Fanboy Rampage!!!

Courtesy of Dave Potter, the greatest eBay auction ever.

Park Cooper makes an impassioned plea:

"In the Hollywood movie Gigi, the guy loves Gigi because she's so sweet and natural and doesn't act like a mistress. He comes back later and they've taught Gigi how to be a first-class ho for him and he's appalled. (So my wife tells me-- wouldn't have thought of this metaphor myself.) This, right now, is Hollywood and comics. Everything magical and breathtaking is being destroyed because we're now trying to write comics in anticipation of what Hollywood wants instead of focusing on good stories. They loved us in the first place because we were something a little different and now we're trying to please them by being just the same. How can they cannibalize us if we're trying to cannibalize ourselves FOR them, with no faith in good storytelling or a bit of complexity? And comics acts like the lucky youth that Hollywood has decided to take to the prom. You dope. What they love you for is your originality, friend... they love you for your mind and heart. Don't go under the knife to change into 'the swan' you think your partner wants. It'll make Hollywood look elsewhere... Maybe you should start asking yourselves how long the Hollywood ride is going to last when we lose what we all loved about comics in the first place. Maybe you should vote with your wallet and take a stand for what made us great in the first place."

To which I say oh God, yes, and wonder if this ephiphany will change the reverential tone Park and Barb's column usually has for Mark Millar, one of the worst offenders of "wanting comics to be movies instead of comics" these days (if you ask me...)

Dave Dorman loses it spectacularly at Newsarama:

"Back Story: Renowned illustrator Dave Dorman, Alien and Predator are old friends, dating back 15 years ago to the days when Dorman was painting Alien v. Predator pieces to please the Dark Horse fans…today the threesome reunite for a chat for Newsarama. POV: We see the famed illustrator and two of his favorite creatures lunching at a local White Castle."

It gets odder. Go and see.

Cameron Stewart, the floor is yours:

"Over on the DC/Vertigo message boards someone posted a link to an online petition asking DC to greenlight the second (and eventual third) volume of Seaguy. It's kind of crass for me to solicit signatures (sorry), and I'm pretty skeptical that petitions, online or otherwise, will convince anyone - but hell, it's worth a shot, huh?If you want to read "Slaves Of Mickey Eye" as much as I want to draw it, go add your name to the list! Thanks!"

That Bryan Hitch backlash that no-one's really been waiting for? Seems to be here:

"I've been a huge fan of Bryan Hitch since I picked up issue one of The Authority many moons ago. In quick retrospect he is probably my favorite artist right after Planetary's Cassidy. But after hearing about volume 2 of The Ultimates being delayed until 2005 I'm beginning to (finally) lose patience. I'm all for a consistent artist working on a book, especially since I enjoy picking up all the harcover editions, but I think it's time for Marvel to search for a new star. Steve Micniven, Chirs Weston or even Stuart Immonen would be wonderful additions to The Ultimates. Allow Hitch to dram these Ultimate mini-series. Perhaps 4-6 issues is more in his league."

"I loved Hitch's stuff in Ultimates V1 - but I don't think that he's worth the delays. There are too many good artists out there who would probably give their right arm to draw this series....I just hope that they aren't right-handed if they do that. I agree - put him on mini-series. Give the Regular title to someone else."

"Nope, not worth it. I don't care how damn good he is, but the inconsistency and excuses ruined Ultimates for me, I can't even bring myself to read the already available issues. What I have read doesn't give me that same jacked feeling that I got from this book. I think MIllar is starting to get played out for me and I tend to prefer different writers now when Millar was one of my favorites for damn near two years..."

"Not worth the wait in my opinion. All the lateness of Ultimates vol 1 made me loose interest in the book so much that I was really disapponited in the way the last issue was wrapped up. After waiting for ever my expectations were to high and the pay off just wasn't there. I really could care less now if the book is ever gonna come out again. They are cool characters and I loved for the most part all the issues so far, but having to wait like this is just stupid, and I don't care about The Ultimates anymore."

Robert Kirkman talks about his upcoming relaunch of Marvel Team-Up:

"I like to think of it like a one stop shop for the Marvel Universe. I'll also be using it as a platform to use characters that Marvel might not think are strong enough to carry their own book, but are still cool enough to pop in from time to time. I'll be using damn near everyone in the Marvel U by the end of issue #25... [Artist Scot Kolins] and I are spring boarding on most of this stuff, and his input is invaluable. Between him, [editor] Tom Brevoort and I we're coming up with lots of cool stuff to do here. I'm trying to create some new villains with this series, so keep your eyes peeled with that. I don't think Marvel's had a good reoccurring villain come on the scene since the early eighties. I really want to put some more toys in the sandbox, new villains, new characters... I'm giving this book my all. Also, nothing is going to be contrived. We're doing big arcs, using large corners of the Marvel U, so each arc is going to seem like a massive Marvel event. I'm also going to be having subplots and layers upon layers of side stories going on in the book. So readers can buy issue 1 and follow along from month to month and get a rich, detailed tapestry of Marvel goodness month after month. I don't want people skipping issues when Speedball shows up. No matter who is in any given issue, if you've liked the book so far... you'll enjoy every issue. There's going to be a lot of stuff going on. Needless to say, I'm having a blast."

Millarworld get business-minded:

"What is the primary difference between the focus of [DC and Marvel] and their organizational structure in regard to producing the books? Can you describe their ideal consumer? Do they have the usual corporate ideals as far as mission statement and values? How similar/different are they? How do they maintain their core audiences and how do they build new audiences from a marketing standpoint? Is either group expendable in the future? Who does management answer to: parent companies or stockholders/investors?"

"This is a discussion I can get behind. As I told Johnny via PM, so long as this doesn't become a retard magnet, I won't delete posts or lock this. Don't post a list of what titles you're buying or start Marvel/DC pissing contests."

"One reason that Marvel's currently structured publishing empire could still go away is that the editorial/creative/publishing side of the company remains a large, costly bracket of staff that they have to keep under one roof, paid and fed and insured. And why should a company in these perpetually out-sourced times have to do that? They could easily sublicense to another publisher (anyone from Simon and Schuster to DC) and just reap the cash from that set-up. Joe Q and Millar and Bendis would all still have jobs, they'd just be getting their checks from a manufacturer/licensee instead of the licensor. If the comics growth spurt doesn't pick up the pace, though, you can bet the checks will be smaller. The entertainment industry is grow or die, just like anything else. And they could easily leverage ownsership in any concepts that come out of that kind arrangement. It's what Lucas does with his (comparably popular but privately held) character empire.

"I think the only reason Marvel still publishes their own stuff is the growth Jemas brough to the publishing side -- realizing huge gains because of a product gap in the trade paperback world. The 'font of intellectual property' side of the company has yet to pan out: barring dramatic change at the House of Ideas we'll never see another burst of 15-or-so industry dominating wholly new properties the way Stan oversaw in 62-65. There's just too much of a chance that something like that would fall flat eventually, giving way to the same old re-branding tactics (Ultimate, Marvel Knights, 2099)."

"To me, the largest difference seems to come from each company's ownership. DC is, as mentioned above, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., and so has - relatively speaking - extremely deep pockets, because if DC gets into any trouble, the option is (possibly) there to dip into WB funds. Marvel is it's own beast, however, and sinks or swims on its own. This is why, as far as I can tell, Marvel is so much more conservative with its production schedule. A Marvel book that sells 25,000 copies is in danger of cancellation; a DC/Vertigo title doing the same is perfectly safe."

"Marvel's burrent business model seems highly short-sighted to me. It comes accross as 'throw as many ancilliary concepts at the audience as we can, and sell the popular ones to hollywood' Anyone doubt that if Starjammers sells, we'll see a space opera movie with the Marvel branding and everyone's 'favourite' space pirates in short order? Problem is, Marvel aren't generating new characters - there's a great editorial in this week's Ninthart about how we're gonna see barrel-scraping Movie/TV projects - I personally can't wait for FORBUSH MAN VS WILLIE LUMPKIN THE MOVIE [...] Problem number 2 - the bulk of Marvel's audience don't want new characters- they're happy to see the latest iterations of Scott and Jean, or Peter and Mary Jane, or Steve and whoever his girlfriend (and for christ's sakes, the man's in his 80's at least- he should settle down), and don't bother picking up anything else. At least Marvel HAVE been trying new things of late - but for the most part it's just attempts to squeeze their current wares into the Manga niche."

Joe Quesada returns to his message board to get his house in order:

"My tolerance for stupidity is at an all time low so expect warnings to come quickly and bannings to come even quicker. I think compared to other boards we've done an okay job at keeping the trolls off or at least making them work hard to get in, but now the biggest problem we have is hostility, lack of tolerance and zero understanding. So, I'm going to ask this of all of you, STOP IT, stop it now. Please grow up and treat each others decently. I know that there are a few trolls out there who think it's cool be smart ass with me because they see me as the EiC, an authority figure, someone whose attention they normally wouldn't get outside of this board. But here's the breaking news, I could give a d@$% about them, so let them keep doing what they're doing. I'm kicking back drawing my comic, running Marvel and having fun with my family while they're obsessing away on my board thinking they're irritating me. Life is too short and they're wasting their hours away trying to bother someone who doesn't care or ever thinks about them.

"For the rest of you long timers. You know I love you all, I don't care if we always agree, just as long as we can talk civilly about our differences. That's cool, that's what these boards are all about. I think it's clear to all of you that when I make a move at Marvel you may not like, that I'm doing what I feel in my heart of hearts is best for Marvel, its readers and the industry at large. Just like I know that when you cast your opinion, however quietly or loudly, it's because you love Marvel, it's characters and the books it produces. We all want the same thing, there will just be times we disagree about it and like I said, that's cool."

The Bendis board consider a complaint by Mr. Bendis himself:

"Dusty asked this: What do you see as the biggest problem with comics today? This was bendis's reply: FANS REWARDING BAD BEHAVIOR OF CREATORS AND PUBLISHERS. When asked for specifics, he said: LATE BOOKS, BAD RUSHED COMICS, SOLICITATION LIES [...] So, let's start a discussion. What do you think he meant, specifically? Like what comics? And what creators/publishers do you feel we reward for bad behavior, more importantly?"

"I'm going to have to name Kevin Smith as Public Enemy #1 here. How many people are going to buy the next issue of Target or Spidey/Black Cat whenever it actually comes out? How many people will snap up whatever his next book is? How about his lies about being the writer on Amazing Spider-Man, or his new Brave & the Bold series over at DC which never happened?"

"thats who i would think of. probably wont buy anything of his anymore. unless it is collected into one volume. plus the whole toothpick into the breast feeding mother seemed a bit too much for my tastes. how about battle chasers? i outgrew that phase of my comic enjoyment before he 'finished' that one up."

"Aye Kev has been a bit of a poster boy, well he would be if the design hadn't been late. NYX is another one for being a pain, and let us not forget The Ultimates, particularly as it looks like vol.2 has now been pushed back until early 2005."

"Okay, so late books I guess we can pinpoint. But can anyone think of any of the others? Solicitaion lies? I guess i can't think of any. What about bad or rushed comics. I mean, I can think of some, but not some that are rewarded, except the obvious choice of the main X-titles, but those are my opinions."

Mark Alessi lends CrossGen money. No, really:

"Founder Mark Alessi has been granted permission by the court supervising CrossGen's Chapter 11 bankruptcy to lend the company $75,000 as a partial advance against $150,000 in proposed debtor-in-possession financing. The DIP financing will receive a priority lien against CrossGen assets. The financing is described as critical to preserve the value of the assets for CrossGen's creditors. A final hearing on the full $150,000 proposed financing will be held on August 3rd."

Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg talk about Street Angel over at Newsarama:

"I hated the superhero comics that I saw every week at the comics shop and decided to make a book that would depict how wretched superhero comics are. But after giving this some thought, we realized that if done right, it would be indistinguishable from any bad superhero comic. So instead, we started discussing what we liked - and especially what we remembered liking but couldn’t find any more - about superhero comics. The book developed out of that. It went from being a hate filled rant against the genre to being a bit of an over-the-top love letter. The stuff in the book is either there because I hate its opposite or because I like it a lot - surprising how often these things coincide. Jesse is a 13 year-old, homeless, malnourished tomboy, because I hate every T & A book that is a T & A book for no reason relative to the story. Of course, without a story, it’s hard to create story-related artwork I suppose and certainly there’s a fair share of T & A books without a story or any developed characters.

"Another influence on the book is pop culture’s current obsession with reality - reality tv shows, street authenticity of celebs like Justin Timberlake, and movies like The Matrix. We created a character and setting that is the absolute opposite of our experiences and who we are in life. Oddly enough, some early reviews and emails actually commend us on the authentic street feel of the book."

Chris Weston interviews a hero of mine when I was a kid, Ian Kennedy:

"I put [a sign reading "It doesn't have to be a bloody masterpiece" that hangs above his drawing board] there about 35 years ago. One day I was working on a cover and I struggled and struggled, and still nothing went right. I laboured away until, eventually, I just flung my brush down, grabbed a pen and wrote down those words. I hung it above my drawing board, to catch my eye and remind myself that as long as you are doing a good job, competently, professionally, the fact that it hasn't turned out the way you had hoped doesn't matter. As long as it satisfies the requirements, then the editor is happy and the customer is happy… and that's all that's important. You can flog yourself to death, Chris, (you've probably done it already), and get nowhere."

Brian Hibbs has a blog (found thanks to the wonderful Johanna Draper Carlson), where the Savage Critic thankfully lives on...:

"JLA #102: The 'Everyone Cries' arc continues. This issue: the Flash cries! It's not *bad* per se (Actually, it's well told), but I can't take 4 more issues of this -- wake me when it's over."

Hibbs is easily up there with Paul O'Brien and the aforementioned Johanna in my trinity of critics that I love reading, even if I'm not interested in the books they're reviewing... Go, read, adore.

Peter David responds to rumours about a possible return to regular Hulk writing:

"I'm getting lots of queries about the fact that Rich Johnston has reported in his column that Marvel is considering offering me the Hulk again. This is based upon Joe's soliciting fan reaction, getting huge cheers, during one of his panels on the notion of my coming back on the series, and then giving a cryptic, Cheshire cat response. Now, honestly, I've been to such gatherings, and while it's great that people cheered when Joe asked what they thought of me returning full-time to HULK, my guess is that if Joe had said, 'We're thinking of tearing up the carpeting at the Marvel offices and switching over to linoleum, whattaya think?!' he could have gotten thunderous applause. So, y'know...

"That said, No, Marvel has not approached me about the prospect of returning to an ongoing HULK series. For one thing, with Bruce leaving to go off to DC, I don't even know if there IS gonna be an ongoing HULK series, do you?"

Frank Tieri on Weapon X's cancellation (including Comix-Fan's censorship):

"Wow. I knew people would be ****** when it got out that we got canned... but I didn’t think they’d be THIS ******. All the talk on message boards, all the support from the websites, all the emails I’m getting—all I can say is thank you. Books come and go in this industry, sometimes with little to no reaction, so the fact that the cancellation of a so-called 'cult book' got a rise as big as this is really and truly appreciated. So with that said—what now? We go quietly into that good night and that’s that? I would think by now you guys know me a little better than that. FT don’t do 'quietly'. This title needs an ending. You fans deserve that at the very least-- and I’m going to do my damnedest to see that you get one. I’m not so sure Marvel would be willing to save the entire series, but I figure I can tie everything up comfortably in 6 issues, so that’s what I’ll be asking them for. And I’m going to need your help to get them."

I love that he mentions that the cancellation got a big reaction, when I didn't even know that it'd been officially confirmed the book was cancelled... Anyway, he's looking for people to write Marvel and ask for 6 final issues to tie the plots up. FT don't do "quietly" but he does, apparently, do "asking the fans to help".

The V respond to the full-issue preview of The Invaders #1, at Mile-High Comics:

"Good lord. They might as well have not bothered to take Chuck Austen off the book. The art's far too flat for my tastes, and the writing is indefensible."

"Wow... this is rubbish."

"I understand their problem on the writing side. I mean, there's such a deficit of talented English writers in the comics industry that they'd have to settle for an American who doesn't know his arse from his elbow."

"It's just a load of bollocks, isn't it?"

"That had absolutely no redeeming features."

And the sad thing is, they're being too nice about it.

There is, for those of you interested, a weblog dedicated to the new Vertigo series Books of Magick, complete with incredibly comprehensive annotations for the first issue:

"Bollocks, a British term literally meaning 'testicles,' here used as equivalent to 'bullshit.'"

Tim O'Neill on where and what he sees when he looks at AiT/PlanetLar:

"At the end of the day it comes down to this: if you want to find the New Mainstream in comic book publishing, look to wherever Larry Young is. He publishes a lot of crap but he also publishes some real gems, with an entire spectrum of quality in between. He publishes something for everyone, and that’s is something I cannot say for anyone else in our entire industry. If there is any justice in this amoral business of ours, he will die a rich, rich man and it is not without a small smattering of professional jealousy that I say that."

I find this particularly interesting because I wrote my column for Broken Frontier yesterday and mentioned, in passing, my happiness at AiT's new wave of books like Ursula, Demo and future things like Tales from Fish Camp because - in my eyes, at least - AiT had previously been focussed more on comics that read like great action movies at the expense of other genres (not that they ignored them altogether - they do the fucking incredible True Story Swear To God and Electric Girl, after all), but I saw a (perhaps fictitious) move towards a widening of focus with the new stuff without a loss of quality... Maybe it's just something in the air right now that we're all thinking "AiT/Planet Lar = Publisher Everyone Should Be Paying Attention To".

Marvel update their Avengers Deathwatch list, and need someone to tell them how to spell "berserk".

Heidi Macdonald blogs SDCC for The Beat:

"Was it all only a dream? The giant robots, the movie stars, the spaceships, the giant battleships, the monkeys, the pirates, the fireworks, the dinosaurs, the superheroes? It certainly can’t have been real. And yet I look back on the photos, the tattoos, the blisters…something must have happened. The dream was real."

Well worth reading.

And since I'm mentioning other blogs, Matt Maxwell has a nice take on Mark Millar's waiting for the trade comments over at the newly-launched Highway 62.

Warren Ellis's Streaming includes a (fictional?) email exchange between Ellis and Joe Quesada about Iron Man:

"... I mean, I've got half a take on what to do with Iron Man, which is the only fucking thing you CAN do with Iron Man -- deal with the fact that he used to be an arms dealer and get into exactly why he'd try and make a working bioelectric enhancement suit and keep wearing it, and how far that goes. Let's be honest -- arms manufacturers tend not to be paragons of humanity. In fact, there's only one who we ever name without spitting -- Alfred Nobel. Who tried to put his bloody money back into something that'd elevate the human race. Tony Stark, on the other hand, pretended to be his own bodyguard so that people would like him (when he was invisible inside the Iron Man suit).

"But what if he decided to be Alfred Nobel? What if he is now, through the Iron Man technology, roadtesting the future? Using himself as a human testing ground for redemptive technology? Funny that Cruise is interested -- it's the same character arc as JERRY MAGUIRE. Total shit taken to redemption."

Comic Book Artist wins another Eisner. Editor Jon Cooke is rather pleased:

"I couldn't have been more surprised and delighted to garner such recognition from both the Eisner Award judges and those wonderful folks who took the time to vote. It was a highly competitive category and an honor for CBA to be nominated alongside such dignified magazines as COMIC ART, ALTER EGO, and THE COMICS JOURNAL. When I heard the award announced, I was stunned, to say the least, and remain humbly grateful to everyone who has contributed to CBA in 2003, including Managing Editor Barbara Lien-Cooper, Senior Associate Editor George Khoury, Associate Editors Christopher Irving and Chris Knowles, and my faithful contributors Fred Hembeck, David A. Roach, Michelle Nolan, and Joe McCabe. There's just no way this honor could have come to light without you people!"

He then went on to say "Now all I've got to do is get it to come out even vaguely close to the bimonthly schedule it was supposed to be on, once upon a time." I mean, weren't we due another issue a couple of months ago?

Newsarama looks at Marvel's Q2 numbers:

"Something that’s eyebrow-raising though, is the company’s statement that it’s selling fewer copies of more titles, which did increase overall circulation by 10% from Q2 2003. While the increased circulation does reflect well, selling fewer copies of more hedges on the razor blade-waling side of things, considering that series live or die based on sales numbers, and if Marvel loses 15 titles per month, bringing it back down to the number roughly equal to how many it was publishing in 2003, its performance in Q2 of 2004 would be much less than it was in Q2 2003."

Millarworld points out an unusual quote from Joe Quesada in this week's Marvel Mailer newsletter:

"This is from this weeks Marvel Mailer... 'One additional point we've heard from you: AVENGERS #500 has fans fired up! This first issue is completely sold out now, and we're seeing crazy reorder activity – and none of this demand will be met; as you
all know we're printing to order.' What good is saying this? 'Look! Avengers #500 is hot, and no one can get it!' Is it time for Marvel to rethink their print-to-order policy?"

"Even Joe Quesada isn't THIS stupid. I mean, they ARE a business, right?"

"Well, sold out at Marvel. My shop still had plenty of them left."

"My shop had underordered Avengers #500 (only about 25 copies), and there were still quite a few left."

"it's probably the same as with Ult Fantastic Four #1, didn't Marvel say they sold out yet pretty much every store still has this on the shelf or in the back issues? my store has a stack."

Rich Johnston's LITG is finally up:

"Dan Didio has the reputation for squeezing every drop he can out of each talent on a DC exclusive. Marvel, however, have a reputation for allowing exclusive creators to get away with less work than they were doing before they went exclusive. Nevertheless, amongst the hoi polloi of non-exclusives, they seem to prefer DC's methods of operation, citing a number of Marvel employees as hell to work with. As the Cold War of exclusives continued at the con, could this be the establishment of a two-tier system? Exclusives go to Marvel, non-exclusives go to DC?"

The Bendis Board consider how important their figurehead is to the House of Ideas:

"i have been pondering over this for quite some time...if bendis were to leave marvel would marvel be effected more or would bendis be at a loss?"

"leave... SHAME!!! shame on you for even thinking such a thing i thought you were one of the coolest people here, but now... now i'm gonna have nightmares"

"That's kind of a silly question. You don't think there would be myriad other companies jumping at the opportunity to hire Mr. Bendis as soon as possible? Meanwhile, he's responsible for the majority of Marvel's current comics. I think it's a pretty clear cut case of Marvel being left holding the severed penis and the bloody gardening sheers."

"I don't think either would blink. Bendis might a little because of his distribution deals with Marvel with his creator owned stuff. DC would snap him up quick, and Marvel would replace him quick."

Newsarama talks Sin City:

"The bulk of the movie will be black-and-white, like the graphic novels, but spots of color will show up here and there, again just like Miller’s comics: a red dress, crimson lipstick, the Yellow Bastard, etc. Filming in color and then processing the film into black-and-white makes this possible. Some other interesting effects will include white silhouettes and even white blood against a black background. When Rodriguez says he’s sticking to the books, he means it. Perhaps the most amazing quality about the Sin City movie is that Rodriguez and Miller are capturing the graphic stories shot-by-shot and frame-by-frame, using the graphic novels themselves as storyboards, reference sheets, and scripts all in one. Miller’s exact dialogue will be the dialogue in the movie, and the angles, backgrounds, and lighting are all coming directly from the comic pages."

Mark Millar? You have the floor:

"People who wait for the trade... are like people who wait for the video. This comment was brought to you by Jerry Springer's Thought for the Day."

My favourite reply?:

"...is this because of the MK Spider-Man/Superman thing?"

It's funny because it's true.

The trailer madness for Batman Begins begins.

After Dissembled, is the main Avengers title going to be renamed Avengers Deconstructed? That's the rumour over at the Bendis board, started by this post by Mark Bagley:

"Avengers Deconstructed #1 [...]I just read Brian's script. Spoilers ... Just kidding, Brian would have my nuts. But it is AWESOME."

"What's Deconstructed #1? Do you mean #500? Or is this something else?"

"He means the first issue after Disassembled. I read it too. Good stuff."

"Guess Bags just let the title of the New Avengers book slip."

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "I, who was not in San Diego or at least not in any of the panels or presentations, wish I had seen DC's slide shows of upcoming series and things!" Now, thanks to the wonder of this thing we call technology, you can! The DC Universe "Taking It To The Limit" slide show can be found here, the Wildstorm "Comics Untamed" slide show can be found here, and sadly the Vertigo "Really taking it to the Untamed Max Limit, Dawg" slide show (oh, okay, it's really called "Breaking Boundaries") can't be found anywhere due to some kind of glitch. Thanks, Dr. Science, for inventing the internet!

So you want The Complete Bone? Time to sing that Rolling Stones song, perhaps... Jeff Smith, take it away:

"We wanted to debut the book at San Diego... And that meant that we had to set our print run before the numbers came in from Diamond. That way, we could get them printed and have them, and Diamond would have their copies as well to sell the week after. We figured out how many copies we wanted for San Diego, and then guessed at how many the rest of the market would handle. Even considering that this was a $40 book, we thought we ordered really generously, and figured we’d be able to cover all orders. We ordered right around 5,000 copies, and everything started processing. A short time later, the numbers came in for orders – it was 10,000. That just blew us away. When the orders came in, we were caught completely flat footed, and then, demand at the show was completely unexpected... I really apologize for the inconvenience to everyone who got caught short with this, but like I said, I thought I’d ordered really high. We’re trying to rectify this as quickly as possible, and have already gone back to print on the book to make up for the copies we’re not able to ship based on initial orders, and an extra 8,000 copies on top of that. The copies should be in stores by the end of August. While we’re delighted with the response and the demand, and we’re working as fast as we can to get everybody their books."

Alex Toth! Alex Toth! Alex Toth! He's The Man, motherfuckers, but the good The Man, not The Man who keeps everyone down. That's a different The Man. Toth is The Man whose art I worship from afar, man. The Tothfans website has just put up both parts of a 1970s Black Canary 2-part back-up strip he illustrated and lettered, with new annotations from the man himself. Go, see, be impressed by the work.

Grant Morrison steps up to blow the collective DC Universe's mind. On "Seven Soldiers":

"The current vogue in superhero comics, post-'Hush' is for the 'definitive' take, which tends to manifest itself as creators playing it safe by cherry-picking and re-packaging all the best and most popular elements of an already successful feature. It's a commercial strip-mining kind of approach to a given property that seems to make a lot of sense until you realize it can really only work once before you find yourself in the awful position of having to make up stuff again. Seven Soldiers is an attempt to clear some new ground and make stories for people who want something a little different from 'greatest hits' reworkings of books they've already read."

On his return to JLA:

"Except for Batman, the JLA don't appear at all until the second issue - I figured that people have seen me do the JLA before so they might just be willing to let me away with the novel idea of a JLA comic which doesn't have the main characters in the first issue at all. Most of the opening act concerns the Ultramarines team I introduced back in JLA #24. They've come back for a brutal ass-kicking as a kind of cheeky analogue of the best Avengers/Ultimates team you could hope to imagine. I hope readers will have fun matching up the Ultramarines characters with their marvelous counterparts... Aquaman has no beard and John Stewart is Green Lantern so it's pretty much set in some kind of current continuity but I’m afraid it's not the gloomy 'adult' world of Sue Dibny's shredded lycra pants so keep well away if it's attempted rape you crave. Cannibalism, yes, rape, no. My DCU is a day-glo, non-stop funhouse, where the world is threatened every five minutes and godlike beings clash in the skies like fireworks."

Ever sensitive to touchy issues in light of what happened earlier this week, Millarworld looks at the Spider-Man child abuse special:

"The book was a giveaway called... erm... Power Pack/Spider-Man, I think. Anyway, there're two stories with - you guessed it - Spider-Man and the Power Pack. In the Power Pack story, a girl runs away to escape her molesting father. However, like Mark said, in the Spider-Man story Spidey tells a kid who's ashamed of being molested that he was once molested too. When Spidey was just Peter Parker, lonely high school student, he met an older boy, Whitney (I guess, I don't remember his name) who acted as a sort of older brother figure. Everyone liked Whitney, even Aunt May thought he was a positive influence on Peter. One day, W invited Peter over, showed him some porno mags, and told him that they should touch eachother like the people in the magazines. STRANGE, BUT TRUE."

"The guy was Skip Westcott, and he gave Peter the nickname of 'Einstein'. It made me puke."

"In all honesty, that story freaked the hell out of me as a kid. The fact that Skip had white hair might be the single weirdest element: is he a boy or a grown man? Either way, it's disturbing."

Thankfully, Mark Millar comes in to calm the waters:

"Skip must come back, but with a costume. I vote he calls himself THE BUGGERNAUT and tears his way through the asses of the entire Marvel Universe. What a crossover that would be. The SM/PPCA special is my all-time favourite comic. I was a kid when I read it and when Power Pack's hot babysitter demanded sex before they watched Star Wars it just seemed like a dream come true to me. I DEMANDED a babysitter like that!"

Congratulations to Comix Experience, Isotope and AiT/PlanetLar for winning categories in the San Francisco Bay Guardian's annual "Best of The Bay" awards. In terms of shopping, Isotope wins "Best Comic Shop in Which to Be a Girl":

"The Bay Guardian has a surprisingly high number of lady comics nerds on staff. We've leafed through countless ratty issues of Octopus Schoolgirl Tentacle Gangbang to find the issue of Oh My Goddess! that our little niece has been begging for. We've been shamelessly macked on while grimly thumbing through haphazardly chronological issues of Doom Patrol, while some clerk goes on and on about how The Crow was based on a comic book, and did we know that The Crow was based on a comic book, and so on, until we've finally wanted to scream, 'Yes! We know that it was based on a comic book! Go back to your cash register and sit there, flunky boy! Read that issue of Concrete and pester me no more!' Even in progressive S.F., the chick-friendly comics emporiums are few and far between. But when we saw a 12-year-old girl in Isotope Comics curled up on the sofa reading Archie, we knew this was a quality joint. Plus, owner James Sime has an 'only the sexy nerds with the good social skills' hiring policy, which makes for a much better shopping experience."

Comix Experience wins "Best Comic Book Bargain Bin":

"We've had fantasies of decorating our apartment like Pow!, that old comic book bar in SoMa, where the tables were covered with laminated comic pages and life-size prints of anime characters plastered the walls. But we could never slice scissors through our prize collection of early-’90s X-Men spin-offs (X-Factor, X-Force, and the charming but ultimately pathetic Generation X). Not only can we relive those glory days in Comix Experience's front-of-store bins, but there's also some just-released titles and some old-school books that are only slightly falling apart. New issues of Buffy, old issues of 100 Bullets, ripped reprints of X-Men No. 1, and plenty of others are just a quarter each. It's a great way to redecorate a room, catch up on the history of the Justice League, and buy doubles to spread around to friends who still argue that comics are for kids. There's even a bargain-bin bulk rate — 10 comics for a measly buck. The most damage will be suffered by your apartment as you figure out how to store all the new finds."

Meanwhile, in the Readers' Poll, Isotope wins best comic store and, more unexpectedly, AiT/Planet Lar wins Best Local Publisher:

"When a company devoted to graphic novels wins best overall publisher, you know things have changed on the comix front. With titles such as Brian Wood and Brett Weldele's Couscous Express; Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard's Codeflesh; and Rick Remender, Kieron Dwyer, and Harper Jaten's Blackheart Billy on the roster, AiT/Planet Lar has gained the respect of our readers — and lots of other folks — for putting out works whose story lines are provocative and intelligent and whose illustrations are equally compelling."

Huzzah to all!

Your Manga Minute at Newsarama concerns itself not so much with manga this week as with Identity Crisis#2, and rape...:

"True, many people batten onto the stories of the Silver Age as a beacon of a more hopeful time. Maybe they seem them as a loving memory of childhood or innocence. They’re welcome to that. I think that it’s also incumbent on the new and curious writer to re-examine old notions and push them into the unexamined light of new times. Watchmen, anyone? Dark Knight Returns for 100, Alex? This series seems to be the tale (although it’s only two issues old) of how good people with power went a step too far because of something horrible, and how it’s possibly jumped up and bitten them in the ass later on. Regardless of circumstances, that’s a worthy idea to examine."

The Temporary Bendis Board is still dealing with the fallout of what happened over the weekend:

"Whether you believe it or not, I just now decided to check out JDs site about this 'list.' My calmness/okness about things is starting to waiver..."

"What's on the list?"

"Pics of some of them and things that were said. My name is in there in a context that scares me."

"well, now I guess you guys can see why I'm still pissed at people who posted under those threads on the board. Thanks to JD you can see the names of people that contributed and didn't do anything to stop... but instead just posted along with them. And I'm glad that there are pictures included."

"I just wish JD had responded to my THREE attempts at finding out how my name was involved (since Alysha sent me a PM telling me I was) [...] I think it's a HORRENDOUS idea to start posting pics of people though. Here's what I sent via PM: 'Now that I find a little disturbing. How do you know that those are their pictures? We had Felicia pull that stunt on us a while back. I also know that THIS IS NOT THEIR JOBS TO DO. This is what the police is for. This is what convention security is for. To do otherwise is to engage in vigilante activity and risking potential legal problems. Consider that someone was unfairly lumped in with the other AA members, and their picture got circulated.. and now they're known everywhere as a potential rapist. And that guy commits suicide. Who's going to be responsible? What if he doesn't commit suicide and sues the person who publically slandered him to multiple people? Do you see how this is a VERY VERY VERY bad idea?'"

"I just read the messages. Those were even worse than I thought they would be."

"how do we know who to trust. words on a screen full of lies. who are all of you. anyone could be using any name they wanted. theres no way to tell. this is so bad. everything is bad and there's no knowing whats what or who is who or whos lying. no faces means anybody could be anybody. i'm not making sence. i don't care. this is just so bad. my head hurts and i'm going to bed."

Newsarama has a thread called "Bendis ... I love your writing ... but you fucked up!" which surprisingly isn't about the recent death and rebirth of his forum:

"In the current issues of Daredevil you have Jigsaw running around looking like Arseface with stitches. Only one slight problem with that ... JIGSAW IS DEAD! He got killed off in the second Punisher ongoing series (the one John Ostrander wrote), and it wasn't an ambiguous death either! He got his brains blown out the back of his head and fell to a rather loud splat afterwards. He was deader than a doornail."

Luckily, the poster in question has a suggestion on how to deal with this problem:

"I recommend in a future issue you just have Jigsaw slap himself on the forehead, exclaim, 'Fuck! I'm already dead!', and then promptly die again."

Problem solved!

Everyone in Berkeley (that means you, Ken Kniesel), get yer arses to Cody's Books on Friday night:

"Adrian Tomine has been writing and drawing the internationally acclaimed comic book series Optic Nerve for over a decade, earning a reputation as one of the country's preeminent young cartoonists. For nearly as many years, he has pursued (and was pursued for) a variety of side projects both inside and outside of the comics industry. The best of this extracurricular work - including rare and unpublished strips, illustrations for such notable magazines as The New Yorker and Esquire, album covers, posters, advertisements, and private sketchbook pages - is collected for the first time within SCRAPBOOK. A comprehensive survey of a professional career in progress, SCRAPBOOK is a revealing, visually impressive document of an artist's versatility and evolution. Tomine's previous books include Summer Blonde. Joining Adrian this evening is Eli Horowitz, managing editor of McSweeney's."

Matt Craig looks at patriotic superheroes in American comics:

"[I]n her debut story, the New Captain Britain is attacked by Arthurian sorceress Morgan LeFay. Kelsey [the afore-mentioned new Captain Britain] discovers that injuring Captain Britain results in a sympathetic injury to England. (This is stated quite clearly in the dialogue: England is the source of Captain Britain's powers, as opposed to the whole British Isles. Once again, 'England' and 'Britain' are shown to be interchangeable concepts.) The truth, of course, is very different. Britain is far more than just England, and Captain Britain has several million more people to defend than Marvel Comics would have you believe. And as if to add insult to injury, once she finishes her first fight, Britain's great defender signs on with the big boys and fucks off to America. She's not a superhero: she's Catherine Zeta-Jones!"

James Kochalka talks to The Onion:

"Normally, in one of my graphic novels, I start off with a ruler, and rule off the shapes of the panels. And even before that, I'll do a thumbnail sketch of the whole page, figuring out what's going to go in each panel, and then I'll draw it carefully and ink it carefully. In my sketchbook diaries, I do pencil it first, lightly, and then ink it, but I allow myself to be as free as I can. It's really a struggle. My ambition is to make something great enough that it will affect people for hundreds of years and be remembered. But in order to do that, whatever that magic thing is... Who knows? I usually feel like I've got to push myself harder, to go deeper. But sometimes it's the opposite: to not push at all, to let myself flow in whatever direction the wind might take me. I'm willing to try anything to help me unlock something new. If great concentration is going to help me unlock something fantastic, then I'll try great concentration. If it's absentmindedly doodling, I'll do that."

It's back:

"thanks to all of you for the overwhelming support to each other. that is the real reason we're back on line so soon. it really was a fantastic display. i would also like to say that as far as i am concerned millarworld and jinxworld are officially one big community. the support and warmth that came thier way was amazing. i will be posting in both places. big thanks to allen for dealing with all of this and to denny for cleaning house and to millar for putting on his batman costume, oh sorry, moonknight costume. i forgot we were exclusive [...] and a very special thanks to craig for the temp board- that was really generous of you. to craig!! you all better post the shit out of this place [...] I WANT DUMB POSTS AND I WANT THEM NOW!!"

Remember Mark Millar pledged in January that he wasn't going to do any more online interviews this year? Well, he made it six months:

"Well, I kind of see my career starting with The Authority back in 2000. This was when I started to get really serious about doing this for a living and when I had my first hit book. It's also when I started doing interviews and, right from the beginning, I told everyone that Johnny [Romita Jr.] was my favorite artist. I just love his stuff. I've always wanted to work with him and, like some shy girl at the school disco; I've been dropping his name in interviews in the hope that he notices me and asks me to dance.

"I finished most of the Millarworld stuff before Christmas and we've been working in advance for The Ultimates volume two which means that Spider-Man is pretty much the only monthly I've been working on lately. I had a little room in my schedule to do a new project and so I pitched Blade. I came up with this really nice blade idea and Johnny would have nailed it perfectly. Editor Jenny Lee called me up and said that everybody loved the project, but I couldn't have Johnny as he'd been reassigned to a Wolverine relaunch. She offered me a couple of great artists, but I'd come this close to working with Johnny and so ditched Blade - a project I'd worked out in insane detail - to do Wolverine with him. I've always really liked the character and, when we spoke, we realized we both had an identical vision for how the book could go. It was a pain to drop a project I'd put a lot of work into, but I made the decision in a heartbeat. I really just wanted to work with Johnny that much.

"I'd also been friends with Jenny for a few years and, now she's back in editorial, this seemed like a good place to do something with her. Jenny's Marvel's secret weapon. There's a whole coven of female editors who arrived in the last twelve to eighteen months and Jenny seems to be their spiritual leader. She'd worked at Vertigo prior to this and also worked in the business side of Marvel with Bill Jemas, but I think she's about to become the next superstar editor. She's editing Wolverine, revamping Black Widow with Bill Sienkiewicz and the brilliant Richard K Morgan and has so many wonderful projects up here sleeve that she's actually quite scary. She's by far the most attractive woman ever to work in comics - a striking resemblance to the young chick in Crouching Tiger, runs a martial arts class, can kick your ass and is an editorial genius. She's going to be huge."

I love the line about Jenny Lee being "by far the most attractive woman ever to work in comics", because, you know, that's obviously important. To be fair, later on, Millar does go on about the most attractive man ever to work in comics*, so it's not like he's being sexist or anything.

(* - This may be untrue.)

In light of the temporary death of the Bendis board, Millarworld does a quick rendition of The High Fidelity's "Ithanku" to the people who keep things running there:

"I dont know whether this belongs here or not. If it doesnt im sure the admins will move it but I put it here because I feel this is where it will be most seen and I wanted ppl to see this. I was thinking about what happened earlier with the Bendis posters( I read Bendis' post that it did not occur on his board but unfortunately his name was associated with it and i am sorry for the trouble it caused Mr Bendis). Does anyone remember the saying sometimes it takes the worst thing to happen in order to appreciate what you have? Well, This is true for me. After that incident I realized how a GREAT a job the moderators do here at Millarworld and I wanted to tell them that and thank them for the great job they do. Personally I recently wrote a very spoilerish post and failed to make it in spoiler text. I got a lil heat for it but i also noticed it had been edited by Eduardo. This isnt on a magnitude of the incident described in READ THIS but i appreciated the help. Thank You Eduardo and thankyou to all the MODS for the great job you do to make the Millarworld the best board I have ever been to"

"Agreed. From post editors, to thread merger-ers(?), link listers, wardens and straight up conversationalists, the mods here do a a remarkable job (it DOES take a village :P), best on the net."

"you are completely right there, they are really friendly guys"

"Some of them are even nice in person. (Edit: I say some of them because I haven't met them all, NOT because I've met some that aren't.)"

Bendis Board refugees aren't happy with Warren Ellis's assertion (yesterday at Millarworld) that "Bendis boarder" is going to be synonymous with "rape-o" for awhile:

"Warren Ellis has lost my future purchases. Oh I will read them in the store, but I will never buy again."

"If you read what he said like that, then he probably doesn't want you reading his work..."

"Oh, I'll read his work, because Fuck Him. What I won't do is put any money in his pocket."

"what he said was that people will label being a bendis boarder with a broad negative brushstroke. he didnt say he was going to. BTW what happened w/his board to make him so bitter?"

"I think Ellis' problem was that he did use his real name! Now he's lost fans."

The Joe Quesada board continue to feel the fallout of the closing of the Bendis board:

"Should it be banning time? If yes, who?"

"No, I don't like the idea and never have. However, I am more open to it than I have in the past (I did have to ban someone on the Crumb boards who was threatening to kill Jesse Crumb especially after I found out he had a record of pointing a fire arm at a police officer). I am more sympathetic on the reasons to ban people. However, with a board this size with this much traffic I think it's unnecesarry. People can ignore posters they find annoying. I think it's more mature and less escalating to just ignore them. If everyone did it they'd soon get bored and find someone else to harass. However if it does become necessary to ban someone might I suggest that Joe do it by IP address as well as username and email address. Since the Crumb board uses Ikonboard as well I know this is possible and could make it a bit more difficult for people who are banned to get back on."

"After reading about this Bendis-board stuff, my brain skipped banning and went straight to more violent things."

"It's always a few assholes who screw things up for everyone else."

The kids, they seem to want to read that Young Avengers book:

"Is it just me, or are we in for a new era with this whole Avengers debacle? I love it! Younger versions of the Avengers, that aren't the same characters in younger form but are completely new characters?! If indeed thats what this is.. then YES! Marvel is finally following in DC's footsteps of having different levels for their heroes ala Flash/Kid Flash, Superman/Superboy, Wonder Girl/Wonder Woman.. etc."

"for real? SWEET!!"

"I will try this no doubt but man the idea of a teenage Hulk is gonna have to be really really well written for me to like it. Hulk get 1000 on SAT's?? RARRRRRRGH HULK SMASH PUNY SCANTRON MACHINE!!!!"

"I think the number one reason people are cringing at the sound of this title, is the title itself. Young Avengers, sounds just like Young Justice, making it sound like a rip off. Next you have clone characters... lil' Thor Iron Boy etc. Just sounds lame, like they were all sitting around drinking one day and said, we need a new teen group... how about Young Versions of existing characters... ok. End of meeting. Just sounds so unoriginal. Third, we aren't givin much information to go on as far as the concept, so our imaginations are left to run wild, and we are reminded of all times this was tried in the past and failed. Marvel seems to want to turn the Avengers core titles into DC books, which while I like plenty of DC books, I would much rather see them come up with they're own ideas. With plans that sound like they want to make the Avengers more like the JLA... with an Invaders book coming out, that seems like Marvel's attempt at the JSA, and with Young Avengers coming out to match the Teen Titans, MK Spider-man doing an arc reminsent of Batman's Hush storyline, these things just start to add up. But I am willing to give Marvel a chance, because just because your copying a base idea, doesn't mean you can't come up with something better and even more orginal in the long run."

The Pinis paid Peter David to get a tattoo for charity:

"Although my support for the fund has been unwavering over the years, I've felt as if I've had a more personal stake in what the CBLDF fights for ever since Fallen Angel started coming out. At the convention, both Dan Didio and Paul Levitz of DC (the company that's also publishing Elfquest), met with me for an hour, telling me how much they like the series, want to see increased fan and retailer support, and how they want to develop a major marketing push for future issues (so kudos to them and their desire for a long run of the series). But, y'know, marketing's a double edged sword, because the more you draw attention to a title, the more you draw a target on it for Those Who Want to Decide For You What You Should Read.

"So as the initially flip, kidding comment about the tattoo quickly spun into a full blown hare-brained scheme (Me on the phone: "Kath? Honey? I think I may have gotten myself into some trouble..."), and as the Pinis gave me every opportunity to back out, I figured, Y'know what? I gave my word. If I don't stand by my word, I got nothing (even though I'm deathly afraid of needles). If I can ask retailers to stick their necks out for my 'mature content' title, the least I can do is stick my arm out (after saying I would). FYI: Anyone who wants to see it, you have to fork over $10 to the CBLDF to have a look, either in my presence or show me a receipt."

Joe Casey and Matt Fraction talk comics both as an artform and as an industry in their new column, The Basement Tapes:

"From what I've seen over the past few years, the Internet -- despite the best intentions of the best comic newsmen who work almost exclusively in that arena -- is driven by content first. These sites need hits, and to generate hits you always need something new, to keep people coming back. And so, the Hype Factor takes over. Hence the Net's association with the mainstream and its constant barrage of 'breaking news.' It's always easier to go into Stan Lee-inspired PR mode than it is to delve deeper into your own creative impulses. It's all about spin. I've certainly done it. And, to be perfectly honest, I don't know if the Net should attempt the kind of in-depth stuff the JOURNAL can still accomplish. I don't know if casual browsers' attention spans are long enough to stand for it."

Brian Michael Bendis posts "rumour control":

"For the record, nothing illegal or criminal was posted on my image comics message board, it was another message board, one I have never even visited, that were posting threats to people who are frequent posters on my board. I shut own my board to protect these victims and because I was very angry. I see that already people think it was my board that was posting criminal content. It was not, my board and its members were victimized in the worst way. the people on my board, who also are frequent posters and fine members to many other comic boards in this big community, mean the world to me. With the help of long time board members of both my board and Millarworld, including mark himself, most culprits have been identified and are being dealt with.

"I want to make it 1000 per cent clear that . I do not find any of this to be funny. i hold everyone involved responsible and I hope that if charges can be pressed that they are, [...] To the culprits I want to make it perfectly clear- I do not want your business anymore. I don't want you buying my comics anymore. I don't want to hear from you. i don't want your apology. I don't want anything to do with you.

"I have never made jokes about hurting other people. I do not find it funny. I have never in the body of my work, in jest or in dramatic license, said that victimizing people was OK or funny. it is not.

"I realize now, after the billionth email telling me so, that shutting down my board was punishing a lot of people for the acts of a few. but for the respect of the victims of this i have asked them to decide amongst themselves if they want the board reinstated. if they do, i will reinstate it. with many bannings held in place. if they do not want the board to exist anymore, I will respect that as I hope all of you will as well."

As could be expected, we may be witnessing the start of a board invasion of Millarworld:

"mark millar? aren't you the guy that writes that comic called Wanted? you know, the one that glorifies rape? seriously, i thought of all people that you would understand the difference between writing about rape and harboring the actual intent to rape. i guess the big difference is that the posters on AA made it a joke while your comic just made it look cool.

"i am a moderator at AA. it is a private forum. posting about rape on a private forum seems to pale in comparison to publishing its glorification in a mainstream comic. i work at a comic store and ive had several people drop millar's books from their pull lists because of the portrayal of rape in Wanted. now i get to tell them that he is a hypocrite too. awesome. i also want to hammer home the fact that my fellow posters on AA are not in any way affiliated with Bendis. he is a true gentleman and the only connection the forums had was concurrent members. something this board shares as well. but this one isn't shut down...

"oh well."

ICv2 reports on more that I missed this weekend:

"According to the Hollywood Reporter, Paramount Pictures will produce a film based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's groundbreaking superhero comic Watchmen, which first appeared as a 12-issue mini-series that began in 1986. Darren Aronosky (Pi) will direct from a screenplay by David Hayter... Given the potential of the property, ICv2 will endeavor to monitor the progress of this latest and most serious attempt to make a film of the one graphic novel, which could become a perennial bestseller along the lines of The Great Gatsby."

You go away for a couple of days, and suddenly Alan Moore is the next F. Scott Fitzgerald.

To lighten things up slightly, the V have started announcing their own fictional news that should've come from SDCC this year:

"MARVEL ANNOUNCES SHOCKING NEW TEAM-UP
New six issue mini teams patriotic super-heroes CAP AMERICA & FALCON VS Scottish miserabilist singers BELLE & SEBASTIAN. Because you (Frank McMillan, 33 Dunkirk Drive, Aberdeen, Scotland) demanded it!

"DC FLIES IN FACE OF NEGATIVE PUBLICITY
The DCU is to gain much-needed publicity by having a gay month. For one month, all the characters who are not gay will come out (Only to be changed back next month) and all the gay characters will just stand and mock them.

"ANOTHER INDUSTRY WEDDING ANNOUNCED
In a move that will surely set legal precedent, Chris Claremont will wed the X-Men's Storm this Winter. He believes that despite her being a fictional creation only present in the form of 2-dimensional paper, there relationship will be 'consumated'."

The owner of the board where the WWChicago rape threats originated, NeilFarted, has it out with the poster who made everything public:

NeilFarted: "You fucking people disgust me, and that's why i made this forum somewhat private, cause i knew that if any lurker could get on here and read shit, and then they'd have their pretty little internet egos hurt and then they'd run and cry to daddy denny, and try to hurt those people who hurt their little egos by getting them banned on a DIFFERENT forum. You want to defend yourself? do so here. you got questions? i'll answer them as bluntly as possible. but one thing is sure, i'm not going to let you stupid fucks destroy this place."

JG Godgun, the poster who apparently let the cat out of the bag: "what did I do to get YOU banned? Posted links to your forum, as you told me i could and have done yourself? personal responsibility [...] bendis had a problem with what YOU all posted and it bothered him enough to not want you in HIS place"

NF: "and YOU did it because you're retarded enough to think that a joke about raping some stupid person on the internet was a serious threat. people like you make me fucking sick. THE INTERNET IS NOT REAL FUCKING LIFE. people who treat it like it is are like all these fucking cosplay idiots who like to dress up and pretend it's real."

JG: "there is a real person typing that shit neil [...] how the fuck do you know if they are serious [...] maybe you should wake up and realize that [...] everyone does not share the same intent or sense of humor as you [...] wake up son and come to that realization [...] you are just as responsible for the shit posted here [...]you could find your ass in hot water over some of it LEGALLY"

NF: "nope. i can't be held liable for anything in this forum. you know why? CAUSE THESE THREATS AREN'T FUCKING REAL. THIS IS A GODDAM MESSAGE BOARD. NO ONE IS SENDING EMAIL THREATS OR LETTERBOMBS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT YOU MINDLESS TWAT. real people have relationships outside of the internet. real people know how to distinguish the two. real people grow up and realize that words are FUCKING WORDS."

An interesting (and now closed) exchange at Millarworld:

"All this indignation and upheaval over the disgusting rape 'jokes' over at Bendis is pretty hypocritical considering a few weeks ago people at Millarworld were praising and laughing at a 'joke' Spider-Man strip where Peter talks about paying Mary Jane back in 'rape dollars.' Millar was so blown away by it he wanted to give the guy a job. So, if people are so worried about women in the comics industry not feeling welcome you can't laugh like hell at a rape joke in a Spidey comic strip but get all righteous when real names are involved. Yeah one is worse than the other because real names were used but rape is NOT funny in ANY context."

"Here's the bottom line: Spider-Man is fictional and the girls are real (two of them are friends of mine). Mary Jane is in no danger. These girls had given their hotel information on a public site in good faith and these guys were talking about breaking in and raping them for the weekend, one prick asking others to do so and send him pics. I don't think I need to explain the difference. Murder also happens regularly in comics. I enjoy reading some stories where people are murdered. I also find murder to be very funny in certain fictional situations. If your name was mentioned on a site where some asshole was calling for someone to murder you in a hotel you had booked it wouldn't be funny. For fuck's SAKE!!!"

"How does this not deserve a reponse. Mark was talking about how women aren't made to feel welcome in this community. Yet he unduly praises a strip where Peter Parker threatens to rape Mary Jane? How does that make women feel welcome?"

I can see both points, which is why it's interesting to me. I didn't really find the rape dollars joke that funny either, but know that senses of humour vary (And surely the rape dollars joke gains its humour from the overstepping of boundaries in the first place? It's a nervous "Oh my God, I can't believe they said that" over the topness that makes some jokes work, after all). It's blindingly obvious that there's a big difference between the Spider-Man detournment and plotting/threatening to rape real people even as a joke. But do both speak to an underlying misogynism in comic culture...?

Bendis Board refugees piece together what happened to make Bendis shut the board down:

"Okay, it all started out with Trillan making a post about people wanting to rape her and wanted the link to the other board, Neil's board. This whole conversation started up about it with people truly upset when Jeffery posted a link to the board and then started a new topic where he apologized about having two kids who were autistic, etc. Turns out that about eight plus people were at this board, and were talking about Jeffery's children, wife, and inking. They were talking about killing and raping the female members at Chicago or just in general and they identified these women by names. They were talking about people behind their backs on this board but were coming off as a somewhat nice people. These people were reputable people who were extremely active posters on the Bendis Board.

"People were upset and pissed of while some people offered apologies for the entire event. Bendis came on and said that this won't be tolerated and then made another thread where he didn't know what to do anymore. Things were starting to get calmed down after people said they were leaving or threatned to leave. But things were generally calming down around 1AM EST last night. Woke up this morning though to see the board gone. Bendis closed it and has told Millar that he may not open it again. We will have to see."

"Those guys were really well known and very long around. And now, something like this happens. I just don't get it. Those guys were around for ages on the board... That's what Bendis is bothering, isn't it? Because you really can't trust anybody as long as you know him... good enough. And you don't know a person as long as the person just shows one side of him/her."

"Yeah, someone threatened Alysha with kidnap and beheading.. that I needed to be bitchslapped.. trashing Ronin, etc... Like I said, cliques have been forming, and this is the ultimate result of it."

"they also said Jeffrey's kids are retards and that said some nasty things about his wife and him as well... and about a LOT of other members..."

"jonny z, colton, graves, papercuts, paul sckrowski,wookiewombat, mark--and a handdul more including neil... were all these guys involved in the raping thing??!!!!...if they were...damn!...never...never,,,did i think they would be involved in this shit...they were scuh fuckn senior posters..."

[It's since been pointed out that not all of the above names were involved, just that they belonged to the site where the thread was posted.]

"As I've said before (in a slightly different context), post count doesn't mean shit. Neither does how long you've been posting. Posting to a web board a ton doesn't magically transform anyone from an ass into a prince."

Heidi Macdonald wants something in return for a change:

"BTW, this is what The Beat hears all day: 'Heidi, lovin’ The Beat!' …'So glad you’re back!'…'Thank you for wasting my time at work!' …'Your hair looked great on Catwoman!' and on and on and on. That’s great. But when the time comes for one little women in a Betsey Johnson cocktail dress and high heels to walk .7 of a mile from Hall 20 to the Hyatt bar carrying a 20 lb computer…is anyone there? Does anyone want to help? Oh no it’s all “Excuse me, I must go discuss ebaying Pogs with my agent.” Or “Why it’s George Clayton Johnson…I haven’t talked to him in eons!” Oh yes, the Beat noticed. Nothing escapes The Beat. Shoulder welts do not go with Betsey Johnson cocktail dresses. And giving The Beat a shoulder massage later doesn’t make up for it. I do and I do and I do for you and this is the thanks I get. It’s all going on your permanent record."

The last line of this quote is easily Augie De Blieck Jr.'s best line this entire weekend:

"[The Wildstorm panel at SDCC was] one of the most For Mature Readers Only discussions I've seen on a DC-related panel ever. From Howard Chaykin discussing tickling his thigh to the multiple use of certain foul four letter words, part of me cringed for the children. I don't think there were any children in the room, but as a matter of principle, I cringed for them."

Former Bendis boarders commiserate about the loss of the board:

"I'm ready to just quit the fuckin internet now"

"Damn, now Im feeling guilty for my part in bringing all this out in the open... should have just kept my mouth shut and my head down..."

"This is a clear and shut case, I dunno why Bendis is making it so complex.

Just permanently BAN all the guilty parties, no matter who or how many there are. THE SHOW MUST GO ON!!! No reason why the other thousands of posters who frequent the Bendis Board should have to suffer because of a few fucking commie retards."

(Yes, he really said "Commie retards". Because, you know, obviously they were communists.)

"I can't say how pissed I am to wake up this morning and find my home gone. And to find out why just kinda disgusts me. So I have a lot of emotions running through me at this time."

Mark Millar reports on something that, hopefully, is a sick, fucked-up joke, because otherwise it's even more fucked-up:

"I just had a link sent to me this morning by a friend who's girlfriend (also a friend) is on a Rape List for the Chicago con by a bunch of frat-house pricks who run a website. Their whole site is clearly bullshit and I'm 99% certain this isn't serious, but given that some girls who post here and on the Bendis board and targeted and mentioned by name pissed me off so much I'm trying to get more details on these fucks to be passed along to Wizard so they can be banned from the Con and also any other comic boards. There's few enough women reading comics without this bullshit behaviour. I also think it's possibly criminal and have asked Wizard to pass the details along to the police. If you know these people or recognize their faces post below so we can pass along the information. Also, if you see them at the con they need their asses kicked. If I see ANY of these people I will glass them. Seriously."

The thread gets (possibly justifiably) ugly soon after, including Bendis appearing to say that he's shut down his forum:

"i am so angry about this i don't even know what to do with myself. i have closed my board till further notice. probably for good. i had no idea anything like this was going on and i can't apologize enough to those who were offended by it."

So Wildstorm announced lots of new things, including Alan and daughter Leah Moore working on the return of lots of old UK superheroes from publisher IPC (Anyone who's read the third series of Zenith, that's them), and Howard Chaykin back up to his old tricks again:



Joe Casey also talked about his upcoming new series "The Intimates":

"DC told me 'it's time for you to sell out' and I said 'what about some teen superheroes?'"

Somewhere, Joe Quesada is crying in his hands, clutching a promo poster for Young Avengers and muttering "Nobody understands..." over and over again to himself.

Warren Ellis's exclusive deal is explained:

"This is a work-for-hire-only exclusive: it means that if I do company-owned work, I do it only for Marvel... 'Planetary' is exempt from the deal, as are two other small WFH jobs I'd begun at DC. And, to reiterate, it affects my creator-owned work not at all -- I'm free to continue generating new work in that field and placing it anywhere I like."

So it's an almost-completely non-exclusive exclusive deal, really... Also, Joe Quesada on exclusive deals in general:

"Quesada said that he’s thrilled that fences were mended with Warren Ellis, allowing him to be comfortable enough to sign an exclusive contract with Marvel. Still, Quesada said, he doesn’t like to see so many creators signed to exclusive contracts, but feels that, since DC began the practice wholesale, Marvel had to answer in kind with exclusives of their own."

I love this "Don't blame me, they started it" rationalization for all of almost everything Marvel do these days. Coming up next: Quesada on why Marvel have been more aggressive than DC in terms of using variant covers to boost retailer orders: "They pull a knife, you pull a gun."

You know, it's kind of depressing to go off for two days at the same time as SDCC, and find out when I return that the most interesting thing that I've missed is the naming of Peter Milligan as Chuck Austen's replacement on X-Men:

"I enjoyed a lot of what Grant Morrison did with New X-Men, though it's probably not a state secret that I am not the world's most avid follower of all things beginning with X. I want to be able to get some real dark deep emotional stuff in there among the humor and the lightness. My theme, if there is one, will be the balancing act between the big, global missions and issues these guys deal with, and the emotional, interior lives they lead."

On the plus side: It's Milligan. On the minus side: X-Men is the book full of Wolverine and the characters that Whedon and Claremont didn't really want. I'll probably give it a look and then feel nostalgic for the kind of stuff Milligan was doing in the early days of Vertigo, as I've done with practically everything he'd written since his return to comics (apart from Vertigo Pop: London, which had patented Philip Bond magic, and was therefore ace).

As if to make my last blog entry before I fly off to Washington for the weekend an important one, CBR has the Avengers panel news... Besides the announcement of the post-Dissembled creative teams (Warren Ellis and Adi Granov on Iron Man, as rumoured for a long time (The Newsarama blurb for this story mentions Ellis being exclusive to Marvel, which isn't followed up on the story itself, bizarrely), with Captain America's new team as Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, which may be surprising to some), the main announcement was about that new Avengers title that will blow people's minds. And it's... um... not exactly what you'd expect:

"The next announcement was of 'Young Avengers,' the second Avengers series and it drew a collective 'huh' from the audience. Written by [OC writer Allen] Heinberg and illustrated by newly exclusive Jimmy Cheung, Quesada urged 'It's not what you think. It's nothing like you're thinking, it's one of the most inventive series we've come along in a long time and Al has such an incredible take on the characters you'll be excited.' Expect the project in early 2005... Heinberg said Geoff Johns' 'Teen Titans' inspired the book, with young versions of Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man and thor showing up in the wake of 'Avengers Disassembled.'"

That's right: Teen versions of regular Marvel characters (Teen Iron Man! AGAIN! It really is a rehash of '90s Avengers crossover The Crossing, ladies and gentlemen). Mind-blowing... in its crapness, perhaps. If you ask me, when Quesada has to say "It's not what you think" following a "collective 'huh'", then I'm guessing that the announcement didn't really take the world by storm as planned...

The Pulse has some more from the panel, for those who want to know that Black Panther is getting his own series again next year...

And with that, I'm leeeeeeaving on a jet plane, off to the East Coast for a wedding-filled weekend. For those who want the latest on SDCC news, CBR, Newsarama and The Pulse are there for you (The Pulse is quickest, but Newsarama and CBR's joint coverage is probably more accurate and in-depth). I'll be back on Monday with a round-up of news and snark from the con, and if anyone wants to email me rumours, I'll have those, too...

Still can't find this on Newsarama, CBR or The Pulse but I've seen it on enough message boards to consider it more than just a random mishearing, so here's more on the announced-yesterday JL: Classified series:

"Grant Morrison's long-awaited Justice League series was announced, entitled 'Justice League Classified' and Morrison will be on the series for at least one arc with 'Superman/Batman' artist Ed McGuinness. The series is to be an outlet for more 'arc oriented' stories, wherein various writers and artists can tell tales of the JLA in any era of their history. Carlin said it was possible that writer Gail Simone's JLA arc with legend Jose Garcia-Lopez may be folded into that series, as well as the 'I Can't Believe It's Not Justice League' mini-series, of which artist Kevin Maguire has completed three issues."

Apparently "I Can't Believe..." was completely written pre-Identity Crisis, and so the entire thing may be seen once Maguire has finished drawing it...

The Pulse adds to the already existing Vertigo coverage from SDCC. Of most interest is probably this:

"The last new story announced is the Gilbert Hernandez original graphic novel, Sloth. The story features a teenager who wills himself into a coma, wakes up a year later, and is physically slower than everyone around him. Now he has to adapt to his world and relationships with the people around him."

Okay, this is an interesting mistake in the Pulse's coverage of the Marvel Universe panel at SDCC:

"Another project mentioned, without revealing a ton of details, was Black Widow. Bill Sienkiewicz is doing the art while Philip K. Dick and Richard K. Morgan will be writing the Widow's adventures."

Philip K. Dick: Comics' first zombie writer.

Also revealed at the panel, the current Daredevil team will be doing a new series called Daredevil: Golden Age, which features early adventures of "ol' hornhead". Apart from that, nothing new (at least, nothing reported at the Pulse): Elektra has a new series, Bullseye has a new series with art by Steve Dillon, Dr. Strange has a new series by JMS, and Frank Cho is doing two fill-ins on Mark Millar's Spider-Man title. All sounding kind of dull, huh? Guess they're saving themselves for the Avengers panel.

Pat Lee announces busts and "collectables" based around his weird-ass fetishes:

"Get ready for Pat Lee’s Rave: Cyber Punk, a new signature series of Dreamwave collectibles slated for release in 2005! Today at San Diego, Diamond Select Toys and Collectibles, LLC. (DST) announced that the toy manufacturer is unleashing an exciting new line of collectible busts and statues based on original concepts from Lee and Dreamwave. Besides being incredibly detailed, fully painted, and ready for display, the all-new releases will also be based on original concepts from the imagination of Dreamwave co-founder Lee, and will boast a Japanese hyper-punk feel to them... 'The world of Rave is set in the far future (2060) in Neo Tokyo. The concept is based around a series of girls who go to nightclub raves. It will be futuristic, fun, hot and totally retro! Our concentration will be more on the statues and we will be doing full body shots of these designs. So look out for them, it's gonna be wild!'"

That's right. It's going to be futuristic and totally retro. At the same time. Look at the first image from Lee:



It's just... shit. It's trying to be sexy with the cleavage and, I guess, the tongue and the drool (if that's not Lee trying to be sexy, then I have no idea what's going on. "Rave: Drooling Idiot Girl"? Then again, do that many people find drooling to be sexy in the first place?), but it's just crap and kind of offensive. Am I getting old that I don't find it hot?

Gail Simone has some good news:

"Sorry for the hype, but this is cool news for me... The kids' series I did for Marvel has apparantly been collected in a MARVEL AGE PRESENTS SPIDER-MAN'S PAL, GUS BEEZER! oversized magazine. A lot of folks have wanted this collection for a long time, so I'm getting the word out. However, this book (priced nicely at $4.95, I believe), is a TARGET Store exclusive, not available in comic stores, I'm told. So you'll have to scoop it up if you see it. People have told me it's on the stands now, so I hope you'll pick it up...kids and adults have really enjoyed the series, and I hope you will, too."

Huzzah for the release, but why only a Target exclusive? Not that I have anything against Target, mind, just that this seems like a good book to release more widely...

Heidi Macdonald blogs from SDCC:

"While Dark Horse and DC have big, impressive booths, Marvel and Image…don’t. TO be fair, Marvel has it’s best booth at SD in 5 years – a small kiosk in the middle of the Activision booth. But it’s still a rather disappointing showing, to say the least. Image has an even more haphazard appearance, with a smattering of loosely organized booths. Image doesn’t even have a panel this year."

(She also reports on Scott McCloud's new book, Making Comics, as broken a few days ago by Chris Butcher, and followed up on by no-one, surprisingly. Okay, I know that Reinventing Comics was kind of disappointing and disjointed, but no-one was interested to see him attempt a third book in the series?).

The Pulse reports that Brian Azzarello is exclusive to DC for three years, as announced at SDCC. Wasn't he already DC-exclusive?

Gary Philips has a new Vertigo period crime series coming, called Angeltown:

"If your thing is cats solving crimes and the action happening off stage, then 'Angeltown' is not for you. On the other hand, if you dig finely etched characters who clash emotionally and, at times, physically, and where detection involves knowing the human animal and not just fisticuffs and finding cliché clues (there are no names written on handily found matchbook covers or all-knowing bartenders who provide crucial information), give 'Angeltown' a go."

Mike Carey! Neil Gaiman! Glenn Fabry! TOGETHER AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME!:

"As previously kind of announced by Neil Gaiman on his webblog, and officially announced at today’s Vertigo panel at San Diego, Vertigo will publish a nine issue adaptation of his novel Neverwhere, scripted by Mike Carey, with art by Glenn Fabry. The miniseries is slated to begin in November."

Carey is also doing a Hellblazer graphic novel with Leonardo Manco:

"What's it about? It's about a guy who plays poker with the devil on a regular basis - and that's a game that makes the odd chess match with Death seem like a relaxed and civilised pastime. It's about the magic of the old world and the magic of the new, and what happens when you get caught in between them. And it's about the different ways in which Hell can erupt into people's lives. To give more of a teaser, John promises to help Chas out when his granddaughter falls prey to a mysterious illness - but then that careless promise gets him mired deep in a whole lot of very nasty shit. There's a demon who's setting up micro-hells on Earth, and when John runs up against this demon he has to recruit some even more unpleasant characters in order to defeat him. And every step he takes seems to get him in even deeper, until there's only one option open to him. But I'd rather not say what that is, beyond saying that it's very much a John Constantine sort of play. When you're all out of legal moves, change the rules of the game..."

Today's question: Now that the Bendis board are quoting (presumably) message board posts to make fun of them, does that mean that they no longer have the supposed moral superiority to protest when I link some of their posts here? Of much more interest is that fact that the thread includes Mark Millar talking about his "Eminem in the Wanted movie" "rumour":

"Wanted was sold to Univeral, right? Universal have Eminem signed for a few years. Do you really think they wouldn't have at least checked with THEIR OWN PEOPLE to see if Eminem was involved with this property before they bought it? Clearly this guy has no idea how a studio works. Nobody bought Wanted thinking Eminem was signed up. That's preposterous. JG and I just purposely picked Eminem as our visual cue (something most artists do when drawing a new character) and we created a splash in the mainstream media with the visual. Eminem was also the first person I went to when we were talking about the movie, but he turned it down and said he wasn't doing ANY movies for the next couple of years, focusing instead on the music. Where's the deceit there? We said we were approaching him. We said we were asking him. We had our people ask HIS people, etc, and he didn't want to do it, but he was our first choice. Learn some basic facts about the subject matter, the people involved and the situation before you come on and insult either pros or non-pros next time."

Doesn't the deceit come in linking a big star's name to a movie before he's expressed interest (and that's being charitable, because I seem to remember hearing that Eminem's people claim never to have heard of Wanted prior to being asked about Millar's quote that he was interested in the movie, so maybe his people were never actually asked by Millar's people after all, and Universal were denying that he was in talks from the start)?

I wonder which characters Mark Millar is planning to use in his Wolverine run?:

"Baron Strucker info needed, Is he dead? Well, IS he?? What was his last appearance?"

and

"Elektra Question, Is she dead? Okay, once you're dead and raised by The Hand you come back as an evil mo-fo and an unswerving agent of evil, right? How come Elektra's a goodie? She WAS killed and raised, right? Why is she on the side of the angels now?"

As someone responds in the Strucker thread, "Mark, shouldn't [you] have Marvel people to help with this stuff?"

AiT/Planet Lar's move to take over all media begins:

"Ait/PlanetLar publisher Larry Young told ICv2 at Comic-Con International: San Diego that Electric Girl, by creator Michael Brennan, is being developed by Cartoon Network to become an animated television series. Adam Beechen is currently working on the series 'bible,' with the number of episodes still to be determined... He also informed ICv2 that there are six Ait/PlanetLar titles currently in active development for live action feature films. The six are Astronauts in Trouble, Demo, The Couriers, Last of the Independents, Channel Zero and Codeflesh."

The Friends of Lulu Awards were given out last night, and the winners are named at The Pulse, if you're curious.

Steve Niles announces another new series:

"This October, Niles will present a different side of the hard-nosed detective story with 'Lurkers' from IDW Publishing. The series was officially announced today during Comic-Con International in San Diego. This is the second in a series of stories by Niles published under the 'Meednight Pulp' banner. The first was 'Secret Skull.' Niles spoke with CBR News back in June, describing the series. ''The Lurkers' is basically Cal McDonald in reverse [...] I always do these stories where it's like, 'Monsters exist! Yaaaay! Everybody knows it! They're all around us!' But in this, it's a world where monsters don't exist. It's based in Los Angeles and follows a homicide cop. The first story involves grave robbing. Fresh graves are being robbed and bodies are being eaten.'"

In a vain attempt to keep up with Niles, B. Clay Moore talks about his already-announced-but-still-upcoming new series, Battle Hymn:

"Basically, 'Battle Hymn' is my answer to the question, 'What would the government have done if super-heroes really existed during World War II?' I mean...it's a safe bet that if Superman or the Human Torch were flying around the States in 1941, the government would be more than a little interested in harnessing their power for the war effort. But how would they do it? And what would be the ramifications? So that's my starting point."

CBR has more photos from SDCC's second day, although it's called Day One. It's like "zero" issues, I guess. Remember them?

Augie, meanwhile, is still writing con reports:

"More importantly than anything else, though, I created a new verb this weekend that's sweeping through the con. (Pardon me while I pat myself on the back.) If someone screws you over or does you wrong, they just 'dibnyed' you. Or should that be 'dibnied?' I don't know. I'm making this up as I go along.

"Don't dibny your fellow man, either way. Be nice."

Upcoming Authority artist Dustin Nguyen had a panel all to himself at SDCC, hosted by Jim Lee:

"Asked by Lee what characters he liked as a kid, Nguyen said he dreamed of being able to draw three books when he was young: Batman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Power Pack. As he got closer to the industry, Nguyen said he found himself wanting to draw Wildcats more and more, an admission which earned him some good natured teasing from Lee, who accused him of just wanting to be like him – by drawing Wildcats and then Batman."

Disney continue to get further into the comic game:

"The New Wave of Disney Comics panel at SDCC on Thursday woke more than a few people up about the increased importance comics have taken on at the Mouse’s House. The new direction of the Disney comics are exemplified by WITCH and Kylion, which were showcased in the presentation. The bulk of Disney worldwide comics are produced in Milan and Copenhagen, and together, their output equals roughly 10,000 pages a year. While approximately half of Disney’s comics are still traditional characters (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, etc), an evolution began in the line in 1999, when European artists were asked to develop new franchises. The first of these is WITCH, which is now in 71 countries with over 20 million copies sold... Insofar as comics go, the company has three objectives: 1) acquire completed projects to develop as ongoing series; 2) look for new ideas that can be developed and turned into franchises; and 3) look for new artists to maintain the high quality of the new monthly ongoing series. Disney will also be launching a graphic novel line, again with the strategy to develop new projects for Disney. In this regard, it was explained that Disney is looking at its comics arm as an important R&D group, one that’s able to full develop and execute concepts without racking up millions in movie production costs."

This could be very interesting indeed...

Not really anything to do with SDCC for a change, but as a good night gift to you all, DC have PDF previews of Warren Ellis and Chris Sprouse's Ocean, Kurt Busiek's first JLA issue and the first issue of art-directed anthology Solo (with some lovely Tim Sale work), amongst other books, to look at...

Augie De Blieck Jr. writes from the Heart of Nerd Darkness:

"It's a frightening convention. 'Preview Night' is a misnomer. It's the real first day of the con. While there floor is only open for three hours (5:30 to 8:30) and there are no panels, that doesn't stop the four day pass holders from starting their conventions a little early... I stepped onto the con floor and nearly panicked. There was no difference between it tonight, and a normal Friday at the con from the past few years. It's that busy. The prospect of choked hallways on Saturday is enough to set the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up. Heck, Friday is beginning to scare me."

Matt Wagner to do a 12-part Batman miniseries, Dark Moon Rising:

"Initially, the conventional wisdom was that I should do something with Superman... But it was Dan Didio who finally suggested that, with the new movie coming out next summer; perhaps Batman would be a better choice. Of course, everyone immediately saw the sense in trying to tap into the enhanced PR that would automatically bring and, of course I'd already swam in the Gotham waters many times over the years so it was all familiar territory at this point. And, let's face it, I love Batman... All in all, I think it's going to be a really fun ride and I am really excited by the possibilities. As [editor] Bob Schreck said to me when he gave the final thumbs up on the series, 'Let's rock this fucker!'"

Yes. Let's.

The Pulse also reports from the Bat-Panel that Dave Lapham's Batman arc (originally to be drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz) has become a one year run on Detective Comics with art by Ramon Bachs, and cover art by Lapham. Meanwhile, post-War Games crossover, Judd Winick takes over as regular Batman writer, joined by new regular artist Doug Mahnke.

According to the developing story at The Pulse, DC's In The Name of Justice panel at SDCC concerned the JLA and JSA franchises:

"The panelists... revealed there will be more JLA/JSA team ups. Also beginning in December is a JSA/JSA team up that will take the present team and hook them up with a version of the JSA from the past. Alex Ross will be providing the covers for that special story. DC is also launching a new titles called JLA Classified which will be short story arcs of Justice League from any era. [Editor Mike] Carlin also said, 'This series is probably where Gail Simone's JLA story will appear.' ...No one on the panel would confirm whether Hal Jordan were coming back or not as Green Lantern. They did confirm that the Hourman from the 853rd century will reappear in JSA and that Hawk and Dove will be coming back - but would not say which version of Hawk and Dove would be making a return."

Josh Dysart is the new writer on Swamp Thing:

"Swamp Thing is about the search for human connectivity [...] Here is a man separated from all forms of normalcy. He’s transfigured, deformed, and thrown into a life of perpetual struggle. Over time he begins to awaken to the possibilities of his new situation. He finds in himself novel power and awareness. The inherent human desire for ascension takes hold, but it doesn’t separate him from his desire to be loved. That doesn’t happen until after the heyday of the series, when other writers take Moore’s and Veitch’s concepts to what, I guess, they saw as a natural conclusion - I didn’t - which was the emergence of a completely separate consciousness who has no human desire. That’s what’s so great about Diggle’s story. He successfully tells the tale of Swamp Thing’s next ascending moment, the point where Swamp Thing transcends the godhead, evolves beyond it because of a single decision created out of overwhelming compassion and tragedy. And what do I think Swamp Thing finds on the other side of the godhead mind? The reclamation and re-integration of his humanity, he has not gone backward, he has risen above. On the other side of god is humanity. Swamp Thing has regained his desire to be loved and his capacity to love in return. At the start of my run, Swamp Thing is disconnected form his powers, his memories and even, to a certain degree, his intellect, but he’s hungry for human connectivity and, in a very Zen way, wiser than he ever was before, because to me, that’s true to the character’s evolution and motivation. Cha Cha Cha."

The Pulse has some more from the Vertigo panel where the above was announced: Bruce Jones will be writing Deadman for the imprint, and it will concern "airplanes, a romance, and death in a way you're probably not familiar with." Jason Hall and Human Target cover artist John Watkiss are also teaming up for a new series called Triggers, which "features a bunch of people who don't know they are 'triggers' for a major corporation that is using them as assassins to enforce their will on others."

So now you know.

On course to conquer many major demographics very soon, Tokyopop turns its attention to the highly lucrative computer war gamer market:

"Tokyopop and Blizzard Entertainment have announced a new publishing project based on the hugely popular Warcraft game universe. Since the debut of Warcraft in 1994 Blizzard Entertainment has sold more than 14 million copies of various iterations of the popular PC game. Now it has licensed Tokyopop to create a three-volume manga series, Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilolgy, which Richard Knaak, who is also writing a trilogy of Warcraft prose novels, will write... In addition to the PC games from Blizzard and the manga trilogy from Tokyopop, White Wolf has created a Warcraft RPG, while Fantasy Flight Games has published a Warcraft board game and Toycom has created Warcraft action figures."

ICv2 looks at the numbers for June:

"In May three titles topped 175K in sales while in June no title even made it within sniffing distance of 175K. Seven of the top ten titles in June actually showed declines in sales compared with previous months, but June's dollar total up substantially from May (and from June of 2003). The $3.95 price tag on Identity Crisis #1 helped and the Ultimate Spider-Man titles and Amazing Spider-Man #509 registered solid gains (a certain movie can take some of the credit), but solid performances from the middle tier of comic titles kept June numbers rising. DC took the top two spots with Identity Crisis #1 and Superman #206, but Marvel took the next 14 slots and 24 out of the top 30. Seventeen of the top 25 titles declined and only six scored gains."

Star of blog and A&E's "Biography" Heidi Macdonald has made it to San Diego and has words of advice for those less experienced:

"'I WON’T DO THIS YEAR WHAT I DID LAST YEAR' [...] That’s the refrain you hear from attendee after attendee. While this year’s show is set to smash all records, it appears that the lessons of ’03 were learned. No one hopes to see it all, experience it all. Defense mechanisms have set in. Mental health breaks to the mall and the hotel pool are mandatory. You’re no good to anyone dead, so don’t kill yourself trying to be a hero."

CBR has photos from the Preview night of SDCC. In related news, I'm beginning to wonder if I look like a skinnier version of Randy Lander.

Matt Fraction joins Steve Niles when IDW's 30 Days Of Night spins out an ongoing series:

"The first '30 Days of Night' series took the comic world by storm, proving to be an overnight success. It helped cement series writer/creator Steve Niles as a contemporary master of horror. Spin-offs from that original series, books like 'Dark Days' and 'Return To Barrow,' have proven that interest is still very high in that world. Announced at Comic-Con International in San Diego today, fans thirst for more will be quenched this October when the new ongoing series '30 Days Of Night: Bloodsucker Tales' hits the stands from IDW Publishing. Each issue of 'Bloodsucker Tales' contains two stories, one 12 page story written by Steve Niles with art by newcomer Kody Chamberlin, and the second 12 page story written by Matt Fraction ('Last of the Independents') with art by Ben Templesmith."

Staying with Mr. Fraction, he and Joe Casey are going to be launching a new column at Comic Book Resources that looks fairly interesting. Let's let him explain the concept behind "The Basement Tapes":

"Joe and I got to talking and felt that there was a certain kind of discussion not being had about the comics mainstream; at least not in a public space. A conversation about craft, about idiom, about the how's and why's that go on both on the page and off, and how it is we arrived there in the first place. Not anything as turgid as a how-to, and not as odious as a perpetual interview, just two guys shootin' the breeze, basically. Shop talk... We both miss that kind of critical eye that TCJ used to really shine on the mainstream; just because it might be a trashy culture doesn't mean it doesn't deserve some kind of serious thinking applied to it."

J Torres and Oni bring back the ongoing Romance comic:

"Announced today during Comic-Con International in San Diego, "Love is a Foreign Language," available from Oni Press this October, is the tale of Joel, an English teacher that travels to Korea and develops a crush on the school secretary. The book, a romantic comedy, will be a quarterly, and Torres' first regular series with Oni... Torres isn't embarrassed adapting some of his own follies into the comic. In fact, he feels quite comfortable with it, because in real life, he got the girl."

Millarworld asks Whatever Happened To The Men of Tomorrow?:

"When Jemas, Joe Quesada and the new regime took over a series of changes came about to better represent the new policies and infuse a dose of creativity into the books. Frontliner of the movement was Axel Alonso and his taste for offbeat material and creators. He brought Bruce Jones. `brought Peter Milligan. A group of crazy freaks were in charge, the inmates were running the aylum, they were doing thing differently and most of all people were respoinding is spades. Indeed success, creativity and contreversies were the order of the day during a good 3 years. Of course, during this 'awkening' of the House if Ideas you know their names: Bryan Mickeal Bendis, Mark Millar, Grant Morrison, JMS, Garth Ennis, Bruce Jones, Peter Milligan, and so forth.

"However, along the way we saw things reverting back with the occasional Woverine-Punisher minis and some of these guys with talent coming out of their ears didn`t get much work other than that one book that made them known... The real question is why couldn`t Marvel use these talents that have made the success of New Marvel better? These guys should have been cherished, they were the favored sons of the regime, big progects after one another should have been line-up for them. So why this didn`t happen? I understand Marvel about Bendis, JMS and Millar being good and getting a lot of opportunity but why hasn`t the same thing happened for the others? That`s why in a way I was not as mad as I should have about Bruce Jones signing exclusive with DC because deep down I thought: 'Well, Marvel asked for it'. They had him for all this time and nothing much rewarding came from it in his case excepted for a few mini-series there and there. But why did this happened? Bad decision in editing? Lack of money(saving the big bucks for a limited few guys?). And with the departure of Jones who was with Milligan the flag-bearer of a more cerebral offbeat way fo writing super-hero comics for New Marvel, is Axel Alonso next? And would anybody care at this point? It`s not like he brought any neat new creator out of his pocket lately like he had done for Bruce Jones. Considering the traditional way Marvel seems to be going, they may not even want to."

"I'm wondering a bit at what exactly your getting at. Marvel turning more conservative editorially or just not as much work from some creators? Although I can't say I care as much as I don't follow any Marvel titles anymore except for the occassional trade. I'll follow them more to the creator-owned or Vertigo titles though, for the most part."

"Three words: Bendis, Millar, Straczynski. These top 3 guys alone are better than the top 3 writers at DC."

B. Clay Moore talks up Five Dead Men, his new Western with Tony Moore from Image:

"The key is telling the story I want to tell, and then doing my best to keep the environment as close to authentic as I can without getting too anal about it... Obviously, since we're both inspired by Sergio Leone films and classic Westerns, we're picking up elements from the fictionalized old West, as well as the real deal. And, as I alluded to earlier, Tony's incorporating some pretty cool elements from Eastern movies and comics, as well. It's going to be a literate story that kicks lots of ass, too."

Newsarama enjoyed the preview night of SDCC:

"If anyone working SDCC was hoping to ease into the convention this year, those hopes were dashed at last night’s Preview Night, which opened to very strong attendance. Seriously strong. Jaw-droppingly strong. The evening started a little late though – due to minor problems at the door, the crowd, which virtually stretched the length of the convention center outside, didn’t enter the floor until about 5:45 pm, rather than 5:30. And oh, what a crowd it was. In the eyes of many publishers and other exhibitors, the preview night crowd started strong, and stayed strong, resulting in a crowd that was, by most accounts, the same size of what you’d expect to see on the floor on any given day of the show."

If it's Thursday, then Warren Ellis is Streaming, this time about Global Frequency:

"Going 'long' and pushing for collection brought me to a point where I have more graphic novels in print than pretty much any other writer working in the American medium. Even discounting hardback versions, there's more than thirty graphic novels and five or six text works largely about comics. This came to mean that an entry to my body of work was relatively expensive in the context of a regular comics store. So I wanted to come up with something that provided a complete experience in 22 pages. A tool for stores to use, a series as opposed to a serial, where you could cleanly jump in on any single issue and have all the information you needed to understand and hopefully enjoy it -- and get introduced to my work for (just) less than three of your Yanqui dollar."

Newsarama posters consider past mistakes:

"We all have one that one comic that ya bought and now cannot fathom why. I bought Thunderstrike not knowing any better man that sucked."

"Recently? Alternation. In the past...god...so many regrets...Howard Mackie's Web of Spider-Man run, Spawn, Youngblood, Brigade...well okay, ANY early Image..."

"Spidey: Chapter One. Not only did I buy the first issue... but I bought like the next 4. Apparently I don't learn quickly."

Adi Tantimedh doesn't like Identity Crisis. I know this, because he's started a thread in the Andy Diggle Forum and contributed to a thread in Micah Wright's forum offering up his incredibly intense dislike for it. In both threads, there are many people who agree with him that the book is misogynistic and "points up the insecurity and homophobia" of Brad Meltzer. The same discussion has been had, with varying levels of rationality on other forums (for example, here, here and, um, here...), as well as in essays and blogs. Imagine my surprise, then, to see Adi write the following in response to Andy Diggle's suggestion that maybe he's over-reacting:

"I'm not the only one's who's offended by this book, you know. I'm just the only one who's speaking out about it."

Putting aside the issue of whether Identity Crisis is misogynistic or not, you have to wonder how many people would have to complain about the book before Adi feels less alone (Surreally, when someone responds "Actually there seem to be quite a lot of people saying its terrible and tasteless," Adi replies "My point exactly." Huh?).

Courtesy of the Micah Wright forum, right-wing politico magazine Front Page on The Punisher:

"Leftist propagandizing is not new to Marvel, nor to the author of the Punisher series, Irishman Garth Ennis. Two months after September 11th, the Punisher was featured threatening the life of President George W. Bush. The story portrays the President as a slobbering belching incoherent drunk, gleefully itching to launch nuclear missiles. The Punisher breaks into the Oval Office, tosses a nine-millimeter bullet before the President and warns ominously, 'I can get in anywhere …Nine millimeters. I’m never further away than that.' Yes, you’ve got it right – Marvel published a threat to assassinate the President of the United States, only weeks after September 11th. Even viewed as sick humor, the tenor and timing of this piece was inexcusable... It appears that Ennis and Marvel prefer to live in a vulgar world of leftist fantasy, where an evil American government allied with greedy multinational corporations is the enemy of humanity. If such self-hating beliefs are allowed to permeate the popular culture unchallenged, if our strength of will is sapped before we defeat our real enemies, our very survival may be jeopardized."

CBR previews Giffen and DeMatteis's new book, including the above variant cover, with the same joke as the cover to Grant Morrison's Doom Force (also by Giffen) from, oh, those many years ago:

Steven Grant on DC's ingratitude:

"[T]here's no conceivable reason in this world why DC isn't either publishing whatever Marv [Wolfman] or George [Perez] want published or at least giving them some type of pension. Just out of sheer gratitude. The only other instance I can think where that applies is Stan Lee and Steve Ditko at Marvel, and Ditko's arguable. (Most people would say Kirby, but while FF was the first official Marvel comic, I remember Ditko's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN as the comic that put the company, also teetering on oblivion in the early '60s, back on the cultural map.)"

The Bendis board laud retailers for being "active":

"las time i was in da shop, my retailer was talking about how she's gonna talk to DC about releasing the Sandman books with better coloring or something. and DKR too i think [...] does your retailer bother doing stuff like that? or are they like 'Hands. off. the. display. case. thank you.'"

"Ha! Well, mine wont stock SHHH or Powers, but he began reading it again. Also, I usually have MOST of my subscriptions pulled for me, if not, as long as Im there before someone he doesnt like as much, he'll take it out of their subs. I also have ordered a few things that have NOT came in, cool collector-type shit, and Ive yet to see them even though theyve been re;leased. Im afraid to order them because I may end up having to buy 2 if gets them in. he says he'll check on them...he just keeps forgetting."

"Honestly, my retailer kinda sucks. He's more interested in Heroclix than selling comics. The guy doesn't even follow current events. I told him the moment it broke about Bendis and Avengers Disassembled, and then weeks later he asked me if I had heard about Bendis doing Avengers. I felt like punching him right in the face."

"My retailer is very active, he does push-ups and lunch time. And lunges before AND after work."

Newsarama consider Brian Michael Bendis. Or, as he's called in this particular thread, Bendasss:

"who here thinks bendass is a sh*thead? just asking"

"Not really. My interaction has been pretty limited with him (not really on a personal level) but from what I've seen on his board, he treats his fans with some respect. And I mean he tried to get them laid..."

"an argument that happend a good while ago with some of the people there and he asked me to say an apoligy to them even though they started the sh*t and he won't answer any questions i ask if i don's say it to them. it's the principle now,f*ck the questions. i already know some guys that have done some bendis flash animation they are going to publish to the web soon that is f*cking funny man,bendis is gonna wanna ban it but he can't ban sh*t like that from the web,he can't be the only jerk=]"

"You're an ass. Matt, why is this thread still in existence?"

Joe Pruett, once of Calibur, launches Desperado Publishing:

"When you offer creators ownership and the freedom to create you shouldn’t be surprised to see who’ll sign up... Sure it’s fun to play with the characters from your youth - not to mention get those big paychecks, but what creator wouldn’t want to see his/her own creation come to life on the pages before him/her? When you work on someone else’s character it’s like babysitting someone else’s kid. You can’t discipline it, nor can you can’t tell it what to do without overstepping your boundaries. After a little while, you finish playing with it, give it back to them and watch it grow up from afar. When you work on your own character, you nurture it, you watch it grow, and you tell it what to do! It’s your kid. It’s a part of you and there’s nothing more personal than watching your little baby grow up... I can’t compete with the big boys and I don’t plan on even trying. That’s a formula for failure before I even open the door. At Desperado we want to put out work that I know I would want to read, that won’t insult your intelligence and will be something you can hand a non-comics fan and have them come back and tell you how much they liked it."

With a line-up like Brian Bolland, P. Craig Russell, Tony Harris, Phil Hester and Bob Burden, I feel like it's too good to make the obvious "Why don't you come to your senses?" joke...

Jai Nitz talks to the talents behind Scurvy Dogs, Street Angel and Skyscrapers of The Midwest about whether - as today's hip young kids on the cutting edge of the underground - they're about to be poached by the Big Mainstream Companies. The fine Ryan Yount is happy to set the record straight:

"Oh, yeah, there's been a lot of companies who've contacted me. The Air Force had a civilian Maintenance Technician position they really wanted me for, but I had to tell them that unfortunately, my OBJECTIVE, as stated on my resume, was no longer to 'professionally mop floors for the government.' They said they'd keep my application in the 'active' file, even though I requested they not."

In a nice change from the norm, The Pulse finds Travel Foreman more thoughtful than impossibly ecstatic about his new gig at Marvel, it seems:

"Working with Com.X was about the closest thing I've experienced to sitting around a friend's house in the summer as a kid and making funny books just for the sheer joy of it... Not that it isn't fun working at Marvel, but with these giant machines that are Marvel and DC, and any corporation really, you just end up being another cog on the grind... Plus this is the 'New Marvel' and they're playing by a whole new set of rules so a lot of the liberties you would enjoy at a smaller more intimate company you certainly won't get and there's no reason to expect them."

Matt Brady grills Dan Buckley about sales at Newsarama:

"NRAMA: You’ve got sales numbers being goosed by variants, so, in your view, how do you break down the sales on [Astonishing X-Men] #1? Obviously, it's nearly impossible to figure, but is there any ballpark that you can figure of how much was due to actual demand in a 1:1 reader to comic way? Or, more simply, how many readers of AXM #1 were there, given the number of copies shipped?

DB: There really is no hard and fast rule on this, but the retailer feedback we have received give us the sense that Astonishing X-Men is picking up new readers every week. Many of the top retailers have had AXM #1 in there top 10 in sales since it launched. This combined with the fact the 'variants' were designed for collectibility tells me that the books reader ratio is closer to 1:1 than a book with a 50:50 cover variant. I’m saying this because the rarity of the variants quite simply does not allow for the casual 'double' purchase.

NRAMA: So the variant covers significantly increased numbers on #1?

DB: I can say that the book had a great deal of ordering activity in the final couple of weeks, but I am not sure if this was created by the variants or if it was generated by the previews of the book finally hitting the consumer press or if it was a combination of both. I won’t deny that variants are used to generate incremental sales and excitement, but I am not sure the term 'significant' is appropriate. For example Ultimate Fantastic Four had a comparable volume, and it had no variants."

Joey Manley announces a possible future for Modern Tales:

"TokyoPop, Viz, etc., have been making money reprinting Japanese comics in digest form for bookstore sales. One of the keys to this business, it seems to me (in addition to the existence of customer demand), is the ready availability of lots of existing material -- they're not having to fund the creation of the work itself, just licensing from the copyright owners the right to republish for a market that the creators weren't really expecting to reach anyway. I'm thinking that the same thing could be done for the cream of the mini-comics and self-published comics crowd: bring back some material that has fallen out of print, earn some incremental income both for the creator and for Modern Tales, and expand the audience for alternative/artcomics. In fact, I'm very much moving in that direction, with the launch of MT's print line in a few months. We'll be reprinting several longstanding webcomics series in cheap digests, for sale to our large online audience (around 4000 paying readers, around 100,000 non-paying readers, currently), and hopefully pick up a distributor for our books in the Direct Market and bookstores, too, someday -- but this step is not necessary for our business to be profitable, and may only occur after we've put out three or four successful titles. But webcomics isn't the only place we'll be looking for reprintable material.

"Anyway, this is a long-term goal, not an immediate business plan. Given that fact, though, what long-running minicomics series or self-published comics might make appealing digest books? My goal is to find out-of-print but completed (story-wise) series with high quality, but also lots of material -- the kind of thing that can end up in seven or eight volumes of 100-200 pages each, to stand on the shelves next to Neon Genesis Evangelion or whatever."

The V offer up ingredients for the ultimate Batman story:

"Batman falling off a building and using a bat-rope to save himself."

"Batarangs causing thugs to drop guns as they spike their hands."

"Batman disappears mid conversation."

"Arkham, possibly in the context of Batman seeking information from one of the inmates."

"Batman cracking a joke, then someone else saying 'Gasp! But Batman NEVER cracks jokes!'"

(The explanation for the above: "He cracks jokes all the time, to throw people off balance! He was making jokes about bloody Krypto just the other month! Anyway, you have to admit it'd be great to see him use it as a fight tactic. 'SUBMIT, BATMAN! You may strike me down, but my Lazarus pit will return me stronger than ever before!' 'WHAT... is the DEAL... with AIRLINE PEANUTS?' 'I... what?'")

Dan Brereton has a new publisher... Disney. Chris Arrant talks to him about his plans with the House of Mouse at Newsarama:

"It's mind-boggling. Some of my work has been published in Spain, Mexico, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil and some other countries, but Disney Global reaches those countries and many more. The idea of the work being seen for the first time in new places around the world after working in the States for 17 years, feels like a sort of rebirth. When they offered the job originally, I was nervous about the subject matter, but knew I would never be offered an opportunity for such lavish global exposure again. It makes you nervous, very anxious and excited. Most of all, my wish is for it to make an impact here in North America, where this type of story [historical drama] is still very new."

Kirsten Baldock talks "ultimate fetish book" Smoke and Guns at CBR:

"Like I said, I'm new at this, so I don't have a lot of pearls of wisdom to offer yet, but one observation I have from working at a comic store is that there just aren't enough books by women out there. When one of the most hyped and well-promoted comics of the summer is about the graphic rape and subsequent murder of a superhero's wife, it's not hard to see that the comic industry could use more women writers. That said, 'Smoke and Guns' isn't a book with a feminist message. That's not what I'm interested in writing. One of my biggest influences in writing 'Smoke and Guns' would have to be Joan Jett. She wanted to see girls up on stage playing rock and roll, and instead of talking about it, she strapped on a guitar and just started rocking. That was my approach to 'Smoke and Guns,' too. I wanted to see new women writers putting out fun, action-packed comics, so I just did it. If I can inspire new women writers like Joan Jett inspired new women rockers, that's great! More comics for me to read!"

The New York Times on Marvel:

"In addition to financial stability, Spider-Man's huge box office success ($821 million worldwide for the first movie and $285 million to date for 'Spider-Man 2') has afforded Marvel unusual clout in Hollywood for movie deals featuring its other characters. Yet, particularly since the sequel opened at the end of June, Marvel's stock has been hammered, dropping from its 52-week high of $23.82 to $15.92 as of Friday. The apparent disconnect is partly explained by classic Wall Street logic: some analysts and investors worry that Marvel will be hard pressed to top Spider-Man, and that after two 'X-Men' films, two 'Blade' films, 'Hulk,' 'Daredevil' and 'The Punisher,' it has used up all its well-known characters. 'Show us which film other than 'Spider-Man' has been really successful on the toy shelves,' said Peter Mirsky, an analyst at Oppenheimer, noting that toys and other film-related merchandise are Marvel's biggest generators of revenue and profit."

Everyone in New York: Jigsaw is giving away a free copy of Larry Young's Astronauts In Trouble: Live From The Moon with every purchase today in celebration of this being the 35th anniversary of the first moon landing. So go and buy something from them.

This just in from the Methinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much (And By The Way I Am Talking Like Thor) department: James Meeley protests a blog entry about his message board posting. In a surreal turn of events, however, I'm not the blogger in question for a change:

"I want it know that, while I certainly don't deny that I can carry a grudge, I don't carry one for what was said at the blog about me. People are free to say whatever they want. It's a free country, even on the Internet. I'm an outspoken person, with very deep convictions. That makes me a target for the empty-minded and soul-devoid types who seemingly clog the 'information super-highway'. I know this, so that doesn't really bother me. No, what bothers me is that these clowns upset my wife. I know some of them have wives of their own. I wonder how they'd feel seeing their wife's distrested at seeing them signled out for ridcule by a bunch of two-faced punks who haven't even got the stones to say that type of thing to a person's face, but instead must do it behind their backs."

Yup, certainly doesn't sound like he carries a grudge. And even though he may have called John (the blogger in question) and his readers "obviously petty-minded and hollow-souled", that's not him carrying a grudge, either...

Click here to read the offending blog entry, which isn't that offensive. I don't even really see what James's wife got upset about, because it's not as if John does anything apart from let James's own words say everything... Still, the common sense rule applies here, as always: If you don't want people to comment on something that you've written, then making cryptic threats about Alex Ross on public message boards isn't the smartest way to make that happen.

Mark Millar not going to out Spider-Man shocker! Well, there goes that idea...:

"Don't be daft. I just like playing around with the secret ID stuff as a plot device. It's rare to be able to do it these days after everyone went public, but the secret ID risk is a big part of this series and the first twelve issues and I'm just having fun with it. Too many people know Peter's ID. It should just be MJ, Dr Strange, Venom, Black Cat and Osborn. I'll CONCEDE Aunt May because JMS did it all so perfectly and it's actually working really well, but Peter isn't like Cap or Tony. He kept his secret ID a secret until he was just about married to MJ and from even the people he loves most. Why the fuck would he just start letting other super-people know? This ain't the Justice League and I think it's quite out of character.

"His secret getting out is the reason Gwen died. It's also the reason Flash is in a coma, Harry's dead and now something bad has happened to Aunt May. More than any other hero, Peter should be concerned about his ID so no, the story doesn't go in that direction."

and

"PS For those who have asked, the first storyline runs for twelve issues and has been broken down into three arcs because it follows a very complex three act structure. The reason I broke these down because these are three, semi self-contained stories that turn this twelve issue thing into a trilogy but where the compsite parts have endings every four issues. The Electro, Owl and Vulture story, for now, takes back seat as Venom comes forward and we find out that something weird has been happening to Spider-Man's villains as they're taken back and forth to a secret location from Stryker's Island prison. This story CONTINUES the Aunt May thing, but introduces several new plot threads in issue five which resolve in issue eight. Issue eight ends the second arc and the final plot thread about Aunt May ramps up again and becomes the focus in issue nine and a whole new arc before this arc (plus all three previous stories) are pulled together in our conclusion. Every single scene in this opening year has been carefully plotted and links together into a BIG story you'll see after issue nine. It's the most ambitious thing I've ever really tried."

Am I the only person who'd love to read Mark Millar say something along the lines of "It's the same old stuff, really. It worked well before, and I thought, well, why not?" Everything he writes, he's always saying that it's the biggest, best, most ambitious thing he's ever tried...

Millarworld investigates a new Marvel rumour:

"In another thread it is mentioned that there won't be a Thor #86. Actually its mentioned in the October Marvel Solicits. Nevertheless before the Oeming run began I spoke to a comic a store owner who claims that Marvel is going to cancel the Marvel U. Thor book and relaunch it as Ultimate Thor. He claims to have insider knowledge. Again take it for what its worth. I know if this were to happen I wouldn't be happy but with the rumored Ultimate Captain America series from Mr. Millar I wouldn't be surprised."

"I don't see why they'd need to cancel the MU Thor book to launch an Ultimate Thor book. I think they've got plans for MU Thor, but have to wait for everything to fall into place. I wouldn't doubt an Ultimate Thor book coming out though."

"Maybe this is why Thor: Son of Asgard went monthly: to fill the void left be the regular Thor title. I believe it was stated in interviews about Disassembled that some titles may not return."

"Perhaps he'll die in Dissassembled wonderfully, dramatically, tragically... And then we have a few months for that to sink in while they hype a gigantic Ultimate Thor book in a spinoff campaign from his 616-death. It does, now that I think about it, look like Marvel is 'prepping' the Thor fanbase for his death by giving them an overload of Thor titles lately. The kid-Thor, the Loki series, Avengers, his own Thor book, and Ultimates too a point, as well. That's more Thor stories than we've ever seen, is it?"

The Joe Quesada board get concerned by the violent content of DC books these days:

"Last night, I read these books back to back and was a little taken aback by the content. [Identity Crisis] has a rather brutal and unflinching rape scene. 'Bloodhound' is bathed in blood and features a guy having both of his eyes gouged out, on-screen. The shocking thing was not the events themselsves (I loved both books), but the fact that neither book had a 'Mature Readers' label. IC is the most surprising, because the beautiful Michael Turner cover of pretty DC heroes would be quite attractive to kids. So why no labels? Is the audience officially composed of adults, such that we can safely assume kids won't read these books?"

"I wonder if the rape scene in IDENTITY CRISIS tried to deflect the horror of it by pulling away from the action, but only succeeded in amplifying it. Much like the decision to redraw the Kyle Rayner's girlfriend-in-the-fridge panel so that the fridge door obscured most of the body only made it seem that much more gruesome. Because, really, the camera is on Sue Dibny's head, but it's one of the most nauseating scenes of that type I've ever experienced. Anyway...Kyle Rayner's girlfriend was snapped in half and stuffed in a fridge. Or something like that. Karen Page became a drug-addled porn star. A teenage Robin was brutally beaten with a pipe (?) and then exploded. Sometimes this stuff sneaks in there. It's nothing new. But you're probably right that it should have a mature readers label - I dunno how thrilled I'd be to catch my 8 year old reading that rape scene."

"And let's not forget, it only takes one sensitive parent to F&#% the industry up."

John Ridley on writing his Authority graphic novel:

"The writing was incredibly hard and exactly for the reason you are saying about plotting it panel for panel. If you misplot page wise you can’t just go back and change a page number because you have to move these panels around. A lot of times you plan on ending the page with this panel because you want a little bit of a surprise on the next page and if you move one of them out you mess that up. So that was really hard because when I write a screenplay, if I really have the time and I can focus, I can easily do ten to fifteen pages a day in a draft, knowing that I’ll go back and make changes. With this, two pages a day was about the most I could handle. It really wore me out. There’s a lot of thinking that goes on. Ben lives in England and you’re trying to communicate with somebody who to this day I haven’t met him. Some people are ultra-specific in their writing but for me Ben is such a great artist that I didn’t want to try to put him in such a box that he couldn’t go out and do his art. At the same I had to communicate what I was looking for in the frames, in the moment, on the page, so there is a lot of specificity in what I am putting down so that somebody else can understand what I’m trying to communicate. It’s hard. Writing comic books, people look at it as it’s just a comic book and no big deal. But if you look at the people you really like, you realize it is a form of literature. It’s art and literature and that’s what makes it that much harder then writing a screenplay."

Scholastic's David Saylor talks Bone and the company's new graphic novel line:

"We're looking for are stories and artwork that have a point-of-view, that are 'creator-driven'-meaning that in the same way we publish Newbery-winning author, Karen Hesse, who has deeply-felt emotional content in all her work, we want to publish talented artists and writers that bring something exciting to children. We're not interested in creating generic or blandly obvious comics... I can also tell you that [the Bone books] will be beautifully printed and produced: we're using wonderful paper stock and the books will look and feel like they are worth every penny: the price for the paperback of book one is only $9.99."

Having finally read Identity Crisis #2 this weekend, I find today that Paul O'Brien manages to put the majority of my thoughts about it into a more cohesive form over at Ninth Art:

"In many respects, it's a perfectly solid piece of superhero writing. It's the sort of thing that would, at one point, have been the spine for a six-month crossover, and we can at least say a silent prayer of thanks that the thing is self-contained. Meltzer handles his enormous cast quite effectively by shoving most of them into background roles, and the first issue does a nice job of setting up Sue's relationship with her husband before sacrificing her to the gods of plot necessity. Meltzer seems to be enjoying himself playing with the DCU toys, and the whodunnit aspect is well constructed. Of course, the volume of characters and lack of background on most of them mean that it'll be virtually incomprehensible to anyone who isn't already a comics reader, and certainly make it a bizarre book for DC to try and market to a mainstream audience. But that's another matter.

"Still, that rape scene - it really does have problems. To be fair, it certainly isn't gratuitous. On the contrary, it's clearly a central motivation for the heroes' actions, and therefore key to the plot. But it seems ridiculously out of place for these characters. It's the Elongated Man and his wife, for heaven's sake. Even by DC standards, these are nice, shiny happy characters. There are a few second-tier characters where it would be vaguely believable to insert something like this into their back story, but this just seems absurdly out of place. Of course, it's hardly an original observation that women in superhero comics tend to meet violently unpleasant ends. Personally, I don't attribute that to misogyny. I see it as a knock-on effect of the heroes being overwhelmingly male, combined with lazy writing."

Go and read the whole article.

The greatest post at Millarworld in a long time, in response to the question "Where Do You Draw the Line... when a creator's beliefs aren't yours?", presented exactly as it appears on the board itself:

"GRANT MORRISON'S POST 9-11 RANT SECURED HIM A LIFETIME SLOT ON MY BOYCOTT LIST. THERE ARE OTHER WRITERS WHOSE BELIEFS ARE CONTRARY TO MY OWN, BUT NONE HAVE OFFENDED ME PERSONALLY AS MORRISON. BOYCOTTING WHAT YOU CONSIDER AN OFFENSIVE CREATOR/ARTIST IS A FINE & PROPER ACTION. THERE ARE MOVIES I WILL NOT PAY TO SEE, ACTORS I REFUSE TO SUPPORT OR EVEN WORK WITH, AND PERSONS AND EVENTS I HAVE REFUSED TO PROVIDE SECURITY SERVICES. VERY LITTLE PREVENTS "OFFENSIVE" CREATORS(etc) FROM PUSHING THEIR DOGMA FORWARD IN THEIR ART/PERFORMANCES/LITERATURE AS THEY ARE INTENT ON MAKING SURE YOU ARE EXPOSED TO THEIR PERSPECTIVE. YET NOTHING COMPELS ANYONE TO READ OR WATCH OR SUFFER ANY ARTIST IF THEY CHOOSE SO."

Blair Marnell reports on former Firestorm penciller Chris Cross apologizing madly for comments he'd made in the previous week's All The Rage:

"I'd like to formally apologize to Peter Tomasi. Now this is going to take some time. I sat in his office to tell him why I was resigning my commission on the book, which was of some severe personal stress from family issues and some of my own personal problems. This was not only true, but it was also 3/4 of the reason why I resigned. Mixed in with the 3/4's was also the fact that I was offered another assignment from another company. And we discussed it, and there was no animosity whatsoever. With that article, I practically demonized the man. And I came out looking like a hypocrite. My personal issues including the feeling that I wasn't being exposed enough on the book messed with me so much that I started to lose the drive to even draw. That in turn, caused me to continuously miss my deadlines. Now, Peter is a good guy and a family man and he's worked very hard to become Senior Editor. Editors nowadays have to handle anywhere from 10 to 18 books in a month, deal with twice as many artists and their personalities, and field at least a hundred phone calls a day. All that before lunch. And don't be in the way on a Friday. It's not an easy job and some of these guys have a bottle of Maalox on their desk. Sometimes they go home and still have to take their job with them. That is how stressful and demanding the job is. To know what the job entails and then post the thoughts that I said on the web in that way publicly minimized and dismissed his job and his work. Trust me when I say the saying "it's just business, it's nothing personal" is just the biggest bucket of bullcookies. I'm not surprised that he's angry and possibly a little hurt. Peter, I am very sorry. It was not my intent to create a caustic relationship between me, you and DC. I did this out of pure emotion and personal circumstance with no foresight that I would be looking like I was full of myself. Even though I feel had some legitimate beefs, it could have been handled differently and never at the behest of what you do or belittling in any way your role in the company. Which I really hope I didn't do. Like I said, I have no problem with you or DC and I hope with time you as a person will have it within your heart to forgive me if I’ve hurt you in any way. Hopefully, You and the people at DC can see this as my first and last offense, that you as a person can forgive my trespass, and that we can sometime in the future work together on something. At this point, it'll probably be 'Ambush Bug: The Return', but it'll be the best Ambush Bug ever put out. And it's a paying gig."

Rich Johnston thinks that Marvel want one of DC's head honchos:

"I understand, through a recruitment agency, that Marvel executives, the owners of Marvel rather than editorial, have been headhunting Dan Didio for an unspecified position. Dan Didio's current contract is up in six months."

Marvel decide to make an straight to DVD Avengers movie:

"Production on 'The Avengers' home video release -- which will be based on the best-selling Marvel Comics series 'The Ultimates' -- has already commenced. The animated feature will be distributed by Lions Gate Home Entertainment and available in stores in early 2006."
 
I can't wait to see animated Hulk threaten to rape animated Betty. That'll go over well with the kids.

Bryan Singer signs to do the Superman film:
 
"Trading allegiances for at least one film, Variety reports that on Friday, X-Men director Bryan Singer signed with Warner Brothers to both develop and direct the Superman film. According to the report, Singer will work with Michael Dogherty and Dan Harris to develop the film, which is slated to begin production in late 2004 in Australia. The deal with Warner Brothers makes it look unlikely that Singer will return to direct X-Men 3... The studio has also shelved JJ Abrams’ version of the script."
 
Kind of makes you wonder if Marvel will go in a huff and shelf Singer and company's Ultimate X-Men run now, doesn't it?

Comic Book Resources has the sales chart for last month. Identity Crisis #1 tops the chart with Superman not slipping down the chart as I'd expected, instead beating out the second issue of Astonishing X-Men. Mark Millar may have trouble spinning the big fall of his Spider-Man title (now at #15, below all of the Ultimate books, the core X-Books, Amazing Spider-Man and, strangely enough, Wolverine: The End), though he can be happy that Wanted is one of only three non-Marvel or DC books in the top 50...

Grant Morrison talks about his contribution to the Mystery In Space Julie Schwartz tribute book:
 
"I have no idea what happens in the original story [written to accompany the cover that Morrison's story was inspired by]. I'm sure it's much better than mine. Mine's nothing like the original (or maybe it is - I hope not) but is a neat little twist ending tale shot through with a Jack Kerouac style 'beat' poet commentary about Julie, Adam Strange, and the Silver Age, which is probably the bit that will confuse today's easily confused readership."

Boing-Boing has links to French anti-AIDS posters depicting Wonder Woman and Superman as having AIDS. Interesting, and worth seeing.
 
(Thanks, Chad.)

The Andy Diggle Forum doesn't like Identity Crisis either:
 
"I haven't read this issue yet, but... 'Elongated Man's wife was raped' - what is that? I mean, can you think of a less appropriate storyline for the fucking ELONGATED MAN? He's a comedy stretchy man!"
 
"Who's the villain going to be, Captain Degradation? I really don't understand what this is supposed to be saying about anything. How exactly does this examine the importance and secret meaning of hidden identities? Was Sue on the surface a normal woman but deep inside a painted harlot rape victim -- worse, the rape victim of a supervillain?"
 
"As I was saying to a couple of fellow pros earlier, it's damned sloppy that we haven't thought to pitch a supersized anthology called DEAD GIRLFRIENDS IN FRIDGES."

Millarworld offers advice to con-goers:
 
"Don't offer to buy any pros a drink til they offer to buy you one first. They'll think you're trying to worm your way into their good books so you can get something from them, which'll lead to distrust."
 
"[U]se deoderant. A smelly fan-boy is a walking stereotype."
 
"Be polite to the professionals (and to everyone). It's okay to ask for what you want, but remember your manners. While your witty banter will sound clever in your head, when you say it to someone you admire, it will come out as fanboy talk. That's okay: just don't expect to make instant friendships with the pros."
 
"Bring a girlfriend because they will force you to leave before you pour rhe geek over you and in order to keep your head straight while meeting folks."

ADD issues the Eightball Challenge:
 
"So there's some discussion going on, but Eightball #23 is an exciting achievement that pushes forward both comics in general and creator Dan Clowes in specific. I want to know what everyone gets out of this issue. So buy it, write you own review, send it to me, and I'll post the best ones here at Comic Book Galaxy. The best and most original entry will win a prize pack of comics. All too often the complaint is heard that the internet doesn't provide insightful criticicm of the comics artform. Sean Collins has gone a long way to dispel that idea in his review, but I need more. Much more. So let's hear it, already."
 
One future entry may be Time magazine, who list the comic in their "If You Only Read 10 Trashy Novels This Summer" list (Subscription required).

Newsarama has a preview of Warren Ellis's Ultimate Nightmare for those who are interested...

Brian Hibbs wants to see more comic stores:
 
"It’s not that comics are culturally rejected any longer. No, quite the opposite. It’s that there simply aren’t enough places to buy them. That is what is holding us back... There is a huge, untapped market for Direct Market comic book stores. Publishers are making big moves to bring comics into the 'mass' media outlets (book stores, WalMart, whatever) – this increases the need and potential for specialist comic book stores, not lessens it! Generalists can do generally well, but specialists can carry a much wider selection of goods, and have the dedicated knowledge about that material to do the best job of selling it."
 
Apparently, there's something in the water here in San Francisco, because yesterday James Sime wrote the following:
 
"We NEED more comic stores that are fucking GOOD. We NEED them. In every city, spreading the good word of the new that comic stores are going to become, preaching the gospel of excellent comics, and just generally fucking up the tail-between-the-legs fearfulness and mind-numbing boringness that comic retailing fell into. Now is the time to change all that. Now is the time to MAKE SHIT HAPPEN. Now is the time to MAKE COMIC BOOK STORES A PLACE THAT WILL GET YOU AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW LAID BY MODELS WITH EINSTEIN LEVEL IQ's. Until there is an Isotope in every city on the planet you STILL HAVE TIME to MAKE YOUR OWN revolutionizing, world-renowned evolutionary comic store. Stake your ground and take a piss on your territory so that everyone knows that if they come into your city they're coming into YOUR CITY. If the new generation of ass-kicking rock and roll retailers see you're there and you're doing it right they'll leave you to do your thing. And that means they'll leave you alone to make all the money, have all the fun, and get all the love. BUT YOU NEED TO DO IT NOW BEFORE WE GET THERE. Because no matter how glorious your shop might be it isn't going to be easy to get us to stand in anyone's shadow. You're going to have to OUT WORK, OUT THINK, OUT PARTY, OUT INNOVATE, OUT PIMP, and OUT FUCK the new generation if you want us to take second place. And baby, that just ain't going to be easy to do."
 
Go and open your own comic store, people. Two of the grooviest retailers in comics want you to.

Larry Young talks about what's upcoming for AiT/Planet Lar. The list contains all manner of goodness you may have expected (A Scurvy Dog trade, a 1000 Steps To World Domination trade, a collection of the Proof Of Concept stories from Comic World News, amongst other things), but also all manner of goodness I'd never heard hide nor hair of. My favourites:
 
"TALES FROM THE FISH CAMP, by Danielle Henderson, 120 page prose book, November 2004. Bear chases. Stabbings. Broken bones. Sleeping three hours a day. Drinking whiskey all night. It all comes with the territory when a New York City city girl takes a job in an Alaskan fishing village. TALES FROM FISH CAMP is a humorous take on the day-to-day drudgery of working 18 hour shifts, boozing it up with wizened old fisherman, hitchhiking, blood poisoning, and sucker hosing, filleting and packing thousands of pounds of fish. Though it sounds like she lost a lost bet, Danielle took this job on purpose - with no idea what she'd be getting herself into."
 

 
and
 
"SMOKE AND GUNS, by Kirsten Baldock and Fabio Moon, 96 pages, black and white, Spring 2005. Writer Kirsten Baldock: 'During the year I made my living as a cigarette girl, I thought it was one of the craziest jobs out there. I thought, ‘some one should write a comic about this!’ Around the time I decided that I was going to be one to throw open the dressing room doors, I read both Jeff Parker's THE INTERMAN and Brain Wood and Rob G's THE COURIERS. Both of those books made me feel like comics should always be that much fun! So, I wrote SMOKE AND GUNS as an action book, a sort of THE WARRIORS with cigarette girls. But, of course, it's also full of crazy, little tidbits that actually happened to me as a cigarette girl. I’ve always really admired Larry Young’s vision for comics, so I’m really excited to work with AiT/Planet Lar. And Fabio (URSULA) Moon is an amazingly talented artist. I can’t think of anyone more suited to portray both the style and strength of the girls in SMOKE AND GUNS.'"
 
Want to be sold on Smoke and Guns? Go here and love the promo image. Also on the AiT/Planet Lar promo image "tip", Mr. Ringwood has exclusive preview art from Larry Young and Jon (He digs Rothko, Salmons and Toth, so therefore I love him already) Proctor's new book The Black Diamond and Mr. Near Mint has exclusive preview art from Matt Fraction and Steve Sanders new gorgeousness, Five Fists Of Science. What more could you want?

So everyone everywhere is, apparently, upset at Identity Crisis #2. In a thread about it at Micah Wright's forum, however, there is possibly the oddest post about ever the current atmosphere at DC:

"I blame this on Levitz, Carlin and Didio who now without the fear of Jannette Khan running about and slapping rabid fan executives with a sharp ruler and a dildo of peace. The lack of a feminine perspective has turned aspects of the DCU into a locker room in the worst way possible."

A... dildo... of... peace?

And before people make the assumption: It wasn't Jesse Baker who wrote the above.

Is Neil Gaiman writing Thor? Well, if he is, he's probably not doing it for awhile...:

"Marvel (normally manifesting itself in the person of Joe Quesada) and I have had several discussions. Nothing's been decided yet -- we like a number of possibilities, but in the end it seemed much fairer to everyone for me just to postpone the whole thing until I'm done with [new novel] ANANSI BOYS, and could give it my full attention, and then start writing it. Everything that's been announced as the next Marvel Project on the various comics gossip sites so far hasn't been true.)"

Warren Ellis is streaming again:

"I want to get past the next few Marvel gigs before I think about [a planned graphic novel with Laurenn McCubbin, who I'm guessing is the artist of the really rather nice page of art accompanying the article]. Half of it hasn't even been announced. At Marvel, I'm feeding script to Stuart Immonen, Adam Kubert, Trevor Hairsine, Adi Granov and Anonymous at present. Another couple of weeks and I should be done with the freakish Immonen, and by the end of August I should have finished with Hairsine, whom I think I've broken with panoramic double-page spreads of the Amazon basin and the Tungus River Valley."

Andy Diggle talks Adam Strange:

"Sure, he's smart and courageous and determined, but it's not like he has any superpowers - just a jet-pack, blasters and a gift for quick-witted lateral thinking. Even on Earth that makes him an underdog compared to the super-powered denizens of the DCU - but when you pit him against an entire galaxy, he has to rely on brains rather than brawn to stay alive and save the day. Super-characters always seem to start beating the crap out of each other for no apparent reason, whereas Adam Strange is smarter than that. He's a thinking man's hero... although he still knows how to handle himself in a fight! He's Indiana Jones in space."

(He's also the star of a weird Grant Morrison story that doesn't quite work in the Mystery In Space one-shot that came out yesterday, but Elliot S! Maggin's story was fun.)

Keith Giffen and JM DeMatteis fall out with DC over Identity Crisis? Perhaps...:

"The [Formerly Known As The Justice League] miniseries sold extremely well, but a follow-up – 'Not Necessarily the Justice League' – is in limbo (particularly now that Sue Dibney was the first casualty of DC’s "Identity Crisis" event miniseries), and Giffen and company decided to take their show on the road... [I]f you are hoping for Giffen and company to return to the JLI one day, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath. 'I never again, as long as I live, am touching DC Universe characters in that context,' he said. 'And that’s it, over and out.'"

"My techno-organic mesh -- is -- fluctuating -- ?"

That's right, kids: Mile-High Comics lets you read the first issue of Rob Liefeld's return to X-Force for nothing, right here.

Millarworld isn't happy with the direction that the Spider-Man books seem to be taking:

"I don't want to spoil anything for anybody, but I've seen flashes of Marvel pushing Peter Parker/Spider-Man into a new direction for a few months now. This seems to have increased lately for anybody that has been keep tabs on Spidey appearances in various books he stars or appears in. It seems Spidey now lives in a much more cynical world where people are less and less likely to not put two and two together. And I'm not digging it. My gut feeling is we're not too far away from Spider-Man being outed in public similar to how Matt Murdock was on Bendis' Daredevil. I hope Spider-Man/Peter Parker is treated in the same light, because they're two very different heroes (and people!). At least, I hope I'm wrong."

"I do not like it at all, its a status quo that works for the character and I don't want to see it messed with. Peter has a lot of family and friends he cares about, theres a lot more at stake for him to keep his identity a secret, unlike Captain America and Daredevil etc. It's just more fun to have him with a secret identity, any changes made in this direction will be met with much anger on my part, but luckily it won't be permanent, nothing ever is in comics."

"It would be a sad day for Marvel."

"Outing Spiderman's identity is like giving a gun to Batman."

Dreamwave decide that if a nostalgic marketing ploy worked well once, why not try it again? That's right, dear readers - it's Transformers/GI Joe volume 2:

"The basic feel this time is what if there had been an animated series combining Transformers and GI Joe back when it all first started, in 1984/5. However, as with all previous crossovers, be it the earlier Dreamwave project or the other GI Joe vs Transformers limited series by Devil's Due or even the earlier encounters between the two franchises back in the day, what sets this crossover apart from the ones that came before, despite bringing this back to the classics? 'That’s definitely the vibe we’re going for, but--like our work on Generation One and Micromasters--expect this to have a more mature, character-driven feel to it,' [James] McDonough, who was formerly Creative Director [of Dreamwave], said."

Because, you know, the world has been waiting for that mature, character-driven Transformers comic.

Lots of people announce San Diego plans: Devil's Due, Oni, and people who aren't DC but want to do Wonder Woman stuff anyway:

"Autograph signing with WONDER WOMAN stuntwoman Jeannie Epper, XENA stuntwoman Zoe Bell, and author Andy Mangels. Come get signed photos and the BACK ISSUE #5 Wonder Woman special, including interviews with Lynda Carter (18 pages!), 1967 pilot WW Linda Harrison, costumer Donfeld, writer Stanley Ralph Ross, Cloris Leachman, Lyle Waggoner, Jeannie Epper, Saundra Sharp, Robert Shields, Frank Gorshin, and animated voice BJ Ward! Plus full-color art by Donfeld, Dick Giordano, Alex Ross, Adam Hughes, Paul Guinan, Phil Jimenez, and Anne Timmons, and other rare Wonder Woman art by Mike Nasser, William Goldberg, Steranko, Tom Derenick, Alex Toth, and George Perez!"

DC's got another Emails To The Editor column up, wherein we learn that, sure enough, there's another ongoing JLA book planned and that Starman fans reading the series in trade may soon be happy:

"STARMAN: GRAND GUIGNOL is a massive 296-page trade paperback coming in September, and the final STARMAN collection arrives in the first quarter of 2005. As for collecting any support material like the SHADE miniseries or the final installments of "Times Past" — these are always on our short list but have yet to make the cut. Anything is possible."

Devil's Due start getting silly, thinking 'Well, we've got the nostalgia market down pretty well, why don't we try and launch a superhero line? There's a market that's underserved by the current industry.':

"Devil's Due has several announcements it will be making at SDCC including the launching of a superhero line called Aftermath and featuring work from Ron Marz, Marv Wolfman, Joe Casey and Chuck Dixon."

Maybe American Power has found a new home?

ADD plays his cards close to his chest with his typically-understated review of Eightball #23:

"I imagine it was like this in the 1960s when Bob Dylan would release a new record. All us admiring intellectuals sit around smoking... something... and discussing the import and myriad interpretations of the latest epistle from the greatest genuis of our generation. Look, I've tried to resist this understanding, but here it is: No one does comix better than Dan Clowes. There. It's out there. I said it, and you have to live with it. Choke on it, I don't give a fuck. THIS IS AS GOOD AS IT GETS... 'This is what they want,' Warren Elis declared as he resigned himself to the inevitable a few years ago. Instinctively understanding that writing superhero comics is what he does best -- The Authority, Planetary -- Ellis despaired that the majority of people who buy comics and support their local comics shops, want nothing more than to be comforted by the type of shit Geoff Johns can squeeze out in his deep and dreamless sleep. Superhero shit. Ellis can be a gifted craftsman in wanys Johns never will, but he just isn't sharp enough to envision and wield the arctic shit-knife. Clowes is. 'If this is what you want,' he seems to say, 'Come and get it.' The blade feels so warm and comforting as it slides into your gut. The shit feels right at home."

(Via Christopher Butcher.)

Brian Wood on reactions to Demo #7:

"[S]ince #7 came out, I have gotten a lot of emails and posts from people telling me I was crazy, recruiters would never act like that, kids who enlist know what they are getting themselves into, etc."

That said, he also got an email that suggested just the opposite.

Quick! Look at the Marvel solicits for October at Millarworld before Marvel asks Mark to delete them again! Of note:

* Mark Millar's Wolverine run starts: "The world’s deadliest living weapon just fell into the wrong hands. It’s Wolverine vs. the Marvel Universe in a blockbuster storyline that will have Logan shredding his way through the X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, and S.H.I.E.L.D.! How does Wolverine end up fighting to destroy everything he holds dear? In this issue alone: Nick Fury, Elektra, Kitty Pryde, and a new villain you’ve got to see to believe! GET READY FOR THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE!"

Yes, ladies and gentlemen: "Hush" was so successful for Batman that Mark Millar is using the "12-issue filled with guest stars" template not only for his Spider-Man run but also for this. I'm sure it'll be good, though. After all, it is apparently THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE!

* Accidentally amusing start to the solicit to the Weapon X prose novel: "Author Marc Cerasini (O.J. Simpson: American Hero, American Tragedy), has seen the New York Times Best-seller list." So have I. It's in The New York Times. Does that mean I can write novels for Marvel as well?

* Whoever's writing the solicits this month must be having the time of their life writing such over the top lines as "If you haven’t read Astonishing X-Men – if you’re the one – then read it now!" Ultimate Spider-Man is being pushed with "Strap yourself in, True Believer, it's all part of the ride you get when you buy a ticket for THE TEAM-UP FOR PEOPLE WHO HATE TEAM-UPS!" Daredevil is sold with "When these cats say, 'major new story arc' we say, 'DON’T MISS IT!'". The Spider-Man solicit advises that you "Hold onto your spit", and the Hulk/Thing solicit starts with "It’s clobbering ti–OOF!". Seriously, I want to be paid to write that kind of shit.

* Hold onto your spit, true believers, for the last part of Avengers Dissembled. Why? Because "The last page cameo will have the comic world talking for years!" When these cats say 'for years', we say 'What, you mean like dog years or something?'

* The solicit for Marvel Previews has to be seen to be believed, by the way... Solicit writing at Marvel reaches an all-time high.

Kurt Busiek talks JLA:

"The different-creators/different-arcs era for JLA is ending -- sort of -- and Ron and I will be the new ongoing team [...] After the CSA arc, there's one more, by the Dan-namic Duo of Dan Slott and Dan Jurgens, and then Ron and I are back for the foreseeable future. The CSA arc is only the beginning -- and there'll be plenty of stuff established there that'll be trouble for the JLA - and others - for some time to come... I've made no secret of the fact that I want a larger League [...] I think that's the nature of a league -- you want a larger pool of heroes to draw from, even if they don't all turn up every mission. That way, you get an interesting mix, different combinations, and unexpected moments. I do think the core characters are pretty essential, but there's no reason to see only seven. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Atom ... I'm already up to ten, and have I really named anyone who shouldn't be a Leaguer?"

A poster at the Bendis Board seemingly tries to stir shit:

"The people on Millarword... are so friggin uptight. So, I finally decide to register and I pretty much NEVER read the rules for forums, because usually its the same crap. Anyway, I guess you have to use your real name as your SN. So, they are all getting on my ass because I didn't. Its not like one or two people posting such to me, no its a few of them already. And, they are saying its always the Bendis boarders. Damn, that pisses me off. Geez, I made a mistake. Get over it."

But, unusually, sense kicks in between the "Let's invade their board and kick their Millarworld asses" posts:

"do you guys want to all be judged based on one poster's words? then don't judge all of MW because of one person. don't stay mad, Shannon. you're welcome there if you ask me."

"I can never understandwhy peoplecome here to piss and moan about other boards. And try to get back up on there thread. Not a good idea, and not a good way to show how much cooler we are then the Miller board"

"Everywhere except that one thread seems totally cool. Just skimming along, most of the posters are perfectly nice and civilized. Sure, there's some affectionate razzing but... Why, they're almost...like...like...US!"

See? A happy ending! You knew it could happen eventually.

Millarworld also deals with the issue of Ultimate Wolverine's... interest (shall we say) in young ladies in a very tasteful manner:

"i don't know if this has been discussed yet, but i was going through ultimate xmen 34 today, and noticed that wolverine was exchanging a rather focussed look with mary-jane on page 21. i know its been mentioned a few times, the relationships mainstream wolverine has made with young girls; jubilee and kitty pride, i think were examples. and, with a discussion on professor x's interest in jean grey in issues 38 & 39, i've been wondering what exactly the deal is with these two? mainly wolverine, as he is by far the most popular xman..."

"Ultimate Wolverine has already tapped Ultimate Jean Grey. And she's what, 16-17? He's at least 25+? The guy doesn't seem to have an issues with the legality of his tail."

"Heh, well you gotta get em while they're still fresh."

"He's the best there is at what he does...and what he does is your daughter, bub."

Millarworld sees through Marvel Hype:

"From Marvel Mailer #88, July 13, 2004 [...] 'Marvel announces MIGHTY MARVEL MUST-HAVE: ASTONISHING X-MEN #1-3, collecting the sold-out and red hot first three issues of the hit new series by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday is being rush-solicited for retail orders!'"

"Wow! I better get out and pick up my copy of AX-M #3 since it is selling so hot!"

"There are a TON of #1-2 copies left at my local store, maybe i should buy them up cause they're selling so well!"

"The shop here has like 6 or 7 copies of each issue siting on the rack."

"I always find it funny when they announce reprints for a comic that isn't even out yet, such as Astonishing X-Men #3. Usually interest starts to taper down with a third issue, as the speculators aren't selling 50 billion copies on EBay at a shot."

Marv Wolfman talks about his story in the upcoming new issue of Dark Horse's so-far patchy-but-worthy Escapist anthology:

"I knew I wanted to see an EC-style Escapist story. The first thing I pitched to Dark Horse was the basic concept: when EC Comics was forced to give up their horror books and join the newly formed Comics Code, they started their New Direction line. But what if ECs first thought was to do a safe super-hero comic. And what if their very first attempt at doing something for the Comic's Code was still too close to their horror line; they hadn't gotten the traditional EC gore and violence out of their systems yet. So this super-hero story was written just like their horror titles and the Code, when it was sent to them, immediately rejected it as unsuitable. With this rejection, EC, realizing they had no affinity for men in tights, gave up super-heroes and went on to the New Direction titles we're familiar with such as Piracy, Impact and the others."

Between this and the Brian Vaughan story, it should be worth another look...

Patrick Neighly makes an offer that he may live to regret at Newsarama:

"One of the amazing things about [the San Diego Comicon] is that the sheer size of the beast translates into economies of scale that are a boon to the small publisher. Of the tens of thousands of attendees, there will be at least a few hundred interested in what a given exhibitor has on display. And that in turn translates into a sale boom that can often rival an entire year’s worth of Direct Market orders for many independent creators, what with two-thirds or more of the country’s retail establishments declining to order from the back of Previews. But even so, any buzz most of these publishers might generate is inevitably going to be drowned out by rote product announcements by the big guys, who think that the nth revamp of Batroc the Leaper is the one that’s finally going to put the character on the map.

"So I’m going to break from the column’s format for the next installment or two. Instead of chatting with the creator of a New Mainstream book that’s hiding behind the Paper Curtain, I’m going to open the place up for a cattle call of reviews. I might like your book; I might hate it. But I will review every single graphic novel, comic book and mini comic handed to me at San Diego."

Crossgen evicted? Newsarama has the latest on the story that started as cheap holidays in other people's misery, but is now just getting kind of pathetic...:

"The most recent development in the CrossGen bankruptcy, the company’s landlord, 580 Industrial, Ltd, has petitioned the court for relief from the automatic stay placed on CG’s lease by the filing of Chapter 11, or, in the alternative, an order which would compel CrossGen to pay its post-petition lease obligations. The filing is 580’s right, as a landlord, to seek relief from having a non-paying lessee which has filed Chapter 11, and is fairly common practice for a landlord with a lesee who has declared Chapter 11. Under the law, CrossGen (the debtor in possession) has 60 days after filing (June 18th, 2004) to either assume the lease (pay what is owed, any damages incurred, as well as guarantee that further lease payments will be made in a timely fashion) or reject the lease (walk away from it and vacate the premises, allowing the leasing company to find new tenants). CrossGen can also ask the court for an extension on the decision."

Si Spencer, onetime Deadline editor so I'll always love him, talks about his new Books of Magic(k) series that he's writing with help from Neil Gaiman:

"As far as the scripts go, I write a couple of drafts, then Neil comes in with feedback and we debate lines and structure. Neil has a great metaphor for it. I’m the ground troops fighting hand to hand and he’s air recon. I do the hard slog, but because he’s at a distance he can see the pitfalls and treasures ahead and guides me to them. He’s a very good collaborator, never too pushy; always respecting the fact the bulk of the work is mine, but gently coaxing me into looking at things in a different way."

Much more of a shocker to me, though, is the fact that Si blew up Grange Hill. The bastard!

Ripped from yesterday's headlines, I somehow missed Marvel confirming a new Thunderbolts series:

"While the publisher declined to name the creative team or characters that will call the title home, it’s a fairly safe assumption that the team will be made up of many of the original Thunderbolts, given the performance of the current Avengers/Thunderbolts miniseries by Fabian Nicieza, Kurt Busiek and Tom Grummett."

Strangely enough, the news goes down fairly well at Newsarama:

"YESSS!!! Hooo-haa... All right !!!! Finally!, they realized... oh yeah, Thunderbolts!! For one minute, I will be able to say Make Mine Marvel without blushing!! I want more villains turnig good guys. The T-Bolts might save the day for the Avengers in Disassembled. My mind and my speech are all disjointed I'm so excited."

"well i hope they put someone good on this book again. not fabian. i want to read it again."

"I've said it before, I'll say it again: Hot. Diggity. Damn."

More retailers weigh in on Marvel's subscription offer:

"What can I say, other than thanks again, Marvel; I guess the bright side would be we would not have to worry about not getting reorders from Marvel. Powers switching to Marvel is another bone-headed maneuver... is selling less really your goal? I just continue to look for ways to keep my Marvel orders under budget. And with half their line sporting bad imitation manga artwork, that's becoming much easier."

"Roughly half of my regular customers had purchased comic subscriptions through the mail from Marvel, with no DC subscribers that I am aware of. And to a person they have all given me the same statement. 'When my subscription is over, I'm getting my comic books from here.' Their biggest complaint was by and far the post office. Their titles would come bent in half, or folded length-wise. Most of them have taken to buying additional copies of titles they already buy from me just so they will have a collectible issue."

Everyone has already mentioned that the DC October solicits are up, so all I'll add is that it was very nice of Carlos Pacheco and Jim Lee to make the respective covers of their books act as some weird kind of before and after:


"Shit! He was ready for me! Let me go change quick!"


"Ah, that's better! Apparently my cleavage has defeated him!"

Augie De Blieck Jr. talks about himself at this week's Pipeline. Find out where he's going to be at San Diego, what the first superhero and non-superhero comics he read were, and what his favourite colour is. Next week, Ask Pipeline is going to all turn out to have been the dream of an Augie-Stalker, I'm telling you...

Jeff Mason asks for your help:

"Alternative Comics is suffering some very dire cash flow problems and I am turning to you for help. In the spring of 2002 our book trade distributor, LPC, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy owing Alternative Comics a lot of money. I had hoped that I could weather the storm by taking money from my savings and by borrowing on credit until receiving the agreed-upon 42% of what LPC owed us. Now over two years later, LPC is still in bankruptcy proceedings and I am completely out of savings and credit. In the past (prior to LPC) I had ample working capital – I had great credit terms with my various printers. Now (post LPC) I have absolutely no working capital and must pay up front to print every book... Lack of cash on hand has also caused me to have to shrink print runs on some books. This increases the cost per unit of each book, and speeds the looming reprint costs... Alternative Comics’ cash flow problems have been the only reason for not yet reprinting Bipolar #1 and Humor Can Be Funny as well as having been the only reason a number of books have been arriving late or re-solicited. I am asking you to please buy Alternative Comics books from your local retailers. In my fanciful imagination, the best result would be for retailers to quickly sell out of all Alternative Comics books in inventory to customers and hurriedly place nice reorders with distributors."

Azad, creator of Image's "A Very Sammy Day", offers Newsarama readers reasons to check out his book:

"Once you finish reading it, it makes a comfortable pillow. In the dark, the smooth matte finish on the cover is so pleasant; it can almost be mistaken for human skin, thus providing a suitable substitute for human contact with a mate so many comic book aficionados are denied."

Broken Frontieriers Frederik Hautain and Mike Bullock along with Jack Lawrence and others, form Runemaster Studios:

"Founded in early summer of 2004, Runemaster Studios has set before itself the task of creating properties for comics, movies, television, gaming and toys. Originally brought to life by Mike Bullock, Runemaster Studios has grown over the last month to include senior partners Jack Lawrence (Darkham Vale) and Frederik Hautain as well as junior partners Theo Bain (Monster Club), Wil Radcliffe (Noggle Stones) and Adam Lawrence... In addition to their creative properties, Runemaster Studios is also engaging in promotional work for other creative entities such as Dabel Brothers Production, DPGVisions, A&C International and Metal Ages Records."

Hey, I write for Broken Frontier as well and I wasn't even asked...

Guess who maybe back?:

"I been told, rather vaguely and with little to back it up, that Marvel have hired Jim Shooter in an editorial consultancy capacity. Talking to the top execs, giving suggestions for many books, and they're being passed down to the shop floor without many people even knowing Shooter's involvement. And his ethereal position means his doesn't have to be declared, even for financial and legal reasons. Well, I got ridicule and laughs from Marvel for even suggesting such a thing. But no denials. Grrrr. Could his appearance on the payroll be a giveaway?"

Mark Millar on his future career:

"I've always said that, if I can afford to, I'd go part-time at forty and do something else the rest of the time. I just think comics is a young guys game and you should bugger off as soon as you start to get old and cranky. The natural order of things is that you get replaced. It's a pop medium and people just eventually start getting fed up looking at you after a while and I never want to lose my love for the industry. I know my stuff sells really well right now, but I also appreciate that I won't be writing top ten books in ten years time and I don't want to end up one of those guys bitching about all the guys selling better than them. I don't want to be telling the new guys how they should be writing their books or how my way is better or any of that bollocks. I'd rather just have a great time for ten years between 2000 and 2010, write all the stuff I've ever wanted to write and then appear occasionally with special projects with great artists just because it's a project I've always wanted to write. However, for the most part, I'd just settle down and become a full-time reader again. Some people find losing their 'heat' on the other side of forty very hard to deal with and it makes them quite unpleasant. I'd rather go with a bit of dignity and APPRECIATE the next wave, as opposed to dissing them in interviews, etc, etc."

(And in an earlier post...)

"[Y]es I've joined all the other hopefuls and got my treatment in for Spidey 3. The Cruise/Depp/Crowe movie is Iron Man, which New Line have asked me to do some work on. I can't remember if they're using Hitchy or Jae Lee's designs for this. Will investigate."

Brian Michael Bendis on Robert Kirkman's Captain America:

"just read the advance on the bowl and it really is a lot of fun. enjoy!! i enjoyed my movement too"

The Bendis board go for the obvious joke:

"no one asked you... and when does it come out?"

"bendis' poo or the comc?"

Comedy is alive and well, ladies and gentlemen.

DC's first online letter column is up at the official DC website, and in there, we learn that the DC editors "just get high on life around here, Donald. That, and mixing it up in the DCU," and very little else...

On Newsarama's front page:

"Got a comic, got an opinion? That's all it takes to hit the Newsarama review forums and post a review. Head over there now and check out what people are saying..."

To take one review at random:

"Avengers #499 [...] Terrible. Terrible in so many ways. Not even the Invaders (who are quite cool) can save this awful collection of art and terrible story and dialogue. When Bendis Dis-assembles the Avengers...I hope he dis-assembles Chuck Austen too. I was somewhat nervous about Bendis 'destroying' the Avengers. After this issue, Austen has actually made me hate the Avengers. Kill em all... All in all [...] F. Don't read this issue...don't even pick it up lest it soil your other titles."

There's a new Comic Book Idol...:

"So, in our title bout, it was Carlos Rodriguez (a.k.a. Mr. Consistent) versus Jason Masters (a.k.a. the Comeback Kid). Our two finalists had to draw a cover and three pages of script for a science fiction pitch called 'Crackerbox' created by Mark Ricketts. Carlos took an early lead and up until about the halfway mark had about double the number of votes that Jason did. This gap closed ever so slightly but as we neared the closing of the poll it was obvious who our winner was going to be."

Like I'm going to spoil the surprise here for you. Go and see for yourself.

Retailer Donald Riordan isn't happy with Marvel:

"Marvel has started placing full page 50% off subscription ads inside of many of their comics. Comics that include She-Hulk #4, Fantastic Four #514, Mary Jane #1, Thor #81, Ultimate Fantastic Four #7, and this week's Fantastic Four #515. I would like to know what Marvel's reasoning is for this action. Why is Marvel using its position as publisher to undercut the entire Direct Market sales channel? Marvel knows that we cannot match this kind of deep discounting... This program is wrong. This program is poor marketing. This program is very short sighted. Marvel needs to stop these ads now. Marvel needs to offer an apology to the entire Direct Market for this transgression. Marvel needs to make it right."

Bruce Jones talks about his move to DC:

"I still very much enjoyed working with Axel Alonso on the Hulk and felt I still had lots of Hulk stories in me... As far as I know, so did he. It was not a decision I made lightly. But through no one’s fault, negotiating a new contract with Marvel took months longer than I could eventually afford. Meanwhile, I’d been in contact with Scott Dunbier at Wildstorm and others throughout my two year run at Marvel, including Karen Berger at Vertigo, various editors at DC and other companies who expressed interest in working with me. In the end, it had less to do with personalities and more to do with the opportunity to play in a new sandbox. I’ve just been a very lucky guy."

Battle of the small publishers who aren't as big as they think they are! Devil's Due, you first:

"On June 25, 2004, the Dabel Brothers unilaterally issued a Press Release announcing their departure from Devil’s Due. While Devil’s Due Publishing did not wish to bring legal discussions into the public forum, the Press Release issued by Dabel Brothers makes a brief response necessary... Within the last month DBPro stated that it was interested in altering the legal and binding contract between Devil’s Due Publishing Inc. and DBPro. Unable to reach an agreement regarding renegotiated terms, Devil’s Due Publishing Inc. informed DBPro that it would not agree to alter the original contract. DBPro then chose to unilaterally issue a press release announcing the termination of the relationship between Devil’s Due Publishing Inc. and DBPro. Devil’s Due Publishing, Inc. has previously informed Dabel Brothers that under the Agreement executed last October, Dabel Brothers does not have the legal right to unilaterally terminate the existing Contract. Devil’s Due has lived up to its obligations, and trusts that the parties will be able to resolve this unfortunate misunderstanding. In the interim all joint projects with Dabel Brothers will be will be put on hold, while Dabel Brothers projects already produced will continue to be sold."

Dabel Brothers, you want to reply?:

"Dabel Brothers Production stands by its announcement made on June 25, 2004 and firmly upholds its right to terminate our contract with Devil's Due for cause. We also stand by our position that news forums are not an appropriate venue to discuss complex contractual and interior publishing relationship issues, as it is neither possible, professional or appropriate to air such grievances, concerns and issues on those forums. In fairness to you, the readers, we felt a responsibility to inform you that we have severed our relationship with Devil's Due. However, further details need to be tabled until the parties' issues have been resolved. However, we will state in the strongest possible terms that DBPro is moving forward. Exciting things are brewing--keep your eyes open for major announcements over the next few months that will unveil the new DBPro! Its going to be a very exciting time."

In fairness, it's possible that that last sentence was aimed at the lawsuit fans in the audience.

The Bendis Board rebels against their favourite creator:

"I actually want to stop reading USM right now, but I'm not going to take it that far. I know this is a gut thing right now. SO: HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU DO THAT? HOW? WHY? Why the fuck would Bags go along with it? Seriously, I'm really upset about the ending there. I feel absolutely horrible about it, and I can't think that there was a greater story to be told from this. Sure, you can tell yourself that you've gotten me so worked up that you've done a good job to make me care so much, but... I don't know. I'm just really REALLY mad at you. I've never been this mad at anything comic related. I'm trying not to cry, because I'm a manly man, and it's just a comic book, but for fuck's sake! I'll keep reading, because I'm sure I'll get over it, but it's going to take a long, long time for me to forgive you for this."

"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!! Mike, shoot me a PM. I don't care about spoilers. I'm pissed off because of preconceived notions, and I'd rather know and be able to digest it before tomarrow. if what happens, happens. I'm taking the mix cd I made for Bendis out of the Jinx trade package I'm sending him on friday."

"I can't say I am shocked but part of me is really shocked by this. Wow."

"I'm not surprised. But I still think it's a load of fucking horseshit."

"Bendis gets the dick up the ass for this one. If it wasn't for POWERS, and Daredevil, and Avengers, and... It's not fair...he has me completely under his control. I hate him and his mutant writing power."

"How very original... jesus...This is Howard Mackie esque... Bendis just shot down big time in my book. What a piece of shit."

"Digital Manga, which in partnership with Dark Horse Comics has released some of the most popular manga titles of the past year including Trigun, Hellsing, and Berserk, has ambitious plans to broaden the scope of manga releases in America by launching a line of Edu-Manga titles in 2005. Published by Kodansha in Japan, the Edu-Manga are biographies in graphic novel form narrated by popular manga characters such as Astro Boy. The first five titles Digital Manga plans on releasing here in the States include manga biographies of Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, Mother Theresa, Beethoven, and Anne Frank."

For some reason, the idea of Astro Boy telling people about the life of Anne Frank blows my mind.

Millarworld fails to be annoyed by Mark Waid:

"I hate when he writes panels like the camera got there too late. For example, one panel in the newest Fantastic Four has Ben saying '...OBBERIN' TIME!!'. He did it a lot in Kingdom Come too. What's the point? Maybe it's just me, but that annoys me to no end. Whenever I see it, I get pulled out of my little fantasy world for a second because I'm thinking about why the hell someone would do that."

"Doesn't really annoy me."

"...v'nt really noticed it to be hone...."

"...an't say I've ever noticed it myself either. So no, it doesn't annoy me."

"Never really noticed it either, and even if I did I doubt it would frustrate me enough to not appreciate the book."

" actually kinda like it. Makes me feel the immediacy of the situation. It also gives me a more voyeuristic view of the comic"

Does Marvel care about the opinions of their online fans? The Joe Quesada board ponder that very question:

"Surely sometimes they should.Seriously District X and She-Hulk are both excelent books. They are getting great word of mouth but not selling as many as other books. Uncanny X-men got cancelled once. Shouldn't they at least acknowledge that these book will have online support for a while maybe even increasing sales figures down the line. Maybe they could even support these books by quoting fan and reviewer comments in in-house ads. Previews are nice and all but if there is something worth liking surely there is something going the extra mile with. I don't want these these books become another Agent X. Coming second to editors pet projects."

"So Marvel don't listen to internet fans! Because of internet fans like you."

"I've never seen fan quotes used to promote any written publication, except in letters pages internaly as ED/OP. I have seen reviewers quotes, along with other professionals used to promote Trade Paperbacks though. I really can't see how a fan quote would promote a book, simply because fans have no saleability factor attached to them - seeing something that says 'Roger Dunwick loves Runaways!! You should totally buy this!!' isn't going to mean anything or impress anybody I'm afraid. The only way fan reactions ever work are in visual 3D mediums like TV adverts."

Chris Cross off Firestorm, claims Chris Stotmayor, the book's colorist (scroll down):

"I got confirmation over the weekend that Chris Cross quit Firestorm. After a discussion with the editor on friday, it was decided that issue #5 will be his last. I don't know what's going to happen past issue #5 (or if I'm staying on the book either), but I'll let you guys know when I do."

Chris also spills the beans about DC's coloring system:

"The only problem with that is/was that DC doesn't pay top dollar for coloring, unless Jim Lee's drawing it. On top of that, they have a coloring grading system (Bronze, Silver, and Gold) that dictates the level of detail afforded in the coloring, and Firestorm will not officially be given the benifits of gold level coloring."

The sad, slow, public, death of Crossgen continues:

"Continuing with its Chapter 11 proceedings, CrossGen has filed reams of paperwork with the bankruptcy court. First up is the statement of financial affairs, which must be compiled by every debtor... The filing... showed that CrossGen has had ten suits filed against it in the previous year. Parties suing CrossGen (all for contract dispute) include: ADP Small Business Services (payroll system), American Express Travel Related Services (in discovery process), Andrew Smith (unpaid freelancer), Choicepoint Services (landlord), Coca-Cola, GCO LLC, MV Creations, Oakwood DC, LLC, and Reed Business Information (complaint filed)... In a separate filing of a motion for the court to approve the officer’s compensation, CrossGen requested that both Alessi and Hernandez retain their pre-filing monthly salaries (including benefits) of $10,000 and $5833.33 a month, respectively. In another filing, CrossGen stated that it supplied approximately 285 comic book retailers with comic series, and is seeking a purchaser for its intellectual property. In the same filing, CrossGen also requested the court instruct local utilities to continue service to CrossGen’s offices."

Grant Morrison is interviewed by Jonathan Ellis at PopImage. Needless to say, it's a cracking read:

"The 'Planet X' story was partially intended as a comment on the exhausted, circular nature of the X-Men's ever-popular battle with Magneto and by extension, the equally cyclical nature of superhero franchise re-inventions. I ended the book exactly where I came on board, with Logan killing Magneto AGAIN, as he had done at the end of Scott Lobdell's run. Evil never dies in comic book universes. It just keeps coming back. Imagine Hitler back for the hundredth time to menace mankind. So, in the way that something like 'Marvel Boy' had that insistent 'teenage hard on' engine driving its rhythms, 'Planet X' is steeped in an exhausted, world-weary, 'middle-aged' ennui that spoke directly of both my own and Magneto's frustrations, disillusionment and disconnection, as well as the endless everything-is-not-enough frustrations of a certain segment of comics aging readership. In hindsight, I think I overdid the world weary a little but, you know, my loved ones were dying all around me while I was working on those issues, so I'm entitled to a little stumble into miseryland. Fantomex's line summed up my own cynicism at that moment, definitely and seems justified by subsequent plot developments. In my opinion, there really shouldn't have been an actual Xorn - he had to be fake, that was the cruel point of him - and it should have been the genuine Magneto, frayed to the bare, stupid nerve and schizoid-conflicted as he was in Planet X, not just some impostor. There's loads of good stuff in Planet X - it's just that miasma of bleakness and futility which hovers over the whole thing. What people often forget, of course, is that Magneto, unlike the lovely Sir Ian McKellen, is a mad old terrorist twat. No matter how he justifies his stupid, brutal behaviour, or how anyone else tries to justify it, in the end he's just an old bastard with daft, old ideas based on violence and coercion. I really wanted to make that clear at this time."

Lots of retailers talk about Free Comic Book Day at ICv2, with almost everyone being happy apart from those concerned about the scheduling:

"For us a July 4th weekend date simply cannot work. Colleges are out of session. Local schools (with which we did promotional work in past years) are closed. A large percentage of the children in our area had already been sent away to summer camp. And in our area the 4th of July weekend means travel to the beaches. Despite the level of promotional effort we put into each year's FCBD, it's impossible to get a strong turnout when such a huge percentage of the population is either gone or occupied with holiday events. Most of the stores in our area didn't even bother to open the entire weekend. While I am still happy with the opportunity to turn on as many people as we did to comic books, I know the impact we had on the community could have been much bigger."

Steven Grant talks about the difference between movies and comics for a change (Not that he always talks about the similarities, but the crossover between the two is often commentated on by others):

"Comics are not a social lubricant. Books aren't a social lubricant. They aren't communal experiences. The act of reading is solitary, experienced personally. You can discuss them afterward, sure, but there's already a distancing built in, a loss of immediacy that movies don't share. Dumbing movies down served a specific function, made acceptable by the bottom line. Entertainment is in the eye of the beholder, but, overall, dumbing them down may have increased their entertainment value. Dumbing comics down only makes comics dumber."

Millarworld gives a bit of a kicking to Mark Millar's Spider-Man book, somewhat surprisingly:

"I'll just echo previous comments; the characters are one dimensional and dull, everyone has the same voice. Theres no humour in it. The story is drawn out and boring and I've given up caring what happens now. It stinks of trying too hard to make the book 'dark' and more 'daring' by having the bad guys turn into murderers, its been done to death with other books and its boring, Geoff Johns knows how to make a bad guy interesting without making them resort to cold blooded murder when its totally out of character for them to act that way. Millar can't write Spider-Man basically, he also can't write Peter Parker and he can't write the rest of the characters here by the looks of it. They should give Paul Jenkins a more high profile book because he can out-write Millar with these characters anyday, I havent read Spectacular yet but his work on Peter Parker Spider-Man was superb, it had heart, wit and excitement."

"I've read the first 3 but I'd already decided not to bother with any more. I don't think it's that bad a book but there's nothing special about it. It's a shame because it clearly seems to be a labour of love for Mark but it just isn't interesting to me."

"I guess, bottom line, that was the problem I had with it. It just seemed like more of the same, sad to say."

"I think the reason is because it's just not any fun. The blood & grit approach isn't really working. After seeing SPIDER-MAN 2, it's more apparent than ever that the thing that makes Spidey work is the emotional power behind his stories. His greatest villains are mostly tragic and misunderstood figures. There is nothing to the gang of bastards that Millar has pounding on Spidey throughout the first arc, and there's been no portrayal of Peter Parker's life outside of the costumed adventuring."

Newsarama compares the printed art for Excalibur #2 by Aaron Lopestri with the original pencils by fired artist Igor Kordey. The reaction seems to be evenly split between those already loving the book, and those who don't:

"I AM SOOOOO GLAD LOPRESTI CHANGED HIS STYLE, AND THAT KORDEY IS OFF THE BOOK!!!!"

"I love Kordey's art. I do agree that Lopestri's style fits this comic better. Unfortunately, I don't think that's a compliment."

"Wow, facial expressions!!! Distinct faces!!! Interesting layouts!!! This book doesn't deserve Kordey."

"HIDEOUS!! it's a pretty big insult to lopresti to compare his amazing art with the drawings of igor kordey. all i can really say is THANK GOD igor's pencils never stained excalibur. the man seriously needs to let it go and realise artists get treated like crap all the time he shouldn't think he's any different. i will not miss seeing igor deform the faces of my fav characters while at the same time having squished panels,six fingers and most importantly missing his elastic tears."

Bruce Jones does a Josh Middleton:

"Bruce Jones, writer of comics including The Hulk, Spider-Man's Tangle Web and many others, has signed a 2-year exclusive agreement with DC Comics. Jones will be writing for VERTIGO, the DCU, and WildStorm, starting with the miniseries VIGILANTE and a story arc in BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT."

See what happens when you make a man write a Hulk versus the Thing miniseries, Marvel? He LEAVES THE COMPANY.

Newsarama has previews of Burlyman Entertainment, the comic company where all the main characters have something on their shoulders:



(It's new work from Geoff Darrow, Steve Skroce and those wacky Wachowski brothers, in case you didn't know...)

Spinning out of this thread at CBR discussing the latest version of the "Marvel to replace their 'normal' universe with the Ultimate one" rumour, Newsarama ponder what the replacement of old continuity would mean to them:

"I would quit reading marvel books."

"At least we would get to see the Newsarama server crash again."

"I about to just say fuck it to Marvel because the Avengers DisAssembled arc just looks like the typical deconstructionist crap that Harras saved us from with Heroes Return. The Avengers has NEVER worked in such an atmosphere... did you read The Crossing or TImeslide? What the crap was that... Harras got his head out of his butt just in time but now Quesada is taking us right back to the period when Marvel almost died. Then again, I could be wrong so before I completely ball out Marvel over DisAssembled I am going to do the sane thing and READ it."

Marc-Oliver Frisch looks at DC's sales in May. It's not too pretty, especially for fans of the DC Focus books:

"TOUCH and FRACTION have been cancelled already, ending with their sixth issues, and I'm ready to bet the farm that HARD TIME and KINETIC won't be making it past #12, either... Barring any huge coincidences, the logical conclusion has to be that people -- retailers as well as readers -- didn't differentiate much between the individual Focus books. Which is rather disappointing, considering that they're actually pretty different from each other. Shoehorning these four books into a line (what was "Focus" supposed to mean here, anyway?), using the same layouts, the same color schemes, the same cryptic titles and even the same cover artist for all four titles, doesn't seem to have done them any great favors at all. Therefore, I don't think the Focus books were necessarily doomed to fail. They were just mismanaged from the get-go. If DC had promoted the titles on the basis of their individual themes and premises, rather than bending over backwards to lump them together under the "superpowers in the real world" umbrella, these series might have had a better chance at survival-- why not publish them through WildStorm, Cliffhanger!, Homage or even Vertigo, for example? At the very least, that would have given them a fighting chance to fail or succeed on their own merits, which would have been more than what can be said now. But such is the amazing power of hindsight, I suppose."

Ethan Van Sciver on The Authority:

"The main faces on that book, Midnighter and Apollo, are just mockeries of Batman and Superman. I don't believe they can stand on their own. Ed Brubaker will be the reason that I'll read the Authority next, because I love his writing. But I believe that Authority is fatally flawed by the fact that it's a parody book in many ways. Disagree if you must, but would you buy, say, a Midnighter miniseries done by a brand-x creative team? People seem to buy anything with Wolverine in it, regardless of who is writing or drawing it. Spawn lasted a fairly long time with creative teams other than McFarlane at the helm because there was some real interest in the core concept. I put forward that Authority is a showcase for top talent with dark senses of humor and little more. It's odd seeing the book struggle on it's own merits, considering how influential it's been to so many other titles. But there you have it."

Isn't that called the Judge Dredd problem in some places?

Having apparently just watched the South Park movie again, Bendis pre-emptively blames Canada:

"do not spoil usm or powers for the americans. all spoilers unmarked, will be deleted and you will be banned from this board...FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Other Bendis Board posters come up with other reasons to get rid of the Canadians:

"And while were at it: stop pretending you invented basketball. And stop calling canadian bacon bacon. Its ham for fucks sake. And stop being all Canadiany. Its creepy."

"You should just ban them for being so smug and Canadian."

"that's right. creeps me the fuck out."

Chris Arrant interviews Joey Comeau and Emily Horne, photo-comics creators, at Newsarama:

"We like baby doom, and the idea of cats seeing more than we do of the world around us. We'll re-use characters if we like them enough, or if we have a picture that would be perfect for another appearance (like the second baby doom picture). Zombies have been in a few strips now, too. God I love zombies."

So, yeah, I meant to say on Friday... No blogging from me for today (well, apart from this, obviously). But you've spent the day reading Rich and Heidi, right? And Johanna's been blogging up a storm over the weekend as well.

Back to regular snark tomorrow.

For those that care, Brubaker really kicked my ass at that there air hockey game, thereby proving that I really am as bad at sports as I said I was, despite James and Brian being in my corner. What can I say? Apparently, I really am that shit at competitive anything.

Heidi wonders about the writer of the Shock Horror 2nd Avengers book:

"[J]ust as 'the surprise writer who will make your jaw drop' is often revealed to be Chuck Austen, this secret may already have been spilled. The writer of the second Avengers title was already announced, back at a Cup o' Joe panel back in March at the Wizard World LA convention. At the time, Pulse Reporter Christopher wrote: 'Quesada also said that after 'Disassemble' there would be two Avengers comics. The EIC was tight-lipped on which heroes would be a part of each team, but he did say that one of The OC's writers, Allan Heinberg would be writing the second Avengers comic.' [...] Asked for comment, Marvel said only that a big announcement would be forthcoming in San Diego."

Meanwhile, John wonders what Sean Collins meant when he said that Main Avengers Man Brian Michael Bendis "starts thinking about superheroes at a level where most writers leave off", imagining a Stan Lee-written Bendis soliloquizing:

"Other men would leave off with the Avengers fighting three, maybe four Ultrons, but such paltry threats are for lesser writers. For Bendis is BENDIS, and only HE could conceive of a level where the avengers fight five Ultron robots!!!!"

Scholastic launches their own graphic novel line... with Jeff Smith's Bone. Chris Butcher has the Publishers Weekly story announcing the line:

"In a move that signals the entry of a major trade house into a market dominated by specialty comics publishers, Scholastic announced plans to launch a graphic-novel imprint aimed at teens and younger readers. The line, called Graphix, will debut in the spring of 2005. Jean Feiwel, publisher and editor-in-chief of Scholastic, will direct the new imprint along with Scholastic creative director David Saylor, with input from other editors. She said Graphix will likely do about two-to-four projects per year. Feiwel credited Saylor and younger Scholastic staff for urging her 'to look at graphic novels. He said they were interesting, there wasn't a lot for teens and he helped me educate myself about the format.'"

Chuck Austen confirms that he's leaving X-Men:

"I left because, as I and Joe Q. and others have said in recent interviews, Marvel has changed its internal policies about what is, and is not acceptable in their comics, and I was finding it very difficult to write that way. Not that I couldn't scale back, and not that Mike Marts and the rest didn't want me to try and felt I couldn't. But I'm not naturally geared that way as a creator, and so it took a lot more work, and that work became less enjoyable. Eternal and US War Machine are my true north, so anything less adult and intense from there is harder for me to write. My favorite show on television is Deadwood [laughs]! So, more re-writes, and heavier notes from editorial are less fun, more time consuming and less cost-effective. It's just a business decision, really. I can write the way I'm inclined elsewhere than Marvel, and Marvel can find writers who write the way they want, so why not do it?

"So I asked off the books Marvel had given me. Mike Marts and I discussed my staying, trying to find a way to work it out. Mike even asked if another editor might work better with me, but that's just another example of how great Mike is, willing to remove ego from the equation in an effort try to make things work. I think he's one of the best people I've ever known or worked with, and I doubt I could work more easily with another editor, outside of Tom Palmer or Eddie Berganza. It was just time for me to move on from Marvel. So in the end, I left and they asked me to give them time to find replacements, and I agreed to stay for at least that long. It was a mutual decision to end it the way we did."

Interesting that he's leaving Marvel because he wants to write more adult-orientated work. Where does this leave Action Comics, which is hardly an adult book, I wonder?

Ladies and Gentlemen... It's ON.



Larry Young challenges Ed Brubaker:

"I'M COMING FOR YOU BROOB

"YOUR PITIFUL AIR HOCKEY PROWESS WILL FALL BEFORE MY MIGHTY STRIKER LIKE THE DELICATE FLOWER WILTS BEFORE THE ODOR OF A SELECTION OF FINE CHEESES.

"PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE ONSLAUGHT OF MY RIGHTEOUS AIR HOCKEY RIGHTEOUSNESS."

I, of course, won't be participating because if there's one thing I suck at, it's all sports ever invented. But I'll happily enjoy the show.

Millarworld discuss Avengers Dissemble - the preview and the interviews:

"As uncomfortable as it makes to see how much this all centers around an editorially handed-down kill list, I'm still curious as to who's in the deadpool."

"[W]hat happened to Bendis' OC-writing pal? (and is that credit really supposed to get us pumped? That show is one of the things that makes the world suck a little bit more). I predict this is the project that ends the Bendis stranglehold on the Marvel comics sensibility. (something had to)."

"I think the second Avengers title will be an 'Untold Tales' type. Going through the history of the Avengers with rotating creative teams. It would be tied together by a character that would act like an unseen witness. That's my guess.... I've been a fan of the Mighty Avengers for 35 years, and I don't like what's going to happen. But, my Avengers are long gone and stacked in long boxes. So do what you want. I don't have to buy it."

"While the 9/11 referencing in Ex Machina was provocative and heartful, Bendis's use of a 2-pronged arial suicide attack in Avengers #500 almost seems crass, like some kind of cash in."

Dave Finch, the artist on the Avengers book, responds to that last point:

"It was a one pronged arial attack, and really, in the script Bendis asked for the ship to kind of side swipe the building so it wouldn't be too much like 911.....I kind of blew it. I just couldn't get my head around what he was asking for, and I figured if I just showed the impact and no plane that it wouldn't be too bad. Believe it or not, destructive imagery has been something we've all really wrestled with since 911. In comics that sort of stuff has always been central to what we've done, but we are all very sensitive to it. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that we certainly weren't trying to invoke 911 in an attempt at a cash grab. And really, I don't know that there's much of a cash fountain to be had by doing that."

New Heidi Beat Blog reports on the hatred cars have for comics:

"You'll all recall the scare when a car crashed into the offices of Slave Labor Comics a few months back. Well, this car vs. comics vendetta continued on June 25th when a car smashed right through Knightly Games, a comics shop in El Centro, CA in the middle of a previously peaceful Friday afternoon. The runaway vehicle came to a halt at the rear of the store after plowing a path of destruction through fixtures and collectibles."

Runaway car... or Christine-esque comic hater-possessed vehicle of sheer spite? You decide.

Free Comic Book Day - that's tomorrow, pop-pickers - gets some PR at ICv2:

"Free Comic Book Day is getting a big sendoff from mainstream press and promotional partners this weekend. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the whole world is thinking comic characters because of the premiere of Spider-man 2... In the lead-up to the event, retailers, publishers, and Diamond Comic Distributors have all been working to maximize the exposure of Free Comic Book Day at every level, and have been successful at getting the word out."

Ethan Van Sciver, the man whose name I misspell more than anyone else in comics apart from Travis Johnson, talks Green Lantern: Rebirth:

"Well, I'm fairly excited. I might even suggest that I'm enjoying myself thoroughly while producing the art for this prestigious miniseries, and that each day is a joy and a pleasure. And I'm not one to shy away from controversy. Those who believe they will be angered while reading Rebirth are mistaken. We will gently caress their furrowed brows and whisper our beautiful evil into their open ears, 'Shhhh! Hal Jordan is back. Relax, honey.'"

Joe Quesada and Brian Michael Bendis talk Avengers Dissembled... AGAIN! The Pulse covers the press conference call:

"The one on the horizon we're not ready to talk about yet - the Avengers book everyone will be talking about - is [the book Joe Quesada is looking forward to the most]. This story involves the greatest twists and turns; the best characters new and old alike, words just do not do it justice. I'm saying as little as I possibly can but when you hear the name of the book, heads will explode."

Is the world ready for ULTIMATE X-AVENGERS?!?

The Beat is back. And blog:

"The Beat is back. For real. Escaping from Doktor Kaos's orbiting platform was no easy task, and recovering from the many months of tortures and depredations will be no bed of roses. Sometimes my arms bend back. The Beat will not be the same. Certain words and ideas have crept into my vocabluary which cannot be banished. And the danger is still terribly real. The Beat'slocale cannot be revealed at the present time. Kaos, his minions and allies are surrounding us all. They walk among us, as seemingly normal as a Canadian, undetectable except using the most sophisticated technology.

"Our task -- for we are all in this together, dear friends -- is to reveal them all. No clue, no detail is too tiny. To participate in this grand game, you need only click the contact button at the top of the page, Constant Reader. Please, do not think that there is any scrap of information that is too trivial. The Beat is formulated on the trivial! Their schemes and plans extend into every part of our lives, no matter how seemingly mundane... The Beat will be here Mo-Fr with the latest communiques. Weekends are for shopping and cocktails."

Joe Quesada and Brian Michael Bendis talk Avengers Dissembled at Newsarama:

"I will say that Mark [Millar] was a big, big part of it. I think it was more an idea that me, you, Dan [Buckley] and Mark all came up with and fleshed out. But Mark was kind of bullying the room into having to do it in the first place, which I kind of liked. He was pulling the DC thing on us, and telling us that DC would never do something like this, so then we had to do it."

Considering that this week I've been pissing people off left, right and centre (well, left and right anyway), I'm beginning to think that I should just avoid the Free Comic Book Day shindig at the Isotope this weekend. I mean, getting attacked by upset message boarders would kind of bring down the whole celebration atmosphere of the day, don't you think?

Today, I adore Chad Nevett. Responding to a thread at Millarworld about whether Marvel need to let the X-Men evolve instead of continually resetting everything to the status quo, he writes:

"Oh my god, why is someone asking this? Do people not pay attention or something? Open your eyes and pay attention to what's going on. Anyone with half a brain (or more) can figure this out. Not too hard. Now, I'll walk you through it, okay? Why, oh why, would Marvel need to worry about the quality of books that fanboys buy no matter what? In fact, why would they try to change things when all that does is cause the fanboys to bitch, but still buy the books? Why would Marvel, a company whose top priority is films actually try to deviate from what the films are like content-wise? The same applies to every franchise in mainstream superhero comics. Stop asking stupid useless questions and start using your brain. It's not difficult. In fact, many, many people have told you all of these things before probably."

Of course, this upsets someone: "Is there a parasite eating the inside of your ass or something? Sheesh." Not that Nevett is apologetic:

"Yes there is and it demands thinking and a lack of useless discussions. It is angry and hungry, my friend. Angry and hungry."

Via Millarworld, Tom Brevoort versus Bob Layton. Hey, it's not Busiek versus Liefeld, but you take what you can get. It all started with Brevoort replying to a fan saying that "the fans" want Layton and David Micheline back on Iron Man:

"No, I think what they'd like would be the Bob and Dave of 1979, or of 1986. And I've said it time and again, and I'll reiterate it once more: I don't think it's constructive or in the long-term interests of a book to try to recreate the great runs of the past. Much more often than not, when you try to do that, people are disappointed. I have no problem with the notion of Bob and Dave doing IRON MAN projects outside of the regular series--but I'd be more likely to put them on another title (say, THOR) and see what they could do there than trying to create new 1986 back issues."

Layton took offense:

"I'm a little disappointed in your reasoning as to why Dave and I couldn't do a good job on Iron Man any longer. Are you so positive that we would simply do the same stuff we did previously--just five degrees to the right or left? Not our style, bro. That's saying that we'd simply rest on our laurels rather than give a concerted effort to try something innovative and new. Well--that could be perceived as an insult by some, old pal. If we were to take on the series, I assure you that we'd be creatively compelled to take it in a totally new direction. After all, the character has undergone way too many changes to go back to a simplier time."

Ah, those simplier times. Brevoort responded:

"Not looking to insult anyone, Bob, and this is certainly not a belief aimed at you and Dave specifically; rather, it's a personal observation from the many times over the years when a classic creator has returned to a mainline book for another run; almost inevitably, the reaction is lukewarm. We all love the books that we grew up reading, and we wish there could be more of them--but that's not the same thing as trying to recreate the great runs of the past today in the present. There are exception, of course, but pick your creator: Claremont on X-MEN, Waid on CAPTAIN AMERICA, Byrne on AVENGERS and so forth--in almost every case, the reaction among the widest audience is, 'boy, so-and-so has really lost it.' Because what the fans want is the perfect thing that's inside their heads, rather than the honest effort of a creator who's changed with the times, and a character who's changed with the times. I expect you'd get the same reaction if you put Simonson back on THOR regularly, Peter David back on HULK regularly, Kurt Busiek back on AVENGERS regularly, and so forth."

Sadly, realising that you can't argue with common sense, Layton doesn't respond. Thankfully, there are fans who'll argue with anything:

"You aren't kidding anyone Mr. Brevoort, except maybe yourself."

"Well said! He definitely isn't fooling anyone with a shred of common sense. Just look at Brevoort's track record on his books, count the reboots, count the bad judgements with creative teams, count the lack of stable creative teams, and then ask yourself if he even knows what he's doing. He talks about an exception to the rule, and forgets that Dave and Bob were one of those. Why isn't Walt Simonson on Thor? Dave and Bob on Ironman? Because Tom Brevoort thinks that the key to success is the above mentioned criteria. Tom, please go work for DC. I don't care for their characters."

Warren Ellis returns to column-writing with Streaming at The Pulse. It's purposefully scattered and really rather good:

"I met Joss Whedon once. He told me he learned to write comics by studying some Alan Moore scripts his editor provided to him. They scared the hell out of him, as I recall. Alan writes massive scripts. I mean, he's got his own hole in a forest somewhere, and it's a mile across and denuded of anything that can be pulped into paper. Now go and read one of Joss' comics -- or use Bit Torrent to steal it off the internet, the way I did. (It's okay -- I was going to get Marvel to send me a copy, so I wasn't going to pay for it anyway.) (Yeah, yeah. Shut up.) It doesn't read like Alan's work, does it? He took what he needed from it -- how to pace comics, how to isolate moments, when to punch and when to go quiet -- and put his own voice on top of it. That's how to do it. Joss went on from that meeting to write an introduction to a PLANETARY collection wherein he made fun of my beard. And Alan's."

Spider-Man 2 maybe sets a record:

"While official word won’t come until later today at the earliest, industry estimates are putting Spider-Man 2’s one-day take at near $35 million, putting the film in a dead heat for the highest-grossing Wednesday opening. The film opened at a reported 2,000 theaters for a midnight showing, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which, according to estimates, brought in $5 million alone. Spider-Man 2 opened on a total of 4,152 theaters, second in film history behind Shrek 2, which opened in 4,163 theaters."

Am I a traitor to the wonderful world of comics if I admit that I thought the first movie was a bit shit, and wouldn't be interested in the second at all if it wasn't for the involvement of Michael Chabon?

Newsarama posters ponder Manga:

"When it comes to manga, its not something that I hate, but is something that I dont completely understand either. Heres my dilemma- how can something that, in my opinion, looks pretty much generic, become such a huge hit. I like Western styled art because everyone develops they're own style while in Manga it all looks so uniform. So, if there is something I dont get, please fill me in."

"There were some revolutionary titles that came from Manga round the mid to late 80s ( Akira,Lone Wolf and Cub, MAi the Phsycic Girl, Ranma1/2, Crying Freeman) that had a fresh look at stuff, and then it exploded. While I don´t think it totally sucks, it certainly doesn´t deserve every title to be considered the next thing. Same with Anime, there´s good stuff and total shit. Same as anything else really."

"If you think all manga art looks the same, I'd venture to say that you haven't really looked at enough to really make that judgement. Just as an example, next time you're at the book store, take a look through Maison Ikkoku, Berserk, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Battle Royale, Rurouni Kenshin, Oh! My Goddes, X/1999, GTO and Chobits. These are just a handful of titles but will give you a sense that there is quite a lot of diversity in manga art and styles. Aside from that, in many cases it's not so much that manga is proving so popular elsewhere because of the art as much as it is because of the types of stories, the storytelling, etc. You are of course free to make whatever determination you want. But if you genuinely wanted to get an answer to your question, there it is."

"Going along with that it's also important to note that just like with American comics, Eastern artists tend to have groups of artists with similiar traits... I mean look at the early 90's for a perfect example of how, when it seems everyone looked identitcal, you had so much diversity the more you dug past the Image Boys... Do yo think they have this conversation in Japan/Korea... 'I just don't understand the deal with that Jim Lee and American Comics. . .'"