As many of you are no doubt already aware, vengeful snow gods focused their wrath on Diamond HQ this week, temporarily destroying them and making their webiste un-look-at-able. This coincided with the time I normally put this column together, so there’s an even higher likelihood than normal that mistakes have been made. Also, no cartoon this week as, um, my colored pencils were buried in an avalanche, maybe…?

Anyway, here are some of the books coming out this week–provided your local comic shop hasn’t been buried under one million feet of snow…

The Anchor Vol. 1: I’ve really enjoyed the first few single issues of Phil Hester and Brian Churilla’s lighthearted series about a mysterious monster-fighter who exists simultaneously on the earthly and infernal planes, and, if you haven’t sampled the series yet, this $10, 110-page trade paperback is a pretty perfect way to do so. If you’re already on board, the fifth, $4 issue of the series is also due in shops this week. So let’s see, $10 plus $4 equals…lemme get a piece of paper for this…$14! Just $14 and you’re all caught up!

Batman and Robin #8: It’s part two of Cameron Stewart’s (way too) brief run on Grant Morrison’s Batman title, in which we find out what happens after Batman Dick Grayson (”DickBats”) lets the corpse of Batman Bruce Wayne (”OB”) marinate in a Lazarus Pit. What’s weird about this storyline is the fact that there seems to be at least two sets of Batman’s remains, as Black Hand has been lugging Batman’s skull around throughout Blackest Night. If this story is set before Blackest Night, it’s possible that Dick re-buries Batman’s body in the unmarked grave that Black Hand dug it out of, which sort of spoils the resurrection aspect of this story, and then Black Hand also brings OB back to life temporarily. If it’s set after Blackest Night, then that means DickBats recovered Batman’s body and skull at the end of Blackest Night, put it in a vault, then decided to take it out of the vault and try to bring it back to life, after Black Hand temporarily restored OB to life. Either way, it seems a little silly that Batman has been brought back to life so often in so short a span of time. But who cares?! Cameron Stewart drawing DickBats, Batwoman and Knight and Squire fighting undead Batman! It looks like this.

The Brave and the Bold: Milestone: If last week’s Milestone Forever whet your appetite for more appearances by the Milestone characters, this collection of three issues of DC’s team-up title—featuring Black Lightning and Static, Blue Beetle and Hardware and The Spectre and Xombi—may be of interest. The $18, 160-page trade paperback is filled out by three issues of the Milestone characters’ original series.

The Choker #1: Artist Ben Templesmith and writer Ben McCool do noir. It’s a $4 comic, and you can see a ton of stuff about it here.

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If you like what you’ve read so far (c’mon, how can you not?) totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

Looks like the Terminator is unstoppable — even as it’s pushed away Sony and Lionsgate.

io9 has a great article up about the hedge fund Pacificor snagging the rights for the Terminator franchise away from heavyweights like Sony and Lionsgate.

What’s particularly interesting is that the current rightsholders, Halycon, has previously sued Pacificor for extortion — they owed them about $30 mil for raising the funds for the last Terminator movie.

According to Deadline.com, Warner Bros. has tapped Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan to have a sort of hands-on/godfather role in the upcoming Superman reboot to “ensure The Man Of Steel gets off the ground”.

There is doubt he would direct both the reboot and the next Batman flick, but knowing Nolan’s eye is being used on production gives me happy thoughts that touch all my nerdy parts just right. Nolan has handled superhero noir to 19th Century rival magicians, I think his voice of reason will be a grand addition to the Superman pot-luck that is slowly getting under way.

The article does like to mention the obvious differences between Superman and Batman, but notes that Superman in the comics has more of a darker edge in the past and how  ”shortly after Dark Knight hit it big, fans assumed that Superman would be taken to the ‘dark’ side as well. That’s because Warner Bros mogul Jeff Robinov stressed post-Dark Knight that ‘we have to look at how to make these movies edgier’.”

I’m not sure if Nolan would make this production “edgier” by any means, but what do you think of this announcement, readers? Do you think Nolan’s hand and eye are what a Superman movie needs?

Wait a minute — Hector Hammond’s DAD appears in the Green Lantern movie?

According to the Heat Vision Blog, that’s exactly what’s going to happen, with Tim Robbins playing the role of Senator Hammond, Hector’s disapproving father.

Does this feel a little bit like overkill to you? Like, one of those reactions to Anthony Hopkins joining the cast of Thor? Either which way, this’ll be an interesting choice — last comic book movie that Robbins starred in was Howard the Duck.

And the less said about that movie, the better.

(Click the image above for a larger version of the strip.)

WORLD OF HURT - The Thrill-Seekers - Episode 29: “Feeling the Heat”

I was glad for an opportunity to shift the scene after the long mini-arc of “Tell The Truth, Shame The Devil….”  Pastor still remains an enigmatic phantom to the Thrill-Seekers at this point, but Charles is sensible enough to review him as a legitimate threat.  I enjoy setting up Ned for the big fall (but not in the same sense as Duke) that is to come.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT - The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

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It’s been an interesting couple of weeks in TV land if you’re a superhero fan; today saw the announcement of a new Greg Berlanti drama, No Ordinary Family. Michael Chiklis, Vic Mackey of The Shield fame, will play the patriarch of a family of superheroes. This coming on the heels of last month’s announcement that NBC has picked up The Cape, a superhero series that some have speculated will serve as a companion piece to the network’s struggling Heroes, once a ratings juggernaut but currently not even guaranteed a fifth season.

On the sassiness of Ebony White: Tom Crippen notes the bit of DC’s First Wave promotional material referring to a new version of The Spirit and a new version of Ebony, and has some objections.

Go for the drawing of Batman eating cake Batmanly…: Stay for Kurt Busiek’s essay on why Batman isn’t the Green Lantern of Sector 2814, and extended references to comic book characters and concepts as cakes and frosting which have made me very, very hungry for cake.

“Five Worst Batman Villains”: I imagine fans will find a lot to bicker with Tim O’Neil about in his list of the very worst Batman villains—and pretty thorough explanations for why is each is included. After all, The Joker’s on that list. O’Neil makes some pretty convincing arguments though, and I wholeheartedly agree with a couple of these (Particularly Ra’s al Ghul. That guy’s been  in more Batman comics than Alfred these the last few years). In defense of Mr. Zsasz though (well, in defense of his creators Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle), I think he was created just to be a one-off villain used in “The Last Arkham” and then forgotten about, and it’s all the other creators who keep insisting on using him that have made him so terrible (Also, in his first appearance, he dressed up in tuxedos and wore a top hat…how come he’s always running around nearly nude now?)

Maybe Watchmen spin-offs won’t be so bad after all: Tom Spurgeon has a pitch for a four-issue limited series featuring a character you probably didn’t see coming.

“Smallville’s two-hour ‘event,’ the introduction of the Justice Society of America… was alternately endearingly clunky and just plain old clunky”:
Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker on the Smallville JSA special.  Isn’t it sorta weird that the Smallville-iverse is on its second Star-Spangled Kid  before there was even a Superman?

True horror: So, you thought Michael Leavitt’s three-foot-tall, fully-articulated wooden R. Crumb sculpture was horrifying when you first saw it? Well, wait till you see it move! (Via Flog!)

As the pre-release hype machine gears up for Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman, the director of The Rocketeer, October Sky, and Jurassic Park 3, is letting slip some details regarding his next little low-key indie project, Captain America: The First Avenger.

Gadfly/columnist Devin Faraci at CHUD is breaking the news that Hitler-smacking super-team The Invaders will not only appear in the film, but they will also play a major role in the story. What is unclear is just who Johnston’s Invaders Roster will include, although Faraci does a pretty good rundown of the rights entanglements involved with characters like The Sub Mariner and The Human Torch.

This comes hot on the heels of the junket confirmation of The Red Skull’s presence as Cap’s primary villain in the film. Could Master Man and Baron Blood be far behind? Wolfgang Von Strucker.

Of course with Johnston directing The Wolfman, maybe we can look forward to something like this…

For a show with some serious comics street cred to start, this series has done a pretty good job of shedding a lot of it as it’s gone. After losing showrunner Marc Guggenheim near the beginning of the season, ABC’s FlashForward–which stars Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle’s John Cho and Lost’s Dominic Monaghan–is saying good-bye to David S. Goyer, according to Entertainment Weekly.

ABC has had a hard time promoting both FlashForward and its other tentpole genre title, V. In spite of pretty good critical and fan reception, ratings have dropped to Heroes levels this season, and a lot of experts are speculating that they’ll continue to sink next month when the show comes back from hiatus. It’s unclear who will take Goyer’s place as showrunner; he’s reportedly leaving to focus on his feature film career.

In addition to co-creating the JSA relaunch with James Robinson, Goyer is known in comics circles for writing, directing or producing screenplays based on Nick Fury, Batman, X-Men, Ghost Rider and Blade. According to IMDB, he’s attached to the upcoming Green Arrow film Super Max as well as Y: The Last Man and X-Men Origins: Magneto.

Cory and Eric’s father must just be constantly looking for an opportunity to delve into a complicated geopolitical topic and/or an excuse to tell the life story of one of his ancestors.

How else to explain the fact that when he and his wife end up refereeing a conflict between their boys, involving Eric stopping Cory from buying a particular type of candy, because the older, wise brother knew it contained an ingredient the younger one didn’t really like, he boils it down thusly:

You know, you boys aren’t the first to argue over this principle…You’re arguing whether or not one entity—in your case, a person, but sometimes we’re talking about a country—can take away another’s capacity to act on its own choices.

After a little back and forth between the four members of the family, the patriarch launches into the story of Corporal Peter Crogan of the Foreign Legion, who naturally had to face the issues revolving around the ethics of imperialism as part of his job, occupying and defending swathes of North Africa for France, whether the native people wanted him to do so or not.

If I were Cory or Eric, I’d be afraid to open my big mouth around my dad…or maybe not, depending on how great a storyteller he is.

Writer/artist Chris Schweizer cuts away from the kitchen scene set-up in Crogan’s March (Oni Press) to present the story of Crogan as an unfiltered comics story, so we don’t hear exactly what the dad says or how he says it, but he must know how to tell a story, given the wide-eyed, slack-jawed looks of awe on the two boys’ faces when we return to the kitchen after hearing about Crogan’s story.

Schweizer, however,  sure knows how to tell one.

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Aw thanks, Boom Studios! I didn’t know you cared! The publisher, which currently holds the licenses on a bunch of Disney characters and concepts and has been making fine use of many of them, has put together a heck of a Valentine’s Day present for fans of classic comics featuring the core Disney mouse and duck characters.

The 130-page, six-story collection is similar in scope and format to the publisher’s 2009 Walt Dinsey’s Christmas Classics collection, with the stories selected comprising a sampling of work from various eras, creators and countries of origin (In fact, every decade between the ‘40s and the ‘80s is represented by a story in here).

The highlight is probably the lead story, 1941’s “Love Trouble” by Floyd Gottfredson, Merril de Maris and Bill Wright. At 36 pages, it’s the longest piece, and features the story of Minnie finding a new, much taller, more charming, more talented and more well-off boyfriend than Mickey, Montmorecny Rodent (although he pronounces it “Rodawn”). Humiliated over and over, and unable to compete, Mickey fights fire with fire by taking up with a beautiful, rich, blonde mouse new to town, and then proceeds to couple-stalk Minnie and Rodent, driving Minnie insane with envy.

Given the way they behave to one another, and use other people (er, “people” probably isn’t the right word…), I’m not sure what the two mice see in each other, but I suppose they’re better off together than inflicting their social dysfunctions on others. Just I suppose I have now thought way too much about the love lives of two cartoon mice from a fast-paced, lovingly and energetically drawn screwball comedy comic strip.

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With Warner Brothers’ The Time-Traveler’s Wife being released on DVD, Blu-Ray and digital download on February 9 (good flick, by the way—check it out), I thought I’d take a little look at one of the nagging questions from the Johns/Katz/Jurgens run on Booster Gold: Who is Rip Hunter’s mother? As revealed in Booster Gold #1000000, Booster is (unbeknownst even to himself) the father of the enigmatic Time Master…but without a consistent romantic interest, fans have been left to speculate as to who Rip’s mother is—or if we’ll even ever see her.

UPDATED on February 9 to reflect changes seen in the Booster Gold #29 preview pages.

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Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

Also, check out Knights of the Dinner Table 158.  My pals Don Thomas, James Burns, John McGuire and myself got to do a Heroes of the Hackleague back-up strip.  Three pages of fun in one of my favorite comics!  It was an honor to play with their characters.

Jamie Cosley, famed webcomic artist and writer of such hits as More Than Sparrows and Nobody Likes Tony Pony, is launching a brand-new comic strip on Valentine’s Day, but you can see samples here!

“This Is How We Met” is a bizarre and yet somewhat random comic strip that centers around the life of a little Humpty Dumpty-like character and his interactions with several of his friends including Tony Pony, Pee Wee Schooner and Nippy Wallaboosh.  You just got to love the influences of Jack Kent, Walt Kelly, Tony Millionaire (who was just featured in a blog@) and James Kochalka.

Of course the company he keeps isn’t too shabby either. In addition to working with Art Baltazar and Franco (aww, yeah!)  at Blindwolf Studios, he joined forces with three other cartoonists to form Crashland Studio.

When launched, you can check out the strip here, and I’m sure it’ll join the ranks as one of my favorites.

While writers and pencilers get a lot of love by comics fans, there are a lot of people who are involved with the process that don’t get nearly enough credit. Inkers, letters, editors — and in many cases, colorists.

Which is why this coloring tutorial by The Boys colorist Tony Avina is so interesting! Colorists really can make or break an art style — and there are a lot of different styles, whether it’s more photo-realistic, or expressionistic, or just plain flat. (For example, I wrote in yesterday’s Best Shots that colorist Peter Steigerwald made Art Adams’ work look more contemporary and vibrant than ever. Take a look, see what you think.) Artists, what do you think? What kind of tools do you use for your color work?

“This series of books are destined to join the ranks of ‘The Dark Knight Returns,’ ‘Watchmen,’ and ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ as a serious contribution to adventure comic books”: Stephen Tramontana really, really likes DC’s Blackest Night event, and hopes this particular story will begin “the era where the gimmicks stopped, and good storytelling took the priority.” Stephen Tramontana is going to be sorely disappointed, but his hopefulness is appreciated—get that man a blue ring.

Were any of you wondering if Disney’s ownership of Marvel was going to result in tamer imagery and more kid-friendly comics?: I think that one scene in this week’s issue of Siege oughta answer that question pretty decisively, huh?

Something interesting almost happened in Blondie this week, but then didn’t: That’s okay though, as R.C. Harvey took the opportunity to explore some of the visual peculiarities of Dagwood Bumstead’s character design in this piece for The Comics Journal.

Three great things that go AWESOME together: John Porcellino, Devil Dinosaur and Morrissey. God I love you, Internet.

Armagideon Time celebrates the month of February in the traditional way: By posting a panel of Jack of Hearts every day of the month. Yeah, that’s right—Jack of Hearts. It just goes to show that every character is someone’s favorite (Except, of course, for all these guys).

“Rugg says that of all his projects, Afrodisiac is the most personal, or as personal as a comic about a super-pimp can be”: Zack Smith pens a great profile of Afrodisiac artist Jim Rugg for Indy Week.

Lame headline, great piece: Dave Howard has a wide-ranging Q and A with retailer, blogger and Toronto Comic Arts Festival director Chris Butcher for Torontoist.

Ch-ch-ch-changes: As you’re no doubt already aware, Heidi MacDonald has relocated her popular comics blog The Beat from its old Publisher’s Weekly locale in cyberspace to comicsbeat.com. Please update your bookmarks, and join me in wishing Heidi and everyone at The Beat the best of luck. Meanwhile, frequent Linkarama person-getting-linked-to Chris Sims has announced he’ll be quitting his day job at a comics shop to focus on his writing full-time, which is great news for fans of Sims’ writing. Perhaps that means he will be the person DC taps to write Watchmen 2 (He’s been tweeting some pretty great ideas on the subject), or maybe just more great pieces like his article on “The Racial Politics of Riverdale” over at Comics Alliance. Finally, retailer and blogger Mike Sterling is messing around with his site, which I remark upon because Sterling’s was one of the first and finest comics blogs I encountered, and because, as a comic book fan, I find even the slightest change in something I’ve become accustomed to worthy of comment. As long as his site remains the number one source for Sluggo-focused weekend content though, I’m sure everything will be okay.

Forget the Robert Pattinson rumors for a second — this is something that I actually wouldn’t mind seeing.

Access Hollywood has revealed that Sony is in discussions with Percy Jackson and the Olympians star Logan Lerman for potentially helming another franchise — this one with the proportional strength of a spider.

“[Spider-Man is] of my favorite characters ever and I’m a huge fan of the series,” Lerman said during the interview. According to him, the interest between him and the studio was “vice versa.” “I’d love to have more conversations about it. I’m definitely very interested in it.”

And you know something? I’d actually be kind of cool with this — Lerman totally pulls off the look, and if he can get the humor down, this could be a slam-dunk. Lerman was quick to say that this is all a long process with the studio, but this is a Spidey I could certainly get behind. What say you, Rama readers?