well, it has to do something, right? iTunes just continues to expand, now reaching into 56 new countries (a Coalition of the Willing?). And Google just bought access to a mother lode of European music to boost its international Google Play and better compete with Apple and Amazon.

9. Nielsen has released a big state of social media report, which offers more data showing that people love to hang out on Facebook, while Pinterest has quickly become one to keep an eye on. And while it’s fashionable to make fun of Google+, it’s actually growing just fine. What’s sad is how Google derailed Reader while building Google+.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: Funding Gender Analysis, Freaks & Geeks Oral History, Netflix-Disney Deal, DVR That Watches You, Ownership Vote Delayed, TV is Exhausting, Twitter & TV Growth, TWC Threat, Walking Dead Ratings, CBS Research View, Spanish-Language Rebranding, Plot & Character in Homeland, Sports Costs,  Zucker Reaction, NBC Signs Fellowes, Local Time Shifting Soaring.

1. As mobile devices spread ever more widely across the globe, the White House wants federal agencies to make information more readily accessible online and especially through mobile apps. (Anyone up for a game of Angry Senators?) Right now, President Obama dominates challenger Mitt Romney on Twitter, though Romney does well in swing state followers.

2. Bad news continues to emerge about Google+, but Google seems to be ignoring all that, or missing the point, and perhaps missed the boat in not buying Twitter. Google did buy Motorola, which puts it in the hardware business, and the company is experimenting with everything from mobile photography glasses to cars that drive themselves.

3. It was also a challenging fortnight for Facebook, what with the worst IPO of the decade, a $15 billion class action lawsuit over user tracking, and GM blowing off its advertising value. Facebook is now stuck in a tough place between users and revenue needs, and its whole base could be built on a fallacy.

4. The Cannes Palme d’Or is awarded tonight. Such accolades don’t necessarily translate into box office success, but based on buzz, you can at least expect to hear more in the coming months about The Paperboy, Killing Them Softly, Cosmopolis, Amour, and The Hunt. There’s also buzz for films that premiered promos at Cannes, including PT Anderson’s The Master and Tarantino’s Django Unchained. Overall, though, word is that the festival was a subdued affair in the end.

5. It’s yet to be seen what Chinese ownership of the AMC theater chain might bring, but the man leading the purchase is making a big bet that there’s still value in American theaters, even as he really has the global market in mind. And this could be a sign of more buyouts to come.

6. The latest symbols of the newspaper business in crisis are the vulnerability of the New York Times, the New Orleans Times-Picayune making major cutbacks in print and talking vaguely about the digital future, three Alabama papers from the same owner cutting back to only three days a week, and the Denver Post showing that maybe copy-editors really are needed. Rich folks are still investing in papers, though, and some think fundamental ideological change is needed to save the form.

7. Not all magazine publishers are excited about the web, and one wonders where the concept of the controversial magazine cover goes after the death of print. Erotic books are enjoying a renaissance due to the privacy afforded by e-readers, which also have some DRM issues to work out.

8. A long-running illegal music downloading case will carry on for a bit longer after the Supreme Court declined to hear the defendant’s case. Meanwhile, in California, two men were sentenced to a year in jail for selling counterfeit CDs, while a case about pirated adult movies was dismissed due to uncertainty over IP address accuracy. And right-minded folk everywhere breathed a sigh of relief after Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” was restored to its proper place after a brief copyright takedown.

9. Spotify has added Aussies and New Zealanders to its roster of 20 million active users, and estimates of its value have reached $4 billion. Some think it’s Pandora that will truly change the music industry, though, and the increase in youth turning to internet radio bodes well for that.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: 10pm Drama Problem, Eurovision Host Issues, Girls Without TV, Auto Hop Lawsuits, Complete Season Ratings, Idol’s Drop, Simon’s Commencement Address, Season Winners, Women Writers & Pilots, Milch-Weiner-Gilligan Interview, Aereo Wins One, Dan Harmon Out, Upfronts Catchup.

1. EA was voted the worst company in America — even worse than Bank of America! — as gamers perceive it to be greedy — even greedier than Bank of America! This could be Mass Effect ending fallout, or much more than that, and EA is also on the defensive regarding its inclusion of LGBT content in games. The dreaded Family Research Council is partly behind this (actual quote from the group’s leader: “In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists!”) But some are accusing EA of exploiting this as a smokescreen to distract from its genuine worst company tactics. I bet Bank of America is happy it merely deals in our money and not our games.

2. Peter Knegt catches us up on how the specialty film box office has done so far this year — in short: not bad, not great — and there’s good news in a new indie film distributor joining the ranks called Adopt Films. Adopt foresees revenue ahead in video-on-demand, and those options have just expanded for indies via SnagFilms and Sundance. One just hopes VOD doesn’t help indie films online at the expense of local theaters.

3. Dreamworks has hit a rough patch, with Jeffrey Katzenberg losing money, layoffs to 10% of its staff and the resignation of the head of physical production, and the studio hopes a new financing deal with Reliance Entertainment and fewer films under production will make for a smoother road head.

4. DVD rental stores are dying, as we say goodbye to icons like Reel Life South in Brooklyn, while employees at Netflix get to take vacations whenever they want. Netflix has offered info on how its recommendation system works and also revealed it never bothered to use the algorithm it paid $1 million in a contest for because it doesn’t really need it, especially in the shift from DVDs to streaming. Poor DVDs.

5. YouTube is becoming a bigger player in online video thanks to a deal with Paramount and a pay-per-view option for live streaming, but Will Richmond questions its future as an online movie rental service. Many are questioning UltraViolet’s future, as it may be too late to tame Apple. Meanwhile, Amazon has resorted to juking stats to inflate its streaming reputation.

6. In an era when magazines are struggling and even the mighty NFL could keep one afloat for only four issues, it’s interesting to see 52 new magazines start up in the first quarter of this year. A new digital newsstand app could make for a healthy future for magazines on tablets, and newspapers are also getting excited about the tablet revenue model, but there’s still a huge gap between print and digital revenue to make up first. One also wonders how USA Today will slip its adaptive mobile app under hotel room doors.

7. 20% of Americans are curling up with e-books, and as many as 67% of libraries are lending them out, yet we’ve reached a state of uncertainty with the Apple pricing lawsuit. There are also concerns about how Google is treating independent bookstores with its decision to prevent them from selling Google e-books through their websites, and DRM technology isn’t helping indies either, while many are still trying to figure out if Amazon is altruistically helping small presses or not.

8. Spotify is stalling in US subscriber growth, but Glenn Peoples says people are disappointed just because their expectations were unfairly high. Plus, despite $60 million in losses, Spotify is expected to rake in nearly a billion dollars this year. It’s also looking to spread its influence more widely by offering embed codes for users to put songs on blogs and Tumblrs.

9. At least 20% of American adults are not reading WAYM because they don’t use the internet at all. But 61% of US households do have Wifi, so they have no excuse not to be catching up on their media industry news here. If someone were to hack into WAYM, it seems they’d most likely come from China. And Antenna is in good company, because most of the best blogs are on WordPress.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: Execs v. Audiences, More Sitcoms, Freaks & Geeks Walkthrough, Girls Coverage, Sympathy for Showrunners, 2011’s Biggest Moneymakers, Pay TV Costs, NEA Cuts Hurt PBS, Connected TVs, YouTube-Viacom Back On, Political Spending, Simon Criticizes Critics, Xbox Xfinity a Go, NBC’s Odd Ways, Peabody Awards.

1. The MPAA’s 2011 Theatrical Market stats indicate that domestic movie theater attendance continues to decline and not even 3D is helping anymore. Only international attendance offers good news for studios. Theaters are getting desperate, and some are answering some spectators’ stated desire to use social media during screenings, even the Alamo Drafthouse (approved screenings only). And live theater is getting into the act by setting aside “tweet seats.”

2. DVD rentals are plunging, and internet movie consumption is about to pass DVD consumption, which is a problem for the studios because they don’t make as much money online as from DVD yet. Studios insist people still want discs (though different ones for rental and sales), and even though Netflix seems to want DVD to die off, it has just bought the DVD.com domain (perhaps for Rickrolling purposes).

3. Digital magazines are flying off the shelves…er, screens, though digital circulation is still only 1% of total magazine circulation. Unfortunately, some are reporting that magazines look terrible on the new iPad, but people will seemingly keep buying anyway. In the e-book realm, sales are surging, especially among young readers.

4. The RIAA reports that subscription music services are starting to rake in revenue, even as Spotify, whose valuation is growing, extends its free US usage. Indie bands are turning ever more to advertising to bring in revenue, and indie beers are seeking out indie bands. But Weird Al Yankovic is going the old-fashioned route: suing a music label for underpayment.

5. The next Xbox could be a stripped down version, which is interesting in light of the fact that Xboxs are apparently used more now as entertainment centers than game consoles. In terms of mobile gaming, our mobility doesn’t go much further than our beds, which means millions are playing Angry Birds Space before bedtime.

6. Racist tweets can land you in jail, profane tweets can get you kicked out of school, Chinese tweets can let you say more (poor Spaniards), and promoted tweets can make people leave Twitter. But movie tweets can’t really tell us much of anything.

7. The internet economy now constitutes 4.7% of the US economy, and growing, but a judge ruled that unpaid Huffington Post bloggers don’t deserve a cut of any of that. Bots, Democrats, Santorum searches, and stupid AOL sites are clearly vital to the internet economy, though.

8. Nielsen stats and many mobile ad execs say the smartphone race now comes down to Android vs. Apple, with Apple coming on especially strong lately, while RIM (Blackberry) is struggling. We’re increasingly using our smartphones, tablets, and computers on airplanes, leading some to call for the FAA to review its gadget policies. Just don’t leave your phone in the seat back pocket, or you’ll be just another statistic among those who lose $30 billion worth of smartphones each year.

9. Google and Twitter are running into potential censorship issues in the UK in regard to privacy, while thousands of BitTorrent clients are having their identities revealed thanks to a suit against an illegal UK porn site brought by Ben Dover Productions (I couldn’t resist adding that detail) and other porn producers. In less dirty (if not sanitary) UK video news, Charlie’s family has now banked $500,000 from the viral popularity of Charlie biting his brother’s finger (though when you consider that it’s the most viewed amateur video on YouTube in the site’s history, that doesn’t sound like that much).

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: Olbermann Out, News Corp Accused of Sabotage, CBC Cuts, Premium Channel Revenue, Dodgers Bill, Cable Ratings Drop, Xbox Update, FX’s Risks, End Recaps, Variety For Sale, Smash Will Return, Aereo Likely to Lose, Network News Adds Viewers, Nielsen Measuring TV & Online.

1. With indie movie theaters fighting for their lives against the big chains, and indie distributors continuing to struggle for profits, some argue the future of independent films lies in video-on-demand, a route which Lars Von Trier’s new film Melancholia is trying out (just don’t ask Von Trier to comment on it). Netflix may or may not be the future for indies (at least one indie filmmaker likely feels definitely not). Maybe the future lies in serving booze, like at the Alamo Drafthouse, which is looking into new LA and NY outlets. They can save time by not looking into Utah, where a theater got fined for serving alcohol during a film deemed sexually explicit (The Hangover Part II. For real.).

2. Hollywood films are increasingly getting the video-on-demand and online release treatment, with Paramount making the latest Transformers movie available to rent on its own website and UltraViolet finally launching next week with Horrible Bosses. But while those films have had standard theatrical windows, Universal is poking the theater owner hornet’s nest by planning to release Tower Heist on VOD only three weeks after its theatrical debut. The Cinemark chain says it will refuse to screen the film in protest, but Will Richmond says the VOD charge for the film – $59.99! – is likely to make it a flop anyway.

3. None of these Hollywood stories are related, but they all interest me so they all get included: Lions Gate STILL can’t shake Carl Icahn, the MPAA reversed a content rating ruling on an upcoming drama, most of the Hurt Locker file-sharing defendants are off the hook, religion-focused films are on the rise, the foreign language Oscar race already has its usual share of controversy, a woman is suing Drive’s distributor for false advertising and racism (no, really), and the Academy might finally build a film museum in LA (no, really).

4. iTunes is spreading even further across Europe, and Apple is also working on global cloud-music rights. Rhapsody has acquired Napster in a bid to better compete with Spotify, and in Sweden, music piracy has dropped since Spotify arrived, illustrating that people are willing to pay if the service is worth it (and overall sales in the US happen to be up this year), while one new label is going to give out its music for free.

5. Nielsen scoured social media to come up with a list of the top 20 video games on holiday wish lists. Music video games are no longer high on such lists, though Rock Band is still picking up likes. Not picking up likes is Bill Bennett, who says gaming is destroying our country’s manhood.

6. Magazines are having to adapt to the mobile age. Spin, for one, is reducing its print run and expanding its online presence. Others are trying to get on board with the Kindle Fire. But one expert argues magazines might ultimately see their lifeblood – advertising – threatened by Facebook. Apparently Vogue is doing something right, because it’s been named Ad Age’s Magazine of the Year. (Apparently magazines don’t do much from October through December.)

7. Twitter is either doing well: over a thousand more advertisers on board than last year and ad revenue predicted to grow by 210%. Or it’s falling apart: internally it’s a mess and morale is low. A lengthy NY Mag profile of the company fittingly notes that anxiety and optimism are found in equal measure at the company. Maybe Twitter can measure it own mood as well as it can the world’s.

8. Tumblr is the latest social media success story, now with more page views than Wikipedia and valued at $800 million. It’s no Facebook, which is now as big as the internet itself was in 2004 (but not as big in Brazil as it is in Singapore and elsewhere globally), but it’s making more noise than Google+, which claims that it’s a good thing there doesn’t appear to be a lot of action going on there.

9. Google is huge. Amazon is huge. Delicious is redesigned. Chrome is catching up. Open Range is dying. Diggnation is dead.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors (@N4TVM) posts from the past two weeks: Canadian Cancellation, BBC Cuts, Behind TOLN, Fox News Reflection, Hulu’s Problem, Future of TV Report, MTV Remade, Spectrum Fight, The ESPN Dilemma, Cable A La Carte, More Screens Are Better, GLAAD Report,  FX Ad Drama, News Study.

1. Remember how I said in every spring post that Spotify was coming to the US and it never came? Well, wouldn’t you know it, while WAYM was away, Spotify finally draped itself in the Stars and Stripes! Not surprisingly, Spotify has started out strong, is on track for its very first profit, and could pose a threat to iTunes. Meanwhile, Pandora says Spotify’s launch hasn’t affected its service, which despite posting losses is growing in revenue, and Pandora’s ad rate potential is even getting into traditional radio territory.

2. Lots of lawsuit and negotiation news in the music biz lately, including a Village People singer suing for copyright credit, artists like Bruce Springsteen getting a shot at reclaiming ownership of recordings from labels, music publishers dropping a suit against YouTube, and AFTRA working on a new contract with labels. The most potentially impactful case for the future of music services came down last week, when a judge ruled in favor of EMI and against the online service MP3tunes but at the same time affirmed the legal foundation for music locker services like the ones Google and Amazon are fostering. The judge decided these services don’t violate copyrights, but Peter Kafka says this mainly keeps the status quo for consumers. If you want to see status that is not quo, check out this pie chart animation of recording industry revenue from 1980 to 2010.

3. Another big event WAYM missed on hiatus was the new Netflix plans, and despite a lot of grumbling from consumers, James McQuivey says Netflix is still doing fine. Additional developments at Netflix include a kids’ section, rumors of a VOD rental option, and future expansion into Britain and Spain, a country which others have stayed out of because of struggles with piracy. We know DVD sales are plunging, but digital downloads and rentals aren’t doing so hot either. Amazon is touting new digital movie deals, but Wal-Mart’s Vudu has zipped past it in market share, and Miramax is trying out Facebook, which is now ranked third as an online video destination.

4. The lineup for the Toronto Film Festival, which runs from Sept 8-18, has been released, and indieWire highlights some of the surprises among films that won’t be there. This summer’s specialty hits included Midnight in Paris and Senna, while The Worst Movie EVER! turned out to have the most prescient title ever, at least box office-wise. Unfortunately the economy doesn’t bode well for indie filmmakers, so the Weinsteins are looking to Broadway to make more money, and you can check record stores (if they still exist in your area) to find David Lynch.

5. A Disney executive admitted that studios don’t care at all about story when it comes to tentpole films, which makes it extra hilarious that Disney’s Lone Ranger reboot with Johnny Depp has been shut down because of a sky-rocketing budget. Same deal with Universal’s Ouija Board film. Just a thought: Maybe shooting for a good story would be cheaper. If those projects get cranked back up again, the writers might want to consult Sean Hood’s essay about what it feels like to have your film flop at the box office. And apparently the Chinese don’t care about story either, because Hollywood is really making a push into that market.

6. According to Nielsen stats, older people are increasingly using tablets and eReaders. That has to be good news for Reader’s Digest, which is now on the iPad. It’d be great if the olds would read digital comics too, which are now available via a digital storefront initiative. While some fear that the book’s days are numbered, Paul Carr argues that eBooks are helping to make this a Golden Era of books, and he also doesn’t see books suffering from piracy issues. eBooks may suffer from over-pricing issues, though, as a class-action lawsuit against Apple claims. But if you want to over-pay for good old-fashioned magazines, there are plenty still on shelves.

7. Big computing news in HP dropping out of the tablet business, which led to a TouchPad fire sale. Plus HP might spin off its PC business, which Erica Ogg sees as a sign we’re at the end of the PC era, and others see as a sign that HP is a poorly-run company. Most companies involved in mobile device manufacturing are busy suing each other over patents, while mobile phone users are busy texting and picture-taking, and nearly a third of young adults are busy pretending to have phone conversations so as to avoid talking to nearby humans.

8. Google+ is the new social media service on the scene, which Facebook claims not be worried about, especially since it saw record traffic in July. Some say Facebook really should be worried, as it’s in danger of losing even more rich suburban parents. At least it’s got the millionaires over Twitter, and the celebrities still haven’t found Google+ yet, but all social media still has about 50% of America yet to get on board for anything. Just don’t ask all of Germany to get on board with the “Like” button.

9. Video game sales were way down this summer, with July bringing the lowest sales numbers in nearly five years. Sales are about to get even worse at GameStop, which has angered some consumers by yanking a coupon from sealed game boxes after determining it favored a competitor. And a planned videogame museum is on the ropes. At least Xbox Live seems to be doing well, and Angry Birds is headed for 1 billion downloads and even better gameplay.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors (@N4TVM) links from the past two weeks: Louie’s Magic, RIP iTunes TV Rentals, Summer Viewing Up, TV Ad Problems, British Timeshifting, Fox Defending Wall, TWC Uses Slingbox, Shorter Seasons, Doctrine Gone, State of Network TV, Future Trends, Real Housewives Tragedy, Google Buys Motorola Mobility, Breaking Bad Renewed/Ending.

It wasn’t the first time a comic book character’s death had been announced by mainstream (rather than specialized or pop culture-centric) news sources. When DC Comics killed off Superman in 1992, the issue, which was vacuum-sealed in an opaque plastic bag for secrecy (and collectability), made waves in the news media. Likewise, when Marvel killed off Captain America in 2007, the news spread across the internet like wildfire the morning the comic was published. And deaths aren’t the only comic book events that receive media coverage. In the past few years alone, headlines have sprung up in mainstream news venues about Archie marrying Veronica, Captain America carrying a gun, and Wonder Woman wearing pants. In each example, the news hit the wire before the issue in question was available for purchase – in the case of Johnny’s death, more than 24 hours before comics’ usual Wednesday release date, and hours before any stores would open for the early, unofficial Tuesday release of Fantastic Four #587.

The comic book industry is a small one with a tiny core audience, and it’s not shocking that companies like Marvel, DC, and Archie would harness the power of the mainstream press to try to get new bodies into the specialty shops where comics are near-exclusively sold. Fantastic Four #587, like the Death of Superman, was placed in a vacuum-sealed “polybag,” a practice reserved in the past for so-called “collectible” issues that largely went out of favor after the burst of the speculation bubble in the 1990s. The companies assume (correctly) that non-readers will hear the news and buy the issue out of an (erroneous) assumption that its “special event” quality will make it valuable years down the line, thus briefly spiking the company’s profits. And if even a handful of those potential collectors spots something on the comic book shelf that makes them come back the next week and the week after that, the corporate logic goes, so much the better.

What is more surprising, though, is the mainstream media’s treatment of these stories as legitimate, reportable news events, rather than as spoilers for serial narratives. I can’t imagine a scenario in which the Associated Press would report spoilers for a death on LOST before the episode aired, or the death of a Harry Potter character before the release of the sixth or seventh book. While rumors, advance reviews, and other easily-accessible sites for spoilers on the internet are commonplace, the mainstream news generally avoids directly reporting such information, at least until the general public has gotten the opportunity to consume the piece of media in question. But news organizations possess no such qualms about spoiling comic books.

This raises questions about the strange place that comic books occupy in the cultural landscape. The most popular comic book superheroes are some of the oldest, most iconic fictional characters in modern America, cultural strongholds from the 1930s through the present. Yet circulation of comic books themselves in the 21st century is pitifully low – a comic that sells 100,000 copies in 2011 is a blockbuster, and the average American is more familiar with the heroes through movies, cartoons, and merchandise. As a result, the news reports play to the lowest common denominator, revealing the key events in the comics without providing any context and sending the curious to comic shops to pick up an issue that will make absolutely no sense to anyone who has not been following the serialized story. A non-reader would never know that Archie’s marriage to Veronica was simply a fantasy of one possible future, that the gun-slinging Captain America was not Steve Rogers but his sidekick, former brainwashed assassin Bucky Barnes, or that Johnny Storm died at the culmination of a long storyline involving alien invaders from another dimension. The only people who wouldn’t be confused by these things are the regular comic book readers – the very people who find the pervasiveness of the spoilery news stories so frustrating.

But for the news media, confusion about the narrative is not a concern, because the news media does not treat comics as narrative. Comics are periodicals, both in form (floppy, stapled pages of content and ads) and release structure (monthly or weekly), and the treatment of comic books by the media can be compared much more readily to its treatment of magazine periodicals than its treatment of television shows or book sequels. In the current digital climate, news of a celebrity having a baby or coming out of the closet hits the wire long before the physical issue of People hits the stands, no matter how allegedly exclusive the content. Comics, as conceptualized by the media, are no different – they are merely magazines reporting news from another universe, a universe full of players as beloved and well-known as Gwyneth Paltrow or Lance Bass. One needn’t be a diehard *NSync fan to be curious about Lance Bass’s sexuality, and, likewise, one needn’t be a comic book reader to care about what happens to the Human Torch.

The difference, however, is that despite the iconic status of their characters, the periodical status of their form, and the small size of their audience, comics are narratives, narratives lovingly constructed by hard-working writers and artists. In a spoilery media culture that ignores story for the sake of shallow reporting on the status of fictional people, that’s the fact that threatens to gets lost in the shuffle. Superhero comic books have long struggled for cultural legitimacy, fighting the derisive “Wham! Biff! Pow!” headlines, and as long as the American media landscape (not to mention corporate marketing departments) treats them as news delivery mechanisms rather than stories, that struggle will continue.

1. Positive internet news: YouTube is testing a streaming platform for live video, Dan Savage has created a YouTube channel to provide support for gay teens, online video is sparking innovations, CAPTCHAs might be getting somewhat less annoying (though only if you find ads somewhat less annoying than unreadable text), and an adorable baby photo has gone viral.

2. Less positive internet news (plus one big software story I had to fit in somewhere): A court ruling has gutted the first-sale doctrine in regard to software, the free Wi-FI in NYC parks deal turns out to be lame and a corporate giveaway, Google seems to be acting evil, and web spam is spreading. Those 21% of Americans who aren’t online get to avoid all that spam, but then they also miss out on WAYM too, so sounds like a wash.

3. The New York Times has developed a hyper-local blog focusing on the East Village, and Alex Wilhelm thinks that such blogs, including those organized within AOL’s Patch, are newspaper killers. Apple is developing an iPad subscription plan for newspapers, and another Murdoch newspaper, the tabloid News of the World, is going behind a paywall, but Gordon MacMillan thinks paywalls are news blog killers.

4. The American Society of Magazine Editors has selected the 12 best magazine covers of the year, though such covers apparently are decreasingly appealing to affluent Americans, whose magazine readership has dropped by 16% in the past year. One affluent-targeting mag, Forbes, has undergone a redesign, while Jeff Bercovici thinks the Wall Street Journal is redesigning itself into a print Fox News.

5. Spotify has garnered 10 million users thus far without even tapping into the US market, though the vast majority of those users use the free ad-based service rather than subscribing. Google’s idea for a music service involves a $25 yearly subscription to store your music, and while Radiohead would likely be in favor of such an iTunes alternative, the band sees a lot of digital music shortcomings. The Metropolitan Opera has figured out an effective way to effectively exploit live digital distribution, and if you hate digital music altogether, you’ve still got a few great vinyl and CD stores to kick around in.

6. Video game anniversary time again: Super Mario Bros. is 25, a birthday which Nintendo celebrated with a neat ad. Nielsen says in-game ads are effective for real-world products, and another study says action games can help you make faster real-world decisions. Fears of real-world effects are driving parents to support a contested California law that limits violent video game sales, but Hollywood is uniting to battle against it. Also drawing controversy is an upcoming Medal of Honor game set in Afghanistan that lets you play as the Taliban.

7. Warner Bros. readied its plans for the future with some executive shuffling and extending, and the company is moving DC’s multimedia production to LA, part of a bigger role for DC in WB’s future. Lionsgate now has a future on the web, Disney’s top internet exec has to find a new future, MGM might have an Indian future, and the Hollywood Reporter definitely has a glossier future.

8. Strong but sensible deals for specialty films at the Toronto International Film Festival led Deadline’s Mike Fleming to optimistically consider the indie biz back, but Ted Hope points out that indie cinema still needs to find ways to appeal to youth culture. Tax incentives in Michigan have helped out indie directors, but the state’s net loss on those incentives is causing some to question their viability. A new partnership between Lionsgate and Televisa will hopefully help the viability of Hispanic-focused films.

9. Blockbuster’s bankruptcy is official; Ryan Lawler looks back on how it all came to this and wonders if the new Blockbuster will be able to compete. Meanwhile, Redbox is expanding further into convenience stores and Netflix is expanding into Canada (though with one embarrassing misstep), offering a streaming-only service that might be an option in the US soon too. Some studio execs believe the DVD sales market is stabilizing and Robert W. Butler notes that DVD’s not dead yet, but Best Buy shirking DVD for the holidays won’t help, nor will iTunes movie downloads that include extra features.

10. Some good News for TV Majors posts from the past two weeks: prime-time network ratings for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday; Zucker Out, CNN Prez Out, Colbert to Congress, Cord Cutting is Real, Good TVeets, Streaming Pirates, The Schedule Still Matters, ATWT Ending, Stewart-Colbert Rallies, My Interactive Generation.

1. This time around, the video game anniversary of note is the Playstation, which has turned 15, and Joystiq celebrates with gifts of not just one but two infographics. This also makes it a good time to ask if classic video games still hold up. We’ll see if Madden on Facebook will hold up. I’m 100% certain The Room Tribute Flash game will; how could it not?

2. The music industry continues to struggle with sales, and while on iTunes music is still central, apps downloads may soon surpass song downloads (though The Oatmeal has a great cartoon about how we really feel when buying apps), and music labels aren’t cooperating with Ping but are cooperating with Google. Maybe Iron Maiden has the solution to the music industry’s problems.

3. Paste Magazine was among the print casualties this fortnight, and Arthur Sulzberger announced the New York Times would be one someday. Right now, newspapers are struggling to maintain their advertising share, and Gawker is beating all newspapers but the New York Times in online hits share, while Vogue is working to make both its print and online sources more advertiser friendly, and Playboy has become more blind-reader friendly.

4. It’s Hollywood summer summary time: summer was slow, attendance was down, ticket price gouging was up, there were summer trends and summer winners and losers, but Kick-Ass wasn’t the loser many first thought.

5. In indie cinema, it’s been a good year for documentaries and a good summer for women in art house seats and behind cameras, but it’s been a tough summer for specialty crossover hits and a tough everything for Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote project. What it’ll be for I’m Still Here is being hotly debated.

6. Redbox hit its one billionth DVD rental, and now it’s looking to a new horizon: streaming. Google wants to compete in that realm too, one that has helped to make Netflix’s CEO a very rich man. Blockbuster actually has an advantage over the others in being able to offering certain rentals earlier, but it might not have the money to market that fact to consumers. iTunes and video-on-demand consumers can see Freakonomics earlier than even theatergoers can, and David Ehrlich believess such a model can actually help theaters in the end.

7. Twitter now touts 145 million registered users worldwide, but still has yet to truly go mainstream. It’s increasingly a key news platform, however (the Ford Explorer verdict story is especially striking), as well as a music industry factor, and for its alchemy with Werner Herzog and Kanye West (or so we presume) alone, we have to be grateful it exists.

8. Jaron Lanier doesn’t like social media forms; Pepsi loves them. Jim Louderback doesn’t like viral videos; Arcade Fire loves them. Nicholas Carr doesn’t like hyperlinks; Scott Rosenberg loves them.

9. The new Digg got criticized by old users and pwned by Reddit users, part of a larger trajectory of decline for Digg, which has responded to its latest problems by firing an engineer and asking users to chill out, while Reddit has responded by preparing for expansion. No matter who claims supremacy, it’s tougher than you might think to measure online traffic. YouTube Instant certainly got a lot of traffic, so much that YouTube’s CEO offered its undergrad student creator a job. Maybe he could help YouTube finally turn a profit.

10. Some good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: Bordwell Says Don’t Bother, Univision Wins 18-49, Please Don’t Call It a Recap, State of Network News, Ramadan TV, Too Much TV?, Smaller Channel Squeeze, Comcast Charity, Done Deal, Apple & Amazon News, TV the New Cinema?, Emmy Coverage.