Larry Marder has been teasing it on his blog for months, and at the Stumptown show in Portland, Ore. this weekend, Marder announced that Mr. Spook, Gran’Ma’Pa and the rest of the Tales from the Beanworld crew have found a new home at Dark Horse Comics. Dark Horse will collect the first 21 issues of Tales of the Beanworld, first published by Eclipse, then deliver new adventures in early 2009.

Steve Duin with the Oregonian reports:

They also, however, need a publisher. And Sunday at the Stumptown Comics Fest, Marder announced that he’s found another one: Dark Horse Comics will provide the breath of life when Marder resurrects Tales of the Beanworld sometime early next year.

Marder — who turns 57 in May — was in high spirits and fine form Sunday as he described the forces and personalities that are reviving that “most peculiar comic book experience,” which has been in hibernation since 1993.

Marder talks a bit about it on his blog:

Today I gave the first solo Beanworld panel presentation in over 15 years. It covered a lot of ground, and I’m almost certainly going to be giving it again at SD08. Also revealed was the name of the up-coming NEW graphic novel: “Remember HERE when you are THERE.”

Artist Gabriel Ba has uploaded this stunning Casanova “movie poster” to his and brother Fabio Moon’s Flickr account. Sure, there’s no Casanova movie (yet!) but, in Ba’s words, “Wouldn’t it be cool?”

I just hope Image, or somebody, makes the poster available for sale.

(Via Bad Librarianship)

Neil Gaiman updates MTV.com on his various projects, including the upcoming Graveyard Book and a movie adaptation of Anansi Boys:

MTV: So by the end of this year, you’ll have “The Graveyard Book”; your new movie, “Coraline”; and then there’s the 20th anniversary of “Sandman.”

Gaiman: That’s always been the way of my life — things I’ve done years and years apart always seem to come out more or less at the same time. Last year, I was at the “Stardust” premiere in the U.K., and then two weeks later, I was at the “Beowulf” premiere, two things that were done years apart. I would never have expected “Beowulf” to be made. It was a script I wrote in 1987 that I thought was dead in 1988. But it clawed its way out of the grave, pulled itself up and coughed, and then you’re watching Angelina Jolie in it. That’s what happens. Right now, I’m writing an “Anansi Boys” movie.

MTV: That’s actually happening? What else is happening?

Gaiman That’s actually happening. It suddenly came to life when a film producer was stuck at an airport with a star on a tour, and they picked up the book, just as something to read on the plane. Halfway through, they were reading it to each other. When they landed, I got a call saying, “Can we make this into a movie?” And the lovely thing about “Anansi Boys” is that it’s more or less movie-shaped — it just needs a little trimming so it won’t be a five-hour movie. So I have to write that. And “Neverwhere,” which I walked off of in 1999, I was asked to come back and polish the script that I did then and bring that back to life, so I’m doing that.

I met Jason McNamara a couple of months back at WonderCon, where he showed me pages from his upcoming graphic novel The Martian Confederacy: Rednecks, Red Planet with artist Paige Braddock, creator of Jane’s World. With the book coming out in a couple of months, I thought I’d catch back up with him and see what he could tell us about the book and himself.

JK Parkin: Fill us in on your secret origin. How did you get involved in comics and where would we know you from?

Jason McNamara: I never had a chance. My father taught me to read with Spider-Man comics and ever since I’ve been interpreting the world into the six-panel Romita layout of my mind.

I wrote my first comic in junior high and continued to write and make films for years. I would send the occasional script to Marvel and wait for my Spider-Man adorned rejection letter.

I didn’t really get going until I met the guy who would become my creative life partner, artist-at-large Tony Talbert. We were bitter enemies at first, me being a fan of the black Spider-Man suit and he being a Ditko purist. But I gave him some of my short stories, and he showed me the graphic novel he was hiding behind the refrigerator. A partnership was born.

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As we speed toward the opening of Iron Man on Friday, we’re collecting the related stories in a feature we like to call … “Stark Ravin’.” (If you don’t like the name, blame J.K.)

‘I would love to keep directing these,’ Favreau says

We’re still four days away from the official premiere of Iron Man, but director Jon Favreau is already thinking about a sequel.

“I would love to keep directing these,” he told Sci Fi Wire over the weekend.

Favreau said for a sequel he’d like to follow Tony Stark’s development in the comic books.

“I think what needs to be explored next … is how the weight of being a public superhero is going to affect Tony Stark’s personality and start to expand on the hairline fractures in his personality and his spirit,” he said.

But what’s the early word on Iron Man?

Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What are the critics saying about this movie?

Well, Variety’s Todd McCarthy and The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt both like Iron Man.

McCarthy calls it an “expansively entertaining special effects extravaganza” that “should reap big B.O. rewards.” And while Honeycutt acknowledges his disappointment with the film’s climactic battle, he notes that “the whole package is distinctly its own, a tale originated in the ’60s cleverly and logically transposed into today’s world.”

Meanwhile, New York magazine’s Vulture blog handicaps the summer superhero movies, giving Iron Man 5 to 1 odds that “it won’t be super.”

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Tom Spurgeon talks with comics author Bob Levin about his new book, Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester:

SPURGEON: To open Most Outrageous, you tell the story of how the subject matter was suggested to you by Eric Reynolds and your initial pursuit of the story. At what point did you decide it would become a book, and at what point do you think it became roughly the book you ended up doing?

LEVIN: I probably started thinking of it as a book once I saw the material Dwaine’s widow had for me. The narrative line was pretty straightforward — birth to death — arrest through trial — with some organic development en route. Since I like writing more than researching — and revising more than first drafts — I start writing as soon as I can. Then — thank God for word processors — I layer stuff in as I collect it. And, as the book makes clear, I couldn’t've ended the book as I did without my final interview, and it caused me to go back and tweak some of what had gone before.

It’s a new mini-comic from Warren Craghead that you can print out and put together yourself.

Project Rooftop has announced the winners of their Invincible Upgrade contest, where they asked artists to give Iron Man a makeover. Daniel Krall, whose design is pictured, took the grand prize; the judges, including Adi Granov and Matt Fraction, gave him props for his Howard Hughes-inspired Tony and redesign of the Stark logo.

You can check out the other winners on their site.

Like the title says, it’s an oddball assortment of comics that really never should have seen the light of day, including one offensively racist one:

Published in 1993 by persons who shall remain nameless, New World Order Comix is a magazine sized, of 38 pages, printed in full color. It depicts the efforts of Will and his friends to “blow the lid off this rotten system.” A perfect example of what Will Eisner calls “adoption of victimhood.” Victims are innocent, their oppressors are evil, and any action taken against the oppressor is justifiable. Will lives in the city of Metropolis, the local newspaper is the Daily Planet, and his girlfriend’s name is Lois Lane. This shows the level of inventiveness we are dealing with here, and I am sure it is only the obscurity of this publication that prevented its being quashed by The Oppressors. I like the guy wearing the t-shirt that says RAP on it.

Universal Pictures has acquired the rights to Resurrection, the Oni Press sci-fi series by Marc Guggenheim and David Dumeer.

The comic book picks up years after alien invaders have left Earth, as a group of survivors fight to take back the planet. The six-issue miniseries ongoing series began in October.

Universal-based Scott Stuber (The Kingdom, The Wolf Man) will produce the movie with Eric Gitter of Closed on Mondays Entertainment, the production arm of Oni Press. Guggenheim and Oni’s Peter Schwerin will serve as executive producers.

Resurrection is Oni’s third project with Universal, following Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and B. Clay Moore and Jeremy Haun’s The Leading Man.

Joe Infurnari is giving away artwork from his Eisner-nominated webcomic The Process over on his site. Go check it out.

David Pirkola, owner of Apparitions Comics and Books in Grand Rapids, Mich., is in critical but stable condition in a local hospital after being shot during a robbery at his store Friday night. The Grand Rapids Press reports that a man entered the store around 7 p.m. and demanded money, shot Pirkola and fled. The crime remains under investigation.

iFanboy.com is currently raising funds to help out Pirkola:

So iFanboy is putting out the call to you, comics fans to help a retailer in need. We’ve set up a PayPal donation button below to allow you donate as much as you’d like. You can use credit cards or bank accounts, and don’t need a PayPal account to donate. All money donated will be sent to David Pirkola to help with his medical bills, as well as to keep his store afloat, so if you can spare it, please donate below.

We will also be reaching out to our friends in the industry to help as well, so stay tuned for possible giveaways or auctions of comics goodness, the proceeds of which will go to helping David and his recovery.

– Steve Epting shares a few recent con sketches.

– The Dark Knight viral campaign continues. Hellboy has one going now, too.

– Daily Cross Hatch talks to Mike Allred in part one of an interview.

– Marc Bernardin gets flipped off by Xena.

– I enjoyed Jim Roeg’s X-Men/American Idol mash-up more than I’d ever admit.

– Not comics: A video of Chip Kidd, Milton Glaser and Dave Eggers talking about book design.

– Here are some cartoon silhouettes.

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Frederic Wertham–still dead–still a hot topic. And folks continue to recover from NYCC. But at least we have apes in our future…

“From a writing standpoint, certain names lend themselves to the monkeyverse more easily than others. For instance: Spider-Monkey is just too perfect not to use. And, personally, I got a kick out of Iron Paw (who can make his paw like unto a thing of iron!). Captain America, on the other hand, is still called Captain America. Not Captain APE-merica. No need to insult him. Believe me, you don’t WANT to insult him…”
- Karl Kesel, revealing the wit that one hopes is prevalent in the upcoming Marvel Apes limited series.

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I made my way down to Calgary this weekend for the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. It’s much bigger this year as the con is now a two-day event, with extended programing and dozens of guests. Pretty good for a con that only started two years ago. I talked briefly with Events Coordinator Kandrix Foong.

“Going into our third year, we’re expecting a massive jump in attendance again this year. I believe our success is due to two main things. The first, is that there’s nothing like this event in Western Canada. The second, is our extensive guest list! We’ve got 75+ guests from all over coming into the event, and a few of them rarely make appearances,” said Foong.

“There’s a lot of new stuff this year at the Expo. For starters, we’re expanding to two-days, which will be an adventure in itself! We’ve got our 2008 exclusive artbook featuring contributions from 39 artists. There’s a charity auction, a photo-op session with our media guests, and expanded programming.”

I made the three hour trek from Edmonton last year to attend this con. I asked Kendrix about the convention’s attendance over the years. “In our first year, our out of town attendees was very limited. It was primarily driving distance, so Edmonton would pretty much be the furthest away. This year, I know that we’ve got a fan flying in all the way from Italy to meet Michael Rosenbaum!”

And I had to ask about CCEE’s gorgeous cowgirl logo.

“She was designed by artist Alberto Ruiz, we’ve named her ‘Alberta’, so it’s kinda like tribute to 2 things at the same time!”

I’ll be floating around the con over the next couple of days taking pictures making sure I get in on some Jo Chen (my idol!) and George Takai goodness. If you figure out who I am, make sure to say “hi!”

Well, that didn’t take long. From this week’s Cup o’Joe over at MySpace:

Zeb [Wells] returns for a story in July’s Brand New Day: Extra! Special. Then after that Zeb will be leaving Amazing for the foreseeable future. Much like Bob Gale, we knew Zeb would have limited time, so we were thrilled to have him help us with the launch, but due to his schedule on Robot Chicken and some other projects, he’s just swamped. Zeb’s been such an integral part of relaunching Spidey and we’re going to miss him terribly, but on the bright side, he’s still going to be involved as part of the brain trust which is great news.

That’s a shame; Zeb’s arc was my favorite to date… What I don’t get is, is Joe also saying that Bob Gale is off the book as well, or just that we shouldn’t expect him to be that involved…?

AICN.com has debuted the Angelina Jolie character poster for Wanted, which is only slightly better than the poster released at New York Comic Con. The movie opens on June 27.

With the 20th anniversary of Sandman right around the corner, Neil Gaiman talks about a new poster — and shares some art — being created to commemorate the occasion:

Mark Buckingham and Shelly Bond and I have been plotting and planning over the last month. We’ve been planning a Sandman 20th Anniversary poster, with as many of the pencillers and inkers who drew Sandman as possible coming back to draw a character or two. We pondered a couple of different ways of doing it, decided that a party would best, and Mark laid out a party and where everyone would be…

Most of the forty-something artists on Sandman who are still alive and drawing said yes — a handful were simply too busy (alas, no Matt Wagner or Michael Zulli) and there are a couple that we’re hunting for.

But the first piece of art came in. It’s from Sam Kieth, and is the first time he’s drawn Morpheus professionally in, well, twenty years.

A judge in Macomb County, Mich., ruled today that attorneys for retailer Michael George can argue to have his jury verdict overturned.

George was convicted on March 17 in the 1990 slaying of his first wife Barbara. Prosecutors say he shot her in the back of their Clinton Township comic-book store, and staged the crime to look like a robbery. Earlier this month George’s attorneys asked that the verdict be set aside.

Today, Circuit Court Judge James Biernat said defense attorneys can argue on May 6 for a directed verdict.

If the motion is unsuccessful, George faces life in prison without parole. He’s being held in the Macomb County Jail until the May 6 hearing.