Valerie D’Orazio, and Jim McLaughlin at The Hero Initiative blog file reports from Wednesday’s tribute to Mike Wieringo at Flatiron Joe’s in New York City.

“If there was anybody who could bring together so many comics professionals into one place, it was Mike Wieringo,” D’Orazio writes.

The Hero Initiative blog posts an account from Marvel’s Jim McCann: “Joe Quesada and Todd Dezago gave some opening remarks, and then the artists got to work. The artists sketching included Jae Lee, Tom Raney, Dennis Calero, Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Connor, Arthur Suydam, Paul Renaud, Rodney Ramos, Paolo Rivera, Joe Quesada (and his daughter Carly), and some guy named WALT SIMONSON!!!! MVP of the night had to be Walt, turning in close to 15 sketches for auction. Money raised thru auction, commissions and donations was in excess of $4,000 in just 2 hours!”

The money raised was divided between The Hero Initiative and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Flatiron Joe’s donated the space, and made a monetary contribution.

Related: Wieringo-inspired art by creators such as Tom Beland, Frank Cho, Francis Manapul and Jim Valentino is being auctioned on eBay. Proceeds will benefit The Hero Initiative and the ASPCA.

In response to the recent rant that Comics2Film had regarding OEL (or global manga or whatever you choose to call it) Tintin Pantoja has posted a Global Manga Manifesto:

point five: ‘Global manga’ is an aesthetic movement in and of itself, distinct but not isolated from Japanese manga or other regional styles. It is an internationalized concept, belonging to no single country, language or culture.

(and more, because every manifesto must have a point of contention with which to piss off the so-called ‘old guard’)

point six : ‘Global manga’ is a reaction to pre-existing regional sequential art industries. In many cases, Global manga artists openly acknowledge their divergence from pre-existing sequential art traditions.

It’s a work-in-progress, so feel free to chime in with your thoughts.

Hat tip: Brigid

In between (one hopes) looking for work, Sean Collins has posted his sketchbook from last summer’s MoCCA. The subject? David Bowie.

The comic book art exhibit in Montclair, N.J., at the Montclair Art Museum that Chris Mautner told us about in July is refreshing its exhibit, which has focused on the extensive comics collection of Hollywood producer Michael Uslan as well as a display of work by Joe Kubert and his sons Andy and Adam.

The new additions include mural-sized paintings by comic book artist Greg Hildebrandt and a display of photos by Dulce Pinzon, who photographed immigrant workers dressed in superhero costumes that she made herself, in an exhibit called, “Dulce Pinzon: The Real Story of the Superheroes.”

From NJ.com:

So she shoots Bernabe Mendez hanging out a high-rise window washing the panes, but dressed in a Spiderman outfit. Or Oscar Gonzalez, dressed as the Human Torch, slinging flaming fajitas around the grill on his job as a cook in New York City. Beside each photo Pinzoon lists the Mexican state the worker came from and how much he sends home each week. (The Torch sends back $350 a week, for example, and the more famous Spidey, $500).

More details and images of the exhibit at montclairartmuseum.org.

For my first post on blog@, I wanted to confidently thank J.K. Parkin, who asked me to do this, and kindly ask readers to be patient with the rookie, but then decided I should just fess up to the truth. This is intimidating as hell.

Last night, after waiting until the last minute to figure out how to post on Blog@ as I fill in for the resident geniuses who usually do this unenviable job, I found myself downright nervous. Interviewing clever people is one thing, but attempting to be one myself is a whole different ball o’ wax. The thought crossed my mind that I could back out at the last minute in a desperate attempt to save face.

But then a telephone conversation I had the night before crossed my mind. And at the risk sounding like a braggart, I’ll share that it was Geoff Johns doing the conversing, and the subject was fear, on which Geoff is pretty knowledgeable, seeing as he’s the guy who created a big yellow embodiment of fear and thousands of his fear-wielding minions for DC.

And as we talked about how fear can be disabling and how it acts as a constant barrier to new experiences and opportunities, Geoff pointed out that overcoming fear is necessary if you want to live life to its fullest, comparing this fact of the real world to how the characters he writes have to overcome fear in order to do defeat their enemies and triumph in their roles as Green Lanterns.

So as I stared at my computer screen last night and wondered how the hell I would find a way to do this blog@ gig without making a complete, unmitigated fool of myself, I figured if Green Lanterns can overcome fear as they use their power rings to fight the evil Sinestro Corps, then surely Vaneta Rogers can find enough courage to write something on Blog@. That’s honestly what got me to do this job — inspiration from a bunch of flying space superheroes. And if that doesn’t prove what a geek I am, I suppose nothing will.

BOOM! Studios has a book coming out in November called Salem: Queen of Thorns, which is about witches in colonial America. I’m trying to remember the analogy that Ross Richie used when he talked about the book in San Diego this past summer. Something like, “It’s going to do for witches what” something did for something. Buffy did for vampires? Walking Dead did for zombies? Hell, I can’t remember, and maybe it isn’t important anyway …

Anyway … the book isn’t even out yet, and already they’re getting complaints from witches. In fact, they have a letter up on their website from an angry pagan:

I am an avid comic reader and I am also a pagan. I have been on this path for many years and my family and I have fought off hate, bigotry and verbal abuse due to the large quantity of misinformation about the craft. To think I would be safe from this sort of thing in my own genre of pop culture. I guess I was wrong because apparently you are publishing a comic named Salem Queens of Thorns which demonizes witchs and adds further justification for their torturing and death. Did you know that in the dark ages 9 million people (mostly women and some children) were accused, tortured and killed because of lies and misinformation spread by the church? These women were midwives, healers and herbalogists.

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Warner Bros. has confirmed that George Miller will direct the big-screen adaptation of Justice League of America.

Variety reports the movie is a priority for the studio, which is rushing the project into production before a potential talent strike effectively shuts down Hollywood next summer. To make matters more complicated, Warner Bros. has to juggle its other superhero projects.

According to the trade paper, the next installment of the Superman franchise “has taken a backseat to Justice League in part because Warners is so keen on the Justice League script by Kieran and Michele Mulroney.” That would seem to answer the question that’s been dogging the planned sequel to last year’s Superman Returns.

Despite earlier rumors that Justice League would be made primarily with motion capture, it looks as if it’ll be a special effects-driven live-action film.

In addition to the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel, Variety says Justice League likely will feature at least Aquaman, Wonder Woman and The Flash. It’s being viewed as a launch pad for movies starring the latter two.

Miller, who most recently helmed the hit Happy Feet, also directed the Mad Max franchise.

More here.

Pop culture site ENI talks to Victor Cook about the upcoming Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon … and even though season one hasn’t aired yet, apparently they’ve gotten the green light for more episodes:

ENI: Will we see guest stars from the Marvel Universe, such as the Avengers, Fantastic Four, or the X-Men? Will the Punisher make an appearance?

Victor: Not in episodes 1-13. But we just found out we are doing episodes 14-26. This show could go on for many seasons, so we’ll have to see how things progress.

Related: Artist Sean Galloway shares designs from the show (above) on his blog.

As the year lurches toward its finish, and the days get steadily colder and shorter (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere), here’s a look at how DC plans to keep you comfy….

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Stephen Gerding points to the packing for VO5′s Extreme Style line of hair products, which sports an awfully familiar logo.

Tom Brevoort defends Civil War’s Harvey Award win:

Whether or not CIVIL WAR #1 deserved to win isn’t for me to say. But it was said by the majority of the people who voted on the awards. And if you agree with their judgment in most of the other categories, more or less, then it’s difficult to complain about this one area with any sort of a response other than an emotional one. How dare a commercial, best-selling mainstream comic book win such an award–that kind of thing. But this is the difficulty in any such award process, which amounts in one way or another to a popularity contest–sometimes, things that you don’t like are going to be popular with the consituency that are granting the award.

I know it’s not popular to believe, especially online, but plenty of people really did like CIVIL WAR–both readers and retailers. And while it certainly had no pretentions towards being “art”, it was very much dedicated to being a crackling good super hero story. And people responded to it, in a way they haven’t to anything else the majors have produced in the past few years. That’s the reality–get over it.

Jeez. Now I feel bad for saying that I would kill all the Harvey Award judges for payback for this aesthetic oversight.

Los Angeles City Beat presents its annual comics issue, with a handful of related articles:

• an overview of E.C Segar’s Popeye, in print and on screen

• a profile of writer Brian K. Vaughan

• a profile of cartoonist Tom Neely

• a profile of publisher Top Cow

• a look back at 50 years of Mad magazine

The Bendis Board asks “What’s your (favorite comics) line?”:

“I’ll start. From, I believe, Black Panther #3: ‘I had sold my soul for a pair of pants. I was wearing The Devil’s Pant.’”

“You don’t get it, boy… this isn’t a mudhole… it’s an operating table. (crack!) And I’m the surgeon.”

The winner so far, though:

“*Sigh* If only Dr. Blake/Matt Murdock/Peter Parker/Henry Pym/Reed Richards/Bruce Banner wasn’t so reserved!”

Anyone want to join in?

I find this funny, for some reason: There’s an effort in Long Beach, Calif., to name an alley “Lois Lane,” and it doesn’t appear to be spearheaded by comic-book nerds. Apparently, the currently unnamed alley creates confusion for police and firefighters.

According to the local newspaper, it’s unclear how “Lois Lane” was chosen, but community activist Kate Karp intends to wear a cape to today’s Planning Commission meeting, where the issue will be addressed.

PictureBox publisher Dan Nadel recently escorted Brian Chippendale, PaperRad and other folks he publishes to Athens, Greece, (just in case you thought I was talking about Athens, Georgia) for a collaborative exhibition entitled Macronauts. And now they have photos of the show up on their site.

Its about a month old, but Infoshop News has an interview with Alan Moore up where they discuss such things as anarchistic politics and his take on the V for Vendetta movie:

What had originally been a straightforward battle of ideas between anarchy and fascism had been turned into a kind of ham-fisted parable of 9-11 and the war against terror, in which the words anarchy and fascism appear nowhere. I mean, at the time I was thinking: look, if they wanted to protest about George Bush and the way that American society is going since 9-11—which would completely understandable—then why don’t they do what I did back in the 1980s when I didn’t like the way that England was going under Margaret Thatcher, which is to do a story in my own country, that was clearly about events that were happening right then in my own country, and kind of make it obvious that that’s what you’re talking about. It struck me that for Hollywood to make V for Vendetta, it was a way for thwarted and impotent American liberals to feel that they were making some kind of statement about how pissed off they were with the current situation without really risking anything. It’s all set in England, which I think that probably, in most American eyes, is kind of a fairytale kingdom where we still perhaps still have giants. It doesn’t really exist; it might as well be in the Land of Oz for most Americans. So you can get set your political parable in this fantasy environment called England, and then you can vent your spleen against George Bush and the neo- conservatives. Those were my feelings, and I must admit those are completely based upon not having seen the film even once, but having read a certain amount of the screenplay. That was enough.

Hat tip: Flog!

The Beat noted a story the other day about a Guilford, Conn., teacher accused of giving a 13-year-old girl a “pornographic” comic book. What wasn’t mentioned at all in the story was what the name of said comic book was exactly (though David Welsh later discovered that the teacher had resigned over the incident).

Turns out the comic in question was none other than a copy of … Eightball. That’s right, not Robert Crumb or Horny Biker Sluts, but freakin’ Eightball.

An English teacher at Guilford High School has resigned after assigning a questionable comic book to a 13 year old, and now the child’s parents may press charges.

Parents like Jenny Ginns are outraged that a teacher provided a adult comic book to a freshman student.

“It’s pornographic. I can’t imagine my 13 year old looking at it,” said Jenny.

After looking through the comic magazine ‘Eightball’, Jenny understands why the Nate Fisher resigned from job at the high school and why the parents of the young teen want to press charges.

“You’re trusting that they’re hired by the town, sending your kids to school, assuming they’re going to be safe and cared for all day,” said Jenny.

Now, to be fair, Clowes work is full of content obviously aimed at adults, not teens, and depending upon which issue was loaned, I can completely understand the parental concern. Was it a copy of The Death Ray or Pussey? Ghost World or Like a Velvet Glove? If it was the latter rather than the former that was handed to my 13-year-old by a teacher, then I might be very well contacting the principal as well.

Still, man, Eightball?? Seriously?

Note: My apologies to Heidi for stealing the image, but it was just too perfect.

New York magazine’s Vulture blog has a 12-page excerpt from Gipi’s Notes for a War Story, out this month from First Second books.

After a month-long climb, the first three volumes of Viz Media’s “Naruto Nation” campaign have lost momentum, dropping down USA Today’s Top 150 Books list: Vol. 18 down 13 spots to No. 50, Vol. 17 down seven spots to No. 72, and Vol. 16 down 12 spots to No. 86.

The next three installments of Masashi Kishimoto’s hit manga series should hit bookstores within the next two weeks, which means we could see as many as five or six volumes of Naruto on the book chart at the same time. I said, could.

Viz Media’s “Naruto Nation” campaign continues through the end of the year, with three volumes released each month to catch up with the Japanese series in time for the start of a major new story arc with Vol. 28.

The USA Today list tracks all genres and types of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.