Fanboy Rampage!!!

Scott McCloud talks Making Comics, his new book coming in 2005 from Harper Collins:

"The first, and perhaps most important [topic that the book will deal with] is just the fundamental principles of writing with pictures, which is that comics are all about. There will be a lot of space devoted to the principles of clarity in comics – what makes for clear storytelling? How do we effectively put the reader inside of that world and make sure that they aren’t just looking at pictures on the page? ...That’s one of the most fundamental goals in most storytelling in comics – for the reader to lose themselves in the work, and to be in the world of the story and in the minds of the characters, and forget that they’re looking at lines on paper. That doesn’t describe every kind of comic on the stands, and it doesn’t describe some of the more artsy, more experimental works, but I think that understanding how to do that straight storytelling first – that’s the foundation upon which other sorts of comics can be built. That’s job one – learning how to tell a story most effectively. I think that’s one of the reasons that manga, as a category, is kind of kicking our ass right now. They really have the storytelling down, and the idea of reader involvement is a very strong component of manga. There will be a small section of the book called Understanding Manga – it’s about time I put all of those ideas in one place as well."

With the return of Hal Jordan and rumours of Kyle Rayner being the murderer in Identity Crisis, you could assume that Kyle fans would be somewhat unhappy with the current happenings in the world of Green Lantern. Thankfully, they're trying to put their collective best foot forward and not be petty about the whole thing:

"As loathe as I am to say this, being a Kyle fan myself, I think it's time we all step back and admit that unless DC has grown a set in the past ten years, they'll likely punk out Kyle to appease those rabid Hal fans, the ones who think he can do no wrong, can never corrupted and other such nonsense. If they surprise us, great, but I'm not going to waste ten years of my life b****ing and moaning until they pacify me like the crybaby I'd be behaving as. Let the Hal fans have their golden boy back, flawless and incorruptible in his vigilance . I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I will say this, however, to the Hal fans, particularly those rabid fans who delight in their apparent victory. Enjoy it while you can, because there's always the chance that good old Hal will become boring again in ten years, and we all know how DC handled that..."

From there, the thread becomes a surreal environmental discussion, over whether it's more important to protest the dumping of nuclear waste or the dumping of Hal Jordan. No, seriously.

Augie takes a stand over at Pipeline:

"DC has published their collection of Humanoids' THE HOLLOW GROUNDS, with magnificent artwork by Francois Schuiten. By packing all three books together into one trade paperback, they've created a package at a much more affordable price than the $15 each album used to be from Humanoids. Unfortunately, this rush to economize the series has completely destroyed the reproduction of the art. Shrinking Schuiten's art is like printing JLA/AVENGERS in digest format. Imagine watching an IMAX movie on a 13 inch computer screen from ten feet away. Picture an Escher drawing at very low resolution. Trying finding Waldo on a postage stamp-sized reprint. It's worse than all of that combined. The artwork looks muddy. The rich brown colors run together, and the fine linework of Schuiten's intricate cityscapes is lost. It's a damned shame. Find the original Humanoids albums on eBay if you want to read these stories. Do not give DC any money for this collection. It's not worth the money, and DC should not be rewarded for this travesty. As big a fan of Schuiten's as I am, I have to say that you're better off in simply not reading this stuff than in reading it in this form."

Of all the things I never thought I'd see on the TCJ message board, even in jest, this was probably top of the list:

"So I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day, and he was telling me about a class he wanted to teach on the topic of 'Male Virginity.' His class got shot down by the ladies, but he gave an example that got me thinkin on comics, and that was: 'Peter Parker is too HEROIC to give up his cherry.'

"And he's right, WHOAH! Spiderman is way too heroic to fuck! I never thaughta that before. Anyways, I was thinking about this theme as it relates to other superheroes. Like: Superheroes with powers that actively prevent a sex life, like the Thing or Beast. For Rogue, fucking would be like fucking her own corpse. Shadowcat's superpower would permit sex but prevent rape. Sweet! And then my friend mentioned Emma Frost, and I had to agree with what he said: 'When it comes to sex and super-powers, though, wouldn't you just rather be super-rich like Emma Frost? She gets her cake and eats it too. There's a trannie if I've ever seen one. Check out that jaw-line. Plus the telepathy thing. No more "was I good?" More like, "Repeat after me. 'You were FANTASTIC!''"

"All dick strectching jokes aside, Mr. Fantastic must feel like he has to hold back when rolling around in the sack. Bruce Banner can NEVER get laid. Once his heartbeat gets a goin'... BOOM! He's the Hulk. Embarassing. MODOK... what a trainwreck. As we've seen with recent issues of the Avengers, Ant-Man and the Wasp have a great sex life ripped from the pages of 'Small Favors'. And lemme tell you about the Green Lantern... oh God, I've said too much already."

"Superman couldn't have sex with a human woman, as Larry Niven pointed out in 'Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.' If you haven't read it--well, firstly, do. It's funny. But still, the title kind of says it all. And I can only imagine what might have happened in the Ultimates had the Hulk ever gotten to Betty, as this was very much his aim. Sue Storm must be the happiest woman who ever lived. Also probably by now has exotic tastes even the most jaded s/m or toys afficionado can only dream of. I mean, well, Reed could become ANY shape, any size... Alan Moore was right. Plastic Man would have been the greatest male prostitute ever. Doll Man on the other hand would have suffocated. Poor Dane. I hope you like it rough if you date the Thing. One hint: VATS of lube. It would be sad for Peter Parker if he never lost the cherry. I can just picture some imaginative girl exploring the positions he would be capable of. I imagine he has though. Though at the end of SPIDER-MAN 1 I certainly shouted, 'Sir, are you gay?' Captain Marvel on the other hand--really, it'd be as creepy as that part of BIG, wouldn't it? Poor Billy, no puberty for him. Gar Logan can't not be a complete perv. And as Grant Morrison once pointed out, if Kryptonians can't do it with humans what are they left with? Well, who knows what aliens get up to? Certainly Kara always loved her trusty horse Comet very, very much..."

The Comics Journal, ladies and gentlemen.

Newsarama posters discuss DC's recent creative decisions:

"DC has really been disgusting me of late with its gratuitous violence. Don't get me wrong, I'm no prude. I have no problem with sex and violence in comic books, but I don't want them there in a gratuitous way strictly for shock value. Rape, murder and depression should only be used in pursuit of a good story, not as an end in and of itself to prove that your comics are mature and cutting edge. I mean, let's review: Nightwing, raped. Sue Dibny, raped on-panel, then murdered and burned. Flash's wife, attacked while pregnant and caused to have a miscarriage. Atom's wife attacked and hanged. Now Green Lantern's mom has been killed and stuffed in an oven?!? I can't believe the same onlne community that was crying for the heads of Jemas and Quesada can somehow stand behind what DC is doing to these iconic figures! What hypocrisy!! Oh but wait, as long as the creators are 'true to continuity,' everything else is forgiveable, right?"

"I love what DC's been doing lately. They're getting intense as hell, slapping us upside the head with hardcore events that yeild to dramatic consequences, all the while staying true and sticking to the core of their superheroes -- as they're not 'decostuming' or revealing everyone's identities in the process. Here's to hoping that they keep tearing down the house and burning up our superhero-addicted brains with unexpected shocks and with their own, excellent brand of superhero madness for many years to come..."

"It’s consequence. I suppose the heroes should do battle of little to average consequence with a no-too-vicious villain as to not upset sensitive readers and call it a day with their capes flapping in the wind on the edge of a tall building. That’s not interesting. Let's just focus on making all comics more palatable for kids. Screw spirit of the characters crap. Heroes who never enter the gray area and are not put through the paces for what they do, do not typically make for interesting reads. I’m sorry the balance traditionalism is upset, but there are some great stories coming out right now. By the way, I haven’t seen any 'hand wringing' in any of the aforementioned stories. This is the second time I’ve seen the Watchmen being a limited series argument used when talking about current DC comics and I think it’s hogwash. So Watchmen upped the ante for future stories, but an ongoing universe can’t afford to have consequence, character depth and realism? Right. There are tons of comics that kids can read and I don't think a shared universe necessarily means that all books take on the same tone at the same time."

Josh Blaylock of Devil's Due talks about the company's career post-Image:

"You won't find me giving animation studios half million dollar jobs, or building million dollar convention set-ups or what have you. We can analyze why CrossGen failed all night long, but in a nutshell, if they hadn't paid such extravagant creative rates and ran the company as if it didn't have such a huge financial backing, they could have been profitable instantly. That's what's the most encouraging about this for me - if we achieve CrossGen sales numbers? Forget it - we're golden. Their main titles sold very well for a new company. I also believe that if they had launched a Super-Hero universe rather than the off-world fantasy titles, those sales would have been even better. Despite a much smaller nest egg to start [Devil's Due's superhero line] Aftermath with, Devil's Due is in a much better position to earn the trust of fans and retailers. They spent millions to convince customers how big and 'stable' they were. Our three year track record does that for us. If a retailer orders these books from us, he or she knows they'll arrive. If we pull this off, we'll achieve the same buzz that CrossGen did without spending a penny beyond smart creative choices and some guerilla promotion."

Johanna over at Comics Worth Reading puts her contest where her mouth is - okay, that sounds odd, but you know what I mean - offering copies of Fallen Angel trades and back issues to those who can explain why they want to read them. Huzzah!

How DO you pronounce those comic creators' names? Millarworld offers a helping hand:

"Kaare 'CAR-ee' Andrews. J. Michael 'STRUH-zin-ski' Straczynski. I always think 'STRACK-zin-ski' when I write it though. I didn't know how to pronounce John Byrne's last name either until someone said they were a 'Byrne 'Burn' victim.' I think that 'YR' combo just throws people. When X-Force first came out, I remember over-hearing a couple of fans debating Liefeld's name. 'LEE-feld' vs. 'LIE-feld.' And whenever I tell someone I visit Mark 'Mi-LUR's' site, they always tell me it's pronounced 'Mi-LAHR.'
Once, a store guy told me what a big fan he was of Jim 'Muh-FOOD.' Emphasis on the 'Food.' For the life of me, I couldn't figure out who he was talking about until he mentioned Grrl Scouts."

My favourite post is this one:

"What's the difference? Moor is prononced more. As is Moore. It's not moo-er, if that's what you think!"

As the son of a speech therapist, I can definitively tell you that if you're pronouncing "more" the same way that you pronounce "moor", then you're pronouncing at least one of them incorrectly...

Randy Lander isn't too impressed with the latest issue of Avengers:

"Really, Bendis on Avengers never sounded like a good fit, but even in my most cynical moments, I never thought his story would make me wish that Chuck Austen had stayed on the book instead. Because at least the damage Austen was doing was contained to a few characters, while Bendis is writing a version of the Avengers that bears no resemblance to the characters I know and then using that out-of-character behavior to justify a destructive overhaul of the team... Bendis has created any number of new things, and in the past his destruction of characters or relationships has been balanced by a creation of something new, but so far, it looks like this is just a deck-clearing exercise for something completely different that probably could have existed without the destruction of this team. Which, combined with the 'Who will die next?' scoreboard on the Marvel website and the way the book is being hyped, by both company and creator, makes this look like destruction for cheap shock value. And really, everyone involved should be better than that."

Bendis isn't going to stand for THAT kind of talk:

"randy is out of his mind lately. but because his review is SO assinine i am going to tell you something he told me in confidence not a week ago- randy hated the episode of the shield where whats his face killed the cat. he thought it was the worst tv he had ever seen and he almost stopped watching the show because of it [...] i told him then that right there that theres the inhereant difference between us. i thought it was the best hour of tv i had ever seen. i also told him to his face that he was on crack when he wrote his identity crisis review and i still think he is."

I can't wait to see what happens if Randy doesn't like the next issue.
"Brian, normally I love your work, but I don't think this Avengers thing is really your best stuff." "Hey, everyone! RANDY DOESN'T LIKE CHRISTMAS! And he told me once that he used to wet the bed!"

It all goes wrong at the last minute for Even More Fund Comics' John Gallagher:

"Just as I was preparing to back up my computer (and More Fund for the printer) to an 80gb drive, my computer crashed--I mean CRASHED! Major hardware damage, I'm told, but supposedly the files are still intact. I had to send the hard drive away to DISK SAVERS, a very expensive (but reliable) service, with 95% retrieval rate-- but I might not have everything back until past the time the book needs to go to press, in order for it to premiere in Baltimore. I am committed to burn the midnight oil to redesign and set up the book so it can make it to the printer (who will work on the shortest timeframe possible), so if you can resend your story in any way, it is much appreciated.

"What was lost was essentially the last month of files (life with the new baby, and a death in the family had made me lazy in backing everything up every day)-- and almost all of Even More Fund. The back ups, due to previously undiscovered problems with the drive, are incomplete, so I am unsure of what I have and what I don't. Many creators contacted have already resent some stories and art, but I unfortunately lost many e-mail addresses and phone numbers with this crash, so please pass on the news, and this e-mail!"

Rich Johnston runs a rumour that, if true, shows that DC never learns:

"The rumours doing the rounds is that Kyle Rayner (I actually just typed Kyle Baker there... ouch) is to be identified as the killer in 'Identity Crisis.' Apparently there's a flaw in his ring that has turned him crazy. Apparently thenew Kyle Rayner action figure has been cancelled, or renamed Black Hand, and the character's situation in 'Green Lantern: Rebirth' has been shied away from at convention panels..."

Marvel, as I'm sure you remember, hate variant covers. That no doubt explains why the first SIX issues of New Avengers are going to have them. It also probably explains the following:

"Shop owners need only order within 95% of their total order for the previous issue to qualify for each new variant cover. Say you do not meet or exceed 95% of your order for the previous issue - then your order will be filled according to this example: Order 100 copies of NEW AVENGERS #1 and you will receive 95 copies of [the regular edition and 5 copies of the variant]. If you order 95 copies [of New Avengers #2], you will receive 91 copies of NEW AVENGERS #2 REGULAR EDITION, + 4 copies of NEW AVENGERS #2 YOUNG GUNS VARIANT EDITION. If you order 90 copies, your order will be fulfilled as 90 copies of NEW AVENGERS #2, + ZERO YOUNG GUNS variant covers. To be eligible for the incentive for NEW AVENGERS #3, you must order 95% of your order for issue #2. If you ordered 100 copies of NEW AVENGERS #1, 95 copies of NEW AVENGERS #2 and 90 copies of NEW AVENGERS #3, your order will be fulfilled as 86 copies of NEW AVENGERS #3 REGULAR EDITION, +4 copies of NEW AVENGERS #3 YOUNG GUNS VARIANT EDITION. If you order 89 copies, your order will be fulfilled as 89 copies of NEW AVENGERS #3, +ZERO YOUNG GUNS variant covers."

Thank the Lord Marvel hate variant covers, otherwise, this would look like a shitty way to boost sales for the first six issues of this series!

Millarworld seem confused about whether this is a good thing or not:

"Dan Buckley is turning Marvel into a joke."

"For retailers maybe, but how does this hurt consumers? If the retailers work hard and actually MARKET this book in their individual locations, everyone wins!"

"But retailers are the cornerstone of the industry, especially given the direct market that Marvel/DC have set up and not allowing any returns like every other published medium. Therefore, they have a responsibility to make things nice and easy for the stores. Just my opinion."

"The cornerstone, and also the biggest obstacle in the path to expansion. Sigh."

Jessica Abel puts her Guide To Making Comics online:

"When I started inking comics (and when I started using a ruler to rule panel borders), I would ink the borders with a technical pen, running it down a ruler that was lined up against the border line. Frequently, the ink's surface tension would catch the ruler's edge, and would quickly run under the ruler, creating a big, fat blob. If you've ever tried inking with a ruler, you'll have experienced this one time or another, and will agree with me that it is very annoying. One day, several years after first encountering this problem, someone told me that there is such a thing as an "inking edge" on certain rulers. It's a beveled edge, and you run the pen along the top of the bevel, with the result that the ink, below the bevel, doesn't touch anything, thus resulting in a clean line! Eureka! I mean, the inking bevel was only probably invented about 1000 years ago...Jeez. This kind of thing happened to me repeatedly in my early years of comics, and was mostly a result of being isolated with my art - not having a community of peers with whom to share new discoveries and innovations."

Ed Brubaker leaves Catwoman - "Yeah, leaving around #50 was the original plan... There were a couple of things that I wanted to do on the book – ideas that I had for stories, as I got closer to them, I could see that they weren’t going to pan out, or that they weren’t going to work with the character stuff that I was doing. So I had these character’s stories mapped out through what I thought was going to be issue #50, and as I was working on them more and more, I was starting to feel a sort of burnout on the book in a way – I was starting to feel less enthusiastic than I had initially and that I felt towards other books. I didn’t want that to pass along to the readers – I didn’t want to give them less then what they were paying for." says Mr. B - and is replaced by Scott Morse, who has come up with a great name for a new villain (Wooden Nickel? Come on, that's wonderful) and plans to stick with the Brubaker template:

"What I’m going to be doing will be very close to what Ed had established... We’re going to add a little fun to it for this storyline – to make it a little more lighthearted, but still sticking to what Ed created and established for the characters. She’s still kind of on that fence of being good or bad – she’s good for her own reasons."

In proof that there is still no justice in the world, Paul Gulacy and Jimmy Palmiotti are staying with the book as artists.

Millarworld reviews Chuck Austen's creator-owned Worldwatch:

"If you thought his women were bad before...jesus, I think I was offended by this book! I would highly recommend not buying it."

"I was expecting the JLA combined with a weekday afternoon soap opera, but what I got was the JLA combined with Penthouse Comix. There are more pages in the book that featured bare breasts than there were pages without bare breasts. The dialogue was poor and the story was hard to locate, but overall I have to say this book was well worth the price of admission. It is pure cotton candy for the (dirty) mind and the only thing missing was more action. This is low brow fare at it's best, but I don't think it is trying to be much more than that. Again if Jason Pearson's Bodybags can feature Clownface stabbing a pregnant coke addict in the stomach, Ellis' Authority can include Jack Hawksmoore kicking someone's jaw off and Remains features zombies chewing off people's faces there has to be a niche for minimal story meets gratuitous nudity."

"I'd say it's safe money to bet that most people who buy this book will be spending some quality time alone with it, whether they actually read it or not."

"Awful. Miserable. Worst of all, juvenile. The ironic thing is that the book should, officially, only be able to be bought by people 17 or so and older, but it's obviously written at a straight 12 year old level. 'we walk around here naked most of the time anyway' Jesus. I don't want to bash Austen here, but the book feels like he was beating off while writing it."

A Bendis board poster has an idea:

"If I get the comic shop job (which, according to the owners wife, I already have if I want it) I want to try something. Once a week, EVERY week, order heavy on an indy book. Put a stack of them next to the register with a 'Jeffery says you have to try this book' sign and sell them for cost. It's just like giving away the first hit of crack for free... they'll come back for more... it'll help OUR sales in the long run & the books sales right away. Right off the bat... if I make this months order... either Western Tales of Terror or The Gift... hell, or both. I could pimp Eclipse & Vega, Dead@17, Hero Happy Hour etc... get the comics into the hands of people who wont take a chance on ordering them... Any major flaw in this idea?"

It's the new "The first hit is for free. Well, okay, it's not, it's for cost. Which, you know, is kind of like free, except that you have to pay for it." theory of sales.

Bart Sears talks about his new Sabretooth series, and his way of drawing:

"I hear tell most of my critics speak of my 'overblown musculatures...' For me, depends on the character, more importantly, how I see that character. I'm not from the smooth, realistic school of comic art... I'm more of a meat and potatoes comic kind of guy. Heroes, to me at least, are bigger than life. Not me in spandex... not even Arnold in spandex. Bigger than life. That's what I draw. Maybe it's not what you'd see, if they were real, but how you'd remember them."

"I always think that superheroes would have curiously flat faces and big lips," he went on to say.

Warren Ellis is on the set of the pilot for Global Frequency:

"Each day's shooting is burned on to a DVD within hours, and then shot down a T1 line to the network offices for review. I'm watching Jenni as Katrina Finch, throwing up with hideous gusto upon encountering her first dead body. It's quite disgusting. She wanted to hold fluid in her mouth for the full power-vomit effect, but that was nixed by the network. Nonetheless, it's outstandingly sickening. They got it in a couple of takes -- any more and she was running the risk of blowing out her voice with the Method Super Retch. In real life, Jenni's dad was a pathologist who would bring 'bits' home to work on. She remembers the day she was finally tall enough to see over the lip of the dissecting table. Nonetheless, I find it amusingly easy to gross her out. Nice girls bring out the worst in me. And, apparently, Rogers. Rogers started out as a stand-up comedian -- Tristan recognised him from Just For Laughs festival shows on TV re-run -- and this is his Act Two, screenwriter and producer. He's looking at semi-retirement at forty, moving to Canada and writing one script a year for a long and comfortable Act Three. We kill a night alternately teaching her about electromagnetic pulses and explaining the hideous world of Fanboy she's about to enter. Jenni says, 'Stories about Kirk and Spock having sex? You're making this up.'"

Spinning off from The Pulse's "Why I Don't Read Independent Comics" essay, the Bendis board ask themselves the same question:

"If too many people bought alternative comics, they would no longer be alternative but would become the norm. So by default an alternative comic cannot be bought in too great of numbers without betraying its alternativeness."

"The honest answer is most of them suck. I love books from AIT and Fantographics and Top Shelf and all those small publishers but the majority of the independantly published books I have seen are just poor quality. I went to the Aternative Press Expo last year and was really dissapointed. I was hoping to run accross the next Stray Bullets or Teenagers From Mars but the majority of the stuff I saw was crudely drawn stoners or crudely drawn kung fu fights. Maybe I was just looking at the wrong booths."

Bendis himself steps in to mediate:

"Why did I beg Wizard to give me Secret Stash for a month? Don’t I have enough things to do? Well, yes, I do. But, lately, as Marvel and DC gun for each other with bigger and better product, I have noticed that there are a lot of Indy books getting tossed by the way side. I can’t help but cringe a little as it gets harder and harder for Indy guys to convince retailers that their book is worth whatever time and money is left over. And I know you’re thinking. ‘But Bendis, aren’t you one of the architects of all the mainstream nonsense?’ Well yes, kind of, but boy do I remember what it was like to be on the other side of the fence. It wasn’t too long ago that I was trying to sell you Jinx and Torso in a cyclone of bad girl booby books. And frankly I think now that I have gotten your kind attention in this crazy world of comics its kind of my responsibility to spotlight some of these other books. Responsibility! See, you can learn something from Spider-man."

He then goes on to recommend a bunch of Indie books, including Love Fights, Pogostick and Scrapbook (Mind you, am I being too suspicious by thinking that his post is a literal reprint of his Wizard column?).

Spoilers for Astonishing X-Men #4 if you haven't read it yet, but the Joe Quesada board isn't happy with what happens in that issue:

"so, one of joe's biggest points since taking over is that dead means dead. and he even specified, saying that the important deaths, those that meant something, those that had serious impact to the universe and characters, would be held up on high. they would be treated as special events and these characters would not be coming back. ever. and he always gave an example - colossus. well joe, i'm calling you out to explain yourself now. because peter is back. and i don't like it. not only that, but since peter is still alive, does that also mean the legacy virus is as well? if you remember, he died administering himself the antitode, which needed to be fatal to become active and release as an airborne cure."

"Joe might 'explain' himself if the title of this topic were a little less 'in your face'. You come off as aggressive which will probably result in you being ignored."

"Calling Joe a liar is completely out-of-hand. Marvel in Fall 2004 is much different than Marvel in 2001...deal with it."

Roberto Sacasa talks Nightcrawler:

"One of the things Mike [Marts, editor] I talked about when we were first getting started—and then Darick [Robertson, the artist on the book] and I talked about and have continued to talk about—was how there’s never been one definitive take on Nightcrawler... There’s Nightcrawler, the religious guy... Nightcrawler, the swashbuckling pirate guy... Nightcrawler, the suave ladies’ man... Nightcrawler, the self-conscious-about-his-appearance mutant... Nightcrawler, the philosopher... And on and on... What we’ve ended up doing in a weird way is taking elements from all those different incarnations—the ones we liked, I mean—and made them individual traits of a whole character, not substitute them for who the character is, if that makes sense. So I guess our take borrows a little bit from all those versions without being limited by any particular one... Character is action, after all, so hopefully we’ll get to know Kurt—and what kind of person he is—by what he does, as opposed to by seeing him brood and meditate and pray and be introspective a lot... I mean, Kurt’s a truly decent, thoughtful, sensitive guy—apart from his spirituality, you know?"

Mark Millar talks about his experiences with the Millarworld titles. Note the subtle way he drops in possible movie deals:

"Experience has been a great one. I finished most of the work before Christmas and it was a great re-charge for the Marvel stuff after three years of being a good boy. Only three of the planned four were published and two of these have been snatched as movies before the series were even completed so I'm really happy about that. Critical response has been great too and sales for each title had us way ahead of anything else the publishers had coming out. Wanted has sold big name Marvel kind of numbers. I'd have been happy with 35K (original Authority numbers) but we ended up doing more than double that so we're very chuffed.

"The downside is that they took longer than expected. First four issues of Wanted were out in five or six months, which isn't bad, but JG started to slow after this and now we're looking at 10 months or so for the whole six issues (still not bad). Peter's fast, but had his day job at Vertigo which had to come first and he really slowed on the final ish. Underdstandable, though, given that Vertigo is the bulk of his income. Unfunnies had legal problems (now sorted) which weren't our fault and Ashley just couldn't afford to draw for free.

"What I've learnt, therefore, for Phase Two in 06 is to get as many issues in the can as possible before launching because artists are twice as slow as they anticipate being. Everything else went really well. I loved the projects, people bought them in huge numbers, the trades look set to sell in huge numbers and I had two movie offers together inside five or six months. It also allowed me to get a better deal from Marvel afterwards and probably went some way towards Icon being formed, proof being there that is was possible to make more cash OUTSIDE the big characters than within. Marvel are now very keen to keep their writers and artists in the fold, one or two of the Phase Two concepts coming out through Icon as part of my new set-up.

"As regards the new books, I won't have details until this time next year, but the artists I'm talking to are Hitch, JRJR, Quitely, Cassaday, Tim Bradstreet and a fifth guy for the fifth book I'm still negotiating with. Everything will be three or four issues long. The Chosen sequel, DAMNED, might also come out then too, but only if it's in a shape that Peter and I are happy with."

Over at Millarworld, Chad Nevett and Richard Basey ask "ten questions about comics you always wanted, but were too stupid to ask". They are:

* How Much Longer Will Quesada Be Marvel's EIC? (28.36% of those asked say "Another three years" at time of writing...)

* When Will The Next Comic By Kevin Smith Be Out? (Evenly split between "HA! Fool!" and "In the year 34,721...the evil alien empire that's just subjugated the human race finds Daredevil: Target #2 in a pile of rubble. It still only sells 45,000 copies" at this point.)

* Has Every Superhero Comic Written By Mark Millar Since "Nativity" Really Just Been A Remix Of That Arc? (Responses include: "I said no, but certain elements do keep repeating themselves throughout his stories (IE someone's always gay or bi)" "Yeah, and he always uses women, too, instead of just men. What's with that?")

* Do Black And White Comics Suck? ("They all suck, as they lack color. I would say all except The Walking Dead, but that's technically gray scale.")

* Don't You Find Alan Moore's Writing Pretentious, Faux-Intellectual, And Just Kind Of Sucky? (One of the possible options: "FINALLY! GOD YES!")

* Doesn't Spandex Make Comics Better? ("Don't let John Byrne hear you ask that," someone offers.)

* Do You Think Grant Morrison Understands His Comics? (Unsurprisingly, "He wrote them, so yeah" is winning currently.)

* Does Warren Ellis Say Things Just To Say Things? ("Lots of people talk a lot, and Warren is one of those people. Most of what he has to say is interesting, thank god.")

* If You Could Buy Just One Franchise Obsessively, Which Would It Be? (X-Men is leading, unsurprisingly...)

* Who Do You Think The Ultimate Titles Are Really Geared Towards? (Common sense seems to be prevailing, as "Old fanboys" is by far the leader in this poll so far...)

More Charles Schulz soon to be available. I am happy:

"Charles M. Schulz is the most famous and most influential cartoonist ever, and his Peanuts comic strips have been reprinted in hundreds of books. Yet few people know that during the late 1950s, during a period of great creativity, Schulz was also doing another newspaper comics series. 'It’s Only a Game' took a look at people and their pastimes, showing us how we win, how we lose, and how we play the game. This long forgotten work is now being put into a book for the very first time, as About Comics publishes the complete collection It’s Only a Game... Schulz created the series himself and initially did all the work on it. After the series had run for a while, cartoonist Jim Sasseville to do the finished artwork based on Schulz’s sketches. Sasseville provides the book’s commentary, as well as access to some special materials. 'Working with Jim was great,' explains Gertler. 'Not only do we get a lot of insight into how the strip was put together and what it was like working with Schulz, he also gave us access to some of Schulz’s roughs for cartoons that were never used.'"

Mark Millar responds to yesterday's edition of The Basement Tapes:

"It's bollox of the first order. Anyone who has ever spent ten seconds in my company or read a single thing I've ever said will know that mainstream superhero books mean more to me than creator-owned stuff. This isn't the case for some people, but it's pretty well known that this the case with me.

"I got into comics to write Superman, Spider-Man, Batman and so on. Wanted, Chosen, etc, have been a delight and a nice battery-recharge, but I only plan to do that stuff six months out of every two years. I've never said 'one for them, one for me' in my life. They're both for me. What I said was that I wanted to OWN a few projects among all the things I'll never own. This gives me creative freedom and a pension plan just as working on company-owned characters can give me a genuine thrill and faster, usually better royalties. I have and always have called this the holistic approach to writing comics. It's ALL good if you're into it and I am.

"This mainstream = trash thing strikes me as very immature. It's the most common argument heard among people just before they sign their Hulk/ Iron Man/ Avengers contracts, after which point they normally change their tune pretty rapidly. Watch this space."

Apparently I missed the point where Fraction and Casey made any "mainstream=trash" comment, but maybe I was asleep or something.

Patrick Neighly reconsiders what he's doing in his Paper Curtain column:

"There is another issue, one that generally remains unspoken but tends to bubble away just under the surface of every conversation about the industry. And that is this: we’re a small, incestuous bunch. I’ve been self-publishing graphic novels for about a year now, and I can already Kevin Bacon myself to any other industry figure in one move. Two tops. We’re just not large enough for a dedicated split between creation and criticism. This is an industry where major publishers heckle their competitors at professional venues and trade barbs through fan websites, after all. Glancing through the bulk of the industry’s notable columns reveals a tradition of creators large and small writing columns that survey the scene and comment on specific comics. Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, Tony Isabella, Steven Grant, Peter David, Donna Barr and Larry Young spring to mind. Jim Lee and Brian Wood have had stints controlling coverage here at Newsarama. Rich Johnston, Mike Sangiacomo and John Jackson Miller straddle both sides of the fence, along with J. Torres, Lee Barnett and others. Hell, Roger Ebert wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

"It gets even murkier. We’ve got retailers writing columns – for Comics Retailer, for Newsarama and more. Beyond opinion, these represent the views of people whose buying decisions affect creators’ livelihoods and readers’ access to material. Vampirella Magazine publishes comic reviews for books its publisher is in direct competition with. Even Wizard publishes comics now, calling into question the fairness of its industry coverage and price guides. But does the presence of conflict of interest – real or imagined – mean that we shouldn’t at least try to look at books objectively?"

DC back down on the issue of promotional materials that cost the retailer money, like the recent Sky Captain polybagged CD promos. Well, kind of back down:

"It took a while, but DC listened, and yesterday announced it will offer a $0.02 rebate per shipped copy of all the books shipped for initial orders only. 'In the future, DC will offer a freight credit on all comics that include unbound promotional materials not connected to DC Comics' properties or that of Warner Bros. and other Time Warner affiliates.' Translation: If Paramount wants to do it again, retailers will get a freight credit, but if Warner Brothers wants to do it with Batman Begins, start saving pennies now for shipping."

Rich Johnston versus Newsarama... to the death!:

"Last night, Newsarama posted their Punisher Prequel Preview Page, as part of a promotion involving a lot of websites, each getting a page each, and linking to the next website in the chain. But that wasn't enough for Newsarama, who had this story before many other websites. They decided to make their territorial claim clear. The current article says 'To kick off the countdown for the September 7th release of The Punisher on DVD, Lion's Gate has released pages of the exlcusive 28-page prequel comic by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillion across the internet. We broke the story earlier this month, and now Newsarama is the internet host for page 10 of the comic. For page 8 at IGN DVD, click here. The full index of the comic and locations of the pages can be found at Lion's Gate's Punisher DVD homepage [...] To read Newsarama's original scoop about the exclusive comic, click here. To discuss the page, click here.'

"I posted in the Talkback to point out that, actually, Lying In The Gutters had the story well before Newsarama - they neither scooped or broke the story. I also suggested an amend they could make to make the piece accurate. The post was deleted and the article not changed. Cray_ws posted 'If you got issues with credit with Matt's articles or reporting business, then try and be profesional about it and keep it off the board so you don't turn this into some petty squabble I don't want to hear about, thats what email is for.' I disagree. I've responded 'I'm just reporting an error in the article. That's hardly inappropriate for the responses to an article, is it? Common practice on Newsarama. As, indeed, are petty squabbles. Currently it still states: 'We broke the story earlier this month' and refers to 'Newsarama's original scoop' when in fact Lying In The Gutters broke the story last month, right here - www.comicbookresources.com/columns/ index.cgi?column=litg&article=1951 [...] I understand if Newsarama wishes to take more credit for this story, when they did print the story before most people, and when all the preview pages have been shared around the internet, including links to possible competing sites, with agreements not to reprint each others pages. But no deleting my posts to this message board alters that Newsarama has given itself an innaccurate credit. All I'm pointing out, is an error in the piece.'

"So! How many similar posts will Newsarama delete? At what point will they admit error? How long until they change the original article? How long can I keep this immature behaviour up? Stay tuned..."

Millarworld isn't too impressed:

"Haven't you been over this before (on several occasions) with Matt ? You broke a rumour, he broke the official story."

"Far be it from me to get involved in this... but that's precisely the song Matt (and before that Mike) would sing. If I whistle, you might know the tune."

Oh, and hi, Eduardo!

Want to see what the Bendis board looks like? Look to this thread, where Alex Maleev makes them an offer they can't refuse:

"Here's the deal. I have little space in a panel to draw a random person from the crowd [for Daredevil #66]. Wanna be the one? Post me a picture, nice resolution following the sketch provided below. Notice that it's 3/4 shot a little bit from above. If it doesn't fit the perspective it won't do."

As might be expected, many pictures follow, most not following the above guidelines.

You know, if there was ever a perfect writer for Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys comics, I've always thought it would be Scott Lobdell. Oh, no, wait. That's the Bizarro World version of me. Editor Jim Salicrup, back from Topps limbo, explains:

"The fun part of pretending to be a Hardy Boy is -- let's face it, at the end of the day you're not going to bend steel in your bare hands or outrace a speeding locomotive. Chances are there aren't that many vines around your neighborhood or apes that you can wrestle. But Joe and Frank? With a lot of studying and hard work you and I at least stand a chance of aspiring to being a Hardy Boy! The Hardy Boys have been thrilling generations of kids since they first appeared back in 1927. And just as super-heroes have changed with the times, the Hardy Boys are changing as well. I can't tell you exactly what those changes will be, that will be revealed in the new Hardy Boys novels coming in 2005 from Simon & Schuster, but I can say that it creates a whole new level of adventure for Frank and Joe Hardy. If Hardy Boys fans want to know how Joe and Frank get to where they're going to be in their new series of novels, they'll have to read the Papercutz comics. In other words, the comics will fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle! The stories are all-new, but feature all the classic characters from the original series. The Simon & Schuster Hardy Boys novels, by the way, is still an ongoing series. So, while we're tied into the same world of the original novels, we're not planning to adapt or update any specific original stories. We feel the fun is in presenting new stories that involve Frank and Joe in adventures they couldn't possibly be involved in either 5 or 50 years ago... Nancy Drew was just recently relaunched by Simon & Schuster in an all-new series of novels, the first landing on the New York Times bestseller list. The Papercutz Nancy Drew graphic novels feature this new exciting and fun version of the world's most famous girl detective. Like Superman and Batman both being owned by DC Comics, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are owned by the same publisher, so the characters have met each other several times in the past and no doubt will again. It's just too hard to resist!"

Today's "rather gorgeous, looks like a screenprinted version of Tim Bradsheet's stuff but in a more organic way that sidesteps the obvious photoref quality of Bradsheet's work, and jeez, those are nice colours bringing the thing alive, too" image comes from Larry Young and Jon Proctor's upcoming The Black Diamond...

Joe Casey and Matt Fraction reflect on fuck fame and the importance of creative vision in comics in this week's Basement Tapes:

"Yeah, your breakdown of the 'one for them, one for me' career path is pretty right on. It's also inherently flawed. An artist's job is to put his or her own artistic sensibility out into the world. The job is to be singular in some way. If that sensibility happens to perfectly fall in line with a wider, commercial sensibility, great for all involved. One thing I've learned -- and I'm pretty sure a guy like Millar knows this -- is that it's worth it to at least pick the commercial properties that you have an affinity for. Properties where you feel you can bring your own artistic aesthetic to it and something new comes out of it. I really do think Mark loves Spider-Man from when he was a kid... but, of course, then he turns around and refers to his Marvel Knights series as something akin to 'the Spider-Man version of HUSH'. I mean, c'mon... we all know Mark has a hankering for Fuck Fame. I'm sure he'd admit to it himself. God bless that little Scottish tomato..."

Don't call it a comeback... well, not yet. Peter David reports on the possible return of one of comics' most missed characters:

"Ages ago, around the time of U-Decide, Glenn pointed out to me that Bill Jemas had, shockingly, not locked up www.billjemas.com. 'Ohhh, Glenn, get it for me, would'ja?' I asked. And Glenn did. And after having some giggles at Bill's expense, I publicly stated that if he wanted to take it off our hands, we wouldn't cybersquat on it. Never heard from him.

"Until recently.

"So just to let you guys know, with any luck www.billjemas.com will be undergoing new management and will be the launchpoint for...well, for whatever Bill Jemas is going to do next."

Indy Magazine returns to chart, as editor Billy Kartalopoulos puts it, "the 'secret history' of the graphic novel:

"The history of original, book-length graphic narratives is generally a list of isolated incidents. There are occasional trends, such as Töpffer's imitators or the followers of Masereel and Ward, but more often these books tend to be idiosyncracies (or idiosyncratic bodies of work, like Edward Gorey's). The book length graphic narrative is re-conceived each time according to a particular artist's concerns. As such, the books become difficult to classify, especially vis-a-vis any definition of 'comics' ...These books all emerged from a period after the birth of mass-market book publishing but before the 'comic book' as we know it fully adapted to the book format — a period before the book-length graphic narrative collided with the comic-book-straining-beyond-its-bounds."

Artblog at Artbomb has the covers to Warren Ellis's Apparat series of books. Quit City looks like my favourite right now...

Nick Barrucci talks about the American Flagg collections due from Dynamic Forces and Image. Besides the Howard Chaykin strips, there's an all-star team working on the book:

"When it came to Jim [Lee], we were doing a signing with him, and I asked if he would do the foreword... Jim is the gentleman of comics. He is probably one of the nicest people in comics today. He agreed to do it. Next, I was at one of Michael Chabon’s lectures, met with him, and asked if he would like to do the afterword, which he was more than up for. Again – this is A Few Good Men all over – a great script, a great cast, do you need Tom Cruise and Nicholson? You don’t necessarily need them, but if they can do it, and they’re willing to be part of it, why not? So Michael had agreed to do the afterword, and when I mentioned it to Jim, he jumped at me, and told me that he wasn’t doing the foreword if Michael Chabon was doing something with the book. He said he’d do the afterword, and Michael had to do the foreword. Jim felt that having Michael write the foreword would be better for the project as a whole, so he stepped down, and took the afterword instead. What can I say to that? It shows what a great guy Jim is, and his character. Chip Kidd was a great addition as well. We ran into him a year ago at San Diego, and asked if he’d be interested in it. I saw him next at a signing with Alex Ross, and asked again, and he said he’d be all over it. Howard followed up with him, and he’s designing the covers and dust jackets."

Chaykin and Kidd collaborating on the covers makes the graphic design geek in me giddy.

KevinO at Millarworld wants everyone to know that comics RAWK right now:

"I think this is the best comics have been in a long time. Everyone is talking about them, from Identity Crisis to Astonishing X-Men to the Avengers to Amazing Spider-Man to Spider-Man to Green Lantern: Rebirth to Superman and so on. The bottom line is, there is a lot of great product out there with awesome storylines. Add some independent stuff like Queen and Country to Sleeper to Wanted, and this is the best comics have been in a long time. Sure, there is a lot of sucky product out there, but the good is really good! Everyone bashes this and that, but imagine someone coming on these boards who may not be into comics, or is coming back to them. And all they hear is all this complaining about this character or that. Not that complaining is bad. God knows I've done my fair share of it, but lets try to increase sales, not minimize them."

Everyone is talking about them! Well, everyone on comics message boards, anyway... And with "some" independent stuff like Queen and Country and Wanted (and, oddly enough, Sleeper, which is published by DC but is independent because it... is about supervillains... and... okay, I have no idea why it's in with the independents) as well as all the big events from the Big Two, who can blame them? And while next-to-no-one else at Millarworld agrees with poor Kevin, Mark Millar is always on hand to offer a note of optimism:

"You can never judge a period until it's over, but I think the end of the year should top Summer (based on the number of books I'll be reading). Right now I'm reading Bendis and Warren and the occasional other book like Identity Crisis. However, by December I'll be reading Ultimate Spidey, Ultimate FF and Ultimates (oh yes), DD, Cap, Wolverine, Iron Man, The Avengers, Planetary, Black Widow, Amazing, MK Spidey, Powers, Ultimate Secret, Supreme Power and a ew other bits and pieces. Still mostly Bendis and Ellis, but I'll be reading almost twice what I'm reading now (which is twice what I was reading last year)."

The preceeding piece of optimism was brought to you courtesy of Marvel Enterprises, Inc.

In today's edition of Sock Puppets and the Message Boards that love them, Millarworld invades The Pulse. Well, it was a Danny Donovan interview, and you know how much MW-en-masse loves him...:

"Hey Danny, I notice you didn't mention Danny's Divas in this interview. Whatever happened to them anyways? I hope they haven't been disbanded!
I remember back in the day even Gail Simone was counted among that crew! Or maybe she was an official inductee into the Hottie Hall of Fame. I always used to get the Divas and the Hotties confused. But anyway, just wanted to say keep dreaming, man! They'll let you back onto the X-Men someday. I mean, it took Chris Claremont over 10 years to get back on that book! LOL And like Becky said, don't ever let the haterz get you down. They're all just jealous anyway. HUGGYLOVES!!!"

"OMG! Danny that'z SOOOOOOO sad that you're not working on MArvel or DC. Why do hack writerz like Mark Millar and BKV get work but someone who really good can't? My youth pastor said that it's because Millar and BKV sold thier soulz to the Devil. I think Millar is the Devil. Did you read Chosen? I gave it to my youth pastor and he got really angrey (i'm not supposed to read comix, but I love them). Good luck, Danny! Jesus loves you!!!!"

"Mr. Donovan, I heard on another site that you were not instrumental in the 9-11 book and actually weaseled your way in to someone else's idea and have been taking credit for it ever since. Do you have a response?"

Newsarama are concerned with Joe Quesada's job stability:

"The men most often mentioned to replace Quesada as EIC are Alonso and Breevort. I see these two men as the Carlin and DiDio of Marvel in that Breevort/Carlin represents the traditional comic book approach and DiDio/Alonso seem to have a more aggressive/edgy style. Strangely enough, while I think DiDio's approach at DC has been more successful than Carlin's, at least with respect to Batman and Superman, I feel like Alonso might have lost his golden touch at Marvel. The last time I really loved the Superman books was when Mike Carlin was editing them, but prior to DiDio taking charge over at DC, Carlin's final years as the top dog under Levitz weren't pretty. Quesada has basically gone back on nearly every publishing strategy he once opposed, i.e., relaunches and renumberings without end, 'dead is dead', alternate covers, the so called 'return of continuity', writing stories about stories(Sins Of The Past in Amazing Spider-Man). It seems like desperation fueling their approach to publishing. The fact remains that the latest attempts to reach out to kids(Marvel Age) or girls(Mary Jane) have been rotten sellers in the direct market, and if the bookstore market is the primary target of Tsunami and other books, why were they all cancelled? They didn't generate sufficient money in the direct market to continue publishing them but the bookstore market didn't embrace them either."

"So well put. When Morrison and JMS first came to Marvel is when things were picking up. The ditched the code, started releasing trades, told wolvies origin, revamp x-men (without renumbering, I HATE the renumbering. Unless it is a completely new book. Where the didnt do that with X-Force and Thunderbolts when their orignal stories ended, something else I HATE.), revamp amazing spiderman... And now marvel is just going back to everything that they did so well. Just because they want people to take notice. I am not huge on DC titles but they are very consistant. Something marvel consistantly lacks. All they care about is money and by renumbering titles everyone rushes to get issue number one. I recently found out Emma Frost was being cancelled which I am very upset about. I encourage everyone to support it. I saw the numbers on Comicon. and it is number 71. And it has only decreased in sales since it came out. Which made it seem reasonable to get cancelled. however, after looking other marvel titles series generally have a constant trend to loose numbers, generally until a big arc comes along. The series is still way high is charts for a marvel age series. Marvel needs to work on getting big artist and or writers for these smaller titles that come out. X-Men will always be a high seller, but the big guns somewhere else."

"I can't say that I would like to see JQ replaced as I really can't see anyone in the medium right now that could do anything better. The obvious progression for EIC at Marvel is Bendis or Millar. Hopefully not though - I think both writers know they are better writers than they are businessmen."

IVCi interviews Dan Buckley:

"[Signing creators exclusively] has more to do with stabilizing our plans and our lines. It makes it a little bit easier to plan out a year to two years in advance for projects, and allows us to have a little bit of a market lever. Because we can elevate names, we can match up creators with projects and help manage things. It's been a fairly good strategy. It's been one of the biggest dynamic changes in the comic book publishing business over the last ten years. How publishers have been managing that has been one of the biggest changes in the last two or three years. When I was here the first time, I don't think Marvel did a very good job of that. The creators and the publishers seem to have a pretty good relationship, and see the value of it for both sides. Will we have creators stay exclusive for the next ten years? I doubt it; people will come and people will go, but hopefully both parties will be the better for it at the end of it."

Over at The Pulse, reader Joe Kaposta offers up his reasons why he doesn't read Independent Comics:

"What defines the term 'independent'? You may smirk at my ignorance, but I really do have at least two perceptions of the term. One, it means a small group of people, or even only one person, who produces a single title, or maybe two or three. This kind of independent is defined by small size, relative poverty, and by NOT being one of the big companies. My other perception of 'independent' has more to do with attitude. The purpose of some, though I'm aware not nearly all, independents seem to be to present a more personal, often self-centered vision, less confined by editorial or societal restraint than is possible at companies with large distribution and a market share to protect. This vision is often snide and cynical toward society, government’s and other people’s motives.

"This is not the world as I choose to see it. I do see evil in the world, and greed, and selfishness, and pettiness, and much else that is negative. But aside from my own existential angst and despair I want someone to show me some positivity. That's where my comics preferences come in. Where my comics reading is concerned I prefer, as the saying is, to light a candle rather than curse the darkness. To me, the independents of the darkness-cursing school seem more interested in navel-gazing, and maybe even engaging in a little self-pity. I don’t have the time or desire to indulge them; I have enough of my own problems to deal with without borrowing theirs."

Paul O'Brien looks at Marvel's July numbers at The Pulse:

"[Starjammers was r]etroactively declared to be a six-issue miniseries, though that's not how they solicited the first issue. This seems to be the latest Marvel strategy - launch a new book and try to avoid saying whether it's an ongoing title or a miniseries. To my mind, that results in the worst of both worlds. It amounts to saying 'Hey, here's a new title that we'd really like to be ongoing. But we're kind of expecting it to bomb.'"

Brian Michael Bendis... he just wants people to be happy:

"WE ARE RUNNING LOW... EMAIL ME AT BRIAN1138@AOL.COM

"real. honest little ads that explains who you are and what you want out of life and what you want from someone else... be honest, be funny, be needy, whatever you want... email address only, no phone or cell. A good forty thousand people will see it. i love you guys and if i can get you a little laid, that would be great. of course no one involved in powers or at icon and marvel comics has any responsibility for anything that happens because of the ad or is responsible for what it says in the ad. this is a free service with no binding promise of legal whatever. But I want to make this perfectly clear, if any of you get anything off of anybody because of this, you HAVE to buy every book I put out forever!! This is on negotionable. You have to!!

"Now I have met not one but TWO couples that successfully met off these stupid personals. And I have met some lovely women who you guys have totally screwed up with your lame ass email.s"

It's like those ads for eHarmony.com, but kind of scarier.

Millarworld aren't happy with one of the spoilers in this week's All The Rage:

"POTENTIAL BIG SPOILERS FOR READERS OF ASTONISHING X-MEN!! Don't even click on the link if you like to avoid that sort of thing."

"GAH! GAH GAH GAH! I clicked before seeing your spoiler warning, and it's staring at me before I have the chance to scroll!"

"Yeah, man, that's just unreasonable. And using the first looks as your rumour source, that's just cheating (and makes it all the more obvious of how lacking the column is in content). I wonder if I should ever read this column again."

"that image shouldn't have been posted there, it's just ruining the upcoming story in astonishing. and even if you had to run it, you could have done it a s a clickable link, so people wouldn't scroll past it to read the column..."

"Yeah, but people weren't even CONSIDERING [thing that gets spoiled, which I won't reveal here, but they do in the thread itself, so be warned] until seeing that pic. It's taken away a big portion of the fun. If it were a quick blurb about how Marvel might bring the character back in a few months, fair enough. But blurting out this stuff so close to the actual book being out... it's like waiting months to read something, buying it, then having your neighbor burst in and say 'hey, you reading that book? You know the butler is the murderer, right?' Totally ruins it."

Grant Morrison's The Filth to hit movie theatres, movie fans expected to be both confused and depressed:

"Chris Weston's appeal a few months ago, initially through this very column, then repeated across the net, seems to have paid off. Well, according to a couple of journalists I speak to, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, writer/star and writer/director of 'Shaun of The Dead' (Region 2 DVD out in a few weeks, US film distribution in place) are currently working on the script of 'The Filth.' They plan to film in March, and 'Spaced' co-writer and co-star Jessica Stevenson has already been cast."

You know, I'm beginning to feel sorry for Allen Heinberg, writer of the upcoming Young Avengers. In his interview at Newsarama, he shows that he obviously knows what he's up against in terms of reader expectations, but the odd need that Marvel seems to have that nothing's allowed to be revealed about the project apart from the fact that it's apparently great isn't really helping to counteract any cynicism:

"I felt obligated to tell Joe -- as politely as possible - that, although I was incredibly flattered by the opportunity, I actually had no earthly idea how to write a book called Young Avengers. I also confessed that I would probably never even buy a book called Young Avengers unless it was written by a writer I knew and loved. And, let's be honest, nobody in comics knows or loves me. So, we talked about it. I presented all my reservations about the book. That it sounded to me like a blatant rip-off of Teen Titans - a book I love written by Geoff Johns, who's a close friend. Then, even if you figure out a way to do the book that doesn't rip off Titans, there's the problem of who are these young Avengers? Where do they come from? Marvel has no established teen sidekicks from which to build a team. And if you create a team of all-new heroes, why should anyone care about them? And furthermore what right do these kids have to call themselves Young Avengers? ...I kept bumping up against the fact that the Titans were a group of established teen sidekicks the audience was already invested in. Apart from Bucky and Toro -- both of whom were long dead -- Marvel had no teen sidekicks. In fact, I'd read an article online talking about how Stan Lee hated the idea of the teen sidekick in comics. I don't know if that's true or not, but it got me thinking about the whole concept the teen sidekick. Personally, I love them. I do. I have a soft spot for the teen sidekick. I've been a devoted Titans fan since I started reading comics. I have a real affection for Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl. And, cynically, yes, they were originally somewhat ill-defined demi-versions of their adult counterparts, though people have been wrestling with the question 'Who is Wonder Girl?' for years. But it's tough to deny their wish-fulfillment appeal. Teen sidekicks are in many ways the ultimate fanboys -- super hero fans who've literally earned their wings and become full-fledged heroes in their own right. That said, I still couldn't figure out a compelling premise for Young Avengers. I'd get frustrated, thinking, 'If only the original Avengers had had teen sidekicks...' I kept having this terrible vision of readers at comic book stores across the country - myself included - seeing a book called Young Avengers on the stands and rejecting it out of hand, saying, 'Who the hell are the Young Avengers?' And, without giving away anything, that question became the soul of my pitch... I can't say much without spoiling the story, but new characters are introduced, old characters are reinvented, Avengers continuity is honored, and new readers won't feel left behind. I know there are cynics online who are already saying that Young Avengers is a desperate attempt to capitalize on the success of Geoff and Mike McKone's Teen Titans. The truth is, I don't know how you can do a book about a team of teen super heroes and not be compared to the Titans. So, as a huge, lifelong Titans fan, I want the book to acknowledge its debt to Teen Titans even as it reveals itself to be something entirely its own. In the end, though, it's always comes down to characters and the storytelling. I'm hoping readers will give us a chance and allow themselves to be surprised."

Greg Pak talks about his upcoming Phoenix series:

"I don't want to give away too much -- in particular, I don't want to imply one way or another whether or not we'll see Jean Grey in the flesh in this series. But I can say that the Phoenix character is enormously compelling as one of the best examples in comics of the notion of superpowers gone awry, of the idea that maybe human beings are simply not meant to handle superpowers of this scale. With the Phoenix, the stakes are enormously high, which makes for good drama. Add to that the complicated and moving emotional history the Phoenix shares with Jean, and you have a great combination of high stakes action and high stakes emotion."

Chris Arrant talks to the creative team behind the amazing Rock'N'Roll:

"We made the entire story to be told without words, or any understandable words, for that matter, so the reader could make their own minds on what was going on just by following what is told in the art. If you think that is what’s happening, then that is what’s really happening."

Fuck.

Goodbye, Sean... Come back soon...

Although the first set of Marvel Young Guns has just been announced, Millarworld are already considering who the second set should be, just in time for Rob Liefeld to interrupt:

"...um, are Young Guns supposed to be veterans of the industry by, like 11+years like Dave Finch, Dustin Nguyen and Sean Chen? or 8+years like Jimmy Cheung? While I agree that this is a very affective marketing directive, it's also very humorous. This takes nothing away from these guys talent, it's just sort of far fetched... True Young Guns would be Ryan Ottley, Cory Walker, Tony Moore, Cliff Rathburn and the previously mentioned Travel Foreman. By this measure, there are no old guns, or balls fer that matter, in the business."

It's an odd world when Liefeld talks sense, but there you go...

Brian Hibbs speaks the truth, and all should listen:

"Do you want to know why it is so hard to launch new books into the market? Why we need 'comics activism' for She-Hulk or Fallen Angel ? It’s precisely because we get weeks where there are 9 X-Men books and 5 Batman titles, and that is when those books ship. Of course, that’s also the week that someone at DC thinks it’s a grand idea to ship two of the struggling 'Focus' titles. 'Uh, but why doesn’t this sell?' they then ask. Rocket. Science."

Newsarama has a preview of the first half of Uncanny X-Men #448. Feel the nostalgia!

Larry Young gives me an excuse to post an image by my new comic book artist idol, Fabio Moon:

"A book about hot girls with guns in costumed gear selling illegal cigarettes written by a sexy blonde American woman and drawn by a smouldering Latin gentleman covers so many fetishes, I probably won't have to do any marketing at all."

Over at Joe Quesada's board, regular poster Matt Adler can't keep it in anymore:

"Ok, I couldn't even go through the other thread [about New Avengers], 'cause I knew there would be a bunch of apologists for the current goings-on, and I'm frankly not in the mood to argue with them. Not that they won't show up here too, but oh well. No, I'm not going to 'give it a chance'. Avengers #500 sucked, the idea of making the Avengers a showcase for Marvel's most commercial characters sucks, and the idea of killing off Avengers mainstays like Thor and Hawkeye, along with a host of supposedly 'expendable' minor characters sucks. This is the ultimate triumph of commercialism over storytelling. Way to go Marvel. You're not bringing back the '90s; you're merely outdoing the worst of its excesses.

"Now that we've established that this is total garbage and is going to ruin the Avengers, the only question is, how lasting will this be? I fear the fanboys will eat this *** up, and it will become an entrenched status quo. Whereby Bill Jemas Version 9.0 in the year 2040 will be telling some schmuck of a writer who proposes removing Wolverine from the team and reviving Hawkeye, 'Don't you know what the Avengers is? This isn't a team for some D-list character from decades ago. These are our premier characters! Remove Wolverine? Are you nuts? Fanboy writers are what's killing this industry. This is going down as my next chapter of How To Write Comics; 'What the Avengers are all about'.' On the other hand, it's possible that the novelty will quickly wear off and real Avengers fans will be able to reassert themselves and get this *** reversed. Just as they were able to get Peter Parker back as Spider-Man and undid the whole 'Iron Man is a murderer, now here's Teen Tony', and any other number of horrible storylines Marvel's perpetrated over the years in the name of a short term sales boost. But I'm not optimistic, because this pandering may be right on the money for the fanboys."

Other posters bring a different perspective on the issue:

"I understand what you are feeling, Matt. My favorite team (the New Jersey Nets) have been dismantled this summer, too. I have written them off, sworn never to cheer for them again. That's just the anger and shock of the immediate news. But, when my anger subsided, I decided to give them a shot. Let's see what rag-tag players they can acquire, hope for break-out years and good chemistry, and pray for lots of luck. It is unfair to myself and to the team to judge them without seeing them play. Will the Nets ever recover? Well, sometimes teams are in the cellar for years, like the Clippers, and sometimes they make miraculous turn arounds like the Grizzlies. The best you can do is stick by your guys and hope. So, that's my take on the Nets situation. Does this really relate to you and the Avengers? I dunno, I'm very tired."

Micah Wright on being mentioned during the Bendis/Wayne spat:

"So now the DC Marketing chief is name-dropping me as a diss. I still get checks from these people... where does he get off insulting ANY creator, past or present, in public? Does he seriously think I'll never see him again? Or that people wouldn't point it out to me? Or that this type of 'Hey, lookit me, I'm the King of the Fanboys' behavior is in any way professional? Hell, given the turbulent nature of this industry, there's every chance I may work with him again. Look at DC's relationship with Alan Moore over the last 30 years.

"More shocking, though, is the complete unprofessionality of Bob Wayne's comments about Joe Quesada. What did Joe do to deserve that other than not be a button-down executive and to outsell DC in monthly comics sales? Marvel has a different promotional style and company identity than DC does... big deal. I think most of what was said at that panel was tacky, and not just the stuff about me. I know no one at DC will care, but this is EXACTLY the bullshit that I mean when I use the derisive term 'Comic Book Businessman.' Petty personal attacks on creators and executives from other companies are what I expect from people like Jesse Baker, not the Vice President of Marketing."

And then, once he'd heard the audio at CBR:

"Bob sounds even MORE unprofessional and jerky when you have to LISTEN to him demand that the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics be fired... He's coming across as the 'bad guy' here because in no other industry on Earth would a Marketing Vice President of a major corporation go to a public forum and demand that the CEO of a competitor be fired because he said bad things about his company. It's silly. It's childish. It makes comics look like it's run by overgrown fan boys who like to take cheap shots at one another like they're still ten years old. Sneering about the demotion/firing of Bill Jemas is fine if you're a dork on a message board, it's tacky if you're doing it in public at a panel being held by a guy who Bill Jemas gave a big chance to."

On The Comics Journal board, Ed Gauthier suggests that creators rise up and rail against their shackles, man:

"For years companies have simply held that 'nobody forced the artists to sign [Work for Hire] paperwork, so should have nothing to complain about later.' Shouldn't they complain, though? Were they given any alternative if they did NOT want to sign away all future rights to their creationr/revamping of characters? It doesn't look like it! And it's not like a comic company is the same as a huge science braintrust, wherein if a chemist discovers a pill to prevent hiccups it belongs to that particular company because that's who the chemist was working for at the time. Comics don't cure things (except maybe boredom) and their artists have sure never gotten paid any high salary like scientists and doctors do! So why not just boycott all work-for-hire practices in the comics field? They're the most notorious business associated with it, after all. It seems to have ruined hundreds of creative lives, and the negative effects upon the artists' families will also echo down through the generations. So how about it? Pass a law against it or something - there must be some way we can get the greedy comic companies to knock it off, already!"

Evan Dorkin then appears, playing the voice of reality:

"Freelancers can't even get together on who inked Kirby best or what dingus should wear the Green Lantern costume. You think we'll band together to shove it down the man's throat and cut ourselves off from what is, by and large, our only real source of income? More to the point, even if we all woke up linking arms and marching against work-for-hire with Neal Adams at the lead (and loudly letting you know he's at the lead), all it'll mean is stalwart company men like John Byrne and Brian Michael Bendis will be writing even more books next month. And then there's the exclsuives, they're not jumping the gravy train. Mainstream work-for-hire comics are like McDonalds, you can fire the entire staff and the next day have it re-staffed, there's a ton of kids out there willing to take your job. So I was told by my manager at McDonald's, so it's been told to folks in comics when someone makes a stink about pinko organizing. This boycott idea, if not a gag, is only possible in the Bizarro World, where DC sues Siegal and Schuster to take their undeserved millions and their unprofitable stupid character Superman back."

No less an authority than the BBC gets in on this comic thing. 2000AD strips, audio versions of Judge Dredd stories, interviews with creators... More fun than you'd expect, really.

Lamp Post Productions announces The Comic Book Digest, essentially a Previews book with a new Mike Miller strip thrown in for good measure. Sadly, that last point is what Newsarama posters choose to concentrate on:

"Man, this sounds like a GREAT idea! It's just too bad Mike S. Miller's running the show. His reputation proceeds him and is enough to keep me away from supporting anything he is associated with."

"And what exactly does he have a reputation for?"

"Mike's a Christian and unapologetic about his faith. That scares a lot of people these days. And he will actually defend his values without bending. THAT infuriates a lot of people these days."

"I personally believe there's a difference between being a Christian and being a homophobe. That's just my opinion."

"Correct. One is a follower of the teachings of Jesus. The other is a fictional mental illness used to 'name call' anyone that disagrees with the radical end of the gay community. It's usage against Christians is quite similar to how any black Republican is called an 'Uncle Tom'."

"It's funny how, whenever Miller's name comes up on one of the news sites in connection with actual, honest-to-goodness comics work, the ensuing thread always degenerates into a...um...'discussion' about the man's beliefs. I wonder if, in retrospect, Milelr regrets making certain online statements, or if he feels secure in sticking to his beliefs vocally. For what it's worth, if anyone cares, I doubt I will ever again purchase anything he works on."

"I'm not religious, but I have no problem buying material, even rekigiously themed material, from someone who is. But I wouldn't buy anything by Miller for one sole reason: he's a prick. Not met him personally, but I've seen him on enough message boards being a prick. I seem to recall him telling people on an AOL board years back (the Byrneward, I believe) that they were going to hell for believing in evolution. That's just not right. Of course, not long after he took a job working on X-Man. And we know those X-Men books have nothing to do with evolution, right? The homophobic crap doesn't fly with me either. But I'd be glad to pick up the work of other religious types, provided they aren't morally repugnant to me, like this guy's views/attitude are. That being said, good luck to him anyway."

Gardner Linn has had enough of normal reviews. He's more interested in review haikus:

"Identity Crisis #3:
Another wife dies
It sucks to be married to
Lame superheroes"

Mark Millar responds to those going "whuh?" at the end of Chosen (Spoilers to those who care):

"Yeah, Peter and I are including all our little clues in the commentary at the back of the first trade. The first story sets up the Antichrist and shies away from the BWAH HAH HAH idea, trying to make him as human and sympathetic as you and I. Book Two is DAMNED and shows us the real Jesus and book three is SALVATION which is basically the finale, the apocalypse and all that jazz.

"As for those clues, take a look through the book for all the names, the times, what happens when you count thirty-three panels in from each issue, Jodie's horned shadow throughout, the latin on the school blackboard, etc, etc, etc. You'll also notice little things like what sounded like a VIRGIN BIRTH was actually a raped and traumatized mother who never wanted to have sex with her husband. What seemed like a priest losing his faith (Doubting Thomas O'Higgins) was actually the one man who sensed what was really going on. The whole series was worked out carefully with double-speak, right down to all the little miracles coming together and making this priest believe the one thing he was actually right about. We wanted to do a DaVinci on this in terms of detail and really had a lot of fun.

"Thanks for all the support, guys. Trade looks set to be huge after this first ish sold out and-- v good news-- the movie's now in the works :)"

Starring Eminem, apparently.

Actually, hasn't the movie version of this already been made twenty-odd years ago, back when it was called The Omen?

What was once Working Title Comics is now Pulp 21:

"Pulp 21 embraces the same philosophy that Working Title Comics did. Free online comics for everyone. Everyone produces these comics for free. Experimentation is the key here. Diversity is more than welcomed. Show us your ingenuity and invention, so that we can share it with the world. And if that’s not enough to get you interested, you – the creator(s) – retain the rights to your material. Pulp21 owns nothing. We just provide a place for your work to be seen. We’re looking for material in all genres, whether it be horror, crime, sci-fi, or even… superheroes. If you’ve got a means to throw together a script and some art for a story, can get all of that onto your computer to send to us, then, by all means, get cracking."

One fan's dreams... crushed:

"Look at this four issue arc at the start of [Chris Claremont's return to Uncanny X-Men]. 'The End Of History'. What does that even mean? They find a villain, they fight a villain, thats it. No big dramatic world-endangering event. And to see The Fury defeated so easily and quickly. It doesn't make any logical sense, within the world its set. Much like Excalibur doesn't. I'm praying Magneto over in Excalibur is a product of Xavier's fevered mind, or else it simply negates the previous 3-4 years of work spent on New X-Men by a write so bursting with ideas that he threatens to explode with them... I grieved when Claremont originally left X-Men, and stopped reading for a long, long time. I cannot, however, lie to myself and ohers and claim to be glad he's back again, as he simply can't write very well. He had it once, but it's gone, and I don't think it's likely to come back. Uncanny X-Men will continue to sell well, purely for the reason that it always does: it's Uncanny X-Men. Other than that, Chris, give it up man, you don't need it, we certainly could do without it. You've done for share of great comics, but its over now. There are plenty of great writers out there that could do a much better job, and could do something interesting and new with the characters, but you simply can't pull it off anymore."

Thankfully, he's not alone:

"I was trying to figure out why it's called 'The End of History' also ..."

"I thought they just mixed the titles up and this should have been the title for the first EXcalibur arc. 'The End of History'. And plausibility. And continuity. And character. And dramatic tension."

If I paid any attention to sports, I might know who LeBron James is. As it is, I'm therefore probably not the target audience for his new comic, co-produced by DC and Powerade:

"To commemorate the launch of POWERADE FLAVA23, POWERADE commissioned DC Comics, home to Superman, Batman, and other great comic heroes, to create a story about LeBron James that featured his superhero-caliber basketball skills. The comic, entitled 'King James', will be available free with the purchase of three 32-ounce bottles of POWERADE at participating retail locations while supplies last. LeBron fans can also receive a comic via mail by sending three labels from 32-ounce POWERADE bottles to the address shown on the label. Redemption details can be found at www.POWERADE.com."

Cross-marketing powers, activate!

How to crash CBR again: Augie has audio of the Bendis/Wayne showdown.

Joe Casey and Matt Fraction continue their Basement Tapes:

"I don't think there's anything you can't ask of the reader-- or shouldn't. From the most simple, formulaic pulp hackery to the grandest and sprawling heights of FROM HELL to the postmodern brain-bashing of something like STRAY TOASTERS, there's no such speed as too fast or too slow, at least, not one that anyone should honestly concern themselves with. I would like to think that my obligation is to the work, first and foremost. I don't think anyone ever went wrong overestimating an audience's intelligence; smart and challenging work is a rarified commodity these days-- be it SLEEPER or EIGHTBALL. And, if anything, the mainstream is guilty as sin of underestimating its readership to the point where, at its worst, there's a sect of whipped dogs that have come to love those simple patterns that have strangled the genre and loathe anyone that dare tries to change it. Or to suggest, ha ha, that it needs changing."

The Bendis board decides that it's time for their traditional Newsarama-bashing thread:

"Newsarama posters... Yeah, its been said before, but I want to say it again: they suck."

"Be Fair they don't suck...They are fuckin idiots."

"Why do they suck? Just general principle, or did they do something specific?"

"Well, the big reason Newsarama is bad is that a lot of them are like those wrestling fans who gets lots of spotty, often-planted and usually just rumours 'behind the scenes' information, and they grow from just liking certain wrestlers for their talent, on-screen character and so-on to harbouring grudges against the people behind the wrestler persona for 'office politicking' or back-stage conduct or 'holding back' their favorite wrestler from winning a belt or something. You know, 'smarks'. It grows to the point where they don't even care about the medium itself or cheering and booing the faces and heels, but just go on to boo the employed talent and so on. Sucks all the fun right out of it. Newsarama is a lot like that, only with comic books."

"if they were cool, they would be posting on this board!!!!"

If it's the day after DC's solicits were announced, then it must be time for Millarworld to leak Marvel's solicits. Of interest:

* New Avengers launches, with "the first of a proposed 500-issue run".

* As much as I love Ed Brubaker, the solicit writer must've been taking the piss with the blurb for his new Captain America book: "It's a new beginning as four-time Eisner-nominated Best Writer Ed Brubaker makes his Marvel debut, joined by white-hot artist Steve Epting! As the new regular creative team, they will take Cap's life in directions fans will never see coming! In just this first issue, the Red Skull lays the groundwork for his most devastating attack ever on Captain America and the land he holds dear...and with the Cosmic Cube in his possession, how can Cap hope to stop him?" Because we've never seen Cap versus the Red Skull before... And while I'm at it, can we stop having solicits that end with variations on "Find out in the shocking twist-ending that will have everybody in the industry talking!" Because, you know what? It SPOILS ALL THE FUN KNOWING THAT THERE'S A TWIST ENDING BEFORE YOU EVEN START THE THING, bastard. It's like NBC's trailers: "Don't miss the last five minutes! It's INTERSPECTACULAR!"

* More solicit greatness for the launch of New Thunderbolts: "And it may look all-new, but longtime fans can relax -- these are the same creative schlubs who brought you the rollicking Avengers/Thunderbolts Limited Series!" (The solicit credits Kurt Busiek with writing the book solo, something he clears up later on in the thread).

* From the blurb for Marvel Team-Up's launch issues: "When Cerebro detects Paul Patterson, a student attending Peter Parker's school who has developed mutant powers -- it sets Wolverine and Spider-Man on the same path. But with competing agendas, will they work together? Will they be at odds? Hard to say... but the title doesn’t say 'Super Friends,' gang!" No, but it does say team-up, brainiac.

* Apparently, November's issue of Cable/Deadpool is "positively X-citing!"

* NYX is cancelled. No-one is surprised.

The Bendis board reacts to Paul O'Brien's recent Ninth Art article about the Daredevil/Batman stunt:

"I have huge respect for Paul O'Brien's reviews on his site, thexaxis. I also love his detailed analysis of the comics industry with his ninthart column. However, he's reading way too much into the DD/Batman 'event'. He certainly lays into everyone involved (except Brubaker)."

"Yeah, THAT clearly helps make things right. I started typing a huge email to him in response... go to the end and realized that he doesnt care what I have to say... he WANTS the attention, hits and feedback... so screw him."

"What really irks me about the column is that he clearly wrote it in a knee jerk type reaction to the news breaking over the weekend. He's usually a very thorough writer but in this article he doesn't do any investigation into the matter. Everything in his column is speculation, bad speculation at that bordering on tabloid trash reporting. I expect better from the lowest of online writers, much less someone that has the respect that he does in the on-line community."

"I think its something that noone is on this board which is objective. Everyone wants to take sides but he didnt in this article. I like that. No assssss kissing on either side."

"[I]n considering the two options (stunt / stupid mistake) he gives the advantage to the well advertised stunt, which he might have realized now being wrong, cause I don't think that anybody here can question Brian's genuineness when he apolgized about the outburst, admitting it was a mistake and that he should have done that another way. Therefore, he might have jumped to conclusions a bit fast, which is not in his usual style (but I hear that the weather was terrible lately in Scotland, maybe he was in a bad mood)"

Millarworld, meanwhile, had issues with O'Brien's tone:

"It's more of a time-wasting overanalysis with a holier-than-thou tone. I don't know how you can take the time to write something like that and still act like you're too good to care about any of it."

"Paul O'Brien was much too condescending in his article and obviously missed the mark with his hoax theory. Paul was correct however in pointing out what a bad idea it was to take this public in the first place which Brian Bendis says he now regrets doing. After reading about this all weekend, all I can think to say is that it just seems like a really trivial thing for anyone to get worked up about."

"Paul O'Brien's 'analysis' was slightly holier-than-thou, but it was also dead on accurate, especially when he says everybody would have to have a mental age of 12. Did Bob Wayne, Bendis, Queseda and Levitz all just turn into morons this weekend??? Because it sure seems like it."

To put some of this in context, that same Millarworld thread is in response to Bendis's apology for the stunt in the first place. Some of the replies to Bendis go like this:

"Brian first of all I think you need a congratulations for the idea of the panel. Itself the plan had been well planned. Bob Wayne threw a spanner into the works turning the panel into an appeal to comic fans into a debate about the two pubblishing houses which really didn't need to happen."

"I don't really think you have anything to apologize for. The situation on DC's end is immature. If you felt that statements you made were immature, it's only fitting for the situation. I'll continue to support DC, but I will always hold this against Paul Levitz."

"Brian, you are the better man in this situation. If anything, Bob Wayne was the one who came and started stuff and went for the throat."

"You shouldn't have to apologize Brian, you didn't ask Bob Wayne to show up to your panel to escalate matters to where they did."

That's obviously where Paul went wrong in his article. He didn't realise that the whole thing was so classy until that bastard Bob Wayne appeared and "started stuff".

Christopher Butcher is back from Wizard World Chicago:

"I guess the important thing to note is that Wizardworld, with its mountains and mountains of completely illegal bootlegged movies, tv shows, and anime, with its porn stars and porn-star-wannabees, with its Lou Ferrigno, with its 'Wizard Party' charging five bucks for a bottle of beer, it really is what the North American Comic Industry is all about. Who are the people reading Geoff Johns' books? They are not-quite-legal, slightly chunky 18 year olds describing something as 'fucking gay' in one breath and saying that 'Geoff Johns is totally fucking sweet, I love him' in the next without a hint of irony or self-awareness."

Andrew Wheeler looks at Marvel's trade program:

"Unlike DC Vertigo, Marvel is not in the business of building libraries. The fumbling treatment of X-STATIX suggests it, and Marvel's attitude to its backlist confirms it. Anyone attempting to find trade paperbacks on the redesigned Marvel website can attest that finding current trades is a cinch, but tracking down stuff from a year ago is a nightmare... From Marvel's point of view, the programme is a success. The company has made money, and printing-to-order means it's risked very little. But just as Marvel never had its WATCHMEN or its DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, it seems determined never to have its PREACHER or its SANDMAN. For a major publisher to lack that kind of creative ambition seems shameful, and it's the reader that suffers in the end."

Marvel give Newsarama the preview images they used at Wizard World Chicago. As with SDCC, DC have their images available on their site (DCU, Vertigo and Wildstorm flavours are available).

The V ask the questions that matter, as ever: "Do Comics Suck Ass?" Your choice of answers:

* No, I'm eagerly awaiting John Byrne's DEMON
* Of course not, YOUNG AVENGERS is g.e.n.i.u.s.
* Abso-diddly-not, that Bendis BATMAN/DAREDEVIL stunt was highly professional
* Why, you jest! I'm going to read all 30 appearances of WOLVERINE next month
* Yes

Thankfully, the persons who make up the V - possibly comics' funniest message board... Well, intentionally funniest, anyway - go further with these opinions, and offer up commentary unlike any other you have seen:

"I bet this foul new Demon won't even speaketh in rhyme,
this, in itself, 'tiz worrisome crime.
However, these Batman/Daredevil Stunts,
Do marketh out Marvel/DC editorial as...*KER-SMACK (or other SFX of something being chucked at my head bfore I can finish, as per how this stuff should proper be wrote)*"

Later on, they come up with the ideal writer for a Demon revamp: Snoop Dogg:

"It didn't occur to me when typing that how ABSOLUTELY PERFECT a Demon written by Snoop would be. Slitty-eyed menace: COVERED. Constant mocking air of I-know-something-you-don't: COVERED. Clever jokes you have to decipher some ludicrously torturous rhymes to find: COVERED."

(Thanks, Johanna)

The Image board compares the American and Japanese comics markets:

"Why is the american comic market like this? Why do people look down on comics, why don´t comic readers support 'different' titles? I keep looking back at the japanese market and i just can´t accept how completelly different things are. [...] Japanese comics have dozens and dozens of genres, and aim at every kind of person. Comics there carry no stigma (animation does, though), and everybody reads them. Why is that? Because there are comics for your mom, your grandpa, your daughter, you... Everybody. From cooking comics to driving comics and so on and on. I may be in my 20s, but i read a bakery comic, a driving comic, a hospital drama, a couple romances, a horror and a few action ones. I also have to mention that the hospital-based comic actually made the japanese government change their policy on public health. Now, i don´t think there´s variety in Japan because comics carry no stigma. I think they have no stigma because of the variety. People there see that comics are not 'for kids'. In the US, every now and then we have regular people go into a comic store. Be it after seeing a Spider-man movie or whatever, i think the maintream can be convinced to check comics. The thing is, they´ll only stay if they see something that they can relate to. How will that happen if 80% of comics are the same? [...] Other thing i notice is: the art is secondary in a lot of japanese comics. There are a lot of titles with average or below-average art that sell on the thousands or even millions worldwide. Why? Because people relate to something besides the art, be it the plot or characters. I myself read half a dozen titles that look (or looked) awful - Jojo, Bobobo, Initial D, Cromartie, JackBlack. Frankly, it doesn´t bother me, because i like the story. I´m not saying ugly comics are nice, i´m saying it didn´t stop me from reading and enjoying them... [Finally, are] comics in US too expensive? Is it just that? Because japanese comics (even though they´re cheap there) cost 9,99 in the US... and they still sell."

"Apples and oranges. In Japan comics are 400 pages long--come out weekly and have 20 different stories in them so that you get exposed to a wide variety of styles and stories. In Japan nearly everybody has a long commute. In Japan comics aren't collectables--they're often recycled and tossed into large bins at train stations along with newspapers. In Japan comics are available at nearly every newsstand and are even found in vending machines... It's encouraging that manga is doing better in the US. That MAY cause some publishers and comics to change. In the meantime, however, in comic book stores--readers (for the most part) want superheroes (as the top 100 indicates) and they want them to be drawn well."

"If I buy a book the art has to be top notch and or have a very good story. Manga is cool I guess,But for me it's a bag of junk. The art is throw away and annoying. American style books have what I like to call talent."

"As much as I LOVE my comic book shop, it's got a big inflatable spider-man on the window, and all kinds of brightly colored posters of men and women in tights. It is screaming to anyone who doesn't read comic book to stay the hell away because it's for kids and geeks. And as much as I HATE Wal Mart. Can you imagine the benefit on the industry if there were comics sitting on shelves at the check-out lanes? We don't have mom and pop plumbing supply stores, or small time grocery stores on main street in my town anymore. We have Wal Mart. Sure, it's an evil loophole monopoly conglomorate, but we've got Diamond and Marvel in the comics industry keeping the 'comics are for kids' stigma firmly in place. Maybe there's a way out of it. And maybe in our lifetimes. I'd hate to see comic stores go, but I'd sure like to see comics gain a foothold into a higher bracket of social acceptance. Maybe it's just me."

Millarworld react to the new Avengers preview image:

"So now the real question: How Many ? I say 250 000 copies"

"No way. 150,000 TOPS for #1. [...] Comparing last months' Batman numbers, and multiplying it by the precent of this month's Avengers #500, Avengers #500 sold about 110,000 copies. There's no chance in hell that New Avengers will hit anything even close to 250,000 copies."

"This is a sad day for the Avengers. To many goddamn loose cannons on that roster."

"I feel my inner-fanboy being brought out. Can't freakin' wait for this. Like Bendis said, it's 99% about execution. And I trust the man's execution."

"You mean the sucky Hawkeye rip-off [Wolverine, in a somewhat surreal running joke] is going to be executed?! Sweeeeeeet! :D I always thought that guy was hella lame anyways."

"Why Wolverine? Can someone tell me WHY WOLVERINE!!! Beside the fact that he is the most marketable Marvel character so let's put him in every damn book we publish!!!!"

"WHy Sentry? I haven't read anything about Sentry since the Paul Jenkins series... wouldn't he destroy the world if he got his powers back? Is this just to have a Superman-type in the Avengers?"

"We don't know for sure that's Wolverine. I mean, they're in the shadows!"

"I know this will have my lynched, but I have never really liked the Avengers. really I haven't I read West Coast Avengers when I was a kid, but the concept of the Avengers seems to be lost because the name really did not mean much when you have a happy go lucky team. With that in mind, I'm going to give New Avengers a chance because it's Bendis. I'll give it a storyarc to hook me, in which I know it will. Okay so Wolverine is in the book? It's not that big a deal. So's Spider-Man and I hate that character, but that does not mean i'll rule out the book just because of that one character. Luke Cage interests me greatly as a member as does the Sentry. As for Spider-Woman, Brian has wanted to use the character for a long time and this is the best place for her. This project is working becasue it's going to bring new readers like me to the book. Which is not a bad thing. So who wins? We all do."

The Bendis board is "irked". No, really:

"is anyone else irked by marvel's treatment of the post-morrison x-men? grant went to the trouble of changing the status quo for the team for the first time in YEARS, and all marvel has done since is try and reverse it. i was an x-men fan before morrison, and i still am, but i liked the stories he told and the direction he was going. for it all to suddenly stop and reverse itself is quite jarring. the worst examples have to be the so-called 'imposter' magneto debacle and the just-announced return of the phoenix in february. what a way to shit on a guy's work..."

"I'm with you Cactus. I've been a bit of an X-fan over the years, but New X-Men was the first time I went out of my way to try to regularly buy a core X-title. It's a darned shame to go and retcon all of Morrison's stuff. Best thing to happen to the X-Men in years."

"i think marvel was just trying to appease the gagillions of fans who want their precious pre-morrison x-men. kind of like how x-force with liefield exists. best not to speculate too much. i dropped new x-men after reading one austen issue (had to give him a chance) and in my mind, x-men ends there."

U-Decide, not cancelling Spider-Girl, getting creators to ask fans to change Paul Levitz's mind... we all know that Marvel listen to the fans. Hopefully they'll hear this:

"If Wolverine has the time to be on three X-Teams, join the Avengers, battle the entire Marvel Universe, and guest star in books with plummeting sales ... then he has the time to spare for those kids in Power Pack! How can you go wrong? Four nice kids and a homicidal maniac who occassionally goes feral and slaughters everything in sight. I can just see it now. Wolverine gets bored with all the free time he has and joins Power Pack as their newest member and leader. Along with Alex, Jack, Julie, and Katie, he wages a brutal war against lunchtime bullies in junior high schools, illegal skateboarders, and Yugi-Go-Oh counterfeit rings."

"This is a great idea. I would also like to see Wolverine in the Fantastic Four and Runaways, as well as some DC titles. Hopefully Marvel and DC can work out their differences so that we can start seeing Wolverine in JLA, JSA, Teen Titans and Outsiders. Oh! And I can't forget the Wildstorm books. Maybe a guest stint be Wolverine would be enough cause to bring back WildC.A.T.S. I also would like to see Wolverine more often as a featured character in solo books, like the Spider-Man books, the other X-solo books, and the Avengers solo books. Finally, one solo book is clearly not enough for Wolverine. The character really needs at least two, preferably three, solo ongoing titles. I mean, if Marvel really is going to make their universe feel cohesive again, it only stands to reason that we would start seeing MORE Wolverine, rather than less, right? Right?"

"Hey, I'm all for it. Power Pack needs an edge. Can you imagine all those kids in wife beaters, chompin on a cigar with a beer in hand? Awesome visual!"

A day late due to technical issues, but Rich gives background to the Bendis/Wayne showdown at WW Chicago:

"Brian Bendis may be frustrated, he may genuinely want to see this project come to fruition, he may genuinely believe this the only way to get this project made. But history with other creators should have taught him differently. Bendis should have known that bringing this project out into the open, by talking about a private phone call he'd had with Paul Levitz on this matter, will guarantee it will definitely not happening in the near future. DC don't take kindly to being manipulated openly, and for their publishing decisions to be made open fodder - I should know. Given this kind of exposure, they dig their heels in. This will only harden their current decision and make them even less malleable on the issue. Bendis has committed the sin that John Layman, Micah Wright and Mark Millar made before him, and he should have known the consequences. Any publicity this brings, will be just that. Publicity. DC seen as the bad guys, Brian and Marvel seen as the good guys and Bendis seen as the writer everyone wants to talk about. Look, it's worked."

DC's November solicitations are up. Of interest:

* Detective Comics hits #800, celebrating with a back-up written and drawn by David Lapham. In the main story, meanwhile, we're asked "[W]ith Killer Croc and the Mad Hatter on the loose, does the Dark Knight even stand a chance?" Here's a guess - Yes. You know why? Because it's fucking Killer Croc and the Mad Hatter.

* Justice League Classified launches, with Grant Morrison's return to the team. Huzzah!

* Just a week after people were saying that it was unlikely that we'd see a Superman: Secret Identity trade due to disappointing sales, one is solicited. Now all of us have to go and buy it.

* HERO finishes.

* John Byrne and Chris Claremont's JLA run gets traded, not to mention described as "red hot". If "red hot" has nother meaning of "Actually, kind of shit and old-fashioned but not in a good way, and really, what's up with each issue's cliffhanger being 'Oh no! One of the JLA is dead!' followed by the start of the next issue being a flashback proving that, actually, they were just faking it", then I'd be inclined to agree.

* Y: The Last Man has a groovy but unusual cover, and a solicit that seems to suggest that the story is going somewhere: "As Yorick fights for his life, Dr. Mann and Agent 355 attempt to figure out why he survived the plague and whether the mystical Amulet of Helene played any role." At last!

* Losers gets a second trade.

* Angeltown launches with a specially-sized issue: "Angeltown #1 is a special 40-page issue at no extra cost! Meet Nate Hollis — a Los Angeles-based private eye who's cool as a frozen cucumber and tougher than a box of nails. He's just landed the biggest — and possibly the last - case of his career. When a pro basketball star — L.A.s #1 baller — mysteriously disappears after his wife is found brutally murdered, it's up to Hollis to find him and either bring him to justice or prove his innocence. However, the smooth-talking P.I. soon learns he's not the only one looking for the infamous hoopster, and must navigate between a crooked District Attorney, a ruthless and resourceful gangster, and a deadly-but-beautiful bounty hunter. In between dishing out beat-downs and juggling two amorous career women, the ghosts of Hollis's past begin to surface. Will Hollis find the missing baller before his deadly competitors do? And will clues from this case reveal leads to his lifelong mission — to find his father's murderer?" Sounds worth trying to me.

* The Intimates launches.

Also on the Bendis board, comic book idols get a kicking:

"Is it just me or does Alan Moore come off as a conceited dick? In various interviews ive read, he just seems to think that he is so high above all these piddly super hero comics and celluloid entertainment, and constantly refers to his works as untouchable, or says that precious little has been done to equal them. I agree he is one of the most talented writers of our time, but that doesnt give him the right to act like it... ok, i guess it does, but its just irritating..."

"Alan Moore is like Spider in Transmetropolitan. He loves comic books very very much, as Spider loves people, but that comics and people are so stupid and unoriginal as a whole--that pisses him off. He's actually said he hoped Watchmen would open up new facets--not that it would be untouchable. He was let down when it became aparent that it never would be touched, and all anyone could think to do was repeat what it had done. I used to think he was full of himself. Then I read his books."

"Ok...lemme get this straight...hes John Byrne, but with talent?"

Bendis continues to react to Chicago, but this time, the nice things:

"it truly was the craziest show i have ever been to. you guys were AMAZING!! i loved my cake. i loved my present. i loved how you guys were seemingly all having a great time! none of you slept with millar which really makes me happy. all of you were just fantastic. everyone al over the con was talking about you guys as a group in a good way. i think we washed the dirt off of us from the incident. so many people will be joining up this week because they wanted to get in on it. i met TWO couples who met from the powers personal ads. TWO!! i was shocked. they seemed so nice and happy. the panels were a riot. i couldn't believe the crowds. i was stunned at how many kids and women were there. i had so many 12ish year olds in line over the weekend. it was a record for me. and you know what? and i know some of you saw this in line, the kids saw the cover to avengers one and high fived each other. so tell me again how its a bad idea. they were so excited they didn't know what to do with themselves. it warmed my heart."

Wait, you want your fans to tell you about thinking that the Avengers line-up is a bad idea? Really? Okay, then:

"This jsut occurred to me this afternoon. The lineup for the New Avengers (excluding, for argument's sake, Wolverine and Spidey,) is a helluva lot like the Detroit incarnation of the Justice League. No, seriously. We've got two members who've been associated with the team since its inception, Iron Man and Captain America (Aquaman and Martian Manhunter,) Then we've got three new members who've never been on the team: the shadowy female character in Spider-Woman (Gypsy,) the ethnic badass in Cage (Vibe,) and the hero with a chip on his shoulder in Sentry (Steel.) Sure, it's not the Big Seven, but it's still the JLA!"

Or how about this?:

"iam sorry,this seems like someones ego is getting in the way. iloved avengers 500,but this new line sucks.no thor .i mean this line up is soft ,the jla would wipe the floor with this guys.if it wasnt bedis(who i love)i wouldnt even buy the new avengers.no thor this SUCKS."

Or, hell, even this:

"That's what makes it smack of 'Hey kids, it's Wolverine! You like Wolverine! Buy AVENGERS!' to me. Instead of being interested in the story in a 'What will happen? Who will leave? WHO WILL JOIN?' way, I'm now forced to look at it in a 'Wow. Bendis has really painted himself into a fucking corner, hasn't he? Wherever will he go?' kind of way."

There's also this:

"Man, Bendis really put Spider-Man and Wolverine in his Avengers lineup. Can he write any fucking book without putting Spider-Man and Wolverine in it? Why would I want to read another Bendis book with Spider-Man and Wolverine in it? I gotta tell you, I was really dissapointed when he took Powers to Icon and I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's looking more and more like his only motivation was the CA-CHING! Fucking Spider-Man and Wolverine in Avengers. Wow. He should just change Powers to Powers starring Spider-Man. Hey, here's an idea... he should just put Wolvie and Spider-Man in Daredevil and take out Daredevil."

Oh, yeah. And this:

"I dunno about Luke & Jessica Drew on the team, frankly. They are not Earth's Mightiest Heroes. I'd say the same thing about Daredevil, too, for the record. It's not that they're obscure characters, it's that they just don't seem right for the job. Mind you, the Avengers have had plenty of less-than-mighty line-ups, so I guess this is in keeping with that tradition, but I was one of the few people welcoming the rumor that Bendis was pulling out the Big Guns. I dunno... I happen to like both characters from their previous appearances, so I'll enjoy reading about them, make no mistake... Just don't seem like they fit on this team."

And those are just some of the threads on the Bendis board about the Avengers line-up announcement...

Over at Barbelith, a poster's true life confession entitled "How Grant Morrison made me drop the X-Men (long post)":

"Morrison’s New X-Men was the funnest X-perience I had in years. Ideas and concepts were turned on their heads or reinvented to create a new, self-contained, and best of all, carefully planned IN ADVANCE chapter of the X-Men. As his run came closer and closer to completion, I even returned to buying UXM in TPB’s. I was hyped about the X-Men again. The thought of Morrison’s X-Chapter and his successors’ take on the characters made me CARE about the franchise again. I even bought Claremont’s XXM to stay up-to-date on the characters’ lives (Even though I thought CC was a shadow of his former self by now). I was psyched to read the end of New X-Men and the beginning of ReLoad... Morrison’s ending didn’t disappoint (bet you didn’t see THAT coming) – it just set a standard I was hoping the new creative teams could meet. And then came ReLoad... Astonishing X-Men is now my favorite, basically being 'New X-Men Vol.2'. As for the others – It seems someone decided that moving forward with the X-concept was too X-treme a move. Instead CC was given the 'keys to the kingdom' and started to systematically remove any and all evidence that Morrison’s run ever happened. Hell, any evidence ANY stories happened post-1991. Suddenly we have good, noble Magneto back without any explanation. We have costumed, angst-ridden, soap-opera flavored Mutants back. We have friggin’ Rob Liefeld on teen-oriented X-Force again... So, I found myself so distanced with the current state of the X-Men, I just dropped Uncanny’ Excalibur and X-Men flat cold, leaving only Astonishing X-Men (for now)"

Maybe you're hankerin' for some well-respected critical magazine to comment on post-Morrison mutants? Lucky for you Dirk Deppey posts his review of X-Men Reload to the TCJ site, then:

"This isn't a 'new editorial direction,' it's a marketing opportunity, an experiment to see just how much money it can milk off of fans while simultaneously declaring Grant Morrison an unperson as quickly as possible. I shouldn't complain about this, as it's not the first time Marvel's gushed forth with a fountain of X-crap, but then it's one thing to lament the foolishness of this sort of thing from a distance, and quite another to swim a couple of laps in its murky depths. It also doesn't make sense from one book to the next. Characters change radically in temperament from one book to the next, writers commenting on one another's work sometimes don't know what took place there, and just how many clones of Wolverine are running around in these titles, anyway? I could probably kill a paragraph or two making headless-chicken metaphors, but the more pertinent thing to do is to ask where the hell the editors have been throughout all this nonsense."

Happy news for Grant Morrison fans from Vertigo at WW: Chicago:

"There are talks of releasing a Grant Morrison Omnibus that would collect the various other stories he's done for Vertigo such as Kill Your Boyfriend [and] Seaguy will be released as a TPB 'sooner than you expect,' said Bob Wayne. 'It's coming out and will collect all three issues - it's already on our schedule.'"

Marvel proves that they're creatively bankrupt. Their big X-Men announcement? They're bringing back Phoenix from the dead... AGAIN!:

"The big news at the panel were the announcement of a new five-issue mini-series starring Phoenix, to be written by Greg Pak and drawn by newly-exclusive Greg Land. The series will debut in Feburary of 2005, and Emma Frost (always Jean Gray's foil) will play a significant part in the story. In response to some questions about Phoenix's return from yet another death, Quesada said that this 'was the final time -- I swear to God!'"

Bendis apologizes for the Batman/Daredevil stunt:

"I regret the whole thing. Can’t say it any simpler that that. What I intended was to start a grass roots campaign to get the proposed Batman/ DD book off the ground, not to create a wrestle mania circus. I apologize to everyone involved at DC comics. It was wrong for me to try and do this without your involvement. My frustration with the current climate between the companies pushed me to make what I feel now was the wrong choice. For those of you who think this was a marketing stunt. There is no book so there is nothing to market. This was not a stunt. This book does not exsist and probably never will under current conditions. I do not need nor do I want this type of publicity.

"For the record, I do not know and had never met bob wayne from dc comics. I have never spoken with him on the phone. I was genuinely surprised by his involvement in my panel. and while I greatly admire his blunt honesty that day it did take the panel into places I would never have gone. Things were said in the debate that I was not going to say outloud and the tone of the panel, by the nature of crowd reaction turned very circus like. In fact, for those who know me, I am the polar opposite of a wrestling guy and have never pulled a stunt like that in my life. And I can almost guarantee that I never will again. I will say that the conversation between us on stage was probably one of the most honest conversations I have ever seen on a panel. Most panels being ‘rah rah’ panels, this was a lively debate about the mechanics ‘behind the curtain.’ those looking for a show certainly got one but I felt like shit afterwards and it only escalated as the weekend continued. There was one thing in particular I said during the debate that I instantly wished I could take back. I wished I could grab the words out of the air and pull them back. And that was the line about dc being mad about joe’ kicking their ass every month.’ I truly regret saying that immature line. I am not a professional public speaker, in fact, I spend 99 percent on my life not speaking but writing. And my inexperience at public speaking is to blame. I am in no way calling for or supporting any kind of ban on dc comics. Some of my very favorite comics and creators work at dc comics and I purchase dozens of them every month and will continue to do so."

Random thought on Batman/Daredevil and the whole shenanigans: If I was Levitz, I'd call Bendis/Marvel's bluff: Say to Marvel that they're right, and that it SHOULD all be about the fans, and not the business. And then offer for DC to solely publish a Daredevil/Batman book by Bendis, and offer Marvel the chance to do a Catwoman/Spider-Man book by Brubaker in return. I mean, both Daredevil and Catwoman were movie flops while critically acclaimed and midlevel-selling books, right? And Batman and Spider-Man are the companies' top franchises, aren't they? So it's the same thing...

What else has been happening at WizardWorld Chicago? Well, Dynamic Forces announced that they'll be collecting Tim Truman's Scout, John Byrne and Will Pfeiffer were announced as teaming up for a revival of Kirby's Demon for DC, the Wizard World award winners were announced, and no other creator asked for fans to start petitions so that their non-approved pitches saw the light of day.

Newsarama update the Batman/Daredevil story with DC's side, courtesy of Bob Wayne:

"It was mentioned at this panel that DC had turned down a Batman/Daredevil crossover, and that DC didn’t want to publish it. In the course of the conversation between Brian and me, it was clarified that actually DC would love to be able to co-publishing various projects with Marvel, but we’re looking for a change in Marvel’s management team prior to going ahead with any new projects... I certainly wouldn’t want to argue with Brian [in regards to Bendis's contention that the problem stems from Levitz having issues with Quesada's professional behaviour]. It seems that Brian would be a very astute observer. Again, we’d love to do a crossover with Marvel, but we’ll have to wait until there’s a change in management."

Wow, it sounds like Mark Millar talking about working on Superman. CBR has a report from Bendis's panel, including some interesting back-and-forth between Bendis and Wayne:

"Bendis was apparently about to appeal to fans to plead with DC Comics to get the project approved. But then, like Batman crashing through a skylight, an unexpected visitor burst into the room. 'That's not entirely true!' Wayne called from the doorway. Bendis asked for the visitor to identify himself, and once Wayne did, he was invited to join Bendis at the front of the room. 'May I continue?' Bendis asked. 'Yes. As long as you understand the premise that I think you're incorrect.' Bendis went on to say that he did call Levitz personally, and that Levitz cited Quesada personally as the reason the DD/Batman book could not go on. 'And that's not a good reason,' Bendis said. 'That's a personal reason. We could do this book without those two ever even speaking to each other.' Wayne then effectively supported what Bendis said. 'The impression I have is that we expressed an interest in it, and that Brian would be involved... and we'll do it, as soon as Joe is not at Marvel anymore,' said Wayne. The crowd, quick to react, was assured by Bendis that this was not a publicity stunt or a staged event. There was not actually a Batman/DD book in the can and they were just trying to drum up excitement. In fact, according to the two, this was the first time they had ever spoken. Why does DC management have a problem with Quesada? The only snippet Wayne would offer was to hint about the way Quesada was conducting business, and then he specifically mentioned a story in the New York Observer in which Quesada was quoted. 'We're down to one person we want to see gone from Marvel, there used to be two,' said Wayne. 'If you could speed up getting (Quesada) out the door...'"

Brian Michael Bendis takes time out from begging Paul Levitz to stop being so mean to talk about Marvel's new What If series. Yes, that's right; What If is coming back again:

"Sometimes it's more a matter where the timing isn't right or the creators aren't right. Other times you feel like things are meshing well and it just feels right. This is one of those times where it just feels good," said Bendis. "When [Editor C.B. Cebulski] called with the good news and said, 'Guess what just got approved,' I responded 'Yeahhhhhhh!' That's what you want creators to do. You want them to yell 'Yeahhhhhh' when their books get approved. I'm very, very excited to do these. I picked my stories very carefully to make sure that I picked the best ones I could do because it might be the only chance I get. For some reason Daredevil is great for what if's. Miller did an amazing one in 'What if Elektra had lived?' It was just fantastic. When this started cooking I went back to the comic shop and started flipping through the back issues and you see how great they were, and how quickly they ran out of good what if's when it became stuff like, 'What if Matt Murdock had become the Hulk?'"

The Universe X team move to DC for a Justice League series, called Justice. Alex Ross explains:

"Ever since Alan Moore changed the landscape for all writers in comics, I think that the bar has been raised in terms of the level of drama and intelligence we expect from our material. If you look back at the 'Superfriends' cartoons nobody is going to respect those as being of such highly intelligent faire. So, I don't want to return us to the wistful days of yesteryear where things were as crudely written for the children they thought the show was for, not necessarily the number of adults who would hold on to the dream of what that show promised. So, anything I would deliver of similar regard is to be thought out carefully. This is me trying to take a stab at all the DC villains that I've never touched on before. Here I'm re-envisioning these characters through the filter of not so much an update, but how can I go back to the roots of what made someone like Brainiac possibly fearsome the first time? How can you look at these characters without deciding people need armor to look cool now, but reinvigorating a sense of how they may have been scary the first time around and recapturing that."

Bendis's surprise announcement is... interesting. It has to do with a stalled Batman/Daredevil cross-company crossover, and Paul Levitz:

"...[O]ver at DC, they took it to Paul Levitz, and he said no. He said he wasn’t interested in working with Marvel because of his feelings towards Joe. In my opinion, I was a little confused by that, because it didn’t seem logical. I called Mr. Levitz – who I have a lot of respect for, let me get that out up front – personally, just to see if what I was told was true, and it was – he was saying no due to a professional problem he has with Joe. I put it to him that I didn’t think it was our place to let those things stand in the way of a book that retailers would really have a lot of luck with, since it looked like on paper, this project would do really well. We had some awesome artists lined up, and it was really coming from a good creative place. It’s also something that readers would really get into in a big way as well.

"And he told me no. That’s his prerogative, and I respect that. And I also want to say that me talking about this publicly isn’t in any way a dis to him, or me trying to attack him, it’s just that I really philosophically disagree with the decision, and want to know if I can maybe, by talking about it publicly get the retail community, and maybe the online community of readers to get behind this, and try to get him to change his mind."

Ron Marz moves to Top Cow, taking Superman with him. Kind of:

"I don't know how much of a part [the upcoming WildC.A.T.s/Cyberforce: Killer Instinct trade paperback] played in this thing coming together, but when I began writing for Top Cow, I started bugging [Top Cow Editor-in-Chief Jim] McLauchlin about doing another DC crossover... I was actually thinking of a project involving the Darkness and another of DC's characters. It's probably not too much of a stretch to guess which one. It was an on-again, off-again kind of thing for months, and by the time we were finally "on" for good, the DC half of the equation was Superman. Which, obviously, is great. It doesn't get any better than the chance to write one of the icon characters not just in comics, but in all of American fiction."

The Pulse has news from Marvel's Avengers panel at WW: Chicago:

"The Young Avengers takes place between the last issue of the Avengers Disassembled story and the first issue of the new ongoing Avengers series... During the slideshow, there were various pictures of the Avengers. A preview of the new Avengers series included a picture that had Captain America, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew), Wolverine, Iron Man, and The Sentry. There were some other characters in the picture, but most were shadowed or not someone this reporter immediately recognized."

Wizard's own website adds Luke Cage to that line up, unsurprisingly.

Joe Quesada introduces Marvel's Young Guns 2004. Be warned: It's a rather dull promotional push for creators:

"The Young Guns initiative is quite simple... Over the last year or so I've been noticing a wave of young artist coming through the door who just have this particular vibe, a certain energy, you know, that X factor that you just can't define, that makes a future superstar penciler. It's that magic that you feel when you first see someone like J. Scott Campbell or Travis Charest. You know these are talents who, with proper career management, will be the next super stars to drive fans to the stores, fill our books with excitement and keep retailer's registers ringing. To be quite honest I don't think I've seen a current wave of talent like this since the early nineties."

The Young Guns are Jimmy Cheung, Olivier Copiel, David Finch, Trevor Hairsine, Adi Granov and Steve McNiven, all exclusive Marvel artists (surprisingly). All will now resent the "Wanted: Dead or Alive" Jon Bon Jovi jokes that will probably follow them around for the rest of their careers.

Nick Locking provides the best review of Chosen #3 that I've seen yet. Warning: He gives the ending away.

CBR reports from the Wildstorm panel at WW:Chicago, including the announcement of a new J. Scott Campbell series, Wildsiders:

"It takes place in modern times, set against the backdrop of suburban high school... They're not mutants, they're not aliens. Their suits are wired up and they can project holograms and force fields and they have animal-like extensions from their gauntlets... I look at the project as I do popcorn summer movies, but it's not all fluff. I've taken the time to develop the personalities. You will care about these characters."

And the Chicago rumours begin:

"According to a report in today’s Chicago Sun Times, Alex Ross and Jim Lee will team for a new project from DC. Little else is said, but the promise is made that the story will be revealed at today’s 3:30 panel."

The Pulse has the top 300 sales chart for July up, with DC taking the top 3 spots again (Superman/Batman, Superman and Identity Crisis taking the spots, in that order). In what must be upsetting for Marvel, their big summer event book Avengers #500 only makes it to number five, behind the DC books and also Astonishing X-Men #3...

In the middle of a TCJ thread about Jeff Parker's SDCC report, someone called Ed Gauthier responds to Evan Dorkin's post thusly:

"Unbeleivable. I just checked his profile and the great Evan Dorkin doesn't have a home page! You read that right - one of the coolest art dudes ever and he has no site?! Huh? What the milk is up with that cheese???"

When the URLs of Evan's site and livejournal are posted, is Ed happy? Of course not:

"Okay, now everyone together: 'Evan - please step away from the drawing board for just a few moments - it won't hurt - now go to your computer and take one of those two nice links and actually PUT THEM ON YOUR TCJ PROFILE - so that other people will now know where to reach you!' Or maybe you were expecting us to use mental telepathy? Yeesh!"

Dorkin responds:

"Jesus Christ Almighty Dog. I list my contact info in all my own comics, mailing address, e-mail, website. Yeah, I haven't put out much lately, but fer Kirby's sake, I've listed our rarely-updated website in the books since around 1996, and the url hasn't changedsince then. You should have seen it, unless you somehow like my work but have never read it. And I could care less about my TCJ profile, don't even remember having one. Fucking Patriot Act, I swear."

Not that that's enough for Ed:

"Ya, ya, blah, blah, blah. If you're gonna post here, put your freakin' homepage link in the profile here. We all shouldn't have to go Googling around the entire net to find each and every TCJ poster's whereabouts. And since you indicate that you've put the link in every form of print except 'milk and cheese' cartons, it should have been no further strain for you to also put it here on good ol' TCJ. So, as Nike would say, just DO it!"

Jesus, some people are never satisfied...

(Thanks, Steve.)

A Millarworld poster called Johnny O'Neal takes Mark Millar back to school:

"This is an ass thing to say, and maybe it's been said before, but I feel like it's worth saying. An embarassingly large part of my job is to correct the grammar of people who are better writers than I am, so I can't help doing it when I read comics.

"When you use a pair of adjective to describe an object, you only need to put a comma in between them if the order of adjectives is not important. In other words, you use a comma when the two adjectives should be equally emphasized. For example, these two sentences mean the same thing (and are gramattically correct): 'You are an insolent, witless fool!' [and] 'You are a witless, insolent fool!' Even if you're the cackling villain saying that line out loud, you put a little pause between the adjectives. An example of you using this correctly occurs on page 9 of MK Spider-Man #4, when Peter's talking about helping 'bad, fat men.'

"However, when one adjective is more important than the other, you don't need a comma. If the adjectives wouldn't sound right in any other order, ditch the comma. For example, the word 'clever' is what's important in this line: 'Sorry if I've foiled your clever little plan.' When an adjective like 'little' or 'old' is preceded by another adjective, the comma is almost always unnecessary (and distracting). Think of how you'd say it. Do you pause between clever and little? Would you ever say, 'your little, clever plan'?

"This is a tiny issue, but -- and I'm not exagerrating here -- it comes up in almost every comic you write. For example, on page 17 of MK Spider-Man #4, the Owl says 'The good doctor here has taken the precaution of a haloperidol shot to to neutralize those nasty, little shocks of yours.' That puts too much emphasis on the word 'little.' I know I'm new to these forums, and that this isn't exactly an auspicious way to kick off my participation here, but there you go. This isn't a case of ignoring a grammar rule because it's dialogue; in this case, the grammar rule actually makes sentences that sound more like real people talking. Yep, I still feel like an ass."

Other MW posters won't let this stand:

"You're right about the grammar, but let's be honest: the justification for Mark writing this way is that he's writing how people speak. You're not supposed to start a sentence with 'and' or 'but,' yet people do, and when writing dialogue, it is perfectly acceptable."

"Some of your points aren't necessarily true; i.e., your arguments are weak. People most likely don't say 'your little, clever plan' because everyone is just too used to hearing it the other way. It's like people who say, 'I could care less,' when they most likely mean that they couldn't care less, just because they learned it incorrectly and got used to hearing it that way. This previous argument is moot anyways when you consider that the rule, 'when one adjective is more important that the other, you don't need a comma,' is subjective. Who is to judge which adjective is more important? I would have to say it's the writer. In other words, putting a comma in between 'clever' and 'little' could be the writer's way of expressing how the plan was actually not clever at all and was more of a minor nuisance; i.e., the 'clever' is for sarcasm and the true emphasis is on 'little' (since the plan was foiled, afterall). Blah... I already wasted too much time. I'll go do something non-nerdy now."

Josh Dysart talks about his latest attempt to get on Bill O'Reilly's shitlist:

"TEX! is a product that we're all mighty proud of. A 24-page comic book about George Bush as a super hero. Using the language of conservatism to attack the neocons, it's our little bundle of political satire, as well as a quick and thorough education on the Bush administration's acts of criminal politics (with an exhaustively researched five page appendix which graces the back). It is not just an attack, but a primer on the History of the Walker-Bush money and their ties to rogue banks and arms deals over the last four generations, the Florida election and the treasonous Supreme Court decision, 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other hits from our favorite dumb asses."

As Dabel Brothers Production (Or, as it seems to be called in the press release, Dabel Brother's Production. Is there only one Dabel brother after all?) starts work on a Dreamwave title, Dreamwave start work on a Marvel title. Pat Lee explains why he's back with Marvel:

"Everyone at Marvel is super nice to us. All the way from C.B., Stephanie [Moore], Mike [Marts], and Andy [Schmidt]. It's always fun to work on characters that you grew up with. It's been a lot of fun so far freelancing with Marvel."

He added "Oh, and they're paying me a lot of money. That helps as well."

Have I been asleep and missed all the hype and excitement about this?:

"The Super F*ckers are the baddest teenage superhero team around, and everybody wants to join. They live in a big club-house, play video games on their state-of-the-art supercomputer, smoke their teammate Grotus' slime drippings, and fight amongst themselves like cats and dogs. Would-be heroes are lining up outside the door for a chance to try-out for a spot on the elite team. But why must they incessantly keep ringing the doorbell? The try-outs aren't until tomorrow. Somebody's got to stop them. This book is outrageously funny, vibrantly colored, and out of control. Just like America. The first issue in an all-new series by James Kochalka."

Young Avengers, your days are numbered... before they've even begun.

Across the Blogosphere:

The Savage Critics Brian Hibbs and Jeff Lester continue to give some of the best reviews out there, with Lester making me even more convinced that - once I have money again - Carnet De Voyage is something that I must buy, and Hibbs doing the same with Birth of A Nation.

Ken runs the Geekiest Picture Ever.

Marc Mason celebrates Tom Spurgeon (Scroll down, for some reason the permalinks aren't working).

Steve Lieber's Lieber's Eleven meme continues to spread, and I still can't think of what books would make my list...

Brian Hibbs talks about his recently-settled class action suit against Marvel:

"I do think that this case changed some things at Marvel for the better – they completely changed their ordering process to allow us to adjust orders up or down three weeks before a book is shipped. There are no more returns, but it is done in a way that benefits us both."

Newsarama say "If I ruled the world...":

"If you could cancell any title, which is in print by any company at the present time, what would it be. Also, if you think cancellings too strong, who would you place on the title. Not original but, hey."

"never understood why some fans feel the need to lobby or wish for a title's cancelation.... if you don't like it ---don't buy it."

"There is no reason for us to 'cancel' titles. If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's selling because there ARE people that like it. If nobody is buying it, it will get cancelled on it's own. I was just thinking though. There is one case where I'd want something cancelled. Not ME in particular, but some people. I've heard people discuss how they want the Ultimate line to be cancelled so Marvel focuses more on the original Universe. It's understandable, but on the other hand, so many people love the Ultimate line (myself included) that it wouldn't warrent cancelling it."

Who's better? Miller or Bendis? Who? WHO?!?:

"So with all the debate the past couple days about what people would do if Bendis leaves Daredevil I started thinking about something someone wrote. Several people were touting Miller's run of course and some were talking about Bendis's run being the definitive run. Suddenly it came to me that they are both right in a way... Frank Miller is responsible for the definitive run of the character Daredevil. Bendis is responsible for the definitive run of the character Matt Murdock. It's a subtle distinction but a definite one. Does anyone else agree with this?"

"But the Miller arc Born Again was almost exclusively about Matt Murdock. DD hardly put in an appearance. All the stories since then have just risen out of that arc."

"Taking NOTHING away from Bendis whatsoever - I think it may be worth dubbing this classic run in progress the 'Bendis/Maleev' run - because to echo the earlier points, as great as Bendis' writing has been, the overall impact of the run would be lacking without Maleev."

Millarworld wonder about Peter Milligan's missing JLA graphic novel:

"What happened to the Milligan/Haynes Son of Amazo story? I was really looking forward to this."

"Maybe they pulled it from being a hardcover to an arc in the new JLA title (after the Morrison kick-off)."

"If you guys want to see it, then you should make your feelings known to DC. Having seen the whole thing, I can tell you that I think it's a crime that it's not coming out. It's beautiful work... "

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Retailer:

"I can say that my rationale for going to shows was and is to promote the stores and move excess inventory... Most of the time I’m there to move product. All retailers should do the same, because it’s a great place to get rid of your excess and get stuff for your customers. We’re one of the few - out of what, 3500? - stores that actually has a ‘special order’ list - usually about six pages long, of customer requests. This does not fall into the ‘want list’ category because lots of guys have that. The list is the wants of primarily Silver-Gold –Bronze Age wants. I’m talking about a list with anything but modern books. We go to shows to fill that list out. It’s profitable and the customers love us for it. We’re very serious about our special order list. Almost nobody does it, or takes it seriously if they do. To me, that’s a basic thing to do – a customer says, ‘I want you to find me this,’ you write it down, you go to a show, and you find it. 99% of the stores around say, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ and if it comes in with a collection, they sell it to you, but they don’t actively pursue that stuff. That’s crazy – that’s throwing away money.”

Newsarama updates the DC/Infantino case with what little has happened, and speculation on why that is:

"The length of time DC has requested to prepare its response has led one expert who asked not to be named to suggest that the publisher may be preparing more than a standard request for dismissal, for which the statute of limitations would be the main thrust. Given the door that a victory for Infantino would open in regards to Golden and Silver Age creators claiming the rights to characters which they created or worked on, speculation has long run that a publisher, either DC or Marvel is looking to firmly close that door, with an eye on preventing any further claims."

ADD wrestles demons to the ground. I'm not sure if they're other people's demons or his own - Does anyone really think that someone who just wants good comics "must be some sort of elitist artcomix snob"? It feels like fallout from here and I remain unconvinced - but the article's fun whether you agree with the opening angle or not. If nothing else, it's oddly touching to see ADD's Marvel fanboy side come out, even temporarily:

"While I don't deny my firm conviction that historically the best and most vital comics have been personal works with a single creative vision -- often autobiographical in nature, such as the works of R. Crumb, or Art Spiegelman's Maus, but not always, as in the case of Louis Riel or Palomar -- I spent my formative years reading and absorbing superhero comics, and I have to admit that even now, as I get perilously near four decades walking the Earth, there's a special kind of thrill I get from the very best superhero comics being done today. Grant Morrison's recent run of New X-Men and its exploration of family, persecution, power, destiny and betrayal, Warren Ellis and John Cassaday's deconstructionist Planetary, or Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier with its unapologetic celebration of superhero traditions and iconography -- all of these give me very near the same thrill as the best independent/alternative/grownup/artcomix do."

Newsarama posters remember Millarworld. The books, not the forums:

"So far, the much-hyped Millarworld seems to be more fo-fizzle than fo-shnizzle. I never thought of Millar as being an exceptional talent, but he could definitely carry his own given the right projects. Unfortunately, with Millarworld, he ironically gave himself some wrong projects! 1) Did Image ever produce 'Run'? Or any of the other proposed one-shots? I never saw them. 2) 'The Unfunnies' were just that, unfunny. It was one of the many comics I bought where I wished I could get my money back. I had nothing, absolutely nothing redeeming to say about the book then, and even less now. And I definitely don't consider myself a prude; I'm more than happy to enjoy some bawdy humor, but 'The Unfunnies' seemed to have the mentality of a thirteen year old who just discovered sex for the first time. There's homosexual rape in jails? Gasp! I've never heard that joke before! 3) 'Chosen' was okay, I suppose, but I never was really 'into' it. I don't care about any of the characters at all, and Millar's fascination with the word 'fuck' in the first issue screams for a more capable editor. 4) 'Wanted,' the crown jewel of Millarworld, is a good adventure story, but all this talk of it being the next 'Watchmen' is ridiculous hype, as 'Wanted' has yet to step anywhere near the thematic depth and characterization found in 'Watchmen.' 'Wanted' certainly has potential, but it is again crowded with Millar's bizarre and sometimes juvenile humor (characters named Fuckface or Shithead? Come on. If you find something clever or witty about that, I'm surprised you made it this far!) that more often than not, robs me of the pleasure of enjoying the tale. The first pages of issue #1 left me pleasantly surprised: I've been trying to capture that feeling again ever since. For every good line or excellent moment, there's a sentence that is twisted around 'fuck' when it doesn't need to be, or some silly reference to sex or feces that really preaches to the teens who still own and use whoopie cushions out there."

"what exactly was the unfunnies about?i've never read it but i heard that it was crap"

"One of my biggest pet peeves in music involves cover songs. I don't mind bands covering the songs themselves...but I hate the fact that most of these bands don't add anything new or innovative to the songs. These songs just feel like retreads and don't offer anything in terms of an improvement over the original story. I get that same feeling with Chosen. I haven't come across anything truly innovative in this storytelling. It's the Jesus story with a modern edge...that's about it. I've seen these themes before. Despite having interesting ideas, these ideas are nothing new to me. I'll browse through #3 when it comes out tomorrow, but I don't think I'll buy it."

Joe Casey and Matt Fraction talk about their SDCC experiences:

"CASEY: Despite the fact that I snuck out of town late Saturday night, it was absolutely the strangest San Diego I've been to yet (excepting my first one back in '95, where I bonded with a prostitute named 'Irma' over the so-called 'Continental' breakfast they were serving at the Comfort Inn that year... and of course there was the time in '97 when I saw a homeless woman bent over and pissing in the street outside of Horton Plaza). Wouldn't you agree? I mean, you were telling me about some heinous shit you saw...

FRACTION: Well, my two main objects d'arte this con season were the 80-Page Mashup Books and filling in the gaps in my Comics Pro sex tapes collection. The Mashups--have you seen those? There's this whole little subsection of, like, fan-fiction remixers. They go out and buy those old DC 80-PAGE GIANTS or the thick MARVEL TREASURY books, whatever those old timey reprint things were called. Anyway, these guys (and girls) take them and literally remix them, they rewrite the dialogue within the speech balloons and cut and paste new imagery inside the panels... sometimes it's from other comics, sometimes it's photographs; I even got one that ended with the 'main character' entering the convention center, and you could tell it had been, like, photographed digitally the day before. Like a realtime cut-and-paste blog, man. These guys would scrounge the quarter bins for visual stock by day and furiously manufacture their comics for sale at night. Fucking Weird. A lot of them are just, like, hardcore sex fetish things but if you stick with 'em, you can see the re-authors getting sorta bored with Flash telling Sub-Mariner what he'd like to tickle with those little ankle-wings and they start, like, crafting an actual narrative. The strangest thing is that it's clearly autobiographical most of the time; suddenly characters and settings have very, Very specific names and… yeah, I dunno, it's like Harvey Pekar hijacked the lettering and was rewriting a Larry Clark story, played out in cut-and-paste four-color iconography and cheap motel amateur smut. I got seven or eight of them, all told."

Peter David on the Green Lantern movie rumors:

"A lot of fans are sighing with great relief that, for the moment, it seems the reports of Jack Black as 'Green Lantern' were premature. But ohhh, the hullabaloo the original announcement caused. The cries of outrage. The shrieks that this was a ridiculous idea, that a comedic take on Green Lantern was an insult--insult, I say!--was a terrible concept, rotten to the Corps. I would like to respond to that with one word: G'Nort. Yes, G'Nort, the long-standing member of the Lantern Corp who is nothing but a huge in-joke. He's a canine incarnation of Art Carney's Ed Norton. Not to be confused with that other height of seriousness, Ch'p, the Green Lantern squirrel. And then there's Mojo, the Green Lantern sentient planet. I mean, what the hell?!? Fans are willing to accept that there's a Green Lantern that's basically a giant piece of sentient broccoli, but they draw the line at a short chubby man? Speaking as a short chubby man, I take great exception to this. I like to think that I'm at least as worthy of a power ring as sentient broccoli."

The Bendis board try and guess the next Marvel series to be cancelled:

"I think She-Hulk is done....I HOPE it isn't because it kicks ass, but I don't think its catching on fast enough"

"Has the new Alpha Flight been cancelled yet? If not, IT FUCKING SHOULD BE."

"X-FORCE (v2) [...] Feel the hatred with me people. The Dark Side Shall Make You Powerful."

The Pulse runs a press release about upcoming new Wildstorm book, The Intimates:

"'This book has been a labor of love for everyone who's been slaving away at it for the past year,' says [writer Joe] Casey. 'Teen super-hero angst has never looked this good. My creative collaborators are the absolute best in the biz! Seeing what we've come up with, from concept to characters, I think THE INTIMATES has something for everyone: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something in Technicolor-neon-electric blue.'"

Lord help me, but I'm interested.

In light of Marvel announcing a variant cover post-solicitation for Astonishing X-Men #4, Tony Harris has an announcement of his own at Millarworld:

"WILDSTORM ANNOUNCES EX MACHINA VARIANT COVERS... WILL FUCKING NEVER HAPPEN! Its a waste of paper. I do one cover, it sums up the issue in a nut shell. Thats why I do multiple thunbnails and submit them for a pproval, to see which one works."

Wildstorm editor Scott Dunbier is relieved: "lol, had me going there..."

J. Michael Straczynski talks about his new not-Ultimate-but-I-don't-see-why-not version of Doctor Strange:

"[W]e're retelling the story of Stephen Strange from a 2004 sensibility. When he was first put in motion, he was very much a product of his time, down to the Vegas show-magician aspects. But if you were designing him right now, with what is done now with comics characterization, what would he look like? How would you make him appealing to a modern audience which may think the conventional look is kind of old-fashioned? Take Neo for a moment, in The Matrix. Virtually everything he does, Stephen Strange does: the flying, stopping bullets in mid-air, moving between realities, being the guardian between two worlds, enduring tragedy and growing past it... but Neo is hip while Strange has often been seen as old-hat. It's a matter of presentation. And that's what we're bringing to the book, a new presentation. That's the box we're building... I think this is better suited to a more subtle approach, holding off on the flashy stuff until really necessary. And then it's got to be really scary. 'Joe's Theory of Writing' is that if everything is big - or if everything is funny, scary, exciting, then nothing is big - or funny, scary or exciting. There has to be contrast. That way, when he pulls out the really big guns, your first instinct is to dive under the nearest desk and hold on for dear life."

The creator talking about retelling stories with a 2004 sensibility, Matrix references (which, surely, means they're doing it for a 1999 sensibility), junking old continuity... Seriously, why isn't this an Ultimate title?

(To get the obvious punchline out of the way: Because Millar or Bendis aren't involved?)

Marvel announce a variant cover on Astonishing X-Men #4. Millarworld isn't convinced:

"This is just excessive and kinda shady. to announce last minute and just as the orders are locked in. I can understand why this is being done, but that does not mean it will build good will."

"Oooh, a last minute variant cover to bump sales up on a fourth issue with dissapointing numbers (they even admit it's been 'under ordered'). Yep, that's just the kind of great marketing tactics I was talking about the Big Two employing to drag in new readers all last week. Idiots."

"As much as I like Cassaday art, I am definately getting a vibe that this is only for a sales boost. After all, in total, issue one sold over 250,000 copies, but issue two only managed about 150,000...."

"wasn't it very recently that quesada was criticizing DC for its use of variant covers? i feel badly for the collectors or the readers who buy every cover. this is taking advantage of them."

Joss Whedon talks Astonishing X-Men:

"[Artist John] Cassaday and I have a shorthand that neither of us even know where it comes from... Working with artists is like working with a director or a cast. Some artists overact. You'll write something very cool and very small and level, and they'll draw the person shouting. Finding a good artist is really important and really hard. Sometimes it's scary to put yourself into their hands. But you have to collaborate on that level. You have to give up some of that control because the artist is in it as much as you are. I've been very lucky."

In related news, Marvel announce a collection of issues 1 - 3 of the title.

IVCi reports on an interesting rumour about Marvel's book distribution returning to Diamond:

"The move will put two of the largest graphic novel publishers, Dark Horse and Marvel, at Diamond, and one each at CDS (Tokyopop), Simon and Schuster (Viz), and Warners (DC). Diamond has been aggressively building its book trade distribution operation since it formed its new division a little over three years ago. It also has a large number of medium and smaller graphic novel publishers as book distribution clients."

Brian Hibbs work bears fruit:

"Comic retailers began receiving the Marvel settlement packages in the Brian Hibbs class action suit last week. The packages detailed the provisions of the proposed settlement and the specifics as they applied to the individual retailers. The terms were as has been previously publicized: 24% credit on late books, 17.5% credit on books with content different than what was solicited. Retailers now have 45 days to respond, either to accept the proposal, provide documentation that the calculations in any individual case were incorrect, or to reject it. Marvel has the right to terminate the settlement agreement if over 10% of affected retailers or retailers representing over $250,000 in proposed credits reject the settlement."

David Lapham talks about his long awaited upcoming run on Detective Comics:

"I tried to stick to the basic mythology. I have a hard time conceiving of the ‘Batman and his Amazing Friends’ concept. Batman, Robin, Gordon, Gotham City...that's Batman to me. Give me a couple of his famous rogues gallery, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, the Ventriloquist, and I'm happy. I've also created a new enemy for Batman which plays into the rot and corruption of the city, but as far as the other ‘family’ members, I just don't think Batman works well with others. Even the thought of other costumed heroes roaming around in Gotham, takes away from the horror and isolation of the city and what Batman is about. I understand why it's all there, but I tried to ignore it as much as possible. I even lobbied Bob to let me kill off Commissioner Akins and bring back Gordon. I offered him multiple ways to do this including shooting, stabbing, beheading, and blowing up Akins and replacing him with an evil doppleganger, but no go."

James Sime continues to look through the promos he was given at SDCC, but has advice for those he's mentioning:

"Hey, you got your comic featured here on CBR. Congrats! Now what? You don't need me to tell you how much you sacrificed to get the work done, I know you got down to the grindstone making the book in the first place. No doubt you invested time that you could have spent doing something easier. We both know you spent hours slaving away on that book instead of sitting in front of the television watching old reruns on TV Land. And then you busted your ass getting it made into something that people could buy, maybe you put several thousand of your own dollars to self-publish it or maybe you hustled and got a publisher to invest their money in your work. And then you did all that other work like finding distribution, doing pre-press, maybe you even had to do hand folding and stapling. And finally, you jumped through all the right hoops to get your book and all the purchasing information anyone could ever need featured here on CBR. You wrote that pitch, you burned that CD, and you got it in my hands. But your job isn't finished yet. Now you've gotta spread the word, let people know it's here, it's available, and what's so great about it. There are a lot of books featured in this and last week's column, and there are literally hundreds of on-line columns out there devoted to comic books… let people know why they should be taking a second look at yours. The more people seeing and talking about your book the more likely it's going to find an audience that wants to read it. So get people talking! Now is the time, and this very column provides you with a perfect launching point. I'm providing you not only with some exposure here, but also an excuse to get people talking about your work. Talk about your book and others featured here on message boards, run a contest to give free copies away to the first five web orders you get from the column, tell your mailing list and everyone who reads your Web site that your book is getting press on CBR, schedule an in-store at your local shop, put out a press release, do an interview with a blog, contact store owners, start up a behind-the-scenes daily sketch website, organize a ashcan mailout to comic stores, do a gallery show of original art, announce your next project…"

Newsarama posters review Ultimate Nightmare #1:

"What is it with Marvel books and full-page explosions lately? This explosion is far more ominous than the f.p.e. from Avengers #500 and more precise than the candy-colored f.p.e. from Ultimate FF #9, but one wonders what sort of subliminal current is begetting all these big booms. Perhaps a combination of terror-anxiety and apocalyptic angst surrounding the upcoming political convention."

"Yea, either that or they like to pad shit for no damn reason."

"I enjoyed it. It was clearly a setup issue, but I was so wanting more, which is my only gripe. And I am hoping that this is the story of Ultimate Silver Surfer (or one of the heralds) and Ultimate Galactus. Which I believe Ellis can pull off. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of this series."

Millarworld posters play the game of Pitch:

"Okay then, I'll start with a comic pitch and then name a random character and the next person writes a short description of how they would write it and then they would name a character and the next poster would write how they would do that one."

Of the entries so far... The Green Lantern Corps:

"Hal Jordan is back. He's taken the GLC down. He's saved the Earth's sun and he's worked as the Wrath of God. Now he's human again and he's pissed. How could the Universe's most powerful Army let a city get destroyed like that? How could they be so lax that one HUMAN could take them down so easily? He recruits Kyle, John, Guy, and Alan and tells them that the 5 of them run the GLC now and it's time to recruit. Guy takes over as GL trainer as he has the widest variety of skills as he was a GL with two different rings and has a whole set of alien skills. John is administrator/top dog as he was a GL teacher, a Darkstar and a GL. Hal runs the whole thing and it's his baby. Kyle would be the young gun recruiter. The GLC should be awe-inspiring AND scary in how tough they are. They should be trained to kill if need be. Each rank would have a different uniform. The grunts would have the original Hal Jordan look, while the top 5 would have a more formal and maybe armored look."

Mr. Mxyzpltk:

"A group of teens in Metropolis explore the closed old subway tunnels underneath the city. They're trapped by a cave-in and must travel deeper than ever before to find a way out. Instead they find an egg shaped time capsule with 'Do not open till Xmas' marked on the outside. Being kids, they naturally open it and discover a man sleeping inside. He looks a lot like Superman, but its not quite the same blue and red that they've seen on television. This psuedo-Superman wakes up and uses his super-strength to help break the kids out, but there isn't something quite right about this particular Man of Steel. He can't fly, but he can jump amazing distances (leaps a few tall buildings in a single bound in fact.) This Superman also talks like he's a boy scout from the '30's. He tells the kids to stay away from abandoned subway tunnels and to always respect their elders before he leaps away. The next morning Clark Kent shows up for work at the Daily Planet. Only he's not the right Clark Kent. Though similar, he's shorter and older and gets into a fight with the security guards before the real Clark Kent shows up with Lois Lane. The two Kents are about to get into a fight when both stop short as someone shouts, 'Hey, look, it's Superman.' Outside, they see the unfamiliar sight (to the Kents anyway) of a man in blue tights and red cape flying between the towering skyscrapers of Metropolis. The Kents call a truce and work together to find out what's going on. Turns out that Myxy decided he was tired of playing with the current version of Superman and went looking for the old pre-crisis Superman he liked best. However, to find it, he had to release every incarnation of the Man of Tomorrow into the post-crisis world to see which one was best. Unfortunately, all that power in one city threatens to tear apart the fabric of the third dimension and even Myxy's 5th dimensional world would feel that."

Blue Devil:

"Suffering from immense depression due to the fact that he's one of the stupidest ideas to ever be shit out of someone's mouth, Blue Devil takes up drowning his sorrows with cheap margaritas somewhere on a medical refuse littered beach in some fuckhole town deep in South America. Problem is, the Blue Devil never figured out how to open the suit to get rid of bodily wastes, with the obvious - yet questionable all in the same time - exception carbon dioxide. Let's not forget that other function downstairs too. So, on his last drunken night, high on the methane and electrolyte-like smell of his own moldy semen, Blue Devil hits the street for some desperate relief. What better place than a whorehouse? The poor deluded fool. Guys trapped in body tight suits can't get laid with their broken boners. He chokes on his own shit, piss, and semen before he makes it to a brothel. The End."

The Joe Quesada board look at the new Aaron McGruder/Reginald Hudlin/Kyle Baker graphic novel, Birth of a Nation:

"Just read this and loved it. It has quite a few laugh-out-loud moments as well as some more subtle humor. Underlying the story is some sharp political and social satire. Baker's art is perfect blend of Chuck Jones, Dr. Seuss, and Schoolhouse Rock. This would have made a great film."

Before the end of the first page, though, the thread freewheels into a discussion of McGruder's Boondocks strip:

"I'm not buying this, because McGruder is a first-class reverse racist, IMHO. I'm sure I'll get slammed for this, but if I were black, I'd be ashamed that the most prominently published black cartoonist in the U.S. market uses his space to comment on how 'the man' is keeping the black community down instead of creating strong, non-cliched characters and stories. The Boondocks is rarely funny and is a blight on the funny pages."

"I'm sorry but I think you are completely missing the point of the strip. Boondocks is almost always about the black community hurting itself. It's social commentary and dman good social commentary too. It's the only strip I read on a daily basis and I was very happy to meet Aaron at a casual presentation at Georgetown when my sister went to school there a couple years ago. He's a very smart, very knowledgable and very positive person."

"I've seen more than enough strips where he criticizes people of color or Africa-American leaders or communities to feel quite confident in saying McGruder's not a 'Blame the Man, man' type guy. Of course, he might throw a fair bit of blame the way of the 'man' too, but the assumption that society at large or the caucasian community has to share in the blame for problems with african-americans is far less 'reverse-racist' than it is logical."

The Bendis Board gets nervous about Bendis's mysterious "announcement" at Wizard World Chicago:

"I'm thinking that it's him leaving a title... He's not going anywhere on Avengers for quite some time. We all know that he's going to be leaving DD eventually. Is anyone else afraid that he's leaving USM? That would definietely be something that we'd need to be with him for..."

"Brian does sound pretty subdued here, it kinda scares me. I'd hate, HATE to see him leave DD or USM. It might have to do with this here message board moving or being shut down."

"I hope someone posts the info ASAP as soon as it happens. I feel uneasy."

Bendis himself finally appears to calm things down in his own special way:

"holy jesus, this thread scares me [...] it is not political or religious, how big of a douche bag do you think i am? and i am not shutting down the board, i tried that last month"

Mark Millar talks about his Spider-Man run at Newsarama:

"For the most part [the reaction]'s actually been very good. X-Fan and all the other main review sites have given the issues Very Good to Excellent every month and we've been pretty consistently the number one or number two book over at Herorealm. The first issue was probably the most widely praised thing I've ever worked on. I don't think I saw a single review that wasn't weirdly glowing. Even the guys who hate me like aintitcool were tossing platitudes so overall the reaction has been great, but that Avengers scene just killed it for some people. I spoke to Stan recently and we talked about how Spidey was always the perennial outsider and uncomfortable around other superheroes and that's what the scene was all about, but that scene alone seemed to send a few people off screaming and turned them against the book.

"Most reviews have been really good, but the guys who hate it hate it really loudly and that's naturally a bit of a pain. It's their right, of course, but it's an unusual take on a character that's very well known and that's never going to be 100% easy. I have a very particular vision for this book and that won't be to everyone's taste. Fortunately, the people who love it really love it and that seems to be the long-time Spider-Man fans in particular. They're really who this book is aimed at. I think, as the issues progress, even the guys who don't like it will see what I'm doing and get into it. This first year, as I keep saying, is a very ambitious plan. I really love Spider-Man and came into this wanting to write one of those stories you can stick on your shelf with the best of them."

Bendis announces his Chicago schedule:

"FRIDAY- AVENGERS PANEL- noon. I have been told that we WILL be unveiling the full roster to the NEW AVENGERS and the awesome cover to NEW AVENGERS one, plus all kinds of other goodies. That panel has the makings to be a genuine pile of fun. MY SOLO PANEL- 3:30 I have a solo panel and it is at this panel that I will be talking about something marvel asked me NOT to discuss at their panels. It may surprise some of you, but its something we need to do together and I hope I can count on you guys to show up and hear me out. Don’t mean to be so cryptic, I just don’t want the subject of my announcement to be misconstrued before the panel. Plus anything else you guys want to talk about- I am an open book of esoteric. WRITING CLASS- 5:00 for all you writers and artists, you have no excuse to pass up these classes. This is about as good a chance as you’ll ever have to pick our brains and really get into it. When I was up and coming I took these classes from Gil Kane, Bob Wiacek, Walt Simonson and a bunch others and I know If I passed up on them to go play Pokemon or wait in line for bimbo number 4 from Sci fi channels Star Fuckers I would have really kicked myself. Doesn’t matter if you come to mine or not, hope you do, but you really should come to as many of these classes as you can. WIZARD AWARDS- I will be there and presenting.

"SATURDAY- MARVEL U PANEL. This one will be a lot of fun. I know some of the announcements and who is coming and this should be something. The rest of the time I am signing at either the Actor booth or the Marvel booth. I will sign anything you put in front of me. I don’t have the schedule, but if I’m scheduled to be there I will be there. My only request is that if you are from my message board say to me: ‘hi my name is…. And I post on your board.’ Even if you’ve met me before. Even if you are related to me. Tell me who you are. I am terrible with this shit. It’s a real brain problem."

Admit it. You're curious as to what his big announcement at his own panel on Friday is going to be as well...

The Joe Quesada board think about DC's recent Favourite Publisher win in the Comic Book Guide awards:

"Is DC's line just that much better than Marvel's? Is is twice as good? Much of DC's output doesn't interest me (with the exception of Vertigo), so I'd be interested to hear suggestions of books that are much better than anything Marvel puts out. Are the results of the awards skewed in DC's favor? One could say DC wins this award because more DC readers buy CBG. But why would that be? Is DC's line simply more diverse, and allows that many more readers across the line? Has Marvel become the Microsoft of comics, where everyone buys its products, but they're not happy about doing it because of how they perceive the company?"

"From what I've seen, DC treats their people better, in addition to having more prestigious franchises and a better ratio of good:bad issues."

"I think it's nonsense, marvel are aiming at a younger audience who don't give a *** about stupid awards"

Upcoming Green Lantern artist Ethan Van Sciver tries to discuss a trend he's noticed in comics lately at Millarworld:

"Comic seem to have their own visual language. There are shorthand methods to put across recurring ideas, right? But lately I'm seeing those messages get crossed and mixed up. For example, if I had the Flash's eyes suddenly go 'red', what does that mean? It used to mean that perhaps he was possessed by a villain, or his mind was being controlled. Now it sort of means, 'look out, Flash is about to do something heroic and badass.' Heavy shadows on a character's face meant that he was hiding something, or there was something ambiguous about them at that moment. It doesn't seem to imply that, or anything in particular anymore. Superman doesn't look like a swell guy anymore, he seems to look pissed off and dangerous a lot of the time. Is the 'language' breaking down?"

"Wait a minute, what are you telling me? When Hal Jordan returns, he'll be possessed by the spirit of murder? Lotsa red eyes and carnage is cool."

"Um, in Supermans case, don't red eyes just indicate heat vision?"

"Agreed. Superman's eyes are MEANT to glow red. Which when you think about it makes a fairly cut-and-dried character pretty sinister. And I think the heavy shadows etc. are an attempt to make a somewhat outdated character (don't hit me) a bit more hip. Not saying I agree with it, but that is what I think the intention is. A lot of the language started getting confused in the 90's - maybe a bit of manga influence? The heavily angled eyes + clenched teeth look means the hero is pissed and is not going to take it anymore. Also probably reflects the disturbing anti-hero trend of the 90s. But for the most part, I think the trend for the modern age is realism - heroes are portrayed in much greyer shades, and the artists who are really hitting it big are the ones who are offering something more real than clenched fists and triangular eyes. Either in terms of big widescreen stuff (Hitch, Quitely etc.) or really good expressive work (Bagley) or just hyperrealistic stuff (Maleev). Hmm... that was rambling."

"I hate to be the one to break this to you EVS, but good guys are BORING. I know a lot of people like to hate on the 90s, but it produced some of my favorite characters, teams and books. And most of them weren't all that clean cut and heroic looking by archaic Silver Age standards. Even Alan Moore's brilliant Supreme started out as a gritting steroid psychotic. If that's even slightly considered in the decision making process behind Jim Lee's Superman, then more power to him!"

Sleeper fans unite at Newsarama:

"True story: A few months ago I whent to a flea market and picked up the first Sleeper trade in the process some fanboy looked at what I was buying and made the comment 'Thats not why I buy comics' adding if I wanted spy stories why not read a Tom Clancy novel. I guess there are folks out there who simply do not understand the book appeal. Ps: y'all have any run-ins like that?"

"Oh yeah, I've had a similar exchange. And I know only one person 'in person,' (i.e., not a message board acquaintance) who reads comics. He didn't care for either Sleeper or Ex Machina. It's just that he likes superheroes in his comics. (We'll see if he holds to that guiding principle as I convinced him to try The Walking Dead trade.) I like Sleeper a great deal, better than the big-buzz Ex Machina. But I like the latter, too. My way of thinking is, why can't such tales be told to great effect in the comics medium? The answer, of course, is: they can."

"I picked up the first TPB of Sleeper when it came out, and really enjoyed it, so I waited for the second. It wasn't the type of thing I wanted to buy as regular single issues, but I was quite happy to follow it in trades. The second was not quite as good, but still very good... however, sales being what they were, by this point I decided that I really liked the series and wanted to stick around... and I had a better chance of helping it happen by buying the individual issues, even though I preferred the trades. So far, that's the only comic that's made me make that particular decision (although in some I dropped the trades in favor of the regular issues just cause I couldn't wait for what happened next)"

"I'll talk Sleeper anytime-it has consistenly been one of, if not my favorite title since it's been around. I'm have a more fanatical love for it because it sells so much lower than it should, so I often recommend it to people. I've never really had any bad comments towards it when I recommend it, with most people being willing to try an issue out or even a whole trade-and then they usually thank me after reading it. Some people just don't have any desire to read it though-some people like only superheroes, or manga, or humor comics etc. and that's cool. But if anyone on the boards here is remotely open to trying a new title (Mature Readers), and has never read Sleeper, I highly suggest tracking down the first trade of the first volume ("Out in the Cold"). Just TRY it, you can always sell it on ebay in a worst case scenario Also for those worried about Wildstorm continuity, it's not a problem. The story works as a self contained story, and has little Easter eggs in it for people who are more familiar with Wildstorm continuity."

DC gets in on the TV writer game a bit more, with Chris Gage, a writer for Law & Order: SVU taking on a miniseries starring Deadshot:

"We’ll be introducing a hip, edgy, in-your-face teenage Deadshot from an alternate timeline, just kidding! This is the same Deadshot who has always existed in the DC Universe: Floyd Lawton, Batman villain, assassin for hire, and quite possibly the best marksman in the DCU (and in issue #3, he’ll be fighting the other character who could lay claim to that title). The series is written so that readers who have never encountered Deadshot before can meet him, discover what he’s about, and follow the story with no problems, but it builds on and is informed by the character’s established history. I want to assure longtime Suicide Squad and Deadshot fans that I am a huge admirer of John Ostrander’s work, and hopefully I’ve treated the character’s history with the respect it deserves."

Jeff Lester, who came up with a much better title for the so-shocking-your-head-will-explode Avengers spin-off than Young Avengers, has put up some of his Fanboy Rampage columns online. Yes, Fanboy Rampage. He came up with the name first, even though I didn't know it at the time... but my Fanboy Rampage!! has two exclamation points, which makes it totally different, right? Right?!?

Anyway, go and read.

When bloggers clash! John Jakala takes ADD to task for his dismissal of Geoff Johns as a "mediocre hack":

"So what's your beef with Geoff Johns? I get that you don't like his work, that you think it's mediocre and perhaps too highly valued by many fans, but I'm confused by your desire to see him removed from the industry 'by any means necessary.' Am I taking your statements too literally here? Are you exaggerating for hyperbolic effect? If not, I guess I just don't understand the wish for someone to be booted from the industry."

ADD responds:

"There are plenty of people that should be booted from the industry, it's just that Johns should be the first to go. More than any other mediocre writer, he has been given free reign to misguide the fates of a number of icons like The Flash, JSA and Avengers, making them unreadable for anyone who wants more than just shambling avatars stumbling through their superhero comics. He writes characters that, at their best, I have enjoyed a great deal over the years, and currently none of them are any goddamned good at all. Believe me, I would LOVE to have good Flash comics to read. I'd love me SON, who loves the character from the JLA cartoon, to be able to read his adventures in comics. But with Johns's one-note sadism holding the title hostage, there's nothing to be done but to try to point out that this particular fucking emporer has no goddamned clothes."

Jakala:

"How is your attitude any different from those fanboys who bemoaned that Morrison was 'ruining' the X-Men with his weird, trippy ideas? If you're not enjoying what so-and-so is doing on a certain title, isn't the best course of action to find another comic that *does* give you the buzz you're looking for? Why does it have to be The Flash that delivers the thrills? You're pretty plugged in to the comics scene: Couldn't the fact that Flash has become unreadable for you free up time and money to devote to other books? And what about all the people who *are* enjoying what Johns is doing on Flash, JSA, etc.? Doesn't their enjoyment factor into the equation at all?"

ADD, either missing or ignoring Jakala's point:

"If you honestly can't detect a qualitative difference between the work of Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns, then there's no point whatsoever in discussing this. But if it makes you feel better, sure, there's no difference, Morrison and Johns are creative equals and JSA is every bit as nuanced, intelligent and compelling as THE FILTH, THE INVISIBLES, ANIMAL MAN, KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND, SEBASTIAN O, ST. SWITHIN'S DAY and of course NEW X-MEN. Silly, ain't it? I hadn't pegged you as one of those people who gets nervous and defensive when someone like me states the truth passionately, John, and I hope I'm wrong, because I like what you do."

ADD then gets so passionate about stating the truth that he blogs about his dislike for Johns, adding that he also really doesn't like Frank Tieri and Chuck Austen, either.

Marc-Oliver Frisch looks at the DC numbers for June at The Pulse (although Johanna linked the original appearance of this in a comments thread here a couple of days ago. Thanks, Johanna), and it's not great news for Sleeper fans:

"[The placing of the first issue is] a thoroughly horrible debut, particularly after the promotional hoops the book and its creators jumped through in recent months to reach a larger audience, ranging from the release of the two trade paperbacks over the 'Coup d'Etat' issue drawn by Jim Lee and writer Ed Brubaker's mad, arm-wrestling activism to the various house ads promoting the new series. What SLEEPER has to show for all that are numbers not far above those its labelmate WILDCATS used to shift when its cancellation was announced a few months ago. Unless we're going to see a massive upward correction in the coming months, the message this sends is loud and clear: We don't want this new crap, and screw you and your mother if you try to sell it anyway. On the positive side, the second collection, ALL FALSE MOVES, shows up with a solid 3,543 copies at No. 12 of the Graphic Novel charts."

Mark Millar announces that the era of Millarworld books being unfinished may soon be over in his own special way:

"Chosen ish 3 ...is in my hands. It arrived by Fed Ex from Dark Horse an hour ago. I'm looking at a lovely little comic collection here that's mine all mine. An advance copy of Spider-Man number five (art by Frank Cho), lettered copies of issue six (art by Terry Dodson), an advance copy of Chosen number three, lettered copies of The Ultimates issue one, issue two and issue three, lettered, colour copies of Wolverine 20, black and white lettered copies of Wolverine 21, lettered copies of Unfunnies 3 and 4 and lettered black and whites of Wanted issue 5. And they all look great. Fuck you, guys. I have the most exclusive comic-collection in the world and you won't see this stuff for AGES!!!"

Mike Wieringo talks to Alan David Doane at Newsarama:

"I got pretty angry over the whole situation at first when Bill Jemas decided to go in a completely different direction with Fantastic Four last year. But after thinking about it for a while, I realized that the characters belong to Marvel -- and at the time, Bill Jemas was Marvel, essentially -- and so whatever he wanted was what was going to happen. And I don't think that the internet furor that happened in the wake of Mark's removal had much effect on our return. I think it was more that with the success that Marvel has been having in Hollywood and all the money and added attention/scrutiny that it's bringing to the company, Bill Jemas's 'risk taking' style of helming the company made the higher ups uncomfortable and they removed Jemas from his position of power and started guiding the company back in a more conservative direction. The kinds of stories that Mark and I were doing fall into the 'mainstream superhero' mode, and so I think it made sense to continue in that vein-- so they brought us back."

Normally, I ignore threads that say things like "I hope to God this makes it on Fanboy Rampage", but this one was too good to ignore. Ladies and gentlemen, the Bendis Board ask "DOES M.J. HAVE IMPLANTS???" and, yes, they're talking about Mary Jane Parker, the fictional wife/girlfriend (depending on what book you're reading) of the equally fictional Spider-Man:

"I don't know about implants, but i remember an issue of ASM where MJ was trying to convince Pete to let her do a nude scene in a movie. I can't find the issue though (dammit)"

"She's all natural."

"I'm thinking Peter makes her some special 'padded' bras out of webs and what not."

But, really, these quotes only give a fraction of the fun of the actual thread, which features lots of people posting pictures of Mary Jane that, apparently, turn them on. Oh, and MJ gets called a bitch ("The bitch has a 3-inch waist. I'd want to see her naked just for the scientific curiosity as to how a woman can live without a ribcage") and Black Widow gets called a whore. Obviously the official self-conscious period about calls of misogyny following the rape thread on the other board has finished, then.

Millarworld gets excited for Frank Cho's fill-ins on Spider-Man:

"All I want to know is, how the HELL do Felicia and MJ have the stregnth to stand up without falling forward all the time?"

"Well I wouldn't mind more of Cho's work further down the line, specially since Dodson's bound to need some recovering time at some point. I mean sure huge boobies aside, the man draws human expressions and body language like few others, and his style is so simple and fine... It's really beautiful... that and the big boobies of course."

"MY girlfriend pretty much loks like Cho's MJ but it's been three years, I'm getting tired of her and I think it's time to call it quits."

"Man I'm going to hate myself for saying this but Franks drawings of Mary Jane and Felicia are REAL TURN ON"S!!!! (I hate myself already :( )"

"Those are pretty spectacular puppies, for sure."

"Frank Cho's work is really growing on me. Well, certain parts of me are growing, anyway..."

Axel Alonso becomes editor of Supreme Power and all the planned spin-offs. What attracted him to the book?:

"Supreme Power is a fascinating book for me, because I like seeing super-heroes who don’t have to pull their punches. I like the fact that the mature readers label allows the writer to explore the full ramifications of these superpowers – both physical and psychological. So, for me, what’s appealing is that there are no parameters on this project. You’ve got an ensemble cast, so the writer has the option of exploring what power does to different individuals, and how people react to that power. Straczynski is able to do this kind of thing in Amazing Spider-Man, but in writing that, there’s a certain set of parameters in which he needs to work. With Supreme Power, there are no parameters, and he has a broader palette to paint on. In short, this is balls to the wall, mature readers superheroes. For me, that’s a wonderful recipe within in the right hands. If there’s a high concept here, I think it’s just that – what are the ramifications of power? We’ve seen what Spider-Man does, we’ve seen what the Hulk does, but within the parameters which those stories have to be told in. I think there’s a place for that type of material, where you can see how this power fits into the world, how it corrupts, and how people respond to it."

Alonso went onto to say "You know, it's kind of like Wildstorm's Eye Of The Storm books, but with more of the traditional superhero trappings. We looked at that line of mature readers superheroes and saw what didn't work - lack of superhero outfits, moral ambiguity and a lack of naked Wonder Woman analogues - and jettisoned them. Really, we've made exactly what Marvel readers expect in their books, and added swearing and nudity."

That Warren Ellis. He's still Streaming, including his guide to what Superhero Comics Are Good For:

"They're good for the Surrogate Family stuff, the colourful Sexy Misfits coming together to defend themselves from the Bad Adults, Other People Who Have Social Lifes and other frightening aspects of the outside world. You know the sort of stuff. Lets the weird kids safely externalise the Unrequited Love and Murderous Rages Of Frustration, allows them to test-run an emotional range, and gives them the chance to vicariously experience things like Rubbing Your Bits On Another Person. These are all laudable purposes."

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund... DISSEMBLED!:

"The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund elected new officers at its Board of Directors meeting at July's Comic-Con International. Founder Denis Kitchen retired from the Board, and will be replaced as President by Chris Staros, publisher of Top Shelf Productions. Milton Griepp was elected as the organization's new Treasurer, succeeding Frank Mangiaracina. Peter David, John Davis, Neil Gaiman, Frank Mangiaracina, Greg Ketter, and Louise Nemschoff were also re-elected to serve another term on the Board of Directors."

Kitchen didn't really retire as such as vomit up multiple Joe Quesadas before melting a bit and then being ripped in two by Nemschoff in a beserker rage. But, you know, they wanted to keep that bit quiet.

In one of the greatest titled threads on Millarworld ever ("Will Mystique Be Cancelled Next?, We Cannot Allow This"), things don't quite go as planned for the topic starter:

"In his review of Mystique this week, Paul O'Brien of The X-Axis mentions that the book has been receiving low sales figures and might be ripe for cancellation after it's 'Quiet Man' storyline is finished (in issue #24). Paul asks fans of Mystique (which I am one of them) to start getting proactive and start drumming up support for the book before it's too late. And he's absolutely right. . .WildCATS, Weapon X. . .all good books, but no real support from the mass audience. . .perhaps it's because people don't know what their missing and we take for granted that others will branch out and read books on the fringe or with a different point of view. I know when I first heard about the Mystique book, I had no desire to buy it. I thought: 'Ugh, just another thrown-together X-Book to cash in on the X-Men movie.'
But then I heard a lot of buzz about how good Brian K. Vaughn's stories were and I decided to pick it up. And I was blown away---great premise (Mystique being blackmailed by Prof. X to perform politically-charged spy missions) and the art was awesome. Think Alias, James Bond and X-Men rolled into one book. And it hasn't missed a beat when Vaughn left and Sean McKeever took over the writing chores. Pick up this book! It's fantastic!!"

Amongst the pledges of support, however:

"I don't know...I can't really support this book. Even in the beginning with the Linsner covers, I'd just thought that not only was this a title created for cancellation...but it was just another in our current 'X-glut'."

"The cancellation of this book would make me dance a dance of joy. But that's just me."

Mystique writer Sean McKeever appears at this point: "Gee, thanks. Why don't you trample on a few infants while you're at it? Jerk. Everyone else...thanks for your support!"

Bendis speaks out on his Avengers run, and rumours about the same:

"oh sweet jesus will someone listen to the author of the book, for the millionth, billionth time we ARE NOT JLAing THE AVENGERS!!! that was a rumor, denied over and over, i never said that, marvel never said that, rich or someone pretending they knew something said that, i said we are using the best marvel characters, imo[...] and for all you smarties, no one has guessed the team right. ahh... i feel better."

David Glanzer, director of marketing and PR for Comic-Con talks to CBR:

"Nothing was done to change the perception of [SDCC]. The truth is we have always been primarily a comics convention and still are. Just look at the number of guests and programs devoted to our industry. Long time attendees know that we have always had a connection to Hollywood. A look at any of our program books from the 70's will show that we had television stars as guests and well as famous film directors, not to mention the nearly 24 hour film retrospectives that we continue to this day. That being said, however, more recently guests from Hollywood have generated their own publicity. The movie studios have taken notice of events like ours, and our event in particular, to build momentum for their future projects. So while current movie stars and presentations by movie studios may dominate the general news coverage of Comic-Con International, movie programming really only accounts for a small percentage of the programs occurring during the four-day event. I will add also, that Comic-Con International seems to be something different for everyone. CNN this year described it as a Sci-Fi convention, other reports called it a toy convention rivaled only by Toy Fair in New York, and to those in the know, it is a comic book convention."

Jay Faerber talks Firebirds:

"Firebirds is basically a buddy book, and the buddies just happen to be mother and daughter... [It] isn’t quite as similar to Invincible as one might think, but I don’t blame anyone for making the comparison – heck, even [Invincible creator Robert] Kirkman made it, until I told him to get over himself. The difference, as I see it, is that Firebirds is really about both Rebecca and Emily – they get equal billing, and equal page-time, whereas Invincible is pretty squarely about Mark. We get everything from his POV, for the most part... I think the 'wow' factor is simply that this is a fun super-hero book featuring two strong, female leads who aren’t half-naked, or defined by their love interests. We see the father/son dynamic mined on a regular basis in many super-hero books, but the mother/daughter stuff is left largely unexplored. Because of that, Firebirds is different than most other books out there – but it still has the super-hero framework that fans like. It’s got action, emotion, and surprises – all the stuff you want when you read a super-hero comic."

Paul O'Brien looks at Marvel's numbers for June:

"In [a recent interview, Marvel President Dan Buckley] said that 'First and foremost, we need to improve on keeping the sales momentum we generate from these events like X-Men Reload.' The drop for ASTONISHING X-MEN #2 may be the sort of thing he has in mind there. Without taking June orders of issue #1 into account, the drop would still have been a rather stiff 36.1%. With the variant covers and re-orders taken into account, ASTONISHING ends up shedding almost half its readership by issue #2. Of course, this has to be kept in context - the number is dropping from Very Good Indeed down to merely Very Good. Still, it's a hell of a drop, and - as we'll see - it points to a worrying trend for Marvel where they get huge sales for the first issue but can't seem to sustain it. With SUPERMAN settling in for a medium-term residency at the top of the charts, and BATMAN having dominated before it, Marvel must be at least a little concerned about their apparent inability to produce a major event which shows comparable staying power at the top."

Acclaimed writer (or, if you're ADD, "Mediocre hack... who really ought to be thrown out of comics by any means necessary") Geoff Johns talks Teen Titans:

"The dynamic of the team is definitely friends. Sharing secrets, dealing with problems outside of 'school', trying to get to know one another. They all have that pressure of "we need to be perfect self-less heroes now" -- and that's just not reality. They make mistakes, they take short cuts, they have trouble getting from A to B. Parents play a huge role in the lives of each Titan, and all of us. Starfire was abandoned by hers, Gar's lost his at an early age, Superboy is struggling with the Superman vs. Luthor aspect of his DNA, Wonder Girl is still unsure who her father is and has a overly-watchful mother, and there's more to come."

J Torres and Scott Chantler return to Oni with Scandalous, a new OGN based in the '50s film industry. Torres explains:

"I wanted to do another 'period piece' with Scott. I had a few ideas kicking around inside my head. This one seemed to be set in a good era for his particular style, involved the right kind of character design, fashion, and props that I thought he would have fun drawing. It was also the story I had fleshed out the most, so the timing just seemed right and it was a good fit. And again, a nice change of pace for us after the upbeat and optimistic pop song that was Days Like This. This one's got sex, scandal, and people stabbing each other in the back."

Newsarama reports on the fight for the rights to par - uh, I mean, Superman/Superboy:

"Best case for the Siegels, DC settles, and pays them a fair amount for the rights to both, or agrees to the transfer and then licenses the characters from the survivors. Worst case for DC, the Siegels, unhappy with the slow progress to date over Superman, immediately move to take the matter to court, and get a ruling against DC who, technically, owes them ½ of the revenue generated by Superman since the termination took effect. But wait – there’s more. When the Siegels filed their paperwork and the story broke, many wondered what about Shuster. While, like Siegel, Superman’s co-creator was dead, many assumed that he’d left no heir who could join with the Siegels. Remember – the Siegels had filed to terminate the transfer of copyright for Jerry Siegel’s portion of the rights, that is ½ of the rights to Superman, leaving DC with half. If there was a Shuster heir, together, the Siegels and Shuster heir could’ve filed to terminate the transfer to all the rights to Superman.

"Well, there is. While leaving no children, Joe Shuster did have a sister, and now, her son, Mark Peary (the executor to Shuster’s estate) has filed for the same termination the Siegels have, with Shuster’s taking effect October 26th, 2013. By law, the same window that the Siegels’ used to file their paperwork reopens at 75 years. 1938 + 75 = 2013.Now, what seemed to be a one-front war for the rights to Superman has been split. If DC does nothing, legally, in 2013, it will no longer hold the copyright for Superman (it will still, however, hold the trademark), as both the Siegels and the Shusters will have terminated their transfers. If DC were to lose all of their rights in Superman (and all the pieces of the mythology created by Siegel and Shuster, including Metropolis), DC would lose the right to create any new derivative works, although they would keep the rights to existing derivative works."

Heidi's also running with this story:

"While the Superman claim remains mired in legal red tape, the Superboy claim appears to be a bit more clear cut – Siegel and Shuster were granted ownership of the character in the 1947 decision, and their subsequent sale of the character to DC would come under the jurisdiction of Section 304 of the copyright law."

Newsarama preview some pages from Avengers #501. Newsarama posters don't seem entirely bowled over:

"That would appear to be completely the wrong Spider-Woman in the last two pages. Hope that's fixed before the issue is published..."

"that page with all the heroes is awesome, though i think firestar and Justice have their old costumes on, but it doesn't matter as the new ones sucked. Moon Knight? Silverclaw? DarkHawk? yes, looks like we're gonna see all the weird avengers [...] I thought hellcat was dead? when did she come back?"

"Wow, that last splash is great, looks like in true Bendis form they are getting ready for some real heavy......talking."

Somone on the Bendis board is getting a bit too excited:

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT! BENDIS JUST GAVE MARVEL THEIR BATMAN!!!! I was reading the thread about killing Scott Lang and I just now realized that we just saw the birth of Marvel's version of BATMAN being created. I never thought about Scotts daughter until now. This could be good. Damn Bendy, that sneaky little fucker."

As jumping to conclusions as that sounds, it may not be a million miles away from what Bendis has planned:

"WELL, ALL I WILL SAY IS THAT [the death of Ant-Man] MAKES [Ant-Man's daughter] CASSIE LANG ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING CHARACTERS IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE. HOW DOES THAT SOUND TO YA? PASS IT ALONG."

Oh dear.

Silver Surfer has, apparently, been cancelled:

"Are you surprised? I'm not. I suppose they thought they were being bold with their self described, M. Night Shamalyan approach to the book, but the readers have said otherwise. I know the approach of having the title character only appear intermittently in their own book worked for a bit in Hulk, but it got old fast. I think Surfer started out as a $2.25 book, but once readers left the book in droves, it became another $2.99 destined for the cancelled comic quarter bin. With more and more $2.99 books appearing and disappearing just as fast, it sure looks like the industry isn't nearly as healthy as the hype would have you believe. I know the Surfer's first series(60's) only ran 18 issues, but no one can say it reflected a larger problem within the industry. The Surfer's second series(80's-90's) ran well over 100 issues. The rotten reviews for Invaders looks like another $2.99 destined for a quick death. That series run in the 70's was over 40 issues. Hell, even surprise positive reviews on books like She-Hulk($2.99) doesn't keep them from struggling to survive a year in this so called 'healthy industry'. I know it's as unlikely as Ray Harryhausen's style of stop motion animation returning to replace CGI, as it is for the industry to return to making comics inexpensive things that gave you your money's worth in story value, but it's a nice dream anyway."

"Not suprised at all! I dropped this stinker after 2 issues!! I liked the Silver Surfer series from when Ron Lim was on board!!!"

"Dude, no dissing books you don't buy! Not cool! We Marvel fans have to enjoy our books while they last. Unlike say D.C./Time-Warner who can publish books such as --------- indefinitly w/o cracking the Top 100!(INSERT BOOK OF CHOICE ABOVE)"

24 Hour Comics Day 2005 is go:

"Nat Gertler, publisher of About Comics and founder of 24 Hour Comics Day, has announced the date for the next event: April 23rd, 2005. On this day, cartoonists around the world will take the 24 hour comics challenge, each trying to write and draw a 24 page comics story in 24 straight hours. 'The event really needs to be on a Saturday, so that people can spend their 24 hours and still have time to recover before work or school on Monday,' explains Gertler. 'Because of that, we couldn’t keep the April 24th date we used for this year’s inaugural event. But by having the 24 hours starting on the twenty-third, it actually ends on the 24th.'"

He went on to say "We may be screwed in 2006, though."

Thanks to the lovely Larry Young, the San Francisco Chronicle looks at the lack of female superheroes on the big screen:

"If cinematic superheroes reflect their times, what does the absence of a feminine action icon say about our era? Danny Fingeroth, author of 'Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society,' posits that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks prompted Hollywood to opt for safety and familiarity over pushing the social envelope... For a while, television picked up the movie industry slack with series such as 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Xena: Warrior Princess,' which featured women fighting for ethical ideals with no-holds-barred fervor. Buffy was a quintessentially American icon in the Spider-Man and Wonder Woman tradition; Xena was a mythic figure as sensually formidable as Brad Pitt's Achilles in 'Troy.' Yet despite their popularity, neither inspired cinematic imitations. What plays on the small screen, it seemed, didn't necessarily translate to the large. 'In many ways, television is a woman's world,' says Jeanine Basinger, chair of the film studies department at Wesleyan University and author of 'A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960.' 'The big screen is still a male-dominated world aimed at what people in the business tell you is the typical moviegoer -- a male between 18 and 25.'"

Penguin says "That Manga thing? We want a piece of that action":

"Penguin Group USA has signed a three year deal to publish manga with Digital Manga Inc. The deal was brokered by Eloise Flood, Publisher of Razorbill, the newly launched teen imprint from Penguin Young Readers Group and Hikaru Sasahara, CEO of Digital Manga Inc. The deal is a three year co-publishing venture. Penguin Group USA has committed to publishing 8-10 titles the first year and 15-20 per year thereafter. The first line is slated to launch in late Spring 2005. Razorbill will publish children's and young adult titles. Adult books will be published by Leslie Gelbman, President and Publisher of the Berkley Publishing Group."

Doselle Young - Remember him? - returns to comics:

"So, anyway, the 'scoop', as it goes, is that I'll be returning to comics to writing a new book for Image with gorgeous art by Steve (Shark Man) Pugh. The book is a super-hero/horror title called The Tomorrow Party. Details are under wraps for the moment, but we're expecting to launch the book well in time for next years SDCC. I'm quite excited about the book and really looking forward to working with Image in making this the kind of twisted examination of situational morality and super-folk I've always wanted to do; separate and apart from any established franchises. Should be good, sick fun. In addition, I'm writing a tale for Atomeka's A1 Terror Tome featuring another freakish new creator-owned character called 'The Cuckoo'. That strip will be drawn by Books of Magic pen and ink genius Dean Ormston."

If nothing else, he's got some great artists lined up (He's also working with Eric Wright)...

Brian Michael Bendis possessed by The Joker, proof finally in:

"HAHAHAHA CHICAGO IS GOING TO BE ... CRAZY TIME AT THE PANELS. YOU HAVE TO COME TO THE AVENGERS PANEL AND MY SOLO PANEL. HEEEEHAHAHAHAHAHA!! THIS JOB IS SO MUCH FUN!"

Comic pros respond to Michael Chabon's call for more kids comics at the Eisner Awards. Warning: Your head may spin.

Cameron Stewart:

"I didn't go to the Eisner awards this year (maybe I will if I'm ever nominated) but if I'd have heard this I would have stood up to applaud."

Mark Millar:

"Every couple of years someone comes along and says this, but it's really just wishful thinking. The comic-book (especially superhero) demographic was never as young as everyone seems to think it was, teens really being the most receptive market (and GIs during the various wars of the last sixty years).

"Here's the facts: Batman and Superman Adventures were pretty much the two best Batman and Superman titles of the last decade. And they sold like shit. They were made more freely available in the mass market than any of the other Superman and Batman titles (reprinted in various editions and even sold through the WB stores, book-stores, etc) and they still sold like shit. Now this pains me because I spent nineteen months of my life working on SA. It was great, I had a lovely time, I was nominated for a couple of Eisners, won a couple of OTHER awards, but they sold like shit and the only people talking about them were nostalgic forty-somethings who grew up reading realistic superheroes drawn by Neal Adams.

"Trust me, I speak from experience here. Every time DC or Marvel has aimed books at what they call ALL AGES it sells like shit. Every time a book comes out aimed at this fictional mass market it sells like shit. The biggest publishing success of the last five years has been the Ultimate line and Bill's mandate for this was that we aimed at the kids, but wrote for young adults (which is exactly what Stan suggested). The Ultimate books have completely dominated the top ten since their inception and (most importantly) completely dominated the superhero mass market in book- stores and supermarkets since the moment they appeared. The biggest successes the industry's had in the last generation has been Watchmen, Dark Knight and Jim Lee's X-Men. None of these books could possibly be described as All Ages.

"I have no idea why this is the case, but All Ages just doesn't work. The facts are there in black and white going back a generation. These books are as widely available (moreso in the mass market) than the so-called edgier books, but they always, always, always sell nothing more than a fraction of what the more teen-oriented books sell. Interestingly, they're pretty much what I've always wanted too, whether I was an eleven year old reading Alan Moore's Captain Britain and Marvelman or a thirty-four year old reading Warren Ellis do Fantastic Four.

"I really respect Chabon as a writer. I think he's a terrific writer, but he's completely wrong about this and all those defunct attempts lying in your ten cent boxes are testament to that fact.

"Bottom line: Kids don't want to read this stuff. Old men do."

Brian Michael Bendis:

"i was at this speech and i found it veeeeery elitist and annoying, as are most keynote adresses. just once a speech about the cup being half full would be great. i think chabon is a genius but in this instance he is being very naive and nostalgic. comics are not too expensive, video games cost fifty dollars, action figures cost ten to fifteen. its not 1967. the kids on my street eat up my comps. they love them. spider-girl is a huge success with my ten year old neighbor girl. she asks for a new one three times a week. the product is there. not all of it, like tv and movies, some good for kids, some not.

"fact is, there is no marketing towards kids. there is no tv ad campaign. there is nothing to fight the marketing machines of movies and video games. marketing is everything. look at movies. the product is almost beside the point."

Bryan Hitch:

"I've been reading the Marvel Age Spider-Man retreads in my bundles as they come through. These are books Marvel is specifically aiming at the younger reader market and they are retellings of the original Lee and Ditko stories from the sixties. What's interesting to me is that the originals, which it is claimed came from a period when comics were just for kids, have a greater level of sophistication and involvement, indeed feel more adult, than these modern versions. Just because today's adults grew up reading those stories and have the wonderful memories of innocence and adventure those four colour classics gave us all odes not mean they ever were specifically 'just for kids'.

"Archie comics were for kids, so was the Beano. It seems to me the idea of teenagers looking to belong as told in the x-men and a nerdy teenager given powers and learning responsibilty trying to cope with the changes in his life, getting the girl and becoming the man of the house after his father figure died in Spider-Man are stories aimed squarly at the adolescent than the pre-pubic. The Ultimate Spider-man book is the best of the spider titles because it understood the power of these originals and what Stan Lee knew. Comics are never just for kids. Kids will read them but the audience really starts at double figures.

"My boys absolutely love the Teen Titans cartoon, the JLA cartoon and the various Batman cartoons. These cartoons had their style copied for the various spin off books that MM was talking about earlier which, I believe, was a mistake. That seemingly simplistic approach was adopted as an attempt to prevent the various foriegn animation sweat shops from screwing up the visuals not as a way of saying it was for kids. The stories were strong, honest and emotional and far more 'grown up' than any of the offerings that are deemed all ages by the likesof marvel or DC. Mark got it when he wrote the books, they were in fact the strongest Superman stories of DC's line at the time. Kirby wasn't making stories for anybody but himself, neither were Bruce Timm and Paul Dini. Everybody doing this stuff is doing it because of the stories they read or the movies they saw as children. The people making them at the time were no doubt seeking only to entertain themselves just as the best peole today are doing in all media.

"I'm really not sure there is any such thing as 'all-ages'. The closest I've seen to that would have been the Pixar movies but I would bet they aren't aiming for kids as much as telling their own stories and pleasing only themselves and their own inner poppets. It's perhaps not a surpise that when Alan Moore was being Mister Innovative producing books like Watchmen he was selling far more copies than when when he became Mister Sliver Age Retrospective with ABC.

"I still believe the audience for comics starts with pubity; these are after all male adolescent power fantasies aren't they? There will always be a niche audience for kid-specific and adult material but the real mass market is probably 12 years and onwards. . Maybe the only thing lacking is availablity of material."

Millar keeps returning to the subject and accidentally proving that, either he hasn't heard/read the speech at all, or else he completely missed the point:

"This shouldn't inherently be a children's medium anymore than games, TV, music, books and movies and, for that, I'm glad. Less than 10 per cent of TV is aimed at kids (and kids TV, per hour, gets an average of 25% of the adult budget for an hour). I'd imagine this applies right across every other medium."

"What's patronizing to me, Bendis and Hitch here is that Chabon has sold 18,000 copies of his creator-owned book (The Escapist) and is telling everyone this is what the market really wants. We're out there on the front lines every day (doing this as a full-time job) and taking these books to a genuine mainstream audience."

Apparently, being a crazy widow rock star who seems determined to flush herself down the toilet has its advantages:

"Princess Ai, TOKYOPOP's new manga co-created by international rock star Courtney Love, hot new creator D.J. Milky and Japanese manga-ka Misaho Kujiradou, is the number one graphic novel in the country. According to Nielsen BookScan sales reports, Princess Ai topped the Adult Fiction Overall Trade Paper Graphic Novels list for the week ending July 25."

Newsarama has a preview of Scot Kolins pencils for Marvel Team-Up. I'm still unsure about Kolins' "no shading, no variation of line" style. I mean, what's the point? "I could do those things and add to the drawing, but I don't want to"?

The Joe Quesada board, they love the Marvel:

"Joe, Marvel is kicking ass ...And you sir, deserve a round of applause for your efforts!"

"I wouldn't give him a round of applause yet. Marvel still is behind but I think it can pull out of it."

"50% market share seems pretty good to me. And a great Fall lineup as well. Marvel is the shnizzit...the stizznipz...the schwizznizz...they're tops, baby! (I'm so not cool)."

"I'm still unsure what marvel is behind in?

I think Marvel is at the moment the best that it's been in a long time. Sure there are a few things i'd like to see but i'm a fan and that's the nature of the beast. Over all i think Joe is doing a great job and i think that will continue to be the case for the future."

The Pulse continues to run SDCC panel news. This time, Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb talk about their upcoming Catwoman series:

"I don't see Selina as a villain... She's this really wonderful character because she's the only person who can get up in Batman's face. [H]e's just a big ball of yarn to her."

Joe Casey and Matt Fraction return with more Basement Tapes:

"I had pitched some stuff to an editor at a company somewhere, and we got on the phone with one another and it sorta became a shouting match between he and I-- friendly sparring, if I want to be kind, but not the kind of call you want with an editor who can, you know, sign a check or greenlight your book or whatever. Basically because I was trying to sell something un-sellable; LOTI was yet to be released, I just had my, like, web rep or whatever, and had started getting contact info and exploiting it-- wasting everyone's time, pretty much. Anyway, we're yelling back and forth, and the argument comes down to, you know, him saying 'Write what sells,' and me saying 'Fuck you,' but not really for the right reasons. Not literally, but that was the subtext of the whole thing. And I realized the second I hung the phone up I was backing the right horse the wrong way; I was saying fuck you just because I kinda like it-- and it was easier to pretend I was too cool for the party instead of the reality that, ha ha, I wasn't actually invited-- instead of having any kind of ideology or integrity that I was defending.

"And through that call I really sunk my teeth into the idea of trying to emulate a career like the Coen Brothers, or Soderbergh; journeymen attacking a million different genres in ways not done before-- but still getting final cut. Like, I know I'm not going to be Gilbert Hernandez, I'm not going to be Alan Moore-- but limiting yourself, limiting your options because your faux-hipster posture dictates it is retarded. It's like starting a riot by burning down your own house."

Via Heidi, Michael Chabon's Keynote speech at the 2004 Eisner Awards:

"Children did not abandon comics; comics, in their drive to attain respect and artistic accomplishment, abandoned children. And for a long time we as lovers and partisans of comics were afraid, after so many long years of struggle and hard work and incremental gains, to pick up that old jar of greasy kid stuff again, and risk undoing it all. Comics have always been an arriviste art form, and all upstarts are to some degree ashamed of their beginnings. But frankly, I don’t think that’s what’s going on in comics anymore. Now, I think, we have simply lost the habit of telling stories to children. And how sad is that?"

Bob Wayne and Scott Dunbier talk about the DC-IPC deal announced at SDCC, specifically about Alan Moore's contribution to Albion, the first miniseries:

"The miniseries will be one story, rather than an anthology, Dunbier explained, and while Alan has the lead, the final work will very much be a collaboration. 'When we first started talking about this, from the very beginning, Alan wanted to write this with [Moore's daughter] Leah,' Dunbier said. 'She’s writing Wild Girl for us with John Reppion, and she’ll be working with John on this as well. Basically, it will be Leah, John, and Alan, and the different camps with be throwing ideas back and forth and working on it all. From talking to Alan, it seems like this will be a much closer collaboration than some of his other collaborations have been. That’s my impression now, but we’ll see what happens.' In closing, Wayne said that the end result of the DC-IPC team up will be something unique – a chance to experience established characters for the first times at the hands of a master storyteller. 'These are characters that, to Americans, you've never seen before. These could be entirely whole cloth, if you didn't already know that they existed. I feel very comfortable saying that with Alan writing, you will not have had to have read the earlier stories to appreciate what's going on. He has more than enough skill to tell a story that way.'"

B Clay Moore talks about his own work and Image Comics in general to Brandon Thomas in Ambidextrous this week:

"[The biggest threat to Image is] Close-minded readers and negative vibes, baby. Image is the largest alternative to Marvel or DC, and it's the largest publisher of wholly creator-owned material in the world. As an example, I sincerely hope that people who enjoy Robert Kirkman writing the 500,000th Captain America story will cross over to read his take on his OWN superhero, Invincible. Because one is pure, undistilled, no holds barred Robert Kirkman, and the other is Robert Kirkman playing within well defined guidelines. Image is ever-evolving, though. Ultimately we're working on striking a balance between satisfying the comic reading population at large and producing books that allow creators to tell the stories they really want to tell."

Bob Greenberger has a blog:

"Actually, when I first opened the FedEx package and took [Bruce Timm's cover to "Batman Adventures: Dangerous Dames and Demons"] out, the image seemed less polished than I was used to from Bruce. It seemed more impressionistic. He also flopped the image without telling me and I stared at it for a while and finally popped off an e-mail acknowledging receipt and questioning the artistic choices he made. He replied something along the lines of, 'What are you smoking?' So, I turned the page over, and there was the gorgeous cover I was expecting. He works with color markers and I was looking at the side where the dyes bled through rather than the intended original art. Secrets of the comics revealed."

Fanboy WAR! The Bendis board take exception to Jesse Baker (Baker_Baker on Delphi forums)'s review of Avengers #500:

"What a doucher"

"The guy is kidding right? RIGHT?!!!"

"This guy is a true example of a fucktard. And an ill informed one at that."

"Is Matt Higgins gonna have to choke a bitch???"

"I was just about to post this too! I read this and almost laughed out loud! It is quite possibly the most childish, ridiculous, and ill-informed review I've ever read. I also noticed all of the other guy's reviews are really negative as well. I guess he's a self-hating fanboy that thinks all comics suck unless they're how he wants them."

"I'm amazed by this bloke, he manages to be ill-informed, reactionary, arrogant, deluded and bigoted all in one review, that takes commitment. Now someone commit him."

Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch talk about the second volume of The Ultimates. Millar first, in response to people complaining that the new series brings with it a price increase:

"The Ultimates has been under-priced from the start. Marvel started with card-stock cover and better quality paper and charged a quarter LESS than many other books. They did this by takign a hit on the paperstock, but now it's just the price it was originally intended to be. Also, it was 2.25 in Jan 02 so 2.99 when it relaunches almost three years later isn't bad. It cost them literally tens of thousands to include all those extra free pages in volume one (for which they charged no extra money until issue thirteen) so they've been very good about the finances. And please, no more jokes about the book shipping late. The first three issues are sitting on my desk and we're releasing this when we have even more piled up. That was the whole point of disappearing for eight months. Hitchy hasn't been on holiday."

Hitch himself then makes a rare appearance:

"[A]s MM already pointed out we are three issues pencilled, two issues inked and our new colourist is just starting the first issue. I got the script for issue four which is a doozy and start on that later this week so progress is good and increasing. By December we should have six to eight issues done. It might also be a good time to welcome our talented new colourist to the game. After the fabulous Mr Mounts was moved to other pastures it was bloody hard finding somebody to succeed him but another's chapter 11 misfortune is our gain, so put your hands together for my old pal Laura Depuy-Martin and give her a hearty Ultimate welcome!"

Oh, blogging is so last year. Hector Reeder looks at comic blogs at Ninth Art:

"So people actually read these things??
It's hard not to, there are so bloody many of them. And they're so vociferous in their opinions that yes, people are taking them seriously as early opinion formers.
'Vociferous in their opinions'... You mean they're a bunch of loud-mouthed nerds?
You might say that. I couldn't possibly comment. You see, the blogosphere reacts powerfully to any and all nay-sayers. Take the stormy reception which greeted Heidi McDonald's comment in Comic Buyer's Guide earlier this year with regard to blogging: 'And except for a very few sites, I realized they can pretty much be safely ignored.' This didn't go down too well in the blogosphere, because clearly, all writing is of equal interest to read and anyone who claims otherwise is some kind of crypto-fascist."

(Edited to add: Newblogger Matt Maxwell takes the piece to task.

Evan Dorkin talks Bill and Ted's imminent re-release from Slave Labor:

"Bill and Ted turned out to be fun characters to work with and build a supporting cast around... But they're far from complex so I can't say I get lost in deep thought regarding them. They're happy, cheerful, adjusted, married with children and completely uncynical. They’re nothing like any of my own characters, so they were interesting to work with for that reason alone. I worried less about the characters, who were fairly cypher-like and one note, and concentrated on plot, dialogue and as many jokes and oddball beats as I could fit into the mix. [Marvel editor] Fabian Nicieza gave me carte blanche on the series, I don't think he changed much of anything dialogue-wise, the plots went through easily with only a few bits of violence toned down during the Lincoln assassination issue... I really wanted to kill him spectacularly several times, but it was too extreme for the kids in the audience, which was okay, I had no problems watering down headshots for the kiddies."

Excellent, as Keanu Reeves said back when he didn't take himself so seriously.

In a similar move to CBR's The Basement Tapes, Chris Allen and Alan David Doane start The Conversation:

"CA: I guess I should point out here that I'm not irritated because Moore's work doesn't make any Top 10 sales lists, or because many people ignored The Filth but bought healthy numbers of New X-Men. More challenging work, and work not featuring established characters, is going to find a smaller audience. That's fine. I'm more annoyed by the general ignorance and lack of respect for these guys. Knowing Moore's time is winding down, why haven't orders increased on his ABC work? Why did Seaguy thud, when it's a thoughtful, energetic adventure of shifting moods and lyrical storytelling, with terrific Cameron Stewart art? We complain when our comics aren't giving us the thrills we need, yet we ignore the excellent authors slaving away to create newer and more interesting thrills. Alan, you made a good point -- two, actually -- about trusting these creators, and how second readings often reveal deeper layers. Even when I feel that Morrison or Moore dropped the ball here or there -- Moore's shorts in the ABC anthology titles, mentioned earlier, and Seaguy not ending satisfactorily, I rarely feel that either author disrespects me as a reader/consumer. I feel that they were engaged and trying hard, and the two of us just didn't line up that well on a particular work. As far as second readings, how many current comics really deserve them? I'm not just talking about superhero comics, though there's probably more forgettable ones than altcomix, but even a terrific writer like Bendis doesn't often write stories that gain deeper meaning on a second reading. Andy Diggle, Bill Willingham, Brian Azzarello -- all very good, but do you think you missed anything on your first readings of respective issues of The Losers, Fables or 100 Bullets? To say nothing of the wider range of writing techniques M & M employ, while the others find something that works and stick with it, for the most part.

"ADD: I find those last three you mention varying degrees of overrated -- Willingham's stuff is fine for what it is, but in the long run it's not for me; both Azzarello and Diggle have disappointed me enough times that I'm quite convinced it's them and not me. Augie and I bond over our befuddlement that The Losers is considered a quality book, when it's a barely-there mish-mash of action-movie cliches, while I find Azzarello's stuff overblown and undercooked at the same time. I find that Brian Bendis's Powers rewards second and even third readings, but that's a creator owned work that I think it's clear is much more of a labour of love for Bendis and Mike Oeming than anything else they've ever done, and certainly moreso than anything they've created for the corporate superhero comics companies."

James Sime reacts to his dual wins in the San Francisco Best of The Bay Awards:

"One of the main motivating factors for me to become a comic retailer in the first place was that I wanted to create a comic store that would appeal to people who you don't traditionally see in a funnybook shop. Coming from a decade worth of experience in fine dining and swank bartending I knew that I was uniquely skilled to bring something to comic retailing that could make a comic store someplace where a non-traditional comic customer would want to be. One of the groups I wanted my comic shop to appeal to most was women. Not just because I like them personally, and not just because I agree with the old bar adage 'wherever there is five women there will be twenty five men,' but because I'd just like to see more women in the industry. As creators, as publishers, as retailers, and as readers. More than anything else I saw the major barrier between women and comic reading were the stores where those comics were being sold. Hell, the majority of comic shops aren't appealing to me and I've been addicted to the hobby, the books and the culture of comics all my life. So I made sure that when I unveiled the Isotope I made it as friendly and appealing to my female guests as I knew how. As anyone who has attended one of our events will tell you it's been a pretty successful endeavor, but I'd be a liar if I told you that the SF Bay Guardian bestowing 'Best Comic Shop to be a Girl' is anything short of great honor to me. I couldn't be more proud."

Millarworld discuss death in comics:

"A lot of these guys are really fucking creative. Yet they're constantly killing characters off left and right, knowing damn well that they'll come back at some point, which just makes the overall continuity look stupid. What's wrong with just injuring characters instead? It's such a no-brainer solution. Instead of killing someone, why not just have something crush their legs? Instead of having them vaporized, why not put them in a coma or give them some kind of brain damage? Why not have them disappear into a portal or something? This shit would be taken more seriously because frankly, deaths are a joke in comic books today. Put them out of commission for a long time, while leaving the door open for them to be used again without storylines becoming retarded. That's all I ask."

"We long-time comic readers would see that as cheaper than death. At least in death, there's the possability of a huge return. With injuries, you just recover. You leave someone paralyzed, but they get a hi-tech wheelchair or bodysuit; brain damaged --> telepath corrects it; comas would be too soap operay, even for comics. Not to say that you aren't right that more serious injuries should be seen, but we comic fans complain about everything. This broad initiative would be abused by writers and therefore scorned by fans wanting (at least temporary) finality.So ludicrous."

"I'm starting to feel more and more like death shouldn't be permenant in most cases. A character that died 20 years ago can be impossible to read about now, so a potentially great character is lost to the readers. People like Gwen and Bucky are different, their deaths still mean something. It's not like they're impossible to bring back either. There is a good way for any character to come back IMO. Heck, sometimes you can get away with simply not saying how they came back."

Erik Larsen goes for that important West Wing demographic:

"Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon has done a lot of things over the course of 115 issues, but one thing he's never done is run for public office. Until now. As the presidential election heads to the wire, Dragon finds himself thrust onto the campaign trail with vice presidential hopeful Ronald Winston Urass. While the seeds of the storyline are planted with SAVAGE DRAGON #116 (available in August), Dragon's run to the White House begin in earnest with SAVAGE DRAGON #119, available just in time for the election this November. SAVAGE DRAGON creator Erik Larsen outlines the political game plan for Dragon. 'Ronald Winston Urass is a wealthy man and his wealth is the key ingredient needed for a successful run for the White House. But this isn't at simple as you might think. Dragon himself has no strong political aspirations. He's literally thrust into the spotlight because the will of the American public,' says the Image publisher. 'It'll be a campaign, like none ever waged. A real grassroots effort. In actuality, neither Dragon or Urass will actually be on any ballots and that they're depending entirely on people writing them in. Urass spends BILLIONS in ads and appears EVERYWHERE in an effort to drum up support for this grassroots campaign. When it's revealed that Bush has been replaced by an Imposter (in issue #119) things REALLY take off for Dragon. People don't trust their leaders. They don't know what's real and what isn't. They don't know who to believe in and who to trust.'"

Wasn't Dan Quayle revealed to be an alien invader in the first Wildcats series as well? Those Image boys (well, ex-Image boys in the case of Jim Lee) seem to have something in for the Republicans...

Newsarama, as we knew it, disappeared over the weekend. Matt Brady explains what happened:

"Sunday night, around 6 pm EDT, Newsarama’s boards were hacked. Thanks to the all powerful Ming, order was restores late last night/early Monday morning, depending where you are on the planet. No, it wasn’t a fun time. The bad news: we lost some stories, but we’re diligently patching all the holes we can find. As it looks now, we’re probably out a week’s worth of stories and posts. Also – if you’re one of the over 150 people who registered as a member in the past week – we apologize, but you’re going to have to re-register. Think of it as a second chance to get that cool username. The good news – some of the threads are once again fresh, with no posts. If you feel that your point about Grant Morrison’s return to the DCU got lost in the chatter, or your thoughts about Mark Millar’s views on Wolverine were overlooked because they resided on page 4 – get at ‘em. And why not run down the front page again as well – check out some of the stories you may have missed or just plain skipped: Street Angel, Chocolate Thunder, Peter David’s tattoo odyssey at SDCC, and more. With no responses, it’s like reading them all again for the first time (but please, control yourself when it comes to yelling 'first post!')."