Marvel is teaming with the United Nations to create a comic book showing the international organization working with superheroes to solve conflicts and rid the world of disease.

The Financial Times reports that the comic, set in a war-torn fictional country — I vote for Latveria or Sierra Gordo! — initially will be distributed free to 1 million schoolchildren in the United States. Afterward, the comic will be translated into other languages and distributed elsewhere.

According to the article, the script should be approved in February. The creators, whose names aren’t revealed, are working for free.

BusinessWeek provides an overview of the flourishing manga market in France and Germany, where sales last year totaled $212.6 million. That makes Europe the largest consumer of manga outside of Japan:

Enthusiasts say manga graphics are more visually striking than traditional comics, and the stories often address issues that teenagers worry about, such as awakening to sexuality and belonging to a group. “I love Asterix—I have all of them at home—but this is a totally different style,” says Jean-Christophe Hamard, 19, browsing manga titles in a Paris bookstore.

In 2005, French illustrator Albert Uderzo penned Asterix and the Falling Sky, in which the diminutive, mustachioed Gaul battles invaders from outer space called Nagma, an anagram of manga. There are now 40 francophone publishers of manga, up one-third in the past year alone, according to the French Association of Comic Critics and Journalists. In 2007, a total of 1,152 mangas from Japan were published in France, 42 more than last year.

Mangamania has hit Britain, too. Tokyopop’s British operation, launched in 2004, has seen sales double over last year, to $8 million. Other British publishers released manga versions of Shakespeare and the Bible this year. Even Monocle, a new business magazine published by journalist and entrepreneur Tyler Brûlé, features manga on the back page of every issue.

Related: Japan to spend $1.3 million spreading anime, manga to Eastern Europe

Although I haven’t seen an official announcement, Crossing Midnight cover artist JH Williams III reveals the Vertigo series is coming to an end.

“Just finished the last 3 covers to Crossing Midnight and my single interior page contribution to issue 16, fully colored by myself as well (click on image below),” he writes on his blog. “It saddens me that this series is ending so soon. I really enjoyed working on it and really tried to give the covers an unusual perspective while still being creatively dynamic.”

Seeing as March’s Issue 17 is the first part of a new storyline, I presume the series will end with Issue 20.

The supernatural-horror series, by writer Mike Carey and artist Jim Fern, launched in November 2006.

In theaters now!

Earlier this month Allan Heinberg attended the Marvel Creative Summit, and Marvel.com has posted a video interview with him over on their site:

Based on the Neil Gaiman book … you can find a high-res version here:

Two Milford, Mass., middle-school students arrested last week for allegedly creating a “Death Note” listing the names of 33 classmates were released Monday without bail to the custody of their parents.

According to the Milford Daily News, the two will return to court on Jan. 22 for a pretrial conference.

The 12-year-old boy is charged with 23 counts of threatening to commit a crime and one count of disrupting a school assembly. The 13-year-old girl is charged with 10 counts of threatening to commit a crime and one count of disrupting a school assembly. Both are being charged as juveniles.

The students apparently were inspired by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s hit manga series, Death Note, which centers around a high school student who sets out to rid the world of evil using a supernatural notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it.

Apparently he goes to war with Wal-Mart:

Andrew Foley and Nick Johnson’s The Holiday Men joins the Chemistry Set in 2008. Complete release after the jump …

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It just doesn’t feel like the holidays until Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer deliver the annual Venture Bros. Christmas song. This year, it’s The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend singing Fairytale of New York.

Previous years have featured the entire cast performing Do They Know It’s Christmas? (Venture Aid 2006), The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend doing their best David Bowie and Bing Crosby with Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth, and The Monarch and Henchmen Nos. 21 and 24 belting out Hard Candy Christmas.

But wait! There’s more! On his blog, Publick shows off some still shots from the upcoming Season 3 (yay!) but reveals that Stephen Colbert won’t be reprising his role as Professor Impossible (boo!).

Q: The blog has really opened doors for you. You’ve developed a real loyal following. I remember Dan Nadel at SPX calling you out, and people like Chris Butcher mention you when asked what their favorite blog is. There are a lot of people in the blogosphere, tastemakers who seem to really appreciate your site a lot. Are you surprised by the success you’ve had with it?

A: I hear sometimes from other sources – I heard this more back when I was starting blogging so maybe it was something of a blogging theme – that it was maybe not so healthy to even assume you have an audience or make any concession to an audience at all or believe the audience is there. You should only write for yourself, period. I guess I never entirely bought into that because even in the very earliest months of my site I’d be writing things with no one having any reason to read them, I’d pretend to have an audience. I’d be writing “And so readers” I didn’t think I had any goddamned readers!

It is a surprise. I think people just got to like what they saw. I think a farily big portion of it was I had a pretty regular output, decent stuff coming out pretty often that people found my site as reliable and kept sticking with it, reading it, wondering what I had to say. I’m really, really thankful that so many people say kind things. It’s really flattering to be honest. I didn’t expect the success I had but I didn’t really know what to expect because I’d never done anything like that. I’m really grateful for all of my readers. (more…)

Police in Milford, Mass., on Thursday arrested two middle-school students accused of creating a “Death Note” containing the names of 33 classmates.

The 13-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy are charged with threatening to commit murder and disrupting school. They will be arraigned today in Milford Juvenile Court.

The note, apparently inspired by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s manga series, was discovered Wednesday by staff at Stacy Middle School after they were told about it by several students.

The hit manga, which inspired an anime series, live-action films, a video game and a light novel, centers around a high school student who sets out to rid the world of evil using a supernatural notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it.

Meanwhile, school officials in Lebanon, Tenn., suspended two students who allegedly created a death notebook with 39 names.

Officials at Walter J. Baird Middle School have assured concerned parents that the notebook isn’t a hit list.

The two students will remain suspended until a Jan. 9 disciplinary hearing.

These are the second and third reported Death Note-inspired incidents in the United States. In November a high school student in Richmond, Va., was suspended for allegedly creating a death notebook.

(Via Gia Manry)

Fora.TV has a video clip up of Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman talking about their graphic novel Shooting War. Go take a look.

Related: Mother Jones reviews the book.

1up.com interviews Ken Levine, creator of the award-winning Xbox 360 game BioShock, who says he’d be into making a game based on Marvel’s Civil War:

1UP: During E3, we caught you walking the streets of Santa Monica reading comic books-so we figure you’re at least something of a fan. If you could turn any comic book into a videogame, which one would it be and how would you do it?

KL: I’d love to make a tactical RPG out of last summer’s Marvel Civil War. I totally fanboi’d out on that one.

“Now YOU get to choose who Clone Thor kills or if Spider-Man unmasks!” What do you think a Civil War video game would look like?

(Thanks, Dan).

Happy holidays, everyone! Enjoy some holiday links:

–Bone celebrates the Winter Solstice.

–Four Color Heroine’s holiday podcast features Blog@’s Lisa Fortuner.

–CBS recommends Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited as a last-second gift idea.

–The Ghosts of Christmas Past graphics game (Via)

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Originally I was going to try to break this interview down into only two posts. Time, family and holiday obligations have prevented me from doing so, unfortunately, so I’m going to have to do this in three parts. Rather than make you all wait another two weeks, however, I’ll simply post part three tomorrow.

Q: You have very broad tastes. Do you feel that gives you a unique perspective? What’s the benefit of having such catholic tastes and is there any drawback?

A: I can think a possible drawback would be you go a little bit toward everything. There’s a risk that you might not know about these things and badly misinterpret things that someone who’s more deeply into these sort of genres or areas of comics would be. You can be very broad and very shallow. That’s very much a risk I think.

The stuff I cover on my site, like I said before, I feel like it’s an expression of my own reading habits. I guess it just developed like that. I just like a lot of different kinds of things, and I think it’s forced me to be very studious. To really look into the histories of these books. It’s a good thing I have the Internet because I can cross-reference a lot of these things besides reading old magazines and flipping through issues of the Comics Journal, which is a valuable pursuit in and of itself. (more…)

The Who Wants to Create a Superheroine contest announcement has been making waves.

TGCVersion2Point0 wonders at his ability to write a female character:

I do have to wonder if I have what it takes to create a female character that’s not a cliche and/or a completely unrealistic male fanboy representation of a woman. I guess I’ll find out. In the past when I write, my female characters tend to have that Farrelly Brothers syndrome, that being that they are a little too perfect and flawless. Either that or they are the most flawed characters in the story. One or the other. I do tend to have an issue with creating a strong but realistic female character. I wonder if that is because I am male and don’t really understand the female pysche or if it’s because I have issues with women.

While our own Lisa Fortuner is cautiously optimistic:

I see two downsides to submitting: 1) They could reject my idea. 2) They could accept my idea and let everyone know how stupid it is.

The upside is that whatever I can come up with will NOT be the dumbest thing on the pile.

(And that if it is, only I and the Shadowline editor will see it.)

Livejournalist heykidzcomix has doubts about the results of the contest:

I wonder how much actual female response they’ll get from it. One suspects not all that much.

So what do you think?

In the interest of peace and giving, I thought I’d just write a simple message wishing the readers of Blog@Newsarama a joyous holiday no matter what religious affiliation they may keep.

Then I started writing and changed my mind.

Instead I wanted to point out that something unusual in mainstream superhero comics. (Or too usual, I’m afraid.) While it’s not compulsory to take time off from the normal storyline in December, it’s not uncommon to see special Christmas issues in that month. Or a extra-long Holiday special spilled with short stories that includes a ten-page Chanukah story or a brief mention of Kwanzaa so the company can say “See, we’re diverse! Really, we are!”
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I don’t read any of the titles discussed, but I enjoyed A. David Lewis’ look at portrayals of mortality in a handful of this week’s DC and Marvel superhero comics:

Refreshingly, Green Lantern #25 had something to say about mortality…kinda. That is, this issue concluded “The Sinestro War” where the Green Lanterns’ Guardians decided that lethal force was now authorized. Ring-bearers on both sides of the conflict fell by the dozens (and I found the device of having each ring whose bearer died announce its search for another to be a genuinely impressive flourish). After all is said and done — “the battle’s lost and won” — Earth’s Lanterns pause to consider the enormity of their new situation.

In all seriousness, this is what I would like to see more of. Beings of incredible power discussing how they can and should best apply those powers — what it means to take a life as well as what it means to have that easy capability. Considering that the villain’s whole plot [SPOILER ALERT] was to drive the Guardians to this new lethal measure, this dialogue is a strong and responsible conclusion to “The Sinestro War.”

Or, at least, it would have been if this hadn’t been splashed across its final page: [see “The Blackest Night” ad.

“Across the Universe, the Dead Will Rise.”

Yup, way to butcher your message, DC. We give real thought to death in wartime — now everybody’s coming back!

Lewis also considers New Avengers #25, What If? Civil War #1, Mighty Avengers #5 and (sort of) Justice League of America #15.

This is the sort of feature I wish I’d thought up. Of course, it would require me to read a bunch of blood-and-capes comics, so … never mind.

Once again a slew of book catalogs has thumped on my desk. As before, I thought it might be fun to rifle through them and pick out any notable graphic novels slated for release next year.

First up is HarperCollins Children’s books, who’ve been dipping several toes in comics waters lately. Their biggest item of note for me is Magic Trixie by Jill Thompson. This seems to be much along the lines of Thompson’s Scary Godmother series, only cuter and even more kid-friendly. It’s aimed at younger readers “who aren’t quite ready for older graphic novels” according to the pr copy. (more…)

The things you find on Flickr these days.