Fanboy Rampage!!!

For those who are appalled by the lack of snark in my last post about Laurenn and her charity efforts, I give you possibly the greatest email that this blog has ever recieved. With a subject line of "apparently you are pornographic", you just know it's going to be good, right? Patrick Stuart writes:

"Thought you might like to know, according to the liverpool library system you have been classified as 'restricted' whcih ususally translates as 'porn'. Since I cant access the site I have no idea what you have been getting up to to call down the thunder from the liverpool librarians, unless 'Millar' has become a swearword on the internet, which I suppose had to happen eventually, re. 'you utter absouloute Millar' or 'for christs sake don't be a Millar about it!'"

I'm so proud. Why doesn't Tom Spurgeon get emails like this (Which isn't to say that Tom's inbox hasn't been fun lately. Just the opposite, in fact)?

Kitchen Sinker, Rent Girl illustrator and all-round good egg Laurenn McCubbin needs your help. But it's for a very good cause:

"I am participating in a Triathalon, to raise money for blood cancers. 'A Triathalon?' I can hear some of you say. 'Aren't you the girl who threw up after trying out for track?' Yep, that's me. And a triathalon is nothing to sneeze at - the whole event includes swimming a mile, biking 26 miles, and running 6 miles. IN A ROW. And I am going to do it. And while I am doing it, I am going to be raising $3200 for the treatment of Leukemia, Lymphoma, Myeloma and other blood cancers. I am running on behalf of Team in Training, and over 70% of the money I raise goes directly to research and assisting the families of people affected by blood cancers. That's where YOU come in - I need donations from you, my friends, family and people I have worked with. I need you to help me keep going. I can do the training stuff - me and my friend Kelly Sue DeConnick are training together, and we help each other out on the things that we are each strongest at. Kelly Sue is a great swimmer, whereas I can barely not drown, and she is also a champ at weight lifting. I am a pretty good runner, and I love biking. She claims to look like Benny Hill on her bike. It is all balancing well."

Go and donate here. Or, if you want to donate to Kelly Sue DeConnick instead, go here. And, for once, keep your snark to yourself or wait for the next post. Thank you.

Captain America #6, the Winter Soldier reveal issue, gets a reprint and variant cover from Marvel:

"'We knew from a storytelling point of view that Cap #6 would probably be an under-ordered title once word got out about the identity of the Winter Soldier,' said Marvel Director of Sales David Gabriel. 'So in anticipation of the demand, we had Steve Epting do up a second cover, mirroring the image on the initial printing but focusing on the Winter Soldier, so that we'd have it ready to roll out shortly after the issue hit the stands.'"

Millarworld has a new look. Site God Michael Tegler explains why:

"There are a number of reasons. 1. Millarworld will soon be a network of sites offering bigger and more robust content. Each site will have it's own distinctive design. More on that later. 2. We've been living with the gutted corpse Jen Hooks' original design made for a entirely different board, and frankly it has been sliced and diced so many times, the Frankstein monster looks like the prom queen, by comparison. 3. Having more control over the design elements I'll be able to make easier and cleaner changes. 4. Everyone with a comic related site and his mother. now have the same forum software that we do, thereby making us look pretty bland, cause mostly everyone just changes a few colors and the logo. So something radical was in order. 5. Much like coffee, beer, and protein shakes, they taste like shit at first, but then after a while you can't imagine life without them."

Not that everyone's happy with the new look, sadly.

A thread about whether Mark Millar is really leaving Ultimates at the end of this current run at Brian K. Vaughan's board devolves into proof of how bored writers can get. After Millar appears to explain his current work situation (Essentially, after Ultimates 2, it's Millarworld 2), Vaughan replies:

"I knew this thread would bring that self-centered douche scurrying out of the shadows. If there's one thing Millar loves writing about, it's himself. Too bad DC owns the rights to his distinctive name and likeness thereof ever since he wrote himself into that Flash story a few years ago... and guess who Paul Levitz just offered the chance to write Mark's ongoing adventures? That's right, get ready for ALL-STAR MILLAR, written by yours truly and drawn by Hitch, coming in early 2007! It's the adventures of a tiny Scotsman trying to make it in a big world, DC style!"

Millar responds:

"All-Star Millar sounds really, really great. Congrats on finally coming up with something I'm actually looking forward to, BKV. And with my name on your solicits you might even break that 20K barrier at last!!!!!"

Vaughan:

"My 20,000 readers can actually read. All you have are illiterates who like to look at pictures of explosions."

Millar:

"I'm afraid I don't have time to reply to that last comment. I'm way too busy brushing (yes, brushing) my hair."

Vaughan:

"Still trying to cover up that bald spot, huh? (I can keep this up all night, old man! I'm actually ahead of MY deadlines!)"

Millar:

"I just wanted to apologize to BKV for my above comments. He is a much younger, handsomer, more talented writer than I could ever hope to be, and my jealousy sometimes manifests itself in oddly passionate ways. Sure, Y has sold more copies in Indonesia alone than Unfunnies and Chosen combined will ever sell worldwide, but that's no reason for me to abuse the lad. Anyway, off to wank to yellowed headshots of Margot Kidder!"

Confused? Vaughan supplies the reason for Millar's apparent change of heart:

"Cheers, mate! Wise of you not to fuck with the one guy who can edit your posts!"

Scary how Vaughan gets Millar's "dialogue" so lifelike...

M. Zachary Sherman talks about Seal Team Seven, the upcoming AiT/PlanetLar book that for some reason feels like it's kind of snuck up on me:

"After I settled on using the Seals instead of creating a fake black ops organization, I tried to come up with an antagonist that would be as visually stunning to draw as they were exciting and fresh to write about and I thought, 'hey who better to pit against the US Navy than invaders from Atlantis?'"

Augie De Blieck Jr. provides a guide to the comic weblogosphere. He's far too nice about this place, but his ADD entry made me laugh:

"The father of Comic Book Galaxy, Alan David Doane, links around to various less-seen titles and creators. He also virtually stalks Abhay, linking to many hilarious message board posts the much-missed columnist makes. I'm not kidding. He did it again this weekend. Someone call the cops."

You know that you've always wanted one: The Official Handbook to the "Newsarama Universe" - Posters provide all the biographical details you would want to know about them. Not that everyone's happy about it:

"[This thread] doesn't address where our conversation left off - with you either supporting an accusation or withdrawing it, and responding to why any of this is relevant to discussions we've had in the past regarding the FF movie, Identity Crisis or coming trends in the creative make-up of the comic book industry?"

"You've set preferences on your screen name so you don't receive Private Messages. You also set your preferences so no one can email you. You volunteer nada, zilch, nothin' about yourself or any type of background to show a willingness to openly participate as a good neighbor. Nothing about yourself--we just have to trust everything you say is legitimate... even if you hide everything about yourself. Your refusal to be even a tiny bit open about who you are and where you're from makes me inclined to be very skeptical anytime you criticize someone. If you're going to criticize anyone in the Talk@ Community, you should at least be willing to participate in some of the rituals members engage in (such as sharing details about our lives with each other). Otherwise, your posts are no better than the average troll's."

"To the best of my knowledge to participate in the Talk community, I need to follow Newsarama.com's and/or Matt Brady's Terms of Use, which I believe I well observe. Like many communities such as these, you're attempting to establish yourself as part of an informal governing squatters group that tries to set an additional set of norms and establish a certain type of behavior in order to be 'accepted'. I'm not interested in any of that, in fact I'm inclined to challenge it. So long as you or anyone else posts here, as a member of this community that follows the rules established by the moderators and behaves in a civil manner at all times (and of the two of us, I'm the only one who can make this claim), I can respond as I like. As to YOUR subjective opinion as to how I 'should' behave - I don't want you or anyone else paying attention to how old I am, where I grew up, whether I like boys or girls, my ethnicity or whether I'm a 'nice' guy or not. Emphasis should be on what I think and write, not 'who' or 'what' I am. But instead you attempt to discredit me in the eyes of the 'Talk regulars' because I don't choose to use the forum or behave in the same manner you and your group does."

Editor Jenny Lee leaves Marvel:

"It was a tough decision to make, since I love comics and visual storytelling, and the people I work with are the most talented, creative, and inspiring folks I've ever met. And feeling like you're part of a team collaborating on something that's more than the sum of its parts is incredibly gratifying. And while you're always going to feel like there are more stories to tell and more things to accomplish, there also comes a time when you just know in your gut it's time for change. The last few years have been very hectic and haven't left too much room to pursue other things I'm passionate about, like teaching women's self defense. Depicting fictional heroes in comics is great, but when you can actually help someone feel empowered in their daily lives, it's pretty spectacular, too. My self defense organization, Ruckus Safety Awareness (www.makearuckus.org), has been growing and I'm looking forward to having the room to focus on it for the summer."

Knowing how long James has been working on this (as well as the fact that I'm just about to leave work), I thought I'd just run this press release in its entirity. Isotope regulars, this is The Single Most Requested Isotope Event of All:

"Known for his unique vision of comics retailing, James Sime, proprietor of Isotope – the comic book lounge, announced today that he will be relocating his award-winning store into the heart of San Francisco on July 1. The Isotope’s new location, in the cultivated Hayes Valley neighborhood, will put comics alongside the finest the arts offer in furniture, fashion and food.

"'Our Andy Warhol's Factory meets CBGBs approach to celebrating the great art form of comics is just an ideal fit for the Hayes Valley neighborhood,' said Sime, 'The collision of high and low culture, of Haute Couture and Pabst Blue Ribbon, the combination of the tuxedos-and-evening-gown crowd with the corsets-and-leather crowd is the perfect environment for the Isotope and its singular style to thrive.' With twice the square footage for Sime and his staff to do their comic retailing thing, the Isotope's new location makes for the perfect environment for those looking to find comics and graphic novels from every walk of comic book life. And with just about every form of public transportation in the city dropping off people in a four block radius of the new storefront and street parking plentiful day or night, it'll be easier than ever for the entire Bay Area to get to enjoy the Isotope experience.

"'Making bold moves is an Isotope tradition; it's what has made us famous in the comic industry,' said proprietor James Sime, 'and what am I going to do that's more bold now that I've got twice the space to stock, sell and celebrate the comic art form? If you've been to the Isotope before, you KNOW what I'm gonna do!'

"Joining the elite community of independent businesses in the Hayes Valley neighborhood is a natural extension of the Isotope plan. 'Maybe it's just me, but it seemed like everywhere we went, we saw Best of the Bay winners, just like the Isotope,' said Special Projects Director Kirsten Baldock. 'Trendy restaurants, art galleries, clothing designers, and high-end interior-decorating shops are all award-winners. And we're a block and a half away from the city's hottest new nightclub, The Rickshaw Club, believe me, it's not going to be hard to go to work in the morning!'

"'I'm enjoying exploring all the little shops in the neighborhood, and the restaurants are some of the best in the city.' said Isotope bon vivant Ian Yarborough. 'What could be more perfect than having a classic cocktail and some New Brunswick oysters on the half-shell at the Absinthe Brasserie & Bar with a new graphic novel in hand?' 'Well, there IS the world-famous corset shop The Dark Garden right in our backyard,' answered Isotope enforcer and special effects make-up artist Jared Guenther.

"'We had some great times at our old location these past four years,'said Sime, 'but it's time to bring the Isotope brand of comic retailing to the epicenter of cool culture here on the West Coast. My staff and I can't wait until July 1st when we get to show all of you our new shop!'

"Isotope - the comic book lounge is the award winning home of the Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics in San Francisco, CA. Comic book impresario and retailer James Sime has been setting new standards for comic retailing since 2001 and continues his campaign of comic evangelism with his weekly column The Comic Pimp on ComicBookResources.com. Isotope – the comic book lounge is a purveyor of fine new and vintage comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, manga and other imported comics, as well as unique props and memorabilia. Starting July 1st, the Isotope will be located on 326 Fell Street (@ Gough) in San Francisco. For more information about Isotope – the comic book lounge, visit: http;//www.isotopecomics.com"

I'm off. Have a good holiday weekend, all Americans.

Bart Sears signs an exclusive contract with DC, promising to bring his weirdly-flat style to the publisher. Interestingly enough, the press release mentions something I hadn't heard of before:

"'We're very happy to have Bart Sears back with DC, and we're excited to see him apply his skills as both an artist and a designer on projects including BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT and the upcoming WARLORD series,' says Dan DiDio, VP - Executive Editor, DCU."

They're bringing back Warlord? Did I miss this announcement somewhere?

Joe Quesada spends his Fridays spinning:

"[L]et’s discuss 'dead is dead' because I think people have a tendency to pigeon hole the rule based on the sound bite and not upon the reasons I set it up. I didn’t set up 'dead is dead' within editorial to keep characters who died out of the books forever so much as I want our writers to do three things: 1.) Think twice before you kill a character off in a significant way. 2.) If it’s a death with a predetermined resurrection, in other words, I’m killing off this character in order to bring them back further down the line, then I need to know about it ahead of time and it better be a damn good character arc. 3.) If you want to bring a character back who has had a significant death, then it better be a great resurrection. All of this was with one goal in mind, to give you the reader better stories at the end of the day. I think we’ve done that, but what happens is that when people read the words 'dead is dead,' they understandably only read one thing into it."

The moral of this story: Don't believe anything Joe Quesada says, because he's not fully explaining his reasoning behind it, and for all you know, his reasoning may entirely contradict what he's saying. "Dead is dead? No! What I meant was 'Dead is only dead until you come up with a good way to bring them back!'"

TCJ posters discuss the seeming Frank Miller/Wizard peace:

"Does anyone else find this to be rather despicable? ...Hooray for comprising your values and buying Wizard off (with a free action figure) in exchange for free editorial coverage! We love it!"

"Eh. It's Miller. The best way to figure out what Miller will do next is to imagine the opposite of whatever he just made a public declaration of principle regarding."

"As embarrassing as Wizard Magazine is, Miller's 'shocking' episode at the Harveys in 2001 was just as embarrassing. It was incredibly awkward, and seemed completey out of place...I really thought it was a joke! And yeah, it is pretty despicable...Frank Miller talks a good game, but he so often goes and does something like this that makes me think he's full of shit."

"Of course Wizard is screwing Frank, but why should he compromise with them (if it's true)? He's more successful than he's ever been. ALL-STAR BATMAN is going to be a smash success with or without WIZARD. How much more money is WIZARD worth, given the price? I hope I'm off-base in some way I don't understand. WIZARD has been a pernicious influence on comics over the last decade, and Miller knows it."

"I think the key here is Lee. I've followed Miller's interviews as closely as I've followed his comics and one thing that comes up repeatedly is how quick he is to praise his collaborators and to emphasize their contribution. So if it was important to Lee, as I think it was, Miller would be willing to eat crow. By the way, why is Frank fucking Miller working with Jim fucking Lee?"

Frank Miller in the Guardian:

"Despite being a comic-book movie, Sin City has little in common with the garish, effects-driven superheroics now associated with the genre. It plays more like the film noir equivalent of Pulp Fiction; a trio of macabre, interlinked tales set in a stylised world where men are honourable brutes, women are deadly lingerie models, and the only proper way to deal with a paedophile is to shoot his nuts off. It's not what you'd call politically nuanced, but Miller is unashamed and unapologetic. 'Cartoonists' dirty secret is that we tend to come up with stories that involve things that are really fun to draw,' says Miller. 'I'm a guy. Of course my fantasies would look like that.'"

(Via Millarworld, where Mark Millar continues to become a parody of himself: "HAW HAW! Dave reads The Guardian! POOF! PS As do I, I'm afraid, But I hate myself for reading it. It's so fucking WET." To the person yesterday who asked why I go after Millar so much - It's because he says shit like this.)

Crossgen takes one final step towards death, finally:

"The United States Bankruptcy Court in Tampa Florida has approved the 'plan of reorganization' (actually a liquidation plan for the disposition of the company's assets) for CrossGen Entertainment. The court acted after the plan was accepted by the requisite number and amount of creditors in each class affected by the plan."

Bryan Lee O'Malley on Scott Pilgrim:

"I think [the second book, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World] will change the reader's impression more than it changed mine... I pretty much have a well-rounded character in my mind. The first volume showed what it showed, and people formed their impressions of the characters, but there's more. There's definitely a feeling of accomplishment after finishing 360 pages of this story, though, yeah. I've never stuck to anything for this long, so I'm proud of myself. And I'm definitely in it for the long haul."

You crazy kids who haven't read Captain America #6 might not want to read any further. If you're still reading, then obviously you have no problem with me telling you that it looks very much like Ed "Poor Holden" Brubaker has brought Battlin' Bucky Barnes back from the dead. Newsarama asks, "What were you thinking, man?":

"[T]here is this perceived notion that Bucky is like Gwen Stacy or Uncle Ben, or several other dead characters in mainstream comics, that makes it somehow sacrilege to bring him back. But there's a big difference between Bucky and them that no one ever seems to think about -- there's no actual comic where Bucky dies. It was a retcon. The first Marvel retcon, but a retcon still. You can actually go buy the comics where Gwen Stacy and Uncle Ben die. But the only way you can get a comic with Bucky's death in it is in a variety of slightly conflicting flashbacks that are all essentially retcons... The one thing that I think is strange is the people that I've seen who love the book that say they're dropping the book, or they're dropping all Marvel comics, or whatever, because of Cap #6. It makes me wonder if they would've dropped the book in the ‘60s when Stan Lee and Gil Kane brought Bucky back for three issues, when he turned out to be a robot. Or if they would've dropped the book in the ‘70s when Bucky was in a few issues and turned out to be Jack Monroe, the Bucky from the ‘50s. This story's got a long way to go before all the questions it raises are answered, and I would hope that anyone who's been enjoying the ride so far will stick around, because we're really just getting starting here, but if people want to wig out before anything is resolved, then I certainly can't stop them."

Matt Brady takes a look at what DC's new logo means in a larger context:

"Marvel clawed its way up from bankruptcy to become the well-known, profitable, and respected entertainment brand behind a number of blockbuster franchises, most notably the wildly successful Spider-Man and X-Men. With the Marvel logo appearing on every related television commercial, the start of each film, and all manner of ancillary products from playsets to pasta, someone at Time Warner must have noted that they have the potential to do that and more, and since they control the manufacture and distribution of intellectual property 'from soup to nuts,' can achieve multiples of Marvel's success under the right circumstances. Certainly this move demonstrates that DC, as an entertainment company, is finally ready to duke it out with Marvel in that context, much the same as it is going head to head for market share in the direct market economy. But beyond being the waking Goliath to stand up to Marvel's David, this restructuring of DC also can possibly be interpreted as an aggressive sign for other intellectual property monoliths like Disney to stand up and take notice. In the macro view, and in light of moves by both companies, 'Marvel vs. DC' is clearly far too small a scale by which to be viewing the playing field. Observers have also suggested to Newsarama that the press release from Time Warner and DC served as a means to point out to Wall Street that perhaps, as an asset of Time Warner, DC is undervalued. Looking at the release through that lens, it could be argued that the message was that with many of the larger media projects based on DC properties, the revenue remains within the Time Warner family, and thereby, DC itself should be taken very seriously as a very valuable piece of Time Warner."

Brian Wood talks about his new IDW series, Supermarket:

"People who know my work know I tend to make one of two different sorts of projects: serious stuff like Demo with a heavy emotional core, or fast, crazy stuff like The Couriers. I don't prefer one over the other. Each one satisfies a different part of my psyche... I should say that Supermarket is meant to be a fun book, a little over the top and very tongue-in-cheek... It's similar in a way to my Pounded book at Oni and The Couriers. You take stuff like that too seriously and it starts to fall apart on you."

Go check out the concept and the lovely art samples.

TCJ.com runs outtakes of the Craig Thompson interview from their latest print issue, and in doing so, convinces me to actually buy the damn thing:

"Yeah, I have rheumatoid arthritis, so [drawing] gets seriously painful. Certainly during those conventions and other extreme-deadline workdays, I suffer a lot of pain. In some ways I think that's a carry-over from my brand of, like, martyrdom Christianity -- something that's psychosomatic or self-inflicted... I think it's the physiological component to internal self-loathing. Destructive thought or emotional patterns can actually damage the body -- for instance, with cancer -- and I'm operating from such a typical cartoonist's self-loathing sort of personality. I'm trying to get over it, but in the meantime, hand pain is one of the physical manifestations of that mindset."

Why won't Marvel go dark, ponders Millarworld:

"In the 80s, DC never hesitated in showing their heroes in a negative and even in a psychotic light. You had Moore and Veitch's Swamp Thing, Arkham Asylum, and other comics at the time that portrayed DC heroes as mentally unbalanced thugs (I love DC's heroes and didn't agree with those intrepretations but it was very interesting and most of the time very well done). My question is why doesn't Marvel do the same thing? I mean a strong case can be made that Spider-Man is crazier then Batman. Why isn't he portrayed in a poor light? I'm not talking about where in the comics the public hates him and that bull. I'm talking about the actual comic portraying Spider-Man as a psycho or mentally unhinged. How about other Marvel heroes like Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk (well Banner accomplished that I'll admit) or the Fantastic Four? A case can be mader that all these characters are mentally ill. I thought that;s what the Marvel series Startling Stories was supposed to show. Not talking about Megalomanical Spider-Man, it was good but basically an Elseworlds I'm talking about sutff in continuity."

"The difference is that DC heroes are iconic and built on myth. Marvel's always had the feeling of being darker and more 'challenging': their biggest hero was in college, their most popular franchise is built on racism. Also, most Marvel teams like X-Men and Fantastic Four have had cases made by writers like Waid and Morrison that they aren't heroes, mainly super-powered concerned citizens. There isn't much you could make out to be disturbing in Professor Xavier or Reed Richards. If you applied that approach to Spider-Man, you wouldn't get farther than a guy who unfairly blames himself for his Uncle's death. I think the approach you're getting at starts and ends at The Sentry for Marvel."

"I think the problem with a more mature Marvel is that it is an institutional issue. Marvel as a whole wants to deny deny deny that they have any mature themes in their books. Even their successful, thought provoking mature work gets canned after awhile (i.e. Supreme Power) due to institutional policy. Whethere they care to admit to it or not. Any character can be given a smart mature slant. Marvel just tends to shy away from that and demand their characters remain kidified. No wonder as fans were outraged when Gwen cheats on Peter. Much less finding out she had sex. Even though after it was revealed that JMS wanted those to be Peters kids and Marvel said no explains some of the stupidity of the story (but thats another story altogether). Marvel can't do an Arkham Asylum, or a Killing Joke, Watchmen, Dark Knight returns, etc. Simply because they are afraid and they are run by uptight suits, not creators."

"Nah, it's got nothing to do with creators or suits. It has more to do with common sense. Most Marvel characters just don't work good in dark stories. I think the same is true of DC's heroes as well. A dark take on Spidey is good for maybe an arc or two but that's it. Same thing with most of their big guns excluding maybe Wolverine or DD."

Newsarama nominates a contender for the "Worst Review Ever" - This one, of Black Panther #4, which ends thusly:

"Upon finishing this hideous drivel, I actually had to re-read it because I couldn't believe that Marvel, a company I have been loyal to for close to 20 years now would publish such narrow-minded, divisive, racist garbage under it's bannerhead. But they did, and until Mr. Hudlin is no longer being published by Marvel Comics, I will no longer be purchasing Marvel Comics because I do not support racists and bigots or the companies that push forth their twisted agendas. I did not contribute a dime to David Duke or Pat Buchannon's presidential bids, so I will not contribute another dime to Marvel Comics corporation until they get their house in order. Sorry, but no more New Avengers, Wolverine, Ultimates, Powers, Ultimate Iron Man, Iron Man, or Captain America (that one's gonna hurt) until Reginald 'The Hatemonger' Hudlin is off the payroll. I was so deeply offended that I actually tore all four issues to pieces, removed them from my home, and deposited them in the trash outside, because that's exactly where racist trash belongs. Shame on you, Marvel. You should know better."

Now I almost want to read Black Panther just to see what all the fuss is about (It's anti-white racism that Hudlin is being accused of, by the way. The reviewer notes earlier, "All one need do is rent House Party (1 & 2, both written by Mr. Hudlin) to see this man's opinions about white people laid bare".)

Steve Englehart's Coyote returns:

"'Coyote' was something I first did in the early '80s for Eclipse. I did it with Marshal Rogers... I wrote a 60 page graphic album, the origin of Coyote, which Marshall then took and divided somehow into seven parts, which ran in Eclipse Monthly magazine and was later collected. It had a fairly small print run in its original form... 'Coyote' was a pretty influential book at the time... I've had a number of Image guys come and tell me what the Eclipse and Epic people did sort of inspired them. I'm not taking responsibility for them all becoming millionaires, of course."

Five trades will reprint the Eclipse and Epic runs of the series, as well as the unfinished tie-in Scorpio Rose miniseries.

Somehow, I missed this earlier. Over at Newsarama on Sunday, poster Christian Otte broke the "news" that Chris Claremont was possibly being replaced on Uncanny X-Men:

"Don't know if this has been posted before, but apparently there's talk of Greg Pak taking over Claremont's job on Uncanny. Alan Davis apparently left because of some creative differences and now Claremont has begun to have editorial trouble with Marvel, too - some say that is also one of the reasons why Excalibur was cancelled. Apparently, this was posted over at Quesada's message board, but the thread was quickly deleted - make of it what you will. I would say this would be pretty cool, though - I haven't really liked Claremont's X-Men in a loooooooooooooong while, so Greg Pak is an excellent solution."

The next day, Mark Millar, playing his other role of "responsible creator", quashed said rumor:

"In a nutshell, I want this erased because, as a creator, I don't like seeing rumours founded on nothing getting out there and hurting other working pros. Chris is a good guy and, despite his huge rep and background, is a great team-player. More than anyone, he was willing to make the appropriate changes Enemy of the State leaves Wolverine in and he's had no trouble at all with other X-writers or the X-office. According to Joe and Marts, Chris is going nowhere and, to be honest, it's a bit shitty for people to make this stuff up. It's just a comic to most people, but it's Chris' job and I want this nipped in the bud now."

Over on Newsarama, Otte apologizes for telling tales:

"You know that Uncanny X-Men rumor about Greg Pak taking over the book? Yeah, I made that up.

"I think the idea to create a fake rumor was brought up by another thread about rumors on TALK@[Newsarama]. I noticed how people immediately believed everything the article said, even though it clearly stated it was all rumors, and I wanted to see how easy it would be to fool people. The idea of Pak taking over X-Men was never meant to be a diss against Claremont - it was just the first, the best idea I could come up with. In fact, I even thought, after posting the thread, that I should have made up something else, where no man's _job_ was the subject of the joke. I hate to see how much trouble it has caused. It was never meant to be anything other than a mere experiment on the TALK@ boards, but afterwards, I can see how easy it is to get the snowball rolling. I don't know why I didn't even stopped it when I saw Millar's thread over at his own site - I guess it was just human nature that I tried to get out of it the easiest way I saw fit and I can see now how that was wrong.

"Hope everyone involved will forgive me - trust me, my intentions were never to cause any internal strifes at Marvel. Again, it was never the idea that it should've gone so far, it was but a mere prank/experiment. Trust me, I feel really bad about this. I'm gonna take a day or so off the board, too, since I'd rather just get this over with, no arguments and all."

Luckily, Newsarama as a whole holds no grudge:

"I forgive you Christian! I know talking to you over MSN, how torn up you are over this. What you did was foolish, but stepping up to the plate and taking the blame is very non foolish. So buck up buckaroo! You are doing a very brave thing."

"It's amazing how much shit you can stir up over the internet. Don't feel bad about it, Otte."

"They're right, Christian. Obviously you never meant it to go as far as it did, so I can understand how upset you must be. But it took major balls to admit it like you did. You're a stand up little dude, in my view."

Heidi Macdonald puts on her shitkicking boots and gets to the bottom of the cause of Mark Millar's recent woes - Whether Alan Moore and David Lloyd were shortchanged by Hollywood. First off, she spoke to Lloyd about the movie version of V For Vendetta:

"We get a percentage of whatever DC gets from movies, licencing et al, but the property itself is DCs. On the option question, I have a policy of not telling anybody what I earn from various work projects. You want to tell me what you earn, or put it up on your site? As far as the screenplay is concerned, I have regrets, of course, that it isn't a faithful translation to screen of the original product, but it is a good script; and unless it changes for the worst between now and the premiere, it'll make a good movie."

Lloyd also spoke about the circumstances that led to DC owning the property:

"When V was created for Warrior, we owned it entirely. DC bought it when they gave us the opportunity to finish the story through the US publication of the series. In the late 80's there were no crowds of alternative publishers rushing to us with contracts offering creator-owned deals or suchlike, so there were limitations to our chosen course of action. Of course, these days things are different."

Next, Heidi spoke to Alan Moore:

"According to Moore, 'a while ago' he received a check for $7,500 for V FOR VENDETTA which should have gone to David Lloyd. This was for an early option, however. (And the amount is half of the option money due, since DC gets half of the option money)... A much larger check was cut when the movie went into production earlier this year, and went to Lloyd without a problem. Mark Millar will sleep well tonight."

Here's hoping that Mark will, indeed, sleep well tonight, and tomorrow start investigating how much the creators (and/or families thereof) are recieving for the movie versions of Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Blade (and Nightstalkers, or whatever Hannibal King and the other character are called), and all the other Marvel movies that we keep hearing about. How did Elektra work out for Frank Miller? Did whoever created Man-Thing see the money for the Sci-Fi Channel classic? Are Len Wein and Herb Trimpe getting shitloads of money for the planned Wolverine movie? It's good to know that Millar will be on those trails, now that this movie mystery has been solved.

Because I'm sure that they've been waiting for me to blog this since Monday - The Isotope regulars discuss creators, contracts and companies. It all started when Shawn Richter responded thusly to news of Alan Moore taking LOEG to Top Shelf:

"Can you believe there are actually arguments going on discussing whether Alan Moore did the right thing? I love the internet! Good for him... no way will I EVER side with a company over a creator... it just ain't right..."

When James Sime points out that things aren't really that black and white, Shawn expounds on his theory:

"What I meant (and what I said) is I'd never SIDE with a company over a creator. Are there good companies out there? hell yeah. But as good as they are, I'm sure there are creators who have a bone to pick with even the best (maybe even AiT/Planet Lar). In that situation, even if the creator was a whiney primadonna and had broken his contract and not delivered his pages, I'd have to just say, no comment. The bottom line is, I've been in this corner too long to say, hey, that guy he deserves to be fired. There are plenty of guys that won't get to make comics ever again, because they've been blacklisted in the industry and maybe they deserved it, but that's just fewer comics (and maybe even good ones) to go around, get what I mean?"

Keeper of the Zealot's Lore, Sean Maher, steps in:

"Well, except that if a company spends a lot of money on a book and the creator craps out, that's that much less money said company has to spend on putting out actual comics. And you need those companies to get the vast majority of your comics. I've got a world of respect for self-publishers, true soldiers that they are, but without a host of companies - from AiT/PlanetLar to DC - you wouldn't really have any comics at all. You'd have Cerebus and Stray Bullets. That's it. Those are both great books, sure, but my point is that companies continue to exist because they offer something that creative people can't do (or suck at). Those companies are the reason that (most) creative types are able to make a living doing comics at all. You might come back to that and say, 'Well, businesses can't do anything creative, now can they? Without the creative folks, those businesses wouldn't have anything to sell!' And I'd agree with you. Because it's a SYMBIOTIC relationship. It's a trust, a partnership, a contract. And to me, that means you have to value both parties equally. I think you're giving companies the short end of the stick. They don't have less on the line than the artist - in many cases, they have a lot MORE on the line (see James' example about putting up those big fat production costs)."

James Sime:

"As always, I go back to contracts. You don't like it, don't fucking sign it. You're unhappy with working conditions where you are, feel free to take your next project someplace else and sign a contract with them. If no one offers you the contract that makes you happy invest your own money to put your project out yourself. Pretty simple. If your publisher violates your contractual agreements either suck it up or sic your lawyer on them. That's why you have a contract and a lawyer, to cover your ass from crooks. If you don't read your contract before you sign it or refuse to stand up for yourself even though you want to the only one who is screwing you over is yourself. Perhaps I'm just simplifying the whole thing, which wouldn't be too surprising actually.

"Me? I deal with a distributor who pretty much has a monopoly on the industry, and if I don't like the deal Diamond is serving up I'm welcome to carry no Marvel, DC, Oni, Dark Horse, or Image Books whatsoever... which is pretty darn equivalent to 'go get a new career.' Unlike creators, the luxury of having choice who I do business with is not afforded to those of my profession. Food for thought."

Larry Young:

"I'll be happy to explain to you next time I see you at a con how 'If I look at the facts and the creator is in the wrong (ie. didn't live up to his contract) then I'll probably just keep my mouth shut. But I won't come down on him. Becuase [sic] in MOST disputes between the two, it's seldom that the company is the injured party.' is a complete logical fallacy. Is contractual injustice defined by which set is 'usually' the injured party? Or is 'injustice' unjust no matter which party is wronged? Some analytic reasoning displays your argument to be a bit vacuous: a little 'If p, then q,' you know? If the creator violates a contract, you keep your mouth shut with tacit agreement, but if a 'company' violates a contract, you're up-in-arms because 'companies' are 'seldom the injured party'? I sure hope no publishers are offering you contracts to sign, because it seems a bum deal on their part if you think you can non-perform to no penalty and they just have to eat it when you walk."

Shawn:

"To clarify my post that you took umbrage at, what I'm saying is, I'm not gonna go telling the people I work for about the rep of a certain artist, if I've heard he's late or doesn't deliver or whatever. Dude, it could be whatever circumstance and I've been there too many late nights myself to hang another guy out to dry. And maybe it is just as hard for the other end, but I don't know. I do know how it is on this side. It's not my intent to give excuses to guys who don't honour their commitments; I'm not defending them. But I'm not gonna get up in their grill about it either. Way I see it, natural selection will take care of those dudes... I did take offence at your comment, but I'll just forget about it, It's not a big deal. And if you'd be nervous about publishing me or whatever, 'cause you think I'm out to take you for a ride, I guess I'll have to live with that. It's not the impression I meant to give, but I can see how it might look like it. Hey, the internet's just the place for that ain't it?"

Larry:

"I didn't take umbrage at anything you said. I'm one of those cats who think differences can be discussed without generational blood feuds being started. I come at things from a different place than you, is all. You're NEVER going to side against a creator, even when he violates a contract; I prefer to look at things situationally. Whatevs."

Shawn:

"You're right, I won't side against a creator, as I've said. Think of it as creator affirmative action if you want. If the deck is stacked in favour of the publisher (which it is) I'm gonna support the guy who doesn't have the power. Actually I'm kind of surprised that you'd side against a creator considering how creator friendly you profess to be. You've told me stories about how it's not worth even knocking on Marvel or DC's door, just self-publish instead. Have you been on the other side of the fence for that long, that you'd critisize the talent if the situation seemed to show the publisher was the aggrieved party? I mean, don't most publishers have enough wherewithal to defend themselves in the media or the courts? Do we need to jump on their bandwagon if an artist is late with a project or a writer doesn't finish a story? Remember, my post was in reaction to the people at Newsarama who started calling Alan Moore down for jumping ship at DC. I never said that creators are perfect, just a lot less powerful. It's a david and goliath situation nearly everytime. Sean Maher said it should be a symbiotic relationship, and that's true, but very often it's more parasitic, in that the talent is 'afraid to bite the hand that feeds them', or in other words, to speak out if things are amiss, for fear of not getting more work."

The lovely Chip Zdarsky:

"From what I've heard, only a Sith deals in absolutes. Shawn, you need to start a comic publishing company just so I can see your head explode from the ethical confusion that will no doubt arise."

Sean Maher again:

"If you really want to aid the struggle for creators' rights, it seems to me the first thing you need to do is tighten up the standards to which you hold the creators themselves. You have to be responsible for yourself (and I don't mean you personally so much as I mean creators in general) before you go laying your grievances on others' doorsteps. That means taking an active approach to ensuring responsible, professional, honest behavior from your fellow creators, and that means holding them to the same standards as anyone else, including major publishing companies. I'm with you 100% about the Moore/DC debate, but I just don't believe in dogmatic siding-up like this. Approaching the table with an 'Us vs. Them' attitude in advance does nothing to help creator-publisher relations."

Shawn Richter:

"Everyone who signs a contract has an inherent 'us vs. them' attitude, because what's a contract but insurance? A contract is only invoked if things don't go according to plan. It's for covering your ass. If you didn't think you were ever going to get screwed, you'd never need to cover your ass, would you?"

Kirsten Baldock:

"As someone who has signed a contract, I have to say that I don't agree at all. Think about it this way, a marriage is also a contract. When it's a win-win situation, there's no inherent adversarial attitude that starts as soon as the marriage license is signed. So, just as long as your name isn't Siegel or Shuster and your bride isn't DC, I think it all works out!"

Shawn:

"Have you ever been married? Nah, i'm just kidding Kirsten. But the reality is, if you didn't need insurance, you'd never get married. You'd just profess your love for one another on a daily basis and if you ever decided to split, you'd take with you what you brought in and in 'good faith' split up equitably the things you got together. People don't trust each other though, so they get a contract. I mean, how is this not making sense to everyone else? Am I missing something?"

Oh, but I'm getting off topic. Earlier, Shawn had said the following:

"Given that I'm not talking about Fantagraphics or Oni, etc. and focusing on Marvel and DC (the company that Moore had his dispute with), the analogy fits better. Furthermore, it's not so much who works at these mega-corporations, but who runs them. Joe Q doesn't even have that much say in what happens at Marvel, he has to answer to the Board of Directors, etc. Yeah, at Fantagraphics where they have maybe 20 people on staff or whatever, obviously that's not gonna happen. So I'm not referring to them."

He'd also said:

"Unfortunately (and we're talking about DC and MArvel here, right?) often those hoops [that creators go through in order to be published by said companies] involve things like stealing your ideas. Now if you're ok with that, then you go ahead and sign that contract. What if you created the coolest villain ever, but you put him in a Spider-man book? well, he was created as work for hire and you won't see a dime from him. Is that right, just because you got $200 a page? you would've gotten that money anyway, whether you created that villian or not."

Chip Zdarsky replies to the first point: "Well it's nice to see that you're taking things on a case-by-case basis then. Except when it comes to Marvel and DC, which must always be in the wrong and fought against for all that is good and holy. Let me know the point when a company gets big enough that you can no longer take their side, so I can decide when to NOT side with Fantagraphics or AiT/PlanetLar on a particular creator issue."

And also to the second point: "How on earth is that stealing? Remind me to never buy anything from you, as I might end up having the cops at my door."

Shawn explains:

"It's stealing in the sense that the person who created the work has no right to it anymore. That's like, say using a photo of the king of Spain as reference and not even providing credit, right? It's legal and all, but it's not right..."

Chip:

"Not even close. I've created many things and have sold them to many people. In some cases I sell first-print rights, in other cases I sell it outright. If I sell it outright, I have no right to it anymore. Not. Stealing. How can you even claim that? I sell someone the full rights to something, they are no longer mine. It's basic law. And really, if the photographer still has the rights to that photo then he is legally in the right. He's got the law on his side. So no, it's not 'legal and all.'"

Shawn:

"I guess that's my problem with the big 2 then. If you wanna play, everything you come up with is theirs. And that's not cool. I guess if I wanna work for them, I'll have to make'em want me so bad, they'll let me keep what's mine... you know like bendis et al. So, ok, it's not theft, but it's still unscrupulous..."

Chip:

"It's not unscrupulous, because you KNOW IT GOING IN. If they tried to hide it from you, THAT'S unscrupulous. Yeah, it's weird how you have to offer them something great to get a great deal in return. It's a funny little world of commerce."

Shawn:

"And Diamond's not technically a monopoly, 'cause Cold Cut and FM are out there too, right? It's the only game in town. If it's a monopoly and they create unfair terms, just so you can participate, well, that's certainly not all that altruistic and 'looking out for the talent'. But you're right, man. They're just looking out for #1 and if I have to beat everyone else with a stick to get that coveted position, well that's what I'm gonna do. The ends justifies the means, right Chip? They're just trying to make enough to make ends meet, after all."

Chip:

"Marvel and DC aren't monopolies. I can't believe I even had to type that in referring to two seperate companies. Christ, even if they merged they wouldn't be a monopoly! The only thing they're monopolizing are the characters you want to play with, which are theirs, and the public who wants to read about them, again and again, month in and month out. It's give and take man. If you think those terms are unfair, then work for someone who has terms you like. There's comic artists out there who do just fine without DC and Marvel as their main bosses. Declaring them the only option as some sort of 'monopoly' is, frankly, a little lazy."

Trenchman Josh Richardson comes in to offer some much-needed perspective:

"Try flatting a page for six hours for $10. $1.66 an hour. That's comic book minimum wage. Not $200 a page for writing New Mutants.

"And everyone here knows I am damn happy to get that money, because it's a start. My passion for comics and my joy for sharing my experiences through Trenches brought me to the attention of Larry Young, who now pays me to letter. Lettering nets almost twelve times as much as flatting, and is more rewarding to boot. And someday I'll have my own comic that I've written on the stands, making even more dough and feeling even better about comics. Everything is a step-up. I'm the guy with his sleaves rolled up making comics, and I've got to tell you to quit your fucking whining. Stop arguing on a message board and start making some comic books. Honestly, you're embarasing me as a dude working on comics."

So what have we learned? That Shawn shouldn't deal in absolutes. That Shawn also doesn't have a high opinion of marriage. And that Josh Richardson gets paid shit for color flatting.

Geoff Johns talks about Green Lantern:

"I'd never read the character before, but he's this test pilot who's got this, like, magic ring? And he can't do anything against yellow because he's allergic and shit. Dan DiDio just gave me some back issues of Steve Englehart's Green Lantern Corps and said 'See the white guy? Write about him and I'll make sure you can stop writing Flash.'"

Oh, alright. He actually says this:

"We're approaching GL and trying to design it for people who like heroes in the vein of Indiana Jones, Han Solo and Chuck Yeager. A guy who's been through hell and back, made a lot of mistakes and is trying to rebuild his life and relationships. It's going to have a sci-fi edge to it, full of mysteries and extra-terrestrial detective work -- he is an intergalactic cop. That's as simple as I can make it right now."

How odd. Passed on by Ryan Higgins, Dan DiDio's blog. Except that it's not by Dan DiDio. And it's not obviously a parody, either. So, really, what's the point?

Millarworld has an interesting rumor:

"it's just a rumor i've read from a pretty reliable source but it's so exciting the word needs to be heard, even if it turns out to be wrong. dc plans to realease an ongoing spirit book, with Darwyn Cooke involved (and, it seems, a spirit/batman thing)"

Sin City - You've bought them as regular sized comic books. You thought about buying it as digests but probably complained about Chip Kidd's covers. Well, soon you will also be able to buy them as oversized hardcovers:

"Dark Horse Books is planning to release two four-volume box sets featuring all seven of Frank Miller's Sin City graphic novels as well as The Art of Sin City in a deluxe oversize 9" x 12" hardcover format reminiscent of Overstreet's EC Libraries."

Each box set costs $175; the first one's out in October, the second in November.

The terrifying truth about Marvel's solicitations:

"Don't you see? This is just the first step. People will now just skim over the solicits quickly, absorbing the hype and bull without thinking. Next, they'll start slipping in subliminal messages and before you know it, the entire comic book reading population of this planet will be mindless zombies, addicted to Marvel product and totally under the control of the Sols."

Read the shocking expose here.

Marvel finally gives up entirely and becomes a self-parody. The name of the title replacing Excalibur? New Excalibur. No, seriously.

Comics Foundry continues their worth-reading interviews, with Brian Michael Bendis sitting in the chair:

"[What makes a good story is] an old 'This is Spinal Tap' joke: It’s a fine line between clever and stupid. I really do tend to enjoy someone who rolls up their sleeves and shows me something I haven’t seen before or thought of myself. I’m the most ungenreous snob I know. I don’t care what genre it’s in – good superhero, good crime, good indie, autobiographical – if someone being clever or if someone telling a story that’s just... 'goddamn, they have to tell it' – you know what I mean? When someone surpasses from their story from their story then in translates all the way to the printed page onto your fingers that are holding the book – and you can feel it on the book — that’s amazing."

Newsarama runs the trying-too-hard Marvel press release announcing Alan Davis's next project:

"What could Alan Davis do to top Wolverine, Cyclops, & Co.? 'FANTASTIC FOUR: THE END. Nuff said,' he reports, with appropriate finality. 'I'm pretty damn excited about getting to draw the FF again.' ...'Alan Davis has worked on the entire freakin’ Marvel U!' quips Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada. 'He’s probably drawn every single one of our characters, from Ant-Man to Zemo and all parts in-between! Figured he liked us so much we better keep him around, keep him off the streets, livin’ clean, working on our premier heroes, the FF, and give somebody else a chance to draw UNCANNY... now if we could only get Alan to stop talking so funny!'"

DC respond to rumors:

"While most recent rumors claim Adams will be working on All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder with Geoff Johns after the Frank Miller/Jim Lee run, that’s kind of not quite accurate, according to a DC spokesman. Firstly, it’s not 'Geoff,' it’s 'Jeph' as in Jeph Loeb, and secondly, according to DC, while the two are working together on a Batman story, it is currently unscheduled, and undetermined as to where it will eventually appear. Of course, the 'Adams' of Art’s last name could also be the basis of rumors that Neal Adams will be making a visit to Batman as well..."

House of M #1 sells out, and will be reprinted with another variant cover. Best part of the Newsarama story comes from this follow-up post:

"I am just crossing my fingers, hoping that this story is about an actual 'house', rather than a house of parliament or a family. Like, 'hey everybody, Spiderman just found a CLUE, let's take it back to..the House of M!' Or like, 'Why aren't there any free bathrooms? It's like I can't even brush my teeth in the morning here in ...the House of M!'"

Back from Bristol, Joe Casey writes to Matt Fraction to tell him about what he did on his summer vacation in The Basement Tapes:

"You know what it was? It was talking about comicbooks -- with fellow pros and fans alike -- without a hint of self-consciousness on any level. Not a goddamned molecule of it, as far as I could read. That was a big deal. We haven't quite evolved to that point over here. We may be getting there, slowly but surely, but we ain't there yet. And among the pros, there was no real hierarchy that I could see. Everybody that was there just made comics, period. There was mutual respect all around, but no false kings. Pretty refreshing, actually, and it allowed for more genuine conversations."

Over at the Bendis Board, upstart publisher Ronin is threatening some form of revolution:

"Getting your book into readers hands. Of course anybody in the industry knows that if you want your book in the stores, there’s only one way to do this. When it comes to distribution there is no one better. Sure they take over half your profits, they can decide your entire career’s fate at a moments notice, and if for some reason they decide they don’t like you, you’re dropped, and in essence dead in the water. But since they get your books into stores they’re great. Doesn’t sound too great to me either.
There had to be another way, and soon one presented itself. A little startup company called Comixpress. They promised on demand printing, and would implement a distribution system as well. This sounded to good to be true. Once I started working with them, I discovered not only were they as good as they advertised, they went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure everything with your book was perfect. After getting a book printed up with them, I suggested that everyone at Ronin use Comixpress for their printing needs. Now, I hear people saying that POD (print on demand) comics are crappy. Not the quality of the printing, but the quality of the stories and creators that use such services. You must not have any faith in your stories if you’re too scared to commit to a full print run from a 'real' printer. Bullshit. Double bullshit sandwich with a dabble of bullshit on the side. Printing up 3000 copies of a book that you then have to store for the next year, when someone is offering to print them up as you need them? Well that just sounds stupid to me...

"Our books are always in print. You want it, you order it, you got it. Doesn’t matter if the issue came out six days or six years ago. It’s available to you. This also does away with those stupid second, third ,and fourth printings, which make the first printing oh so valuable. That’s sarcasm kiddies. Which makes the bigger dogs nervous. How can they boast that they totally sold out of superduperstupid man #1 if they’re always in print? Why would you be proud of the fact that people that want to read your story can’t?

"...Mark my words POD is the future of this industry. Remember Napster? When it came out, and only a few people realized it was the future of the music industry? The archaic system of distribution tried to tear it down every chance they got, however it still thrived. Now we have music stores reporting losses, and I - Tunes and a dozen other ways you can get your music from the comfort of your own home. You even have kiosks in the bigger record stores where you can pick songs and burn your own custom CD right there. You can’t hold the future back. When it shows up the old guard gets nervous and tries to fight it tooth and nail. But still it thrives, and grows until the old way is gone and forgotten."

Not everyone is sold:

"What you're neglecting to point out is that Diamond has also spent the time developing relationships with retailers, establishing a retail channel that works for them (or they'd be out of business) and that has worked for many different publishers in the past. Does it make you rich? No, probably not, but that isn't their problem. They're in business to make money. They also need to pay their sales staff, overhead, and all of the other associated costs that go along with running a multi-million dollar company. If you think you'll be able to contact all of the stores by yourself, develop good relationships with all of the buyers, and still have enough time to oversee the production and management of the Ronin projects, you might be in for a surprise."

The response of the original poster?:

"I'm going to create and distribute a top selling book using comixpress. This is my goal in life to prove that you don't have to go the route everyone else is going just because it's the route everyone else is going. Then I'm going to take that book, and shove it up the collective asses of all the naysayers. And crack a little smile."

The Comics Journal discuss the important burning issues of the industry:

"[D]oes anyone like Alex Ross? I'm not a fan myself--I feel the whole painting of superheroes thing is really gimmicky and tiresome. Also, I find his panels to have uninteresting composition and his character designs indistinguishable beyond costume. Yet all the superhero fans I know treat him like a god. What gives? Is this something to dismiss along the lines of: 'yeah, well, superhero fans like Liefeld and Jim Lee too' or am I missing something? I will say I liked his style on Marvels when it came out and thought his style became to much based on template afterwards, but then, I was like 15 when I read Marvels, so maybe that was just as bad and I was too impressionable to realize that. Any opinions?"

"I enjoy Ross' work, but in general I don't like painted art, it seems too stiff, at least when used in the superhero/action genre. For a long time, when I was a kid, I refused to buy all of those Gold Key/Dell comics that had painted covers, because the figures all seemed stiff to me. I realize now that I missed some pretty decent comics because of that (Russ Manning, Alex Toth, anyone?). So I'll at least look at a painted comic now. Another thing is that artists who paint seem to use a lot of photo reference, which is just fine, but I enjoy artists who can just create images out of their heads, their imaginations. Of course, there are pencil artists who use photo reference extensively, like the late Wally Wood apparently did, and it hasn't kept me from enjoying work by them. I'm not an artist, so I'm just commenting from a consumer's point of view."

"Ross is definitely talented... some of his paintings are very clever... and I loved the Uncle Sam comics. But he just does way too much stuff that is way too similar... he's kind of like Boris Vallejo in that respect... he'll do one great piece and then a few dozen lesser pieces that kind of dilute the oeuvre. Still, people seem to eat it up... so what can he do? I think he's pretty much done all he can do in the painted superhero mode though... I haven't seen anything from him in quite a while that made me want to give it a second glance."

"I think he is brilliant, and not just because I want to go to one of his parties as Wonderwoman. And I love the wax models in his basement. I await my invitation."

Mark Millar continues his fight for comic-related movie justice:

"Denny O'Neil gets nothing from Batman Begins, despite creating the villains... Actually, I dunno if Denny DID create Scarecrow (wasn't this Wein?), but I just got a tip-off on this from a well-known pro and Denny gets zilch in terms of Ra's Al-Ghul, League of Assassins, etc, etc, etc. Apparently, DC recently decided that anything created pre-Jenette means not a cent to the creators in terms of merch or movies. Which is a real, real shame. Marvel, of course, pay nothing either, but at least they don't pretend to be the creator's friend in these situations. You know who you're getting into bed with and, prior to Icon (outside of Epic) you'd be NUTS to create anything new for them. But this is really sad. Should we start a campaign for Denny?"

When someone points out that Scarecrow may have been a Golden Age character, Millar responds:

"God, that's right. Scarecrow was used briefly in the Golden Age. I think Len just brought him back. And yeah, Chuck quite rightly got paid for creating Bane and Bane was a very small character in Batman and Robin. Ra's and the League of Assassins form the BASIS of Batman Begins. Denny should be seeing something here beyond tickets for the premiere. You'd think DC would be kinder to a guy who put so many years of his life into the company. I honestly feel sick at the hypocrisy of these people and their whole DC FAMILY/ FRIENDS OF THE CREATOR bullshit. This and the Moore/ V For Vendetta thing is just disgusting."

You have to understand, though, it's not like Millar has anything against DC, as he makes clear:

"Declaring war on DC is so 2001 for me. I'm done. I'm staying away until Darth Vadar and his high command are dead. I'm elsewhere for the time being, my friend. They can go fuck themselves. I just wish they would do right by the older guys who made them money."

Things continue to be fun from there, with a poster called Bizarromark joining the conversation:

"Denny O'Neil was working under a 'Work for Hire' contract when he created Ra's Al Ghul. If he was interested in getting the most compensation for his creative ideas, he picked the wrong field, wouldn't you say? It's one thing to enter the embryonic comics field in the late 30's and get diddled by the renowned robber-barons of the pulp industry (like Seigel and Shuster did), but by the time the Young Mavericks like O'Neil and Adams came along, most people entering the industry had (or at least should have had) a pretty good idea that working for a gigantic corporation wasn't synonymous with 'Lucrative Creator Royalties'....especially a guy as sharp as O'Neil has always been known to be. So....spare us the sob story about yet another sad, ripped-off creator...a creator who, by the way, has spent the majority of his nearly 40 year career working for the same Evil Corporate Giant that allegedly screwed him over. Something tells me Denny's at peace with the situation....and if he's not....I guess that's the way it goes."

Millar, of course, doesn't agree:

"Um, bollocks. Moore was told he'd get the rights back to watchmen, V, etc, eventually and is now so pissed off he's pulling what he can from these people as a huge Joel Silver movie gets made and he gets 8K for his troubles. Like I said, they're a huge corporation and have lawyers who've covered their asses against a couple of aged hippies, but that doesn't make it right. I think Marvel and DC should pay something to every creator if they use their characters, even as a token gesture. For something as late as Moore in 1988 it seems especially horrific, but Denny should get more than the royalties of a 1970 reprint.

"Maybe this hurts me more than it does you because I'm a comic book writer and can only imagine how frustrating this is for them, but it's disgusting when you think of the reverence JK Rowling gets for Harry Potter and the cash she's been awarded. It's all just ideas making their way to the big screen, but comic guys have a nasty habit of getting shafted. Thank God Miller is there to show us the way."

Bizarromark:

"In what way did he 'show us the way'? How much money did Frank Miller get from the Electra character appearing in the Daredevil movie?....or from the Electra solo movie? I'm guessing 'zip'. However, Millar has made his big money off of properties he owns completely, like Sin City...and not from 'Work for Hire' arrangements. So...yeah....Miller did 'show us the way' by demonstrating to creatives that true creative control, and the big money that can potentially from that, can only be obtained outside of a work-for-hire arrangement. People who willingly enter such an arrangement should be aware they are entitled to no compensation beyond the original work-for-hire payment. Another thing: You claim we should give 'something' to the 'aged hippies' that got screwed over. Well...how much should that be, Mark? An amount you would view as 'fair' might be viewed by another of your fellow firebrands as a 'slap in the face'. Who puts the price tag on creative ideas? Paul Levitz? Joe Quesada? Neal Adams? Alan Moore? You?"

Millar's response:

"Is it just me or does bizarromark have an offensive tone to his posts? BM, calm down or mod-warnings are a-coming. This is a polite place for civil discourse."

Alias's latest publicity stunt leads to trouble at Newsarama. Announcing the somewhat unnecessary Girls of Alias month - where each book will have a variant cheesecake cover by Mike Miller, who manages to make it sound even more tacky than you'd think ("[The Alias books] are all in separate little 'universes' of their own, so we had to come up with something across the board to unify them. That, and beautiful girls will always get the comic readers’ attention... I made the offer that I would do the covers for a nominal fee, and that we were going to do this big promotion across the spectrum of Alias titles, and these were the creators who opted to join in... [These girls are] hot!") - discussion turns to ethnicity, as one poster isn't happy with the depiction of one character in particular:

"okay forgive this rant. But as a black man and student of africa and ancient egypt specifically (kush, kemet, whatever you want to call pre-arab invasion Egypt.) this pisses me off. If [Alias character Isis is] an ancient egyptian warrior why the hell is she WHITE? Ancient Egypt is as far as EVERY MAP says in Northern Africa... This is the same nonsense from History channel recreations of lives of Pharoahs, and everything else where they make Ancient egyptians look as white as possible because of eurocentric leanings and it gets old. Admittedly, as the 'oh no! kingpin is black in the daredevil movie' responses revealed, the comic book community is not going to support strong black women as stars in comics, but that doesnt make it any more acceptable to pander to them. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic."

Mike Miller responds:

"She's not white. She's middle eastern. (unless you don't count Egypt as part of the middle east?) No, I didn't model her after a middle eastern woman, but after someone in particular for a particular reason I can't get into. But she is middle eastern. As in, not black. African, sure, but being born on the African continent doesn't make you black. As a student of ancient egypt, you should be familiar with the many paintings kept intact to this day inside the pyramids... It's funny that this was brought up today. I was sitting in my dentists office reading the current National Geographic which was featuring King Tut. They showed a portrait of he and other Egyptians at war with a tribe of black Africans. They, Tut and company, were clearly not black. Darker in skin tone than a caucasian race, most certainly. And African? Certainly. But not black. So there is no reason why Isis, a goddess of the Egyptian pantheon needs to be black. Hell, she's mythological, she could be freaking blue for all it matters to reality."

Back to the original poster:

"[B]eing born in Ancient Egypt makes you what we today call black. Middle eastern should be a term used to describe egypt AFTER Arabian conquest which was not until the date noted above. How much research was done for this book?... [T]he 'Middle Eastern' look you're talking about did not take effect until the modern era. How can you make a story about Ancient Egypt and have her look like a border resident hundreds of years later? ...[Y]ou've studied the significance of color in ancient egyptians paintings correct? Know that skin tone depictions in Ancient Egyptian art were not always for realism and that all evidence shows them to be what we would today classify as black? (since race as a classification arguably didn't exist until the advent of colonialism)... i'd love to see the days where comic creators accidentally give credit to african races, like thor's family for instance. let's just fill thor's norse mythology with africans. Never mind consistency, and it works both ways right?"

Mark Millar - Looking out for Alan Moore:

"I just read in the CBR piece that Moore was talking somewhere in the region of eight grand for his V for Vendetta movie cut. I think it's very admirable that he makes sure his artists are properly reimbursed (we split everything down the middle on the Millarworld books too), but I'm concerned that these guys are being short-changed somehow. The bog-standard going rate for a movie option is 50,000 against 500,000 dollars (the latter received once the script is accepted by the studio and the movie is officially moved into production). More likely for something this size is 100,000 dollars advanced against a 1,000,000 dollars (possibly more) once the movie starts getting made and V For Vendetta is already shooting so Moore should be looking at around 300-400K after his split with Dave LLoyd. Moore shouldn't need to have money advanced to him. Moore should have been making a packet from the pictures already made too.

"DC/ WB own his creations like Constantine and possibly Watchmen, but From Hell and V For Vendetta are trademark and copyright to the creative team, I believe. Moore and Lloyd should be splitting some serious dough and my spider-sense started tingling the moment I heard Alan put an $8K figure on this. What's going on here? Alan is famously more interested in the work than the money, but it chills me to think there's something amiss happening. Does anyone know who's repping him on these properties? Could someone talk to both he and Lloyd to make sure all is well. I'm a huge Moore fan and have been since I was 12 years old. I just hope I'm misunderstanding something because I don't like the look of this at all."

When it's explained to Mark that Moore has given up all royalty money from movies adapted from his work, Mark adds to his commentary:

"See, I thought Moore was giving them the half mill most other creators get when their movies go into production. But now it looks like this was a four figure sum instead of the usual mid to high six. The pay was an insult and I'm horrified. No wonder moore wouldn't take it."

Lying In The Gutters returns, kind of, as Rich follows through on his promise to provide real, actual journalism. Less stories, less fun, but perhaps more interesting, as the lead story shows:

"Alan Moore, co-creator of the 'V For Vendetta' comic, has publicly disassociated himself from the upcoming Warner Brothers movie project based on the comic book and written and produced by the Wachowski Brothers. And as a result, he has cut his remaining ties with DC Comics, including future volumes of the 'League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.' Moore has promised future 'League' comics will be published by a US/UK collaboration between Top Shelf and Knockabout... Alan told me that as a result of finally and permanently splitting from DC, he's has a general feeling of elation. He feels good about himself, as if a weight has been lifted. Earlier reports I'd had from the past two weeks were that his temper was high, but speaking to him found the same calm, serene gentlemen I'd met on and off over the last ten years."

Jeph Loeb on his last Superman/Batman arc, which features an Ultimates rip-off:

"[I]f I had to pick one particular moment when I knew I had to tell this story it was, oddly enough, when I read The Pulse #2 by Brian Michael Bendis. Now, some folks will think of me as an obsessive DC fan -- and before you all bring out your torches and storm the gate, I think Brian is a brilliant writer and a good friend -- but Brian wrote a story about young female reporter named 'Teri Kidder' Get it? Teri Hatcher plus Margot Kidder = you got it! In the story, the folks at the Bugle point out that they are a real newspaper and her resume was a bit of a joke. Up to this point, I'm rolling my eyes, but I know that DC and Marvel have tweaked each other on the nose for years and it's all in good fun. Then, Bendis had the Goblin beat her to death - something I don't recall The Goblin ever doing to Gwen, MJ, or Jessica Jones for that matter - and then dumped her corpse in the Central Park Lake. ...Pardon me for not laughing. Bendis crossed the line. He could have told the exact same story, called the character Jenny Johnson and while I'm not a big fan of violence against women, I wouldn't have picked up on it. But. He. Didn't. It was Lois Lane he did that to and for what?

"Since then, JMS has had great fun over in Spider-Man throwing sticks and stones; he spends an enormous amount of time on Supreme Power which is a really good book with really big ideas -- I just don't know why it has to be a rip on the Justice League? Doesn't Marvel have its own clean versions? JMS is such a talented guy, I was just bewildered as to why he took this on. I mean, look at Rising Stars -- brilliant in thought and execution -- and wholly original.

"And now, Reginald Hudlin -- for whatever reason, and I suspect it is editorial -- brings in a 'Kansas fed reporter who can fly and has heat vision' to pal around with Peter Parker. And the Sentry is now a member of the Justice -- I mean, New Avengers... (laughs) So... DC must be doing something right if the guys across the street have nothing better to do than find ways of telling our stories. And then, it struck me. It's all for fun. It's all about enjoying the stuff that makes comics, well, comics. We all do it. We come on message boards or hang around the comic book shop and point out that Clark Kent's disguise of using eyeglasses makes no sense or that nothing happens in an Ultimate book for 5 issues and the 6th one kicks ass. And ... why should Marvel have all the fun?"

I'll let you into a secret: I dig Sean Maher. Sure, there are many reasons why it's fun to take the piss out've him (His winedrunk naptime rampages, for one), but then he writes a love letter to comics like this:

"Unlike film, I’m never irritated by the special effects being choppy here or too flashy there, and I’m not at the mercy of the artist to sit through anything – I can pick it up and put it down and move the whole story at the pace that best fits for me. And unlike straight prose, I’m not visualizing something by myself in the dark; I know I’m seeing what I was meant to see. And the potential there is unlimited. I’ve never found a medium that took me to so many different places with such smooth flexibility."

More at the link. Maybe I'm getting old, but goddamn, it's nice to see someone completely drop the snark every now and again.

Marvel say "Variant covers? Hate 'em. But here's four more":

"Marvel Comics has released a preview image to retailers of the alternate Neal Adams 'Startling Stories' cover to New Avengers #7. Each of the first 3 issues of the upcoming Brian Bendis-written story arc focusing on the Sentry will feature a cover by regular series artist David Finch and an alternative 'incentive' cover with a Silver Age theme by some great artists of that (and any other) era... Retailers can order 1 set of the 3 variants for every 15 sets of issue #7-9 they order... Adam Kubert has created variant cover for Uncanny X-Men #461 (on sale 6/15) featuring the X-Babies, and similar to the New Avengers variants, retailers can order 1 copy of the variant for every 15 they order of the regular cover by Frank Cho... Finally, Marvel has also announced a 'Limited Edition Variant Cover' for the sold-out Astonishing X-Men #10. Featuring a new take on John Cassaday’s original cover for issue #10, the reprint variant cover edition is scheduled to arrive in stores on June 15th, the same day Astonishing X-Men #11 is due in stores. Unlike the New Avengers and Uncanny variants, however, retailers can order as many issues of this reprint edition as they like (until Thursday 6/2) and is not tied to the orders of another issue."

Countdown to Infinite Jesse Baker:

"Biggest mistake of the year. Supergirl is a shit character and while I loathe turning female characters into irrational killing machines I wish against all odds someone at DC would turn Jeph Loeb'snew Supergirl into a mass murdering Kid Miracleman with a clit who gleefully racks up a body count before being killed off and declared by Batman, Shazam, Barry Allen Kyle Raynor, Lex Luthor, all known variations of Brainiac 5, and Martian Manhunter as being nothing more than a mentally insane Kryptonian who pretended to be Superman's cousin so she could rape and kill the entire human race. Hell, that would make the PERFECT plot for infinite Crisis especially given how Dan the Dildo seems to think that the rape of the Marvel Universe at the hands of Bendis and Millar should be made the status quo for the DCU.

"That said; DC needs to fucking kill, purge, Ben-diss Loeb's Supergirl and FINALLY upgrade Power Girl as the new Supergirl with her 'I'm Superman's cousin' origin restored at long last. Let's face it, a manic depressive who all of female heroes of the DCU idolize and all of the male heroes HATE is fair superior to the pollyanna bullshit that is the Kryptonite Supergirl. Fuck I'm suprised that no one at DC has realizes that the reason WHY people loved the PAD Supergirl was due to the fact that the PAD Supergirl was NOT a good person; she was a God-hating Satanist who killed her town's hate-mongering, adultery loving, wife-killing Fundamentalist Evangelist Christian preacher and his evil Fundamentalist Evangelist Christian mistress with the help of her God-hating, Satan-loving boyfriend. A Supergirl series where Supergirl is a manic-depressive software mogel who all of the men in the DCU hate because they consider her a bossy, opinionated cunt who doesn't take orders like a good girl and who just found out she was Kryptonian? That's money in the bank right then and there!"

Sometime comics writer Adi Tantimedh responds:

"Let me remind you of something you seem to need to be told again and again: You can rant about your pet hates in the books and insult the characters all you like. Unless you've actually had personal dealings with the editors or creators of the comics you read, and they've done something bad to you like stolen your lunch money, slipped LSD in your soda or had sex with your pet without your permission, you have no right to insult them personally. It's called common courtesy. It's called being an adult. Otherwise, you come off as an irrational, braying brat. Or is that how you actually want people to see you? Come on, you're better than that."

Baker:

"[M]y contempt is based on the fact that if people in the industry themselves can't stop acting like dicks and think that it's cute routinely belittle and mock the people who fucking pay their fucking SALARY by buying their books and expecting a GOOD product as a result for their money, then they deserve the same scorn they have towards the readers who don't blind suck their cock and ask to lick their assholes too. If people like Joe Quesada, Brian Bendis, Mark Millar, and such are too big of a pussy to pull the shit they pull online with regards to their customers when they meet them on the street, they deserve to take it up the ass online by their customers who give a fuck to propogate the franchises they work on by way of talking about them online and tearing them new fucking assholes online. As a longtime comic fan who had to sit and listen to the little shits Bill Jemas, Joe Quesada, and their 'golden boys' routinely act like snot-nosed spoiled shitmouth brats, routinely badmouthing the people who fucking pay them money to live on, I think they are open full well to the full wrath of their critics online. If they can't take the fucking heat for their comments, don't fucking start shit online unless you are willing to deal with people calling you out on your bullshit..."

Tantimedh:

"You know, it's not even like I disagree with some of the points you make about the product or how bad the writing is, but calling the personnel involved 'dildos' isn't going to help the case, or make people want to listen to you. Leaving aside the calling them names bit for a moment, we have to consider the deeper issue: The people you're railing against are getting away with what they're doing to the characters because what's left of the comics market are still buying those books, and in huge numbers. Comic fans, nerds, or superhero zombies, or whatever you want to call them, may scream and shout about how their childhoods are getting raped, but *they're still buying the stupid books*. As long as these crappy books are selling in numbers of 50,000 or 100,000, the companies will keep paying those creators oodles of cash to keep writing the way they do on those books. It don't matter what insults you keep hurling at them. They're laughing all the way to the bank. They don't owe the readers anything. The readers are buying the books, no matter what they put in them. If the sales of those books plummetted, they would stop. That's the bottom line.

"Now, these people are not ever going to come to your house to eat your food or hang out with you. If insulting them is something you find *fun*, then I can at least understand that, but otherwise, I recommend you stop reading the books you find stupid and just ignore the creators, stop reading their interviews or postings, and just find something better to read or watch."

Baker again, lashing out at a somewhat unexpected target:

"No, the person to blame is Warren Ellis for making being a worthless asshole who badmouths everyone around him 'KEWL' and causing just about everyone in the industry start aping him X10 to be 'KEWL'. Also, if people consistantly buy these books why the fuck not cater to them instead of treating them like pedophiles? You can fucking get new readers buying comics without telling your existing readers to fuck off and die, which is WHY the industry is still in a shitstate since for every 2 new reader that gets pulled in, you have people like the DiDio and Quesada alienating 10 existing readers who tell DC and Marvel to fuck off and stop buying their books. It doesn't fucking matter how many new readers you bend over backwards for when you lose more existing readers than you bring in. In any other business, telling your loyal, die-hard customers that you think they are dogshit under their feet doesn't win you any favors with them."

Stuart Moore sent copies of his first issue of Firestorm - available June 1st, true believers - to various online persons to review. For Stuart Moore's ease in case he's reading this, here's what some thought. Johanna Draper Carlson:

"I would love to be able to say that this book, with the changes, deserves a fresh look from everyone, but it's not all that different from what went before. It's just more mainstream. It's a shame that with the poor track record this book has had so far and DC's general lack of promotion few people will notice. As far as I know, this is the first time that a DC book has been the recipient of a concentrated blog outreach effort, and I suspect that that's due to the writer's initiative, not the company's."

Alan David Doane:

"This is a solid start to a new era of an established DC superhero, and no one at all gets their head blown off onscreen or raped from behind. How Moore worked such post-modern subversion into a DCU title at this late date is anybody's guess, but if you have to buy DC superhero comics, this is the sort you should be buying."

Bill Sherman:

"As a newcomer who still doesn't have a strong sense of Firestorm's superpowers... I remain piqued enough by the character stuff to want to give Moore's series a few more trial issues."

Beaucoup Kevin:

"For those of you who like the idea of Firestorm and wish that, on occasion, a mainstream DCU book wouldn't immediately confuse 'violence' with 'action,' here's your invitation to get back on board - I don't think you'll be disappointed."

Johnny Bacardi:

"Do I recommend that you buy it? Well, if you are still into superheroes and are looking for a series you can read and still respect yourself in the morning, well, you should consider picking it up, 'cause I don't think you'll be disappointed."

Jog The Blog:

"It’s set-up, but it also offers an tonal agenda for future stories. If you like classicist teen superhero material, largely divorced from the chaotic Event action of the DCU at the moment, you’ll respond well to this book upon its official release."

And me, who I'm not going to quote.

Art Adams thinks he'll drawing an All-Star Batman arc with Geoff Johns. He is, apparently, wrong. Millarworld has the confusion:

"I was at the supercon in oakland this weekend and got the chance to talk to Art Adams, and he said that he will be doing a run on Batman all stars after the Lee/Miller run and his arc will be written by geoff johns."

Geoff Johns himself pops in:

"Matt Brady pointed this out to me. And as much as I love Art and Batman, this isn't true. Thanks for the kind words though."

The original poster changes his story:

"Yeah, they didnt seem quite certain who would be writing it, but I think it was the guy who puts arts sketchbooks together that said 'I think geoff Johns is writing it"' alls I know for sure is about art drawing it."

British Comics God John Wagner's Button Man gets optioned for a movie:

"John Wagner, who is one of the most under-rated writers in comics, collaborated with artist Arthur Ranson on the Button Man: The Killing Game graphic novel, which Kitchen Sink Press published in 1994 [in America; the series, and its two sequels, were published in 2000AD in the UK]. The book is a high octane thriller about a tournament of professional assassins sponsored by a small group of jaded millionaires. Copies of the Button Man trade are going for big bucks ($39.99) on Amazon now, but it is likely that the book will find a new publishing house when (and if) the film goes into production."

Geoff Johns leaves Flash:

"It's been incredible and I love the characters and the book. But everything must come to and end and as Rogue War was approaching, I wanted to finish on a story I really believed in. I didn't want to stay on The Flash just because I love the character more than Detroit Pistons basketball (you are all watching, right?). That wouldn't serve the book or Wally West. With the added workload of Green Lantern and Crisis, it was time to pass the baton off. Hopefully, one day I can get back to the Flash in some form or another. A Rogues monthly book would be amazing or a Flash title or project of some kind. Who knows what the future holds?"

Temporary replacement writers: Stuart Immomen and Darwyn Cooke, interestingly enough.

A new publisher, Narwain, announces an October launch:

"Narwain is composed of a group of creators from a diverse group of countries, including the U.S., Italy, France, Japan, and handful of nations from South America. The company has told Newsarama that it looks to be active in comics, music and cinema... As mentioned, the company will launch six series worldwide, with one of the debuts being Free Fall in October, a five-issue miniseries, written by Gianluca Piredda, with pencils by EricJ, and inks by Jimmy Palmiotti... Free Fall will launch in October in the US, Germany, France, Spain, Turkey, Brazil, Turkey and other countries which are signing exclusive deals with Narwain."

Newsarama closes down.

Well, temporarily:

"Hey all - we're moving to a new server this weekend, so we're going to have to shut the boards down this evening around 9:00 pm EST. This way, everything will move over, intact. Ideally, we should be done in 24 hours, but it could take as long as 48 (we hope not), and things might be a little sluggy as various nodes come up and recognize the new server. Yes, it will be faster, and yes, we will be upgrading to the new version of vBulletin shortly thereafter."

If it's Friday, then Joe Quesada has Newsarama to play with. This week, he tries to be controversial, offering up comments on a number of subjects. For example, on the number of X-Books out there:

"So, yes, we are back to a decent number of X-books. I believe, not counting the Ultimate Universe, with limited series and the like, we are up to about 17 titles in June in the core universe. Still about a title short from the dark days of five years ago. So as the natural progression of publishing and increased business goes, I think we’ve stemmed the tide somewhat... The decades plus long complaint of too many X-books use to have perhaps a bit more validity behind it. Back in the day, almost all the books connected in order for a reader to get the full tapestry that was X-Men. Today, for the most part the books operate individually in order for readers to pick and choose what they like."

On whether creators' social or political beliefs should affect their working at Marvel:

"[L]et’s be real here, for the most part the comic’s creative community is a liberal one, it’s just natural, creative people for the most part lean in those directions or at least that has been my experiences. That said, I have made it a policy that Marvel’s comics and characters should be no one’s political or religious soapbox. Yes, there have been times when something may squeak by and we don’t catch it, but it’s my personal policy that despite my feelings on the war and other events, that has nothing to do with our books. Now that doesn’t mean that we forbid creators from bringing up politics in our books, all we ask is that if you have a character or a situation that is expressing a certain belief, that you try to have another character or situation with the counter argument. This has worked very well for us so far. Admittedly during Bill J’s time here, we were a bit more vocal and one sided, and while I may have even agreed with a point of view here and there, I wasn’t in favor of seeing it in our books, but that was Bill’s world."

On the multiple book launches of Marvel:

"Arguably I had my problems with 'Tsunami'. I think there were some very cool things in there like Sentinel, Runaways and even to some extent, the Human Torch and Namor, there was also stuff thrown in there like Venom and Mystique that, while cool, just didn’t make any sense to me thematically? It seemed to go against what we were trying to say with 'Tsunami'. To me it was lacking the connective tissue of what Tsunami was all about, but this was ultimately Bill’s call."

Why did it take me this long to find out that Chris Weston has a blog? God, I'm crap.

B. Clay Moore is a sick, sick man.

Comics. Politics. Millarworld:

"You know I wish that the outright hatred liberals have for the Bush administration could be argued in a more constructive manner. Why does popular entertainment need to be riddled with politics? Wasn't the goddamn election enough of a constant back and forth bitch fest? Take for example Captain America & The Falcon #14. Cap v. Anti-Cap. Anti-Cap stands for 'with us or against us.' Cap stands for 'Nazi's are bad.' Now mind you I know liberals believe Bush is a Nazi (I cannot fathom the correlation but whatever I'm sick of trying to analyse it) but do we need our superheroes saying as much? Even indirectly? I personally don't care if someone voices their opinions in a creator owned book (i.e. Ex Machina) but to have superheroes utter things like this is disturbing to me. Yet, and here is the double standard, if a superhero agreed with the Bush policies (written by a writer who is conservative) he or she would be roasted over the coals. Hell any conservative is demonized, look at Orson Scott Card and Chuck Dixon. Why are these opinions any more valid? Hell I bet even Star Wars will get a boost because it follows this same criteria in a different way. Personally I am conservative (obviously) and it sickens me when the word Nazi is thrown out there so easily. Without considering the ramifications of the word. For the few kids who read comics I wonder what they think (even if kids know how to think nowadays) when a man dressed with a flag tells another man who is dressed in a flag he's a Nazi? Defending your country makes you a Nazi, but insulting your country makes you a hero. I don't understand anymore."

"I thought Orson Scott Card got jumped over because he was a homophobic prick rather than a conservative? The two don't automatically go together."

"I'm also confused about why there seems to be this equation which conservatives claim liberals make between W and Nazis. The Nazis set out on a process of planned extermination. Bush and the Nazis can't credibly be compared by anyone, and I've never seen anyone seriously try to base such a claim seriously. The book certainly doesn't try to make such a claim, and it's unclear to me why it's being implied that it has. W may be underpinning foundations for fascism, but it's certainly not something that could be said to have taken as virulent hold as some people think, nor does fascism equal Nazism. Very different beasts."

"You're reaching. I read Captain America and Falcona nd what you're talking about just isn't there. And the writer as was noted in the most recent Black Panther letters page has portrayed George Bush as being quit competent in the past and never really demonied him. There is no conservative backlash in comics. Chuck Dixon still gets regular assignments as does John Byrne and other conservatives. I hate to tell you this, but nobody cares about a creators poltiical leanings at Marvel or DC. To the larger point, as long as I've been reading comics, president's have always to one extent or another been lampooned and portrayed in ways that some ppl might think is wrong. Reagan got it. Bush 1 got it. Clinton got it. Dubbya is not special, and he's getting it too. The only time I'd say it got out of hand was with the caricture that was running around in the WSU."

Where did Stan Lee's "Excelsior!" flourish come from? The Comics Journal board considers the evidence:

"Have been reading about Alen Sherman and it seems like the light fingers of Stan stole the only thing I thought he might have created."

"Egad, why must everybody around here always beat up on Stan? As far as I'm concerned, the best thing about Marvel was Stan's authorial voice. Imagine Spidey spouting Ditko's ham-handed dialogue or the Thing spewing Kirby's cornball attempts at humor... Sure, the pictures were pretty, but what got me as a kid were the characters' personalities, pure Stan. Anyway, I thought Stan ripped off Excelsior from proto-huckster P.T. Barnum, who wrote an autobiography called that."

"Excelsior is New York's state motto. Maybe Stan was just showing a little hometown pride."

"'Excelsior'! is Latin for 'Ever Higher'. It's also the word for wood shavings used in packing. To quote Affable Alan Moore: 'Excalibur!'"

ICv2 looks at the markets. The number of Manga released starts to level out:

"The demise of several publishers including Gutsoon, Studio Iron Cat and Comics One is one of the reasons for the dip in the number of new manga titles, but the loss of their titles has been balanced by increased output from successful manga publishers like Del Rey and Dark Horse. But other publishers are cutting back. Even after its successful manga publishing debut in 2004, ADV is planning to scale back its offerings for 2005 by about 40% and concentrate on its best-sellers and titles it can cross-promote with its anime offerings and CPM is dropping its regular manga line to focus on its Be Beautiful 'yaoi' titles. Tokyopop, which published more volumes of manga than any other U.S. manga house, has indicated to ICv2 that it plans on releasing 400 books in 2005 compared with around 450 in 2004, while Viz, which published 300 volumes in 2004 is planning to release a similar (or only slightly larger) number this year."

Meanwhile, graphic novel sales in general are up:

"Direct market retailers may not have been able to get all the copies of Frank Miller's Sin City graphic novel series that they wanted, but they got enough to help drive sales of graphic novels up 28%, which was more than enough to compensate for a 5% decline in periodical comic book sales."

IDW's Chris Ryall talks about those pesky Robots In Disguise:

"The appeal of the license was actually a chance to not only expand our current fan-base by offering more all-ages material, but primarily to take one of the top intellectual properties in all of comics and give it our own spin. Imagine that - as a fan, you long for a chance to tackle properties like Spider-Man, Superman or Transformers. And while the first two will never be available to other publishers, when we had a chance to bid on the Transformers property, we jumped at it. We have, on a grand scale, the chance to back up the fan talk of 'Well, if we did Transformers, we'd do this way!' And our way is coming... We've all read the Dreamwave books, and I think they had a great group of creators working on those books - they really did an impressive job and helped build the brand into its status as one of the more iconic licenses in comics, but at the outset, we don't plan to follow any path that's come before. Instead, we've worked hard on a sound publishing plan that will not only relaunch the property but also carry it into the future in interesting and creative ways."

Go to Marvel.com. Look on the right hand side of the page. Just under the "sign in (or register!)" panel.

Yes, it's the Countdown to House of M clock. Because some people are so excited, they need to know how many seconds there are remaining until a comic comes out.

Joss Whedon speaks very briefly about the Wonder Woman movie:

"[Casting] is the last thing on my mind and I'm happy to say it's the last thing on Warner Bros.' and [producer] Joel [Silver's] mind too... We're like, 'Let’s write the part! Then we'll have a better idea of who’s good for it.' And we’ve talked about whether it should be someone famous or an unknown. Ultimately there are advantages to both, so nobody’s thinking about that... except everybody."

JG Jones goes exclusive:

"Somebody finally wants me, I guess... But really, I wanted to sign for a couple of reasons. I wanted to roll into the deal a creator-owned project, and Wildstorm liked my pitch, so I got DC to work out a deal where I’ll get to do my own book for part of the time I’m with them. That was pretty cool for one, and also, DC showed the most interest. Marvel made me a really nice offer when they heard that I was going to DC, but that seemed to be a kind of ‘Hail Mary’ pass, and I’d already worked out a lot of the details with DC. So, in the end, I decided to go with the original agreement with DC, rather than taking more money that Marvel was offering."

In a move that few probably saw coming, IDW take over the Transformers license:

"In the announcement Hasbro said IDW would 're-launch' a line, beginning with a special introductory '0' issue in October 2005, then debut a series in January 2006. According to Hasbro, IDW plans on using a mix of 'well-known and up-and-coming' illustrators, inkers and writers, and their Transformers comic books are expected to include the 'classic' Generation One (G1) storyline, '...as well as new plotlines and new series, and would be distributed to a wider audience through comic book outlets, trade bookstores and mass retailers.'"

Mike Netzer writes about Frank Miller:

"It was a hot and busy summer day at Continuity. A tall and lean aspiring comic book artist visited the studio in order to show his artwork to Neal Adams. Neal flipped through the sample pages, handed them back to the artist and told him he was wasting his time trying to draw comic books. The young lad from Vermont took it in stride, returned his artwork into the envelope, thanked Neal for his time and left the studio. Several months later Frank Miller returned to Continuity to show Neal new sample pages he'd drawn. Neal flipped through the pages, laid them on his table and told Frank that he was still wasting his time trying to become a comic book artist. He then placed a sheet of tracing paper over one of the pages. 'If you begin to fix things like this, however.' Neal said, as he drew over Frank's art on the tracing paper, 'You might have a chance at becoming a good artist one day.' Frank took it in stride and put up with Neal's direct manner as he listened to a few things about what makes a composition effective and how the body behaves in motion. Frank Miller had more than good comics art on his mind, however. He wanted to tell great stories and he was willing to put up with anything in order to learn how to do it."

Bryan Hitch explains why there's no Ultimates issue in Marvel's August solicits:

"Before this gets too derailed and panic sets in I should point out that we're meeting the shedule Marvel sets for the book. I did ink issue six (well apart from four pages and six pages of issue five) because paul's 86 year old mother suffered a series of serious strokes leaving her very ill in hospital. She's making a good recovery but it meant that paul was and still is travelling to wales, where she lives with his brother to see her. I inked issue six to ease the work pressure so he could get on with seven and not worry about both his mother and the deadline. So far all is fine. I think it's because of a gap in the schedules that the annuals are being put out in August. Mark will know better than me.

"Anyhoo, fret not my little ones; it's all coming out far quicker than last time isn't it?"

Reprints get discussed at the Bendis Board:

"I'm not an insane collector, but I don't like having second prints in my singles collection. Trades, I couldn't care less, but for the monthlies - I gotta get a first print or nothing at all. You guys?"

"I don't like mixing newsstand and direct market printings but that's about it. And this ain't too much of a problem at the moment, anyway."

"Yeah,If it ain't first print,I generlly don't buy.The recent Villians united sketch cover is an exception because I like the new characters added."

Neil Kleid (and Antony Johnston and B. Clay Moore) talk dialogue at Big Pond:

"If I’m getting worked up and red in the virtual face about this subject, there’s good reason for it. By admission, I’m not the strongest plotter in the world. My stories and structures sometimes need a push in one general direction or another. But dialogue? My dialogue can beat your daddy’s dialogue with one noun tied behind its back. Before email death bombs start filling up my poor beset electronic mail account, let’s establish that the above 'you' refers to the layman. The soul-searching writer who has spent hours upon godless hour selling his soul to Satan in exchange for one perfectly turned phrase Stan Lee would give his left testicelsior for. The writer seeking a voice, who has yet to grasp that the voice he should be seeking is actually someone else’s."

As directed by Mr. Jeff Parker, I go to ComixFan to check out his interview about his upcoming Marvel work. What do I find? This:

"[The star of Vampire By Night, Parker's new Amazing Fantasy series] is Nina Price, the heir to a media empire thanks to her dad, and a curse of lycanthropy thanks to her mom. Or rather, the Russoffs, her mom's family. Soon after her 18th birthday, she realizes what's happening to her during the full moon, and she heads to the old homeland to try to have the curse removed. Instead she succeeds in getting bitten by a vampire. The two mystical afflictions blend in such a way that she's only a vampire at nightfall. And able to become a wolf at will during that time. Not a wolf-woman though, you will not be seeing a hairy girl running around in Amazing Fantasy. Sorry Furries!"

Sold! But wait, there's more:

"My editors emphasize that these books are supposed to be FUN. And luckily, I tend to think that tales about super-powered people in costumes should be fun too... In short, I want to treat escapist fantasy like escapist fantasy. I don't know how many comics I've opened lately where it's just 22 pages of people in costumes having an argument. Can somebody just fight some crime, or discover a lost city or something? Are our lives so thrilling that we turn to comics to get a fix of the mundane now?"

That man Parker knows what is good. And he's writing about a werewolf that gets bitten by a vampire. Because he knows that that, too, is fun, and good.

Rob Liefeld continues to tell the world how comics history really happened:

"Then in 2002 Jim Lee joined the best selling Batman scribe of his era in
Jeph Loeb and the two of them created 'Hush' and reminded everyone how much they liked pretty pictures to go along with their well crafted stories. We all remembered that without pictures, comics are novels, and big pictures are better than small pictures. And big pictures drawn by top flight, first class artists like Jim Lee are even better yet... Batman had never been depicted in such a bold, handsomely rendered, in your face style. The issue where Batman relentlessly pounds Joker's face into the pavement was pure 90's era-guilty pleasure. As a fan, it was pure adrenaline filled excitement, the kind of action that had been missing for years on the comic book landscape... Loeb followed Hush with similar pop styled stories on Superman/Batman. Ed McGuiness, Mike Turner, Carlos Pacheco, Ian Churchill, it doesn't matter who Loeb's paired with he brings the fun action, splashy moments, big drama that artists love to draw and with it, he brings the big sales to each and every arc of each title he touches. If Bryan Hitch is the best Image styled artist then Jeph Loeb is the best Image styled writer of all space and time.

"'Image style', does that term still carry a dirty connotation? Are we still condemning Image styled comics as guilty pleasures? The best selling titles of recent months and years are plastered with an Image styled approach to its storytelling. Green Lantern: Rebirth, New Avengers, Ultimates, Wolverine and Superman continue a return to the bigger is better approach that Image popularized and Manga thrives on each and every month.

"...It's no secret that I love manga and that Appleseed very specifically influenced every page I drew early in my career. The various figures breaking the borders of the panels and leaping all over the page challenged me to make my pages more exciting, breaking the traditional four and six panel grids. My career took a flying leap forward soon after I began implementing a more manga styled approach to my work. I wasn't alone in seeking out a more manga styled approach. For Todd McFarlane it was Akira, for Erik Larsen it was Fist of Northstar, for Jim Lee it was Ghost in the Shell, we all had our favorites and we were all routinely absorbing and regurgitating the influences on our own work. Throw in a healthy dose of Jack 'The King' Kirby and the visual
appeal of Image comics wwas born. But the Image style of comics became mistakenly intertwined in the minds of the masses with the bad business practices that myself and some of my Image peers committed, along with some that we didn't, and suddenly, the term 'Image anything' became a dirty one."

Erik Larsen, mind you, disagrees:

"I've certainly seen [Fist of the North Star] --but I don't own a single comic with [the creator's] work in it. Rob doesn't know what he's talking about."

Erik, care to add anything about Mr. Liefeld?

"Having been ripped off, lied to and stabbed in the back by this individual, I'd really rather NOT be giving the fellow any more 'air time.' I'd prefer not to be reminded of his continued existence, frankly. If he's hit by a bus--let me know so I can go piss on his grave--otherwise, give it a rest."

Oh. Okay then.

Excalibur is cancelled to make way for House of M:

"Marvel has confirmed for Newsarama that the series, one of Marvel’s mid-tier X-titles will end with issue #14, due in stores next week."

Not that that actually means anything, as the story continues, "In any case, Marvel has confirmed for Newsarama that an announcement regarding Claremont’s new project, spinning out of House of M will be made at next month’s WizardWorld: Philadelphia convention."

Newsarama fans - Excited about Joss Whedon and Neal Adams's Giant Size X-Men story until they find out how long it is:

"8 PAGES YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME [...] i love neal adams and joss, but 8 pages for 5 bucks [...] i'm the biggest xmen fan and own allmost every issue of every x series there is but i'm skipping this"

"While Adams is an excellent artist and Whedon is a great writer, I am not paying $5 for a freakin' 8 page story and a bunch of old crap that reads like old crap."

"I am definately NOT getting this. 8 pages, cmon 8 pages. I like Neal Adams art but he hasn't done anything worthwhile in almost 30 yrs. I mean whats he done. That book about the universe, Mr T and the T force, a Thor cover, selling overpriced drawings on ebay? Its his right to do what he wants and he's stuck to advertising. I could see back in the day what Marvel and DC were pricks but they have been creator friendly for years now. And whenever I see an interview, I know Quesada wanted him to do stuff. Whether you think the stuff (continuity) he did in the eighties and early nineties was crap or not, I would say most people wanted him to do some established character. Not reprinting Batman and Green Lantern stories a million times in different formats. Something new. Whenever his name is mentioned people are like Neal Adams is doing it must be good. But when was the last time it was. The Thor cover was cool, nothing spectacular. The Avengers and Capt Marvel were subpar.Thats just my opinion I just think for all the people that think he's great he could do a full comic, just 1 be it Batman or whatever just 1 issue. For all the people that buy those reprints over and over.1 issue."

"I knew it was going to be a short story, but I didn't realise it was only 8 pages. That's good - it guarantees I won't fork out the $5, even though I've always been a big Neal Adams fan. But that's just highway robbery."

"Yeah, only eight pages kinda sucks andwhat really gets me is, we've just seen four of them! That preview right there is half the story! Granted there is no dialogue but it looks pretty self-explanatory."

Maaaaaaaaarvel solicits! Of note:

* Not content with breaking the internet in half, House of M also wants to "shock" you: "The Marvel Universe has indeed been rocked to its very core and more and more rebels join to rise up against what has happened. But can Spider-Man handle the truth about his life as it is and his life as it was? The fallout will shock you!"

* Captain America gets caught up in What If... sorry, House of M, fever: "What changes await Steve Rogers life now that the House of M is in control? In this new world order, watch the hero known as Captain America moves from the '40s to the present day, bearing witness to a changing landscape, watching as man becomes the minority, and mutant the ruler." The plus to this? Lee Weeks art over a Brubaker script.

* The Ultimate Marvel annuals appear. Steve Dillon takes on The Ultimates: "If you thought The Ultimates were the only team S.H.I.E.L.D. was creating-you were wrong! Get ready for the next wave of super-soldiers designed to protect America's vital interests. But is this all that Director Nick Fury is up to-or is there much more to this ultra-clandestine program? And can even S.H.I.E.L.D. keep all these super-people under control?" Ultimate Fantastic Four, meanwhile, has Ultimate Inhumans, which led to my favorite hopefully-sarcastic-otherwise-revealing-a-horrific-lack-of-self-awareness Mark Millar quote of recent months: "The UFF annual is pretty unusual for me in that we're dipping into old Marvel characters (as opposed to just creating new ones and new situations)".

* Bendis and Maleev prepare to leave Daredevil: "The Eisner-Award winning run of Bendis and Maleev comes to a blistering conclusion in their final arc! First they outed Daredevil in the press, then they married him, and made him the Kingpin of Hell's Kitchen. What could they possibly do to top that? Four words: WILSON FISK IS BACK!!"

* The solicit writer gets to stretch his shit-writing muscles with the Wolverine solicitation: "This is the explosive climax you've been waiting for! This battle royale will not only raise the bar on action… after this, there will be NO BAR."

* He gets to do the same with the start of the New Avengers solicit: "A New Avengers three parter so blistering that its blown up to four parts!"

* Hey, Wha... Huh? finally appears! But it won't manage to reach its dream of being the dumbest comic of the year because Mega Morphs launches this month: "Some dangers are too big for even the Marvel Super Heroes--and that's when they activate Tony Stark's newest inventions: the Mega Morphs! Super-powerful high-tech transforming robots piloted by the unlikely team of New Avengers' Spider-Man, Captain America, and Wolverine--along with Ghost Rider and the Hulk?! Join Eisner-nominated writer Sean McKeever and superstar-on-the-rise Lou Kang for four issues of furious fighting, based on the hot new line of toys from Toy Biz. Marvel's heaviest heroes in giant-robot action? True Believer, this is the toy-tie-in comic other toy-tie-ins dream of being!" Is it wrong of me to have never even heard of Lou Kang?

* After Joss Whedon's Giant-Size X-Men #3, time for Claremont's Giant-Size X-Men #4. Is this a new monthly book? Claremont also gets a hardcover Visionaries collection: "In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Chris Claremont's first X-Men story, the House of Ideas presents a timeless testament to another true Marvel visionary! Best known for ushering the X-Men from reprints to blockbuster franchise, Claremont has steered Marvel's mutants for three decades while working alongside some of comicdom's top artists. This deluxe keepsake edition collects some of his greatest moments - including stories from DAREDEVIL #102; MARVEL PREMIERE #11; IRON FIST #14; UNCANNY X-MEN #137, #153, #205, #268 and ANNUAL #12; AVENGERS ANNUAL #10; WOLVERINE #3; NEW MUTANTS #21; CLASSIC X-MEN #13; EXCALIBUR #16; and X-MEN UNLIMITED #36."

* Essential X-Men volume 6 appears, and takes the title through when it became non-essential reading: "'Mutant' means 'change,' and there was plenty of that when the Uncanny X-Men counted down to the Marvel Mutant Massacre beginning with the trial of Magneto! Rachel Summers became Phoenix and the Brotherhood became Freedom Force! Lady Deathstrike became a cyborg, Moonstar a Valkyrie, Colossus a killer, and Psylocke an X-Man! And Sabretooth first set his clawed foot into the X-Universe alongside his fellow Marauders! Guest-starring the original X-Factor, Power Pack and Thor! Gods, Morlocks, talking frogs and more! Collects UNCANNY X-MEN #199-213, NEW MUTANTS SPECIAL EDITION #1, X-MEN ANNUAL #9, X-FACTOR #9-11, NEW MUTANTS #46, THOR #373-374 and POWER PACK #27."

* Extra creator-based notes that I missed the first time: Amazing Fantasy sees Vampire By Night written by popular somnambulist Jeff Parker, who also writes this month's Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four, introducing the wonderful Diablo... I have no idea what Vampire By Night is beyond the obvious, but hopefully Mr. Parker will elaborate in the comments thread. And where's Jim Chueng gone? Andrea Di Vito is doing Young Avengers this month...

Millarworld gets caught up in DC Imprint Confusion:

"After examing Desolation Jones #1 yesterday, I realized how easily it could have been a Vertigo title. I felt the same way about Ex Machina, too, especially after the incredibly grounded first issue. So, what's the difference between a Vertigo title and a Wildstorm Signature Series title? How does DC decide where a creator-owned title belongs? Is it because the stakes are raised higher in a W.S.S. title? This doesn't make much sense, because the destruction is big and loud in almost every issue of THE LOSERS. Are titles in the Vertigo imprint supposed to be more character driven? This can't be the case either, because EX MACHINA is pretty much all about the characters."

"Seems there are bigger NAMES involved in the WS signature line... Where Vertigo seems to be more about making names out of lesser knowns(at least in America), WS signature seems to be mostly about letting established creators do what the hell they want in their own little worlds. There may be a better ownership deal with WSSignature though who could know beyond those invloved. I'm liking what's coming out of WSS though. I don't buy it all but what I've bought has been exceptional. Same goes with Vertigo. I think there's room for both."

Frank Davis offers up his take:

"The difference between Wildstorm Signatire and Vertigo are a couple of glaring things.Wildstorm Signature books have bright colors. Vertigo has earthy mud colors. WSS are all creator books. Vertigo has DC owned books in the line. WSS has action, nior, sci-fi and explodo. Vertigo has quiet letting out of blood and guts, fairies and elves and love road trips. WSS can do superheroes if they choose to. Vertigo is antisuperhero."

The Mighty Layman offers up the real world answer:

"Wildstorm pays more."

DC announce ship date for All Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder #1, then schedule for the remaining issues. Newsarama discusses, with Greg O leading the charge against DC:

"So DC issue a press release to announce it'll ship every 6 weeks, and announce the 2nd issue will ship AT LEAST (they're hedging their bets as to when exactly in September for some reason?) 8 weeks later? Helluva way for DC themselves to feed the rumours that Miller isn't delivering scripts!"

Other fans aren't so convinced that there's trouble:

"[W]here's this rumor about Miller coming from? I mean, if you had told me ASB&R was going to ship late, and gave me a choice of blaming Miller or Lee, I'd have picked Lee. Weird that there's a possibility that Miller's running late. Thing is, does this really matter? This is a Miller/Lee book. Even with the strange reception of the second Dark Knight book, are fans really going to be angry about a book with this caliber of creators that runs a little late? We're not talking months, ala some of the recent late books, just a few weeks here and there (although why DC didn't mention the shipping schedule for the solicits for issue 1 is beyond me)."

"Well, it says 'is scheduled to be published every six weeks.' I guess that leaves the door open for it to be shipped at a later date?"

Greg O, however, knows what's going on:

"DC's handling of this certainly feeds SPECULATION that their All Star line is already in trouble. True there are certain patient fans who are happy to wait as long as nescessary between books without complaining but DC's intention with this line was too launch big and attract as many new readers as possible including presumably readers who haven't purchased a monthly before or in years. They're not the type of consumer who will return to a comic shop patiently week after week, a month (or 6 weeks) after the first issue debuts only to be told the book is late and stick with the title. All Star Batman and Robin was apparently launched as a monthly mini series, at least that was the impression all the folks who were surprised not to see #2 solicited this week, had. Now it's officially a 6 weekly book, but DC can't give us a date for #2 and it apparently won't ship 6 weeks after the 1st issue! All Star Superman was due to launch this Summer according to initial reports and Quitely himself. Now it's hoped they'll have the 1st issue out sometime in December!

"Regardless of some readers patience both of DC's biggest books of '05 representing the All Star line have fallen at the post long before they even ship. Now suddenly Ross's Justice is an All Star title? It wasn't, for the last year or so, since it was announced until DC went public (following fan concerns) over hitchs with the All Star line! It certainly seems like DC trying to plug the All Star label by rebranding something they know will launch this sumer and ship as scheduled.

"Regarding the mysterious delays to All Star Batman and Robin, IIRC Jim Lee himself issued a statement in response to rumours that Miller hadn't turned in any scripts for the book. These rumours were alluded to by Mark Millar on his site who had heard them from other pros and was passing them on. Lee stated that he had in fact recieved the first script from Miller. But this was all before the Sin City flick exploded and Miller was busy giving interviews, travelling to Cannes etc. Jim Lee isn't a slow artist. As 'Superstar' pencillers go he's one of the fastest producing 25 issues over the course of 4 years and not missing a deadline (1 Superman was delayed with an increased page count). But now Miller's book which certainly gave the impression of being a monthly is 6 weekly with no shipping date for the 2nd issue (though it's certain it won't ship 6 weeks later as announced).

"It's safe to speculate that Miller may now be pressed to produce a new Sin City flick, possibly directing with all the work and planning that involves. So what's he going to work on? Directing his creator owned flick or turning in scripts for a Batman comic? This is pure speculation based on rumours circulating the Comics biz, but DC's press ONLY serves to strengthen the rumour."

As proof for the Ross "Justice" book being an All-Star book, this Paul Levitz quote is offered: "Then, because the universe isn't large enough to contain all our creativity, we have projects starring our all-star characters by all-star talent that tell quintessential tales of the heroes with a creative freedom to mix and match elements from how they've been developed over the issues. Leading off is ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER, uniting legendary creators Frank Miller and Jim Lee on the character who's been one of the peak moments in both their careers, and then we follow with ALL STAR SUPERMAN by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, and JUSTICE by Alex Ross, Doug Braithwaite and Jim Krueger." Never mind that the book has been solicited without the All Star brand. Others step in to straighten out the misunderstanding:

"Greg, relax guy. The first issue hasn't even hit the stands yet and you're creating conspiracy theories. Whether or not DC meant for these books to be monthly, quarterly, yearly, whatever, *no one* with an ounce of sense actually EXPECTED that, with people like Frank Quitely associated with them. And I think you're reading into Levitz's statement. Notice he didn't say 'ALL STAR JUSTICE.' He just meant that it's another project featuring the classic characters with big names associated."

"I don't think he's implying that Justice is a part of the line because if it is, why not call it all All Star Justice League? This also runs against a previous interview saying that the All Star Line wouldn't include characters with multiple personas (The Flash, for instance) nor the Justice League as there really isn't a definitive line-up. As I understand it, all of Ross' painted books (Liberty & Justice, etc.) have been outside of continuity and were arguably the proto-All Star books. This doesn't look like a press release, but the name 'Alex Ross' is recognizable to a lot of non-comics readers, but also casual ones. I'm to infer that Justice is included in the list as a title that older fans who have gotten out of the hobby can come back to or 'on the fence' fans about DC can pick up."

Marvel.com has something called Thunderblog, an online spin-off from Thunderbolts. This in and of itself isn't worth mentioning, but the names of the blogs of other Marvel characters on the left hand side of the page is: "Bah! Doom needs no blog" being my favorite.

The Bendis Board sums up Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee's Superman arc:

"Artsy Bullshit,Purty Pictures"

"Brian Azzarello should stick to street-level stories like 100 Bullets because even Jim Lee can do only so much with a script."

"CRAP! its like a movie you watch on mute because the dialogue is so bad. The story is that Superman i guess without his own knowledge creates another world within the phantom zone, Zod finds it because he is already there and the fight, uh.....something like that. the only ramification is that there are now 2 new villians one being the priest in the story who got sucked into something, zod is back but still in the zone and most of all the FOS was destroyed and is now in a myan temple.... (WTF??)"

Mark Millar, talent wrangler:

"Okay, you all know how much I loved that new episode of Dr Who and I posted my thoughts today in an earlier thread. Well, as it turns out the writer is a MW lurker and a closet comic-book fan. His name is Paul Cornell and he dropped me a thank you note this afternoon for my hysterical praise and now, oh yes, looks set for an intro to Mr Joe Q for some Marvel work. I'd normally save such a snippit of gossip for our secret mod forum (where I post most of the good gossip since a couple of arses started pouring scorn on the validity of the scoops posted here), but I really want to see this happen and plan to build up some momentum for the project. Paul himself is very keen and will, I think, be the next Allen Heinberg if all goes to plan.

"I'm arranging for an American format DVD to wing its way to the Marvel offices so, to add to the good vibes, all those who loved last weekend's episode, please give this your thumbs up below. The show hasn't hit the states yet and the Marvel guys will be unprepared for how good and how big this is going to be. I've absolutely loved a couple of these episodes and Paul's just shines out as an absolute corker. Just imagine this same craft and care applied to the Marvel Comic of your choice. Could be cool."

Two posts later - one of them pointing out that Russell Davies is the writer in charge of the Dr. Who revamp, Mark updates:

"Please ask no more questions, though, as I can't say anything at the moment. I'm just in the middle of explaining to Marvel how big this guy is."

I love that he can't say anything at the moment after spilling the beans in the first place.

Greg Pak, seemingly becoming Marvel's go-to guy for mini series that no-one expects to be very good and then are happily surprised by, is announced as the writer for the follow-up to Neil Gaiman's 1602, New World:

"I was thrilled at the chance, particularly since Neil Gaiman ended the first series so provocatively, with the Witchbreed arriving in the New World, which seemed like the perfect place to further explore the story’s big themes of difference, persecution, and hope... Nick [Lowe, editor] sent Neil my treatment and Neil gave us his blessing, which felt great."

Because God loves you, Ryan Higgins talks about House of M:

"There is not a single death in House of M #1, but I expect the BGDR [Bendis Gratuitous Death Ratio] will be very high as we're dealing with an alternative reality. Anything goes in these sort of situations. Why, maybe while Peter Parker is trying to save Gwen Stacy, somehow he dies! Wouldn't that be shocking? Why, think of all the gratuitous deaths this alternative universe could produce! And why did I mention Gwen Stacy? It's almost like in this shocking, internet-breaking series, instead of MJ, Peter is still with Gwen! Shocking! Internet Breaking! Amazing! Spectacular! Web Of! ...If you read this issue again, knowing what you know about Wanda, you come out with pretty much the same thing you came out with reading it the first time. If you read it knowing what you know about Bendis, you'll be pleasantly surprised. This was a very good first issue, a far cry from Avengers Disassembled, the mess that started this whole story. Of course, being Marvel, I'm just not expecting much out of the whole series. When the most anyone knows about the series is that issue #3 will 'break the internet in half,' that's not a good sign. Still, it was an interesting first issue. We'll see where it goes from here."

John Byrne versus the internet again:

"I stumbled across a message board that devotes about 9 or 10 lengthy 'pages' to slicing me up for the usual crimes -- ie, having opinions different from the bulk of the posters and not using PC terms to express them -- and once again I could not help but notice, with great sadness, that not one single poster was using his or her real name.

"How do they know it's me who's posting all these 'offensive' comments? 'Cuz I sign my name to everything I post, via the fact that I post nowhere but on this message board that bears that name in its title. Do you suppose these pseudo-liberal crybabies will ever grow sufficient spine to be able to do the same? Or will they hide behind screen names and pretend to be grownups forever? And will they ever find anything important over which to work themselves into a lather?

"Will pigs fly?"

I point this out not because it's new, because the "psuedo-liberal crybabies" bit surprised me. "Psuedo-liberal"? Have I always missed Byrne's right-wing leanings, or is this something new? Anyway, someone invites Byrne to post to The V, and Byrne sadly refuses:

"I post only here, to squash in advance any attempts at impersonation. Since everyone seems to know where to find me, I see no need for posting elsewhere. Oddly, tho, so many who seem to have such enormous problems with my opinions do not seem to want to post here. In any case, I feel no need to defend myself. I have 30 years of published work that anyone can look at. Unless people want to assume I am schizophrenic, everything anyone could ever want to know about how I think and 'who I am' is contained therein."

J. Michael Straczynski talks about his upcoming Fantastic Four run, quotes poetry and rails against online fans at The Pulse:

"I've always been a big believer in the notion that quality will out in the end. The only thing that makes me crazy is when someone gets up and says he speaks for all fans, when in fact that person is only speaking for himself. A few places online had polls about Sins Past, and when all the voting got done, it came out a nearly perfect bell-curve in almost every circumstance: some at one end loved it uncritically, some at the other end hated it uncritically, and most were clustered in the middle. Which is just where you want it and expect it to be. But some of the fans who didn't like that story were just *incensed* at this, like 'how DARE you like this story?' Well, either we're all entitled to our opinions, and it's a level playing field, or it isn't. But there are always those who try to say they speak for all fandom, and it's neither true nor possible, given the amazing diversity of fans. I'm both a writer and a fan, but I speak for only myself, not other writers or fans. I'm FROM New Jersey. I was BORN in New Jersey. But I am NOT New Jersey. Not understanding that distinction is pernicious."

Brian Wood posts his workspace for the world to see, which just so happens to contain some pages from his upcoming project DMZ (which was, at one time, called Wartime, and perhaps just in my imagination, earlier called Life During Wartime. The nice DMZ logo can be found here, and some more DMZ work in progress can be seen here and here).

Dark Horse goes more manga:

"According to the Anime News Network, Carl Horn of Dark Horse Comics announced a raft of new adult-oriented manga titles at Anime Central including Lady Snowblood, Eden, Space Pinchy and Saiyuki Dendaio. Horn also confirmed that Dark Horse has acquired the rights to Crying Freeman, the six-volume yakuza epic written by Kazuo Koike and superbly illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami. Viz previously published Crying Freeman in the U.S., but now Dark Horse will release the Koike editions of the manga."

Mark Millar is taking requests:

"Okay, as you know, I'm doing a special thirteenth issue [of Wolverine] and, also as you know, Johnny [Romita Jr.] already had commitments to his next series before I decided to write this extra story set in WW2. It's a really special issue and I'd like someone really good on the art, but just can't think of anyone at the moment. Various names have been mooted, but nobody really seems appropriate. We've done this before (it's how I got JG on Wanted) so drop a list of your dream artists down below and we'll see what we can do."

After some suggestions have been made, Mark updates:

"No chance of Frank [Miller] or Mike [Mignola] and I already asked Joe Kubert, funnily enough. I'm not bothered about someone who's drawn WW2 before or is a classic, old school artist. They just have to be really good. I'm thinking about asking Gene Ha. He and I have talked about doing something before and I've always been a fan. Also really like Tommy Lee Edwards and Ryan Sook. Is Ryan Sook doing one of those Seven Soldiers books? Is it out yet? We need someone who can start very soon, if possible."

As of now, it looks like Jae Lee and Tim Bradstreet are the front runners...

Somewhere, John Byrne is upset:

"Christopher Reeve redefined courage and hope. His strength, determination, and compassion inspired the world. He was our hero. Today, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation proudly introduces the CRPF Superman Tag. This special offer is your opportunity to pay personal tribute to Christopher Reeve's incredible legacy. By wearing the CRPF Superman Tag, you believe that Christopher's vision will Go Forward. The Christopher Reeve Foundation Superman Tags can be worn around the neck on a chain, or clipped onto gear, sports equipment, purses, or book bags. All proceeds from the sale of the Superman Tags go to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. Purchase the Superman Tag to show your support of Christopher Reeve's vision and the mission of his Foundation."

DC's August solicits are up, and fuck everything else that's released that month, because this could be what I've waited for all year without knowing:

"DC'S GREATEST IMAGINARY STORIES [...] Written by Otto Binder, Bill Finger, Jerry Siegel and others; Art by Bob Kane, Dick Sprang, Curt Swan and others; Cover by Brian Bolland [...] DC Comics collects some of the best imaginary stories featuring Superman, Supergirl, Batman, and the Flash from 1946-1967! Featuring an introduction by Comics Buyer's Guide's Craig Shutt, and a new Brian Bolland cover!"

Yes.

Anyway, what else is happening in August?

* Gotham Central has some unusual suspects. And, no, I could resist that pun: "The cops have what appears to be Robin's dead body in the Gotham Morgue. And with an uncooperative Batman in Gotham City, the only people to turn to for answers may be the Teen Titans!"

* Adam Strange gets the trade treatment.

* Supergirl launches, and gets an issue #0 reprint, too.

* The utterly unnecessary Batman series continue with Batman: Journey Into Knight: "Get ready for an explosive 12-issue maxiseries written by Andy Helfer (THE SHADOW) with art by Tan Eng Huat (JLA) and covers by Pat Lee (SUPERMAN/BATMAN) that explores the formative years of the Dark Knight!" Because Batman: Year One wasn't good enough, obviously.

* The last of the essential Catwoman stories gets traded (Sorry, Ed, but that Gulacy artwork killed the last ten issues of your run...) as Wild Ride is released and you get to have more Cameron Stewart niceness for your bookshelf.

* Solo comes up with the goods: "Spanish comic book artist extraordinaire Jordi Bernet (BATMAN: BLACK AND WHITE VOL. 2) dives into issue #6 of SOLO! Bernet teams up with some of today's best writers, illustrating tales of horror and revenge by Brian Azzarello, John Arcudi, Joe Kelly, Andrew Helfer and Chuck Dixon. Featuring stories from the Old West, 1950s Las Vegas, a South American prison, a forgotten Texas town, and a Batman/Poison/Ivy tale fresh from the streets of Gotham City!"

Dig that cover:



* Y: The Last Man gives you what you've waited three years for: "Series co-creator Pia Guerra returns for a special stand-alone issue that finally reveals the whole story behind Yorick Brown's long-lost true love, Beth Deville. As Yorick risks his life to travel halfway around the world in search of this alluring young woman, Beth must survive her own trial by fire."

* Top 10 starts its second series: "Get ready for a new 5-issue miniseries written by science fiction author Paul DiFilippo (The Steampunk Trilogy, Ribofunk) with art by Jerry Ordway (ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, TOM STRONG) that catches up with the officers of Precinct 10 five years after the events of the SMAX miniseries!"

Kevin Melrose points me over to Publisher's Weekly, where Paul Levitz is as cool as last week:

"The logo change and our branding specifically is to show that something concrete has changed as well as to denote that some intangibles have also changed. Great creative work with a new flavor is being done right now in the comics medium and this is our opportunity to say that something cool is going on here. You know, it wasn’t so long ago that science fiction moved from the fringe of the literary culture to the center. I remember when there were no science-fiction sections in bookstores. We’re in a time when something very similar is happening to comics. They are at the heart of popular culture right now and DC Comics will be playing a meaningful part in this change over the next couple of decades."

DC's website has changed their front page to go along with this new branding, too.

Rob Liefeld declares war on Warren Ellis:

"Okay so finally, after five years of all this 'widescreen comics' mumbo jumbo that has become so fluent in the comic book vernacular, I had to speak. With all apologies to Warren Ellis whom I remain an avid fan of, I can't bear to read the further discussion of widescreen, fight comix and game logic without giving all of those terms their proper due. It begins and ends with Image comics. We invented the re-mix Warren.

"Panoramic, cinematic, double page spreads depicting breakneck action was popularized and immortalized by the founders of Image Comics. Lee, Liefeld, McFarlane, Larsen, Silvestri and Valentino delivered widescreen comics back when the comic populace referred to them simply as Image comics. We produced the best fight comix in the world. We began each and every day with game logic. Widescreen was a term developed to take credit away from Image comics. Ditto for fight comix and game logic.

"As outlined in his multiple columns, Bad Signal and Streaming, Warren continues to deliberate, pontificate and analyze the popular stylings of the trends that were popularized at Image comics. He creates new and colorful terminology intended to explain the appeal of popular comic books that feature what me and my former bandmates coined as 'Image stylings'. Youngblood, CyberForce, Savage Dragon and Spawn were swimming in widescreen graphics. Fight comix was what we were all about, game logic never looked so good... When Jim Lee illustrated a bound-in-double-gatefold-fold-out-spread in Wildcats #5, I dropped my jaw in admiration. Jim had gone bigger than any of us had to date. The depiction of Zealot and Grifter blasting their way through broken glass was breathtaking, all that was missing was the 3-D glasses. It was pure Jack Kirby adrenaline. I smiled with envy, maybe someday I'll do a triple gatefold spread in order to take it one level further.

"But apparently when Warren Ellis writes double truck spreads for Bryan Hitch to illustrate it has to be coined 'widescreen'. Authority read like a great Image comic, better dialogue, slightly improved plots, but without Bryan Hitch and later Frank Quietly drawing dynamic, detailed depictions of super hero action, it achieves none of it's popularity. Hitch and Quietly can bring the Image stylings with great ease. Bryan Hitch may in fact be the greatest Image styled artist to ever draw a comic book. When he kicked off his JLA run with a Treasury sized edition, my heart skipped a few beats. If it looks like an Image comic, walks like an Image comic, talks like an Image comic, than it's an Image comic. Widescreen be damned... We weren't first, but we were the biggest and best, which is why so many try to repeat our steps but can't cover our tracks no matter how hard they try... It's all about Image and Image was and remains everything."

Peter David and Mike Weiringo on a Spider-Man book? I'll admit it; I'm tempted. Especially when David says things like this:

"In a world of world-conquering super-geniuses and burly macho superheroes with chest spans the size of Ford Pintos, here's this fundamentally schlubby guy who's a misfit no matter who he's matched up with. I mean, compare him to Batman. Batman takes his cues from a creature that, when people see it, they run screaming. Spider-Man's persona is based on a creature that, when people see it, they go, ‘Ick. Honey, hand me the Daily News, would'ja? Thanks.’ [Roll roll roll] ‘WAP!’. Furthermore, anytime you pair Spider-Man off with someone, there always seems to be this faint resigned attitude of ‘Why me?’ on the part of Spidey's partner. Notice that the Avengers seem much more comfortable with him when they're dealing with him, or thinking of him as, Peter Parker. Whenever it's Spider-Man they're interacting with, it's more like, ‘Please, God, don't embarrass us.’"

Neal Adams gives some perspective:

"This idea of taking yourself seriously... I’ve always told people, look, I draw comic books. People give me money to draw pictures. It’s almost a sin if you think about it. I do what I want and they give me money. Who gets to do that? So, I don’t really expect more than that. And if people want to make a fuss over it, I think that’s really great, but that’s already enough. That’s better than what most people can expect."

Jesse Baker shows the world why he should never, never, be given the keys to any DC Comics character:

"If I was Geoff Johns the following would have happened in [Green Lantern revamp series] Rebirth:

"Sinestro would have gutted Kyle and forced Green Arrow to eat Kyle's intestines

"Parallax would have been: 1. Exposed as the King of Tears and 2. blown up Oa and made the Guardians of the Universe extinct again

"The first issue of the series would revolve around the JLA finding the dismembered body of John Stewart, having died a bitch's death and his power ring stolen by Black Hand to set up Black Hand's attack on Ollie and his own hand being chopped off

"Carol and Pieface declared dead in off-panel freak accident deaths...

"Instead of Hector Hammond in the background, we'd see the Zamarons recruiting a Joan Collins-esque corporate executive to be the new Star Sapphire and a new version of Predator killing people in the background.

"It would be established that Hal, while possessed by Parallax, went evil on his own free will and that his sacrifice of his life to save the son was all Parallax's self-serving duty.

"Oh and I would have ended the story with Hal reaborbing Parallax into his being AGAIN so as to contain him and Guy Gardner punching Batman unconscious with a sucker punch when Batman bitches that Hal has to be imprisoned for his crimes.

"My new GL would be a new streetwise Hal Jordan with a team consisting of Terra II, Guy Gardner, a resurrected Clock King (complete with his zentai clock face mask costume), Elongated Man, Booster Gold, and the ghost of Sue Dibney as Hal's back-up team. No fucking GL corp, no aliens save for Killowag, and a rogue gallary of new Star Sapphire, Predator, zombie action figure Black Hand, Sinestro, and fucking Lobo, brought back as an evil as fuck monster who wants Hal dead for mysterious reasons.

"Also, I would have done everything in my power to get the shit Wonder Girl John Byrne created to not only be the murder victim in Identity Crisis but also create holy hell to get the shit gimp Batgirl to have been the dead hero in Countdown to Identity Crisis even if I had to tell Dan DiDio to go fuck himself and rat out the entire issue's plot if DiDio still demanded Blue Beetle's death..."

(Thanks, Matt.)

Marvel get around to releasing a press release about Jonathan Lethem, Faryl Dalrymple and Omega the Unknown:

"Omega the Unknown, the enigmatic super hero first introduced by Marvel Comics in the 1970s, will be re-introduced early next year in an updated series written by Jonathan Lethem, the critically praised author best known for his novels 'The Fortress of Solitude' and 'Motherless Brooklyn,' which won a National Book Critics Circle Award. The series will mark Jonathan Lethem’s first comic book writing effort. The initial storyline will center on a teenage prodigy from Washington Heights, and his relationship with Omega, a mysterious and silent Super Hero from another world. The 10-issue series will launch in early 2006."

Millarworld wonders if DC should change its name:

"To change the name of DC comics would be too easily perceived as a signal of defeat, something that would damage the company significantly. Entering into the marketplace with a snazzy catchy name is one thing either as a company or an individual - I've got no problems with creators using a nome de plume - but to change it after DECADES? National became DC around the 50s, right? Chuck half a century because it doesn't sound Kewl? Ridiculous."

"I personally would like to see them change to Warner Brothers Comics. WBC. I think they'd benefit a hell of a lot from that and it'd bring them more into the WB fold. Might make the parent company take them a little more seriously. So, in my opinion, name change good but not neccessary. And there's always the chance they could switch to something that could seriously harm them."

"DC, I guess, sounds like what it is. A larger company with various imprints. If they really wanted to change something for the better it would have to be the name of their shared universe. The DCU just doesn't sound important. It sounds like 'Oh, it's the large company's Universe, whippeee.' If they could somehow come up with a name for the universe that holds Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman, Green Lantern and The Flash that was maybe a little more...inspiring, I might be a little more excited about them. Right now the characters and the 'universe' just feel like tools for a larger company. They have no edge. I guess my opinion is: DC can remain the overall company name but they've GOT to come up with a better name for their comicbook stable. Like Wildstorm's old company name(before they sold to DC) used to be Aegis Entertainment but THAT don't sell comicbooks so they named everything Wildstorm...Same should be able to be done with DC. And 'Johnny DC' sounds like 'oh it's the large conglomorates little brother, how sweet.' It's silly."

"Either way, I don't think it matters. While they could change their name, and be fine because of the recognizability of their franchies, it really doesn't matter, because of the recognizability of their franchises. They could be BitchFuck Comics, Ltd. and all people would pay attention to would be the S-shield and the bat symbol. For people on the outside, it doesn't matter. For people on the inside, it doesn't matter."

Dan DiDio talks about all things DC over at Silver Bullets - Infinite Crisis, Seven Soldiers and the All-Star books:

"Although we are building such a cohesive universe for the DCU, I still want to do books that will attract the casual reader. A casual audience whose only contact with Batman and Superman might not be from the comics but from the movies, TV or cartoons. There are certain conceits in Batman and Robin that stay true in every incarnation of those characters. These books are created to literally reach the widest audience possible, and not just the comic book audience, but anyone who has ever wanted to read or see anything about Superman or Batman... Because of the iconic nature of the concept, it is very hard to go beyond some of those core characters. We always talk about the generational aspect of the DC Universe. Flash, Green Lantern or Manhunter have a generational sense, but Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman aren’t really generational characters. Superman is Clark Kent, Batman is Bruce Wayne, and we move forward from there. As the rest of the world ages around them, Batman and Superman never really age. That makes them truly icons in my mind and because of that they can really get the All Star approach to them. I didn’t want to do and I have no plans to do an All Star Justice League, because what is an iconic version of Justice League? It’s an evolving book and one that keeps changing it’s cast based on of whatever time the series takes place or whichever characters are hot at that moment. These books really have to be able to stand the test of time for the widest audience possible. I don’t expect to expand this line further than three to four books."

Rich Johnston teases the return of Lying In The Gutters:

"It was to return in three weeks. But it's not anymore. It's back next Monday instead, noon Pacific Time. The all-new all-different Lying In The Gutters. Comic book journalism. That's right, journalism. For over ten years I've been a gossip monger, a rumour raker, the Popbitch, the Media Monkey, the Private Eye of comics. Well, next Monday, I'll be The Times, The Guardian and The Independent. Hard-hitting investigative journalism in the comic industry. For six weeks. After those six weeks there will be a public vote. Where you, my readership, can decide whether the column continues in its journalistic endeavours or reverts back to the devil you know."

Millarworld and Newsarama team up to provide reports from this weekend's Bristol comic convention. First up, a Marvel panel starring a reluctant Alan Davis:

"Who would they write if they could pick up any obscure character and bring it back to life? David Hine: Silver Surfer and Doctor Strange. Joe Casey: The Avengers was his dream assignment so he’s all dreamed out [...] Alan Davis: 'Can’t say' [...] This is really all Alan Davis could say every time they asked him any specific question. By this time he’d said 'Can’t say' about seven times so somebody found the one question he could answer: 'Why can’t you say?'"

Newsarama reports on a tightening race between Marvel and DC, saleswise for April:

"Marvel lead the month with a 35.62% Unit Share (the percentage of raw comic book, magazines and graphic novels sold) and a 34.69% Dollar Share (percentage of dollars generated for comic book, magazines and graphic novels), but unlike March when Marvel held considerable double-digit leads over its rival, DC is right behind in both categories, with 31.65% Unit Share and 33.86% Dollar Share, just 0.79% behind Marvel in that latter category. While not historically tight 'spreads' (the difference between their market shares), this is the closest the two publishers have been in any given month since only .70% in Dollar Share separated leader Marvel and second place DC in March 2004 and August 2003 when Marvel lead DC by just 2.77% in Unit Share."

I know, I know. You're all bummed that DC pulled back from flooding the market with Infinite Crisis tie-ins and ended up not publishing Amazons Attack!, the planned Amazons versus the US Navy book. Luckily, you can still get all your US Navy versus Someone excitement, and in a less-crossover-reliant package. James Sime has the relevant news:

"Seeing as there's a bunch of new folks around here today, and I'm always down with meeting new folks, I thought it was time to drop yet another preview on you all. Today we're talking about an exclusive five page preview of AIT-PlanetLar's Seal Team Seven. Y'know, that really, really cool US Navy Vs Atlantis book in the latest Previews? ...Everything I've seen of this book rocks my world, and I don't have a doubt in the world that after this thing hits stands that you'll be remembering [creators] Zack Sherman and Roberto de la Torre's names. Simply beautiful!"

Click here for the cover to the book and linkage to preview pages.

Tom Spurgeon reports on the CBLDF's involvement in a South Carolina victory over the controversial Harmful to Minors Law at the Pulse:

"The win in South Carolina calls attention an increasingly important and vital aspect of the Fund's activities, that is, participating in challenges to unconstitutional laws in conjunction with other Free Speech organizations. Although not as highly publicized and not as easy to understand as when the Fund provides direct legal help to a retailer in danger of being convicted of a criminal offense, [CBLDF Executive Director Charles] Brownstein firmly believes that this kind of work is just as, if not more, important as the more traditional CBLDF cases. 'A maxim I repeat so much as to drive reporters like yourself nuts is that it's better to prevent a case than defend a case, and participation in these sorts of cases can help to prevent an actual prosecution that would require thousands of dollars and a lot of human misery to defend.'"

The Bendis Board asks "Should we support books that are 'consistently late'?":

"There are plenty of books out there that a popular with popular artists and writers but for a variety of reasons are constantly late. I also buy the books even when there late too so im a part of it too. Do you think that we should keep buying books that are late month after month. Now this does not include books that are late do to family issues or health issues. This is for books that are late due to not finishing the art or writing on time because of maybe the company rushing to hype an unfinished project."

"It depends what you mean by consistently late. If you mean week-by-week delays, but the book will come out eventually, then I would say yes. It's a sad fact, but writers and artists have to work at their own pace. Books like GL: Rebirth, Superman/Batman, or Astonishing X-men are worth the wait. Things like Kevin Smith or Joe Queseda books, where the books might never come out, or might be several months to a year late, fuck them. That's just shitty customer service."

"There's different degrees of late for me. There's a bit late, which I can forgive, there's pretty late, which annoys me, but I'll probably forgive, there's very late, which makes me want to drop the book, and then there's Kevin Smith late, which, at this point, just makes me say fuck off."

"Depends on the book and the reasons for it being late. If it's Powers, and it's a little bit late because they are taking extra time with the layout of the book (like the one where they made all but the last two pages into a magazine type issue) then fine. Joe Madureira taking six months for an issue of Battle Chasers, and then a year and a half for the one after that.....fuck that guy."

Notice a running theme?

Mark Millar returns to the subject of Wanted: The Movie. On the script:

"Yeah, it's [by] the 2Fast2Furious lads. And no, I'm not kidding. I burst out laughing when I heard Universal had pegged them, but the producer is v smart and swears they're secret geniuses. The producer, Marc Platt, is a former head of Universal and said these guys have a great rep with the studio. The way these things work is that if everyone likes the script the movie goes into production fast and there's a very good chance these guys would give us a script the studio will be very happy with. Apparently, they're glowing about it so we'll see. Fingers crossed."

On the experience of having work adapted into movies:

"I've really no idea what to expect and no ego on the project. I see it as a learning curve and knew what to ask for when dealing with Chris Columbus on Chosen. I'm an executive producer on Wanted (as is JG), but I don't think we'll be terribly involved. It was virgin territory for us and a completely new experience. If it's great, I'll take the credit. If it's crap, I'll take the Raymond Chandler approach and believe it changes not a single word of the book on my shelves. Miller has raised the bar with Sin City in terms of what we can ask for. The final MW project from Phase One, GO!, coming out later this year has me writing the screenplay at the same time I'm doing the comic. I'm going to be more hands on in most cases from now on."

On the difference between comics and movies:

"Screenplay has a lot more room. That's the main difference. And the dialogue should be written to be read allowed. Comic dialogue, as Denny O'Neil once said, should be newspaper headlines written by poets. It's not the way people talk-- or shouldn't be-- it's what looks good on the page. You really have to get into a different head, but comics is all about concise and you also need to have a satisfying amount of words. Movies can suggest stuff more with music and so on. It's really very different."

On those Eminem rumours:

"[W]e approached Eminem a while back and asked him if he wanted to be in it. I know he reads the books and is signed with the same company (Universal) we'd flogged the project to. He was offered first dibs, but turned it down saying he was focusing on his music for 3 years solid. It's funny because you read in the papers all the time about people being approached to star in things. It's just bread and butter. But Eminem was just white hot and this story was everywhere. Good for us, but his agents were pissed because the story, by the time it reached Germany, had become that he was SIGNED even though we'd only said he was approached like Malkovich was approached for Green Goblin, etc. They knew it wasn't our fault, but told us to make it clear that Marshall was focusing entirely on his music for three years."

Brian Hibbs loads up his opinion gun and takes aim at a multitude of issues at Newsarama - Variant covers, shipping multiple titles of a "family" at the same time, Previews, and waiting for the trade:

"Comic retailers, as you know, buy comics non-returnable. A comic store, if they’re at all good, is going to try to take a relative position on a work so that they have it in stock throughout the 'life' of the title. It’s not really enough to have part 1 on hand for the first month – you want to have copies to sell when part 4 comes out or part 6 or part 12, however long a story is, so that readers can 'jump in' at any point. Further, a series isn’t necessarily dead when the last part goes out – if the work is strong, it is possible to sell copies for months to come. Unless the TP comes out too fast. Once you know the TP is coming, the impetus to grab the singles is greatly lowered. The TP is almost always a superior package, after all – often better paper, usually a lower price, always without any advertising the periodical might have had. With my consumer hat on, there are now a half-dozen titles that I personally only buy in TP – because I know for a fact there will be a TP."

Rick Geary, as recommended by the tasteful Kirsten Baldock, talks about his new book, "A Treasury of Victorian Murder: The Murder of Abraham Lincoln":

"My publisher pushed for the Lincoln book because the story is so well-known. I resisted the project for the same reason. Though I've always been fascinated by the monumental drama of it, I knew I'd be covering territory well trod-upon by others. I finally felt that by using the same storytelling style as the earlier books, I could at least provide an individualistic take on the events. I chose to limit the time frame to the two month period, in 1865, between Lincoln's second inauguration and his burial in Springfield. An enormous swath of history is encompassed by those sixty days."

I would lose my Sarah Vowell fanclub membership if I didn't point out that this same subject is covered at length and with humour in Assassination Vacation, which everyone should read.

Marvel says "Remember Daredevil: Father? We do. Sadly":

"Marvel has announced to retailers that unsold copies of Daredevil: Father #1 (which shipped in April of 2004) are returnable. Additionally, in August, Marvel will release a 'Director's Cut' version of issue #1. Featuring no ads and some of the same extras in other 'Director's Cut' editions, Daredevil: Father #1 Director's Cut will go on sale 8/3 with a price of $2.99, 51 cents lower than the original price of $3.50. The remaining four issues of the series will also all feature cover prices of $2.99, seemingly as a reconciliatory gesture to fans and retailers who have waited since April 2004 for the completion of the limited series. Issue #2 will go on sale 8/31 and issues #3-5 will go on sale September through November."

"What drives someone to turn against their own country?"

"Sadly, it seems that this one comes from the left coast... California. Lots of crazy liberals seem to come from there."

No matter what your political leanings, I hope that you'll all enjoy this high quality insightful political comic detailing one American's fight against terrorism, George Clooney's personal vanity and people talking in quotation marks.

Thanks, Pete.

Over at Broken Frontier, Dave Lewis creates a comic book industry overview list:

"In bringing on some extra help for my Caption Box imprint, I went looking for a solid, online primer to the various comic book companies and resources that currently make up the American industry. The person who volunteered to help was no stranger to comics, but a deeper understanding of the politics, the players, and the process was sought: Just some sort of starting point where a number of the major players could be gleaned all at once, and then pursued through their individual websites for whatever purpose. And, while a number of defunct fan sites, massive URL lists, and unwieldy message board threads all arose to try and meet my request, nothing comprehensive was found. About.com was frenetic, ComicBookResources.com was fragmented, and the ICAA site was still fledgling. Few spoke about representative titles, the company’s age, its reach, and so forth. The overview list I needed didn’t exist. So, I’ve tried making one myself."

He's missing a fair amount of information, but it's a start...

Huzzah for Colleen Doran!:

"F&W Publications division (and Krause sister company) Impact Books announced that it has signed a one book deal with Colleen Doran for Girl to Grrrl Manga: How to Draw the Hottest Shoujo Manga Styles, for release in Fall 2006. The book will cover a variety of genres, according to Impact Acquisitions Editor Pam Wissman. 'Colleen's book will cover the principle styles of shoujo manga as they apply to fantasy, science fiction, romance, historical and dramatic storytelling,' she said."

DC's "Batman: Dark Detective" miniseries has an unexpected effect on one Newsarama poster:

"I read Dark Detective last Wednesday when I picked it up from my LCS and felt let down. I knew that was the wrong feeling to have about a return to what I loved about Batman so I laid it down until today. I haven't read a new comic since last thursday and felt like I had a clean palette to try again. I read the Strange Apparitions trade plus Detective 477 which I grabbed out of the long box and read those and the first issue of Dark Detective and I was transported back to the late 70s and what brought me into the comic buying world. I also know now that I've been deluding myself for at least 10 years and with very few exceptions (Andy Gabrych, parts of Hush and some early run Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon and Alan Grant stuff from 95 to 96) the comics I've been reading from D.C. about Batman have been complete shit.

"Essentially, it comes down to one undeniable fact. The Batman that is around today is a direct offshoot of The Dark Knight Returns. And that is exactly what is wrong about Batman. He may be dedicated to his vigilante work but he is not a psychopath. He is Bruce Wayne dressed as Batman. Bruce Wayne is not a mask, he is the real person. I forgot that and I am ashamed. I am also not going to be reading any more of the Infinite Crisis crossovers. I know this may come to some as a shock to some but it is a decision I have come to after careful consideration. This isn't the D.C. I love, it's a careful facsimile but it's not my D.C. If, after the Crisis event, Batman and co become decent people again...the character's I loved no less, then I'll read the comics involved to see how it happened but not before. I don't want to see darkness in comics anymore...there's enough of it in the world without my escape being darkened."

Jim Starlin talks to Newsarama about Kid Kosmos, never once explaining the decision to spell "cosmos" with a K, and how he sees the comics market:

"It was a real eye opening experience doing the first Cosmic Guard. As soon as I started promoting it I got emails from people saying they were going to wait for the collection. I thought 'Jesus that’s not going to help me keep bread on the table' [laughs]. But we’ve gotten a much better response on the collections than we did on the book so with the way the market has changed that is where the money is. A long term thing that will be on the shelves for years rather just one month... That system of setting it up just doesn’t work anymore because you always get a big initial order for the first issue and through the next five or six issues you just watch your sales figures drop. The dealers figure people will buy less so they order less. Most of them cut off a third from the first to the second order then as a result a lot of folks were telling me they couldn’t get it. The fact that it’s going to all graphic novels makes it kind of strange on a lot of different levels."

Why did DC change logos? No, really. Richard Bruning, Senior Vice President - Creative Director at DC, offers better reasons than wanting to stay cooler than tomorrow:

"...[As] we moved into other areas, and got into things like manufacturing toys or action figures or statues, the physical construction of the bullet, the little hairlines that are built around all the letter shapes, made it very difficult to reproduce on any other medium or form than large and on paper. That’s where the practical implications of it, from a designer’s point of view began... Two years ago, we had the added impetus of knowing that the Batman film was starting production. We had a lot of faith that it was going to be a big film from our conversations with Christopher Nolan and such. Meanwhile, our friendly competitors at Marvel had their logo displayed prominently in front of all of their films; it was inevitable that the decision was made that we should display our logo very prominently in front of our films. So we combined all of our emotional, evolutionary, and practical business reasons into kick starting another go at a new logo."

This may be my new favorite thing on the comics internet:

"Ever looked at a comic-book cover and thought 'I could’ve done better than that!'? Or maybe there’s a secret vandal running around in the back of your mind that wants a cheap laugh from some childish double entendre or sixth grade playground humor superimposed onto a cover that someone worked long and hard to get ‘just right’? The examples for this article were culled from collections and quarter boxes at conventions over the years, saved for their subtle humor, infantile belly-laughs, and/or clever reworkings by until now undiscovered wits with a mind full of ideas, a fist full of ball-point pens, and a spare 5 minutes."

That's right - Vandalized comic covers! Classics like this!

DC's CMX manga line loses its head:

"Newsarama has learned that, less than a year after the line’s launch, Jake Tarbox, Group Editor of DC’s CMX line of manga titles has resigned his position with the company... Reportedly, Tarbox will continue working with the line, in a freelance capacity - though this has not been confirmed."

Shawn Hoke on comics hype:

"Almost every day you've got a DC or Marvel shill hyping their BIG EVENT that will 'change everything,' or in Marvel's case it seems the payoff will be so intense that it will 'break the internet in half!' I'm just picturing a group of pleasant folks devoted to their favorite website on – oh let's just say gardening or quarter horse racing - crying, 'What the hell happened to the internet?' Headlines on the half of the internet that still works, unless the whole damn internet goes down, will scream, 'Amazing Comic Book Event Breaks the Internet in Half, Where the Hell Will We Get Our Stock Quotes and Porn From Now?'"

Ed Brubaker considers the end of Sleeper:

"Sleeper is the best thing I've ever written, probably. And it's a superhero comic, for the most part. I like to think it's more than that, too, but when you get down to it, it's a superhero genre work. It's also the hardest thing I've ever written. It's over for me now, but there's still one issue left to be published, the big conclusion. Finishing the last issue was a strange thing. I was glad to be done with something I'd worked on so long, and glad to have an ending I was happy with, but I was depressed too, that it was over... So, Sleeper is over, but we'll always have the little TPB franchise we created, and I'll work with Sean for as long as he'll put up with my slacking ways..."

There's a page of art from the last issue (Ed again: "Isn't Sean Phillips a genius? He draws the best facial expressions and mood in comics, I think.") and a preview of the final TPB cover, too.

Neal Adams cuts loose at the Comics Foundry:

"Nobody’s replicating [my style]... Replicating means they’re as good as I am. Well, that’s not the case because if they’re replicating, they’d just be doing what I was doing – just doing it over again... That’s not to say that people who imitate don’t have some quality of their own. But, like DC Comics is reprinting my Batman, and these volumes that sell for $50 and $75. There are people that have imitated my work. They’re not reprinting their work. They may have imitated it very well, but they’re still not getting reprinting. What is that intangible intangible that causes that to happen? Obviously they’re not replicating. Because if they replicate it, same thing would happen."

(Thanks, Tim.)

How old is Spider-Man? Millarworld gets on the case:

"Reading the Spider-Man books off and on, I thought for sure he was supposed to be roughly in his 30s now. He's certainly living the domestic married life of someone in their 30s. But then, I don't read the books religously. I could be way off."

"Peter Parker celebrated his 30th birthday in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man, I think...the 30th anniversary of ASM. I'm sure they've forgotten about that."

"I´d say he´s somewhere around 26-28. The 'Happy Birthday' story never mentioned Peter being 30. Peter´s in his twenties, and I don´t think Marvel would ever make him grow older than that."

"In the alias flashback issues, it was stated that 'the bite' happened 15 years ago. That would make Peter 30. So that's what I go with. No particular reason why, it's just easier when they give you a number."

Surprisingly, no-one points out that it doesn't matter.

Ah, I'm missing all the good stuff on the Micah Wright forum. Micah worries about the Visa advertisement starring the Marvel superheroes:

"1) WHY THE FUCK does Captain America arrive on the scene by burrowing underground and smashing UPWARDS through the parking lot asphalt? Seriously? Is mole-burrowing-power some previously unknown secondary mutation for Cap or something? I'm waiting for Ed's run on Cap to be collected into trades, so maybe I've missed a change lately?

"2) Among the group at the end of the commercial are a) Cloak and Dagger which I found to be an odd choice, but quickly understood that they're probably trying to show Hollywood their 'hot' properties or something, and (b) some OTHER half-naked guy who looks for all intents and purposes to be The Living Pharoah.

"Am I high? Was that The Living Pharoah? And if so, WHAT THE FUCK? Is there a movie studio who really can't wait to make a movie about The Living Pharoah?"

Paul Levitz talks to the fans about the new DC:

"2005 is going to go down in the record books as our year, and we're glad you're here to celebrate it with us. First and foremost, we have extraordinary events going on in the core titles that make up the DC universe. Beginning this spring with COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS, continuing in DC SPECIAL: THE RETURN OF DONNA TROY, and shaking up the whole line as the year goes on, this will be a year of changes and cataclysmic stories that fans will be debating for decades to come. The writers, artists and editors of DC are determined to do work that will define this generation of super-hero comics as CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS did the '80s, or the original, classic CRISIS ON EARTH-ONE/EARTH-TWO did for the '60s. Then, because the universe isn't large enough to contain all our creativity, we have projects starring our all-star characters by all-star talent that tell quintessential tales of the heroes with a creative freedom to mix and match elements from how they've been developed over the issues. Leading off is ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER, uniting legendary creators Frank Miller and Jim Lee on the character who's been one of the peak moments in both their careers, and then we follow with ALL STAR SUPERMAN by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, and JUSTICE by Alex Ross, Doug Braithwaite and Jim Krueger... Stick with us. The best really is yet to come."

He goes on to say that the new DC is as hot as tomorrow and as cool as a cucumber.

Marvel gives itself more money, buys itself back:

"Marvel Enterprises, Inc., a global entertainment and licensing company, announced today that its Board of Directors has authorized an additional $150 million to be utilized in Marvel's common stock repurchase program and extended that program to June 30, 2006. As of May 10, 2005, Marvel had approximately $13 million remaining under its initial $100 million stock repurchase authorization. Giving effect to today's authorization, Marvel now has a total of approximately $163 million authorized for share repurchases. Marvel currently has cash and short-term investments in excess of $200 million."

Alex De Campi and Igor Kordey talk Smoke at PopImage. Alex! Take it to the bridge:

"Is there a rulebook that I was supposed to get: How To Succeed In Comics? If so, it’s the second rulebook I’ve been shorted out on. I’m still waiting for How To Do Your Hair and Makeup Like A Proper Girl. Bloody postman. So, left with no idea how to begin, I merely sat down at the laptop and began. I wrote a sci-fi story, and that’s coming out from Humanoids next year. I wrote SMOKE, and sent it to Igor on a whim. I loved his work on SOLDIER X and thought he’d be right for the script. He took a longer than usual look at it because he was surprised to see a female writer penning a quite violent action series. Have I had an extra advantage being a girl in a very male oriented business? Probably, but I’ve also had an editor laugh in my face at the ridiculous idea of a girlie writing for his company. Has my first series gotten a lot more attention than most peoples’ first series because I was daft enough to send it to a really well known artist, and he was daft enough to draw it? Well, yeah, of course. But it’s also been an object lesson in there being no rules in comics, except the rules you choose to obey. I think this has weirded some people out."

How late will All-Star Superman be? As DC announce the title for December, Millarworld worry:

"December?!? I thought this was coming out in September?"

"I bet it won't even see release in December."

"Was it ever officially announced for September? It can't actually be late if it was never solicited. Besides, it's better to have delays before launching the book than during."

"Damn you guys. Quitely signed for 12 issues, and he's slower than a drunken donkey. I dont care is I wait for this book, I wait it to be the best ever. If it opens in september, it will be late by january, and you will bitch. If Quitely draws an issue every six weeks, let's say he's been working on for two months already, he has almost 2 issues in the can. By september, he'll have 5 issues done, and in december, he'll be on issue 7. By the time issue 7 will be out (June 06), he'll have 4 more issue in can (total 11), so we'll have a monthly comic guaranteed. He even can be late on some ish, he'll have a couple of months ahead."

"...Quitely told me he'd be 'very surprised', or words to that effect if it came out Aug/Sept as planned and at that point (Feb) he's 'started the cover'... Make of that what you will... But at least we know it'll be worth the wait, unlike most other late titles..."

He's coming back in four weeks.

The written version of Warren Ellis's speech from Toronto the other week is up at his blog. An excerpt:

"Any other visual narrative medium is hopelessly compromised by committees and executives and notes and queries. In comics, it’s just the writer and the illustrator and the editor. You only have to get two other people, at most, on the same wavelength as you. And you get to speak in a mass-communication medium – where the sales are still better than genre novels or indie music, in many many cases – without filters. You get to say what you meant to say. So if I want to get drunk and talk about secrets and mysteries and all the other crap I’ve bored you stiff with over the last few minutes, I can."

Marvel releases a House of M preview. Newsarama starts that internet split in half thing by... not splitting in half:

"I am not a big Marvel reader (I only get the Ultimate Universe in Trade form), but this looks really interesting."

"WOW! @_@ All the previous interviews didn't get me very pumped up for this, but this preview is AWESOME! Bendis's writing is top notch and I LOVE Copiel's art. I would certainly approve of him taking over Uncanny after Davis leaves."

"ok I am stocked. to anyone doubting this...dont. that is without a doubt one of the most powerful scenes I've read in a long while."

"I was always going to get this, but now I'm actually looking forward to it a bit. It's a difference between good hype and bad hype. Last week's 'press conference' definitely fell in to the latter category. Now this is good hype. And Coipel's art looks as good as it always does. It really does look to be a good summer for comics fans!"

The comics world - It's gone logo crazy! Paul Levitz talks about why DC changed their logo:

"The question is always what’s been articulated by a number of people on the boards – it’s a tradeoff between the wonderful joy of familiarity – things that people have lived with their whole life, and the need to be able to look ahead. The hope always, for a brand like ours, is that somehow you can have a logo that somehow acknowledges all the wonderful things that have happened in the past, and looks forward with a sense of 'We’re as cool as tomorrow.'"

("We're as cool as tomorrow"? DC's new corporate strategy - Sound like lyrics from Apples In Stereo songs. Coming up next: "DC - We're as hot as the weather".)

The infinitely cooler-than-tomorrow Mark Evanier ponders DC logos past and present:

"Today, the entity we think of as DC is the division of Time-Warner that has the primary control of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, et al, and -- oh, yeah -- they also publish comic books of them and try to develop new properties in other comic books. Eventually, I'd wager, everyone will refer to the company/division as plain ol' DC...and then even that name will probably be deprecated in favor of Time-Warner or even Cartoon Network. (Just try and find the name 'Hanna-Barbera' on a current Scooby Doo project.) DC is jazzing up with a new logo but what they're also doing is leaving the old logo, which was synonymous with comic books, behind. I'll bet they didn't even think of putting the word 'comics' in this one."

Meanwhile, the Comics Foundry talks to Tom Marvelli, who works for Marvel designing their logos (Yes, his last name is Marvelli and he works for Marvel):

"As far as trends in logo design goes when I came to Marvel, both the big two as well as some of the smaller publishers were doing vector-based (Illustrator) logos solely for the most part. When I came aboard I wanted to bring some level of approach like that of theatrical poster logos. Traditional publishing like monthly article driven magazines (GQ, Cosmo, etc. They all use flat vector-based logos). Movies, when applicable, use more Photoshop textural design. I see our covers acting more as movie posters in nature and theme then I do a GQ magazine. So when it is right for the book and the art is simplified I use a 'shopped up' version of the logo. When the art is too busy I pull back and used a flatter version of the logo. I have noticed that after the Ultimates line with their Photoshop aesthetics a lot of others have picked up this approach. The main thing is to find balance between the two. Some will overwork a logo in Photoshop making it illegible. Sometimes we too fall into this, and we have to assess from time to time what is working and not. At the end of the day, the logo in regards to publishing is to compliment the art and to establish the brand. In the end it will always be the content that sells a comic, not a fancy logo."

Finally, never one to miss a zeitgiest, Larry Young presents a history of AiT-PlanetLar corporate logos:

Kirsten Baldock and Fabio Moon get chatted up by Matt Brady, talking about some Smoke and Guns. Take it away, Ms. Baldock:

"[I]t's the small things in Smoke & Guns that are true-to-life cigarette girl moments. At the beginning of the book, Scarlett lights a cigarette for a customer - something that I did all the time. She wears a nurse uniform in one scene, which was my standard cigarette girl get-up. It's small things like that that are real. Some of the true moments aren't mine, either, but things that happened to girls I knew. One evening when I went to work, there was a girl sleeping in the dressing room bathroom, still drunk from the previous evening, with no idea where she'd left her tray. There's a scene based on that.

"Don't get me wrong, Smoke & Guns is first and foremost an action book, but it's punctuated by really girly moments, like pausing in a fire fight to worry about a broken heel. That's one of the things that people who have read the script really seem to like about it."

Wondering where April's The Tourist is? Writer Brian Wood updates:

"THE TOURIST was due out in April, and as of right now, I can't say when it will appear. We've had some delays, and while we're all hopeful to clear them up ASAP, it's impossible right now to estimate when that will be. Sorry about this. I hate being late with projects."

Honesty may be the best policy, but just to make sure, he shows a couple of lovely Toby Cypress pages to win you over.

An interesting if unusual thing at the Micah Wright forum:

"The Previews listing for Will Eisner's 'The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion' has a 'Not available in Germany' note. I REALLY hope that thius is because a German publisher has the rights, because the alternative - that a major work by a respected Jewish author on the usbject of anti-semtitism was banned under laws intendewd to prevent the publication of Nazi propaganda - hardly bears thinking about."

Millarworld reacts to the new DC logo. Mark Millar, you go first:

"DC logo drops from 4 stars to 1 star... Nuff said... I don't understand their reasoning when they say that this sticks in your mind better as a brand. What could be simpler than the DC bullet. I could draw it from memory the moment I saw it. This new one immediately conjures up toilet cleaner and looks as 90s and forgettable as all the other imprint labels at DC from Mildstorm to Vertigo Verite or whateverthefuck they're doing these days. Sad."

Other MW posters?:

"Yeah it sucks! I bet when you walk into Batman movie they will have that corny star falshing from behind the DC logo and the weird sounds like that one before or after tv/movies in the 90's. Damn I forget what it was I will try and Find out"

"It looks to aimed-at-kids for my taste. The Bullet (while it COULD be argues that it wasn't the most kid-friendly kinda logo, not PC enough) suits a wide variety of projects and ideas, this clearly says BIM POW ZAPP. It wouzld be nice for a younger-readers-line but as a complete Corporate Design ideograph, it sucks noodles. It doesn't tell a story at all (except a vague notion of Saturn or maybe Wonder Woman). The bullet kinda told the wrong story (hardboiled crime) but at least it felt unique and iconical. So yeah, changing the logo probably was a olid idea after 30+ years and the current flood of DC-movies plus the impact of Crises should make this a good moment to introduce a new element. But shouldn't it be less five minutes ago, less generic, less bland? DC has proven with Vertigo that they at least have a (not always successful, but better than average) idea of what current design can do for a brand. This, alas, is all wrong. Not even okay for a college football team, even less so for an imprint of one of the worlds leading entertainment enterprises. But, on the bright side, once people let so easily go of the established and well-worn, they will be even more eager to throw this one out asap at the next chance. The saturdaze DC logo will not last 30+ years."

"tHE DANGERS OF THE NEW dc LOGO CANNOT BE OVERSTATED! i THOUGHT MYSELF THAT IT WAS JUST A HARMLESS CORPORATE LOGO, UNTIL i STARED AT IT FOR A MINUTE OF TWO. tHEN WHEN i WENT TO THE BATHROOM, i SHAT BEES. iT LIQUIFIED MY TESTICLES AND MADE MY PUBIC HAIR FALL OUT. iT KILLED MY HAMSTER AND WORE THE ENTRAILS AS A FUNNY HAT. iT IS LIKE THE GLYPH-THING IN eX mACHINA - IT MAKES BAD BAD AND VERY BAD AND ALSO HORRIBLE THINGS HAPPEN JUST BY EXISTING! uNEMPLOYMENT RATES HAVE ALREADY RISEN AND CHILDREN IN aFRICA HAVE STARTED GROWING SUPERFLUOUS HEADS! iF YOU SUPPORT THE NEW dc LOGO IT WILL MAKE ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE OF YOUR PREFERRED GENDER NOT WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU ANY MORE. sTAMP OUT NEW dc LOGO! kEEP OLD dc LOGO THAT LOOKS LIKE COLLEGE LETTERMAN'S JACKET. aND REMEMBER: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GOOD NEWS WHEN IT COMES TO THE COMICS INDUSTRY."

Alan Davis quits Uncanny X-Men:

"Firstly, I thought the fact I had left Uncanny was public knowledge. I quit on 31 March 2005 and since that time I have received e-mails to my site requesting confirmation from people who had heard from a source other than myself. Second, I don't want to discuss the reasons I left Uncanny. I had tried to give the assignment my best shot but I didn't think it was working out. So I moved on. I do have something in the pipeline with Marvel but it is too early to go into any detail."

This just for graphic design geeks - DC update their branding:

"For more than 70 years, DC Comics has provided entertainment for every age group and interest. In 2005, DC Comics is entering a new phase of growth with the launch of an exciting line-up of new publishing projects, feature films, television programming, licensing ventures and collectible products. The new logo, created by Josh Beatman of Brainchild Studios, highlights DC Comics' ambitious media plans for the future and represents the latest step in Warner Bros. Entertainment and Time Warner's commitment to maximize the value and exposure of DC Comics."

PSP users now get American comics to accompany their manga:

"PSPcmx announced today the debut of their site http://www.PSPcmx.com, focused on bringing professional comic book properties optimized to view on the Sony PSP for the near-3 million global PSP users. PSPcmx.com is targeting the enthusiastic new audience of Sony PSP users, whose media consumption parallels tastes in the direct comic marketplace’s own audiences, opening an exciting window of opportunity to introduce current comic book properties to a vast new audience... Currently, PSPcmx.com offers downloadable all-ages comic stories from: Kandora Publishing’s Barbarossa & The Lost Corsairs, an epic and fantastic re-imagining of the historical red-bearded pirate; and DB Pro’s 2002 smash-hit Legacy, a fantasy coming-of-age story of a young boy who could hold the key to ending his world’s war. Two more stories coming soon, Speakeasy Comic’s The Grimoire, the story of a young teenager, Amandine, and her mysterious raccoon partner, who are given a magical book to protect from monsters and villains; and 2005’s smash-hit, Runemaster Studio’s Lions, Tigers & Bears, the story of timid boy, Joey, who is propelled into the Stuffed Animal Kingdom to protect the fate of all young children."

Newsarama posters wonder "What was the world like before the internet?":

"I thought of an odd question when reading the bitter predictions of House of M (which were funny, bitter, but funny): 'How did fans react before there was the internet?' There were just as many, well not AS many, contreversial stuff and crossovers before the internet. You had stuff such as The Death of Gwen Stacy, Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Phoenix Saga, new characters every week (some good, some bad), characters being totally changed (ie: Moore's Swamp Thing), etc. There weren't previews for every title, and interviews every day. So, do you think if there was internet back in the day, would people bitch as much as they do today? ('I can't believe they did that to Jean!!!!' or 'I'm tired of all this Watchmen crap, we don't need that much violence in our comics!')"

"I remember when the biggest source of info about upcoming comics was the Amazing Heroes Summer Preview special. These came out ONCE A YEAR and that was the most advance notice we would get. Comic Buyers Guide came out weekly and would have news stories but I don't recall there being nearly as much hype about upcoming storylines back in the 80's."

"The original fanboys -- actually the first group to ever call themselves 'fans' -- were SF fans and readers of Amazing Stories magazine. It used to print their letters with their addresses included so they could write each other. They'd start correspondences, buy each other fanzines, and started the first conventions. All the other fanboys, included comics fans, followed suit. The comics companies would encourage this, because, even though fanboys can be demanding and annoying, their loyalty means continued sales. Even when the product wasn't so hot. As a child Marvel fan, back in the 70s, I was a member of F.O.O.M. (Friends Of Ol' Marvel). The official fan club. I wish I'd kept the quarterly magazines."

"I've said this in other threads, but I absolutely believe fanboys would have griped as much as they do now. Like others have said, we didn't know as much about titles before they were released, so we kind of had to hold our breath until the next issue. But, unfortunately (and I hate to say this), message boards like Newsarama, where we have thousands of lurkers and hundreds of regular posters, all of whom have opinions and most of whom have no problem sharing them, would have absolutely killed something like Crisis on Infinite Earths or Secret Wars or maybe even Watchmen because the stories weren't going quickly enough (In fact, I dropped Watchmen halfway through the series because I couldn't figure out what was going on). Let me put it this way: If the internet had existed back in the day, Barry Allen would never have died, Dick Grayson would still be Nightwing and the Hal Jordon masturbation society, H. E. A. T. would never have been born because individuals would have had no way to contact one another. There's a kind of mob mentality that forms here, and things take on a life of their own. We not only judge stories before they're finished, like House of M we judge them before they start, and then decry a company for not supporting the title more. Of course, I could completely off the tracks here. On sites like this and CBR.com, fans are currently decidedly pro-DC and anti-Marvel. Yet, if you look at the actual numbers, Marvel's mopping the floor with DC. So what do I know?"

I know what you're thinking. If only there was some kind of comic that acted as a prelude to DC's upcoming-and-yet-we're-all-kind-of-bored-of-it-already Infinite Crisis. No, not Countdown to Infinite Crisis, another one. No, not The OMAC Project either. Nor Villains United, or Day of Judgement or even The Rann-Thanagar War. And not DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy. Identity Crisis? So last year! Another one.

Thankfully, DC have you covered. Introducing Prelude to Infinite Crisis:

"Scheduled to arrive in stores on June 22 with a cover price of $5.99 U.S., PRELUDE TO INFINITE CRISIS collects the crossover story from THE FLASH #219 and WONDER WOMAN #214 in their entirety, plus the lead story from SUPERMAN SECRET FILES 2004. Along with these are select pages from nearly two dozen other DCU comics, with new text adding context to each story sequence."

I know, I know. We're all very excited about this.

The Comics Journal crowd consider the return of Jason Todd:

"He's alive again? Then I want my 99¢ that I paid for a phone call to kill the li'l bastard back."

"If you didn't vote you have no right to complain!"

"I did vote, however, and will complain. Well only that much. I can only type leftie so long. Dammit. But I voted because i figured one more superhero dead was a good start."

"I can't believe no one is more outraged by this. This is a travesty towards the very core of American democracy. We didn't vote for Jason Todd to be injured, or detained, or sidelined, we voted for him to DIE. The votes were tallied and the results were done -- or so we thought. If he's not dead, then it's a mockery of Democracy. Bringing him back is not just a sleazy stunt, it's spitting in the eye of the Founding Fathers. At a time when our country seeks to bring the light of freedom and democracy elsewhere, it does us a disservice to have penny-ante tyrants like the DC Editorial blithely abusing the will of the people for a quick buck."

"I thought Jason Todd was killed off so that America wouldn't learn about the affair he had with Paula Abdul."

Poor people who bought the Valiant trademarks. As if things weren't bad enough with them now owning the Valiant trademarks, now they've got a petition against them:

"The prospect that someone out there is under the impression that spending a couple thousand dollars on a group of trademarks in an attempt to deceive the fans into thinking they are the 'legitimate owners' of the copyrights (when they are actually destroying Valiant and ruining any hope of it ever returning) is absolutely unacceptable. BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE we must show VIP LLC that we will not stand for this. WE have the power to alter the outcome of this situation and help bring back the Valiant characters as we remember them. We can do this threatening to boycott any VIP LLC products they intend to produce AND, if their true identites are revealed, any other products they produce. Now is the time for Valiant fans, Acclaim fans, and comic book fans of all types to come together and stand up for what we believe in. Please sign the petition below and help make a difference."

So far, the amassed Valiant and Acclaim fans number 83. And many of them are too embarrassed to put their names down.

(Thanks, James.)

Millarworld suddenly gets interested in Spider-Man's organic webshooters:

"I read JMS/Deodato's SINS PAST TPB yesterday and noticed that a cop in that story takes a strand of Spidey's at-the-time synthetic webbing for lab analysis. Now, I hear that due to some iffy storyline in Spectacular Spider-Man where he gets turned into a giant spider (again) and reverts to human, he now has organic web-shooters just like in the movie. Is this change universal in all the books and will it hamper whatever plotline JMS set up in Sin Past?"

"It's now in all Spidey books. The problem was that up until 2 months ago it seemed as if the left hand didn't know what the right was doing in the Spidey universe and the continuity and time frames were all over the place."

"There was a reference to the organic web shooters in the latest [New Avengers]. I'm pretty sure from now on, all the books will have organic webshooters.Personally, I like the webshooters. What I dislike the most about them is that were introduced using on of the worst Spider-Man stories I've ever read. if they're used well, great. Although I never really bought how the 15 year old 616 spidey could come up with web fluid on his own. Although the cartoon version came with a good explination....the spider dna in him instinctively knew what chemicals to use... At least Ultimate peter parkers dad had gone some of the way in developing a molecular adhesive...all pete had do do was fill in the blanks and voila!!"

"I somehow forgot to care about this, seeing as I don't consider a character's value dependant upon white splooge coming out his wrist or his... wrist."

"How long do you think it will be until the mechanical web-shooters return?"

"When the first big Spidey writer forgets they're organic."

Adi Granov responds to criticisms of the schedule of his Iron Man run:

"To my understanding all remaining issues are being solicited to account for the production schedule. I was never meant to do a monthly book, this was a very special case and a whole set of circumstances brought both Warren and I to this project. Warren has stated that he agreed to it in order to work with me, and I jumped at the opportunity to work with him. But as fate would have it the whole thing happened at the time when the whole Avengers relaunch was set in stone. Both Marvel and I had unresonable hopes of me being able to paint 4 pages per week, and that was just never going to happen. All delays are due to my art. I am not slow from the production standpoint but the fact is that I lay out, draw, paint and color everything in this book, I don't even use flats assistance like most colorists do. A standard comic book page takes, on average, 3 days to do only spread across the whole team, in my case I am the team.

"And, please, don't get me wrong, I am not taking the scheduling and the fan complaints for granted. Far from it. But as it stands I have only two very simple choices: try to meet a faster schedule and do a rushed, poor job and ruin the book, or continue to give it my best and finish the book to the standards we had already set. We're on it for 6 issues and after that I am sure it will all be back on track. But hopefully some of the readers will be happy to have read something out of the ordinary even if it didn't come out every month."

Granov fans on the Bendis/Jinxworld boards react:

"adi, i think i speak for almost everyone here when i say to take your time with the book. it's freakin' gorgeous. wish you could get out a monthly, but really, anything you put your name on we all know we'll get quality stuff."

"Hey I'm cool with the wait, I mean look at all the people that bitch about Secret War and it's amazing. So is Iron Man. I can't wait to see the new designs Adi."

"I'll wait a YEAR if I must, to get a book as good as Iron Man. It's a very classy move, for you to answer that question, Adi. And we can see from your work that the time being spent on the book is time used wisely. Count me in for ANY project you have down the line."

Newsarama posters, however, attack:

"And the problem is that Marvel never made it clear to readers before the first issue launched that this would NOT be a monthly book. If they said 'Okay, here's a quarterly book we're soliciting,' fine, but they didn't say that. They solicited it monthly and lied to everyone. It doesn't matter if artists are coming out and taking the blame, it's pathetic that there are delays so bad at Marvel that people need to apologize, and it's more pathetic that the editors aren't apologizing for scheduling things poorly in the first place."

"Clearly, this isn't Granov's fault. It's Marvel's editorial who's to blame here for yet another scheduling fiasco. Ellis and Granov should've done a special IRON MAN project instead of attempt to do a so-called 'monthly' when it never was in the cards to begin with. And with due respect to the creators, this current storyline is not rockin' my world like a Marvel book should. Is that the problem then? Has Marvel forgotten how to be Marvel? That's not good, considering that DC has picked up the gauntlet thrown down by Marvel and is now resoundly slapping Marvel's ass with it. Where's Bill Jemas when you need him?"

"God, what a great profession to be in. I'm an electrician, and if I said to my boss, 'Listen, I'm doing GREAT work here, but I have to work four times slower than the other guys to accomplish this work' I'd be out on my ass so fast my head would spin. And I'm sure 99.9% of working people are in the same position as I am. But, if you're an ARTIST, well, that's no problem. The only way, I repeat, the ONLY way this will stop is for us, as consumers, to stop buying books that are late like this. It doesn't matter if it's Ultimates, if it's Iron Man, or X-Men, but as long as we keep buying the stuff there's no reason for Marvel to fix the problem. I cancelled Iron Man after the first issue, I saw this coming. Being a comics artist isn't just about making great art, it's about making great art AND doing it on a deadline, just like any other working stiff."

Posters at The Pulse have similar misgivings, but as is The Pulse's way, say it in a calmer, more reflective and nostalgic way:

"I'd be happy if this lousy book never comes out again. Marvel should bring back Bob Layton to draw Iron Man then maybe more people would pick it up. I'm a long time Iron Man fan and I'm not gonna waste my money on this one."

"I have become so disillusioned with Marvel's shipping schedule of late that I have decided to strictly go to trades. At least then I know they are done and I don't have to worry about something I read months ago that might be a key story componant. Yes, DC's had some slowdowns as well, but let's face it...nothing as bad as Marvel's. And this on what has always been one of their flagship characters. unbelievable. On the positive side...when this thing does finally see the light of day, it will look great."

"As the years pass, I find myself having a greater and greater respect and admiration for: Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Steve Ditko, George Tuska, Gene Colan, John Romita, Gil Kane, Herb Trimpe [...] Just to name a few who were able to do books month in and month out for years without the books going of their schedule. However did they do it? Some of the aforementioned gentlemen managed to do even two or three books a month. Maybe, Joey the Q should give one of them a call and ask?"

The Bendis Board isn't happy with Newsarama posters' reaction to yesterday's House of M conference hype call:

"never have i ever seen so cynical responses as in that newsarama thread."

"Have you never read a single Newsarama thread before?"

"Read Alfonso's responses in the all the threads at Newsarama. That shit is funny to me and he's TOTALLY in DC's pocket. When Rebirth got pushed back a few months, he said it was good of Johns to put more time in. Bendis does it for New Avengers and he rips his heart out. What an ass."

Bendis is happy with the reaction, though:

"[Being complained about at Newsarama is] the only way you know, as a comic creator, that you're on the right track".

Phil Jiminez on The Return of Donna Troy:

"I had pitched Dan Didio on being a part of Donna's return ages ago, and was simply lucky enough to be involved with the process... I had some ideas on how to handle the material, and DC seemed very amenable to them. As most folks who read my work know, I have a real affinity for Donna, and I think DC wanted to tap into that for a project that would be important to the character, her Titans peers, and the DC Universe in general... I'm just happy I got the opportunity to help see the character fulfill this unique status. It actually plays out beautifully, using the character's complex history and connection to the Titans, the Outsiders, and Wonder Woman."

Newsarama has a report on Marvel's House of M conference call up. Of note:

"Both Bendis and Quesada reiterated that the idea with all the crossovers and tie-in miniseries to House of M is not to force readers to buy every single title to make sense of the main story (which will be contained in the House of M miniseries, proper), but to offer an expanded scope - a larger picture of the world in which House of M takes place, and the characters it touches... The EIC added that at the conclusion of House of M, there will be huge ramifications that will be felt across the board, but again, readers will not have to buy every title to understand the story. Bendis added that they're working to make it as hard as possible for people to pass up the miniseries, though, that is, by making the story as compelling as possible."

"Bendis called the series a 'love letter' to all the Magneto and Avengers stories that came before, and the idea of House of M is not to turn the Marvel Universe on it's head 'because we think we know better.' ...Bendis said that the series is a 'Valentine' to Marvel Comics from the '70s where he feels creators were creating new characters and new stories trying to one-up Stan Lee (in spirit). Bendis added that just because they are looking to tell new stories and new ways of telling them, doesn’t mean that anything old will be destroyed."

"Asked by Newsarama if the picture of Magneto which appears to be based on the photograph of the king of Spain will be used in The Pulse Special, none of the participants commented, and a request for any final question from the press was made."

George Perez signs a five-year exclusive contract with DC:

"To tell you the truth, it was one of those wild situations where I was in the middle of this enormous bidding war with Marvel and DC, and everyone was giving me great offers. It finally got the point that I knew I had to disappoint someone. Both Marvel and DC have treated me quite well, but there were some projects I had in mind that I wanted to play around with—and most of them were DC-specific. DC also has certain perks and accounting systems in place that Marvel has yet to address, like foreign royalties, and DC’s bookkeeping system is much easier to work with. Marvel was trying to offer some other things to balance that, but so many of my landmarks in the industry were centered around DC—Crisis, Titans, and even JLA/Avengers was half-DC—that they seemed like the place where I needed to be. And not only was their offer better, but there are so many people at DC that I have long-term relationships with, from Paul Levitz on—and I have a great respect for everything that Dan DiDio is doing with DC right now, and I feel like what he has planned for the company is just phenomenal. Considering all those factors, it was obvious that this was the best decision."

He also lets something slip at the end of the article:

"I’m doing a cover for the dust jacket of the Crisis on Infinite Earths Absolute Edition, which is coming up this December, I think. I don’t know what all they’re putting together on the Absolute Edition of Crisis; I’m eager to see it myself!"

Tom Spurgeon writes at The Pulse about the closing of Tom Devlin's Highwater Books:

"With the web site listings and ownership of the books and t-shirts out of the way, Devlin turned his attention to outstanding invoices in an attempt to pay royalties and other debts. How much does Devlin owe and when and how does he plan to pay it back? 'I owe a lot and I'm not comfortable saying exactly how much,' he told the Pulse. Asked if royalties to creators will receive special priority when it comes to settling Highwater's debts, Devlin replied, 'The debts all have equal priority… sort of. It's the usual thing: you pay who you need to pay and then pay everyone else.'

"All of the money made in closing out accounts and selling inventory will go to pay off bills incurred by the company. For example, the money Devlin made selling t-shirts to Giant Robot paid a printing bill. In February, Devlin told the Pulse there remained accounts he had yet to pursue for money owed Highwater. Devlin expressed confidence these outstanding accounts would be 'good for the money once they get a nudge.' Contacted in April as to the progress of working off Highwater's debt, Devlin claimed that some accounts had been paid off but that there were more to come. This did not seem to include most if any of the creators owed royalties. Devlin admitted to the Pulse that while Highwater was publishing he did not release royalty statements to artists on a regular basis. But, 'if anyone ever asked I could tell them within a handful of books what sold. I do not have the final figures totaled up, though.' As for plans regarding the issuing of royalty statements and then payment of those still owed, Devlin said in February, 'I was kind of hoping to take a few months off and not think about it then run the numbers and start cutting checks.' When asked about it in April, Devlin noted that as a couple of months had already passed he would begin this process soon."

Dirk Deppey shows that it never pays to be too clever. Here's the start of the solicitation copy for The Comics Journal #269, as originally written:

"'Girls don’t like comics.' It was one of the hoariest clichés of the last 15 years in the American comics industry, but in the last three years, Japanese manga has exposed it for the lie it always was. Shoujo manga -- women’s comics -- have become the engine driving the Asian comics invasion, and have amassed a large and enthusiastic female following. The Comics Journal #269 is devoted to exploring and explaining the phenomenon."

Here's how Diamond edited it down for Previews:

"This issue is devoted to exploring and explaining the 'Girls don’t like comics' phenomenon."

As Dirk says: "Yes, it's the special 'girls don't like comics' issue of the Journal, coming soon to a newsstand near you! I think I'm going to cry."

An oasis of loveliness, via Heidi:

"We hear that Farel Dalrymple is the artist on the upcoming OMEGA THE UNKNOWN book that novelist Jonathan Lethem is writing. Dalrymple is best known for his contributions to MEATHAUS and CAPER and his own POP GUN WAR. We also hear that he has ankled the boring climes of NYC, Paris and San Francisco to settle down in vibrant Tulsa, OK, so we imagine he's going to have lots of time to draw those pages."

ICv2 looks at USA Today's coverage of the apparently-controversial (Mind you, it is USA Today, a paper where the loser of American Idol is front page material) comics in schools issue:

"Arguments against using comics in education are also discussed. Some teachers believe that easier reading lets students avoid harder material; and there's a concern that assigning some students comic adaptations creates a two-track system where some students read the material as originally written, and some read comic adaptations."

A more serious argument, of course, would be to point out that the greatest comic ever created apparently looks like this:

Gail Simone answers a Millarworld critic's concern that Villains United #1 ends with a concept ripped off from Mark Millar's Wanted:

"This sucks, but I only got to read the first issue of WANTED (I don't live near a comics store, and I miss out on a ton of good stuff--I remembered to put UNFUNNIES on my list, but not Wanted, which was just stupid). I don't have any memory of any such scene in Wanted, and if I had seen it, I wouldn't have done it in VU. Just don't work that way. However, I actively avoided all villain-based comics once I got the assignment. So, if there's an influence, it's pretty remote. Mark's much more influential on my Superman stuff, cause I loved his work on the animated book so much."

EDIT to clarify because people seem to be bothered: Millar doesn't comment on this directly, because he's not read Villains United yet (although he does say he doesn't want his Swamp Thing issues traded because he doesn't like them). And it's only one person asking about the Wanted/VU similarities; I misread two posts by the same person as being by different people.

Alias's Mike Miller explains why the company managed to ship none of its 12 launch titles in April, as solicited:

"I’ve been in the business for over twelve years, and I’ve served in many capacities and even published my own title through Image. I’d like to think I know everything about the business and that everything we do at Alias will run as perfectly in reality as it does in our planning. But the truth is that starting a new company is a learning process, and it takes some time to fall into a groove. Fortunately, while we know we’re going to make some mistakes initially, we also know that we’re gaining a lot of insight on how to make things more effective and efficient, and we’re going to be working overtime for the next year or two to ensure we make up for our initial mistakes."

Miller then apologized and said "What I meant to say was, I'd like to think I know everything about the business, but it turns out that getting even one book out on time turns out to be something that I don't know how to do." He goes on to reassure critics of Alias, by telling them that even though 12 books a month seems like a problem, that perhaps the problem is that they aren't ambitious enough:

"While we might be a little later than we intended, we’re still making good on getting all these titles out. Plus, we’re adding two or three new titles to the fold each month, which means we’re still going to rapidly expand our line as we move into the fall."

And for those who think that a publisher failing to get any of their launch books out on time is bad? Miller has something for all of you to ponder:

"It's funny that all this hullabaloo is being raised when the books are only a week and a half late. I spoke to our printer and he chuckled because over half of the books he's printing now from other publishers have April release dates, and nobody's said a word about it. I’m sure it’s because we’re new and everyone wants to see if we can deliver what we’ve promised, but we will deliver on May 11th, and the books are on the way."

Hmm. "We'll launch 12 books in April!" sounds like a promise to me, and here it is May 5th and no books. Is anyone really still wondering if Alias can deliver what they promise at this point?

Some have said that the Artist should never be satisfied with their work, never mind happy; that their discomfort and desire to become better at their chosen craft is what drives them forward and makes them grow both as artists and peop - Oh, I'm sorry, Raven Gregory, creator of Image's The Gift. Do you have something that you want to say?:

"Here's a question I'd really like to see even one person answer. How can anyone find anything wrong about issue #8 of THE GIFT (especially if you read the letter page in the back). If any of you actually read it you'd see that you can't."

Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen. Raven Gregory has finally done what some considered impossible and created a comic without one thing wrong with it. And it looks like this:



Some may say that that looks like a fairly generic Michael Turner rip-off, but now we know. It's possibly the greatest comic ever.

Thanks, Raven.

Matt Brady checks to see if anyone's awake:

"The first two Spider-Man films have to date, grossed six kazillion dollars, and if their track record holds, the remaining four will make the rest of the money left in the world."

Newsarama posters don't like humor:

"What was up with this paragraph? It was hilarious, but it didn't seem very journalistic. It almost made me feel that this whole article was a joke."

Newsarama readers respond to Bendis explaining why Steve McNiven's extra issue of New Avengers makes Ultimate Secret #3 three months late:

"How many times does Bendis do this? 'Uh, uh, I couldn't fit it all into X issues, so now it's going to be X+1 because Marvel loves me!' So fucking lame. If this guy didn't pad out his stories so much, he'd be able to fit them into the same amount of issues it would take everyone else. Also, McNiven had FOUR+ months to get ahead of Ultimate Secret. That's the three month delay plus whatever lead time they initially had given him. He should be done with it already. Why the hell would one extra issue take three months? It's like a shitty merry-go-round that never stops at the House."

"Ok, I love Marvel, but this is getting annoying. They use McNiven as a the fill-in artist to get New Avengers up to speed, now they have Ultimate Secret fall really far behind. What exactly did this help? And I don't see how one extra issue equals 3 months?"

"While the length of the delay for an extra issue doesn't seem to add up for me, I can not say how much my respect for Bendis was raised when I read this. My main problem with delays has always been that the publishers (and the creators to a lesser extent) don't just level with the readers and give us the reasons. It made me feel that our money as consumers was taken for granted and they really did not care about the delays and missed ship dates. Really good to see Bendis step up and explain the situation. In regards to his needing an extra issue again, why not. I do think his stories are padded in that they don't have enough action sometimes, but at least he doesn't pad his stories by having so few words like some of todays writers do. Most of the issues I've read of Bendis have at least seemed like they were worth the money for the quality and quantity of the dialog and characterization even if the action may have been lacking. Hopefully he won't be skewered on the various message boards for at least stepping and accepting the blame and explaining the situation."

"Jeez, throw candy(preview art) at the fans and just assume they all be so understanding. Oh he's such a wonderful guy, he's so warm and fuzzy, nevermind that he's full of excuses every time shit hits the fan. I don't care who's at fault here, this was piss-poor management and readership shouldn't have suffer from the lack of forethought. In any other business, Bendis would've been fired. Get it straight the first time, or find a new career."

Yesterday, Ed Brubaker talked Captain America's Winter Soldier. Today, he's all about plucky Bucky Barnes:

"Look at who he was -- he was an Army brat, raised on military bases, he was tough as nails, probably, or what good would he be to the Invaders? So it only stood to reason, that if you're doing any kind of even slightly realistic version of WW2, that Bucky would have all kinds of SAS and Green Beret training. And at 16, he wasn't much younger than many soldiers already fighting, so why should Bucky not be a soldier? He's operating with a team of Allied Special Agents, right?...He's not decking them or throwing boomarangs, he's using a f---ing flame-thrower... This was something that always fascinated me as a kid, because I was a huge Cap fan as a kid, and I'd look through the bins at the comic cons, and always be amazed by those old war era covers. So, while some have complained that our depiction of Bucky in issue 5 is a retcon, I'd say it's actually the opposite of a retcon, a un-retcon, if you will. We're looking at who these people really were in the war, and what soldiers would have to do, and saying, okay, let's go back to that, then."

Fantagraphics' Kim Thompson on the Harvey Awards, from Tom Spurgeon's always-worth-a-look letter column:

"Firstly, every publisher ought to be aggressively pursing their cartoonists to vote every year -- this would help balance out the voting and avoid those obvious 'spikes' which in past years have included the legendary Chris Oarr-generated CrossGen surge, the sudden MAD invasion, and even one year a startling increase in Fantagraphics nominations. (I made an extra effort to get the vote out that year, and the result was such a huge victory in the nominations for Fantagraphics titles -- as I recall in one category we ended up being five out of five nominees -- that, like the teenaged Clark Kent competing in his high school races, I realized I couldn't go all-out any more because the results would be so skewed.) Looking over the 2005 noms, I think we can all draw our own conclusions as to who gave it a little push this time.

"Second, cartoonists ought to get off their fucking asses and vote. The Harveys can stave off the first problem only so long as lots of cartoonists vote, and they just plain don't. (The Harvey admins have historically been coy about telling anyone how many people send in nominating ballots, and my guess is that it's because it's so few.) This may be in part due to erratic availability and/or mailing out of ballots (people are always complaining to me about not getting ballots, or having trouble with the download), although I think it's mainly because it takes significant thought and effort to fill out the nominating ballot and most cartoonists say 'Fuck it, too much trouble, I'll vote on the final ballot when it's just a multiple choice thing.'"

I'm sorry, but what the fuck is this?:

"WILDSIDERZ #1, the debut issue of the highly anticipated 5-part miniseries by the DANGER GIRL team of J. Scott Campbell and Andy Hartnell, will feature an exciting lenticular cover by Campbell! 'When we were looking at what we could do to make this launch stand out, Scott Dunbier brought up the idea of a lenticular, and I immediately said, 'That's perfect!'' says Campbell. 'It's a great way to showcase the characters' unique abilities and give people a brief look at them in action. I've always been fond of animation, and this really showcases the fantastic elements of the series.'"

Lenticular covers? When did anyone think that that was a good idea to revive? Forth'luvvaGod...

Newsarama posters say "We want breasts":

"What's with the American comics industry these days? Everything has to be at least PG-13 to reach the so-called 'wider audience' Everything has to be compromised so that no one gets offended while publishers tries to make money of those 'no ones' in a very short period of time. And this is not just DC or Marvel, this is also applied to upstart companies like Alias, Speakeasy & so on. Mostly, sexual content & nudity (two mutually exclusive but unfortunately related) has to be sacrificed to make way for the Almighty 'wider audience' while violent content gets a thumbs up. Burlesque innuendos for fanboys has replaced true beauty of the human body. Meanwhile, foreign creators, has to self-censor their work just so they can sell at least well in America... Another stupefying thing are the fanboys, who have suddenly become prudes. Rude prudes to be exact. Every question that asks about a sexual content of a comic is met with a derisive reply of 'Get girlfriend or watch porn, pervert!' which frankly avoids the question altogether. And then there's the 'Oh no! Witchblade better not be nude' type fanboys. I can't think of a comment for that other than this question: WTF? Since when did fanboys become the NeoCons? Everyting about the comics industry currently has been set back two decades. Now no one creator wants to offend their audience but many want to make as much money as possible. They use whatever that sells, but completely avoids controversy, only this creates another chain of controversy. Whatever happened to those inspirations, those 'speak my mind' types, those skirters of every ethic & convention in the name of good storytelling, those bold & daring, that once fueled the minds of Alan Moore, Frank Miller, a few underground comics and others like them? There should be a need for a visual depiction of sex & nudity to be as acceptable to the American viewers as the textual depictions found in novels. Looks like America still has a long way to go."

"Just ask yourself, do you WANT the Comics Code to return? That's the last thing we need. That cursed thing did almost as much damage to the industry as the Speculator's Boom. And Altercator's right about prudish fanboys being rude about it. I've had to point out time and again that just because I like Vampirella and Tarot does not make me a pervert. I buy them to read, not to wank over. Long live t&a."

(From the same poster later on in the thread: "A Vertigo comic such as Y, Preacher or Sandman will use nudity to show the beauty of the human form, or because it truly is essential to the story, depending on the series. Jim Balent's Tarot has nudity in every issue, because it's essential to the theme of the title itself, and the beliefs of the character.Frank Cho draws nude girls because he enjoys it. Avatar does it because it's funny. All are equally valid to my mind. Frankly, some titles (such as Dogwitch) could use MORE nudity.")

"I agree with what you are saying in principle... but take Catwoman for example... I don't need to see Seleina decide on a score, undress, hop in the shower (shoing nudity!), getting out, towelling off, putting on her thong (cummon... you NEVER see panty lines) and then getting dressed and THEN going out to steal whatever... talk about decompression and padding! I do get the gist of what you are saying, but the same thing goes for a character going to the bathroom... I don't need to see Bruce Wayne taking a pee to KNOW he goes to the bathroom. Which brings me to the double standard of this... male nudity. It just ain't gonna happen (in a mainstream comic) so not only do you run the risk of alienating readers, but you piss off the realitivly few women in the hobby by creating a double standard and only showing naked women. I'm not a pride in anyway shape or form... in fact I have a decent porn collection... BUT I don't think mainstream Marvel needs to SHOW me Wonder Woman naked. It would just be for shock value. 'Oooo... look... there are WW's boobs!'"

Ryan Higgins answers all your questions about Villains United:

"Anyone that knows anything about Deathstroke knows that there are three facts about him: 1. Deathstroke is a mammal. 2. Deathstroke fights ALL the time. 3. The purpose of Deathstroke is to flip out and kill people.

"Deathstroke can kill anyone he wants! Deathstroke cuts off heads ALL the time and doesn't even think twice about it. This guy is so crazy and awesome that he flips out ALL the time. I heard that Deathstroke who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the Deathstroke killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw Deathstroke totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window."

Bendis comes out and admits it - that Ultimate Secret delay? All his fault:

"i was out of town when the news hit so i didn't see the uproar till it was too late, but i have to take the hit for the ultimate secret mini delay. i told marvel i could do the NA sentry arc in three issues. i had laid out my scenes and had it all worked out and had jenkins blessing but writing isn't an exact science. in fact, science isn't an exact science. its writing, its organic. and as i kept writing i thought of new ideas and new scenes, and scenes i had got tossed for new scenes and before i knew it i needed an extra issue. i tried to cram it all into the three issues, but it did not work.

"i came to marvel yalmaka in hand and told them i needed the forth issue. i knew things were tight for steve but i didn't know exactly what the schedule was. we toyed with a fill in or having finch finish the story, but steve's work is so unique that a fill in would be glaring. so though it was ultimately marvel's desicion to keep steve on the story, i do take the responsiblity for it because i said i could do one thing for them and could not. i would have never done this to any of you on purpose and i am sorry."

DC says "Screw you, people for whom a quarter makes a big difference, if there are in fact many of you out there!":

"Today DC Comics used their weekly email newsletter to retailers to serve notice that they have raised the prices on their last remaining DC Universe $2.25 titles. Beginning with their June issues, Batman, Nightwing, Robin, The Flash, JLA and Wonder Woman will arrive in stores with a new retail price of $2.50. Because they were solicited in both June and July with the previous cover price of $2.25, DC reported the affected issues will be announced as returnable at a later date."

Ed Cunard, spinning off from the Robert Crumb NPR interview below, writes another of his insightful blog posts that make me nod in agreement a lot/ This time, it's about the state of comics-internet-interviewing:

"As it stands, most comics interviews are less about the product, and more in terms of spreading the word about a product. This is not only obvious but also understandable--the reason people are willing to be interviewed is to spread the word on a project or a body of work. As ICV2 notes, Crumb's Fresh Air interview is part of a publicity blitz for The R. Crumb Handbook. However, the questions probe deeper than the average 'so, what can we expect from your run on TITLE X,' and that has more to do with an awareness that the interview itself is a project of its own, rather than the nature of Crumb's work--a similar interview could be done with someone working in mainstream comics, surely. Even listener-supported radio needs listeners to tune in. Magazines need to provide a reason for the audience to form an attachment to the publication, rather than relying on people who are just buying an issue for a single article. Perhaps the nature of the coverage is based more on the publicity aspect to drive sales in a somewhat moribund market, or maybe the relative dearth of comics coverage makes that kind of a need less crucial."

Go read.

Courtesy of the Isotope Communique, NPR's Fresh Air interview with Robert Crumb.

Wondering who's behind all the shady goings-on in Ed Brubaker's Captain America? Newsarama speaks to Ed to get some clues, but he's being coy:

"Oh yeah, there'd be no point to the big reveal in issue #6 if Cap fans had no idea who the guy was... Which could be another reason we've covered so much of Cap's history in our first arc, to let new readers in on the details. Or, that could be a red herring, couldn't it?"

*Shakes imaginary fist of blog at the skies* Brooooooooooooobaker!

At some point yesterday, All The Rage updated with gossip for this weekend's Toronto convention:

"J. Michael Straczynski surprised everyone and popped up at the Bendis Q&A session. He mentioned that he has completed three Fantastic Four scripts, and also dropped this interesting piece of information about the 'Sins Past' storyline. Turns out JMS wanted Peter Parker to be the father of Gwen's kids but editorial nixed the idea. The powers that be felt that it would age Peter Parker too much if he had two adult kids running around. It was then decided by the whole creative and editorial team that Norman Osborn would be the father!"

Matthew Fraction, esq. and Sir Joseph Casey discuss the curious case of The DC Comics and the Humanoids in 2000AD:

"Looking back, it completely escapes me what DC -- as a company -- were trying to achieve by taking on these imprints in the first place. I forget what the initial press releases said. Do you think it was about market share? Surely, they were realistic enough to see that this material wouldn't necessarily turn the tide, in the direct market especially. I mean, if you're gonna' publish Bilal in America, you'd better be in it for the artistic cache of it, because initially that's all you're gonna' have."

Millarworld predicts the future for Marvel's MAX imprint:

"How long will Punisher last before it's relaunched again? Is there really and desire for Marvel's Vertigo any more? Why Quesada why?"

"Marvel seems really keen on keeping all their characters at least PG-13, so I'd be surprised to see much more development in the MAX line. I suppose we'll only see it if another big-name creator has a MAX idea - if someone like Millar, Bendis or Straczynski has a pitch, Marvel might listen."

"I'm worried about the punisher too, but I'm really much more interested in the ICON line, and I hope marvel invest their adult titles THERE. THAT has a chance of becoming marvel's vertigo, not max."

"By the way this new 'Omega the Unknown' series could be MAX couldnt it? Marvel should just keep reviving classic 70/80's series like Supreme Power, Blade, Cage, Fury, Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu, (?Omega the Unknown?), Punisher (sort of) Whats next? Man-Thing, Dracula, Powerman/ Ironfist, Champions, Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night? Bring it on!!"

America's Best Comics' Top 10 continues post-Moore:

"[J]ust because Moore and Ha are moving on, that doesn’t mean Top Ten is done. Moore and Ha's multi-Eisner Award-winning homage to police dramas and old science-fiction tales continues in August, courtesy of sci-fi writer Paul Di Filippo and legendary artist Jerry Ordway, in Top Ten: Beyond The Farthest Precinct, a five-issue miniseries that tells the next chapter in the lives of Smax, Toybox, King Peacock, Joe Pi and the rest of Neopolis's finest."

Newsarama interviews Di Filippo about the project:

"For a few years now, I had been wanting to try my hand at scripting stories in the comics medium that I love so much. A few abortive efforts, such as a script for the online Matrix comics that was almost produced, left me tantalizingly close. But I realized that some kind of more personal connection with an editor was necessary to clear the final hurdle. I had established an e-mail correspondence with Warren Ellis, who knew my name from my work in the SF field. He was magnificently kind, and, at my request, recommended me to Scott Dunbier, at Wildstorm/ABC. Coincidentally, Scott had just asked Harlan Ellison for the name of a writer who could tackle the Top 10 sequel. Harlan recommended me as well, without any prior consultation. Scott must have felt that juju forces of synchronicity were at work, and he now had no choice but to offer me the assignment!"

Fuck, yes:

"His Fortress of Solitude and short stories have been peppered with comic book references from the 1970s, and now, novelist Jonathan Lethem will get to take them on for real, and be the latest novelist to give comics a go. According to a brief note in this week’s Time Magazine, Lethem will revive Omega the Unknown for Marvel in 2006."

James Jean on covers, Marvel. You know you want to.

The Shuster Awards were given out on Saturday night. Huzzah for Darwyn Cooke and Ty Templeton, says I. A full list of winners can be found at the link.

Over at Sequential Tart, creators talk about their pets. No, really. Barbara Kesel, would you give us an example?:

"My first dog was a whim — I went with Bob Schreck to look at corgi puppies and I was the one who came home with one, in love with his little puppy eyes and transformed from a petless person with a clean house to someone who learned to live with a dog who sheds a hollow double a day. Okay, so I'd had gerbils, but that's just not the same."

For some reason, this column strikes me as a stroke of genius.

Somehow I missed this on Friday, but Tom Spurgeon writes for The Pulse and tells everyone how Stan Lee got Marvel to pay up.

Will Pfeifer tries to tempt me back to Catwoman:

"Pfeifer's Catwoman won't be a grim and gritty crime book, but it also won't be a lighthearted superhero story. Pfeifer compared the tone of the book as a balance of Ross Macdonald, one of Brubaker's favorite crime writers, and the caper novels of Elmore Leonard. 'I have heard some people on the Internet say it's going to be a return to the old days of Catwoman joking around and the thief having fun all the time,' Pfeifer said. 'It won't quite be that. The tone will be somewhat like Ed's stuff. It will be serious. It will be film noir, but you always get the feeling that Catwoman, she's having some fun doing what she's doing. I want the book to be not light hearted but to just have a good spirit of adventure about it.'"

Broken Frontier starts a three-day Brian Michael Bendis interview that, really, could have maybe done with a little editing considering that it starts like this:

"BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS:Hello?

BROKEN FRONTIER: Hi. Is this Bendis?

BMB: Yes it is.

BF: Bendis, Hi, this is J.P. with Broken Frontier.

BMB: How are you J.P. with Broken Frontier? Very professional sounding.

BF: I try my best. If you could see the half-assed way I have to set up to record this conversation you’d see there’s nothing professional about it.

BMB: [Laughing] Well, I appreciate the attempt.

BF: Well, I appreciate you agreeing to do this interview.

BMB: No problem man. I just saw the trailer for War of the Worlds. Oh my god. It was just on E. Oh my god.

BF: The last one I saw didn’t reveal too much.

BMB: No, this one is the real trailer.

BF: I’m very very excited about that movie.

BMB: Yeah, very cool."

Millarworld reacts to the news that Ultimate Secret #3 has been postponed until September:

"Does this mean that McNiven just stopped Ultimate Secret in order to do New Avengers, or will New Avengers #'s 7-9 just not ship until 2006? Of course, it might not be the artist at all that's making it late. Could be the writer. Or Marvel could have held it up for some reason. Perhaps it has something to do with those rumors Millar posted awhile back?"

"that's beyond not cool. actually it's somewhat depressing. really I'm confused as hell as to how both companies keep allowing this."

"Wonder if it has something to do with Millar's upcoming Ultimate FF run? That's just too long to be writer/artist, unless a total rewrite was called for because of some other reason."

"It was said earlier that McNiven finished Secret before Hairsine finished Nightmare. Perhaps they're having problems with Extinction, and are delaying Secret so there won't be a huge gap..?"

Former Marvel editor CB Cebulski pops in:

"Yes, it sucks, I agree. This caught even me by surprise. However, there are numerous factors that lead to this decision. No blame falls on either Warren or Steve. Warren's scripts are in and Steve is one of the most hardworking and reliable artists in comics today. From what I understand, certain circumstances have arisen that have neccessitated Marvel making the call to delay the title. No one is happy about it but it had to be done. There should be more news on this soon. Thanks for understanding."

The plot, she thickens. Some conspiracy theories are quick to start up:

"I think August or September is when they're doing their Ultimate event, with the annuals. Maybe the annuals are based on the status quo before Ultimate Galactus..? Sometimes it sucks to be Warren Ellis..."

"Everyone is saying the book is done, the book is done. so why the delay? does it need to be redone? Is Marvel Editorial having problems with Warren Ellis? is Warren having problems with Marvel and Marvel is scrambling for a replacement? knowing how well Dc and Marvel are getting along , does it have anything to do with Warren's story in JL Classified over at DC?"

Cebulski returns:

"No one is being asked to rewrite or redraw anything, I assure you. And again, it has nothing to do with Ellis or McNiven, and definitely nothing to do with DC. No matter how much some of you feel that Marvel editorial is a bunch of screw-ups, they're not. They're a great bunch of hardworking folks who want to make the best comics possible, period. They're also fans who want to read the books. Something like this hurts them as much as it hurts you. No one is happy about this. I wish I could explain it to you all, but even I don't know the whole story as there are so many facets to this one. Like I said, the move to September caught me by surprise as well. Yes, there are certain reasons for why the book was moved and they will come out soon. No one is waiting to try and 'spin' anything. News may even come out of the Toronto con this weekend as both Warren and Steve are there. It's just not my place to talk about it here and I hope you all understand that."

All The Rage starts acting like a rumor column again, announcing Marvel's Ultimate Annuals - Ultimate X-Men in Ultimate Vegas, everyone! - and the return of someone you didn't expect:

"A sharp-eyed ATR reader pointed out something interesting about the recently released Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe: Spider-Man 2005. Among this year’s character profiles, some familiar names pop up: Mendel Stromm, Jackal, Kaine and Ben Reilly. Do you see where I’m going with this? Out of all the Spider-man characters they could have chosen for that book, they used four of the key figures from the Spider-Clone storyline. Which is more than a bit surprising, considering that Marvel has basically been ignoring the events of that story for a long time. So, what does it mean? Could be nothing, or it could be something... After all, we are coming up on the tenth anniversary of the Clone Saga and Marvel has been promising something big for the Spider-Man books later this year, following the House of M crossover..."

Tom Spurgeon, continuing to make the comics internet better, provides an interview with Kyle Baker (conducted by Andrew Farago) that's definitely worth reading:

"I don't like [superheroes] when they're drunk, I don't like them when they're any of those things. It's inconsistent with the character. It just doesn't fit. People are people, and I read lots of stories about people who are drunk, people who are psychotic, people who are deadbeat dads. I've gone to a lot of movies about deadbeat dads, you know, I like Paris, Texas. It's not the story that's bothering me. It's that the superhero formula used to be symbolic representations of good versus evil. For Superman, everything he does is good. He's a good person, and he's better than you. He helps poor people -- we don't help poor people. He's doing good things. He could be king of the world, if he wanted to, but he doesn't. He gets cats out of trees, and that's why he's better than you. Because if you had the powers of Superman, you'd use them to get rich. So would I. I'd join the Lakers. [laughs] That's exactly what I'd do. I'd make a hundred million dollars.

"And then the bad guy, everything the bad guy does is villainous. He's the one who lies and steals and cheats, and everything he does is wrong. And he kills people. That's why Batman won't shoot anybody, because he's good. Once a guy starts shooting people, he becomes like you. Yeah, if somebody killed my dad, that's what I would do -- I'd pick up a gun, and I'd go kill somebody. That's why I'm not a great person, and that's why I'm not a superhero. I don't know why people are coming to the material, then. I know why I don't buy the material anymore: it's because it's not giving me what I was coming for, which was fantasies about good and evil."

Newsarama looks at Marvel moving Supreme Power into Marvel Knights:

"[Writer J. Michael] Straczynski said that the realization of MAX’s marketplace limitations made an impact on both him and [artist Gary] Frank. Despite seeing sales of over 100,000 copies on its first issue (combined numbers on the regular and enhanced editions), and being the best selling comic aimed at an adult audience released by a major publisher in the last 20 years, and most likely, the history of the medium, Supreme Power, like virtually every title was seeing its numbers atrophy. Expanding on his reasons for the move, Straczynski explained that current readers of Supreme Power won’t notice too many changes. What will change is the overall direction of the story, which is a natural evolution of where things have been heading in the series. 'Some things aren't going to change at all...most things, really. The characters aren't going to change, the tone of the book isn't going to change... basically, go back to any issue of Supreme Power, take a felt tip pen, and cross out the few profanities in the book and the naughty bits... and that's the relaunch, at least in terms of the then/now aspect.'"

Any press release that contains the following is always good for some cheap entertainment:

"In a brand new multi-year agreement, BrandSource - makers of the first ready-to-drink coffee beverage developed under the direction of a world-renowned chef, Wolfgang Puck Gourmet Latte - has been awarded the rights to produce and market ready-to-drink hot chocolate for Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, Captain America and Daredevil. Packaging for each product will spotlight the featured Marvel Heroes."

Now I want to see Marvel Team-Up: Wolfgang Puck and Alpha Flight Puck.