You are all aware that there are different levels of context, aren’t you?

I’ll admit that its been a few years since school, and I don’t quite remember the curriculum but I know we did talk about context. I remember there were different kinds of context.

I remember context within a sentence, where you could deduce the definition of a word from the surrounding words. And I remember context for a sentence, where you needed the entire paragraph to understand that “It was SO big” did not necessarily mean something dirty.

There’s immediate context within a story that explains weird behaviors, such as why Sherlock Holmes never got evicted for regularly firing a gun inside a rented apartment or why Adora didn’t know she was on the bad guy’s side when they first introduced She-Ra.
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On his Toycutter blog, Super Punch’s John Struan points to lemondrop’s custom figures of Spaceboy and The Kraken from The Umbrella Academy.

I haven’t been into action figures since elementary school, but if Dark Horse were to release a series based on the Gerard Way-Gabriel Ba comic, I’d be all over it. Make that two series: one of the characters as adults, the other as children.

Stumptown isn’t the only convention this weekend: There’s also the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo, which kicks off tomorrow morning at the Round Up Centre at Stampede Park.

Comic-book guests include Jo Chen, Marko Djurdjevic, Gene Ha, Amy Hadley, Stuart Immonen, Karl Kerschl, Jim Mahfood, Joshua Middleton, Cary Nord, David Petersen, Darick Robertson, Steve Rolston, Greg Rucka, Cameron Stewart, Ethan Van Sciver and Mark Waid.

Plus, George Takei and Tricia Helfer are going to be there. What more can you ask?

Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story
by Frederik Peeters
Houghton Mifflin
192 pages, $18.95

Blue Pills is a memoir. It’s by Frederik Peeters, who is European. It’s about the author’s relationship with his HIV-positive girlfriend and her young son, who is also HIV-positive.

So it’s got the socio-political resonance thing going for it as well (no doubt a big attraction for publisher Houghton Mifflin, who had a big hit with Fun Home). Technically, this review should be nothing but raves as (at least according to some) it hits all those sweet spots we snooty art comix critics crave so desperately.

Trouble is, I didn’t like the book. At all. (more…)

The Portland, Ore., Mercury devotes the cover of its latest issue to the fifth annual Stumptown Comics Fest, being held this weekend at the Lloyd Center Doubletree.

A few weeks ago, Mayor Tom Potter declared April as Comics Month in a city, the newspaper notes, that is known for its thriving comics community. “Finally, the city is paying attention,” Joe Nozemack, publisher of Portland-based Oni Press, tells the Mercury.

The paper goes on to trace the city’s “comic book ascendance” to Dark Horse Publisher Mike Richardson, special guest of honor at this year’s Stumpfest.

The festival’s special guests are: Brian Michael Bendis, Nicholas Gurewitch, Derek Kirk Kim, Steve Lieber, Larry Marder, Scott McCloud, Tara McPherson, Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier and Craig Thompson. The full list of exhibitors can be found here.

Related: The Mercury’s one-page Stumptown comic, by Dylan Meconis and Bill Mudron

Related: Steve Duin’s “Seven Reasons to Love Stumptown”

A new poster for Batman: The Dark Knight has been released through the WhySoSerious.com viral-marketing site.

The site contains a note that reads “Four days,” could mean that’s when we’ll see the next trailer. At least that’s what the folks at ComingSoon.net speculate.

New York-Tokyo spotlights the new display at the Soho store of UNIQLO, which showcases the Japanese clothing company’s line of manga-inspired T-shirts.

The shirts celebrate the works of creators like Tetsuya Chiba, Takao Saito and Minetaro Mochizuki. You can see many of the T-shirts here.

IDW publisher Chris Ryall announces on his blog that IDW will publish the first trade paperback collection of Thom Zahler’s Love and Capes:

Harlan Ellison, of all people, called me up and encouraged me to give the book a look, raving (not ranting, but raving) about the sweetness and humor of the story. When a guy of Ellison’s standing talks up a comic that he really likes, it definitely deserves a look. So I contacted Thom, we had a nice chat, he sent me the comics… and then began my usual near-impossible task of simply finding time to read them. But finally, with Thom patiently waiting, I gave one a look, and was hooked. It really is a great, charming story. In the press release, I mentioned that only Tom Beland’s comics feel like they’ve got as much heart and good humor as these comics. But where Tom’s are based on his life, Thom’s are a full-on romantic comedy with superheroes. Not like that painful Uma Thurman movie, but more like THE INCREDIBLES.

Hopefully this will drive more people to check out the book, which definitely deserves a wider audience. Visit Thom’s site to read the press release. The trade comes out in November.

Jim McLauchlin from The Hero Initiative sent this over — Queens presented John Romita Sr. a Citation of Honor at the New York Comic Con for his service during the Korean War, his commitment to Spider-Man and his work with the Hero Initiative:

Paramount sent over a nice batch of pictures from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull … they’re a mix of production shots and scenes from the movie:

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If you can be in California next Wednesday and want to have dinner with Geoff Johns, you just may be in luck:

Popular comic book writer Geoff Johns (Green Lantern, Infinite Crisis) will be signing at the Sunnyvale-based Comics Conspiracy on Wednesday, April 30th from 2pm-6pm, in support of his new comic book release, DC UNIVERSE: ZERO. Co-written by Grant Morrison, with art by George Pérez, Tony Daniel, J.G. Jones, and many more, this issue serves as the springboard for the upcoming FINAL CRISIS mini-series, as well as many DC projects throughout 2008 and 2009.

…A Comic Book Legal Defense Fund dinner raffle will follow the signing. The CBLDF was founded in 1986 as a 501 © 3 non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of First Amendment rights for members of the comics community. Five lucky fans will win the opportunity to have dinner with Geoff Johns, and all money collected for the raffle will be donated to the CBLDF. Comics Conspiracy owner Ryan Higgins will match the amount generated by the raffle. “I’ve been a supporter of the Fund for many years, and hope to continue to raise money for this important organization,” Higgins said.

So, let’s see - You get to meet Geoff, buy a comic book for 50 cents and have the chance to enter a draw for a good cause. I’m trying to see where the “lose” is in this whole thing…

Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro has signed on officially to direct the adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and its sequel — both prequels to Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Variety reports:

Del Toro’s moving to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his Wingnut and WETA production teams. He’ll direct the two films back to back, with the sequel which will deal with the 60-year period between “The Hobbit” and “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Rumors around Toro directing the films have been circulating for months, so it’s nice to see them play out.

BOOM! Studios sent over some preview pages of a couple of books they have coming out in June … first, High Rollers:

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Quick Stop Entertainment has posted the “official” Venture Bros. season three preview reel that was shown in New York last weekend. It’s available in a couple different formats for downloading, or you can watch it right here:

On his blog, Scott Dunbier fills us in on a new Comic Book Legal Defense Fund benefit book he’s put together called Liberty Comics.

The book will feature several all-new stories:

Stories by:
Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips provide a CRIMINAL tale
Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson bring us THE BOYS
Mark Millar & John Paul Leon give us their take on DRACULA
Darwyn Cooke delivers something entirely new
Mark Evanier & Sergio Aragones take us on a tour of the CBLDF

Additional material by:
Arthur Adams, J. Bone, and Rick Vietch (The return of BRAT PACK!)

The book comes out July 23.

New Hancock footage debuted during American Idol last night … at least I think it was last night. We watched both of this week’s episodes back-to-back in extreme fast-forward mode so we didn’t have to endure the torture of Jason Castro and David Archuleta, but stopped long enough for the graphic novel-esque Ford Fusion commercial, David Cook’s performance and this, which probably gives a better feel for what the Hancock film will be like than previous trailers:

Last year, I smarted off that “52 … looks like a happy accident, and Countdown could be an accident waiting to happen.”

Wish I’d been wrong.

SPOILERS FOLLOW.

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We briefly mentioned blogger Dave Carter’s “Late Shipping Hall of Shame” after its debut a couple of weeks ago, and now a second installment gives me an excuse to revisit the feature.

As the name hints, the virtual hall is a not-entirely-serious effort to enshrine some of those comic books whose tardiness has become almost legendary. Carter opened the nominations with titles like Camelot 3000, All-Star Batman & Robin, and The Ultimates.

Yesterday, he compiled suggestions from his readers, including Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk and Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do. However, perhaps the best recommendation came from artist, and good sport, Chris Weston, who nominated writer Warren Ellis and himself for their miniseries Ministry in Space, which saw 18 months pass between the first issue and the third, and final, one.

I enjoy features like this and Lisa Lopacinski’s occasional “What You’ve Been Waiting For,” despite my general lack of concern for late-shipping books (I usually end up forgetting about them). Maybe it’s because they don’t assume the outraged, somebody-must-pay! tone of so many message-board posts on the topic. Or maybe it’s because that, after a certain point, lateness becomes, well, comical.

I’d briefly toyed with launching a feature called “Bring Out Your Dead,” which would chronicle series cancellations. But I quickly realized my every waking hour would be consumed with trying to discover the fates of those titles that weren’t “canceled,” but simply disappeared.

MySpace Comic Books has an excerpt from Life Sucks, the slice-of-live vampire tale by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece. The graphic novel is due out next month from First Second.

This is just too cool. Over on her message board, Gail Simone is giving big thanks to Phil Jimenez, Greg Rucka, and other former Wonder Woman writers for helping her develop “a cohesive vision of Wonder Woman that says definitely who she is, but doesn’t throw out all the great stuff that came before.”

According to Simone:

A lot of times, these great writers didn’t get to finish their major plots and subplots as they had hoped. Fortunately, I’ve been able to ask them directly.

It’s amazing how uniformly gracious and helpful they have been. I think it shows that whatever else, Diana has been blessed with some really generous, good-hearted writers who really care about how she is portrayed. I have never yet had a former writer not respond to my questions or fail to be helpful. Everyone from George Perez, to John Byrne, to Trina Robbins, to Allan Heinberg, to Jodi Picoult has been right there every time I ask a question. They’re all busy, busy people. They don’t have time to waste discussing books they no longer work on, and yet, every time I’ve asked, a few hours later, I get a great response in the mail answering my