On his blog, Dan Taylor gives an update on the return of Hero Happy Hour:

Hero Happy Hour is gearing up for its triumphant return. The latest update from the printer indicates that the Hero Happy Hour: Omnibus 01 is currently on the presses. This means that the Hero Happy Hour Super Special Flashback can’t be that far behind. I’m hoping to have both books in my hands by early next week and with any luck they’ll both be available for ordering very soon. Once they’re available you can be assured that I’ll be announcing on how and where to order copies, and information on both titles will be available at the newly redesigned GeekPunk.com (which should be complete and nifty around the same time).

Hero Happy Hour’s a fun indie series about heroes and villains hanging out in bar, swapping stories and building their bar tabs. He made that post on Oct. 17, which means he should have them in his hands by now. Keep watching GeekPunk.com to find out when they’re available.

Via

Drawn points out that today is Ralph Bakshi’s birthday, and shares this video from The Mighty Heroes cartoon:

Bakshi’s other work includes the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon, Fritz the Cat, Fire & Ice, Wizards, the animated Lord of the Rings, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures and Cool World, among others.

I always loved the Mighty Heroes as a kid … thanks and happy birthday, Ralph!

Variety reports that Devil’s Due has set up shop in Hollywood, hiring former Marvel Entertainment employee Stephen Christy as manager of intellectual property development. He’ll oversee adaptations of Devil’s Due properties as films, TV shows and videogames:

Devil’s Due is upping its presence in town just as other indie comicbook publishers, such as Dark Horse, IDW, Top Cow, Image and Tokyopop, are emerging from the shadows of Marvel and DC and setting up deals for their books.

In addition to “Drafted,” publisher has film versions of more horror-themed actioners “Lost Squad” and “Hack/Slash” set up at Rogue Pictures, with Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter producing.

Devil’s Due also recently announced a deal with Uclick to make several of its titles, including “Xombie,” “Breakdown,” “Mercy Sparx” and “Misplaced,” available for AT&T, Verizon and Sprint mobile phone customers this fall through the GoComics Mobile Comic Book Reader.

“For a while we’ve been looking to open a satellite office in Los Angeles in order to fully be able to exploit these opportunities, and Steve is the perfect person to spearhead this expansion,” Blaylock said. “It’s a huge benefit for us to have someone with one leg in the comicbook industry and one leg in the film and TV industry helping to bring our comics from page to screen.”

Variety reports that Greg Berlanti will direct the big-screen adaptation of Green Lantern, and will also write the script with Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green. Per Variety:

Berlanti hopes to make the jump to big-budget fantasy fare after serving as writer and exec producer on character-driven TV series “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Brothers & Sisters,” “Everwood,” “Jack & Bobby” and “Dawson’s Creek.” He previously directed 2000 feature “The Broken Hearts Club.”

Warner Bros. and DC Comics assigned the project to De Line, who is currently in Morocco shooting “Body of Lies,” the Ridley Scott-directed WB drama that stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.

Guggenheim, who works with Berlanti as a writer-producer on “Brothers & Sisters,” wrote the Marvel comic books “Amazing Spider-Man,” “Wolverine” and “Blade.” Green, the “Heroes” co-exec producer who worked with Berlanti on “Everwood” and “Jack & Bobby,” wrote the Marvel Comics title “Superman/Batman” and was a writer-producer on “Smallville.”

The Hollywood Reporter has more:

“To me, this was on the last great comic book movie that hasn’t been made,” said Berlanti, who grew up reading comics in the 1980s. “It was a comic book with a real mythology that you would see in a lot of the space operas and the sci-fi books. The best part about it, anybody can be become one of the Green Lanterns because anyone can end up with that ring.”

Well, not quite anyone … per the Reporter, Hal Jordan will be the focus of the film. They also say that Berlanti pitched Warner Brothers on a series of Green Lantern movies, with the first being the origin of how Jordan becomes a member of the intergalactic police force.

On Sunday we found out that another JLA member, the Flash, also has a director in place for his solo film, which will be a spin-off of the Justice League movie.

Television Without Pity talked to DC editor Scott Nybakken (late of Fantagraphics and The Comics Journal) about today’s funnybooks, apparently looking for insight into superhero-comics-influenced shows like “Heroes” and “Lost.” 

Nybakken: My perspective is that people in the [comics] industry regard it ["Heroes"] as an outgrowth of the increasing presence of comics in the entertainment industry as a whole, over the past 15 years, the number of comics-based material that has been turned into television shows and movies has been growing and growing and growing, and this is, like, the latest manifestation of it. And I think they regard it very highly because it actually is getting closer and closer to some of the better material that’s been done in comics in recent history.

Bunting: So this is viewed as a positive.

Nybakken: Oh, yeah, very much so.

Ironically, he doesn’t watch “Heroes”: 

[t]he one episode I watched, every single line a character uttered was, to me, a cliché because I’d heard it a hundred times in different comics, and it just wasn’t interesting to me. But I think my reaction was probably more extreme; a lot of the people in the comics industry I’m sure recognize that these are clichés as well, but they enjoy them, so they don’t mind as much.

It’s a good read, consisting mostly of the participants’ thoughts on adapting superheroes to movies and TV (and vice versa, as with the Whedonverse).  It also offers some insight into Nybakken’s job in DC’s collected-editions department.  Oh, and he gets in a good Ken Burns joke on page 9. 

Why exactly TWoP talked to him in particular is never really explained, and there are a couple of intriguing “[redacted]” notations (one about Watchmen memorabilia) but it sounds like a good time was had by all.

Like the title says, here’s a loose affiliation of stuff that’s been rumbling around in my noggin over the last few days:

You never call, you never write.
Well, Obscure Comics Month was a complete failure. I’m not terribly surprised to be honest, nor am I all that upset. I couldn’t even manage to write my own contribution (and I had a great one too, all about the genius that is R.O. Blechman), so I can imagine how difficult it must have been for those of you who were interested in the proposal as well. Getting kick-started is always tough. (more…)

MTV’s Movies Blog reports that Wedding Crashers and Fred Claus director David Dobkin will helm Warner Bros.’ production of The Flash, taking over for Shawn Levy, who left for undisclosed reasons.

The Flash director’s chair has turned into a Siege Perilous, of sorts. In February, David S. Goyer announced that “my version of The Flash is dead at WB,” saying that he and the studio “simply couldn’t agree on what would make for a cool Flash film.” That was followed three days later by news Levy (Night at the Museum) would take over.

Now, almost nine months later, the seat has passed to Dobkin, who directed the action-comedy Shanghai Knights.

Are you getting the feeling The Flash might be a lighthearted movie? Not so fast: Dobkin reveals that The Flash will be a spin-off of the upcoming Justice League of America and, therefore, exist in the same continuity.

But which Flash will be see in Dobkin’s film? Wally West, the director says — leaving the Movies Blog to wonder whether the rumored funeral in JLA is Barry Allen’s.

It’s been a weird week for comics. You’ve got Mark Millar’s fantasies being reported as possibilities, and when reality intrudes, fans start complaining that DC - who weren’t even involved - are creating injustices across Hollywood (Personally, if Mark’s got enough spare time to write a movie, maybe he can pick up a pencil and help One More Day reach some kind of conclusion before the end of this year. Remember when this was announced as a weekly series? Those were the days of optimism and happy readers…), and DC announcing the first 10 contestants for a year-long Zudacomics.com contract while also announcing one of the original Batman writers, Jerry Robinson, as their latest creative consultant. Are they looking to the future or the past…?

(more…)

Okay, one of the big topics this week seems to be “the Death of the New Gods”. Naturally, almost everyone seems to have something to say about it.

The Occasional Superheroine asserts that it’s hard to dislike the series:

Why? Because it’s Jim Starlin. DC really dodged the bullet on this whole miniseries by getting Starlin to write and draw it. Because it’s like if you put Marv Wolfman & George Perez on Countdown — yeah, it’s another editorially-mandated clusterf**k but how can you dislike it when you’ve got such legendary creators on it? It would be like hating Stan Lee. Which is like hating Comics. There’s some math in there.

If you’re familiar with Starlin’s work with characters like Captain Marvel or Warlock at all, you understand that this guy’s a master of the Cosmic Story — probably right behind Kirby in that regard. So if you get bogged down or confused by metaphysical/galactic sentences like:

“They’d actually taken the Source’s cryptic meanderings and sculpted them into the foundation of a ridiculous little religious fantasy,”

rest assured that it all has some higher spiritual purpose and that God will probably make an appearance in the third act, even if He is in the form of a section of drywall or a Nerf ball with Kirby crackle emanating from it.

Paul S., or Goggle_Kid, is annoyed by the execution:

That said I am supremely displeased with the death of Big Barda. I’m not against the concept of killing off Big Barda in a book titled “The Death of the New Gods,” but good lord could the execution have been any worse? This is quite possibly the least fitting most crap-tastic superhero death scene since poor Steph Brown’ General-hospital esc deathbed scene in Batman: War Games. I mean for god’s sake… she was shot in the chest while putting away groceries. That kind of death scene might have been fitting for a character like Linda Park West or Lana Lang, but Barda sure as hell deserved better than such a stereotypical Superhero wife/girlfriend death.

For starters killing off Barda this early in the game is a patently stupid move as well, Barda is the Jack Kirby Fourth World character for people who don’t care about Jack Kirby’s Fourth World. She is arguably the most popular forth world character, and the most recognizable to younger readers due to her appearances in Birds of Prey and Grant Morrison’s JLA run. People who don’t care the slightest about more obscure Fourth World characters like Mark Moonrider or Metron probably picked this up because they were expecting to see Barda go out in some big cosmic battle scene, not in something that plays like a deleted subplot from Identity Crisis.

Sleestak explains why he’s not upset:

Would I like Barda and pals to remain static and never change? Sure I would. I love them as they are. But even in the current creative climate of fast and loose continuity all characters must evolve or at least have the illusion of growth. There are some amazingly bad and goofy concepts in there and many characters, like Desaad, are criminally misused and weakly portrayed at best. A re-imagining is probably the best way to go about making the Fourth World characters a bit more interesting and contemporary.

So I figure that what is being torn out of the New Gods isn’t so much as their hearts, but the “God Essence” that makes them what they are. The body is merely a shell that is unimportant and can be left behind. Of course, knowing Starlin, the divine spark that is being forcibly recalled from the gods is probably being used as fuel for some ultimate weapon of destruction by a villain or anti-hero. In the end I suspect that all the captured souls will be reformed into an all new pantheon of Gods for DC to play with.

While our own Lisa Fortuner explains why probable impermanence isn’t a comfort:

Maybe its because I’ve seen enough cool female characters killed off then not resurrected as planned (Arisia) or resurrected only to have the death remain in continuity while the resurrection is forgotten (Katma Tui) already that this bugs me. That its a first-issue death that might be undone soon doesn’t really soften this blow.

So what do you think?

A collection of interesting quotes from last week:

“This is for killing my boy in the first place.”

–A super-powered Pa Kent, as he punches Doomsday in Action Comics #857

“Sure, that’s right– there’s a conspiracy of artless crassness afoot. Everyone’s in on it; didn’t you hear? 100% of comic creators are white, male pigs, who don’t know a damn thing about art, or people, and frankly couldn’t care less.

“Why is it like this? Why, when there are plenty of examples of praiseworthy comics, is so much of the ‘commentary’ consist of unsupportable generalizations? It’s up the hill backwards, it is.”

–Artist Stuart Immonen, commenting on two recent blog posts

“I’ve come to realize that I still need my New Comic Day. But where I used to think I needed it to keep my favorite stories from getting spoiled or being more “in the know” than the rest of the comic book community, I now need New Comic Day for my mental and physical health. I need the day as an anchor with which I can tether my sad little rowboat of sanity for an hour or so, not having to battle the increasingly turbulent societal waves crashing down on a daily basis.”

–Sean Kleefeld

(more…)

USA Today has a “first look” at images from the upcoming Aliens vs. Predator sequel, including the above Alien/Predator hybrid. The new creature is “an alien that bursts from a predator’s body, or a ‘predalien,’” and “leads the war as the creatures descend on a small Colorado town.”

Is this the first mention of who’s going to be writing the relaunched X-Force title?

How about Chris Yost and Craig Kyle over on X-Force? Are you talking to them at all for any reason?

It’s from a Wizard interview with new Cable writer, Duane Swierczynski.

In a post entitled “Countdown, Week 1” on his blog, Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley starts the countdown to a truly anticipated comic event:

Not sure how many weeks I’m counting down, so I guess I’m counting up.

Anyway: the book [Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together] will most likely be out on November 7th… In honour of that, there’s a silly new wallpaper for your computer desktop on scottpilgrim.com!

Ever the pessimist, he’s already thinking about contingency plans:

If the book doesn’t ship on November 7th, I’ll come up with something super-special for the semi-anticipated Third Week of the Countdown!

See, DC? I’m excited already, and no New Gods were killed to make that happen.

Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, uncovers his original 2001 proposal for a somewhat different manga reference book:

What was this book going to be like? A biographical / art-history / pop-culture book on manga artists and their works, basically. Each artist would be given an amount of space commensurate with their popularity and importance to the medium. Since so little manga had been translated into English at the time, my original proposal was to also include important artists whose works had not been translated. Thus the original proposal suggested divvying the artists up as follows: 65% artists of translated manga, 10% artists of manga whose anime adaptations had been translated (i.e. U-Jin), 20% artists who had been mentioned in U.S. publications and anime magazines, and 5% historically important artists who had never been translated… including artists who have since been translated, such as Kazuo Umezu, and those who remain in relative obscurity, such as Mitsuteru Yokoyama and Tetsuya Chiba. Obviously the choice of “who is the more important artist” is highly arguable, and would have led to lots of argument and debate if the book had been done in this format.

Thompson includes scans of the actual proposal, and some design mockups.

As the Japanese bookstore chain Kinokuniya opens a new, larger location in Manhattan, The New York Times looks at its efforts to broaden its customer base:

“At the old store the main purpose was to sell to the Japanese community,” said Shigeharu Ono, director of Kinokuniya in New York, while giving a tour of the new store this week. “We want to expand our audience.” He said Japanese-language titles represented about 70 percent of the stock at Rockefeller Center, but he expected English-language titles ultimately would be in the majority at the new location. (Books are also sold online at www.kinokuniya.com.)

With just over 61,000 Japanese natives in the New York metropolitan area, according to the Consulate General of Japan, the niche focus of the old store, which is to close at the end of this year, limited its customer base. Given high rents at Rockefeller Center, said Mr. Ono, “it was always a very tough business.”

The old store, at Rockefeller Center, is scheduled to close at the end of the year.

Next month, the store, located at 1073 Sixth Ave., will unveil a mural by famed manga artist Takehiko Inoue, creator of Slam Dunk, Vagabond and Real.

The Associated Press pays homage to Terry and the Pirates creator Milton Caniff:

Caniff, born a century ago and dubbed the “Rembrandt of the comic strip,” is being recognized this week in a series of exhibits in the city where he attended Ohio State University and took his first full-time drawing job. The shows are timed to the Festival of Cartoon Art, sponsored every three years by Ohio State’s Cartoon Research Library. The library, which houses the works of many well-known cartoonists, got its start with Caniff’s 1977 bequest of his papers.

The theme of this year’s festival is the art of graphic storytelling, a technique that Caniff pioneered.

“He was a master storyteller and he engaged his audience in a way that no other cartoonist had,” said Chery Straker, history curator at the Ohio Historical Society and the developer of a biographical exhibit about Caniff. “People looked forward to reading his comics each day to find out what was going to happen next. People cared about the characters as if they were real people.”

Oddly enough, the story doesn’t mention at all the recent IDW collection of R.C. Harvey’s biography.

Alex Zalben with The Comic Book Club dropped us a note saying they’ll be hosting some of the creators behind Fox Atomic’s Nightmare Factory next Tuesday:

COMIC BOOK CLUB
***NIGHTMARE FACTORY SPECIAL***

Hosted by Justin Tyler, Pete LePage, and Alex Zalben

Tuesday, October 30 @ 9:30 PM

Featuring:
Stuart Moore (The Escapist)
Joe Harris (Darkness Falls)
Michael Gaydos (Alias)
& Colleen Doran (Sandman)

Tickets: $10 tickets in advance / $15 tickets day of show
***$5 off with the promo code CBCCMX***

Online: http://www.comixny.com/event.aspx?eid=302&sid=908
Phone: 212-524-2500

COMIX NY
353 West 14th St.
Just East of 9th Ave.

The OC Register joins the wealth of stories/reviews about David Michaelis’ new biography of Charles Schulz. What’s noteworthy about this story is the reporter managed to get a couple of quotes from Schulz’s widow, Jeannie:

Jeannie, who married Sparky in 1973, talked about the book Friday in the Warm Puppy snack bar at the ice skating rink Schulz built. It’s where she first met Schulz.

“The man I knew loved to laugh and exercised his creativity in all sort of ways,” she said. “He had a great curiosity and interest in things.”

That man, she said, isn’t in the book “and that was part of the magic of his genius.”

Elsewhere, Ben Schwartz notices how the release of the biography signals an increase in respectability for the cartooning game:

Michaelis’ book is part of a wave of cartoon history reclamation — a public recognition, much as when cinematic talents like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray were reclaimed by filmmakers and critics in the 1960s and ’70s. The same questions surrounding their films are now asked of cartoons: What is their worth? Can pop fun double as deeper art? And as Peter Bogdanovich once put it, who the devil made them?

At the risk of tooting my own horn, I should probably note that, yes, I covered the book as well, and talked to Michaelis. What can I say? I was swept along by the tide.

UPDATE: The Cartoon Brew entry now has comments from Amy Schulz Johnson and Lee Mendelson worth reading. Meanwhile, at ComicMix, Andrew Wheeler reviews the book and comments on the controversy.