Why am I always the odd man out? Last week I wasn’t in the love party for Seven Soldiers #1 and this week I’m not again. Why, God, why?! Anyway…

Folks liked having the guest contributor, so look for more CWFW’s with pros telling you what they are looking forward to buying for that week. Got my sights set on one up-and-comig creator in particular…

Looks like DC has a potential hit on their hands with Superman Confidential #1 and Marvel is finally bringing back fan-favorite creator Alan Davis this week with Fantastic Four: The End #1. Image brings us two number one’s this week: Freshman Vol. 2 and Nightly News. And I think that Dark Horse has been doing a great job with Star Wars: Legacy which continues this week with #5.

You know something else that I think is great? Getting a year older. Ah, the joys of wisdom gained, of things learned, of hair falling out… Wait, nix that last one, but do wish Blog@Newsarama’s very Tom Bondurant a very Happy Birthday today, will ya? Maybe he’ll even stop by to tell us how old he really is, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Speaking of the birthday boy, let’s see what he’s got to say about this week’s comics…

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Dark, But Shining talks with Michael Gambos, Dark Horse’s manga licensing director, about the company’s big push into horror manga with titles like Scary Book, Museum of Terror, Octopus Girl, School Zone and one of my new favorites, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service:

Part of this was the traditional success we had with titles like The Ring and the Vampire Hunter D novels (which I am classifying as horror, because there is Gothic Horror within these novels — and are included as ‘manga’, since they’re racked with manga in the stores). In the scheme of Japanese horror, both of these pieces are fairly recent, and we wanted to trace back and show English-speaking audiences where things started, and their linear progression up to and through the releases of the modern horror. Hideshi Hino’s Lullabies From Hell, Kazuo Umezu’s Scary Book and Junji Ito’s Museum of Terror are all perfect examples of this. Octopus Girl is famous because the creator, Toru Yamazaki, is an openly gay TV celebrity that has to be the most all-around talented person I could imagine — from writing books to acting to creating manga, this guy can do anything. School Zone was written by the Queen of Horror, Kanako Inuki, who started doing horror when there weren’t many female horror manga-ka on the scene. Since we did The Ring, Ju-on (both the manga and the novels) seemed like a natural move. We didn’t aim to just get horror titles, as that is a tactic sans any deeper thinking; we wanted to bring titles to English-speaking audiences that had something special about them — be it a renowned creator, something that was intrinsically comedy but iced with horror, etc. In a way, we weren’t trying to introduce a ‘true horror’ genre to English-speaking audiences, but doing what we have been doing all along … introducing the biggest talents of Japan. This time around, we happened to pick horror. So, think of it less as, “We’re doing a horror line,” and more of, “We’re introducing the greatest manga-ka, as we always have, and here is a look at the ones associated with Horror.”

There’s also some interesting discussion of the license-acquisition process.

I’m convinced I’m misreading this:

The Motley Fool Website reported on Marvel’s presentation at Merrill Lynch’s Media and Entertainment Conference.  Marvel’s unique financing for a series of ten films it is producing involves no capital expenditure on its part.  If one of the films that it develops and produces bombs, Marvel loses nothing except the rights to the character the film is based on.

So, wait. If Marvel makes, say, Power Man and Iron Fist: The Movie, and it tanks, they lose the rights to Power Man and Iron Fist? Movie rights only, I presume…

ABC Family finally has something to watch besides Gilmore Girls reruns (Sorry, JK - I know you loved Jake 2.0):

Variety is reporting that the ABC Family cable channel has greenlit production on a series pilot written by Desperate Housewives scribe Kevin Murphy based on the AiT/PlanetLar graphic novel Nobody written by Alex Amado, Sharon Cho, and illustrated by Charles Adlard (Astronauts in Trouble).

ABC Family’s VP of Original Series Programming Kate Juergens described Nobody as “sort of Gilmore Girls meets Kill Bill.”  The protagonist of Nobody, Jessica Drake gives up a normal live to save her daughter — and though she doesn’t die, her existence is erased from the memories of her family and the world at large.  Blessed (or cursed) with the ability to change her features, Drake is the latest in a line of “Nobodies,” individuals who give up a life of their own to safeguard society.

Everyone in Portland, Oregon - I have something for you to do on Thursday night:

This October, Oni Press will be releasing 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, the debut graphic novel by creative team Jamie S. Rich and Joëlle Jones. A love story told in twelve interlinking vignettes, it follows the ups and downs of a relationship, looking at all the things that drive men and women crazy about one another. To mark the release, Rich and Jones will be making appearances in Portland, Oregon, their current base of operations… [O]n November 2, the creative pair will be teaming up with new comic book store Floating World Comics to present pages from 12 Reasons as part of First Thursday. This gallery show will double as the grand opening for Floating World’s new downtown location. “I’ve known Jason Leivian, the owner of Floating World, from back when he worked at another comic book shop,” Rich said, “and it’s exciting to see him finally running his own store. It’s been too long since we’ve had a comic book store on the west side.”

“This is a nice converging of events,” Leivian added. “A new store and a new book are both good excuses to celebrate. I’d like to offer a different kind of comic book experience with Floating World, and Jamie and Joëlle have definitely created a different kind of romance comic with 12 Reasons Why I Love Her.”
“Since the book is crafted in various styles across its twelve chapters,” Rich continued, “Joëlle uses a variety of techniques. This lends itself well to a showing of this kind. It’s not just a graphic novel you’ll want to read, but one you’ll want to pause and linger on individual pages of. And that’s exactly what you’ll be able to do when the pages are hung on a wall.”

If you’ve seen any pages from the book, you’ll know that they’re worth the gallery treatment. So go see.

Mark Millar on the news that Bryan Singer will, indeed, direct the sequel to Superman Returns:

For half the cash, it seems we’re getting twice the excitement and everything that was missing from the first picture. He also says he’s getting all Wrath of Kahn on this one… which is cool if he means they’re firing the people who did the first flick and bringing in a whole new writer/ director team.

Good news for anyone who’s always wanted a remake of Superman 2, I guess… with Superman’s kid.

Who would Millar rather see attached to the project?

[Brett] Ratner would be better. Seriously. Ditto Michael Bay. Bay can be awful. Truly, truly awful. But when he’s on he’s the best action guy in town. I think he would have raised his game for Supes… [Ratner's] Red Dragon is perfect. It’s a really slick movie. And X3 was OK, given what he was working under. Would have loved to have seen him bring back Supes for a new generation (as he planned with a new Krypton, etc, etc) as opposed to the wank-fest for the over 35s Singer did. I want someone to remake Jaws just so Singer knows the agony I’ve gone through since that flick!!!

Fantagraphics’ Eric Reynolds shows off the publisher’s new store as it’s being worked on, and reveals the opening date and lineup:

As you can see, the walls are still a bit spare, but we are working hard (well, mostly Jacob Covey is working hard) to fill up the space. For example, in the third photo above, we mostly just have a few random posters and prints up on the wall temporarily, until the final signage is ready… All of this is happening with our Dec. 2nd GRAND OPENING in mind. Look for more news soon regarding that, which will include an inaugural art show and signing in our own space (essentially a smaller version of the acclaimed show that just closed at New York’s Society of Illustrators), featuring Peter Bagge, Jim Woodring, Jim Blanchard, Ellen Forney, and many more, as well as an exhibition at the neighboring Belle & Wissel Gallery, featuring original artwork from Jacob Covey’s forthcoming BEASTS! book. It’s going to be a great weekend, so we hope all of you in the Great Northwest will mark your calendars.

One of the highlights of the January solicitations is the first issue of Scalped, the new Vertigo crime drama by Jason Aaron (The Other Side) and R.M. Guéra (Heavy Metal), with covers by one of my favorite artists, Jock.

Best known for his collaboration with writer Andy Diggle on Vertigo’s The Losers, Jock is an Eisner Award-nominated cover artist whose vibrant illustrations have fronted that series, as well as Batman, Nightwing, Catwoman, Detective Comics, Rush City and others.

His upcoming projects include Faker with Mike Carey, and Green Arrow: Year One with Diggle.

Scalped #1 is one of my favorite Jock covers to date. It’s not as dynamic as his work on Rush City, or as “designerly” as some of his work on The Losers. But it exudes attitude and quickly establishes the mood and setting for the story. It’s stunning.

Being a process junkie, I asked Jock to walks us through the creation of the cover, from concept to final product. Here’s what he had to say about Scalped #1:

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At Time.com, columnist Andrew Arnold gets into the spirit of Halloween with a review of three horror manga: Junji Ito’s Museum of Terror, Toru Yamazaki’s Octopus Girl, and Osamu Tezuka’s Ode to Kirihito.

… Arguably Japan’s premier horror manga-ka, Ito has a fevered imagination that has given us Uzumaki, about a town beset by spirals, and Gyo, about dead fish that sprout legs and wreak havoc upon the land. Museum of Terror (two volumes so far, $14 each) collects the so-called Tomie tales, all featuring the beguiling teenage Tomie, a supernatural beauty with a nasty attitude who inspires complex feelings in the men who fall under her spell. “I dream of having her all to myself,” says one would-be paramour, “Thing is, if she were mine … I think I might kill her. … I don’t know if even ripping her apart would be good enough. That’s the way she makes me feel.”

But it’s not Tomie you worry about. She gets slaughtered scores of ways, including being mashed into pulp and turned into sake, but always regenerates to induce her slaves into perverse acts of murder and torture. Instead, pity the poor wretches whose eyes turn dark and cheeks become sallow as their will power seeps away.

Related: Comics-and-Moore reviews Octopus Girl and The Bug Boy

So let’s say you’re like me, and one of the upper management types at your company loves Halloween. So you showed up to work today and dagnabbit, Halloween was today! And you forgot your cotume, and now you’re wondering if said upper management type is going to revoke your company car or what-have-you.

Hey, no worries … Forbes.com has your hook-up. All you need is a color printer, and you can go as someone famous:

Last week horror journalist/blogger Sam Costello launched a new horror webcomic called Split Lip. The strip will be drawn by “artists from all over the world.” Per the press release:

“I wanted to create stories that tried to bring some of the deep strangeness of Asian horror films like Ringu and A Tale of Two Sisters together with the visceral horror of David Cronenberg and the atmosphere of Joyce Carol Oates or House of Leaves,” said Costello. “Split Lip is my attempt at that.”

Split Lip is influenced by comics including the EC horror library and the works of Junji Ito and Kazuo Umezu.

“I consciously chose not use to the standard horror archetypes – vampires, zombies, werewolves – in these stories, because I wanted to try to venture into new territory, areas that frighten thanks to both ideas and actions,” said Costello. “Fear is often generated by the unknown, by the strange, so by using less-familiar ideas, I hope to catch readers with their guards down.”

The first comic in the series, “The Executioner is a Lonely Man,” was illustrated by Brian A. LaFramboise, whose work has appeared in Trailer Park of Terror and Opi8.com. The comic tells the story of two men who become neighbors on death row. Barrett, the row’s newest arrival, is marking time until his execution. Transformed by guilt, he has accepted his fate, and waits for death. The other man, Doc, a long-time death row resident, asserts his innocence and strikes up an understanding, if not exactly friendship, with him.

Costello also has a production blog at http://www.splitlipcomic.com/blog.

As he’s been prone to do, Patriot-News reporter Chris Mautner has posted an extended “director’s cut” version of his interview with Marjane Satrapi over at his Panels & Pixels blog. They discuss Iran, her new book Chicken with Plums and the upcoming animated version of Persepolis:

Q: How closely does it adhere to the original graphic novel?

A: Well it’s extremely close actually. The narration in the movie is very, very different to the narration in the comic. Absolutely not the same way of telling the story so to make it as a movie we had to add some information of course. But we also had to take out some information because you can not do everything. If you count in a very mathematical way each page of comic respond to one minute of a movie. This comic is about 380 pages so we could not make a movie of more than six hours, it’s impossible.

But we tried really to put the whole thing in there. … With the soundtrack, with the voices, everything takes a dimension that you don’t have. But it’s very close and true to it. .. All of it is actually in there.

Near the end of the interview, he starts off a question by telling Satrapi he has a “comic nerd” question to ask … I thought he was going to ask whose side she was on in Civil War.

This is “Point/Counterpoint in the Blogosphere…” where we take a look at what has YOU talking. Twice a week, I’ll be showcasing two opposing discussion points about a particular topic, to help you keep up with some of the hot topics in comic fandom.

So, how important is personality when it comes to the way we see industry figures? Can personal charm mitigate questionable professional decisions?

Point:

Jake at Ye Olde Comic Blogge is not a fan of Rob Liefield’s art, however, he finds it hard to dislike the man as a person, thanks to his new video diaries on You Tube:

But the truth is, when I see Rob Liefeld in person, I can’t help but be charmed by his personality. He’s a genuinely nice guy whose enthusiasm is infectuous. Incidentally, I think that’s a big reason editors continue to work with him. I can see him sitting in my office saying, “I know I’ve missed a lot of deadlines before, but this time things will be different. I’ll get a nine month head start on this four-issue miniseries and the whole thing will be 75% done before the first issue goes to press,” and totally buying into it.

Counterpoint:

Kevin at BeaucoupKevin(dot)com counters Jake’s comment, however, by mentioning one of the man’s more unfortunate professional decisions.

Ye Olde Comic Blogge finds it hard to hate Rob Liefeld. Despite my mind-numbing hatred of his art, he really does come across as a nice guy. That is, of course, until you remember he’s screwed over Alan Moore and Rick Veitch on royalty payments and gave us one of the ugliest reprints of a modern superhero comic because he can’t find the original art.

So what’s your take on this?

The groovy ghoulies over at Act-I-Vate dropped us a note to pass on Halloween wishes for everyone …

For those who looked at the headline above and thought, “Holy crap! Halloween is tomorrow?” Fox 28 in South Bend, Indiana has a few ideas you can throw together at the last minute:

MATERIALS: Crisp white button-down shirt, mono-color tie, blazer (preferably tweed), blue T-shirt, hair gel, thick-framed black plastic glasses

Finding a cape, utility belt and giant red boots at the 11th hour is about as impossible as escaping from the Phantom Zone. Don’t get us started on the availability of stylish blue tights. Luckily, Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, is a bit easier to shop for.

Clark Kent has two non-negotiable distinguishing characteristics: the trademark curled forelock and prison-issue thick-framed glasses. The former is just a matter of clever hair gelling, and you can usually find cheapo reading glasses in pharmacies that will do the trick if you pop out the lenses.

If you have a color printer, do a Google image search for “Superman logo.” Print one out, cut it out and tape that bad boy to your T-shirt.

The Superman logo is licensed everywhere; lots of megastores even sell blue T-shirts. As a last-ditch effort, stop by your local pharmacy and look in the party supplies section. Superman logos are often found on paper plates for children’s birthday parties.

Wear your Superman duds under normal office attire — think comparative literature professor, not Wall Street shark. Just keep most of the buttons to your shirt undone so the logo is peeking out and your tie undone.

TIP: This costume works equally as well with women’s clothing for a Supergirl outfit. If you are accosted by comic book nerds who try to tell you that Supergirl doesn’t have an alter ego, tell them that your are going as the Silver Age Supergirl who moonlighted as high school student Linda Lee as seen in “Action Comics No. 252,” published in May 1959. Brace for head implosion.

I can’t remember where I got the copy of Detective Comics #455, but I was too young in January 1976 to have grabbed it, brand-new, off the spinner rack. It most likely came from a flea market or garage sale several years later, in a carboard box full of similarly well-read and well-worn comics.

All I know for sure is that cover, by Mike Grell, scared the bejeezus out of me. The story — Batman versus a vampire in a creepy old house — was thrilling, but that cover … I had trouble getting to sleep if it were left out in the open. It had to buried in the bottom of a crate, stored safely in a closed closet.

Only then I could turn out the lights.

Some three decades later, I’m not as creeped out by a good, scary cover; in fact, I like them. A lot. And most of the time I can even go to sleep with one of them left out in the open.

So for Halloween, I put together a gallery of 20 great creepy covers. These aren’t necessarily the Best Scary Covers Ever; they’re just unsettling, and well-done. You’ll notice a few prominently feature little kids. That’s because there are few things as unnerving as the soulless stare of a child. (Blame The Omen.)

Tomorrow, I’ll return with the regular weekly installment of “Comics, Covered.” But for today, enjoy these:

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One of the stranger Bendis Board threads in recent times, as the Board considers the realities of retailing and the responsibilities of a customer…:

“I did what had to be done. Yesterday I went to the comic store for the first time in months and told them to wipe clean my pull list save for Ex Machina, Runaways (which I don’t even read), and The Escapists (ditto). For some reason I forgot to mention Y: The Last Man. They got super mad at me because I guessed they realized I haven’t been buying the comics I’ve had down on my list for like a year and a half. I probably should have just severed all ties, but what if I want to go pick up the new Godland or something? I want that option to remain open.”

“So, wait, you stiffed them with 18 months of unbought comics that you asked them to pull for you? That’s pretty weak.”

“I’d be pissed too! Without knowing how many titles that you had… I’d have told you that I was just gonna close your folder and that you could buy them off the rack. Thing is this. Pull lists serve two purposes. 1) make sure your customers get what they want… but just as important… 2) helps them know how many of every single item in Previews they have to order and helps them judge how many extra they need to order for the ’shelf buyers’. For someone to have a folder is for them to say ‘I want this book when it comes out, please make sure you order me one’… for them to then turn around and put it on the shelf is taking money straight out of their pocket because that book was ordered for you. Say he was putting back 20 titles a month.. those books cost the store probably 30 bucks or so. That’s not much, but it adds up.. that’s taking 30 bucks from an already small profit margin… than just whiping the folder out is telling them that they need to take another 2 months worth of stuff from you on the chin. In the mood im in today, I would have kicked him out. It’s people like that that kill comic shops.”

“Any store that would hold a file for a year and a half deserves what they got, if someone doesn’t come in for 3 months I would can their file. Unless they made arrangments like gone to school.”

“i don’t see where he said he was taking things out of his pull and putting them back on the shelf (like someone alluded to). he just said he wasn’t buying the stuff in his pull for a year and a half. if a store waits 18 months to clear out a guys pull who isn’t buying his stuff, then i fault the store. hell, if someone didn’t come in after 2 months, i’d cancel their pull.”

“Jeepers. I guess I should mention that this is a store that orders a good 50 copies of every book, or at least the ones that I buy. I haven’t been making them commit to dozens of unsellable small press issues, just one more Ultimate Spider-Man to add to the three inch thick stack on the shelf. And I buy whatever I can’t add to an existing pile on a rack.”

“Comics is the only product I know where the customer has to fill out an elaborate order form, months in advance, to be sure he’ll get the item he wants. Because LCS owners are deathly afraid of having an extra issue or two on the stands, they try to keep the orders as close to the bone as possible. It’s such a weird industry, and so much work is required of the consumer.”

“Having a pull list was the worst thing ever. They put in a bunch of shit you don’t ask for and then bitch when you put it back on the shelf. Go Mark, stick it to the man. You owe them nothing, while it may be a dick move on your part, how much money have you given them in the past?”

“Yeah I hate it when comics shops make you sign your life away to be on the pull list. My comic shop doesn’t make you do that, and they will do whatever they can to get in touch with you before they give up and put your books back on the shelves. The main point is that the Reservists (as I like to call them) are the bread and butter of the comic shop.. They are the people the owners can count on to come in. So when Reservists just drop off the face of the Earth with no notice or suddenly drop 20 books after not being in for 2 months, it hurts their business. As if it’s not hard enough staying open when Barnes and Noble sell the same trades?! Bottom line: Respect your comic shop, your time and money are just as important as their time and money.”

And that’s not even getting into the part of the thread where the definition of “year-and-a-half” is discussed.

Okay, so it’s not really anything to do with comics, but I am perversely fascinated by this story:

While the media has occasionally scapegoated adventure gaming  and small time Savonarolas like Jack Chick and “Dr.” Thomas Radecki regularly castigate Dungeons & Dragons as dangerous and satanic, the lawyer for a Detroit man accused of slashing a co-worker to death with a homemade samurai sword may be the first barrister to come up with a “D&D defense,” claiming his client was a psychotic schizophrenic obsessed with D&D.  “He played Dungeons and Dragons and was obsessive with games of fantasy,” the attorney was quoted as saying.  “He became his fantasy.  He was a ninja doing an honorable thing.”

Personally, I think that the Chewbacca defense may be called for here.

You may need to wash your brain out after seeing this. It requires sound.