And so it begins. Again.

This morning, the New York Daily News (spoiler warning) kicks off what’s sure to be a week of publicity surrounding the debut of the new Captain America.

You may recall that the Daily News had the “exclusive story” on the death of Captain America last March.

In this article, keyed to Wednesday’s release of Captain America #34, the newspaper talks with Joe Quesada and Ed Brubaker about response to the death of Steve Rogers, and how readers will react to seeing the new Cap throw his shield … then pull a gun.

“It’s a little jarring for some people to see that,” Brubaker says. “[But] people forget that Captain America carried a gun a lot in World War II. Every three covers there was a shot of Captain America with a machine gun or a flamethrower — or an atom bomb.”

As ICv2.com notes, other news outlets should pick up the Daily News article later today or tomorrow. And on Tuesday, Quesada will make another appearance on The Colbert Report to talk about the issue.

This totally makes that insufferable Internet meme worthwhile.

With a name like James Hammond, you might have expected a Human Torch motif, but this paintball player is all about Captain America. He’s made both the classic and disc-shaped shield, and wears a helmet and gear reminiscent of the WW2 Cap from Ultimates. His paintball squad is called, naturally, the Avengers. From his web site:

Luckily, the fellas I play with let me use my shield since I only carry a pistol and I’m a constantly moving target and I wear a Captain America uniform (screw camo!!!) it sort of goes with the motif and all. Hopefully, each year will be like the last, giving at least as good as I got, and usually a a bit more I detest guys who think they’re awesome because they have a gun that can fill the air with paint so they have no need for that little thing called ACCURACY. Not everyone can afford the equivalent of an entire month’s rent (or MORE) on a gun. Skills and heart are infinitely more important than a big wallet.

Via

Most jam comics are dreary, unreadable affairs. Not so with Who Killed Round Robin, a webcomic by seven different British artists where each one tackles three panels before passing it off to the next person. The results so far have been rather entertaining.
Hat tip: Drawn!

The Telegraph posted a profile of Judge Dredd artist Johnny Hicklenton this past weekend. The artist, also known as John Deadstock, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis seven years ago and will be featured in an upcoming documentary:

So he has allowed himself to become the subject of a documentary, Here’s Johnny, which shows his frustrating and sometimes surreal world. Now virtually bed-bound, he cannot move without a wheelchair and is often confined to his west London home, which he shares with Claire, an old friend. He talks candidly about his problems, but also with great humour; at times he has relied utterly on that to see him through some very bleak days.

His smile is open and warm and, with his fashionably close-cropped light brown hair, trendy T-shirt and sunglasses, and easy manner, it is sometimes hard to connect this jovial artist with his alter ego in the documentary, who explains: “Yes, I could walk 500 yards and I could fake a normal walk, but it was just agony. You could never take the tension out of my face.”

View a clip from the documentary at the Animal Monday website.

Again via metabunker, Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian, creators of Monsieur Jean, took the top prize at Angoulême, the 2008 Grand Prix. Matthias Wivel offers commentary:

Hardly surprising, here it is: Pierre Dupuy and Charles Berberian are the winners of the 2008 Grand Prix at Angoulême. An understandable, if somewhat dull choice, Dupuy and Berberian have played central role in the development of the French album-format comic for adults in the 1990s, first and foremost with their Monsieur Jean series (1991-2005), about a thirtysomething, single Parisian’s romantic travails and coming to terms with aging. Notable in their oeuvre is also their autobiographical work, particularly Journal d’un album (1994).

Their artwork is elegant, airy and clear, a combination of the Belgian ligne claire, Parisian school illustration of the 30s in the tradition of Bofa, Laborde and Savignac, as well as New Yorker-style cartooning in the tradition of Addams and Arno. They are consummate storytellers and craftsmen, creating pretty, entertaining comics that do not rock the boat excessively. Good, but somewhat petit.

Related: AFP covers Angoulême

–Secret Headquarters in L.A. is now offering their very cool “God Save Stan Lee” T-shirts online.

–Metro Pulse has a story on the late illustrator, children’s author Jim Flora.

–Steve Ellis walks us through the process of creating High Moon, their webcomic on Zuda.

–Florida Today offers literary alternatives to reruns and reality TV, such as the Heroes graphic novel for fans of Heroes and Fables for fans of Pushing Daisies.

–Eighth grader Morghen Philippi writes about Martin Luther King’s “Justice League.”

(more…)

The preview images of Smallville’s take on Black Canary have been making the rounds and so far, fan reaction has been mixed.

Blog@’s own Ragnell really likes the design:

I really like how her costume came out. Not only does the actress look the part (I always figured on Black Canary as a petite woman with a tough expression), they kept the fishnets and the basic design, so she’s recognizable as the comic book character. They went with short hair rather than a long wig that would get torn off during a fight, or long hair that an enemy could grab at in a street-level fight.

Marc from Climbing Shrimp Productions does not like the design:

Now I think they’ve taken it to the EXTREME of stupidity, above is the accused. Allegedly this is Black Canary. OK I’ll admit lower half yes that’s her, fishnets and boots that’s kinda hard to screw up. But short hair and face paint?! I know in her earlier appearances she is a brunette and becomes a blonde because of Green Arrow. But damn this just looks ridiculous.

R.B. Probst reflects on certain storyline elements:

The article also mentions that in her day job Dinah will be a conservative radio talk show host. Although I realize this is to set up an “opposites attract” relationship with Green Arrow I think it’s also designed so the producers can get their digs in on conservatives. They haven’t exactly been shy about slamming conservatives via Martha and her state senate seat. I can’t wait for this fall to roll around and the DVD set of this season to come out. Between the addition to the cast of both Supergirl and now Black Canary it sounds like this season of Smallville is shaping up to be very interesting and I can’t wait to see it.

So what do you think?

Per the metabunker, Shaun Tan’s graphic novel The Arrival has won book of the year at France’s Angoulême festival. Additional awards given out at the festival can be found at the link.

Related: The Sunday Herald on Angoulême.

Through Jan. 31, you can download the first episodes of Death Note, Bleach and Naruto for free using Amazon Unbox.

Posters in the Talk@ section of Newsarama are having fun with DC’s recent “Domination” and “Oppression” posters. Check’em out.

…Let the Heath Ledger speculator boom begin:

Wizard sell their Heath Ledger Joker-covered magazine for $31 on eBay.

This news makes me extremely happy: Sifting through Amazon.com, Ed Chavez uncovers that Viz Media will release Hiroe Rei’s Black Lagoon beginning sometime this summer. At last!

What’s Black Lagoon, you ask? It’s a violent, action-packed series about a group of mercenaries who smuggle goods aboard the PT boat Black Lagoon. Lots of gunfights, chase scenes, explosions.

The manga has sold more than 3 million copies in Japan, and has been adapted as an anime TV series.

More summer releases from Viz, including Cat Eye Boy and the previously announced Slam Dunk, can be found at the link.

(Via Gia Manry)

Mike Russell recently interviewed Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi, then turned it into a comic strip. Go check it out.

News and reactions to the death of Heath Ledger continue to appear across the internet …

–According to the New York Daily News, Jack Nicholson said he warned Heath Ledger about … well, something:

“Well,” Nicholson told reporters in London early Wednesday, “I warned him.”

Though the remark was ambiguous, there’s no question the role in the movie earmarked as this summer’s blockbuster took a frightening toll.

Ledger recently told reporters he “slept an average of two hours a night” while playing “a psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy …

“I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.”

Cinematical isn’t buying it:

This might just be a ghoulish attempt to capitalize on Ledger’s death by linking him to a celebrated screen and comic book villain, so I thought I’d check Burton on Burton (edited by Mark Salisbury) to see if Tim Burton recalled Nicholson going through similar angst when making the 1989 Batman, giving him grounds for worrying about the stress on another actor playing the role. Not quite. On Nicholson, Burton commented, “He was very cool…he was very calming and helpful and would just say, `Get what you need, get what you want, and just keep going.’”

(more…)

Writers and comics blogger/columnist Matt Maxwell has made available a PDF preview of the first chapter from Strangeways: Murder Moon, his upcoming supernatural-Western graphic novel.

The book, due out in March, is written by Maxwell and drawn by Luis Guaragña, with a cover and chapter illustrations by Steve Lieber and pin-ups by Gabriel Bá, Guy Davis and Fábio Moon.

“What did you expect?” is one of those stock responses I get whenever I post anything more substantial than a picture of Green Lantern. There’s some variation in the wording (“Are you surprised?”, “LOTS of people do this”, “This has been done forever”, “This has been done worse before”), but the tone is pretty standard across the board. The tone is that something that is wrong is okay so long as it is wrong all the time. (more…)

We’ve all heard about the upcoming “Batman R.I.P.” storyline, right? Well, the staid Times of London calls shenanigans on an obvious sales gimmick:

Much as failing magazines always try ‘The Sex Issue’ ploy to pump up failing circulations, so embattled comics publishers are increasingly fond of killing off a major character to grab some attention outside their core readership. Now it looks as if one of the most famous costumed crimefighters of them all is going to meet his end in issue 676 of the long-running comic.

The Times chalks up the event, which begins in April, to DC’s usurped position in the market, noting that the publisher has “opted for a series of cosmological cataclysms that have obliterated and then resurrected entire planets full of characters” in an attempt to compete with Marvel.

Variety reports that David Bowers (Flushed Away) is replacing Colin Brady as director on Astro Boy, the $50 million CG-animated adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s classic manga and anime.

Imagi Studios is producing the movie, which will be released in 2009 by Warner Bros. and the Weinstein Co.

The nomination ballot is available online for the 2008 Harvey Awards, which honor outstanding work in comics.

Anyone involved in a creative capacity in the comics industry — writing, drawing, inking, coloring, lettering, designing, editing — may submit nominations. The deadline is March 21. The Harvey Awards Committee then will select a final ballot to be voted on in April.

According to the press release, about 2,000 creators voted last year.

The Harvey Awards will be presented Sept. 27 during a ceremony at Baltimore Comic-Con. Kyle Baker again will serve as master of ceremonies.

You can read the full press release here.