It looks that Warner Bros. will be striking the iron when it’s hot.

High Def Digest has announced that in March, just before the release of the highly anticipated live-action film, Warner Bros. will release a motion comic of all twelve chapters of Watchmen on Blu-Ray DVD.

The fledgling art form has been getting some serious attention in the past six months, with Invincible, Batman: Black and White, and even Max Payne starting to pioneer the motion comics frontier. But with Watchmen, this could not only introduce comics-averse audiences to the original story, but could in turn drum up anticipation for both the film and the original graphic novel.

According to the release, the suggest retail price will be $38.95, and will be released March 3.

FILE UNDER COMIC KILLERS:

NO CARNAL COMICS FOR YOU!!! Cherry and Demi the Demoness join the unemployment line; Archie, Jughead and the ‘Joes from ‘Drafted’ lookin’ real nervous…

By Scott Licina

Well, well, well, looks like it’s going to be harder to get your forbidden fruit fix at the local comic shop from now on, o’ frantic followers of XXXenophile and Cherry (and yes, Mr. Raven Gregory, I am looking at you).  It’s hard to believe that Adult Comic sales (what a misnomer- nearly ALL comics are “adult” comics now, and have been for over two decades) have tanked to the point that Diamond is doing away with the supplemental catalog, but I guess all the hassles Gordon Lee went through must have scared off more retailer dollars than I had imagined over the past few years.  Because it can’t be that all the 40 year old virgins who buy this stuff suddenly found girlfriends, can it? Maybe we should blame all the free hentai vids floatin’ around on the ‘Net- did video kill the comic porn star? (Shout out to The Buggles for the groovy play-on-song-lyrics op.  Betcha’ll be humming that the rest of the day…)

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Variety reports that Alex Garcia, the vice president of production at Bryan Singer’s Bad Hat Harry Productions, has been hired by Legendary Pictures as their senior vice president of creative affairs.

Why is this important? Because Garcia is an old hand at genre films, having worked on Superman Returns, Trick ‘r Treat, and the Sci Fi Channel series The Triangle. It’s clear that Legendary has this in mind, as he will be working on the company’s upcoming Warcraft film.

Legendary has already co-produced some top-tier comic book movies, including The Dark Knight and Watchmen.

You can really trust the old New Yorker cartoonists on just about any topic: The Guardian‘s Sara McCorquodale offers some advice on staying safe while dating, and quotes James Thurber on how much to drink.

Gordon Brown sure has some thin skin for such an enormous fat man: Anecdotes of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown complaining about how cartoonists portray him have been well-traveled the past few days, spurred on by an exhibition of cartoons and sketches of his early days in office. Here’s a story from the Telegraph. Mr. Prime Minister, if you’re reading, please note that I was just kidding in the headline; there’s no need to send the SAS to chat with me, as I think you’re a handsome, handsome man.

What does B.D. stand for?: This Newsweek online article about a new film chronicling a Yale/Harvard football game (or perhaps that should be the Yale/Harvard football game), reveals the inspiration for Gary Trudeau’s B.D. character, which is probably a fact long known and extremely obvious to Doonesbury fans, but I am young and stupid and ignorant of all things sports-related and maybe some of you are too so I’m going to point it out anyway.

Well, it’s about this young man, and he’s really good at tennis…: The LA Times’ “Hero Complex” blog does a light, fun Q and A with comics hop clerk Todd Matyja, who, when asked if “all Saturday morning cartoons be turned into anime,” realized the wrong answer could “vilify” him and approached gingerly, ending with “They’ll write a manga about anything! There’s one called, The Prnice of Tennis. What is that?”

Dear newspapers: Generally humorless people writing in to newspapers to complain that a particular political cartoon they ran was in poor taste or offensive or not funny or failed to support the troops or made their child cry or probably hurt the president of the United States’ feelings or whatever are pretty much a staple of newspaper letters pages. Like this one, or this cornucopia of letters. And yet whenever papers run these letters, they never re-run the accompanying cartoon, assuming everyone who reads the letters usually reads their paper and is thus already familiar with it. But what about those of us who search the Internet for stories about comics and cartoonists and have only found their paper’s site because someone wrote them a letter saying you cartoonist sucks/should be fired/should be ashamed/should be shipped to Iraq, what about us? At the very least, newspaper editors should, when posting these letters on their online editions, provide links back to the original cartoons, as that’s easy enough to accomplish online, and will better serve their more occasional readers. Like me. Basically what I’m saying is that more newspapers should cater to me specifically.

Last week, DC Comics and Marvel released the full solicitations for their April releases. This is one of my favorite times of the month, as I love getting a look at all the cool stuff that I’m going to be anxiously awaiting for the next few months. Sometimes anticipating a purchase almost as good as the actual purchase, don’t you think? And my two favorite things about skimming through both companies’ solicits are checking out the upcoming paperback and hardcover collections (especially since Marvel and DC are both kicking a ton of ass with those lately), and the latest offerings from DC Direct.

This month’s offering from DC Direct include the first wave of figures based on the upcoming Green Lantern storyline, “Blackest Knight.” (The figures are advance-solicited for release on September 30th, actually.) a second wave will follow soon after. The figures look great, as is usual for DC Direct. I’m looking forward to reading the story, because it sounds like it will be a pretty good one, but I’m not too interested in getting any of the figures. Since 2005, we’ve seen three waves in a Green Lantern themed series, plus a few random figures in other series. That’s not counting the aforementioned “Blackest Night” figures. I understand that Green Lantern is one of DC’s most successful properties, and the “Blackest Night” story is expected to be DC’s tentpole storyline for the year, but that’s still a lot of figures for a four-year period. (Of course, it’s still nothing compared to how many Batman and Superman figures are cranked out on a regular basis. Just how many Superman/Batman waves do we need? The series hasn’t been relevant since Supergirl debuted.)

I don’t want to turn this into another anti-Hal Jordan rant, because that’s not really my point here. It’s just that the GL’s are hogging a lot of DC Direct’s attention, and there are more than a few characters from the DCU that I’d love to see. I’m sure a lot of you have a list of characters you’d like to see immortalized in plastic too, and since I’m sure DC Direct keeps an eye on ye olde blog, let’s see if we can influence them to take a crack at some of our want-lists. Here’s my top five must-have choices, feel free to add your own lists in the comments section.

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This just in — Heath Ledger, who died just over one year ago following his portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight, posthumously received the Best Performance by a Supporting Actor award tonight from the Screen Actors Guild.

Gary Oldman, who played Commissioner Gordon in the 2008 film, had tears in his eyes as he accepted the award on the late actor’s behalf. Accepting the award, he said:

I’m quite emotional. It is a great honor to be asked to accept this on behalf of Heath. He was an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary talent and it is wonderful that you have acknowledged that and honored that talent. On behalf of Heath and his family and his family on the Dark Knight, I thank you. Heath.

Ledger died at the age of 28 on January 22, 2008, due to an overdose of prescription drugs. He recently received a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the Joker.

Not likely.

I’m a campaign junkie. I write about politics all the time, so most of my time is spent talking about policy and actions, but I really live for the campaign trail. Now that it’s over, there’s been something missing in my life.

So when I stumbled across a mention of 08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail, I was beyond thrilled.  By Dan Goldman and The New Republic‘s Michael Crowley, 08 is:

Taking its cue from campaign classics like Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 and The Making of the President series, 08 brings politico journalism into the graphic novel form.

There’s nothing I love more than passionate, thoughtful political writing and comics. Blending the two? Win. Bonus points for art that actually looks like Barack Obama, unlike another recent graphic depiction…

I can’t wait to read it. Hits stores this Wednesday.  (Also, at the site linked, you can download a free excerpt.)

PCR TV’s web series with P. Craig Russell discussing sequential art continues!

In this segment, Russell discusses parallel narratives in art, as well as the use of props, in this adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Murder Mysteries.  Watch the extra-wide video after the jump . . .

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French import Miss Don’t Touch Me (NBM Publishing) is really nothing more than a murder mystery and period piece, but it sure is a good one—so good, in fact, that you may find yourself needing to be reminded how un-ambitious and unpretentious it actually is.

It’s the product of writer/colorist Hubert and artists Kerascoet (the team name shared by the husband and wife team of Marie Pommepuy and Sébastien Cosset, who are also drawing Dungeon Twilight for Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar’s fantasy franchise), and was originally published as La Vierge du Bordel and Du Sang sur les Mains. Though the story they tell is one full of potboiler elements and melodramatic motives, it has an almost epic feel to it, thanks in large part to the exotic tableau.

It’s Paris in the 1930s, and sisters Agatha and Blanche share a tiny room in the attic of the house where they work as maids. The former goes out dancing every night, while the latter sits home and worries that Agatha will be the next victim of “The Butcher of the Dances,” a Jack the Ripper sort targeting young, single women.

The pair come much closer to the Butcher than even Blanche would have worried, when she hears two men discussing how to dispose of a mutilated body through the crack in her bedroom window. When Agatha is murdered by the fiends, and posed to look as if she committed suicide, Blanche takes to the streets of Paris, hell-bent on revenge.

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In reading Neil Gaiman’s journal, I stumbled upon a link to a quite excellent essay about Sandman and the 90s.

Dream, on the other hand, and not just Dream but also Orpheus and Delirium and Lyta and Remiel and Duma and Haroun al-Rashid and Robespierre and Wanda, cannot go with the flow.  To the postmodernists they reply that some things are too important simply to accept as impermanent, that our lives may be brief but that for them to be worthy they must hang on a strong nail of meaning.  Dreams’s duty, Delirium’s openness to all experience, Orpheus’s sorrow, Remiel and Duma’s God, Haroun al-Rashid’s Baghdad, Robespierre’s revolution, Wanda’s female gender, cannot be cast on the flowing waters and said a mere good-bye to.  Identity is what we refuse to give up; I can only change so much before I am no longer me.  And if I go to work at a job I hate, I cannot be me; but also if I quit the job that I hate I cannot just decamp to the country with my dog and paint pictures, I must still engage with the world on my terms.

I agree mostly with the blogger’s reading of Sandman, and of Gaiman’s characterization of Dream as someone who finds he must change or die, and would rather die.

The one thing I would point out, though, is that Dream does indeed change, and his death comes because he has changed enough that he realizes he can change no more. He dies because he HAS changed and cannot forgive himself for it, as much as because he will not change. (more…)

Viz Media has announced that it will release the Japanese manga Oishinbo.

The series, which became one of the most popular “food mangas” starting in 1983, is about journalist Shiro Yamaoka, who struggles to come up with the ultimate menu for his newspaper’s 100th anniversary. The series explores the ins and outs and Japanese food and culture.

“OISHINBO is a series where cuisine is put front and center and food is the star,” said Gonzalo Ferreyra, Vice President Sales & Product Marketing, VIZ Media, in a press release. “Each volume introduces readers to the proper preparation and presentation of a variety of Japanese dishes, while also detailing their history and cultural significance. We’re serving up selected highlights from this epic 100+ volume series and compiled them into seven a la carte editions that can be enjoyed individually or as a series. Each volume also features full-color instructions on how to prepare the unique dishes presented.  It might even inspire some to begin culinary adventures of their own!”

From the Hero Initiative:

All,
’Cause we love you soooooooo much, we’ll be previewing art for the Hero Initiative New York Comic Con art auction via the mighty ComicArtFans.

Eat it up like pie.

Jim McLauchlin

“You try to do evil things with cheese and I’ll show up!”: Marjorie Ingall of The Jewish Daily Forward writes a nice piece about four-year-old girl Maxine, who has just entered a superhero phase, an article that includes some cute little kid anecdotes and meditations on the Jewishness of superheroes. It’s written for the “civilian” crowd, but probably worth a read for those interested in the subject. I learned a thing or two—particularly about WordGirl from planet Lexicon, a superheroine I’d never heard of. I was initially attracted to the headline: “Bam! Pow! Whack!”

“Bam!” and “Pow!” you see in headlines all the time, but “Whack!”? That’s a new-ish one; I was expecting “Biff!”

Just add the word “penis”: Dick Hyacinth muses on super-men’s members in the Mighty Marvel manner! Um, there aren’t any pictures (thank God!), but maybe Not Safe For Work, depending on where you work.

Awww…: This San Francisco Chronicle story about artists Briana Miller and Thien Pham is pretty darling, and I like the term “artners.”

Very cool capes for very little people: Something tells me if I wore one of these, it would just look like I had a big on backwards

“Obama saved our sales”: Okay, I’m as sick of hearing about Spider-Man’s team-up with Obama as anyone else on earth, maybe a little more so since I consciously go out of my way looking for articles about comics to link to, but I kind of liked the lead of this article, in which it sounds like President Obama single-handedly saved this particular New Jersey comic store from The Great New Depression, by singlehandedly not somehow preventing Marvel Comics from printing a cover with his face on it. Next to a government bail out of the comic book industry, why, it’s the next best thing!

Eighth Batman movie not nominated for Best Picture either: I keep hearing the word “snub,” even “the shaft” and “robbed,” in relation to The Dark Knight only getting one measely Oscar nomination in the best supporting actor category, but is this really all that suprising? Everyone knows that movies with the holocaust in them are always more likely to be nominated for best picture than movies with the Bat-pod in them.

The times, they are a-changin’. Comics this week, at least in my mind, have highlighted an interesting shift in comics line-ups, which I would describe as world-tending versus world-building. Or, in other words, the Great Contraction. What do I mean? Well, put your SPOILER BEAMS on, and read on after the cut!

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Vicky Lewis, whose first foray into the DCAU was playing Iris West in DC: The New Frontier, spoke with Warner Home Video about her role as Persephone in the upcoming Wonder Woman animated film, which will be premiered at the New York Comic Con February 6th .

QUESTION: When you read the “Wonder Woman” script, what was your first impression of Persephone?

VICKI LEWIS:  I’ll be honest, I knew nothing about the mythology of any of this. I got the script, and often times I just kind of look at my part, but this is a fascinating story.  I ended up spending half a night on Wikipedia going through the real mythology of the character. Persephone is a very fascinating character in Greek mythology and the comic books. I wasn’t a great student, so I love any opportunity at my age to learn something new. So that’s how I prepared.

QUESTION: What endeared you to the role of Persephone?

VICKI LEWIS: I do a lot of animation, and mostly I get cast as the whacky character.  I play a lot of kids, or the strange neighbor next door, or the really off-the-wall person in the script.  But this was really enticing because Persephone is a solid, commanding woman.  It was an interesting process to find and place her (vocally) – she’s a powerful character, and the direction was ‘less is more’ in the grand scheme of this Greek tragedy. I’m very rarely asked to play the powerful, centered part of myself.  It’s always there, but I don’t get
to use it often (in performance). I played Velma Kelly in “Chicago,” so I think I drew mainly on that character. But this was a great experience. I expected to come in and they would ask me to act like an idiot, which is what I usually get paid to do.  So this was an interesting recording session.

QUESTION: Was there a favorite moment for you during the recording session?

VICKI LEWIS:  When you have 900 people staring at you through the glass of the recording booth, and whispering but you can’t hear them, you really want to make sure you give them what they want.  And I felt
like I got it, because I understood the emotion. This character, Persephone, has some very heartfelt and sad moments, and it was really vulnerable and really human. It wasn’t cartoony – it touched something
somewhat real.  So I was actually affected by it in a way I didn’t expect to be.

QUESTION:  Was it fun playing the bad girl?

VICKI LEWIS:  It’s always fun being the bad girl. When I was young, I had Barbie dolls and I made them fly.  And then my friends deserted me because I turned them into witches.  I was always THAT kid. I didn’t
even know what a comic book was.

QUESTION:  Much of the fanboy populus is into gaming. Are you a gamer?

VICKI LEWIS: I’m not into the games like the kids play today, but I was addicted to Tetris. I had the Trio, and the Tetris was on it and then my fiancé got me the iPhone for my birthday and I love it. But it doesn’t have Tetris.  So I’ve kept the Trio’s battery alive to play Tetris. I used to be addicted to Pacman. We were doing “The Wizard of Oz” at the Kansas City Starlight Theatre, so we were stuck in the middle of Kansas and we would go to the House of Pies every night because they had a Pacman machine in their lobby.  And we were
obsessed with it.

QUESTION:  You glide smoothly between stage, film, television and animation voiceover performances. All three require different techniques. What’s the trick to making the transition for voiceover work?

VICKI LEWIS: I started out in theatre in New York and then I did movies and I’d been out (in Hollywood) for nine months when I got “News Radio” and it was all a really interesting transition.  Somebody who’d been around for a long time came up to me and basically said that the difference between stage and film and television is that on stage the proscenium is where you can see it. Film and television, it’s really got to be here (spreads her arms wide).  In terms of turning that into voice work, sometimes the voice is very subtle, and sometimes I’m so loud they have me move away from the mike. So in voiceovers, you learn where the proscenium is in your voice. As far as acting, I’ve been working for so long that I can basically tap into
any emotion. I’m like a little trained monkey at this point.  So it’s just a matter of finding that place, and adjusting vocally as you would onstage or in film.

For voiceovers, like ‘Wonder Woman,’ I feel really blessed that I’m able to do this and that Andrea (Romano) continues to hire me. She always lifts my spirits, she always makes me better, and she’s always so gracious.  I keep thinking, ‘When is she going to see through me, that I don’t have any of this talent she’s thanking me for?’  She’s just so great, such an amazing director.

This week’s Tiny Titans #12, by Art Baltazar and Franco. Seriously, don’t miss it!

CBS Consumer Products and Playmates Toys will be reviving over 40 years of history with a new line of realistic Star Trek action figures, authentic playsets, and cutting-edge accessories, all approved by the creators of this summer’s blockbuster film!  Recommended for ages four and older and available at all major retailers beginning April 19th.

The first phase of the new Star Trek toys will include:

• three scales of life-like, fully-articulated action figures (3.75″, 6″, 12″) come with removable utility belts, phasers, communicators and other accessories.  ($6.99, $8.99, $29.99)

• the USS Enterprise.  The updated vessel from the new film includes lights and emits sound effects and actual film dialogue between the Kirk and Spock characters. It rests on a Starfleet shield base that attaches via a ball-and-socket tip that lets the ship pivot 360 degrees.  ($30)

• basic role-play toys boasting exciting electronic features including  the Communicator, Phaser and Tricorder ($15 each)

• amazing and intricate playsets with working lights and sounds that are compatible with the 3.75″ action figures including the Enterprise Bridge($25) and the Transporter Room playset ($30)

Oh Twitter, is there anything you can’t do? The esteemed writer of the soon-to-be-a-movie book Coraline (and a couple of comics you may have heard of like The Sandman and the upcoming Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?) is happy that there’s finally a trailer for the movie adaptation that he enjoys. Just a few minutes ago, he tweeted:

Would people mind spreading http://bit.ly/xTG5 around a bit? Put links up to it and such? It’s the first Coraline trailer I’ve liked

Ask and you shall receive, Mr. Gaiman. Here’s the latest Coraline trailer. Watch it imbedded here, or click through to watch the HD version at Youtube’s site.

The Beat reports what we’ve been hearing this afternoon: DC Comics editor Bob Schreck was laid off on Thursday. Subcriptions Manager Christine Sawicki was also let go, as were Mad Magazine staffers. That last dovetails with this story on the mothership detailing Mad’s shift to quarterly status.

Schreck has an enormous body of work in comics proper; apart from working on thing like DC’s current All-Star line, in his time at Dark Horse, he was editor on Sin City and Madman, and was a co-founder of Oni Press. Schreck originally came to DC from Oni, and served as the Group Editor in the Bat-office, overseeing projects by Kevin Smith, Matt Wagner and others, as well as the regular line. Schreck moved to the Vertigo line in 2006.

SciFiWire.com’s sister site DVICE has this dandy contest: design a Steampunk Cylon.

Winning design gets featured on the site and pulls down Battlestar Galactica merch. 

[Via SciFiWire.com]