The Korean production company SSD has signed an agreement with Fox TV Studios to produce a live-action version of the manga City Hunter, ICv2 has reported.

The adaptation of the Tsukasa Hojo manga, which will star Korean actor Chung Woo-sung, will be filmed in English and distributed worldwide. According to SSD, the 13-episode order will be the first U.S. TV drama to be headlined by an Asian actor.

The series, which follows “sweeper” Ryo Saeba as he cleans up his city from crime, has inspired four animated series, several television specials, as well as a 1993 live-action film starring Jackie Chan. Yet the current backers, Fox TV Studios, are no slouches, either, having produced acclaimed series such as Burn Notice and The Shield.

By Jimmy Palmiotti

I know, you may hate the name I picked, but honestly, Jacob Becher made a good point in his response last week. His comment:

“I dunno, why not keep it just “Jimmy Palmiotti’s Blog @ Newsarama”?
Your name. Your blog’s web host. Brand recognition.. Nuff said. You’re a household name now. I mean, look at you, I knew the day would come when you’d be picking and choosing what projects to ink. Now you don’t have to ink anything. You always seemed the busiest guy in comics. Why take the focus and attention off yourself and/or Newsarama?”

So it made sense, but I got to say that there were some really fun ones mentioned so I also am going to award a second and third price for my other favorites. Lou Pereira came up with “ Jimmy’s junk” and Stephen Brock came up with “ jimmy’s random crap” an instant classic as well. The post by “BRUCE” came up with the winner though. Simple, has the full name and its easy to translate into several languages. That all said, Bruce, Stephen Brock, Lou Pereira and Jacob Becher, send your mailing address to PALMIO@AOL.COM and I will make sure each of you gets some cool stuff lying around my house that I don’t think anyone will recycle. Thanks for everyone’s posts, even the evil-as-shit ones that called me gay and fruitcake and all that. Hey, I’m the first guy that appreciates funny.

(more…)

DC recently shared a teaser image promoting the upcoming Batman miniseries Battle for the Cowl with Newsarama. The three-issue miniseries by Tony Daniel will begin in March, and will deal with various would-be Batman contending to fill-in for the one, true Dark Knight, who will go missing in the pages of Final Crisis.

Who will be the new, temporary Batman? One of Batman’s apprentices, like Dick Grayson, Tim Drake or Undead Jason Todd? Former Batman fill-in Azrael? A villain like Two-Face or Hush? A lady who dresses like a bat, like Batwoman II or Batgirl II? Some combination of of the above?

Yes, probably. But these aren’t the only candidates for caped crusading available. Let’s take a look at some of the less likely contenders, along with poorly-drawn illustrations, pros and cons for each of them, after the jump…
(more…)

One of three things is necessary for you to enjoy the next minute and twelve seconds of your life. A knowledge of the Japanese language, a love for everything Street Fighter, or a love for kicking and explosions. If you happen to have all three, well, you’re in for a special kind of treat. Enjoy!

. . . began here. Watch it for free, in all its glory.

Ah, the things my friends send me . . .

By Filip Sablik

As 2008 draws to a close and 2009 takes its first timid steps into the world, I’ve been seeing a lot of “best,” “worst,” and “what are you most looking forward to” lists online in the usual comic circles. I’ll indulge in that fun in a moment, but first I wanted to issue a call to action for all of my comic brethren. Not a resolution, mind you – they just get broken – rather, a call to action.

We all love comics, right? You must, otherwise you wouldn’t be ignoring that TPS report or homework assignment to cruise Blog @ Newsarama when you should be working. We all want comics to be around for a long, long time, right?

At the end of “Wanted,” the feature film (now available everywhere on DVD and Blu-Ray from our friends at Universal Pictures), Wesley Gibson asks, “What the &%*@ have you done lately?” So the question is: What will you do in 2009 to help create new fans for comics?

Are you giving a trade or graphic novel to a loved one for the holidays or a birthday? Can you give away old comics to libraries or to trick-or-treaters at Halloween? Start a comic book or graphic novel club at your school? Or here’s an easy one: If your local comic shop offers a subscription or pre-order service, have you considered pre-ordering your comics? Comic stores are run by small business owners, who each month have to guess what their customers will want to buy. In an economic climate like this one, many of them will have to order more conservatively to ensure they don’t end up in a bad financial situation. Why not help them out by telling them what you plan to buy?

One thing Top Cow will be doing in 2009 is launching “Let Us Win YOU Over,” a yearlong national campaign with direct market retailers, to give away 60,000 comics. We’ll be working with ComicsPRO and Diamond to garner mainstream press coverage and draw new customers into comic shops. You can read more about it HERE.

Okay, enough preaching. Let’s get into some fun end-of-the-year stuff!

Things I thought rocked in 2008:
·    A slew of smart, well made movies based on comics like Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Wanted, and The Incredible Hulk
·    The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, one of the most original, smart series on the market. Plus My Chemical Romance rocks, too.
·    Robert Kirkman being made an Image partner and Eric Stephenson stepping into the Publisher role.
·    The Fables James Jean cover hardcover. It’s about time!
·    I got married. To a lady that’s totally out of my league. I totally tricked her. Go me.

Things I’m looking forward to in 2009:
·    Watchmen on the big screen.
·    Sitting down and reading 100 Bullets in its entirety.
·    Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer by Mark Waid and Kenneth Rocafort and Image United by Kirkman and the Image Founders hitting in July.
·    Dead Irons from James Kuhoric, Jason Shawn Alexander and Jae Lee.

Happy New Year!
Take care,

Filip Sablik
Publisher Guy

Filip Sablik is the Publisher of Top Cow Productions, Inc. He’s been in the business for eight years and is turning 30 this month. Occasionally, he does a bit of writing and drawing. He loves comics. Top Cow Productions, Inc. was founded by Marc Silvestri, co-founder of Image Comics. Top Cow currently publishes its line of comic books in 21 languages in over 55 different countries. The company has launched 20 franchises (18 original and two licensed) in the industry’s Top 10, seven at #1, a feat accomplished by no other publisher in the last two decades.

The comic strip in the age of Newspapermageddon: The New York Times offers an article on how comic strip cartoonists—even the successful ones—must deal with the tensions between the traditional print newspaper and electronic formats. Stephan Pastis, who draws Pearls Before Swine, functions as the articles throughline narrative for the story.

Speaking of the liberal media and modern comic strips…: NPR’s David Kushner on Penny Arcade

“But he is weary of lurking in dark, down-town Los Angeles after dark”: The Sunday Times checks in on the emerging trend of “Reals,” real-life superheroes who dress up and fight crime. It turns out that the life of a crimefighter actually sounds kind of boring without a script-writer involved.

I would have owed someone some money: As I would have quite confidently bet money upon the fact that J. Michael Stracyznski would be taking over Justice Society of America when I first heard that Geoff Johns was out. JMS was a big-name recently signed DC exclusive whose only announced project, while cool, seemed a bit below of his profile, and he has an obvious affection for Golden Age heroes  (The Twelve, his reintroduction of the Archie/Red Circle Characters). It all seemed to fit so perfectly! But he’s not taking over; these guys are. Best of luck, gentlemen.

T-Rex for Hank Paulson’s job: An economic policy based on knowledge about Batman is one I could really get behind.

That J. Bone sure is a crafty one: We all know that J. Bone is a great comic book artist. But did you also know that he’s a genius when it comes to crocheting as well? It’s true! Check out Bone’s Skein and Bones blog to see his crocheted Doom Patrol, Doop, Namor, Doctor Doom and more. [Link stolen from Rachelle Goguen, who got some of Canada's best Christmas presents this year]

I know that this particular post is extremely regional in nature, but I’d still like to make a request of our readers in the Indy area.  Even if it isn’t your regular store, please try to drop by Comic Carnival at 38th Street and High School Road to make a purchase in the next few days.  While the majority of us were celebrating holidays (or, at the very least, time off) in the past week, the gang at Carnival West has been busy cleaning up and taking stock.

You see, this location happens to share a wall in common with a restaurant.  A few days ago, a pipe burst on the other side.  When the guys came in to open the store the next day, they were greeted with several inches of standing water.  I’ll give you long-time collectors a moment to gasp in horror . . . three, two, okay . . .

The end result is that many things were lost, and the building was fairly choked today with industrial fan units drying out the environs.  While the staff considers themselves lucky that the majority of the stock survived, they still have quite a lot to contend with in the coming days.  So, if you’re in the area, I ask you to drop by and pick up something; it could be a Johnny DC or Marvel Adventures book for a kid you know to a trade you’ve been wanting for a bit.  The staff is uniformly nice and certainly didn’t deserve the headache.  Give ‘em a hand, will you?

One more note: in the interest of equal time, if you know of any shops with a sincere problem or that require assistance in some way that isn’t a simple plug, feel free to draw the attention of the readership to it now.

So I’ve been thinking about doing a weekly webcomic column here, but it occurred to me that I’m not actually that up on the webcomic scene. That said, I’ve got a few thoughts on the whole concept, as well as a couple of favorites.

I wrote below that print is dying, and I’m sticking by that assertion. However, to clarify, I would like to note that newspapers will be the first to go, and that magazines and books will be sticking around far longer. It just isn’t pleasant to read long articles or books on a computer screen, and I’ve only met one person who owned a Kindle–and that guy also had three cell phones and two laptops just in his bag.

Comics, I think, will maintain a print following for quite a while. The art looks better on paper, and comics fans tend to be the type of people who like the tangible items to collect. We’re pack rats. We see nothing wrong with buying all the single issues of a book, the trades, and then the fancy reissues when those come out, too.

Still, the Web has a place in the comics community, and not just as a place for talking about comics.

Webcomics seem to come in a couple of varieties (bear in mind that, as I noted above, I’m not really up on the webcomics world, and I’d love your input). There’s the comic strip, which seems to be taking over for newspaper comic strips the way Web sites are taking over for newspapers. Most of you are probably familiar with them, and some of your favorite print comic creators do webcomic strips too–I happen to love Becky Cloonan’s Comic Attacks.

These are bite-size comics that don’t tie into a longer narrative, and can be consumed quickly, like an mp3 or a blog post. Many media critics, Warren Ellis among them, have noted that the Web is a place for short bits of information. Ellis called it “burst culture.” Webcomics like this fit perfectly into that picture. (more…)

As Sarah previously reported, there are some problems with the Watchmen movie.  Fox apparently owns a chunk of the rights to make such a movie, and Warner Brothers didn’t clear that up, so a judge has clamped down on WB’s ability to distribute until the rights are cleared up and fair amounts of money exchanged.

Righty-o.  I read this and shrugged, until I saw the virtiol expressed in the thread.  Should we boycott Wolverine, Fox’s next big comic book movie (I hadn’t even been aware that there is a trailer, which I still haven’t seen, out until I saw Sarah’s thread)?  Should we write letters of protest to Fox execs?  Should we thank Alan Moore’s sock-puppet that the non-squid ending has been delayed from reaching theatres?

People are incensed, which got me to wondering … why are comic book movies so important?

No, really, why?

I enjoy a good comic book movie.  I’ve hated a few.  I’ve completely ignored many of them too.  But why do comic readers get so worked up over seeing their favorite characters or stories on the screen?

When (yes, when) Watchmen comes out, depending on reviews, word of mouth and my personal impressions of the advance footage, I’ll decide if I want to see it.  But being Watchmen doesn’t, to me, give this movie any more credibility or make it more a must-see.  Isn’t it enough for Watchmen to be a successful book?  Why does it matter if it gets made into a movie?

Sure, I guess the movie sold an extra million or so copies of this book for DC, but by and large, how many comic book movies have actually done anything to increase comic book sales?

I’m cool with the movie being made, and will likely see it based on the footage I’ve seen so far.  But if it doesn’t happen, really, so what?

People as interested in and as enthusiastic about comics book as I am and (I think it’s safe to assume) you are probably won’t be able to watch The Spirit in the same way most movie-goers will. Longtime comics readers have known writer/director Frank Miller for a long, long time—decades!—and have followed his career pretty closely. Likewise, they’re familiar with the work of Will Eisner, his most recognizable creation The Spirit, and the importance both have in the medium (I think it’s also safe to assume that anyone who’s been around comics long, even those that may not have personally read much or even any Spirit, are well aware of the influence it and its creator had on comics).

So we’ll likely be wrestling with a couple of questions a lot of film critics and filmgoers won’t necessarrily worry about: Is this a good adaptation? Is it true to the character? To Eisner’s work? Is Frank Miller doing the material justice? Is this movie more about Frank Miller than it is Eisner, The Spirit or anything else?

A far more universal question, one asked by every viewer he sees it, will be, Is this a good movie? That question’s pretty easy, certainly a lot easier than untangling Miller’s intentions and inspirations: No, no this is not a good movie. Is it fun, or at least worth watching? Well, that’s a slightly different question—I recently sifted through about a dozen reviews of the movie after watching it, and opinion was fairly unanimous that it was fairly awful. I can’t really argue any of the points most of the critics made, as they are, in fact, correct, but I don’t know if I agree that everything that they point out as wrong about the film is necessarily a bad thing.

I actually regarded the film in almost the exact same way as a typical issue of All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder: It was funny, even hilarious, and it was hard to tell how much was funny on purpose (Miller making fun of Frank Miller-isms or, at the very least, parodying his one-time influences), how much was funny on accident (Holy shit, is the dude serious here or what?!) and if it was all one or all the other or some combination of the two that was constantly alternating.

Further observations about some specifics of the film after the jump; including what I suppose you’d consider spoilers, so be warned if you haven’t seen it yet and are sort who’s bothered by spoilers.
(more…)

For all you guys looking for a way to quench your comics cravings over the holidays, look no further: Josh Kemble, who is hard at work on Jacob’s Apartment, a graphic novel for NBM, has also come out with some more experimental fare.

With a limited printing run of 100 copies, Kemble has also just released his new mini-comic, 3 Degrees. If you’re quick, you can still pick up a copy of the 24-page hand-bound comic — you can also check out more of his work at www.joshuakemble.com, as well as an upcoming podcast with illustrator Kevin Cross.

Mezco presents The Spirit movie product based on the upcoming big budget December 2008 film, a sinister gut wrenching tale of a hero born, murdered and born again. Written and directed by genre-twister Frank Miller.

This deluxe 12″ scale vinyl figure is fully articulated & comes with a highly detailed real cloth trench coat, removable hat & alternate hands. packaged in a collector friendly window box.

Although the figure quickly sold out on the Mezco official online store, it is available along with the 7″ Spirit figures at Toys R Us and other fine retailers.

The Spirit movie opens nationwide on Christmas day, 12/25/2008.

Photo credit Jason Jerde
(more…)

The day after Christmas, Mattel and MattyCollector.com dropped this bomb on JLU collectors all over the world:

Hey JLU Collectors,

We already revealed quite a lot at SDCC 2008 of our 2009 line up, but wanted to give everyone a little holiday treat before the New Year. Take a gander at the image! We are not revealing where this figure fits into the line-up quite yet, but you will see her in the first half of 2009!

Can you believe it?  Amanda Waller of Cadmus?   While she played an important part of the Final season of Justice League Unlimited, I don’t think any collector REALLY expected that Mattel would ever make her.   Can’t wait to see what else they reveal at New York Comic Con!

For more of Mattel’s recent DC Universe reveals check out ActionFigureInsider.com

Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that Hideaki Anno’s Evangelion 1.0: You are (Not) Alone, a remake of his highly popular Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series, may be coming to the U.S. courtesy of distributor FUNimation. A U.S. release has not been officially announced, but according to the series’ Wikipedia page, FUNimation has sent out cease and desist orders to fansubbers. Speaking from experience (I worked in the marketing department at ADV Films for three years), I can tell you that that pretty much guarantees that FUNimation has licensed the rights to the property. Otherwise, they wouldn’t legally have the rights to issue cease and desist orders. (Of course, the wiki page could just be a load of crap. We all know how reliable Wikipedia can be.)

I haven’t watched much anime in the four years since I stopped working at ADV. Spending forty hours a week surrounded by pissy otakus and being forced to watch a seemingly endless stream of poorly-animated, hackneyed shows starring robot maids and the pre-pubescent perverts who love them will not only kill all your interest in anime, it will destroy your soul. However, I would be interested in watching an Eva remake, since I’ve always thought it was a cool concept. I hated the original series though. It starts out strong, with lots of big robots killing lots of ugly monsters, but eventually devolves into a plodding, pretentious mess. And I seriously wanted to reach into my TV screen and punch Shinji every time he showed up and started endlessly whining. Dude was an annoying little punk. Hopefully, the new series is more palatable.

Yahoo.com just released a list of its 10 most popular superheroes of the year. The rankings are based on the number of hits through their search engine. You can probably guess most of the names on the list:

1. Batman

2. Iron Man

3. Spider-Man

4. Hulk

5. Superman

6. X-Men

7. Hellboy

8. Wolverine

9. Wonder Woman

10. Ghost Rider

If anyone has any credible theories as to why Ghost Rider made the list, I’d love to hear them. That just seems like a totally random name.

Print may be dying, but some people are putting out really great arguments for its continued existence.

The glossy magazine Coilhouse is one of those arguments. Billed as “A love letter to alternative culture,” it’s kind of goth-y and kind of steampunk-y and completely gorgeous.

Among the goodness in the current issue: full-color cutout paper dolls by Molly Crabapple, interview with comics creator Andy Ristaino, Margaret Cho, and lots of pretty, pretty pictures.

Warren Ellis says you want one, and who are you to tell Warren Ellis no? Or me, for that matter?

First, my apologies for the lack of a Top Five last Saturday. Holidays…

Second, I was hoping for a Top Five Spirit stories to run today in conjunction with the opening of the Frank Miller feature film. But there just hasn’t been time to even glance through twenty-four Spirit Archive volumes, so I’m going with a more traditional Best of the Year listing, split over two weeks. This week, because I’m a sucker for these great newspaper strip and other classic comics reprint projects, I’m focusing today on the best Archival reprint comics of 2008. (And I’ll hope that the NYPL can fulfill my request for Bottomless Belly Button, just so I know if I can consciously include or exclude the seemingly most praised book of the year from next week’s Top Five Current Books of 2008.)

Hey, we’re living in a golden era for Golden Age comics. Don’t miss out on the books that laid the groundwork for everything we love about comics today; you’ll find that many of yesterday’s best are superior to the watered down comics of today.

(more…)

Well look who’s back: Blogger Dave Campbell, formerly of Dave’s Long Box and currently of ABC’s Live From L.A., can now also be referred to as Dave Campbell of The Society for the Advancement of Dave.

From Black Lightning to black thunder: The New York Times profiles Trevor Von Eeden’s “The Original Johnson,” the comics biography of the first black heavyweight champion, which is currently being serialized online at Comicmix.

So apparently Hollywood is interested in making superhero movies now: Who knew?!

I have no idea what this is: But I like imagining Ben Grimm all scrunched up in that little car.

A funny thing happened on the way to The Flash relaunch: This past week’s DC Nation column made me laugh, and stop questioning my sanity (a little). Remember how forced and random it seemed when Wally West and his family disappeared for no reason in the middle of Infinite Crisis? And when Bart Allen suddenly aged to adulthood and starred in a short-lived franchise realaunch that was quickly cancelled and he was then killed off? And how “The Lightning Saga” seemed primed to bring Barry Allen back from the dead, only to return Wally West? And how Wally’s adventures have since seemed to be pretty much just marking time? Well, there’s good, behind the reason for that, as DiDio reveals: The plan was to return Barry Allen in each instance, but plans kept changing behind the scenes. So it’s not so much that DC had no idea what they were doing with the Flash so much as they had no idea when they were going to do it, and what they should do in the mean time.

The Christmas Day box office tallies are in, and they’re not very good for Frank Miller and The Spirit. According to Box Office Mojo, The Spirit took home $3,825,000 on its first day of release, which places the movie at #7 in the top 10 movie grosses for the day. The Spirit debuted in 2,509 theaters for an average gross of $1,525 per theater on its first day. Compare that to Punisher: War Zone, which averaged $1,703 per screen in 2,508 theaters during its entire opening weekend. And it was pulled from theaters only 2 1/2 weeks after its debut. So if you’ve been waiting until after opening weekend to see The Spirit, you may want to start making plans ASAP. Denny Colt may be hard to kill, but it looks like his movie is DOA.