The sketch comedy group Elephant Larry spent their time at the New York Comic-Con spreading joy via high fives:

Kevin pointed out to me last week that the comic news site Broken Frontier hasn’t been updated since Valentine’s Day. I checked in a few times over the weekend while collecting info and links on the New York Comic-Con, wondering if maybe it would be updated with con news.

The forums seem to be working, although Eric Reynolds with Fantagraphics posted a message about trouble emailing the site:

Been trying to respond to an email that Beth sent me last week but for some reason any emails I try to send to broken frontier bounce back to me.

Can one of you contact me by phone or via a non-broken frontier email address?

Beth Davies-Stofka responded, but didn’t elaborate on any trouble the site might be having. It wasn’t that long ago that the site was acquired by Platinum Studios, with the hope of increased financial backing and expanded coverage of European comics and webcomics.

In light of everyone blaming him for being underwhelmed, Joss Whedon explains exactly what he contributed to the end of Civil War #7:

I walked into the infamous Marvel meeting, where they pitched me civil War. Cool enuf, sez I. Then they pitched the end they were currently going with, wherein the woman whose son is killed breaks up the fight between Cap and Iron Man, much like Joanne Dru in “Red River”. Not cool enuf, sez I. If the whole thing rests on Cap and Tony’s conflict, and they’re gonna fight, I sez sez I, somebody’s gotta win. I just pitched that Cap got past Tony’s armor and started beating the poo out of him — thus becoming exactly what Tony had called them all: a superpowered guy taking it out on a powerless human. Cap realizes this and lay down his arms. (But he wins. Eat that, Stark.) That is literally the tale. I said looking around at the destruction of Manhattan didn’t have much resonance — these guys destroy Manhattan all the time! It was the personal act of putting his fist into the face of his powerless one-time friend that would Make Cap feel like a bully, a monster, a Nazi and kiddies, I didn’t say much else. (Except that a fight between titans broken up by the ‘voice of reason’ before it ends is a lame fight indeed.) I didn’t know Civil War was gonna envelop the whole universe for a year. I didn’t know the entire face of Marvel was changing, and though I heard pitches of what’s to come, I don’t know what stuck. I think I’ve been given too much credit for all this. Which is sweet, but I wanted to save you all endless speculation.

Aaaand… none of that really came over in the final product, did it? I mean, it almost did - there’s the moment of pause where Cap is about to deliver the final blow, but… it’s hardly what is described above. In fact, the final version seemed to include the destruction of Manhattan take… Interesting.

(Via Paul O’Brien.)

Okay, really, someone’s going to have to tell me where this came from - Rob Liefeld does the Bible?!?

This is a re-imagining of the events in the Book of Exodus. Here Egypt is depicted with floating pyramids and flying chariots.

This is either genius or hypergenius.

Proof that Warren Ellis’s soul has not been sold to Marvel Comics:

After one fan pitched the idea of “Nextwave/Gobots,” [Rich] Johnston promptly passed the suggestion via email to “Nextwave” creator Warren Ellis, and delivered Ellis’ two-word electronic response to [Joe] Quesada: “Kill me.”

And they said that NYCC was dull.

I’m going to try to do this while my wife watches the Oscars. Can I say anything worthwhile or insightful while the TV blares in the background? Probably not, but let’s try anyway.

For me, this year’s NYCC was an opportunity to say hi to folks I haven’t seen in awhile, meet some new folks hand out business cards, schmooze and see what various publishers have planned for the rest of the year. I managed to do all that and more, so for me it was a good time, though at times the crowds and overwhemingness of it all wore me down.

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Ghost Rider managed to hold on to the top spot at the box office this weekend … which, ironically, was also Oscar weekend. The movie brought in an estimated $19.7 million, after debuting last week with $44 million over President‘s Day weekend, the biggest opening ever for that holiday. In total, Ghost Rider has banked $78.7 million.

Now seems like a good time to remind everyone that Blog@ Go Team Blaze! Movie Review Contest entries are due today.

Coming in second, third and fourth were three movies that opened this weekend — The Number 23, Bridge to Terabithia and Reno 911!: Miami. Norbit rounded out the top five.

In other movie news, I think I might have taken the office Oscar pool. Out of the 10 categories we had to choose, I think I only missed two … and I’m pretty sure no one else at the office chose Melissa Etheridge and that I’m probably the only person who went with Alan Arkin over Eddie Murphy. I guess I’ll know later today.

The news coming out of the New York Comic Con, naturally, has slowed down as the event closes down and folks start heading home. No doubt we’ll be seeing many post con wrap-ups, attendance reports and worn-out comic pros over the next few days.

Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch blog followed Kevin Smith around the con, noting some of the questions he asked as moderator of the Battlestar Galactica panel:

To Stosky: “I’m going to start by asking the most obvious question, as we’re in a room full of Battlestar Galactica fans. Adam, how do you get into marketing?”

To Callis: “James, this season we saw you get into a three-way with Six and Xena, Warrior Princess. If you were also to nail Gillian Anderson, circa ’99, that would be the trifecta, right?”

To Stosky: “Friday night seems like a great time to air the show. Because the people who watch it don’t get laid anway. Why did it move to Sunday?”

To Callis: “You getting laid off this show, or what?”

More Day 3 coverage:

American Anime Awards results
Sci Fi Channel & Virgin team up
Wildstorm/CMX panel
DC’s Crossing Over panel
Wizard: Brian K. Vaughan spotlight
Wizard: Dave Cockrum remembered
Wizard: Fox Atomic Comics
Wizard: 1960s Marvel Bullpen panel
IGN: Sin City 2 and 3 Update
TV Squad reports on Venture Bros. panel
Pop Candy
New Darkness video game trailer debuts at con
Robert George’s pictures
Goonies action figures

Day 1 summary, Day 2 summary, Chris Mautner’s Day 1 and Day 2 reports

Imagine my surprise about 8 hours after posting this brief about John Ridley, the versatile writer of comics (The American Way) and films (3 Kings) Friday afternoon, I learned Ridley will be a panelist on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher, along with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Sen. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) this Friday March 2 at 11 p.m. (eastern time).

Based on what I’ve seen online, Ridley is one smart, talented and opinionated guy, in a wonderful way. Can’t recall anybody who has written comics on Maher’s show before either… Although my friend John reminds me below The Boondocks‘ Aaron McGruder has been on Maher’s show before.

For those of you who were majorly bummed about Frank Miller skipping this weekend’s NY Comic-Con due to healing up from major surgery — when you’re as old as FM and me, it takes a lot longer to recover — you’ll still be able to whet your fix prior to the March 9 opening of 300, but only if you have cable TV beyond the basic tier, however.

The geek, gaming channel G4 will be spotlighting the work of Miller, along with a plethora of interviews, on its series Icons March 4 at 11 p.m. (eastern time).

Take a sneak peak at next week’s Miller interview here.

Yeah, I’ve still got more pictures to share. No comments about the quality please. I already know I’m hopeless with a camera.

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Following up on a story from yesterday about Top Cow’s digital plans, the mothership spoke with Top Cow President Matt Hawkins about their deal with IGN.com to sell digital comics at, as was originally reported, full price. Hawkins clarifies what the deal actually is:

“Currently, the only thing we’re putting up on IGN are the materials that make up the three compendium books – Witchblade #1-#50, Darkness #1-#50, and Tomb Raider #1-#50; books that have been out for years,” Hawkins told Newsarama. “I don’t think there’s any material in there that’s less that five or six years old. That was something that was part of the deal we made – we didn’t want anything up there that was new. We want it to be in the direct market for comic book retailers to handle for at least a year – so not only do we want this material out in the 32 page format, we also want it out in the trade format before it ever gets to the digital version. We may change our minds on that eventually, and I know Marvel and DC are looking at an approach to it, but right now, we see this as a great place for readers to pick up the more archival material, and it’s not full price.”

The price of a per-issue download, Hawkins said, noting that more details will be forthcoming, is ‘full price’ in Top Cow’s Archival format. “For example, the Compendiums cover 50 issues and have a cover price, as a collection, of about $60, so the single issues will be about a buck a piece,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins went on to apologize to Newsarama readers and retailers, saying that they will not put any comics up that are less than a year old — unless Marvel or DC start doing it first.

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Early theme of this week? Possibly that publishers don’t dig their retailer partners. How else to explain the fact that retailers didn’t get information on DC’s new Countdown series until after the mothership had run them (and a week after they’d received all other solicitation information for that week), or the fact that, again, the Declassified Civil War solicitations (for books shipping as soon as next month) were only released on Tuesday, months after retailers had had to place orders for the books. Luckily, other publishers can tell you all about their 2007 schedules far in advance.

(Of course, once Countdown was officially announced, DC couldn’t shut up about it - Dan Didio and Mike Marts wanted to tell you about it, and at NYCC, we were treated to - admittedly, very cool - buttons and promo images for the series.)

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Well, whatever cold bug claimed me for the past week seemed to vanish just in time for me to get on a train to New York City and check out the Comic Con. Even though I was only there for about a day and a half, I managed to see and do quite a bit, or at least enought thatI feel comfortable throwing out my two cents without seeming like a complete jackass (not that it’s ever stopped me before).

I’ll post my thoughts on the show tomorrow (short version: miles better than last year, but still some growing pains). For now, I thought I’d just post some pictures.
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John Layman has pictures with Stephen Colbert on the floor of the convention. I haven’t seen any Tek Jansen lookalike images yet, but I’m sure they are coming …

At the Vertigo panel yesterday, Brian Wood talked a lot about his upcoming series Northlanders. On his LiveJournal, he talks about partying at the con:

Kicked off the NYCC partay weekend last night. You know its gonna be trouble when by 11pm Jim Lee is already circulating through the crowd with tray after tray of tequila shots. But I was wise and packed it in fairly early, so hauling my carcass out of bed this morning was only moderately painful. Today I’m at home until mid-afternoon, working on a DMZ cover and figuring out what I’m going to say at the Vertigo panel tonight.

Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch reports that Frank Miller, who was supposed to be at the New York Comic-Con today, is recovering from injuries and won’t make it:

Comics demigod Frank Miller (Sin City, 300), currently recouperating from serious hip and leg injuries, won’t appear at Con as scheduled on Saturday to plug his upcoming project, The Spirit, which he’s writing and directing. However, the show will go on without him, and Miller (pictured) gave EW’s Steve Daly a little taste of what to expect. Take it away, Frank:

“I’ve written a first draft of the screenplay. I’m working on the second draft, and it’s shaping up really good. It’s taken a while to get over the initial jitters, but it always does.The main focus I have is to write and direct a Spirit that captures a lot of the flavor of [creator Will] Eisner… but that doesn’t feel like nostalgia at all. Spirit fans often develop a rather cloudy memory of it, and think of it as this happy-go-lucky strip.

“The character has a terrifying side to him. This is a man who’s died and come back to life. So it twists into fantasy. And of course there are tons of women in it. There have to be — it’s The Spirit. They’re all in love with him, and he’s in love with all of them. You might say he’s a bit of a slut.”

Huzzah! As for the character of The Spirit’s sidekick Ebony White — now considered an embarassing stereotype? “Ebony’s gone. Ebony was simply a bad idea. Will Eisner was a genius, but even geniuses have their bad days.”

From the DC Nations Panel yesterday at the New York Comic-Con:

Didio stopped the questions to note that they’ve had a change of heart on something - and turned it over to Wayne, who announced that DC will continue to publish Manhunter.

Deja vu. And good news indeed. I guess Manhunter is becoming DC’s answer to Spider-Girl.

As expected, lots of news is flowing out of the city that never sleeps, so let’s jump into it …

It’s no secret that many of us here at Blog@ are Matt Fraction fans, so the announcement that he’s writing a new Champions series for Marvel is welcome indeed. Of course, these aren’t your daddy’s Champions, i.e. Hercules, Angel and co. Our buddy Chris Arrant over on the mothership got the scoop:

“The Champions are a team like the Yankees are a team– just because you play 3rd base doesn’t mean there aren’t 3 other guys warming up to take over for you when your knee blows out. Team members get hurt, they get mad and quit, or they can be asked to leave, and they’ll be replaced by new characters playing similar positions. There’s a rigid code of conduct and performance everyone’s expected to adhere to, and they’re expected to adhere to it in extreme circumstances and under intense pressures. Failure to do so means Stark is done spending money and time on you. Don’t get too attached to anyone. And, on top of all that, in 12 months, the power-giving process is reversed, the Champions experiment is over, and our cast will be returned to “normal human” status.”

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