While at New York Comic Con last week, I did a panel with editors Mike Marts (DC), Nick Lowe (Marvel), and Rob Levin (Top Cow), moderated by Glenn Herdling and hosted by the great Buddy Scalera. We were talking about how freelancers or aspiring artists should work with and approach editors, and we were  all pretty surprised when Rob said that most of Top Cow’s artists come from portfolio reviews at conventions. Mike and Nick and I seldom hire someone off portfolio review. Discovering new talent should be a priority for editors, and yet we find that we seldom do that. We tend to hire artists that have done something somewhere else, maybe much smaller scale than our own operations, but not someone who’s never been published before. It’s something I don’t like to admit, only for fear that it discourages aspiring artists—but if someone can show me what I’ve been doing wrong (Rob…?), I’d be glad to listen.

Jill Thompson, the amazing Chicago-based artist and writer of Scary Godmother and a host of other books, was at NYCC, in part to promote a new book with Dark Horse called Beasts of Burden, written by Evan Dorkin. Jill and Evan first created this bunch of neighborhood dogs and a cat who face down occult threats for The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings, and this summer we spin it into its own series. We announced the book in a panel where Evan went on one of his famous tirades, grabbing attention by announcing Flash would appear in the book, and we figured DC wouldn’t even notice because “Dan Didio’s too busy ruining something.” Jill and Evan both spent a lot of time in the DH booth, which led Jill to introduce me to a Pratt Institute junior who creates amazing comics pages, mostly in the computer, like a lot of the kids these days. I hired her on the spot for a story in Myspace Dark Horse Presents. Later that same day, Sierra Hahn and I were doing portfolio review in the booth, and the fifty-second guy in line was really good. I believe he was a student at RISD. We hired him for a short story, too. Rob Levin, I guess you’d inspired me. 

Frankly—and I’m gonna get letters about this one!—I’m usually not happy with the work I see from college students. I want to think that schools graduate students trained to professionally pursue the discipline they’ve studied. I at least would like to see seniors whose work I can look at and say, Okay, you gotta do this, this, and this, and if you can really pull that together, you could get work. But so often the work of college students looks marginally better than the work of high school students, and I just wonder how the hell the teachers can feel good about collecting tuition. If you’re being paid to teach a kid to draw, and you have three or four years to do it, you should either have the power to do the job, or get the kids to study something they can use. I hate the idea of these kids working their asses off for years only to get no closer to their dream after going into decades of debt. (Insert comments about “new economy” here, the buzz words that ran across the convention floor all weekend.) Anyway, after this convention, RISD and Pratt (go Static Fish!) redeemed, for me, the whole notion of paid education.

As I mentioned on this blog last time, I had some specific books I was looking for artists for. Neither of these college kids were right for these jobs—they were good enough, but their styles were all wrong. I spent about three hours in artists alley, and despite great conversations with Sean Murphy and Stephane Roux, and then running in to Joss on the show floor, I didn’t manage to find all I needed. My search continues, but while I’m no Rob Levin, I consider myself lucky for being able to pick two needles out of the New York haystack.

Scott Allie is the Senior Managing Editor at Dark Horse Comics. His writing includes the horror comic The Devil’s Footprints, set in his hometown of Ipswich, MA.

“There is no Kryptonite.”

The Wachowski Brothers, who burst into genre film royalty with the Matrix and made their own adaptation of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, might be taking another stab at comic book movies, Ain’t It Cool News has reported.

According to the rumor, which allegedly comes from Ninja Assassin director James McTeigue, the Wachowski Brothers’ next film was slated to be… Plastic Man. While McTeigue was slated to be Second Unit director, shakeups around Warner Bros. put the film in limbo. But what makes this even more juicy is this:

- Bryan Singer has refused to undertake a re-boot of the Superman franchise and has left the Executives at WB with no choice but to take a fresh creative direction.

This is it….

- He stated the Wachowski Brothers had been approached to re-boot the franchise as a trilogy and they are currently reviewing their options as its like being asked to take the final play in a superbowl final. Says if they do agree, he will likely either succumb to providing second unit support on the movie or will champion the directorship of Plastic Man – He started to giggle as he stated its like a young child for the Brothers and they wont give that up easily.

Hm. What makes this all the more interesting is that the Matrix has apparently long been on the minds of Warner Bros. in terms of a Superman movie. AICN reported way back in 2002 about a Superman script by J.J. Abrams that had tons of martial arts violence… According to the poster: “You’ll believe a franchise can suck!!”

That said, hopefully if the Wachowskis jump on board — on either project — they’ll make the stylistic choreography fit. So what say you? Plastic Man or Superman trilogy?

For all you folks in Massachusetts, convention season can get kind of sad. New York has NYCC, Philly has a con, but what about Beantown? Well, if you’re willing to drive to Pioneer Valley in Western Mass., are you in for a treat!

While the creators call this more a gathering than a convention, webcomics creators such as Scott Kurtz, Steven Cloud, R. Stevens, and a whole lot more are going to be in attendance for the March 20-22 New England Webcomics Weekend. And it’s free! You can read more about it here.

Dave Karger, who writes the Oscar Watch blog for Entertainment Weekly, mentions three lesser known awards ceremonies that take place this weekend.  The  Art Directors Guild (ADG), the Cinema Audio Society (CAS) and the American Cinema Editors (ACE) all hand out awards between now and Sunday.  Though their status as an Oscar barometer is in question, the awards do have a lot of comic and genre-connected films among their nominees.

ADG contenders include The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man, The Spiderwick Chronicles and WALL-E in their Fantasy category, while Quantum of Solace is a nominee in the Contemporary Films group.

The CAS nominees include The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Quantum of Solace, and WALL-E, with Bollywood-inflected Slumdog Millionaire the lone “genre” hold-out.

The American Cinema Editors break things down in Dramatic and Comedic categories, and the two respective contenders there would be The Dark Knight and WALL-E.

It’s interesting to watch how the technical circles address categories and filmmaking issues.  Certainly, the message here is that even if comic and genre-connected movies aren’t dominating the lists in terms of narrative, their techinical achievements continue to draw praise and recognition.

It’s a pretty big Friday for comics/genre fans this week.  Consider . . .

Friday the 13th:  The latest horror reboot gets an eponymous release date.  This one’s from the crew behind the Texas Chainsaw remake and features the other brother from Supernatural (Jared Padalecki, getting his most recent film turn after screen bro Jensen Ackles topped My Bloody Valentine).

Prime-Time TV:  Fox has the debut of Dollhouse, pairing it with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  A new episode of Battlestar Galactica runs tonight, as does a new episode of Wolverine and the X-Men (featuring Gambit) on NickToons.  Batman: The Brave and the Bold gets a week off as Cartoon Network shows the 11th Pokemon movie.  However, that IS surrounded by new installments of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  Of course, Ghost Whisperer in on CBS. 

Up Late?:  AMC’s Fear Friday busts out the 1979 Dracula tonight.  It’s the John Badham-directed version that stars Frank Langella and Sir Laurence Olivier.  The adaptation is a mess, taken as it is from the ’31 version and the stage play, but there are a few terrific moments (notably the underground scene with the reflection; chilling stuff).

That’s a pretty decent collection of material.  I’m sure DVRs will be screaming in pain around the country.

With special thanks to my lovely friend Jenna Busch (check out her work on SciFi Wire, UGO, and much more), I was directed to the UK Watchmen movie site. Little did I know there would be a wonderful surprise there. Veidt Enterprises is saving the world, one Arcade at a time. The game is called Minutemen Arcade, and it is in the vein of the old-school beat ‘em ups, like The Simpsons Game, X-Men, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. After choosing Nite Owl or Silk Spectre, you go on an adventure, kicking and punching a parade of generic thugs.

There are even some nice Easter Eggs for comic book fans. In the Subway, for example, there is a “towards street sign” labled “Charlton Street,” which you end up exiting onto. Famously, Alan Moore was originally planning to use the Charlton characters DC had acquired, and instead (thanks to some pushing from the folks in charge) wound up using analogues of those characters (The Question = Rorschach, Captain Atom = Dr. Manhattan, etc). It’s a fun, quick little 3 level game, and a great distraction to kill time until the movie premieres March 6th. Click on through for a crack at the game, and see if you can get the high score!

Adventure Serials As Web Comics

It’s no secret that the web comic world and the print comic world are vastly different, and there is nothing at all wrong with that. Though the visual language is the same, the optimal format and distribution is not. The same things that bring people to a comic store every week/month are not always going to be what causes someone to search for comics on the internet. With the immediacy of distribution on the web, it makes much more sense to go with strip formatting at a hirer frequency of publishing. Like most strips in the newspaper, the majority of web comics are gag strips, likely because it is easier and more effective to tell a joke in 4 to 8 panel intervals than it is to tell an on-going story. These factors, among others, have many believing that the adventure serial is a hopeless sell to the internet crowd.

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Yesterday I talked a little about some of my favorite couples consisting of comics characters, so today I wanted to mention a few whose heads I’d most like to bonk together.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl: You’ve got to give Hawkman credit for maturity—while most of his peers were either hanging out with young boys (Speedy, Robin) or middle-aged, overweight men (Doiby Dickles, Woozy Winks), he had already noticed the opposite sex and realized hanging out with a particular member of it can be a lot of fun.

As charming as the Golden Age superhero sweethearts iteration of the characters and even the original Silver Age married buddy cops from space versions were, Geoff Johns’ fix for Hawkman’s totally messed-up continuity ushered in a creepy plot point about the Hawks: Ever since the days of ancient Egypt, they have become constantly reincarnating lovers destined to meet each other in each of their successive new lives.

This seems to take a bit of the romance out of romance, once you know you’re destined to date the same person over and over for all eternity, and I imagine it must be really depressing for Hawkgirl, since the person she’s destined to be with is a big, scary, angry, hairy guy who hates shirts and whose chief pleasures include hitting people with a mace and arguing politics.

Their current relationship was been especially creepy since Hawkman remembers their feelings for one another, but Hawkgirl does not, so she’s basically had a creepy stalker floating around her for the lastfew years, telling her they’re destined to be together, if not in this life than certainly the next.

Jean Grey and Scott Summers: Oh in a lot of ways they seem like the perfect couple. They were both among Charles Xavier’s earliest students and thus grew up together, lifelong friends who became lovers who eventually became husband and wife.

But despite all the years they’ve been together, their relationship has always seemed doomed. As much as she loves Scott, Jean always feels this lingering attraction to a stocky, hairy, cigar-smoking, beer-pounding amnesiac prone to fits of berserker rage—a clear sign that she’s not completely happy with Scott. And then there’s the fact that she’s always dying and coming back to life.

Even now that she’s been dead a few years and Scott has seemingly moved on to date the other psychic mutant on his super-team, he can’t completely relax and be happy. After all, he must know it’s only a matter of time before Jean comes back to life and the whole horrible cycle that is their relationship will have to start again.

Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman: The Fantastic Four has just about always been presented as more of a family that just happens to be superheroes rather than a superhero team, and Reed Richards and wife Sue Storm have functioned as the mom and dad, always chiding the eternally bickering Johnny and Ben. But man, what a lousy marriage it is. I know they’ve made it work for themselves, they’ve endured for decades now and even had a few children, but Reed has got to be the least attentive husband in the world, always more interested in his super-science than in spending time with his poor, neglected wife.

And then there was that one time Sue left him to join a military campaign against him and he and his friends decided to hunt her, her brother and their other colleagues down using a killer cyborg clone of Thor and a small army of mass-murdering super-villains.

Hourman II and Liberty Belle II: Isn’t the honeymoon over yet? Due to the “One Year Later” jump that followed Infinite Crisis, Rick “Hourman II” Tyler and Jesse “Liberty Belle II” Quick went from flirting with one another to newlyweds, without JSA readers seeing so much as a first date, let alone a special wedding issue. Since then, Justice Society of America writer Geoff Johns has portrayed the clingy, cloying couple as always all over one another, embracing at the meeting table, arms slung over one another’s shoulders before and after battles with villains, calling eachother’s names in the middle of a Crisis. It was cute the first 18 times or so, but come one guy, try to show a little professionalism, huh? Doesn’t the JSA have any guidelines for public displays of affection? I can’t believe Hawkman would be okay with all this physical contact in the workplace…

April O’Neil and Casey Jones: Since these two first met in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, she a young New York woman rescued from robot rat-catchers gone berserk by a quartet of mutants she then shared her apartment with, he a violent lunatic vigilante who fought crime using sporting goods and eventually mellowed slightly after meeting fellow violent lunatic vigilante Raphael, their level of involvement has varied from continuity to continuity and media adaptation to media adaptation. But in what seems to be the primary continuity now, they’ve been an on-again, off-again couple for years.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with them being together, it just seems like they both settled on account of each being the only other human being in their immediate circle of friends. If I were Casey, I’d always be worried that maybe April only chose me because all the other guys she knew were half-animals.

Snake-Eyes and Scarlet: The fact that these two were romantically involved in the Marvel Comics, and several of the comic book continuities that followed that original one, has never sat right with me. I suppose it’s because I got to know the various Joes through the cartoon show first, and it seemed quite clear to me that Scarlet and Duke were a couple on the show (just as Flint and Lady Jaye and Destro and The Baroness were). All these comics and all these years later, I’ve never been able to shake the inherent wrongness of thinking of Scarlet with Snake-Eyes instead of Duke.

Also, he’s a deformed mute who must hide behind a mask and does most of his communicating with a katana or uzi.

It’s true you may never find a more bad-ass boyfriend Scarlet, but certainly you can find one who’s a better conversationalist, and whose cabin isn’t covered in timber wolf hair.

Green Arrow and Black Canary: Call me old-fashioned, but I just don’t think people from Earth-1 should marry people from Earth-2. What’s the matter Ollie, aren’t Earth-1 girls good enough for you?

Diamond Comics Distributors released their top 10 sales chart for January 09, and much to no one’s surprise, Amazing Spider-Man #583 was the biggest selling comic of the month with an estimated mid-300,000 copies sold throughout the direct market. Can anybody remember the last time a single issue sold that many copies? Maybe Marvel’s next variant cover gimmick should be President Obama meeting all the Marvel superheroes. It’s certainly a more original idea than monkeys and zombies, or whatever the “Wolverine Art Appreciation” covers are from April’s solicitations.

Of course, the mid-300,000 number is low-balling the issue’s overall sales, because it doesn’t count the number of copies sold outside of the direct market. Back in the halcyon days of yore, comic books were all over the place: grocery stores, convenience stores, toy stores, drug stores and the like. These days, just about the only places you can still find comics hanging around the shelves are in book stores. So imagine my surprise when I came across a stack of Spidey #383′s second printing on the magazine rack of my local Kroger supermarket. It was the only comic book available, but it makes sense that this particular comic would be there, given the astronomical demand and publicity surrounding the issue’s release weeks ago. It’s not like we’re going to start seeing other titles hitting the supermarket stands now, as retailers won’t spare the shelf space for the minimal profits comics bring them. Still, I wonder how many extra copies of Amazing Spider-Man #583 were sold outside of the direct market? I wouldn’t be surprised if the total sales for the issue push the 400,000 copies mark.

I ended up buying a copy at Kroger, even though I wasn’t caught up in the buying frenzy like everyone else when it first came out. Seeing it there made me wistful for the days when my mom would take me grocery shopping, and I would spend the entire time in the store’s deli sipping a can of RC Cola and reading as many comics as I could while Mom shopped. Thinking about it now, it makes me sad that kids today can’t have that same experience. Maybe that’s one of the reasons kids don’t read comics much anymore? Oh well, at least they can still squat in the manga section in the book stores.

Blog@Newsarama: DC seems to have spoiled the mystery villain in solicitations, though I won’t here. That said, what’s this guy’s beef with Chronos?

Dan Jurgens: I don’t know that I’d say he has a specific beef with Chronos. He came to get the knife and Chronos happened to be there. Let’s just say he doesn’t approve of Chronos’ agenda. Not to mention his choice in clothing.

Blog@: How early in the writing process for this series did someone say, “At some point, Booster has to team up with himself!”?

DJ: It is kind of a natural, isn’t it?

Don’t worry though. We won’t be going to the well on this one too often.

Blog@: We reusing all that dialogue a nice break from scripting, or was looking it all up more trouble than it was worth?

DJ: You’re right. It isn’t any kind of time saver. However, it was important to lock this into a very specific moment in time and replicating those specific scenes is the best way to do it.

Blog@: And did the positions that Wally and Booster took the same as in the original issues? How much reference did you have to do? (more…)

The Elongated Man and Sue Dibny: It was way back in 1961 that the headlines in a panel of The Flash #119 read “‘Elongated Man’ Marries Debutante Sue Dearbon!” Within a year of his creation, Ralph Dibny was married to Sue, which, coupled with his lack of a secret identity, made E.M. rather unique for a Silver Age superhero—especially one that editor Julius Schwartz allegedly admitted was created in large part because he didn’t know DC had the rights to Plastic Man at the time.

Theirs was the least complicated courtship in comics, devoid of the years of secrets and lies that generally occurred between cagey superheroes and their snoopy gals, and by the time Elongated Man moved from The Flash into Detective Comics, Sue was a full-fledged, mystery-solving, crime-busting partner. And when Elongated Man joined the Justice League, Sue came along too, at various times living at their headquarters and functioning as an unofficial member.

What made their relationship most extraordinary was just how ordinary it was. The pair loved each other, they liked being around one another, and their conflicts never amounted to much more than the gentle bickering of your typical married couple.

DC infamously interfered with the happy ending they pair received during James Robinson’s Starman in Identity Crisis, but by the end of 52, Mark Waid and his co-collaborators gave the pair a more or less permanent happy ending.

James and Amy Kochalka: The Kochalkas are, of course, real people; James is one of the most prolific cartoonists working today, producing some of the most varied results, from a daily online diary strip to children’s books and graphic novels to the best unofficial Legion Of Super-Heroes comics ever to classics dealing with monkey on mechanized man conflict. Although they’re real people, I don’t know them at all as real people, although I’m increasingly familiar with them as two of the stars of James’ daily American Elf strip, which is occasionally collected (I just read American Elf Book Three, which I highly recommend).

Through those little three-to-four-panel windows, I watch the growing Kochalka families often charming lives one anecdote at a time. Most of these revolve around their darling kids, and the cute and/or silly things they’re always saying and doing, and Amy’s challenges of raising them both—in addition to her often childish cartoonist/musician superstar boyfriend. (It reminds me of what The Family Circus would be like if The Family Circus was a truly great comic).

James seems to present an extremely warts and all sort of view of his domestic life, despite the sometimes fantastic elements of his designs (he has elf ears, one of his band mates is a dog, etc), so he’s never shy about showing his arguments with Amy, many of which seem to revolve around him being somehow moody or petty about something.

In addition to being the stars of a very cute, very funny comic strip then, Amy and James are also an example of an ideal couple—in love with one another, patient with one another, raising not only their kids but each other, and, of course, realistic. (Of course, given that they are real, they should be realistic, but many readers don’t the real James and Amy, so lets stick with realistic).

Empowered and Thug Boy: The title character of Adam Warren’s superhero parody/cheesecake festival/character-driven sitcom is a ridiculous stereotype of stereotypical female insecurities and neuroses…except when she’s not. After hooking up with a henchman who goes by the name Thug Boy in the first volume, a rounder, more fully-developed character began to emerge, and began to draw a more complex character out of her new boyfriend as well.

I’ve long ago run out of new ways to express my admiration of Warren’s ongoing series of graphic novels, and it’s hard to talk about what makes the series work so well in the space of a few paragraphs, but Warren has managed to cross the lines the bit superhero publishers will tip toe up to fearfully in terms of sexy and/or exploitive imagery, but he uses that imagery in a storyline featuring one of the most normal and most healthy superhero relationships I’ve ever encountered in comics.

Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead: There’s certainly something to be said for longevity, and the Bumsteads have been together since shortly after my grandparents were born and, while I missed out on the beginnings of their relationship for a few decades, they seem to have achieved a sort of eternal upper-middleclass suburban paradise—unchallenged and unchanging.

While their status quo might not be the most appealing, I’ve always seen Dagwood as an inspirational figure: Here’s a guy with a terrible hair cut and a slow wit, a man who can’t leave for work without badly hurting a mailman or afford to eat lunch anywhere other than the same crappy diner every day or ever convince his boss to give him a raise, and yet he’s still managed to land Blondie, and end each of his repetitive, boring days in bed next to her, the one strap of her nightgown always falling off her one shoulder provocatively.

If Dagwood Bumstead can achieve marital bliss with a goddess like Blondie, there’s hope for anyone!

Superman and Lois Lane: When I was thinking of the deceitful, dysfunctional relationships most common among superheroes that Ralph and Sue’s was the exception to, I was mainly thinking of Superman and Lois. For the first, oh, forty to fifty years of their existence, Superman treated Lois as something between a pest to be avoided and a minor inconvenience to be tolerated. And who can blame him? Throughout the Silver Age, in which she devoted her self to one wacky, extreme scheme to trick Superman into marrying her against his will after another (and/or occasionally crush her rivals for his affection), she proved herself to be Superman’s greatest arch enemy. Lex Luthor and Brainiac couldn’t hold a candle to the chaos Lois has caused him.

The Superman/Clark Kent/Lois Lane love triangle is, in a lot of ways, central to the appeal of the Superman character, and doing away with it in the comics was certainly a controversial move. Did it somehow make Superman no longer Superman?

Maybe. I like to think it merely reflects comic book Superman’s transition from a character of boys’ fantasy to one of grown men (and women’s) fantasy. Since most of his regular readers are adults now, fewer of them see girls as something with cooties, to be avoided at all costs. (Without getting too far off-topic, the outted superhero with no secret identity, either from his loved ones or the public at large, seemed to be something of an increasing trend for a while—of course, within the last few years even outted characters like Spider-Man and The Flash have been going back into the secret identity closet).

Taking a broad view of the Superman/Lois relationship, from a perch here in the real world, I like to think that the fact that they eventually learned to trust each other and marry and have been able to function all these years as a couple as a sort of happy semi-ending, the next plateau in a relationship that will never really end, but can at least change for the better.

Or you can always look at it this way: Even a crazy lady like Lois Lane can eventually clean up her act and find happiness, not through elaborate schemes but by simply being herself.

Spider-Man and Mary Jane: Oh wait, never mind.

Godai and Kyoko: I limited myself to a single manga couple, because otherwise this list would be about ten times as long, and if I had to pick a favorite couple from a manga, it would definitely be young, shiftless student Yusaku Godai and the beautiful widow who managed his apartment complex in Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku. This was one of the first manga series I read, and the first time I experienced the couple-constantly-on-the-verge-of-getting-together formula that would prove to be the engine for, like, 80-percent of the manga I’ve read since. Maison Ikkoku was just 14 volumes long, and more realistic than a lot of the romantic comedies Takahashi would follow it with (i.e. there are no demons or transfeminiating martial artists in it), long enough to make it suspenseful without growing tiresome or too artificial.

The dynamic between Godai and Kyoko is one I’d find in a lot of the series I’ve read and enjoyed the most since, not only in Takahashi’s work, but also in Love Hina, which was obviously inspired by Maison Ikkoku, and one of my favorite series at the moment, Jin Kobayashi’s School Rumble.

Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers: The title character of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Oni Press graphic novel series and the American ninja/delivery girl whose love he’s been trying to win for five volumes now certainly make for a cute couple, however those who have read the latest volume know that their ending up together may not be as inevitable as it once seemed.

It doesn’t matter. The fact that Ramona is so special that Scott must defeat her Seven Evil Ex-Boyfriends in combat (while Ramona will need her own fighting skills to fend off Scott’s ex-Knives Chau and others) is something I find perpetually charming. A lover who must first complete a quest before winning his or her girl or boy is a premise as old as stories, but O’Malley has given it a new spin by using the language and imagery of video games—where most of use associate the word “quest” with these days anyway—and making the comedy inherent in the situations somewhat metaphorical of relationships in general.

After all, isn’t part of winning someone—anyone—depend on one’s ability to surpass those who came before you in some manner or another?

Well, those are some of my favorite comics couples. I’ll be back tomorrow, one day closer to Valentine’s Day, to talk about some of my least favorite couples. In the mean time, who are some of your favorite comics couples…?

This in from The Deadbolt: Joss Whedon will not make a comic adaptation for his new series “Dollhouse.”

Whedon’s reasoning? Read on:

You know, the science fiction of this is much more fiction than science. Ultimately it’s actors acting differently, which is not that – Something you really need to see drawn. There is, however, CSI comic books. So I guess everything could be a comic book. But I don’t feel it lends itself in the same way that my other fictions have.You know, the science fiction of this is much more fiction than science. Ultimately it’s actors acting differently, which is not that – Something you really need to see drawn. There is, however, CSI comic books. So I guess everything could be a comic book. But I don’t feel it lends itself in the same way that my other fictions have.

For me, this is interesting on a number of levels. Dark Horse — and surely Whedon himself — have made a killing off of comic adaptations of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Serenity. The fact that Whedon won’t take a stab at this latest property could mean any number of things.

I think the most logical answer is rescuing the show itself — it’s been no secret that Dollhouse had some rough patches with the Fox execs, who had a knock-down, drag-out fight with Whedon upon the cancellation of Firefly. I think for the sake of the show — and Whedon’s rekindled relationship with the studio — focusing on the television aspect will consolidate the audience a bit.

Keep in mind that Angel and Serenity (as well as the lion’s share of Buffy comics) were printed after their respective television series — and when television writers like Pushing Daisies’ Bryan Fuller say that they will resurrect their dropped series in comic form, it may be starting to look like comic books could be a graveyard for discarded concepts as well as a goldmine for tried-and-tested franchises. In other words: to keep Dollhouse from looking weak in its fledgling season, Whedon may be quashing the comic book route.

Thoughts, Newsarama?

This is a new one on me: fans demanding that their favorite character NOT appear in more movies.  CNN has a report on a fan group that wants to see The Joker retired from any future film appearances.  This originated at fan site The Ultimate Joker.  The story makes me ask a few questions:

1) Just over 2,400 signatures, and you get a CNN write-up?

2) While I don’t believe that we’ll see The Joker again in the present run of Nolan-Bale films, does anyone really think that The Joker would ever be permanently off the table?  We’ve already had three in movie theaters (counting Romero) and roughly half-a-dozen in animation.

3) Ledger was indeed great, but this is a really strange strain of fan devotion, the notion that no one (NO ONE) could ever play a character well but one person.  Sure, we associate certain characters with one actor, but pop culture is loaded with characters that have had multiple successful interpretations.  Consider James Bond (Connery, Moore, Brosnan, and Craig; Lazenby only got one chance, and Dalton was eh) or Dracula (Lugosi, Lee, Langella, Oldman) and so on.  I’m sure that a lot of us had a hard time picturing Ledger after Jack, but he took it to a new place.  Trying to prematurely deny any other actor a chance says something sadly negative about the flexible imagination of some fans.

With apologies to VH-1, we’ve gotta ask, “Is G’nort having the best week ever?” First off, on Friday the 6th, the hapless doglike GL got major screen time in the latest episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold.  If you didn’t catch it (spoilers on!), the fuzzy guy helped save the day (and Mogo!), earning the respect of Batman and the Corps.  And yesterday, after a slight delay, this hit stores . . .

Yep.  G’nort’s first action figure, based on the art of Kevin Maguire.  I predict a G’nort renaissance.  Maybe he’ll return in Blackest Night.  Hey, maybe he’ll even switch over to being a Blue Lantern.  After all, aside being, well, dim, his greatest characteristic was always his hope that he would be worthy of his ring-a-ding.  At any rate, it’s kind of fun to see the dog have his day.

According to Forbes Magazine, via CNN.com, Will Smith is the most bankable star in Hollywood. A lot of factors play into this, but certainly his “Mr. Fourth of July” genre rep helps. Second on the list is Angelina Jolie, another performer that moves smoothly between drama and genre material. The first half of the CNN brief runs through the criteria.

[Via CNN]

Washington City Paper Drops Syndicated Comics. All of them. This is the alt-weekly, which one would hope would be maintaining its interest in alternative and creative viewpoints like those brought by comics.

I hate to brag, but one of my local alt-weeklies here in Philly has a cover story about comics this week, and it’s a good one, gorgeously illustrated with art from Duane Swierczynski’s run on The Punisher. Swierczynski himself was the former editor of the other Philly alt-weekly, the City Paper, and the article is excellent even if, like me, you’re not a regular Punisher reader.

Swierczynski is as big as a Budweiser Clydesdale but not quite as pretty. And while he could crush your skull like an eggshell with his mighty fists, he almost certainly won’t. He lives with his wife, 6-year-old-son and 5-year-old daughter in a perfectly normal house in a perfectly respectable part of Northeast Philadelphia. His first job every morning is to make his kids breakfast (Coco Puffs, Special K and/or yogurt and frozen pancakes).

Finally, in case you thought I was just stuck on alt-weeklies, my friend just showed me this trailer and it kind of made my mind explode. So of course I had to post it here for you.

Granted, this is an unofficial production, but Topless Robot has posted a YouTube clip of an anime adaptation of Doctor Who, created by OtaKing77077. Check it out — it looks awesome!

Wil Wheaton’s Sunken Treasure has now been released, the eponymous Wheaton wrote on his blog.

The book, which is $13 plus shipping ($15 outside of the U.S.), is described by the author: “If you ever wanted to know where to start with all my writing, Sunken Treasure is the book for you.”

The book was printed through Lulu, a new self-publishing service. Wheaton most recently played the voice of Ted Kord in the Brave and the Bold.

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

Christopher Nolan has been snapped up again by Warner Bros., Variety reports, to direct his script Inception.

According to Warner Bros., this is a sci-fi action movie that takes place “within the architecture of the mind.”

Emma Thomas, his wife and producing partner, is also on the film.

At the very least, this will put a delay on any possible discussion on a third Batman film — that said, Nolan took time off to direct the Prestige between the previous two movies.