Fanboy Rampage!!!

I know what you're thinking: "Why isn't there a Top 10 cutest comic creators list online full of fawning fangirl commentary?" Well, now there is:

"John Cassaday-Oh Mr. Cassaday-I knew not of your stunningly good looks until the 2004 Wizard World Chicago convention, where Marvel editor Nick Lowe introduced us. I was reduced to a giggling schoolgirl. Cassaday is the rock star of the comic book biz, a rebel with talent, with hair even girl's are jealous of. His likeness was written into Planetary, his co-creation along with Warren Ellis, so it seems even other creators seem to find him irresistible. Even his biography is modeled as if to speak of a legend during a montage before a prestigious award is given: it is compiled of testimonials from comic creators/friends and even the disgruntled and heart broken ex-girlfriend of which he has no doubt left many in every city he visits. Yes, 'man-pretty' can be applied to John Cassaday but I think 'Adonis' will suffice."

(Thanks, Pete.)

ICv2 reports that Crossgen will not die:

"Judge Alexander Paskay of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, has issued an order giving CrossGen another 60 days to file its liquidation plan. According to the motion for the extension, CrossGen needs more time to pursue a settlement of contested claims of secured creditors."

Warren Ellis continues talking about covers:

"If you got the first issue of GLOBAL FREQUENCY -- with its logo up in the top slice -- then you know what you're looking for next time, because the aesthetic flavour of the cover was so strong. There was nothing else in a comics store that looked like a GLOBAL FREQUENCY cover. Same with Tim Bradstreet's HELLBLAZER covers. Doesn't matter that Tim moves the logo around. Anyone who's seen one HELLBLAZER cover can spot another one a mile off, because of the particular style and design sense Tim uses. See, people aren't going into comics stores for cans of beans. Comics stores are destination shopping for the great majority of the client base. And they're going in there to buy art, not cans of beans. They're not in there to peer at a row of logos. They're in there -- usually in the context of a browsing bookstore experience -- to buy a visual narrative and own a pleasing object. And they're trained -- not just as people who appreciate the medium, but as people conversant in art and communication, by dint of living in the modern Western world and by being in the damn shop in the first place -- to recognise an aesthetic.

"A blanket vanilla design aesthetic helps nobody. Sure, taking the vanilla out of cover design is not always going to work, and I'm damn sure I've screwed it up as many times as I've gotten it right, in the times I've gotten involved in cover design. But just standing around doing the same old thing doesn't serve a live medium. And it doesn't serve the stores that live and die on the results of our invention."

Rich Johnston reports on new "controversial" Intimates cover:

"There has been discernible retailer disquiet that this features a naked teenage breast on the cover. This is not a Mature Readers series, and even they keep their covers tame enough for most US community standards. Amid speculation the colorist didn't hide the "nipplage" as much as may have been intended, is it time for DC Comics to have its own nipplegate?"

Mario Gully's Ant moves to Image, in a move that's sure to make Ed Cunard very very happy indeed:

"I have been bugging Image for years... My goal has always been to be at Image. I love the company. You can see it in my style of art. I bothered [Image Publisher] Erik [Larsen] until he gave me a chance to prove that I was ready for 'prime time' as he calls it. At first on the fence about my ability as a new and young creator in the doors at Image. I had to prove that I was up for the majors. I think I proved it with my new stuff. And that was that."

You know what's not so fun? Moving stuff from your fourth-floor apartment. 30-odd trips up and down those stairs a day for a few days gets kind of tiring, although there is the plus of my now having LEGS OF STEEL. But even less fun is the tale of Bill Messner-Loebs, as related by Newsarama:

"Like many other creators of the time, Loebs found the late ‘90s to be a period of tremendous change, which ultimately left him without regular work. After an auto accident, Loebs and his wife Nadine lost their house in 2001. Loebs’ plight at that point became public knowledge, and the then newly-formed ACTOR, which aids creators who’ve fallen upon hard times, stepped in, and was able to help the couple in their purchase of a mobile home. As The Detroit News article relates, unknown to the Loebs’, the home was full of mold, the seller refused to take it back, and it was stolen months later. Since that time, the Loebs have been living in a hotel in Howell, Michigan. Both volunteer at the Howell Senior Center. Due to medical difficulties, Loebs’ wife unable to hold steady work, and while he’s tried, and continues looking, Loebs has been unable to find steady work."

As my last blog post before the three day horror that is moving weekend, why not direct you all to Dan Didio talking about Identity Crisis, DC Countdown, and all things DC?:

"[T]here’s been a story that’s been unfolding in the DC Universe since the death of Donna Troy. We’ve been dropping secrets and hints and bits and pieces across the DCU since she died. Everything is starting to come together and make sense. Everything is starting to have a cohesive feel and starting to appear like it’s happening in the same place art the same time, and this is something that I think people can invest in and enjoy reading, and enjoy experiencing part of our world. Believe it or not, things that started in that story – back with Donna Troy’s death will finally bear fruit down the line."

Presuming I don't get crushed by some large falling furniture this weekend, normal service resumes on Monday...

Well, This is interesting:

"Ever-Ending Battle is an independent research study focused on the unique relationship between the superhero comic book genre and issues of mortality. The field of Thanatology – the study of a society's perceptions of and reactions to death & dying – has lead in recent decades to the creation of hospice care, enhanced care for the elderly, and increased understanding for victims of loss and trauma. As a mirror to certain aspects of culture, superhero comic books are a fertile yet untapped source of thanatological exploration."

From the mission statement:

"In all, the goal is four-fold: 1) to discern whether any particular, qualitative conventions exist in superhero comic books' treatment of death that are unique to the genre; 2) to explore both how those conventions may have arisen and how they are perpetuated; 3) separately, to analyze how those conventions may continue to affect characterization and storytelling; and 4) to study what impact or influence these conventions have on their audience, and vice versa."

I'm torn between "Hmm, fascinating" and "Someone has too much time on their hands"...

Matt Craig directs those of you who can listen to things via the web here, to listen to the first Alan Moore episode of the BBC's Chain Reaction, where he gets interviewed. There're also outtakes from the show to listen to. Of course, I can't listen right now, but all of you who can, have fun.

Larry Young quotes the Beastie Boys and talks AiT-Planet Lar at The Pulse:

"Our goals only have a tangential relationship to 'the way the current comics industry is,'... Sure, we have to work within the present framework in the direct market, but we have a lot of folks who see the unique value we provide helping us out behind the scenes. So when we offer an innovative presentation, or a new format, or a new category of books, we have a lot of people hoping we succeed. As DC's Bob Wayne is fond of saying, 'A rising tide floats all boats.' ...If you'll allow that 'a rising tide floats all boats,' greater attention to the comics form through manga is nothing but good, since it exposes folks to the form... I've gotten quite a bit of feedback, from the e-mails and my trips to shops, from comics retailers and book store owners up-selling DEMO and ELECTRIC GIRL to new readers of manga. Comics are comics, and if you like words and pictures, juxtaposed, it doesn't matter much whether you read them left to right or right to left. Comics are comics, no matter their country of origin."

The Pulse has December's Sales for Marvel (courtesy of Paul O'Brien) and DC (with some indies, courtesy of Marc Oliver Frisch) up. Go and get depressed.

Frank Tieri shows why he's the only man to write Hercules:

"Ok, so let me ask you a dumb question: it’s Friday night, you’ve got your choice of one super hero you can hang out with … who’s it gonna be? And to all you perverts out there who are about to say She-Hulk or Storm… give it up. You’ve got no shot, fanboy. Spider-Man? What—and listen to him cry in his beer all night about how he can’t pay for Aunt May’s hemorrhoid operation? Batman? Yeah, I guess if hanging out with underage boys in their bloomers all night is your thing, then whatever. And you know if you’re partying with Captain America, you’ve got a lovely evening of Ovaltine poppers and Jello shots made only with Jello at the local Bingo Parlor ahead of you. Nope... the guy you want is my man, Hercules. A typical night hanging with him? He’s about five days into a month-long bender, bombed off his ass in the champagne room, feeding strippers fistfuls of Olympian Ecstasy, after putting about a half dozen bouncers’ heads through various walls. Now there’s the guy you want to party with."

Mark Millar offers help to Bill Loebs:

"I just received an email from Brad Meltzer and he said he'd read the Loeb story via this board. I'd missed this entirely and only just read it, but it's absolutely heart-breaking. Brad suggested we do something and we're racking our brains, but in the meantime he has Bill's details if anyone can spare a few bucks and help him out. I hope I'm not offending him in any way here, but Brad says he'll be cool with this so fingers crossed... Even if you can't help out financially, drop him a line if you've enjoyed his work and tell him how much you appreciate it. Sometimes that's enough to get someone over a bad day or at least bring a little light in."

There's an address and email address for Loebs included, as well as talk of a Paypal account being set up in his name.

Retailer Steven Bates tells the world what he wants from Previews:

"Every comic offered in Previews (or any comic distributor's catalog) should tell me its story upfront. Not the blurby, TV Guide-speak sales pitch, but a real, honest-to-Gosh description of what I and the reader can expect when the book hits the shelf. Not 'The streets of Poughkeepsie cringe in fear as crime runs rampant. Who can bring safety and comfort? Who can stop the babies and sirens from wailing? Who? WHO? Captain Poughkeepsie.' That tells me NOTHING! That's all hype and amateur self-promotion, probably written by the writer or his publisher-Mom. A good solicitation will reveal important details, the kind journalists use to write news: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Who are the characters? What do they do? Where does the story occur? When does the action take place? Why do the characters do what they do, what's their motivation? And How is it presented?

"Publishers don't want to reveal too much, remaining coy about major plot points. Recent super-sellers Identity Crisis and Avengers: Disassembled hinged on the mystery: who dies? Who betrays whom? Why? Readers were sucked-in by the mystery, but many retailers missed the boat, under- and over-ordering these series because of lack of information. I'm not suggesting publishers spill all the beans about upcoming titles, especially storylines driven by mystery, red herring, and last minute denouement. But we're supposed to be partners, here, with one hand washing the other. A little more of the right kind of information, and less hype, would make retailing much easier."

Hey kids! Want a 15-page preview of "alt-comix creators do DC superheroes" book Bizarro World? Go here and get excited.

Stephanie Fierman on her new position at DC:

"There’s an explosion of new kinds of products— graphic novels, manga, etc. We’re learning that, to some extent, there are very different kinds of customers for these products, and these customers have different expectations; they shop in different places. We have to ensure that we reach those customers, and we have to bring in more of them. We want to do a better job of putting our marketing efforts for all kinds of customers under one roof, thinking more strategically about our customers and our channels and finding more of both. This will be the first time in a while that all of the sales and marketing functions are managed as part of a single team."

Newsarama has the press release for the launch of First Second, a new graphic novel imprint from Roaring Books that seems to have at least an idea of the goods - Launch creators include Eddie Campbell, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden:

"'Interest in graphic novels has exploded,' says [imprint editor Mark] Siegel, 'and for good reason. A new generation of outstanding authors and artists is exploring the form in ways that reach far beyond traditional ideas of the comic book. And a new generation of readers raised on a visual world of movies, TV, and video games have adopted the form as their own. FIRST SECOND brings these authors and readers together.' 'Graphic novels are escaping the fringe market and flooding into the mainstream,' adds Simon Boughton, publisher of Roaring Brook Press. 'The best titles are reaching ever wider audiences, both in the United States and the rest of the world. With a list that embraces the most exciting voices in graphic novels, FIRST SECOND bridges countries, genres and ages.'"

Millarworld deal with that age-old question: Marvel Comics - Are they really the financial underdog that they pretend to be? It all starts when John McMahon quotes Peter Cuneo, Marvel CEO, as saying "From a profitability point of view, about 20%, 15-20% of our earnings come from the comic book business. The comic book business of course is very important to us. Not only is it highly profitable. We have about a 35% profit margin on our comic book business and growing very nicely if you look at our track record. But also this is our R&D function. This is where we try out new characters, where we ... rework, re-cosmetize, if you will, other older characters, and try to see what kind of story lines work and so on."

From there, the fans go to work:

"Shut up! Everyone knows Marvei is a poor company, and that AOL COMICS has so much money that the Levitz fella takes daily swims in it! Stop your slandering of those poor souls at Marvel, dammit!"

"Doesn't really prove much. DC still has more money behind them, so can afford to take more risks."

"The other 4/5 - 1/5 from selling crack [...] 1/5 from lotto wins, birthday cards, money found on the street, etc [...] 2/5 from their Toyota dealership"

"This is bullshite, everybody knows Marvel is a non profit organisation"

Mark Millar joins in:

"This is interesting because I always use Peter's argument when talking to big companies about the uniqueness of comics. It costs 100 million to test out a big new character in a movie and it costs TENS of millions to test one out on a computer game or a TV show. But you only have to invest THOUSANDS in a comic to see if a new character will work. It's an amazing petri-dish for companies to test out a product and, as a creator, I like the idea of a lot of companies investing in the industry. I'm surprised the video-game and movie guys don't use comics as R&D a little more than they do. Chances are the quality would be nothing special, but it could be another avenue for new writers and artists to get a break (which is still lacking a bit)."

Yes, Mark, it is amazing that companies don't invest thousands to test-run new movie concepts to a shrinking audience that mostly consists of one narrow demographic that has shown again and again that they don't like anything new. What are they thinking?

J. Hues just isn't feeling the Marvel love:

"Marvel recently revealed their new solicitations for shipping in April 2005 (or early May 2005, surely June by the latest… okay August) and proved once and for all that the well is dry... Can we bring back The Gong Show because somebody needs a gong and I mean they need it bad. Start with the loser who’s been writing Marvel’s solicitation copy of late because if they don’t watch it, Vince McMahon is gonna snatch this person up and have him or her writing dialogue for the WWE. And then beat upside the head with the gong whoever greenlit [the Hercules mini-series]."

Kandora's Chuck Sellner on why new publishers keep popping up:

"Of course, perhaps the most obvious [reason], is someone who believes if they start their own publisher, building a library of properties, developing licensing deals, getting larger cuts of the profit, in place of a standard paycheck, etc, they are essentially going to get rich as a result! Thank the history of those who’ve done just that to this. Those independent creators who started off being starving artists and then made it big with a movie deal, or other payoff inspire many to seek to repeat that success."

Okay, Todd McFarlane aside, which other independent creators have really made it big with a movie deal? Eddie Campbell and Alan Moore, maybe?

Newsarama talks to David Glanzer, director of marketing and PR at Comic-Con about Wondercon:

"Besides the above-mentioned 'Cover Story' [a panel featuring Alex Ross, Neal Adams, Adam Hughes and William Stout, to be moderated by Mark Evanier] we have Kevin Smith and Brian Michael Bendis together on the same panel for the first time, talking about comics, writing, movies, whatever they want to talk about. We have Mark Evanier doing our famous 'Quick Draw' event, which is cartoon improv, with Sergio, Jeff Smith, Steve Leialoha and Scott Shaw, and Evanier will also do his patented Golden/Silver Age panel with Arnold Drake, Creig Flessel and Russ Heath. DC Comics have a number of presentations scheduled. Bongo Comics has a special panel. There are seminars on costuming, fan filmmaking, self-publishing comics. The Charles M. Schulz Museum offers a panel on the art of Peanuts. Hollywood wise, we have Joss Whedon and cast members from Serenity, a panel on Star Wars Episode III with Lucasfilms’ Steve Sansweet, and two of the stars from 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four film, Michael Chiklis and Julian McMahon... and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Three full days of programs, over 60 separate daytime and nighttime events. And that doesn’t even include the surprises that are in store. Our complete programming schedule will be posted on our website around February 1st."

Should I go? Hmmm.

Garth Ennis does Ghost Rider, because, well, there's going to be a movie and someone has to:

"Ghost Rider’s alter ego for the project: Johnny Blaze. Ennis rationale: he’s only ever read the original comics, and has no connection or attachment to Danny Ketch. According to Ennis, the storyline for the miniseries starts in Hell, with Blaze paying for selling his soul (which originally gave him his supernatural powers). In order to escape, Blaze agrees to hunt a runaway demon down on earth, and then becomes embroiled in a plot involving minions and Heaven, Hell, and everywhere in between. According to the [Wizard, which broke the story] article, the miniseries is slated to launch in September, which, barring any delays, will have the final issue out in February, and a trade either later that month, or in March of 2006. It’s Marvel’s (and DC’s, as many Bat-projects are slated for release this summer) strategy at work again – provide a strong comic book tie-in for movie audiences, as the Ghost Rider movie is slated for a summer, 2006 release."

Alias Enterprises launches their books at 75 cents. Mike S. Miller boasts:

"Alias is approached almost daily with people and studios who want to publish with us... As difficult as it is to say 'no', we do have to maintain a level of quality that our fans will expect from our company. As to who we will partner with, Alias is in negotiations with several companies, studios and license holders for various properties and projects. I'd rather not disclose who and what until the ink is dry, but you will be the first to know!"

The V: Unsure about the ending of Mark Millar's Wanted (Spoilers, for those of you who care):

"Millers Pseuds on his site are saying that its a work of genius but I don't get it? The tacked on ending was kinda wtf? And I can't work out which actor/rapist/musician was reference for the Comedian. The odd thing about Wanted was it could have ended exactly how it did at the end of issue 5 and have been no worse for it."

"The moral of the story, and Eminem's face, seems to be that I am a sheep and I should become a genius supervillain, and I've decided to act on this by quitting my job, designing a costume of lizard scales and calling myself The Velociraper."

"The art is ace, of course, but there are frequent incidents of The Goofy-Arse Face. If Millar hadn't insisted on dreamcasting the series, and having Tommy Lee Jones, Hallé Berry and Marshall Mathers dancing around giving it weedledee, instead of just having Jones design some original (ish) characters, then maybe I wouldn't have been yanked out of the story. The writing isn't above average. The plot is above average *for Millar* - well, actullay, it isn't, is it? Not complared to Authority. Oh, I dunno. I like Millar's stuff, on balance, but it's occasionally like finding a sausage roll in your gateaux."

From that point, the thread devolves into just what face would best fit the final caption of the book, before a new thread starts just for that discussion...

(Thanks, Alex)

A retailer complains about Marvel's trade paperback program:

"If Marvel doesn't want to make reorders of monthly books available, fine. But Marvel has a responsibility to keep their entire tpb line in print all the time. Why? Because many, many retailers have invested significant amounts of dollars and shelf space to promote these manufactured storylines. If Marvel responds by saying that at any given time, a varying 80% of the line is available, that is not good enough, especially when some titles are unavailable for long periods of time. 100% availability 100% of the time -- nothing less is acceptable. It's a matter of corporate responsibility."

It had to happen. Matt Fraction and Joe Casey talk comic blogs:

"There's a bravery to being an early adopter that I don't see much of in the comics blogosphere as a whole. These days, fandom in general is such a game of Chasing The Shiny Object that it doesn't even seem to be part of anyone's hard wiring to discover and commit to something that -- at first -- no one else knows about. Again, it gets back to bloggers talking about what other bloggers are talking about, just to achieve that sense of psuedo-human connection. The comics blogosphere as a concept thrives when everyone is commenting on each other's views on Grant's run on X-MEN. Not so much when one blog decides to champion the merits of a run on OBSCURA-MAN written and drawn by creators who ain't on the WIZARD Top Ten list. Unfortunately, that's the blog that I want to read, because the commitment to said subject matter is genuine and often thought provoking. Something like The Comic Treadmill is a good example. A few anonymous posters writing fairly extensively about all kinds of comics-related stuff, from discussion of the latest releases to in-depth overviews of the 1980's series, BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS. I dig that shit, man."

Newsarama reports that Viz and ShoPro have joined forces to take over the world:

"The new company will now have access to properties from two of Japan’s largest publishers, Shuesiha and Shogakukan (the two joined forces in 2003, creating VIZ, LLC) and now the in-house ability to quickly move the properties into other media and products. Given Viz’s placement in the North American manga market, the new company formed by the merger will automatically be the largest manga producer in the US, given their regular offerings and backlist."

Tony Bedard on his experience in comics:

"I was a complete @$$ back at Valiant. These days, I’m only half-@$$ed. But I’ll always be grateful for what a glorious fiasco Valiant turned out to be. Back then, I really thought Valiant was here to stay, and that I must be some kind of special person for rising so quickly in that organization. Having that place implode around me and being laid off turned out to be the best thing that could happen to me. I’ll never take an assignment or a reader for granted again. By the time I came to CrossGen, there was a lot of talk about people 'drinking the Kool-aid' and believing the hype. I drank the Kool-aid at Valiant, and it inoculated me from a lot of the smoke and mirrors I’ve encountered at every job I’ve held since. Unfortunately, even though I could see the end of CrossGen coming long before it arrived, I couldn’t do much to warn the folks in charge. Any red flags I sent up only got me branded a 'Chicken Little.' So I just made sure that I had another assignment to jump to when the good ship CrossGen went belly-up, and I tried to hook up as many friends as I could with the folks I knew at DC and Marvel. Not that they needed me to hook them up. If nothing else, CrossGen was a great incubator for talent, and now folks like Karl Moline, Paul Pelletier, Scot Eaton, Andrea DeVito, Steve McNiven, Morry Hollowell and Frank D’Armata are out there doing great work and getting noticed because they used their time at CrossGen to its fullest. As for me, the years jumping from one publisher to the next - Valiant to Malibu to Broadway to Crusade to DC to CrossGen to freelance fun at Marvel and Avatar - have been a great education. Two years working in Billy Tucci’s basement, and I’ll never fear another job again! (But I still love ya, Billy!)"

My new favorite Millarworld thread:

"I was thinking about his work and it generally doesn't stray too far from the fairly... vacuous style, relying quite heavily on Deux Ex Machina endings. I thought early Ultimates showed promise in terms of character depth, with particular reference to Cap's visit to the aging Bucky. However, like in all good action movies, the scene was merely an interlude before we got on with the head kicking. So, what has Mark done that has real depth and/or emotional impact? I couldn't think of anything, hence the post. I haven't read everything he's done, but I've read most. I'd be interested to know if I've missed something from his bibliography that's worth hooking out."

"To be honest I enjoy the popcorn movie effect that Mark goes for but I truly believe that he has the ability to pull off something genuinely emotional and moving, but for whatever reason holds back. Maybe he just doesnt want to let that sort of thing come out yet in his work."

"In my opinion Mark's best and most deep work has been: The Authority [...] Wanted [and] his run on Swamp Thing [...] I enjoy lots of his other stuff like Wolvie and Ultimates but id rate the 3 above as the most entertaining and deep."

"I'll go for The Ultimates. Hank and Jan felt very real to me, Cap's taking on Giant Man was a bit of spot-on characterization... and the head-kicking was top notch."

"Gotta say that Hank beating the shit out of Janet and the ensuing ass-kicking via Captain America made me stop and say Holy Shit! Don't forget when Midnighter beat the Iron Man ripoff (can't remember the name) by simply talking to him. That was incredible. Not at all what you expect from a character like that and he was being honest about it!"

"Ok, I know I'm new to Millar, but he has written some of the best moments I've ever read in a comic book. They mightn't have effected me in the way you were hoping for, but I just enjoyed reading them so much. 1) Cap taking down the hulk [...] 2) Cap beating the living christ out of Giant Man with his bare hands [...] 3) and who could forget, 'Surrender?? You think this letter on my head stands for France?!?!' [...] classic. might not be as a effecting as you you hoped for, but reading these made me sing inside"

Rich Johnston has an amusingly literal example of the covering-up of nudity in Frank Cho's new Shanna series in this week's LITG.

Marv Wolfman and Mario Ruiz team up to produce a comic history of Israel. Newsarama goes nuts:

"Sounds like propaganda to me."

"i wonder if it will detail the terrorist bombing campaign against the british army in the 1950's, led by men who are now part of the current Israeli government...now there's a terrorist success story!"

"Ah yes, let the bashing of the Jewish nation begin... [saracasm]Of course, the Palestinians are so much better. Abbas is a great man who does not condone terrorism.[/saracasm] What bullsh**! Israel is one of the few true allies the US has in the Middle East. As well as the only functioning democracy over there. Oh, and funny thing, in the nation itself Jewish, Palestinian and Christian people live side by side in peace. It is merely the terrorists and Israeli defense that makes the news, big surprise. Anyhow, I for one look forward to this. Like was mentioned above though, I am a bit apprehensive that 120 pages might be a little light. After all, it would take more than 120 pages to do a short synopsis of the wars that Israel has had to fight in the 20th century alone."

Blair Marnell wasn't the only one at the Future of Image Isotope party on Saturday, as I played hooky from painting the new house for a couple of hours to say hello and apologise to various people as well (Scroll down to the preview art for Strange Girl and Sea of Red at ATR, by the way. Much niceness). I also managed to grab some new Image books appearing soon, including The Amazing Joy Buzzards, which writer Mark Smith talks up here with amazing synchronicity:

"'The Amazing Joy Buzzards' is part Scooby Doo fun, part 'Speed Racer' action, and part 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' retro feel, with rock and roll thrown into the fun [...] Scooby Doo was an influence for the fun, and Speed Racer for the amount of adrenaline we wanted this book to have... It's a day in the life of an adventure band [...] And that could mean anything. Zombies, supernatural models, all could be around the next corner."

It's like the Monkees, if the Monkees was an Adult Swim cartoon with art by a scientifically-created mix of Jamie Hewlett, Mike Mignola and Jim Mahfood. In other words, it's fucking great.

Pete Tomasi, editor on Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers project, talks to Newsarama:

"It sounds like a company line, but I felt [that the original pitch] was truly epic and filled with great characters who were amazingly fleshed out, along with story beats that played out refreshingly unexpectedly and resonated through all the books. I can't wait for this to be collected at some future point, because it would be great to include Grant's pitch proposal in all its wild and unfettered glory. To read how he saw such a massive project like this in his mind's eye was truly a treat. When Grant sends you a proposal he's not screwing around. It's all there, concept, tone, big ideas, little details, all the dots are there, and my job is to just get out of the way and help them get connected in the best presentation as possible."

The John Byrne Board on characters Marvel has dropped the ball with:

"Hawkeye, Hank Pym, Thor, Spider-Mam, Green goblin, Gwen Stacy, Dr.Doom, darkhawk, Sla[stick, Willie Lumpkin, someguy that appeared in a issue of. You know its just easier to say M***** is pure garbage with little redeeming qualities."

"I don't buy that. Yeah, they've f**ked up on quite a few of their characters, but there are good books being published by them despite the EIC in charge. You've just got to look for them."

"How ironic that M****l is now the company that most needs a cosmic "makeover". I haven't read anything published by them for a couple years now, but I still love the characters."

Get Warren Ellis started on the subject of covers, and there's goodness to be had:

"There are two halves to learning to write comics. Learning the medium, and learning to write -- and you don't do the latter from reading comics. You do it from reading everything, from studying any and all narrative media you can get in front of. And, in the same way, you don't learn to build comics covers from looking at comics. You take from everywhere and then apply it back to comics. I absolutely shudder at most comic shop shelves because it all blends together. Just a mass of generic imagery. Often well-illustrated, but after a while one Elvis on black velvet looks much like another, you know?"

Tom Spurgeon talks to Stan Lee's lawyer at The Pulse:

"Pulse: Let me ask you the standard layman's question: what happens now?

Graff: My easiest response to that is that despite Marvel's public position that they're appealing and that they'll fight to the last breath, I guess, I'm hoping that after they've had a chance to reconsider their position, maybe after licking their wounds a bit, they'll recognize that they have an obligation to Stan and just honor that obligation."

It's semantic day over at Millarworld:

"I just can't stand the use of the word creator to describe a comic book writer or artist or creative team. It's just too vague. I could see 'author,' but creator just doesn't really precisely describe what these people do. Every artist or writer or filmmaker creates. Even when you 'create' a character, that isn't exactly what the person involved is doing. He or she is a writer or artist or even editor and in the process of doing one of those (or a couple of those) activities, they originated a character or setting or idea. I could see the term, slightly, used when referring to, say, Mark Millar, as the Co-creator of the Ultimates. But, really, even then he is primarily the Writer of the Book. Hitch is the Penciller of the book. Just calling them 'creators' and leaving it at that drives me crazy."

"'Creator' is one level of categorization. I don't see the reason to hate it. Humans are males and females (for the most part). Creators, when speaking of comics, are writers, pencillers, inkers, colorists, letterers (letterists?). It's a short-hand to make it easier to convey certain ideas. And of course, it can be misused. If all you ever called Hitch and Millar, with respects to Ultimates, was 'creators', you would be leaving out a lot of data in your discussion. Also, I think it's fair to say that right now writers are 'hot'. I, for instance, follow writers, not artists. But when it comes to creating a book, from concept to shelve, it's important to properly credit all involved. Saying all are 'creators' can help with that. It can be used as an even level of acknowledgement."

"I wouldn't classify a "Fill in" artist or writer, like Liefeld or something, as a "creator", these guys just take the prexisting characters and environments and put them through their paces. On the other hand, if someone thinks up the core ideas behind a character, like Stan Lee did for most of the early Marvel characters, then he deserves the title of 'creator', certainly. 'Creators' are generally writers, as they create the "soul" of the character, and even generally have a lot of influence on how the character looks, while a penciller generally only works on the surface of the character. As they say, it's what's inside that counts. Credit is deserved where credit is due, I mean I wouldn't complement Chuck Dixon on how cool Nightwing's costume is, but nor would I complement Bryan Hitch on what a 'great character' Ultimate Cap is. Sure, he has an influence on Cap's character, but not nearly as much as Millar (not that Millar can truly be considered a creator in this case either, since all he did was re-invision pre-existing characters). A creator, someone who comes up with and develops the core of a character, however, is always deserving of respect, and that title."

What's that, you say? You'd like to see some upcoming Losers covers by Jock? Well, luckily, Andy Diggle has the next five issues' worth...

Mark Millar was in my dream last night, oddly enough. He was at a party thrown by my boss, and I remember thinking that maybe he wasn't so bad after all, and that all his posing is explainable away as a relatively harmless way to try to market himself as cool and edgy to a particular audience. And then, this morning I saw this (it's the comment to Jim McLaughlin I'm referring to, in case you couldn't tell), and came to my senses.

Oh Jesus Christ.

(Via Chip at Larry's.)

What started as a complaint about the cancellation of Human Target quickly turns into a larger discussion at Micah Wright's forum:

"[W]hy doesn't DC just surrender and give up on monthly periodicals for non-superhero work? They could put out the first issue and then put out the full book three months later if they're worried about people being unwilling to buy a book sight unseen. OR, just do what the Japanese do: Vertigo Monthly, a magazine-sized graphic monthly. 1 Sandman story, 1 chapter of Human Target, 1 chapter of Losers, 1 chapter of Hellblazer, and 1 random new try-out series. Build it and they will come. Sell the fucker on the newstands right next to the manga compilations. The magazine sales will offset the costs of printing the eventual books, and a monthly magazine sold in stores will sell a HELL of a lot better than the comics of these books will. Ooops, that's it, isn't it? DC's unwilling to embrace the bookstore/magazine stand market for fear of pissing off their traditional retailer market. Well guess what, angry retailers? NONE OF YOU ARE ORDERING THE FUCKING VERTIGO BOOKS IN THE FIRST PLACE. DC should dump Vertigo right into the bookstore market where their real audience is anyway, and let the fanboy enthusiasts turned retailers get back to ordering their superhero wank like they want to. Or, just keep licensing work from Japan and canceling your domestic creators' best work until there's nothing left of it and you're the new Viz/Tokyopop. Whatever. I don't care anymore."

"DC has the strongest trade paperback progrma of any major publisher with the psosible exception of Tokyo Pop and does exceptionally well in bookstores. While it doesn't sell the numbers Tpop does on initial release it has substantially higher cover prices and does much better in back-list. Supposedly Levitz has said that Shonen Jump is a massive money-pit with Viz keeps going to buy market presence and character recognition. DC has Smallville, Teen Titans and JLU cartoons and various movies and cartoons in re-runs and sudnciation ot give them that character recognition... Nobody outside of Warner really knows how profitable Dc is but its worth noting that their dollar market share via Diamond is are 30% versus Marvel's 33%. Dc does better than Marvel in bookstores and newstands (suppsoedly the Cartoon Network books are THE best-selling comics on newsstands). Marvel is currently highly profitable. There's no real reason to assume DC isn't."

"Yes, DC -does- have the strongest bookstore trade paperback program of any major publisher. With the exception of Tokyopop. So a 50-year old company with three of the biggest characters in creation is running behind an upstart company which sells reprints? The only reason I can see as to why is format: comic-book size 'trade paperbacks' do not fit on standard bookstore shelving. They're also overpriced compared to their smaller, black-and-white brethren [...which] can fit in a purse or in a bag or in a largish coat pocket... Look at the Manga section when you go to a bookstore... all neatly racked by title. The comic section is a freaking mess, invariably racked face out, Archie mixed in with Superman mixed in with Authority mixed in with From Hell. No rhyme, no reason, nothing appealing whatsoever. The format has changed, but DC/Marvel are standing still and insisting that it hasn't. This is just like the 1980s when the Japanese started selling compact cars and Detroit sniggered and said 'ahh, no one wants those tiny cars' -- and then almost went out of business."

"Manga is easy to display, and the art design is much better. Having the thicker books means that the spines are easier to read from a distance. I don't think that shrinking the entire Vertigo line down to manga digest size will do much other than make the books harder to read. The titles that you listed are done for the demographic US publishers most ignore - children and teens. Vertigo's target audience is completely different to Tokyopop's. In my mind, that's why manga has done so well in the past few years. They've identified a target audience and churned out material to suit it. DC Vertigo is trying to crack an adult reading audience, with modest success. Uzumaki would be a better book to use as a comparison."

Josh Richardson gives the world a day in the life of the Isotope comic lounge:

"Oh! And who just walked in the door? Why AiT/Planer Lar’s own Larry Young. And what did he bring with him? Why, it’s the Couriers 3 (NOV04 2305) color key! The book isn’t for another week or two and Larry brings in this piece of art along with the blue lines for Couriers itself. I wish I could convey how hot this book is. Isotope is the place to see stuff before it’s out. A lot of never-before -seen books will be viewable at the Future of Image party at the ‘tope this Saturday. Whoa, and look, another pro just came in with Mr. Young! It’s none other than Last of the Independents’ (APR03 1915) and Sea of Red’s (JAN05 1615) Kieron Dwyer with his faithful dog Max! He’ll be here at the Isotope on Saturday showing off 16 pages of Sea of Red that haven’t been seen before anywhere! Goddamn this is an exciting place to be. We’re way past lunch now, and even Ian is done and finally getting his grub on. It’s still a bit tame right now, but from what I hear there’s another rush coming."

"Kieron Dwyer and his faithful dog Max" has to become a Saturday morning cartoon somewhere. Meanwhile, later in the thread, Larry Young slips Josh an exclusive preview of Filler, the new graphic novel by the people who brought you Teenagers From Mars, to show everyone...

Tom Spurgeon continues his association with The Pulse with an article about Stan Lee's lawsuit against Marvel:

"Today's legal victory drips with irony on two fronts. First, by allowing into the contract the section in which Lee was granted the 10 percent rights, Marvel is in exactly the kind of legal battle, one that may cast a pall on its future business dealings, that it hoped to avoid in the first place. It's a lawsuit for a percentage of the character's profits rather than full ownership, but as seen today, it's a suit with a much brighter legal forecast.

"Second, Lee essentially left 1998's negotiating table with a few obligations, a healthy paycheck, and legal right to a few pet phrases. The free agent status granted Lee made the failed Internet company Stan Lee Media possible, and moved Stan closer to an ardent supporter during his negotiations with Marvel: his SLM co-partner, one-time international fugitive and current jailbird Peter Paul. That same contract may contain the seeds to restore Stan to the riches that the Internet never delivered."

Elektra: Threat or Menace? Millarworld investigates:

"[A]re comic movies helping the industry at all? Are all the bad ones hurting it more than a bad story arc or bad artist? Should Marvel give up before they waste any more money? Should DC bother with more than Batman and Superman?"

"Super Heroine movies have no market. It's that simple. Wonder Woman might have a shot with Whedon at the helm, but more than likely it will succeed as a Whedon movie as opposed to a Wonder Woman movie. Marvel should stick to Spider-Man and X-Men. DC should just do Batman and Superman. Oh and let's face it. Fantastic Four is going to suck. Just looking at the pictures of the cast makes me wonder wtf they were thinking. That's two bombs in a row for Marvel. Three bombs if you count Catwoman from WB..."

"I dunno. I think the main problem I have with comic-book movies is the implication - which is rampant in many other aspects of the comic industry itself - that comics are basically poor-man's movies. A lot of comics really just read like storyboards for a screenplay that nobody would produce. The medium seems to naturally attract more talented artists than writers. I can name a dozen comics artists off the top of my head that I would stack up with any illustrator or painter you can name. But I have a hard time naming writers that do better work than most of the novelists I read. Somewhere along the line, I think comics writers neglect to study what makes the comic medium itself important or unique. The mentality remains 'I gotta make this as good as a movie if that movie didn't have any budget limitations!' And so you get a bunch of comics that are basically technically ambitious movie scripts. So finally they make the movies, as the technology improves to the point that those scripts aren't so unreachably ambitious as the writers thought at the time. The concept that the two mediums are drastically different is barely, if ever, addressed, and you end up with an unconciously awkward translation, because the creators on BOTH sides of the equation (film and comics) don't understand the difference. No, I don't think the movies are doing comics any good. Look at the evidence. How many millions of dollars have been made in comic-book-based movies in the last few years? It's gone up and up. Meanwhile, where have comics sales been going? Down and down. There's nothing for it, I think. It's a host of silly expectations, all around. The Incredibles still totally rocked."

This sneaked out on the Newsarama sidebar yesterday:

"Corbis (www.corbis.com), a leading provider of complete visual solutions, and Marvel Enterprises, Inc., (NYSE:MVL) a leading global entertainment and licensing company, today announced an agreement to make Marvel's world-renowned Super Heroes available for use through Corbis. The deal grants Corbis with the rights to license Marvel's digital content for editorial and commercial use on a global basis. Under the new multi-year license agreement, Corbis represents the rights to thousands of images featuring Marvel's expansive library of more than 5,000 characters -- including such ever-popular figures as Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, The X-Men, Elektra, and Captain America - and makes them available for use in print and broadcast media. The arrangement provides creatives with simple access to Marvel character art and the rights clearance services necessary to use them in editorial and commercial advertising projects."

Over on The Comics Journal messageboard, Les Toil looks at an overlooked aspect of a comic master's work:

"As long as I've been posting here (like two years now?) I don't recall anyone bringing up--let alone paying homage to--veteran Marvel artist Gene Colan's propensity to draw massive (and I mean massive) feet. So allow me to be the first. What can one say? This is a man who, for reasons only he and his psychiatrist truly understand, likes to draw men's (and occasionally women's!) feet bigger than bread boxes. Rarely does he draw a foot less than twice the size of your average head and at least the length of the average man's forearm. Did he believe the size of a man's feet were indicative of his power and strength?? Or maybe this was his way of saying the super beings that inhabited The Mighty Marvel Universe were all hung like horses (you've all heard the old wives tale that you can tell the size of a man's Johnson by the size of his feet). Or further, did Colan use his vocation as a comic artist to nurture a foot fetish??"

There's more, including pictorial representations on said feet, at the link.

The law sides with Lee. Newsarama reports:

"Following up on the lawsuit filed by Stan Lee in November of 2002, Marvel today announced that it had received a decision on the partial summary judgment motions made by Lee and Marvel in Lee’s litigation against Marvel. In his lawsuit, Lee claimed that Marvel owed him millions of dollars due to its 'shameful scheme' in which Marvel reneged on its deal with Lee to pay him 10% of profits earned from Hollywood films based on Marvel characters... According to Marvel’s statement, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has sided with Lee, and ruled that he is entitled to 10% of the profits Marvel has received since November 1998, 'for the right to produce and distribute motion pictures and television productions based on Marvel's characters, and from movie-based toys manufactured and sold by Marvel itself.' Marvel states that the court rejected Lee’s claim to monies received by Marvel from thirds party licensees of movie-based merchandise."

When reached for comment, Lee apparently told reporters "Excelsior, true believers!"

Comics: Should the medium always be small and self-consciously cool? Millarworld ponders:

"Just a thought. With all the corporate efforts to splash a million dollar, world beloved, Peter Parker, Clark Kent, is the industry losing sight of it's core audience? Comics have always been associated with sub-culture. Normal (and who the fuck wants to be normal) people don't bother to read them, or they'd sell in droves. Most of the ultimately succesful archetypes embrace the outsider/loner aspects of the mythology. A small, freakish, segment of the world's population actually bothers to read them. Are corporate comics turning off their target audience, the angsty, uneasy, pre-teen/teen, in their efforts to become as commonplace in the Popular Mindscape as Wonder Bread©? This may be a bullshit topic, the responses will tell, but, what if? Are they un-cooling themselves?"

"Comics need to become something that kids don't want there parents to know that they're reading, you know, like manga."

"Over about 7-8 years, I've sold around 400-500 copies of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #1, and similar quantities of the other issues, as well as Squee and I Feel Sick #1-2. There's something about these books that appeal to a large group of people, but it's so far from 'mainstream' that a lot of people wouldn't look at it twice. There's a fair amount of books like this. They're the thing you hide from your parents because they think it's bad for you. They're the thing you show your friends on the bus on the way home from school, and the snicker like, well, kids looking at something they shouldn't be. Comics need to be that thing that makes you stand out, say 'I don't give a f*ck about what anyone else thinks, I read this and f*ck you if you don't like it,' and you know you're better than everyone else for reading. They shouldn't be things that people read in their bedrooms, hidden away from the world. People should walk down the street reading comics, screaming at the top of their lungs 'I LOVE COMICS! F*CK YOUR MAINSTREAM CORPORATE BOOKS!' People with brightly colored hair should read comics. Comics should cater to people with brightly colored hair."

The Comic Pimp is back, and all about 2000AD:

"Instinctually I knew these were the kind of comics that gave comics a bad reputation with my old man and these were the kind of comics that scared the wits out of people back in the 50's. Only they weren't comics from a by-gone era, these were the comics of today, born into a surreal modern age where Ronald Reagan was trying to designate ketchup as the vegetable portion in my school hot lunch and where the space shuttle was burning up with our teachers inside. To my adolescent mind science was smelling distinctly of fiction, and the shocking futures foretold in the pages of my '2000ADs' were only funny because they seemed so... true. And I can't deny the appeal of another aspect of '2000AD.' Like the music I was increasingly listening to, the comic didn't give a shit what you thought of it and could care less if you didn't approve of the strange and horrific noise it made. It was the height of gloriousness to my hormone-addled teenage mind how effortlessly '2000AD' flipped the bird to every other comic at my local shop; it didn't give a damn what Batman and the Avengers thought of it being a dirty and mis-shapen space anthology comic that refused to fit in some acid-free box. And frankly, '2000AD' was too busy kicking ass, being ironic, and generally blowing shit up to be bothered to get color on every page. My kind of comic!"

John Byrne waxes nostalgic for Jim Shooter's Marvel:

"If there can be said to be one event which pushed Shooter over onto the Dark Side, it was SECRET WARS. Shooter had always maintained that Marvel (read: Jim Shooter) would rather produce a great book that got poor sales (he would cite Roger Stern's brilliant run on DOCTOR STRANGE) and a POS that sold thru the roof. Then he went on to do what might well be the biggest POS ever -- and it sold so high we actually had to build new roofs for it to sell thru. Which meant, of course, that he had to convince himself that the reason SW sold so well was that it was a brilliant piece of work -- not that it was crap that happened to be wall-to-wall superheroes. It was after the success of SW that we started getting notes from Shooter that would say 'See SECRET WARS #____ for how to do this right!'"

Stuart Moore takes over Firestorm:

"One thing I want to do with Firestorm is ground the stories a little more in real physics [...] The original book had a lot of science-based villains, and we're going to get back to that. You'll see some new enemies right away, starting with a man who's literally made of Dark Matter -- the mysterious stuff that exists out in space, between the stars. Of course, any real physicists will probably laugh their asses off at the science. But that's part of the fun of comics... Basically he can channel energy through himself and transform matter into energy, or into other types of matter [...] Ultimately, Firestorm can do anything. But Jason Rusch is still learning what that means... Jason's a fascinating character; his relationship with his dad is particularly tense and interesting. I'm also very conscious of the fact that Firestorm is the only DC/Marvel superhero book on the market with an African-American protagonist. This month, at least."

The Onion talks to Los Bros Hernandez. Gilbert on Palomar:

"I just didn't want to ruin it. I didn't want to continue on like a television show that people enjoy and then they complain about the last two seasons or whatever. Or a great comic strip that just should've ended at a certain time. You know, an artist doesn't know his own decline. So I basically destroyed the town with an earthquake. I wouldn't be able to return to it if I wanted to, except maybe in flashback stories. The only regret I have is that there are characters I left there. Carmen and Heraclio and Sheriff Chelo I miss dearly, but I can't figure out how to do them again without making it too easy, like bringing them to America... Most of the characters I'll just fade out, and the reader wouldn't even notice they're gone. I'm a little stronger that way. In the old days, I just could not leave characters alone. Now I just try to keep the ones that still have something in the way of stories to."

Jaime on working with the same characters for decades:

"I would always have to keep some little speck of what came before, just to keep a sense of life... a past, you know? What's been before really helps give what's happening now so much more worth... the continuity really comes from seeing someone's life pass: what they're like when they're five, and then what they're like when they're 20, and then what they're like when they're 35. It just makes it all the more real when you know a person has a past. It's like the way we live our lives, you know? Life isn't all that exciting if it doesn't have what came before."

Those of you who were wondering what Mike Netzer's been up to recently? Wonder no more:

"Fellow TALK@Newsaramans,

"Our revered moderator, Matt Brady, recently posted the following question and comment at a Fanboy Rampage comments popup to a hot article which ran there: who do I talk to about getting the reputaion of having the wackiest board back? Not sure how I lost it... The question came on the heals of the frenzy generated from the Fanboy Rampage article which can be seen here. It was a followup to a previous article which can be seen here and is familiar to us as the post, For Truth, Justice and the American Way which also ran here at TALK@Newasarama last week.

As can be seen from the link in the article at Fanboy Rampage, this constructive wackiness originated at the Millarworld forums with this thread which was locked for discussion by the moderators and resulted in the highly entertaining fiasco that received great publicity at Fanboy Rampage and caused our moderator to ask for the return of such constructive wackiness back here to TALK@Nesarama. Please note the enthusiasm of the readers in the comments popup windows of both articles at Fanboy Rampage... Seeing how comics fandom and journalism, American pop culture and news reporting institutes are indicating their enthusiasm for this venture - and seeing that we have 6 months in order to raise the voice of the people from comics fandom - and seeing how our moderator, Matt Brady has raised the call for such constructive activity here at TALK@Newsarama, I'd like to offer the folowing proposal: I propose that we, the TALK@Newsarama membership, take the initiative now and establish a pre-campaign activity center for The Comic Book Creator's Party, here at TALK@Newsarama.

"This will entail the coordination of members interested and willing to pitch in to do so through the participation in several active threads which will run here couninuously and from which we spread out tentacles into the rest of comics fandom and the wide media at large."

There is more, oh so much more, here. But it gets better. Over at Millarworld, Netzer then starts this thread:

"Fellow Millarworlders, lend me your eyes! Behold! Behold, fellow Millarworlders what Matt Brady has embarked on doing at TALK@Newsarama!! The Newsaramans have come out like thieves in the night to pluck the fruits of the blood, sweet and tears we all gave here at Millarworld and are now reaping the harvest of the operational genius of ED Contradictory, Michael Tegler, Patrick Ayers and a host of Millarworld moderators who gave this groundbreaking story to the world through the prophetic reporting of the Fanboy Rampageans! The Newsaramans have taken our story and are claiming it as their own in their bid to steal the hearts of the comic book creators!!

"What's more, it was we, here at Millarworld who birthed the grounbreaking item and commentary in the Hit and Run op-ed published by one of the most respected mainstream sociopolitical journals in America today, Reason magazine! Matt Brady and his Newsaramans have embarked on grand theft larceny of our hard efforts! Can we stand by and allow this travesty to continue!! NO! NAY!! AND NEVER!! Fear not fellow Millarworlders! I have infiltrated the ranks of TALK@Newsarama and have procured a copy of their strategies for the domination of comic book fandom through the theft of the hearts of the comid book creators.

"Based on the information in my hands, I now propose the following method of retalliation: I propose that we, the Millarworld forum membership, take the initiative now and establish a retalliatory pre-campaign activity center for The Comic Book Creator's Party, here at the Wierd, the Stupid & the Ugly section of Millarworld. This, of course, unlesss MR. Miller and the enlightened staff of Millarworld moderators deem fit to give a separate new section at Millarworld for this venture! ...The nature of this activity center will be unlike anything else ever seen in the history of the internet.

"This will be a free and spontaneous effort generated by us all, with no encumbering tasks on anyone who doesn't desire it. Everyone can work at their pace, spurted by their own creative resolve, according to their own ability. This effort will quickly spread into a web communications network from here and into the cyberworld and eventually cover the entirety of comicdom and media and communications outlets with its spectacular call to raise the Brave spirit for America and the Bold hope for the World. This is the only method we will be able to overcome the onslaught of the army now being raised at TALK@Newsarama! This web we will weave, will even become the green envy of Peter Parker himself, the master webspinners of our comics world. With this, we will bring back the power and the glory to Millarworld which the hordes of TALK@Newsarama are attempting to take from us - and grant our courageous leader, Mark Miller himself, his long deserved opportunity to lead the comics into their glorious and noble destiny which awaits. It's time to come together, fellow Millarworlders, the call to war has been sounded and we have a home to protect here at Millarworld!!"

Coming up next: Netzer posts on the Bendis Board to say that he heard that Millarworld had said that their mothers were ugly, and the only way to get them back is so join his political party.

Courtesy of Millarworld, leaked Marvel solicits. Of note:

* It's Spider-Man month! Which means that we get some Spider-Mini-Series - Toxin (a Peter Milligan-written revamp of the Venom/Carnage concept) and Breakout!, the spin-off prison break story from New Avengers. Meanwhile, Amazing's solicit says "Springing out of the pages of NEW AVENGERS, you won’t believe what the fickle hand of fate has in store for Peter Parker, Mary Jane, and Aunt May..." Shh. Let's all pretend that we don't know that they're all moving into Avengers Tower.

* Power Pack return - because one of you demanded it!: "Readers of all ages rejoice as Marvel's youngest team of super heroes returns for more awesome action, family fun and Snark-stomping adventures in this brand new series! It's the triumphant return of everyone's favorite super-powered siblings--Alex, Julie, Jack and Katie--in brand-new stories that are sure to delight new readers and longtime fans alike!
In this issue: Katie Power is ready to reveal her secret super-hero life to the world... and it's up to her siblings to stop her before the truth can come back to haunt them! Better act fast, kids... 'cause the Snarks are coming!"

Yes, that's right. The Snarks are coming.

* Hercules gets revived: "Reeling from the tragic death of Thor, the Prince of Power knows his star is fading fast. So what better way to pump up his Q-rating than to relive his defining moment? When his most bitter foe throws down the gauntlet, Hercules agrees to the challenge: Twelve labors, each more perilous than the one before it -- and each updated for reality-TV consumption. Zounds!"

* Dan Slott revives the Great Lakes Avengers: "They are the Great Lake Avengers, the guys who got the shortest end of the super-hero stick. But with the REAL Avengers disassembled, they’re going to try to step up to the plate and deal with one of their most powerful villains! Can they save the day? Well, we just hope these guys can save themselves!
THIS ISSUE: A GREAT LAKE AVENGER DIES! (Besides Mr. Immortal, duh.)"

* Goddammit if Layman hasn't made Gambit sound like it'd be worth a look: "It’s bad enough that the living dead are overrunning New Orleans, but one of the zombies just happens to be the reanimated corpse of an invulnerable super-villain! Even with the help of Brother Voodoo, Gambit’s going to have a hard time surviving."

DC's April solicits are up. Of note:

* Countdown fallout begins in the shape of two mini-series: Day of Vengence, written by Bill Willingham and apparently dealing with the supernatural DC Universe characters, and The OMAC Project, written by Greg Rucka:

"Every hero and villain in the DCU is under the gaze of an unbelievably powerful spy satellite. It's a technological marvel that answers to only one person — and he's got plans for it that are completely unknown to the superspy organization he controls: Checkmate! In a world where men can fly and melt metal with their eyes, there's now an army created specifically as an answer to them: a One Man Army Corps. Batman and an old ally are about to learn the chilling truth behind the OMAC Project — but will they work with or against each other?"

* Seven Soldiers continues to launch: Zatanna and Klarion The Witch Boy are this month's titles.

* Howard Chaykin takes over Solo:

"Chaykin revisits the old West in 'Tall in the Saddle;' heads to the future in the science-fiction epic 'Upgrades;' plays a World War II jazz tune in 'The Last Time I Saw Paris;' shows the terror of urban violence with 'Bad Blood;' and infiltrates the spy genre with 'Breaking and Entering.' Chaykin even guest-stars in his own story, the autobiographical yarn simply titled 'Horrors.'"

The cover's nice, too:



Chaykin also launches a new series from Wildstorm, City of Tomorrow.

* Some great superhero collections: The Brave And The Bold Team Up Archives, The New Frontier volume 2, a collection of Superman/Flash races...

* Surprise surprise: James Jean does more beautiful work:





And that's not mentioning the already discussed Vertigo First Taste and Batman: Year One reissue...

John Byrne hits quotation gold again, in a thread about whether he creates characters or not.

On Chris Claremont's prediliction for strong female characters:

"Chris is very protective of his reputation for writing 'strong female characters'. Back when we were doing POWER MAN & IRON FIST I challenged him to come up with a girlfriend for Luke who was a total ditz. Some slef-involved airhead who would, in fact, be not at all the kind of woman you would expect Cage to be attracted to. To this end, Chris came up with a supermodel character who appeared in one of our first issues (perhaps the first, I don't recall) -- but even before I departed he was talking about how she could turn out to have a 'head for math' and end up doing Luke's books for them. Archie Goodwin and I had a small chuckle together about that one!"

On his similarities to Wolverine:

"Oddly enough, it turns out I do have a 'superhuman healing factyor'. My periodontist has been amazed (to the point of wanting to document it for courses he teaches) by the speed with which my jaw bones, badly eaten away by the periodontal disease, have not only regenerated but, in some cases, actually grown too much! (When he opened my gums to expose the posts for my implants, he discovered the bone had actually gown over them!) This discovery served to explain a wee mystery that has been with me since I was a lad. When I was five years old I suffered a crippling bone disease that almost cost me my right leg. I recovered without amputation, but only just! However, my parents were told that everyone who had ever had this surgery had developed a pronounced limp*, as the bones would not grow properly in that leg. I have no limp -- and now I guess I know why!"

New Invaders writer Allan Jacobson talks about his book, an upcoming Wolverine crossover, Marvel and more:

"When Chuck Austen and I were co-writing I said I preferred the title NEW INVADERS. Chuck said INVADERS was better. I thought 'New' was more honest... I wouldn’t have asked for it if I realized Marvel was also adding 'New' to every other team book on the stands. It’s like a bad joke. The year of the 'New' team books. Aren’t they labeling thing a bit too much these days? 'Young Guns' 'Marvel Knights' 'Max' 'Ultimate' 'Marvel Age'. Boy, Howdy. There are more sub-categories at Marvel than there are job descriptions at MacDonald’s."

Kandora's C. Edward Sellner (or Chuck E. Sellner, as he's calling himself now) on, well, Kandora:

"The last few months have seen a wave of new publishers debuting on the comics scene, however, and I might be biased, none seems to have created the same stir as Kandora Publishing. Now, I’m not talking company-issued press releases that most news sites from courtesy run when received. I’m talking here in terms of generating discussion, reflection and outright debate in the media! How come Kandora is stirring the waters? Two things. First, they are delivering genre comics and thus have garnered many comparisons to CrossGen and filling their void. Second, they are offering something NO OTHER US publisher is doing... 32 pages of actual story per issue, at the price of $3.50 per issue."

Of course, with Detective Comics and Legion of Super-Heroes, DC are offering 32 pages of actual story oer issue, at $2.95 per issue, but still.

Paul O'Brien at Ninth Art on cancellations, and why the acclaimed titles are normally amongst the first to go:

"Why is there such disconnect between the critical favourites and what actually sells? It's hardly surprising that the critics regularly seize on books that nobody else is buying. After all, they tend to be the sort of hardcore fans who are more inclined to blind, random purchases of new books they know little about. Consequently, they're more likely to stumble upon poorly-promoted good comics that sailed under other people's radar. But, having found them, why are we so consistently useless at actually getting anyone else to buy them?"

John Ney Reiber writes about Dreamwave's closure in this week's LITG:

"dream-whatever's press releases continue to dazzle with their camelotian radiance. in glorious Spinworld, you can almost hear the proud banners sighing in the wind as the noble knights who strove so valiantly to rescue a stagnant, relentlessly shrinking comic book market bid their faithful retainers a fond and respectful farewell, and ride off into the sunset. meanwhile, in an alternate universe where faithful retainers actually live, pay heating bills, and buy groceries, there's not so much chivalrous trumpeting going on. while at least 17 unpaid freelancers--claiming amounts ranging from $350 to $40,000, or so i'm told--have been informed that a receivership company is now responsible for settling dreamwave's debts, dreamwave seems to be unwilling to disclose the name of the company, or provide the contact information which would enable dreamwave's creditors or their legal representatives to, umm... to find out what's really going on."

Matt Fraction and Joe Casey talk about creative burn out:

"I guess I wouldn't trust a creator who didn't have peaks and valleys in their output. It's a tough thing to consider, since the need to earn a living is a real one, not to be taken lightly. But if we're talking in purely artistic terms, then yeah... it's much more interesting to see creators give it their all and spend themselves to the point of exhaustion, go away and recharge, and then hit us with another round of creativity. Even setting aside the quality of the work in question, it's still a more challenging creative paradigm. So, yeah... it's necessary to hit the occasional wall. To test your own limits. That's what being an artist is all about, right? It's living the Morrison ideal (Jim, that is... not Grant). Then comes the balancing act... can you have a bona fide career as an artist (and I mean 'artist' in the wider sense) if you live by that ideal?"

Marvel goes book crazy, making deals all over the place:

"Marvel Enterprises, Inc., the dominant force in the comic book market through its Marvel Comics division - has entered into major licensing agreements with four of the world's leading publishing houses: DK Publishing, Harper Collins, Meredith Books and Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books as part of a strategy to increase the presence of its leading character franchises in various mass market book publishing formats. The agreements were announced today by Tim Rothwell, President of Worldwide Consumer Products and Bruno Maglione, President of Marvel International. Collectively, the new publishing licenses will bring the Marvel Universe to broad consumer audiences and demographics by establishing a significant presence in the largest mass-market book categories including adult novelizations, children's fiction, all-age non-fiction compendiums, as well as pre-school novelty formats and picture and sound storybooks. The new agreements reflect Marvel's licensing-driven approach to develop new product markets for its leading character franchises and category management strategy."

Books are the new movies, apparently.

Matt Brady looks at Diamonds numbers for last year:

"In terms of the Top 100 comics [...] for 2004, DC held the #1 spots in both quantity and dollars, with Superman #204 (Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee’s first issue on the series) being the highest selling comic through Diamond in 2004, and Identity Crisis #1 being the #1 comic for the year, based on dollars... Again, the 2004 Top 10 list [in terms of quantity] represents a virtual reversal of any monthly Top 10 list from the year, that is, usually; Marvel would hold eight or so slots, with DC holding two. Unarguably, the numbers were higher for DC on their top 10 books due to overprinting and heavy reorder/reprint activity on many of the Top 10 titles... Of course, the Top 100 also represents, as it does most years, of the continued strength of the established brand - aside from Conan and, perhaps 1602 (just because for a while, no one knew what in the hell was going on), the entirety of the Top 100 are the marquee characters - the known brands. Or, in other words, there is not one comic in the Top 100 for 2004 (this time counting Conan) that was created less (or based on one created) than 40 years ago."

Larry Young spreads the word - Robert Kirkman, Brian Wood rule the world of online sales:

"'Although this announcement may initially read as an advertisement for Kirkman and Wood to some of your more cynical readers, savvy retailers know this is more of a thrown-gauntlet,' said Young. 'Is the runaway success of their books online because their buying public is online as well? Is it because the majority of brick-and-mortar stores stock mostly just Marvel and DC, and money's being left on the table? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? But no matter how you slice it, as a publisher, I'm happy to have our books have a foot in both revenue streams: the 'real' store, and the cyberstore, I can tell you. It's win-win for everyone.'"

Because everything DC do, Marvel has to match, obviously...:

"DC's got their benchmarks of 'The Dark Knight Returns' and 'Watchmen,' so what's Marvel got in comparison? I asked a couple friends and they both said the exact same thing - Miller's Daredevil run and Byrne/Claremont's Uncanny X-Men, especially form the Hellfire Club to the Death of Phoenix and of course, the Days of Future Past stories. Thoughts?"

"In my opinion, Marvel hasn't got anything on the level of WATCHMEN or DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (or even SANDMAN, INVISIBLES, PREACHER, SWAMP THING and STARMAN). The closer it gets is DAREDEVIL by Miller and MARVELS. ALIAS was very, very good, but it lacked something. Maybe Bendis' DAREDEVIL will result in a masterpiece..."

"Days of Future Past. Marvels. I'll think of more later."

"Death of Captain Marvel is a brilliant & touching story. Certainly one of Marvel's stronger offerings. But it probably doesn't contribute anything other than entertainment. Watchmen and Dark Knight are much more than that. At the same time, you could almost say that everything Marvel did in the 60's is their Watchmen and Dark Knight. They changed the industry, re-popularized comics and MOST IMPORTANTLY, they humanized heroes. So, there ya go!"

Also at Newsarama, Brian Augustyn talks about new publisher Kandora:

"Well I hope that comic fans have room in their hearts for more than just one kind of comics, though I recognize that super-heroes will always be the most popular. I’m just old enough that when I was growing up and becoming a comics maniac I had superhero comics, western comics, war comics, horror comics, science-fiction comics, detective comics, humor comics; a whole gamut of fun and exciting books. Since super-heroes have become so popular, I think that the assumption has been that all those other genres are passe, or dead, but I think they’ve just been left in the dust. CrossGen proved they could make other genres work, as have many of the popular independent publishers. Now Kandora steps up, offering more variety. A steady diet of even the best can grow tedious; we all need variety! [The increased page count] gives us more room to develop stories and characters. It also gives us more space to create really big and cool action sequences! Not to mention which, it gives the reader more chances to enjoy the stunning artwork! Rumor is that we may eventually increase the page count, without raising the pricetag - and it’s already the best deal around: fifty-percent more comic than the competition for only fifty-five cents more than the $2.95 standard comic price."

Brian Hibbs explains why retailing is for the patient and strong of heart at Newsarama:

"Today is Tuesday, January 11th, so we’ve technically just closed the first week of January shipping (1/5). Any 'December-shipping' comic that hasn’t arrived by now is, by my lights, late. However, thanks to Diamond and the brokered publisher’s policies, 'December-shipping' books aren’t generally 'officially' late as long as they arrive in Diamond’s hands by 1/31. This means that this material might not actually arrive in stores until 2/9. Still, as a person who has to deal with the nuts and bolts of ordering and processing, it is my opinion that December material is late if it wasn’t in my hands by 12/31/04."

John Byrne: naive or bigot? It's a question that many have considered, especially in light of comments like these, about a Honeymooners remake starring Cedric the Entertainer and Mike Epps:

"....Isn't it about time Black people got insulted by Hollywood constantly pillaging White culture for material? Doesn't this say 'Black culture is barren -- nothing we can use there!'"

"There is no 'White experience', any more than there is a 'Black experience'. To suggest otherwise is to paint an entire race with one stroke of a single brush. However, 'The Honeymooners' was about the
specific experiences of a quartet of White people at a particular time, in a particular place. Doing it in blackface will either lose the points of the original show, or lose any point in changing the races."

Dwayne McDuffie, someone who may have slightly more experience in any possible 'Black experience', decides to respond:

"There's so much crap here I don't know where to start, so I'll take the easy one, part and parcel of the White Experience is the freedom to be so ignorant of your surroundings as to actually believe that there isn't a shared set of experiences implicit in being black in America. He's right about one thing, it is indeed 'time black people got insulted.' I'm starting right here."

Others agree:

"see, if i didn't know that byrne sees 'latino women with dark hair' as hookers, i'd think this was an innocent statement. but off top, he's setting up a gigantic flip flop. because later on, he says there's no WHITE EXPERIENCE. how can there be WHITE CULTURE, but no WHITE EXPERIENCE? doesn't experience come from the culture? equating redoing a story with black people with blackface is insulting, if what i remember about blackface is true. blackface was a demeaning process, that sometimes required BLACK PEOPLE to make themselves blacker and more stereotypical to appease people. to equate THAT with what's happening here is to belittle whatever creative upside cedric and omar bring to the table."

Kurt Busiek, who always wins simply by talking sense, again talks sense:

"It's like re-doing ROMEO AND JULIET, but about New York street gangs. Or THE SEVEN SAMURAI about cowboys! Or THE HONEYMOONERS about cavemen! Taking a dramatic or comedic situation and translating it to another culture or setting or ethnicity simply never works -- why, imagine doing THE ODD COUPLE about black men. There are no divorced black men, and none of them are slobs or neat freaks, or live in New York City. All that is white culture, like on FRIENDS or in Woody Allen movies. This is what happens when we allow something as inherently British as MAN ABOUT THE HOUSE to be translated into THREE'S COMPANY, replacing British culture with California culture. That just erodes standards -- what's next, THE TEMPEST in outer space? Blue collar couples in the city, dealing with marriage and work and friendship? Could never happen with black people."

Brad Meltzer looks back at Identity Crisis at Newsarama:

"Now that the story’s done, what’s most fascinating to me are the comments about loose plot threads. Personally, except for Boomerang, as we discussed, I think every thread is addressed. It may be quieter than you’d like, or different than you thought it’d be, but the answers are in the book, especially with Batman. 'Bruce knows what he wants to know, and more than any of us, he also knows that you should never underestimate what someone will do for the people they love.' It’s one of the most vital lines in there, not just as it drives at Batman, but as it takes on the themes of the entire series. Look at it in the context of every relationship in the series: from Ralph and Sue, to GA, to the League, to Boomerang, to the Drakes, to Clark, to Ray and Jean...etc, etc. Of course, others have already widened the debate to include whether Batman knows consciously or subconsciously, but I know my answer. From start to finish, Identity Crisis wasn't written to 'lead into' anything. It was designed to be a stand alone -- and I'm proud of the answer in that context. Think about it: Batman's story wasn't meant to be a cliffhanger. I realize it can certainly be read as one, but in my interpretation, there doesn't need to be a follow-up. For me, Batman's worst wounds are always self-inflicted. However, if other writers want to build on that moment or see it differently, well, that's the beauty of comics: the tapestry of different interpretations on the same characters/moments/interactions. As I said before, Batman is being true to himself. 'Bruce knows what he wants to know, and more than any of us, he also knows that you should never underestimate what someone will do for the people they love.'"

Newsarama reports that Bloodhound is cancelled as of #10.

EDIT: Heidi announces that Human Target is also a goner.

So, remember Mike Netzer's announcement at Millarworld that, if comic creators could join hands and form a political party, then everything would be great? Turns out, he's not too happy that that thread was locked, especially after Kurt Busiek made the point that it was tasteless to use Will Eisner's death as something to publicize your own insane political views:

"Kurt Busiek directed some statements at me in a legitimate discussion on a thread I opened which was locked. In my attempt to only answer those statements, with no desire to continue the thread, it was immediately removed. Yet the original thread with the statements directed at me remains for all to see, yet also remains locked. I believe your treatment of this thread was not in the fashion of good hosts to a guest comics professional who has been welcomed here by Mark in the past. you have the right to moderate posts as you see fit, but it would behoove you to show the minimal courtesy to explain your abrupt and seemingly unfair behaviour in this matter. It would have behooved you to have at least explained yourselves, and to also have removed the statement directed at me if you choose no to allow for my answers to also be viewed."

This new thread is then immediately closed, with the following post from Ed Contradictory, MW mod:

"Thank you for your participation in the MillarWorld Internet Comic Book Message Boards. Generally, when a thread is closed by moderator action, that topic is also considered closed to additional conversation. Again, thank you for your continued participation and we look forward to seeing you around the forum!"

What's a slightly crazy comic book creator to do? Well, there's always starting another thread:

"I truly do appretiate your answer which is a good sign that we may eventually get to the bottom of a cordial relationship over previous mishaps which will now remain unnamed. Although your answer read like an automated one, I'll hold to the belief that a you are a real human being and did actually write it yourself. So, now that you still have not answered my query, I understand that you'd like me not to speak about certain previous matters between us. I'll respect your wishes and refrain from doing so in hopes that you will not lock this thread also.

"What puzzles me in your answer is the cool warmth with which you persist on inviting me to continue participating in the forums while making it clear that you will have the upper hand in what you choose of my posts to allow to be viewed - at times to my own severe detriment and at your own bidding. I'm not referencing any previous examples of this here, mind you, rather simply noting the thrust of your answer. Now, I can be a very patient individual and am willing to play the lamb led to the slaughter role for your benefit and entertainment if you see a true necessity for this at this time and on this forum.

"On the other hand, Ed, I remain truly bewildered at your persitence in not explaining why this needs to be so now. I almost feel like Chaplain in Modern Times caught inside of your cogs and my gut instinct tells that it's a little early for that now. So, I would like to ask you for any advice you might offer for such a situation. Please remember that Im not referencing anything which we both agree will not be discussed here anymore."

Other MW posters are confused - "You're actually EdC's alter ego, right? This can't be for real." - so Mike attempts to clear things up:

"I'm afraid this is as real as naything else in the comics. We have a dire situation here and it cries for remedy. The problem is the declarative trigger fingers of those who place the icons next to the post lists. It appears that one of these icons which looks like an x has a very magical power which not even Ali Baba can overcome with his legendary Open Sesame keychain. I assure you that I am not Ed's alter ego though I can't guarantee you that the's not mine. If you're able to procure some answers to remedy this situation then I'm sure that MillarWorld readers will be very grateful to you."

Unsurprisingly, this thread, too, gets closed. Mike Tegler, King of all things Millarworld, gets the last word:

"I'm closing this thread until I can understand what any of this about. Please Mr. Netzer do not start another thread. I will re-open this one once I have the relevant information and response to you queries."

Did I say the last word? I meant almost last word, as Mike Netzer then opens a third thread:

"I must admit that I was quite taken by his courtesy in attempting to help us all with our small problem which that nasty little x icon is giving us on that unmentionable thread which we all know not to mention anymore. Polite as he is though, it appears that Michael (you have to love that name) has a rather strange sense of direction. Either that or the hall circuitry at Millarword Biz Forums has grown to proportions of astounding complexity. What other reason could there be for him to take so long to find his way to the moderator's lounge in order to understand what this is all about and provide us all with some long awaited answers to our queries?

"Now, I understand that he asked very politely that we not begin any new threads until he returns - but there is ample reason here to believe that perhaps Michael (again note the wonderful name) is having diffculty in navigating his way to the moderator's lounge or back from it. So, I've opened this thread in order to alert Millarworld forum members that one of our moderators is missing and only so that everyone should perhaps be on the lookout for any signs of where it is that he might have lost his keyboard footing placement since his disappearance from this section.

"In the meantime and in an effort to help Michael (I can't get over how nicely his name rings in one's ear) understand what this is all about, and in the event that he has not been successful at doing so himself - or even that he perhaps has lost interest in the matter, I'll offer the following possible explanations.
http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/foru...52811#post52811
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb....t=011224#000020
http://www.joequesada.com/cgi-bin/ikonboar...18;t=24733;st=0

"I believe this could truly help us solve this mystery. I will again remind everyone that it may be prudent not to mention the unmentionable things we've all agreed not to mention here anymore, lest the little x monster rear his ugly little head over this thread as well."

He just has time to add the following before this thread, too, gets closed:

"One more thing. Although we will refrain from mentioning Kurt Busiek's name in reference to things apparantly forbidden here which cause threads to become inexplicably closed for further discussion, I'd like to clarify that I've corresponded with Kurt Busiek for several years now at various forums and have also had the pleasure of meeting him at a Baltimore convenion last fall. Kurt is one of the more astute and engaging creators I've known in the comics and has an uncanny ability to procure any information he needs about any subject which comes into the realm of his conversational circle and with which to turn any discussion into a pleasureful excursion into insightful enlightenment. I've admired his work for years now and it's in this spirit that I would like to answer the unmentionable things which we've been temporarily disabled from doing so here at the Millarworld forums and which have repeatedly awakend this strange sorcerer who disguises himself as an x icon and plasters himself to any post which embarks on mentioning the unmentionable issues unmentioned above. I do hope we can overcome this little problem soon and settle this slight misunderstaning once and for all."

It's just getting silly now, isn't it?

Marvel produces a TV advert for a comic:

"For the first time since the early ‘80s, there will soon be commercials for Marvel Comics on television. The program, which is small, and in its initial phases, will be part of the build-up to the Fantastic Four movie. As with the last time Marvel Comics appeared in television spots (GI Joe commercials, circa 1983) the new spot will be a hybrid toy/comic ad, featuring a Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four (the publisher's renamed all-ages 'Marvel Age' line) comic as well as a Toy Biz toy... The ad featuring Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four is slated to begin in May, and will air nationwide. Marvel did not disclose specifics of which channels and cable outlets will run the ad, but told Newsarama that more information will be made available soon."

I will sit back and wait for the industry to be saved, now.

Mark Millar talks Wanted. Remember Wanted?:

"The movie deal makes it more difficult to keeping the comic self-contained, but JG and I are adamant that there will never be a comic spin-off by us or - God forbid - anybody else. I'm not interested in being a super-rich guy. I like doing my comics and writing a few little extra things and being able to pay my bills and go out with my family and friends. I don't dream of having a helicopter with a full-size snooker table inside it. If I luck into some cash it's great because it makes life a little easier, but the minute you start chasing the check you should pack up and go home. We'll whore this out with toys and games or whatever else comics our way - providing they're good, but I'm not interesting in killing something people like as fast as the Wachowskis or George Lucas did. The only book from Millarworld Phase One that might have a sequel is Chosen, but even that's not a guarantee by any means. I've still got a Millarworld book to come out early this year, but the Phase Two stuff will happen in late ’06, after my big break doing other stuff, and most likely be all new material."

Vertigo to offer a First Taste:

"Six thrilling VERTIGO #1 issues are collected at the low price of just $4.99 in VERTIGO: FIRST TASTE, a 160-page trade paperback coming in April! This VERTIGO primer serves as a great introduction to six acclaimed VERTIGO series, and features tales by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Brian K. Vaughan, Brian Azzarello, Warren Ellis, and Si Spencer, with art by Eduardo Risso, Chris Bachalo, Steve Bissette & John Totleben, Pia Guerra, Darick Robertson and others. 'For those readers who haven't gotten a taste of these incredible titles, your excuses are up!' says Karen Berger, VP - Executive Editor, VERTIGO. 'This is the perfect opportunity to get the first bite of some of VERTIGO's definitive and popular series, and experience the first sensation of some powerful and riveting work.'"

The trade collects the first issues of Transmetropolitan, Books of Magic: Life During Wartime, 100 Bullets, Death: The High Cost of Living, Y: The Last Man and Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run.

When Millarworld threads that have already gone bad get worse: In the Rob Liefeld thread over at MW, Rob Liefeld accused one particular anti-Liefeld poster, Mike Daniels, of being a fake name for multiple Image Comics employees. Mike didn't take it too well:

"Rob your bullshit about me being a shared Image comics identity is getting old despite the fact that it paints you as a paranoid conspiracy nut. Put up or shut up Rob. I'll bet you $500 for charity that you're talking through your arse and your 'Image sources'info is crap. Not that I don't trust you to deliver on your promises Rob ;) but so that we can both ensure that the loser pays, lets put a deadline and a independent recipient on it who can verify honouring of the bet.

"Your fan (?) John Hendrick's (who seems so eager to expose me) Tsunami/Millarworld appeal seems like a very worthy cause and lets put the deadline as before his Millar and Hitch/Tsunami Appeal signing at the end of this month. Hendricks can independently verify that he's recieved the losers cash/Cheque/MO by that date. Here's the bet: I pay $500 to the charity if you can prove you/your 'sources' have 'nailed' me as 'are indeed a 'shared' image comics identity. As many posted during your last series of rants, you seem to have a particular grudge, personal in fact.'

"You pay $500 to the charity if I can verify independently that that isn't and can't be true. So what's it to be Rob are you prepared to risk some cash to stand over your crazy claims and sources? Whoever loses the Tsunami/Millarworld charity appeal wins."

Rob's response:

"I have already contributed far more than you're wagering here to the Tsunami victims, in private, as I believe is appropriate . We both know my sources are dead on."

Mike replies:

"At least this way we don't just have to rely on your word, especially given your track record between your public proclamations and the actual truth. Did your Futurians art make it to the Cockrums Auction? How much did it raise in their public auction, it was never referred to in any reports. Did Rick Veitch ever get the art you promised him last year after 3 years? Here's your chance to prove your word once and for all Rob in public. You win and you've cost me $500 and your word is good. Are you that afraid to give $500 to the Millarworld/Tsunmai Charity? 'We both know my sources are dead on.' Really? So why are you turning down the easy opportunity to prove me wrong, cost me half a grand, prove your crazy claims about Image and 'personal' grudges and raise additional funds for the Millarworld/Tsunami appeal Rob? The only people your hurting here are those that benefit from the Tsunami appeal. Oh and your 'reputation'. Pathetic."

One of Rob's fans steps in:

"uh, i think you're the only one whos hurting the tsusami victims...... if you've got $500 to give them, why dont you just give it to them, instead of holding it ramsom until rob indulges your tired little rants. .....and they are VERY tired. i hate to speak for anyone other than myself, but, rob liefeld isn't obligated to explain himself to anyone on this board. hes nice enough to come on here and talk shop with people that enjoy his work. you talk about put up or shut up? why dont you go and draw and write a few pages of your own original ideas, and show all of us, including rob, how its 'supposed' to be done."

Back to Mike:

"Rob's bullshitting about me and about Image, I've called him on it and he's got nothing; even with the chance to prove me wrong, take $500 off me, and help a good cause. As for the $500, I never even said anywhere that I could afford to fork over an additional half grand to charity. I certainly didn't give any indication that I could do so as easily as 'Hollywood millionaire' Rob. For all you know it might even be that forking over a mere $500 could hurt, I might have to stop getting so many Image comics, or cut back on my online time! But I'm happy to risk it for a worthwhile charity thats Millarworld related, to prove a point and show that Rob is full of shit when it comes to proving the crap he spouts... As you've pointed out Rich Johnston never gives up his sources, as per the stuff you alluded to posting to him earlier this week, if you ask him to keep the info or sources of the info you're showing to him to prove your facts he will. I'm game for having Rich as an independent adjudicator on this, if he's up for it. You pass your proof onto him in strictest confidence and I'll do the same. I'm happy to trust Rich's word if he decides you've proved your paranid claims. Think about it Rob, apart from costing me $500 you'll have proven that Image is as petty and twisted Image as your claiming. Now why wouldn't you want to step up and do that in confidence apart from the fact that when someone calls on you to prove your claims you can't?"

Enter Rich Johnston!:

"Of course I'm game. That's practically my job description."

Back to Mike, again:

"Cheers Rich, this just got interesting. I'm in, Rich is in, Rob time to put your money where your mouth is in regard to myself and Image. Whats it to be? Step up to the bet that's now been modified specifically to suit your concerns or runaway like a little bitch?
(not saying you are a little bitch before any overly sensitive 'Rob-Loverz' get upset, just that you're doing a good impression of one when your integrity and money for for a Millarworld charity is at stake)."

Rob Liefeld! Come back and try and save your integrity!:

"So I'm the bitch? Ok, that's pretty funny. For the record, I'm the one of us that writes and draws comics. You hang out in a thread of a guy you hate, seemingly for hours on end berating myself and others for exactly what purpose? Someone said you were Michael Moore. Hardly, he makes a difference, he affected the masses with his expression of free speech. 'Mike Daniels' affects no masses. 'Mike Daniels' appears intending to stir a pot and then vanishes leaving nothing, not even hot air behind. I can only read about every fourth post you write so I can hardly say I'm an expert on all your rantings, but that said, I'm certain everyone would be disappointed if you all went away. I no I would. I promise to try to at least read one out of every four-five of your posts."

Wait... that's it? No mention of the bet or nothing? Apparently not, as Rob then goes on to talk to his fans for awhile - There will be a manga-sized series of Youngblood reprints, for those who care, because he's "putting his money where his mouth is," apparently. Although not in regards to the above, obviously - before a MW mod appears with some calm words of advice:

"You and Mr Daniels clearly have issues, and each of you have accused the other of various things. As I see it - and I am a fairly distant observer of this thread and the squabbles in it - you don't seem to have anything to lose by accepting Mr Daniels' offer, and he has the right to defend himself against the accusations you have made (as you do with regards to him). I would suggest that an additional condition to the offer would be that if you accept it, the two of you could agree to come to some arrangement about the eternal needling that goes on between you. Resolving this issue once and for all may go a long way to keeping this thread on an even keel in future, and his offer seems reasonable."

Thankfully, Rob takes those kind words in the manner in which they were intended:

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there fella. MD comes into this thread and spreads his unique brand of trouble. I merely respond. Deal with him, not with me. I'm merely responding to what has been pointed out by everyone who comes to this boards, fans and non-fans alike, as pure harrassment. I have never asked for any assistance in this matter but if you would like to ban MD from this thread, you would see that the harrasment would cease. That is in fact something that you could take to the bank. So thank you for your opinion and the polite way you have expressed it, but seriously consider the double standard you are setting up here. Start a MD thread, none of us will post in it. Can the same be said for him here. All things considered we've suffered him quite well."

Mike returns:

"Whoa, whoa, whoa LOL! Seriously Rob are you that fucked up as to try and warp what really happened when everyone can go back a couple of pages to 197 and see how you started this! I hadn't posted here in months. You twisted facts in your favour in a post as is your wont. I responded with two sentences pointing that out. In your very first response to me (apart from inviting me to carry on posting!) you started lying about me personally and Image comics, in your very first response!!!:'Also, Mike isn't it time we called you out for who you are? I have it on good authority from not one or two but three ex-image employees that you are indeed a 'shared' image comics identity.' No offense Rob, but you're clearly seriously delusional and in need of intervention or you're just a fucking nutjob in your attempt to rewrite the reality for all to see. You started this shit, lying about me and Image and invited me to respond! It happened only 3 days ago and your posts are there a few pages back for all to see!

"I called you on it, asked you to put up or shut up, and you had nothing. Didn't stop you lying of course (natch) but when I offered you the chance to prove me wrong, prove your petty lies about Image comics, get me to leave the thread and raise some cash for charity, you turned into a little bitch afraid to step up! ...LOL! Seriously Rob you're fucking pathetic. All these brave posts about you putting 'your money where your mouth is' and 'taking stuff to the bank' and you're desperate not to risk a couple of bucks to deal with me yourself, after I've conceded to your own concerns about how you'll win the bet and Rich Johnston has offered his services! Stop lying and whining to the Mods Rob. You started this shit and you aren't man enough to finish it when you're called out and you might have to shell out a few bucks to charity. Likewise you could allways publically retract your pathetic allegations about myself and Image and this thread can resume it's previous normality of me posing you simple questions, you avoiding them while mouthing off and your fawning fans attacking me personally for asking straightforward questions. (I'm offering you a bitch's way out here Rob, you might want to take it!)"

Rob replies:

"I know the internet provides you with the opportunity to talk like you're some tough guy, but until you show up at a show and personally attempt to give me some lip, give it a rest. Just come clean bro."

Rich Johnston pops back in:

"I've just called Mike Daniels. On a Irish phone number. He has a lilting Irish accent. It would make several American ladies I know wilt. We discussed a couple of emails we had exchanged and the Millarworld board. it's him. Rob, feel free to send your proof if you wish. But from where I'm standing that's pretty incontrovertible."

Rob:

"Rich, too easy. It's not as simple as that. Exactly what part of 'shared' internet identity did you miss? Flesh and blood baby. At this point, I'll only believe it when I meet all of them."

Rich:

"How does having a shared internet identity allow people not in Ireland to post with a Dublin IP? There are other possibilities. Maybe people are feeding Mike stuff. But as far as I can tell, from emails sent to me, coming from the same IP, he's one person."

When Mike Daniels' IP address is posted by a mod to prove that he's Irish, Rob is still unconvinced:

"Wow....thanks for sharing. I'm cured....:) Desperate much?"

Luckily, here comes the man in question, Mike Daniels, to put everything back in perspective:

"In the last few days, since Rob made untrue allegations about myself and of course Image comics I've called him a pathetic fucked up nutjob whiny bitch etc. I've explained why I think he's a fucked up pathetic little bitch etc. in my posts and I think that's fair comment given his behaviour. Since he made allegations about me Rob has gone to excruciatingly embarressing lengths personally to prove my characterisation as fair comment, but hasn't done anything to prove his allegations. In fact he's gone to great effort not to do so, despite myself conceeding to his requirement and Rich Johnston offering to accomodate his concerns. Whilst I know that pessimism, apathy and ignorance are nescessary for a Liefeld fan to remain blissful and appreciative of everything he does/doesn't do for them, there has to be even a modicum of confusion and embarressement over Rob's refusal to prove his claims, remove me from this thread forever and raise some money for a Milarworld charity event.

"Outside of his ever decreasing fanbase (based on X-Force sales and the dissappearance of various Yahoo groups dedicated to him) everyone else is probably viewing his delusional acts of cowardice here as they would a car wreck. The much maligned Image Office are probably laughing their heads of as he publicly self-destructs any shred of integrity he once had. Rich Johnston (who sounds just like Ian McKellen as Gandalf BTW) has vouched for me over Rob, he has no reason to do so apart from the facts presented to him. I also offered Rich confidential additional conclusive steps which could be taken to prove Rob's accusations about me a lie. For all I know he may have acted on that before posting that my 'truth' was incontrovertable. And still Rob acts like a bollocks. Rob is still maintaining that I'm one part of a shared identity yet he's the only Millarworlder that has 2 seperate accounts that we know of. I can prove conclusively that Rob's lies are bullshit whilst he's scared shitless at the thought of handing over some cash to charity to even to attempt to support his pathetic lies.

"So now Rob and his fans are whining about Millarworld. Without Millarworld Liefeld would have nothing. Despite all his bitching about lack of support and advertising from Marvel, Rob and Arcade haven't advertised or issued a single press release since they were launched. His own much hyped state of the art online presence, still hasn't materialised 5 years after he started talking about how great it was. His Arcade website is a joke; a non-interactive static page that hasn't been updated in over a year. He avoids his fan sites like the plague. Apparently he values exposure over his fans.

"Without Millarworld Rob doesn't have any exposure.

"Rob uses and abuses Millarworld to sell his books and bitch about other Pros or companies. He's allways done so but when he lied about me and Image and I call him on it he whines and bitches about Millarworld and how it's not protecting him and threatens to leave. What a pathetic fucking bitch. Obviously his fans will think he's great even if they are confused as to why he won't prove himself; forcing me to leave and costing me $500 into the bargain, except Rob has proved time and time again how unimportant his fans are to him. Why should Millarworld so anything for Rob? What has he done for it? If anything his presence and posts have hurt rather than helped the site. Most members of the site are Millar fans, what has Liefeld done for them? He's promised them a 4 part outrageous monthly series by Mark Millar. Sold them the first issue at over double the cover price, then slashed it down to three issues and has for the last year refused to publish the completed issue #2. A conclusion to the series for any Millar fan who bought the first issue is looking decidely unlikely given Rob's willingness to bail at the first WFH gig to come his way and his recent announcement that he's hoping to start work on a new dream project. Rememberwhen Bloodsport was his dream project? Millarworld doesn't owe you anything Rob, but you owe me and Image an apology."

Serious accusations there, Rob. Time to pull out all of the stops:

"Blahbuttyblahbullblah....thanks for another transmission Mikey. Windbag."

And then, in a second post immediately following:

"I'm sorry I need to come off harder, more like a tough guy Daniels type... Fucking pathetic piece o' shit coward stalker obsessed smell my ass windbag. There now I'm like Mike."

Assembled MW posters then press Rob to offer up a somewhat more satisfying response, prompting him to post the following:

"[M]aybe I'm done with my deadlines at the moment and me and my buddies are having the time of our life moving Millarworlder's around the chess board in between playing Madden football on playstation. Consider yourself one of the 'owned'. Good times."

Liefeld done with his deadlines? Now it's obvious that he's just making shit up...

Newsarama continues with its coverage of downloading comics by speaking to a group of fans who download and speak as one, curiously enough:

"[BitTorrent tracker] users are aware of the illegality because they are not the owners of the copyrights to said materials. That said, having torrents available of older, harder to find material is a boon just for the historical significance of the material. Often, these books are priced beyond means of a majority of the tracker users and in many cases are no longer available in printed form. For the Independent market, the trackers are a way of allowing their material to be read by a wider audience. Larger stores often have a wider selection of 'Indy' material, but some smaller stores that do not have a market for such material will not have copies readily at hand. By having users make this smaller run material available, it allows new readers to experience the book first hand, and give them the opportunity to place orders through the company or by asking their local retailer to order it for them.

"For newer material, the trackers allow users to preview copies and make the decision of whether or not to buy the book at their next opportunity. Some stores have a 'Don't Read It' policy, as they would like you to purchase the book first. By the virtue of having a digital copy at hand, you can read the book and have it help you make the decision of whether or not you would like to buy the book as well. Sadly, another downside to this is that the economy has hit some people very hard, and they can't afford to purchase as many issues as they were able to in the past, due to rising costs of necessities.

"Outside America, distribution is handled differently, and a book that comes out in America on one day, may not see the light of day in another country for another 6 months, and even then, it may be radically different. For the users making new material available on the trackers, it helps people who may not be able to afford the material, or in a more typical case, has no access to the materials whatsoever. It would not be surprising to know that servicemen and women around the world use BT to gain access to material that they do not have access to due to their commitment to protecting the world in whatever purpose they have been assigned to. After all, one cannot stroll out on a Sunday afternoon in Kabul or Baghdad to watch the newest films, or read the latest New Avengers. These things just are not accessible to them over there."

Comic pirates: Doing it for the troops.

Steven Grant on the problems facing "Art Comics":

"The trap is this: any outside audience coming to, say, superhero comics and ending up with crappy superhero comics is no longer all that likely to dismiss comics in general, or the potential of the medium, out of hand. They'll just assume they've read a crappy superhero comic. 'Art comics,' though, they read crappy 'art comics,' which, in theory, are supposed to demonstrate the medium's full potential, and the reaction is, wow, in comics crap's about as good as it gets. Considering for many people, 'art comic' is probably about as enticing as 'art film' is, and that's a real marketing nightmare."

Kazu Kibuishi talks about the second volume of Flight:

"“Flight is actually not a theme in the book... I make sure to explicitly state that to the other artists before they begin work since the last thing I want is to put those kinds of restrictions on them. The stories for Book Two are varied in subject matter, but there seems to be more of a quieter feel to this book than the first one. I really, really like it. This time they have a much wider range of tone and content. It's awesome to see some of the artists really stretching themselves this time, like Jake Parker with his story of a discarded robot who finds friendship in a small bird. He's taking his work to a whole new level and it's just amazing. Khang Le's story about a couple of bumbling monster hunters is the beginning to a whole series of adventures he plans to do in the future. Seeing the beginnings of serialized work in the book is pretty exciting too, since it's what I had in mind from the beginning."

Silver Bullet Comicbooks asks "Is the monthly comic dead?" and many answer, including Devin Grayson:

"Since I've just now come off of an almost two-year exclusive with DC Comics, I can really only speak to their publishing practices, but I think DC's trends are significant to the industry as a whole. Over the past few years there has been a dramatic and noticeable shift in the majority of monthly books towards broadly reaching continuity inclusion... this is great for the fan boy, and completely alienating for the neophyte. The last editorial memo I got from DC included references to events from both Zero Hour and Crisis - *I* can barely get my brain around *that*, forget about the novice reader! All of this would be fine and well if we recognized that we were tipping the scales as heavily as we are and used another product -- like graphic novels or even miniseries -- to compensate. Unfortunately, the type of administrations to champion fan-only directions in major ongoing series are often the same administrations to question the viability of graphic novels and miniseries (and vice versa), so that any given publishing company ends up with too much of one kind of product and not enough of the other...which directly translates to too much of one kind of reader, and not enough of the other. So to get back to the question: as long as there are fans, there will be a need for monthly series. There may not, however, be fans in the future if we don't continue to produce material that's accessible to new readers."

C. Edward Sellner, writer of two titles for new comics publisher Kandora, starts a new column at Broken Frontier and immediately gives a taste of what to expect:

"So, why should anyone listen to me? Not saying you should, just saying if you read it, you might like it, if you like it, you can keep doing it. More importantly, the purpose of this column is not just for me to mouth off. Okay, stop cheering okay? It’s for all of us to pitch in. I want this column to be about what is working and not working in the industry, I want it to focus on new and creative ideas being developed, innovations and marketing that will be setting trends. I also want to focus on some of the industry's problems, but not in order to whine or come up with vague empty promises, but solid solutions. And, WOW, here's a concept, I want those new ideas to be shared in an open forum, not vaguely hinted at hidden treasures of new ideas, concepts and marketing that will revolutionarize the market only to end up as empty and anti-climactic as Geraldo's mobster vault! Me? I'll call 'em as I see 'em, and most likely people here will think of me much as they do in my other career, either love me or hate me. But, everything will always be voiced in respect, and I want to hear how you all call 'em too, whether you're a fan, retailer, comics suit, or creator, let this be where all of us think and write 'Outside the Box.' See ya next week!"

And then, this:

"Next Week: Kandora Kan! A look at one new publisher who is bucking the trend and offering the best per page value on the market for monthlies on an ongoing basis! What are the pluses and minuses? I'm going to interview the men behind Kandora: Ken Choi, Tom Lee, Ian Feller and Brian Augustyn! I may even chime in!"

That's right, everyone. It's a column that starts its focus on "new and creative ideas being developed, innovations and marketing that will be setting trends" by looking at a direct market publisher offering comics in the same format and frequency as the majority of the direct market. Who just happens to be the employer for the columnist.

Joe Quesada uses his monthly soapbox to hype the same Marvel projects as usual - Black Panther (where there "will be events happening... that will affect the Marvel U in MAJOR ways in the months to come", unsurprisingly. I'm waiting for a Marvel book to be sold with "it won't affect the Marvel U at all!"), Runaways and Young Avengers. Interestingly, Joe seems to be believing his own hype:

"...[R]enowned writer Allan Heinberg (The O.C., Sex in The City) gives us the newest title in our 'Marvel Next' initiative and what has been called the most anticipated comic of 2005, THE YOUNG AVENGERS!"

Who, apart from Quesada, has called it the most anticipated comic of 2005? Has anyone else even said it was the most anticipated Marvel comic of 2005?

Marvel announce a new ratings system:

"Change in MARVEL PREVIEWS starting with the MAY issue. The Collections section will become the flip portion of the catalog. The interior sneak-peeks will be spread throughout the catalog with corresponding solicitations. There will continue to be checklists, mini-posters, and more in the coming months! We will also be preparing our new, easy-to-understand ratings system and explain it in May's MARVEL PREVIEWS #19."

Millarworld are confused:

"Was the other ratings system hard?"

"Didn't they just get a new rating system, a couple years ago?"

"Marvel had ratings?"

Reginald Hudlin goes for the truth in advertising school of thought when telling CBR about the first (apparently, only twelve-issues-long; was this announced way back when and I missed it?) arc of his new Black Panther series:

"The story starts in B.C., actually, to give the reader a bigger context of what Wakanda is, and how that ties into who the man is. T'Challa is still the man, T'Chaka is his father... A bunch of high powered fools try and test the Panther, and he stomps a mudhole in them. I mean, a bunch of other stuff happens, but that's basically it."

He also talks about his upcoming Spider-Man run ("He's Charlie Brown with superpowers... Anything that grounds Peter Parker in the real world, with relatable problems, is a good thing.") with preview art by Billy Tan and Jon Sibal that is, to be polite, not really my cup of tea.

Chris Arrant looks at comics piracy over at Newsarama - The whys, the hows, and the what nexts:

"Tossed in the mix of comics downloading are of course, fans, many of whom are hard-core, years-long fans of comics that are downloaders - as the RIAA found prosecuting your fanbase is a dicey prospect, especially when those who do it firmly believe, in many cases, that they are in the right. Another sympathy-garnering arguement comes when downloaders point to the price of comics. Not that it in any way justifies the piracy, but to collect a good number of comics today requires a friend in the industry, or a serious financial commitment.

"Likewise, to date, retailers have shown a rather ambivalent response to downloading, with some saying that they can't see that downloading costing them any sales, while there are anecdotal reports of other retailers referring people to larger BitTorrent sites. As with music downloading, hard data is difficult to come by when trying to make a case of how the larger industry is hurt by downloading comics, not only due to the non-centralized nature of downloading, but other factors as well - some as mentioned above - would the person who downloaded Daredevil #67 have bought it in the first place? That's not argueing the wrong or right of it at all, but in that case, did the company suffer a financial loss? The publisher would say yes, downloaders, no."

It's a good primer article, and a nice starting point for discussion (especially when taken in tandem with Jason St. Claire's essay from CBG a couple of months back). The comments thread features Scott Kurtz and Pete Woods, amongst others, wading into the issue with their views:

"I think ultimately, the best way to prevent people from illegally downloading any form of content, is by providing the content online for them for a nominal fee. I was a huge napster user and when it went away, my only option was spending 20 bucks on a CD that only had 2 songs I wanted to listen to anyway.But then iTunes came out for Windows and I dont' think I'll ever be tempted to download music illegally again. Why would I? I can get any song I want for 99cents."

"I agree with Mr. Kurtz that the industry could benefit greatly by charging a nominal fee for downloadable product. Almost all production expenses would be removed. It's concievable that we could go back to comics for a buck or less. Having a framework in place could also make it possible for creators to deliver their work directly to you. Web comics are already breaking this ground. We share a house with Jenn Manley Lee who creates 'Dicebox' for Girlamatic.com. Check it out, it's a great read and her art is just stunning. It's also something you'd never be able to see without the benefit of the internet. Downloading won't go away, nor can it be sued out of existence, it needs to be adapted to and embraced as the benefit it can be."

With the trade not available until September, DC seizes the opportunity to milk the individual issues of Identity Crisis one last time:

"This April, DC Comics brings back all seven issues of the blockbuster miniseries IDENTITY CRISIS in periodical form one last time. These Final Printings will give readers who missed it another chance to experience this monumental tale before the collected edition is released in the fall. IDENTITY CRISIS #1-7 FINAL PRINTINGS reprint the stunning story by New York Times bestselling author Brad Meltzer with art by Rags Morales & Michael Bair. These new printings feature the original cover art by Michael Turner & Peter Steigerwald, newly adorned with black borders. This printing will be the fourth for issue #1, the third for issue #2, and the second for #3-7."

Mike Netzer - Somewhat crazy:

"The greatest service which can be given to Will Eisner's legacy in his departure from us is the perpetuation of the spirit he breathed into the comic book industry. The gifts which Will Eisner has given the comics are so insurmountable and well known that they need not be listed here and now. Suffice it to say that amongst his many great works, this giant of the comics defined the sharp socioplitical statements made in the medium today and invented the graphic novel with which the comics present their message to the world. With the passing of the revered and beloved late great elder of the comics, the reigns now naturally pass over to Neal Adams. Not the reigns of eldership in age alone, but the eldership of prominence, works and stature, all combined into one.

"Likewise, Neal Adams has given us innumerable gifts, such as embarking on the discovery of the scientific model under which the universe came into being, which is slowly and surely toppling Einsteinian science - the theories of relativity, the big bang, pangea, subduction and many other superstitious tales of magic and sorcery which the scientific community still adheres to today. A new model of the universe which will become the catalyst for the success of our next evolutionary phase as the generation which will conquer the final frontier, as we’re destined to do. Amongst his other great works, Neal Adams has also embarked on putting forth a model for a new sociopolitical leadership through the voice he has in the comics. Neal Adams has tackled social, political and ecomonic issues on both the local and international fronts in America and the world through transcending bipartisan politics in seeking truth and justice which are free of the sociopolitical labels that only confuse and bewilder the American citizens today.

"Neither the Republican nor the Democrat representatives are able to stand for such truth and justice because they can no longer represent the true ideals of their respective parties, which have long been buried under the manipulations and pressures of the money wielders who pull their strings. Sadly, such is the case for the political infrastructure today, not only in America but across the entire globe. The corrupt spirit of love for the money and the power it wields is what’s leading the world into the strife we’re all in. Civilization has become a many headed beast, eating itself from the feet up by it’s greed driven power lust economic heads, who manipulate the cowardly and superstitious lot of political heads into doing their bidding - all at the expense of the rest of humanity which is slowly falling into their slavery.

"This is why Bill Clinton couldn’t come through on his health reform promises which he based his campaigns on. This is also why George Bush can’t really bring peace and prosperity to America because he’s too busy doing the bidding of the money wielders in their attempt to conquer the Arab world and force them to fall in line with western consumerism which is leading us all like lambs to the slaughter. This is why the cost of living in America has increased astronomically since the 1970’s while average income has only increased marginally, taking its toll on the middle class - as the wealthy few continue to become even wealthier. If we are to truly believe in the fundemental ideals of either political ideology today and not only in the misrepresentation of our dual faced two party system, we’d send a strong rebuke to the present leadership and administrations which have blatantly abused the trust given them by their voters. If we were to truly address the values of freedom and the spontaneous success of all humanity at the root of the Republican and Democratic idealogies, we’d demand true justice for America and not blindly adhere to the false labels which both parties continue to deceive us with.

"This is why America needs a new and courageous leadership uncorrupted by the powerlust greed of its socioeconomic political system.

"THIS IS WHY AMERICA NEEDS THE COMIC BOOK CREATOR’S PARTY.

"It’s a big leap, I know. But at times like this in history, such a big leap is needed in order to turn the tides of destruction which civilization tends to unwantonly stray into. What could be more right today than for the prolific, informed and opinionated comic book creators to come together to form a guild and a union which calls for a revival of truth, justice and the American way?

"What could be more right than for the comic book creators to reach deep within themselves for the essential values which bind us all together, and thus evolve into a union of leaders such as they’re destined to become? What could be more right than for the leaders of a new world to step forth, free of political deceptions, calling on Democrats and Republicans who truly care for America and the world - and for the essential ideals of their respective political foundations - to join us in forming America’s first national unity government in the year 2008?

"What could be more right for the likes of Steve Ditko, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Trina Robbins, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, Denny O’Neill, Alan Weiss, Larry Hama, Howard Chaykin, Steven Grant, Kurt Busiek, Donna Bar, Dave Sim, Jim Starlin, John Byrne, Alex Ross, Rick Veitch, Mark Waid, Chuck Dixon, Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Peter David, Mark Evanier and Rich Johnston – all only a few amongst the wide array of the prolific giants of this industry, too many to list here now - than for all of them to reach for these truths within themselves and to step forth to help lead the coming union of the comic book creators?

"Comic book creators are a humble and humane lot. They will rise to the occasion only when they hear the voice of the people call on them for leadership. YOU THE READERS AND THE ENTIRETY OF COMICS FANDOM ARE THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE FOR THE COMIC BOOK CREATORS. The call must come from the ground up. From you and from the voice of fandom. When fandom begins to sound this roar, we’ll see how the creators will step forth. We’ll begin to see a new and bountiful voice of the comic book creators who’ll rise to the occasion. WE’LL BEGIN TO SEE HOW FITTING AND WORTHY NEAL ADAMS IS OF LEADING AMERICA AS ITS NEXT PRESIDENT.

"It’s time for us all to begin to roam the internet forums of the comics and to sound the roar for the gathering together of the comic book creators. It’s time to plan on taking advantage of the tremendous publicity that such a union will reap at the coming July 2005 San Diego Comic-Con International comic book convention. The time is at hand now to grab the hands of time and to usher in the destiny reaching out to us and crying for our intervention. The grace of God is with us to uplift the good spirit within comics fandom and to give courage to the cherished creators who adorn it.

"May the roar be heard so as to revive the legacy of truth, justice and the American way."

Yes, what could be better for America than having lots of comic creators with different political beliefs come together to become the Leaders of A New World? They might not be able to agree on whether Marvel or DC is the cooler publisher, but come on, that's a much tougher thing to do than run a country! And, as much as I like Rich Johnston, wasn't it slightly odd to see him listed amongst the industry's "prolific giants"?

Matt Fraction and Joe Casey discuss Will Eisner's legacy ("His isn't just a legacy to honor, it's the legacy," Fraction notes) in the Basement Tapes this week, while Augie De Blieck Jr. does the same at Pipeline:

"His cartooning style was a beautiful blend of serious and, well, goofy. His characters often acted like they were on stage, emoting to the back rows. Very rarely did they stand up straight, preferring a slight bend at the knees and often a stoop in their step. He was a cartoonist without fail. He knew what to exaggerate and when. While you could easily identify one of his drawings at first glance, there was no model upon which all his characters were based. Eisner truly drew different people in different ways. Everything from body types to facial features, haircuts, and postures were used to create new characters every time out.

"Eisner was also keen on his lettering, which automatically endears him to me. His most famous title pages depended on his sense of design and layout. The lettering was often built into the backgrounds or objects in the scene. The examples are both large and small. Take the title page of A CONTRACT WITH GOD, for example. The first three words are presented as if they were chiseled out of stone, perhaps even evoking the Ten Commandments. "God" is created with a lettering style that mimics Hebrew lettering, but without literally translating the text or directly using letterforms from that alphabet. It's merely the sweep of the pen used in creating the letters that brings it to the fore. Simple, but brilliant. Today's artist would just find a fancy font and splash it across the top of the page, I'm afraid. Eisner thought about it."

Matt Craig, Fanboy Rampage regular and Barry-Kitson-drawing-made-flesh (in that photo, at least. Or is it just me?), has a new column at Ninth Art, where he holds court about all things comics:

"What would happen to Marvel Comics if they ran out of movies to sell, or if they ended up with a high-profile clunker, such as SPIDER-MAN 4: MAXIMUM CLONAGE? Would the moneymen cut their losses, sell Hawkeye to Oni Press, and scupper the company completely? Would they cut jobs, or move into other areas, such as videogame development (where the word 'archetype' wouldn't necessarily get you out of a lawsuit)? If they had nowhere else to go, would they put all their efforts behind the current drive back to basics? Would we see a Marvel that was truly a publisher of books and comics, and not just a part-time superhero farm? If we're very lucky, True Believers, we might just find out... (By the way: I know there are those of you out there who would like nothing more than to see Jake Gyllenhaal play Ben bloody Reilly. To you, I say this: get help. Help of the Brain.)"

(Ninth Art also have 2004 awards for you to look at.)

James Sime talks up the Isotope Image party:

"We will covering the Isotope walls in original art and preview pages you won't see anywhere else. Gasp in awe at the hard-boiled high-seas action of SEA OF RED by Kieron Dwyer and Rick Remender. Indulge your senses in previews of future issues of the glorious AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS by Mark Andrew Smith and Dan Hipp. Witness the arrival of Paul Harmon's utterly beautiful MORA mini-series. Get blown away by Rick Remender and Eric Nguyen's STRANGEGIRL before anyone else gets to. Squeal with joy when you get to see a sneak peek of the stunning EXPATRIATE by B. Clay Moore, Jason Latour and Josh Richardson. Drool like a dog at the glorious pages of Tony Moore art from the upcoming FEAR AGENT. While the rest of the industry has to wait around until Rich Johnson rumors it, Newsarama reports it, CBR profiles it, the Pulse interviews about it, and Diamond to solicit it... you're going to get to see the future of Image comics with your very own eyes. And you're going to get party down with those creators responsible. For thirteen hours."

Comicon posters wonder about The End:

"We've all done it. Bought a mini series, maybe even a finite series, a one shot, a story arc and then gotten to the end and said 'The hell?' or something similar. I'm refering in this topic to two recent mini series but feel free to bring up your own 'the hells' in regards to confusing, odd, or just plain stupid endings."

"WATCHMEN -- pretty hokey ending."

"Yeah, Len Wein (who helped edit it) said it was too Outer Limits."

"I'd like to know which episode of the Outer Limits Len Wein was referring to. 'Coz I sure don't remember it."

"'The Architects of Fear' when scientists turn Robert Culp into a monster who was supposed to walk into the united nations and claim he was from an alien race declaring war on Earth in order to cause all nations to unite against a common menace."

You learn something new every day.

Millarworld asks... What is House of M?:

"After Rich Johnston's revealed that House of M is going to change the entire Marvel Universe. Fixing any problems with certain books. I got to thinking what this might mean: Maybe Hawkeye's return??? Xorn's actually explained?? Spider-Man's organic Web Shooters?? Thor??? Could these means fresh starts on certain books??? Any one heard any other news?"

"If anything, I think this will be Crisis lite. It'll affect just specific corners of the MU, and not the entire thing I'm guessing. I don't think it'll be anything sweeping like Onslaught or Heroes Reborn."

"I'll believe it when I see it. They always say that 'things will change forever', but they rarley do. Some 2nd or 3rd tier hero will die and all the A-listers will gather around his/her fallen body and lament them like they were the glue that held the whole thing together. And since Bendis is in charge of this one, he'll probably bring some 3rd or 4th tier character into a prominent role as a result of the series. Which I personally think is cool. I hope it's Squirrel Girl."

"Why is everyone comparing this to Crisis? Seems to me that its more like the Bloodties crossover from the 90s. There are Avengers and X-Men with the focus on Magneto and his family. Big difference so far is that this stems from an Avengers shake up, where Bloodties came from the X-Men's Fatal Attraction shake up. I just want to see Magneto fight."

At Newsarama, Brian K. Vaughan talks Runaways:

"Despite being a critical success, our first eighteen issues never quite lit up the sales chart - though Runaways always sold about as well as my ‘hit’ series Y: The Last Man, so I guess everything is relative. Just as I was about to write what was supposed to be our final issue of Runaways, our first digest collection finally came out, and blew everyone away by doing phenomenally well - it was one of Marvel’s best-selling trades of the year, and did especially well with new readers in bookstores. Marvel immediately called and asked if I'd be interested in keeping the series going... Marvel is relaunching Runaways because the collections did spectacularly well for them, and Marvel feels secure that future collections will do just as well, even if it takes a few months to solidify our monthly numbers - something that happened gradually with both Y and Ex Machina. Either way, the series has already been generously green-lit by Marvel for at least a guaranteed twelve issues, but we’re all very confident that the series is going to last much longer than that. I have the first two years plotted out, and as insane as I know it sounds, I’m honestly convinced that this is going to be the biggest comeback for a team since Giant Size X-Men #1."

Via Heidi, Neil Gaiman on DC's attempts to commemorate Julius Schwartz:

"After Julie died, there were discussions about what would be a good memorial to him. The idea that found favour in the end was that an annual lecture might be a fine way to keep Julie's memory green: an annual talk by an eminent (possibly even preeminent) guest speaker about the things that Julie influenced -- in particular the worlds of pop culture, comics, SF, fandom and the intersection of 'high' and 'low' culture. DC Comics have been in talks with Julie's alma mater, but as I understand it, the college in question never really went for the idea, so DC Comics boss Paul Levitz is currently looking for a home for the memorial lecture, and is talking to several organisations and educational establishments, but he feels that the word could be got out more widely. Which is where this blog came in..."

Larry Young, Man About Town, on comics:

"The thing that I find most compelling about comics is that it's the most direct-line feed from our heads to yours. No editorial interference, no corporate shenanigans, no limits whatsoever. Hang on to a robot running across the surface of the moon? No crushing of Cocoa Puffs into fine powder, no craft services table full of carrots and celery for the union electricians. No complex lighting set-ups, no highly paid actors, no $200 million dollar budget."

If you scroll down to the January 5th entry, you get mini-interviews with some of his Proof of Concept collaborators, as well. Crunchy goodness for all.

Somewhere Shawn Hoke is very happy as Mike Oeming talks Beta Ray Bill:

"I want to build him into his own definitive character, bump him up to a solid B-level character. If we can get sales up to continue as [a] series or another follow-up, that would be beyond my hopes and dreams for him but I'd love that. By the end of the series, we'll at least set that up as a possibility... He's a force because he beat up Thor in his prime... I don’t think he was ever a Thor knock-off or 'replacement' but an interesting mirror to Thor that Walt Simonson created. Still, I don’t think his character has grown any in the last 20 years or however longs its been. We hope to do that."

Mike Hawthorne invites you to follow in the footsteps of Julie Schwartz, Grant Morrison and James Sime:

"Getting into comics was never easier. Together with Oni Press and creator Mike Hawthorne, Newsarama brings you a chance to get into comics – literally. One lucky winner will win an appearance in the upcoming Hysteria graphic novel One Man Gang... In addition to being drawn into the story, the Grand Prize winner will also receive the Hysteria Prize Pack, which includes: both volumes of Hysteria book, Hysteria stickers, the Mike Hawthorne Sketchbook, and mini poster; as well as copies of Hawthorne’s other Oni graphic novels - Three Days in Europe and Queen & Country: Operation: Dandelion. But that’s not all! Two first prize winners will also receive the Hysteria Prize Pack (Hysteria vols 1 & 2, Hysteria stickers, the Mike Hawthorne Sketchbook, and mini poster."

That jailbreak that's going on in New Avengers? Not just a McGuffin for the new Avengers to form, as Tony Bedard explains:

"The jailbreak that begins in NEW AVENGERS #1 is a huge event – a major turning point for the super-villain community of the Marvel Universe. This jailbreak sends shockwaves out beyond the book in which it originates, and since the new Avengers lineup includes folks like Spidey and Wolverine, who don’t usually move in those circles, events in NEW AVENGERS cast a wider shadow than you might be used to. Also, I should point out that the SPIDER-MAN: BREAKOUT miniseries I’m doing with Manuel Garcia doesn’t “wrap up” the NEW AVENGERS storyline – it is a tale set into motion by the jailbreak. The story focuses on the escaped villains and on Spider-Man’s link to the Avengers."

Thank God! I was worried that, between small stories like Avengers Disassembled and the upcoming House of M, Marvel was beginning to forget about huge events and major turning points for the Marvel Universe.

Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon appears at the Pulse with a story about Will Eisner's creative legacy and upcoming works, while, over at Dwayne McDuffie's forum, there's an argument going on about whether Eisner was a racist:

"In the forward of Eisner's book 'Fagin the Jew' (ironically one written with the goal of denouncing negative portrayels about Jewish people) he mentions Ebony White ... the black man drawn to resemble a google-eyed monkey... When asked if his mention of Ebony White an admission of his own wrongdoing his response was 'I suppose if I denied it nobody would believe me.' Earlier Eisner's mention of Ebony went like this: 'I was never apologetic for the way I depicted Ebony. As a matter of fact, I was very comfortable with the way I did it. Remember, Ebony was created in the '40s and, at that time, you still had Amos & Andy. That sort of humor was prevalent and acceptable at the time.' A prick, I say."

"So the fact that he was one of the first people in the industry to employ blacks, that he was an active supporter of civil rights frm the 50's onwards; that he featured black characters prominently in his PS magazine work for the US government count for nothing? ...And that quote you keep using about 'I wasn't embarassed...' or words to that effect. He's speaking IN THE PAST TENSE about how he felt about Ebony AT THE TIME. The time being before around 1941 or 1942 (I'm working from memory here - it may actually have been later, when he came back from the war) when he did realise that the character's protrayal was stereotypical and offensive and got rid of him as a result. Quick question: have you actually read any of the stories in which Ebony appears? If so you'd know that despite his appearance (which wasn't much more stereotypical than, say, Dolan's or O'hara's) Ebony is probably the most sympathetic and admirable black character to have been protrayed in comics up to that time. Will Eisner led one of the most exemplary and admirable lives imaginable - he wasn't a saint. I'd say that his work on army educational material during the vietnam war was, given his liberal principles, at least as blameworthy as his portrayal of Ebony."

Mike Bullock remembers Will Eisner:

"Every walk of life has persons born to it that seem destined to alter their particular profession of choice. People who seem possessed with nigh supernatural amounts of talent and the razor-edged will to employ this talent in an almost single-minded pursuit of their goals. From Beethoven and Shakespeare, both of whom seemed birthed as true masters of their disciplines, to more modern names such as George Lucas and Stephen King, these sorts of people seem to come along once every century or more and truly redefine the art they practice. Will Eisner was just such a person and the sequential art medium is forever a better place for his presence."

Stephen King referred to as someone who was destined to alter their particular profession of choice and compared to Shakespeare? Now, I know that he's popular and all, but still...

When you get multiple emails directing you to the same thing, then you know it's going to be fun. Especially when it's about Brian Michael Bendis and Jesse Baker. Awhile back, you see, Jesse took Bendis up on his money back offer for those who didn't enjoy Avengers Disassembled:

"OK I got my confirmation card in the mail telling me that Bendis received my copies of Avengers Dissassembled and my insolent (as opposed to Stark Raving Mad Nerdrage) letter demanding that he honor his vow to refund the money spent on those issues to anyone who sent them back. Now I play the waiting game; but as I wait I want to make this publicly known for those who were wondering 'Did Jesse shit or get off the pot with regards to sending his Bendis written Avengers comics back to the motherfucker?'...."

Sadly, Jesse's still playing the waiting game:

"It's been about five weeks since I've sent back my copies of Avengers Dissassmbled and I have yet to get my money back from Bendis. And when I posted a POLITE message on his message board to inquire about this (since God Forbid I post it on the one place I can ger a direct response from Bendis) I find myself mocked by the Bendis board horde for daring to take Bendis up on the refund offer and then outright banned from the entire Image Message Board for NO GOD DAMNED REASON by one of his moderators. THE ENTIRE IMAGE MESSAGE BOARD FORUM. AND FOR WHAT? WANTING A STRAIGHT ANSWER ASKED WITH POLITENESS AND ZERO PROFANITY....... That being said, I call utter and complete shennanigins on Bendis for this and demand answers towards why I haven't received my refund back. And while he's at it why he would allow one of his moderators to ban a person from the entire Image Message Board sytem for no good reason..........."

Anyone looking for the polite thread on the Bendis board may have a hard time:

"Did they delete the thread you started?"

"Since they deleted the thread where Bendis made his money back offer, probably."

Of course, a poster at Micah Wright's forum may have an explanation for that...:

"It may have something to do with this statement (made here): 'WANTING A STRAIGHT ANSWER ASKED WITH POLITENESS AND ZERO PROFANITY.......' Not matching up with this statement made on Bensdis' board: 'Stupid hack writing complete with stupid hack decompressed writing style that makes Bendis the worst possible writer ever to write comics...' But hey, I'm just guessing."

Over at the K-Box forum, Kirk Boxleitner comes up with a suggestion, responding to someone else saying that they're glad that they didn't send their Avengers issues back for refund:

"All the more reason for you to send yours, in my opinion. Send them certified mail, and start a thread on the Bendis board about it once you've done so. As much as we all love him, Jesse has a bit of a negative reputaton, which makes it easier for people to dismiss him, even when he's asking questions that deserve to be answered (like, you know, now), but if Bendis and his mods try to pull that same stunts with somebody who (like, you know, you) has no real negative reputation to speak of online, then people will start seeing this for the Byrne-style bullshit that it is."

Later in the K-Box thread, Rich Johnston confirms that Jesse will get his money, but that doesn't completely smooth things over for everyone:

"The question, however, remains, 'Is everybody else?' Not that I'd want to; I still enjoy Bendis' work. But the principle remains: You say you're going to do a thing, you DO that thing."

So now the questions seem to be: How many people asked for their money back? And did they get it, or does Rich need to intervene for everyone? (Not to mention, was the money back offer thread really deleted? And if so, why?)

Mark Millar offers up another charity auction for Tsunami relief:

"The original, signed scripts for all twelve issues of my MK Spider-Man story (yes, even the ones that aren't out yet) plus a beautiful page of original art signed by Mr and Mrs Dodson. Start your bidding here, auction ending Monday and the winning bid writing a cheque to SCIAF to help co-ordinate their relief efforts. Let's start at 100 bucks."

Finishes noontime today, although it's not specified whether it's GMT, EST or whatever...

Rich Johnston sets the record straight:

"There's been a rumour going round that I'm paid an annual salary to promote Marvel Comics in this column. While a cursory reading of this column should dispel that, you know what pro gossip is like. But, based on the reaction Marvel employees had when it reached them, I'm glad it brought laughter into some people's lives."

Proof that I've been slipping comes in the form of my missing this thread at Millarworld for the last couple of days. It all starts off when Time Magazine's top 10 comics of 2004 are listed, and Mark Millar responds:

"Ech! I thought we all stopped posing in the 80s when we used to SAY that Love and Rockets, Mr X and Yummy Fur were our favourite books, but we were wetting our pants over Batman Year One and Elektra Assassin. Give me Ellis, Ennis and Whedon over these anyday. Magazine polls ALWAYS feature journos trying to prove their indie cred."

He adds:

"The journo is clearly a reject from the 80s when people still read the Journal and referred to mainstream creators as 'Bat-whores'. Why do people equate low sales with intelligence or cool? Some of this stuff is good, but 90% of indie books are as crap as 90% of mainstream books-- if not more so. The line-up of writers and artists in the mainstream right now pisses on the indie scene. I absolutely adore the indie scene and believe it's still essential for getting unique work out there Marvel and DC won't touch or breaking into the business, but this inverse snobbery is just laughable IMHO."

Then it gets fun:

"Damn right! I freely and proudly admit I didn't like Demo one bit, but think Astonishing X-Men is one of the best comics I've read in years. I don't particularly care for any of those books listed, some I downright refuse to read as well."

"I think this has less to do with low sales and more to do with material that's palatable to a wider audience."

"I don't agree. I think it's about people being all arsey about comics and how cool they think they are by reading stuff otside of the mainstream. Sorry but that list comes across as pretenscious. (hope I spelled that correctly)"

"Love and Rockets isn't easily palatable to anyone. I couldn't get through the first trade with a map and a tour guide."

"Just like most people can relate to either living in a magical forest where there are dragons. Or hanging out with a load of fictional girls all suffering with PMT all of the time. I can't. I'l take Captain Fuc@ing America over Luba or Fone Bone anyday!"

"Writing a list of the top ten comics of 2004 and not listing any big 2 (even Vertigo!), tells me that the person doesn't love comic books, but rather just loves their own impeccable taste."

Millar returns:

"I always snigger when people say genre material is insular and unpalatable to the outside world. Walk around Virgin or HMV the last three years and you'll be bombarded with Spidey, Star Wars, LOTR, Daredevil, Hulk, X-Men and all the characters that lie around the top of the charts. This IS the mainstream now. The average teen or twenty-something know who the X-Men are and have probably seen one of the movies. We'll have to agree to disagree here, but I've noticed a pattern and I base this on myself and the people I know. Aged 5-15 we just admit what we like. Aged 15-25 or thereabouts we like to individualize ourselves and get pissed off if we like something everyone else likes and so we seek out music, comics and movies we hope nobody's ever heard of. After 25, most of us just relax and like a little bit of everything-- though some people still feel this teen need to be into stuff other people don't like or know about. I was exactly like that myself.

"The list is suspicious to me because, like all these Time lists and so on, there's not a SINGLE Marvel or DC book. That's as weird to me as a list comprised ENTIRELY of Marvel and DC books. I think the guy is trying to be cool. God bless him if he supports the publishers who need his cash most, but I have a keen nose for this because these guys are very familiar to me. Lots of my pals are exactly the same and I KNOW how much they loved Identity Crisis or whatever."

And back to the MW posters again:

"Mr. Millar, the comics industry really needs more quality writers like yourself ,who aren't ashamed or too insecure to express their love of superhero comics. It's one of your best qualities as a comic celeb, and I'm glad, as a superhero loving fan, to have you in our corner. I agree, that list sucks."

"I can't understand this. It must be pretty clear to everyone that this isn't a space about comics but about mainstream superhero comics. Well, you now, www.millarworld.net, Millar, the guy writing Wolverine, Spiderman and The Ultimates. Even who posted the list hasn't read the comics! (coffee table list, anyway, you're right on that). It's funny this new elitism from the populists: "ours comics rule". Well, they surely rule the market... But I really think that all this cultural and economic conservatism (the icons and the market first!) will finally destroy what might have happened, becouse they are feeding who will eat them: they live not on good writers or ideas but on strong icons. Well, just think in Wildstorm five years ago and think how's it now."

Image's B. Clay Moore pops in to add some common sense:

"I dunno. The best 'mainstream' superhero stuff impresses me because now and then guys are able to push the fairly rigid parameters that are dictated by publisher, audience and general expectations, and create something that comes off as original. James Robinson, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis at their best... The best 'indie' stuff impresses me because creators are able to head in any direction they like, without restraint. Lots of times (hell, most of the time) it's messy, but when it clicks, it's pretty damn hard for corporate books to match. I've got boxes and boxes of superhero stuff, and I love much of it. But I'd be hard-pressed to come up with examples of superhero comics that really moved me, or had an impact beyond, 'WHOA! COOL!' I suppose that's not really their function, so it's probably a moot point.

"But the best 'indie' books do carry more weight than corporate comics. Pretentious as it may sound, I think more than a few of them cross into the realm of 'art.' Don't be afraid of getting shouted down, lads. If that's the way you feel, it's okay to admit it."

Millar returns:

"You're misunderstanding. What I said was I used to pretend that the only books I liked, when I was a teenager, were indie books when I was REALLY digging Miller, Moore, Wolfman, etc. I've always maintained that the holistic approach is the way comics work best. Something for everyone. Anyone who thinks we're going to reach a mainstream market by focusing exclusively on indie books is on crack. That's like basing the entire movie industry on Aranofksy's Pi. We need a little bit of EVERYTHING and in a major magazine like Time (like so many other of these articles) it annoys me that something as major for comics as Whedon writing X-Men (and Whedon has much more name recognition than even Frank Miller) just goes completely unmentioned. I'd be surprised if ten new peopl try comics for the first time based on that list, but how many Buffy fans would venture into a store if they knew Whedon was doing X-Men? My sister-in-law is a HUGE Buffy fan and only just found out about Whedon because I gave them to her. Now she's reading two X-books, MK Spidey and all the Ultimate books. And going into a comic store herself."

It's both fascinating and kind of depressing, isn't it?

The year may only be a week long by this point, but - thanks to Tom Spurgeon linkage - I may have already found the piece of comic news most likely to make me unnaturally happy in 2005. Over at Nick Abadzis's new website, there's a section devoted to Hugo Tate, where Nick writes:

"Hugo Tate ran in Deadline magazine from 1988 to 1994. Part of it was collected as Hugo Tate: O, America in 1993 and in 1994 this collection won a UK Comic Art Award for best graphic novel. Hopefully, there'll be a complete collection of all the Hugo Tate strips sometime soon - keep checking the news section for information on this."

A complete collection of Hugo Tate? What kind of lottery did my nose just win?

There're also some examples of just why Hugo Tate may be the greatest comic strip that no-one knows about at the above link, so please go and enjoy and then promise to buy the collection if/when it comes out.

Ralph Macchio reveals the name of Warren Ellis's third Ultimate mini-series - Ultimate Arrival - and the Newsarama irregulars guess the idea behind it, and complain:

"Ha!! Who do they think they're kidding?With Secret debuting no earlier than 3 months late, and without even having an artist named yet for Arrival (ummm, hasn't pretty much the entire comics world known that this was Galactus since before Nightmare started??? why all the 'secrecy' here, anyway?), this'll be lucky to be in stores as earlyas July 2006, much less this year. And I ain't even looking at it until all 3 trades are out in oh, say 2007."

"Yet, another friggin' Ultimate title? Christ, they haven't finished the first one yet. Does this whole freakin' storyline need 3 different, never on time books? I say no."

Just how creative are Fanboy Rampage commentators? Let's find out, shall we? Is it possible to snark on the following Jeph Loeb quote (talking about the upcoming new Supergirl series) without mentioning Sue Dibny, Dr. Light, rape, or footprints in her brain?:

"The action begins for Kara in the pages of 'Superman/Batman' #19, which serves as something of a zero issue for the ongoing 'Supergirl' series. Loeb said that issue sets up some of the background for the regular series and fills readers in on what Kara's been up to since 'Superman/Batman' #13. Loeb added, 'We also learn that Superman and Batman have continued to keep tabs on her and as her 'uncles' (in a very loosely defined way), they feel very responsible -- particularly Superman who still has to learn to let this girl go her own way. But -- and here's the fun -- they aren't the only one's watching. That mystery is tied into 'Identity Crisis' and I've been talking to Brad Meltzer who is such an inspiration for where this is all headed!'"

The Washington Post connects Susan Sontag to Sue Dibny in one easy step:

"Sontag, who managed to defend the excesses of modern culture while not owning a television, was celebrated -- and occasionally vilified -- for her efforts to synthesize seemingly disparate art forms. 'When I go to a Patti Smith concert,' she once famously asserted, 'I enjoy, participate, appreciate and am tuned in better because I've read Nietzsche.' I can't lay claim to such potent qualifications, although by now I'm savvy enough to make the appropriate noises. 'Comic books provide valuable insight into the human condition,' I've been known to proclaim. It was in search of such insight that I curled up last week with the hotly anticipated conclusion of a DC Comics series called "Identity Crisis."

(Via, somewhat unsurprisingly, DC Comics.)

Millarworld complains about Marvel's treatment of non-hits:

"This thread was spawned by my recent purchase of the Tomb of Dracula mini. It had been solicited as a 6 issue mini and i just bought issue 4 (after enjoying the first issue - my 'test' issue) and its over. Obviously the mini wasent selling very well and issues 5 and 6 were compressed into issue 4 which was rushed and dissapointing... I remember Mark Millar saying that DC mid level titles got no promotional support, etc...but at least they give these titles a chance to finish up their storylines in a coherent and natuaral way (ie: HERO). Is this how Marvel rewards readers? by soliciting series as ongoing (jubilee, Warlock) and then retroactively turning them into minis and then sometimes cutting the mini down (Warlock, tomb of dracula)...i mean Marvel cant finish a 6 issue mini series? What the hell!! This is a turn off...if only X titles sell..then only pump out X titles...dont give us minor characters that some readers may get into and then cut us off..."

"And DC goes and fixes a book like Hard Time or Bloodhound.... Marvel just cancels the series. Why not try to save Alpha Flight or Captain Marvel. Mystique is a good book, and Marvel cancels it just for fun. Why start the series if you are not going to fix it. Same goes for mini series. I had to drop the last issue for my comics budget...... I can't live on 4-5 comics a week!!!!"

"While I agree that Marvel is at fault one also has to say that the readers are responsible too. Tomb of Dracula #2 was ranked as 106 and Warlock #3 at 142. While it stings the readers to have their titles abruptly cancelled if the title is selling less than 10k copies then Marvel is likely to bleed cash very quickly as they have to pay creators to work. When Marvel loses money then this impacts the viability of the company and it also impacts releasing new titles. It's no stretch of the imagination that Marvel can support only so many titles at one time. By keeping really low selling titles going then this prevents Marvel from replacing the title with one that potentially would sell better. And in order to stay in business they have to pull the low selling titles and part of the problem is that they've got quite a few of them that aren't doing so well in order to continue to stay financially healthy. The bad news is that a few fans are going to lose their title. The good news is that a new title can be released which may sell better."

"That would make more sense if their recent publishing strategy was carefully selected launches of titles which were likely to sustain reader interest instead of throwing a whole bunch of stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks."

Phoenix: Endsong sells out, and Marvel goes back to press. Not that it's a second print, you understand. It's a "limited edition printing":

"Marvel Comics announces that PHOENIX-ENDSONG #1 has completely sold out but like its namesake, the beautiful Phoenix of ancient legend, it will return... in the form of a new Limited Edition printing... Curious readers who may have missed out on the first printing of PHOENIX-ENDSONG #1 will have another chance to witness the resurrection of the best-selling issue when a special Limited Edition printing hits stands January 26th (the same day as issue #2) with a variant cover featuring Jean Grey pictured in her green costume."

Image Comics have a "Welcome to the Bay Area, us" party at the Isotope two weeks tomorrow:

"Image Folks who will be on hand include: Publisher ERIK LARSEN, Executive Directory and writer ERIC STEPHENSON, and Marketing Coordinator B. CLAY MOORE (that's me), writer of Hawaiian Dick, Battle Hymn and the Expatriate. Creators in tow will include ROBERT KIRKMAN (Walking Dead, Invincible, Brit), RICK REMENDER and KIERON DWYER (who will be bringing along original art from their new Image title, Sea of Red), PAUL HARMON (who will also be featuring original art from his new Image book, Mora), GREG THOMPSON (writer of the upcoming Hero Camp), and a host of other guests. Image inventory manager Joe Keatinge and Expatriate flatter Josh Richardson deserve kudos for helping hook up Image and the Isotope...a match made in comic book heaven."

Kate and I are moving house that day to just six blocks away from the store, so if any Image people want to help with the lifting, they should feel free to offer.

JMS unable to make subtle jab at DC shocker. Courtesy of CBR's preview of Amazing Spider-Man #516, enjoy the newsreader's dialogue from the first two panels of page five.

John Layman reveals what Mark Millar's next top secret project is.

Boing Boing responds to the threat of downloading comics:

"So here's a gedankenexperiment for ya: what if the DC and Marvel put all their funnybooks on the Web two months after they were shipped to the stores? My guess is that the kind of comics reader who downloads issues so that he won't be 'running the risk of damaging' the hard-copy will continue to buy as many comics as ever. But if you believe the comics industry, it's going broke selling to just the people who put their comics in mylar bags and stack them in hermetic vaults. Funnybooks need to attract a civilian audience who will dip their toes in from time to time, buy the occassional collection, read one or two books a month: it needs a LOT of those people.

"The bound collections are a great way to hook new readers. They're retailed in regular book-stores, so they're visible to the kind of person who never goes into a Graphic Novelle Emporium. All that's missing is a way to turn collection readers into monthly-plus-collection readers. The Web could be that way. Scott McCloud has written some brilliant stuff about what a comic that's designed for the Web should look like, but here's the whole other way to use the Web to advance the comics biz: give old issues away to bridge the gap between customer acquisition and customer retention."

(Thanks, Max.)

The "This is an open letter" thread spreads to Comic Book Galaxy's message board, with the greatest follow-up posts imaginable. After the whole "zcultFM.com are killing comics" rant, the following two messages appear:

"Off the subject completely, BUT I am looking for a shirt!!! Does anyone remember when Superman changed his costume back in 97? They made a T-Shirt with the new blue and white Logo on it. I lost mine and can't find it anywhere!!! dOES ANYONE HAVE THIS SHIRT AND CAN I BUY IT OFF YOU?"

"sorry e-mail me mpcasas2003@yahoo.com"

For those of you who want to read more about BitTorrent and piracy of media in this modern world of ours, why not try these two articles from this month's Wired? The BitTorrent Effect and The Shadow Internet. Yes, I know, not really comics-related, but I just figured that there may be some interest spouting from the post below. Plus, this way I get an excuse to ask if Wired's Matt Brady is the same as Newsarama's.

Newsarama has a thread called "This is an open letter/appeal to comic fans" which, interestingly, starts with a post that is word for word identical to a similarly-named email that I received this morning. Both of which begin:

"The current generation, which is growing up with the Internet, has come to feel that downloading music, movies, books and now comics is acceptable. It is not. In the case of comics, it is a small medium and any lost sales can mean the difference between a comic series succeeding or failing. Furthermore, these are real people who are effected by these lost sales. These are not multi-national, faceless corporations making billions of dollars each year, these are little people like you and me, who are just
fortunate enough to be able to do what they love. Feeding into the problem that everything on the internet is free is that copyright law was not written with the Internet in mind. BitTorrent sites are able to exist on the edge the copyright law by not actually hosting copyright material but instead hosting 'torrent' files, making it possible for people to download copyright material from hundreds of other people. This creates a problem for companies who own the copyright material, and the law enforcement bodies who try to protect their rights, by making it next to impossible to stop it due to the sheer number of people taking part.

"In the last week, I have been investigating the largest BitTorrent feed for pirated comics, ZcultFM.com. ZcultFM.com hosts the torrent files that allow people to download comics that other people have scanned in. This is what my open letter / appeal to you is about. As I explain aspects of how ZcultFm.com works, I will include email addresses, giving you the opportunity to help prevent the copyright infringement of comics by emailing the ISP."

What's amusing is the number of first-time posters who then appear on Newsarama to defend ZcultFM.com:

"The only person who really loses out from piracy is the local dealer, and having talked to quite a few dealers personally, sales have not been hit or taken a dive due to piracy. If anything, because people have been able to read a book before buying, it has helped to make sales that may have not been made before. Today's market is filled with fickle purchasers, and because of that, the dealer's 'word' is not worth as much as it used to be. Nowadays, the "word" can be used to move product that doesn't sell. Not due to piracy, mind you, but the companies that produce the book assigning sub-standard art or writers. With the secondary market as well.. When you buy a back issue, that issue itself has gone through that first process, with an additional process of the dealer buying it from another customer... again, the companies face no loss, because the book has already been paid for. It's very possible that Mr. Stephenson has an agenda for the industry and Z-Cult in specific, but in the end, his arguement has no merit as it contradicts how the market works, and I said above, it just shows that he has the air of a hero looking for a maiden in distress, and finding that they are none, builds up an imaginary one."

"why don't you consider mind your own business? i buy 90% of comics published in my country, you seem to have a lot of time and money to waste, why instead of doing this kind of idiocies you waste your money sending me a part of material will not ever be published in this country (dark horse, dc, we see nothing of this)?"

"First off, please don't generalise a whole generation. I'm part of todays generation, I grew up on the net and I dont feel its right to download music, books, movies or comics - unless you have already purchased them. I'm also one of the users of Zcultfm. I download comics that are already in my collection (which consists of over 2000). I make a weekly visit to my local comic store, I still purchase TPBs from amazon. So why do I download? So that I can store a large percentage of comics in one place while travelling. Zcultfm allows to me to download the comics so that I dont have to take them back out of my collection and sit infront of my scanner, and the site encourages users to purchase comics - it also allows readers to find comics that have long been out of print and that will hardley ever see print again - so where are the comic companies losing out on that?? On another foot, why dont Marvel and DC offer older comics for download (like Apples Itune store for music)?"

"Apprently this guy has NO CLUE. have i downloaded comics heck yeah [...] do i buy more comics because of it heck yeah"

"The fact that daveys clearly put so much time and effort into getting all this information and gathering it into such a neat little report yet singles out one specific distributor and tries to have them shut down in such a stupid indirect way tends to make me think this is some kind of personal problem. If his little plan actually succeeds all it will even do is get some guys kicked off their isps. Even if they don't get new isps and start right back up again, it would have little effect on the 'problem'. Do you think no one can download warez anymore now that many bittorrent sites are being shut down? It's the same thing. If this guy really wanted to make a worthwhile change he would have tried to instead of making a public spectacle of some guys that probably banned him from their servers and made him cry."

It's like some strange performance art thing where people are invading Newsarama to pretend to have a fight.

(Edited to add: Look, it's at Comicon as well.)

Mark Millar continues to worry about DC's All-Star line:

"The biggest selling writer of the last two decades and the biggest selling artist on the world's second most famous fictional character is going to clean up. This much we know. But as the MU books noticed once Ultimate was launched, the heat was really, really taken off them for a long time. Just as DC lost market share last year despite some great moves into the top ten, could the same thing happen here again? Will the REGULAR Batman and Superman books be ignored as the heat moves to this new Legends of the DCU style line? I suspect so. I feel sorry for anyone working on those books for the next two years because what might be some fine work might end up getting ignored. Ultimates and New Avengers won't lose any readers with this move, but those little Superman and Batman books will."

When someone asks if this means that Marvel will "win":

"It depends what you mean by winning. Yeah, they'll sell more books than DC. They always do because they have a wider range of characters with a huge fanbase. But the truth is that DC and Marvel are both just trying harder now. And that means the READERS win. There's just more good books and, as a reader, I like that. I wouldn't like to be writing a regular Superman or Batman book at the moment, though."

Over at Newsarama, Jim Lee talks about All-Star Batman and Robin:

"I think we’re having our cake and eating it too. It’s a fresh start to the classic mythos; civilians and casual readers will dig it immediately and long time fans will love the new nuggets and gems Frank [Miller] unearths as he takes on the Dark Knight once more. It’s the Batman we all know and love, seen with a contemporary point of view. That’s my answer and I’m sticking by it! [laughs]."

The Bendis board is concerned for Marvel's supremacy in the wake of Miller/Lee Batman:

"What Could Marvel Do To Compete With Miller on Batman? What creative team on what book matches that? let's give them some ideas here folks."

"Do they need to? I mean, how long will this team last, five or six issues? By the time it finishes Singer will be on Ultimate X-Men, Millar on UF4, JMS on F4, Brubaker and Bendis still on Cap America and New Avengers.....
To answer the question though, resign Whedon/Cassaday on Astonishing and give Singer a top artist."

"Two words: Marvelman. Hardcover. As long as they don't muck with any of the content and get Moore to write the intro. And get Gaiman to finish what he started."

"Todd Mcfarlane on Amazing Spider-Man would shatter all records set in the last ten years."

Mark Waid explains one of my favorite parts of the first issue of his Legion of Super-Heroes relaunch: The double-balloon conversation:

"That's the point that polite society has sunk to - people would rather talk to one another electronically even if they're in the same room... Really, not much of an extension of today's world, where just yesterday I saw two kids text-messaging each other while clearly close enough to talk... In retrospect, the only way I can think of to have made it clearer would have been to have those balloons have balloon-pointers pointing off, as well... But that's 20/20 hindsight. Most people haven't been confused by the bit, luckily. And balloon confusion or not, I still hit my head on that wall pretty much every day. So far, the score is Wall 3640, Waid 0, but hope springs eternal."

Mark Millar comments on the All Star Batman and Robin team:

"Nothing else DC has coming out next year worries me at all. Bendis, Finch, Hitch and I should be able to swat away all the other pretenders, but Miller/ Lee is the most fucking terrifying combo a freelancer can imagine and the top spot disappearing is a foregone conclusion. I love both guys personally and professionally, but this is a juggernaut. Ultimates 2 and New Avengers are officially bumped into second and third place. This is Elvis teaming up with The Beatles."

When another poster suggests that Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's All Star Superman may also take a spot in the Top 3, Millar disagrees:

"I don't see it. First issue or two, maybe, with all the promotion, but it seems like more of a specialist taste. If they'd gone Ultimate as opposed to Legends of the Dark Knight, definitely, but Paul wouldn't allow it and the All-Star books are now just good six to twelve part stories at some point in a character's career by good creative teams. Much like LOTDK or JLA: Classified. I think Superman is going to be great, but it strikes me as aimed at the hearts of the smart readers (like me!!) who dug Flex, etc.

"My prediction for 05 is...
1/ All-Star Batman
2/ and 3/ Ultimates 2 and New Avengers (not sure what'll come top)

"But you can never discount Loeb. He's got something up his sleeve, I'm sure..."

He continues, looking at whether Marvel should be scared of losing their position at the top of the charts this year:

"DC proved last year that they're good at spiking a small number of books into the top ten and they jumped from ONE book to THREE books last year. However, they actually LOST market share because too much attention was taken away from all the other books. Marvel ended the year KILLING them on market share. What'll happen this year is they'll have FOUR books in the top ten (All-Star Bats and Supes, Jeph's Superman and Batman and Geoff's Crisis 2). The regular Batman and Superman books will tumble even lower because they'll get no promotion and nothing else outside of Pacheco's GL and maybe one other book is even seeing the top thirty. I'm a DC guy. I LOVE those characters, but the main audience is just so wedded to the Marvel characters that DD, FF, X-Men, Spidey, et al, is always going to sell more than the DC line-up. It's just mathematics. Even when the Marvel stuff is shit it sells more and right now it's pretty good.

"What Marvel need is a few more spike books for the top ten. Right now they have Ultimates 2, New Avengers and Astonishing. Wolverine is selling out and getting heavily promoted and there's one or two others on the horizon, but Frank and Jim will be a hard act for anyone to beat."

Matt Brady has fun at Wizard's expense. But, seriously, how did no-one at Wizard catch that?

Frank Miller is confirmed as the writer for All Star Batman and Robin:

"This is Dick Grayson's initiation and he's dealing with a very stern teacher. Batman is a hard teacher - unforgiving. Brutal. At the same time, Grayson is watching Batman come into his full power. Me and Jim Lee get to play with all of DC's toys. It'll be a romp. It'll be a lot of fun. I plan on raiding DC's treasury of characters. There won't be a Black Canary or a Wonder Woman unused."

Brian Michael Bendis's tribute to Will Eisner:

"You can’t die if you single-handedly invented the language of an entire art form and the concept of the graphic novel. Its impossible. He is immortal. Will Eisner is the most inspirational, most inventive and most sincerely passionate man I have ever met on this planet. I was not friends with him and my run ins were very brief, but for me very meaningful. They probably could have been more than they were but I felt completely unworthy to be in the same room with him.

"Years ago, I had the honor of having my work critiqued by him. He was honest and generous and has given me words to live by that has stayed in my head every day for the last decade. It was very close to a religious experience. It is one of the true gifts of my life. A couple of years ago when I was lucky enough to be invited to the Eisner awards for the first time, I was unaware until I got there that the award was actually given to you by Will Eisner. And any pro who actually gets to win one of those things will tell you that as nice as it is to get a little thing like that the true prize was getting the sincere handshake and little moment of acceptance from the man who invented something you love so much that prior to his inventing it did not exist.

"I’m sorry my words here are from my own experience and not more about the man, but these moments meant so much to me and I am flooded with that feeling right now.

"Do not mourn him. Celebrate him.

"If you are a storyteller or a fan of the craft, seek out his text books.
If you want to be moved and thrilled by the sheer magnitude of a master of the craft, please find A CONTRACT WITH GOD or THE SPIRIT CASEBOOK. One of the most important men this medium will ever see. Go find out why."

Via Heidi, Evan Dorkin announces that he and Sarah Dyer welcomed their daughter, Emily Jane Dyer, into the world just before the New Year:

"If you're a friend or colleague of ours who is only now finding out about our latest addition, my apologies -- I e-mailed a private announcement to friends and family, but I have an extremely outdated address book, and my first attempt at my first mass mailing was accidentally deleted. I just hope I'm a better father than I am a master of technology."

Congratulations to them both.

More CrossGen fun from ICv2:

"ICv2 was just notified that the judge in CrossGen's bankruptcy has issued an order granting CrossGen's request for more time to present its liquidation plan. The issue is apparently how to dispose of the proceeds from the sale of CrossGen's assets to a Disney subsidiary... The secured and unsecured creditors would all like to maximize their percentage of the $1 million sale price, less the Debtor in Possession financing, which will be paid off first. CrossGen has also filed suit against the secured creditors to avoid their liens for failure to perfect against CrossGen's copyrights. If the secured creditors maintain their priority status, the unsecured creditors will get nothing."

And, to those who have emailed and asked: I have no idea where the comments threads have gone. They should be there. I'll try and get them back...

Top Cow's Jim McLaughlin makes me homesick, as he gives his view of Glasgow at Christmastime:

"One of those societal/personal space issues: I stayed in 'City Center,' and the streets were absolutely thronged with Christmas shoppers. I'd veer out of people's way or turn sideways to avoid bumping into them on the sidewalk, but the average Scot seemed more than happy to just bump into me, then apologize profusely thereafter. Upon relaying this to [Mark] Millar, he suddenly saw the Scottish gestalt in microcosm: Scots love causing trouble, but feel very guilty for it afterward."

Following on from the Bendis Board's charity auctions and comic project, Udon sends out a press release talking about what it's doing for the Tsunami relief projects:

"We have all seen and read reports of the horrific crisis caused by the tsunami and the creators of UDON, many of whom are also members of the Asian community, would very much like to do what we can to assist the victims of this unfortunate event. UDON has decided to donate 5% of the profits made from the 4 products that are shipping within this month – Street Fighter #12, Darkstalkers #2, Street Fighter Eternal Challenge Artbook, and the Street Fighter Panoramic Poster – to World Vision to show our support. We have also encouraged all of our members to donate a portion of their creative fees from the month of December to charitable organizations like World Vision, The Red Cross, or any other charity of their choice. We realize that this is only a small part of what is sure to be a long and difficult rebuilding process, but hope that by doing this, other companies and will step up and follow suit. Together, the comic, gaming and entertainment industry can make a difference. I really feel that this is the least we can offer."

Over at CBR, Matt Fraction and Joe Casey are doing The Basement Tapes again:

"I think a spin tactic that's more common than most people would realize is when creators try to convince readers that they know exactly what they're doing, in terms of a particular story or even an ending to a particular story. In mainstream comicbooks especially, folks are flying by the seat of their pants so to expect anyone to have things completely thought out is just a recipe for disappointment. There are far too many factors conspiring against you to really present a clear and coherent story within the parameters of a shared universe. If and when it actually happens, I chalk it up to pure luck... But where do you think the compulsion to spin comes from? Are we so desperate to be liked - or so fearful of being disliked -- that we can't show even a trace of weakness, misjudgment or just plain wrong-headedness? Is it a crime against nature when your book doesn't sell huge numbers or when you go back on some ridiculous public statement you made years ago...? What's funny about that to me is that, in normal sociological paradigms, the more 'perfect' you are, the more hated you are..."

Aw, fuck. Will Eisner dies. Newsarama reports. Millarworld, the Bendis Board, the Byrne Board remember.

John Byrne on "good jumping-on points":

"It has occured to me that ["a good jumping-on point"] is one of the most destructive phrases to have worked its way into the lexicon of fans today. Whenever I start a new title, or start on an existing series, or encounter someone who is trying to decide about picking up something I have been doing for a while, I am inevitably asked what is a good 'jumping-on point', and my reply is always the same: the current issue. I try to make sure that every issue I work on contains all the information a reader will need in order to
understand what is going on, even if the issue contains a 'chapter' of a prolonged storyline. But many writers (and editors, who are really the ones to blame) don't do this, and so there has grown up in fandom this idea that one must wait for a moment to 'jump-on' a series... Part of the problem lies in a certain vocal segment of fandom who complain loud and long about what they deem 'unnecessary exposition'. When I was doing WONDER WOMAN I became especially aware of this (as did Walt Simonson when he, in turn, wrote an arc for that book). There are fans who have memorized every comma of Diana's backstory, and they resent being told how the magic lasso works, or the origin of the Amazons of Themyscira. That there might be scores of new readers who haven't a clue about such things is of no interest. These are people who want the comics tailored to their specific needs, and who consider the phrase 'jumping-on point' to be something base and vile. After all, one should already have 'jumped on', no?"

Elsewhere in the post, Byrne gives us the first contender for quote of the year, and so early in the year, too:

"Often that new reader will be told this even if it is not the case. 'Red skies' issues of CRISIS 'cross-overs' did not require reading CRISIS. When I did GENERATIONS 3 there were people hereabouts who insisted that G1 and G2 had to be read first, in order to understand what was happening in G3. Completely untrue, but it is, unfortunately, how we have trained a whole
generation to think. (Sometimes 'thinking' is part of the problem. Consider some of the complaints about G3 being 'confusing' -- not because it relied
on knowledge gleaned from reading G1 and G2, but because it jumped 100 years -- more or less -- between chapters. Readers were required to fill in some of the gaps themselves -- like if Lara Kent turns up as the wife of Bruce Wayne, the reader has to 'deduce' Bruce and Lara got married some time in the 'missing' hundred years. Alas, being 'confused' has become something of a badge of pride in and of itself, much to the detriment of the industry.)"

"Sometimes 'thinking' is part of the problem." Classic.

Newsarama has the press release that makes nerds everywhere rejoice: Buckaroo Banzai is coming back as a comic:

"Moonstone’s new book will be a NEW TALE of Buckaroo written by the character’s very own creator (and the movie’s screenwriter) Earl Mac Rauch! The interior art will be handled by ('Star Wars') Stephen Thompson. With the guidance of the film’s director, W.D. Richter, the Buckaroo Banzai color mini series will continue the bizarre trail blazed by the film. BUCKAROO BANZAI: a bold, titillating mix of particle physics, rock and roll, super-sonic speed machines, handsome men, beautiful women, and villains beyond redemption."

Talking of Rich Johnston, he's still looking back at last year in this week's LITG:

"It was also a year of spoilers with Lying In The Gutters inadvertently spoiling Hawkeye's death, then deliberately spoiling Scarlet Witch's madness (with a warning that some didn't spot) and finally the 'Identity Crisis' killer (though this time learning its lesson with a nice big white out). Brian Bendis tried to kill Rich Johnston on several occasions but is yet to succeed. 'All I need is one convention appearance... just one!' he mumbled."

Also, pay attention to the end of the column, where Rich tried to slip something in when no-one's looking.

Rumour column All The Rage has a retrospective this week, featuring previous writers looking back at their tenures on the column. Rich Johnston, original writer for the column, isn't too impressed, however:

"Might have been even more special if certain bits I wrote hadn't been cut out..."

Jason Brice, editor of the column, explains:

"There was some material removed because it was commerically sensitive, and other material because it was inaccurate. 1. In Rich's piece as it was originally submitted he said that Alan Doane was a partner in SBC, which he never was. 2. Rich also suggested SBC owed him money. SBC did owe Rich money, which at the time of his departure was offered to him, but he declined, saying that it should be given to Ian. Rich also recieved good and services in part trade. 3. Rich also suggested that ATR writers have been unpaid since his departure, which is inaccurate: subsequent ATR writers have been paid when their columns have received sponsorship. If there is anything else that I may have missed, Rich can choose to present it here, in LITG, or come to us directly."

Rich won't let it lie, though:

"I never received a penny during the column's run, despite being promised a share in something nebulous. Money wasn't offered to me when I left, I said if there's any money (not knowing if there was) give it to Ian. At no point was any figure raised. Cutting that from the piece did make a slight disconnect when I talk about you offerring me money, and then talk about leaving for CBR who actually offered me money. I think I had a small website experiment hosted for a short time, but after that I paid for it."

When Rumourmongers clash!