Yesterday, I started tracking the appearance of artist Dave Cockrum’s obituary in the mainstream press, so I’ll continue that today as word of his death spreads.

The New York Times leads today’s coverage with an article that includes quotes from Neal Adams and Clifford Meth.

The Associated Press obituary notes that, “In his Superman pajamas and with his Batman blanket, Cockrum died in his favorite chair at his home in Belton, S.C., early Sunday morning.”

And in his syndicated comics column, Andrew Smith pays tribute to Cockrum and Jerry Bails, often called the father of comic book fandom. Bails died last week at age 73.

On his blog, Jeff Smith posts a couple of panels from Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil, along with the original C.C. Beck art that influenced them.

“When it came time to draw the famous statues, there was no question how they should look,” Smith writews. “I liked the strange Tiki god quality of the original Seven Deadly Enemies of Man and I drew them exactly the way artist C.C. Beck did. The only exception was that I added fangs and sharp ears to Hatred so we could differentiate him from Pride.”

Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil #1 goes on sale Feb. 7.

Look, I know tht there are a lot of you really looking forward to Onslaught: Reborn #1 this week, but hold on to your pants. There are actually some good books coming out this week that you may want to know about!

Mike Carey’s Crossing Midnight #1 debuts this week. Loeb and Cooke’s Batman/The Spirit hits shelves this week and I’m rather sure it will be a better read than what Loeb is doing on Onslaught: Reborn #1, so you may want to check it out. Who’s getting Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage #1?

Was I the only one to overlook the new Art of Brian Bolland hardcover from Image this week? Now I’m seriously wishing that I had a second job… Spawn has reached #162 and, truth be told, I’m surprised people still buy that book.

Marvel will be making many fans happy with the release of The Immortal Iron Fist #1 by fan faves Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction. Heck, I might just check it out. But let me tell you what will not be on my pick list this week: ONSLAUGHT: REBORN #1!! Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. is still going strong, but even though it will come back, I’m going to hate to see it go. It just won’t be the same. Sigh.

Gang, tell us what’s on the list!

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DC Comics has released the full 2007 lineup for its new Minx imprint of graphic novels for teen girls.

In addition to the four titles reported yesterday, next year Minx will publish: Confessions of a Blabbermouth, by Mike Carey (Lucifer, My Faith in Frankie), Louise Carey and Aaron Alexovich (Serenity Rose); Water Baby, by Ross Campbell (Spooked, Wet Moon); and Kimmie66, by Aaron Alexovich.

The line is set to launch in May with The P.L.A.I.N. Janes, by Cecil Castellucci (Boy Proof, The Queen of Cool) and Jim Rugg (Street Angel). A new title will follow each month.

While it’s becoming the norm for comics and graphic novels to pop up on year-end “Best of …” lists, seeing them on a list of the best spiritual books of 2006, as compiled by the Detroit Free Press’s David Crumm, seemed kind of odd, yet strangely fitting:

“Sandman: The Absolute I,” by Neil Gaiman (Vertigo; $99). This coffee-table edition pulls together full-color reprints of the first 20 volumes of this landmark comic book. The series began in 1988 with the bizarre, spiky-haired hero whom Gaiman calls the embodiment of human dreams. Alternately terrifying and awe-inspiring, Gaiman’s comics are credited with fueling the growth of graphic novels.

“Pride of Baghdad,” by Brian Vaughan and Niko Henrichon (Vertigo; $19.99). This new graphic novel tells of the 2003 bombing of Iraq through the eyes of animals in the Baghdad Zoo. One of the cosmic questions it raises: Do animals have souls?

The graphic novels weren’t even the oddest entries in the list. “Kafka’s Soup: A Complete History of World Literature in 14 Recipes,” a book of recipes presented in the voices of famous writers, broke new ground for cookbooks on the list.

The TV versions of Bruce Banner and Robin were quotable enough to make TV Land’s list of the greatest TV catch phrases.

Joining quotes that ranged from the classic (“Here’s Johnny!”) to the contemporary (“Tell me what you don’t like about yourself”) to the political (“Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy”) to the forgettable (“Welcome to the O.C., bitch”) were Bill Bixby’s famous “Don’t make me angry …” quote from the 1970’s Incredible Hulk show and Burt Ward’s “Holy (whatever), Batman!” from the 1960s Batman.

Go check out the whole list, which will naturally be celebrated with a five-night countdown series on TV Land that begins Dec. 11.

Sean McKeever, writer of the Spider-Man loves Mary Jane book at Marvel is a man of few words, it seems:

The new MJ artist is …David Hahn.

Expect a proper press release with art later this week, along with an interview with me about it on Comic Book Resources.

The 2007 MoCCA Art Festival is adding space for more exhibitors:

Faced with an unprecedented flood of exhibitor applications for the 160 exhibitor tables filling the three ground floor ballrooms of New York’s historic Puck Building (295 Lafayette Street at Houston), festival organizers have decided to add space upstairs for more exhibitors.
“We’ve never had this many applications this early before. When we started processing exhibitor applications at the beginning of November, it quickly became clear that the number of people who wanted to exhibit was going to greatly exceed our capacity,” says MoCCA President Ken Wong. “Within just a few weeks, we were officially sold out. But the applications are still coming in, so we decided we had to do something to accommodate more people.”

The solution that Art Festival organizers came up with was to convert the Puck Building’s elegant seventh-floor Skylight Ballroom from a lecture hall into exhibitor space. By shifting panel sessions to the museum itself (located just two short blocks west), festival organizers were able to instantly add another 60+ tables.

“There are so many talented and enthusiastic creators out there who deserve a place to showcase their work,” says Wong. “Knowing how many creators wanted to get in, we were thrilled to find a way to increase our capacity.”

The 2007 MoCCA Art Festival will take place the weekend of June 23-24 in New York City.

No, really. From her CBR forum:

I’ve taken the liberty of asking the Mad Hatter to solve all your life’s problems, and he’s kindly agreed, even with a painful knife wound in his back.

State your problem, and the Hatter shall help.

Gail

And what kind of advice has the Hatter given so far? Here’s an example:

“I wanted mints from the vending machine. I misread and got a sidekick candy bar instead.”

“Hmm. Only one thing for it, research the company that makes the vending machine, learn the home address of its president, and kill him in an astounding hat crime. That’s what I’d do.”

The insanity may be spreading, as well, as elsewhere on the forum, Gail and Kurt Busiek reminisce on Kurt’s life of crime:

“I’m tired of Kurt Busiek being thrown in jail all the time, just to escape a few issues later. It’s unrealistic.”

“Rubbish. It’s absolutely true-to-life. Remember after we busted up that Chinese restaurant, and they threw us all in jail, I got us out and fixed the parking tickets? And the arson charge at Kesel’s place — got everyone out then, too. Trust me, this stuff happens all the time.”

So, as Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain… um… fails to set the box office alight, shall we say, retailer site ICv2 looks at the potential upsides for retailers:

Critical reviews of the film have been split with 52% of the reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes Website negative. Critics who disliked the film tended to really hate it and described it with adjectives such as “artsy-fartsy,” “pretentious,” “incoherent,” and “turgid,” while those who admired the film found it “hugely ambitious,” “visually commanding,” “gripping,” and “utterly transcendent.”

As it turned out the mass audience rendered a negative verdict as The Fountain averaged a mere $2,530 per location over the weekend. But it has already earned nearly as much money in its first five days as Ghost World, which sold a ton of graphic novels, took in over its entire run; and The Fountain could be the kind of metaphysical science fiction that will inspire its partisans to purchase the graphic novel as well as a hardcover illustrated screenplay (Universe Books $30).

Something that’s been interesting about the press that I’ve read about the movie is that almost everything I’ve read contains something to the effect of “Of course, this movie is the cheap version of what the director really wanted to make. If you want to see the full version, there’s a graphic novel that came out a couple of years ago.” It’s been unusual for comic tie-ins to be mentioned so matter-of-factly; perhaps there really is something to this whole “comic culture becomes mainstream culture” meme.

The Nightly News creator Jonathan Hickman talks about the creation of his visually stunning book:

I’ve quickly found out in comics, even though this is my first one, that it’s all problem solving. It’s all trying to figure out how to tell the story. Like I kind of touched on in the last question, most people think that’s by panel-to-panel storytelling, traditional comic storytelling, but I’m trying to solve it in a different manner. I think it was, in the end, a different solution to the same problems every comic creator faces… The process that I go through is that I work on each individual piece of art independently on an 11-inch-by-17-inch piece of paper. I then take these different elements and I scan them in.

The way that I’m able to pull off doing it this way is because I make them all vector data. So, it’s completely scalable and I don’t have to worry about whether or not it was the right size or how the page goes together. I just move it around until I feel like I’ve successfully pulled it off. As far as story flow is concerned, that’s a layout, color, word balloon thing… Saying all that, I’m not anywhere remotely close to where I want to be on the design side of marrying comics and graphic design. I’m mostly using things that were cutting edge 4-5 years ago that have seeped into, and become easily recognizable as ‘designy,’ in popular culture. My hope is that as I gain credibility, and hopefully a following, I can really start to push it as far as I can.

AiT/PlanetLar’s Nobody becomes a somebody:

Dawn Stern has landed the lead role in the ABC Family drama pilot “Nobody,” from “Desperate Housewives” writer Kevin Murphy.

“Nobody” centers on Jessica Drake (Stern), a mother who gives up her own identity to save the life of her daughter. In doing so, however, she finds that she must pay the price of being erased from the memories of her family and the rest of the world.

Jessica ends up working for a covert ops branch of heaven dedicated to fighting the forces of darkness on Earth — while continuing to make sure her family is safe.

The pilot starts shooting this month in Vancouver.

Murphy is executive producing “Nobody,” based on the comic book created by Alex Amado, Sharon Cho and Charlie Adlard. He also is writing the pilot.

In addition to having four variant covers and a comic strip by Chris Ware, the most recent issue of The New Yorker contains a two-page cartoon by Roz Chast about her first encounter with manga. John Jakala has scans of the cartoon, which he describes as “borderline xenophobic.”

The New York Post talks with comic artist Tim Sale about his work on NBC’s surprise hit, Heroes, for which he creates the enormous paintings and the 9th Wonders! comic done by the character Isaac Mendez:

While illustrating the panels for the 9th Wonders! comic book are a snap for Sale — they’re executed in the traditional style, with pen and ink, then colored in later — the paintings proved to be trickier.

Because he’s colorblind, Sale draws in black ink and dilutes his work for gray tones. To make his drawings look as if they were done with a paintbrush, the image is scanned into a computer. A colorist adds color, variations in tone and texture, and then the finished product is blown up and printed on canvas. (In a notable exception, the technicolor mushroom cloud on the floor of Isaac Mendez’s studio was printed on moveable rubber mats.)

Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that the dramatic figures in the paintings sometimes don’t look quite like the actors in the cast. Sale explains: “I’m not very good at likenesses, so if they really want it to look like someone’s face, they have to get me a picture.”

Related: 9th Wonders, “The Official/Unofficial Fansite for Heroes“

The Los Angeles Times pens an obituary for artist Dave Cockrum, describing him as, “the illustrator for the landmark 1970s overhauling of the X-Men that turned a relatively obscure Marvel Comics title into a 1980s publishing sensation and eventually a major film franchise.”

Cockrum died Sunday at age 63.

According to the obituary, at Cockrum’s request there will be no services, and his body will be cremated. His family has asked that, instead of flowers, donations be made to the Hero Initiative, an organization that helps creators in need.

Elsewhere: The Chicago Tribune carries the LA Times obituary

The Canton, Ohio, Repository carries the LA Times obituary

Related: Wizard compiles creator remembrances

The New York Times spotlights the wildly popular CLAMP collective — Satsuki Igarashi, Apapa Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Ageha Ohkawa — the group of manga creators responsible for such works as Chobits, xxxHOLiC, Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa. Many of their series have been adapted as anime.

Many of the most popular manga on both sides of the Pacific are written and drawn by women, including Rumiko Takahashi (Ranma 1/2, InuYasha); Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist); and Clamp. Their many hits have given the Clamp artists the power to create pretty much whatever they choose.

“While it’s true that the number of female directors in the animation industry has increased over the years, it’s more common for women artists to present their work in manga,” Ms. Ohkawa said. “It’s a way for them to express themselves freely. Strong female characters have become very common in manga — Sailor Moon is probably the most famous example — but I don’t know that women in Japan have become stronger. We’re in a unique position: Clamp makes a presentation to the publishers about what we want to do, receive an approval and go to work.”

The article notes that more than 1 million copies of Tsubasa have been sold in the United States. American publisher Del Rey will release a character guide for the series next month.

On his blog, Dan Hipp (Amazing Joy Buzzards) posts a 15-page preview of Gyakushu!, his new book from Tokyopop. The first volume is set for release in February.

(Via Warren Ellis)

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

Today’s topic is the long-awaited third issue of the new Wonder Woman series. The question now is, after months and months of waiting, is it good?

(Warning, the excerpts and linked blogs contain spoilers for Wonder Woman #3)

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All Headline News has a fun story about Prince Harry of Wales’ choice in bedsheets:

The 22-year-old prince - an officer in the Household Calvary’s Blue and Royals regiment - purchased the children’s comic-book sheet and pillowcase set as part of an ongoing joke with his fellow soldiers.

A source told Britain’s The Sun newspaper, “Harry is very proud of his Spiderman duvet and pillow. He bought the set to join in with the other lads who all have comedy duvets. There is everything from My Little Pony and Bob The Builder to Barbie.”

The source added, “It is funny to think some of the most highly-trained soldiers in the British Army snuggle up under duvets with their cartoon favorites on. Harry’s room looks like an eight-year-old’s. But it has almost become a tradition that everyone has a comedy duvet.

I think my mom still has my Star Wars and Charlie Brown sheets somewhere in a closet back in Texas.

Following on from Kevin’s earlier post, creators at the Engine discuss the new Minx line from DC, including Andi Watson, who’s writing one of the books in the launch period:

“Shelly Bond is editing. They’re pretty serious about breaking into this market, they have a marketing budget and have done market research and consulted the target audience with a long lead time to launch, so…we shall see. I’m confident of one of my books actually making it onto the bookstore shelves for once and reaching the right audience.”

Shannon Garrity: “I’m seriously torn between excitement over the high level of talent involved (in particular, it’ll be great to see new work from the long-dormant Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm) and frustration that DC/Vertigo couldn’t find more female creators for a line that’s supposed to compete with shojo manga. The NYT article’s attempt to spin this as ‘women doing comics for girls’ by carefully avoiding mention of any creators other than the P.L.A.I.N. Janes team doesn’t cheer me up none… I know that Shelly Bond went out of her way to try to recruit more female creators, because I was one of them (my pitch sucked, sadly; I’m not very good at writing for teens). I guess I’m mostly annoyed by the way the NYT article uses the Joanna Carlson quote to imply that the Minx line is all about work by women when it isn’t.”

Warren Ellis: “I see another SEXY CHIX-style conflag in the offing. Because, yes, sure, there could and should have been any number of women involved. But, on the other hand, as a business proposition, it’s hard to argue against any company employing Derek Kirk Kim and Marc Hempel. They’re raising a publishing concern designed to liberate money from the pockets of young women in bookstores, not raise an ideological tent. And if the entire creative stable had all been women? It’d be, ‘Oh, we’re all MINXES now, are we?’”

CB Cebulski, meanwhile, adds some interesting information about Mike Carey’s book: “If I’m remembering correctly, I believe [ReGifters] was conceived and co-written by Mike Carey’s teenage daughter.”