From the Press Release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – APRIL 10TH, 2009

SCOTT PILGRIM THE MOVIE WEBSITE GOES LIVE!

Fans of the Oni Press series SCOTT PILGRIM by Bryan Lee O’Malley will be happy to know that the film adaptation is now in full swing, and the official SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD movie website is live now. The site, www.scottpilgrimthemovie.com, launched with a video blog featuring director Edgar Wright on the set and training with the cast. The filmmaker has promised to encompass the entirety of the New York Times Best Selling Graphic Novel series into the movie and fans are keen to get a sneak peek at the production process.

CNN is reporting that David Lance Arneson, who co-created Dungeons and Dragons with the late Gary Gygax in 1974, has died from cancer at age 61.  Wizards of the Coast, the company that releases the game, reports that Arneson passed away on Tuesday.

Mmmm, gotta love slut-shaming comic-book characters. Except I don’t. At all. And neither does the author of this post. (via When Fangirls Attack)

OK, but these are awesome.

If you didn’t read the latest arc of Northlanders, you missed out. On art like this.

Warren Ellis swears he will die if you don’t read Ignition City. I did. Did you? What did you think?

The latest dirt on the possible-cancellation of Dollhouse? I’ll be sad it if does truly get cancelled–it’s just gotten better and better each week. But Friday night is a damned inconvenient time to watch TV if you’ve got any sort of a social life.

Speaking of Dollhouse, Racialicious looks at the cast and finds non-white characters the most interesting in the lot.

Finally, if we’re going to talk about “Strong female characters” can we talk about finding some “strong women” to write some of them? I don’t have a problem with men writing female characters in general, but I know there have to be some women out there who’d love to write superheroines, right? Gail Simone can’t be the only woman in all of creation who wants to do so…

Finally, you can send a little piece of Springfield anywhere you want!

The U.S. Postal Service has announced a new line-up of Simpsons brand stamps. According to the press release:

“We are excited to celebrate The Simpsons on postage stamps,” said U.S. Postal Service Executive Director of Stamp Services David Failor. “Eyebrow-raising to say the least, this witty, well-written pop icon continues to irreverently satire its parody of a middle-class family as it lampoons American culture. The Simpsons stamps, which includes known philatelists Bart Simpson, will serve as a great opportunity to interest youngsters into stamp collecting.”

“This is the biggest and most adhesive honor The Simpsons has ever received,” said Matt Groening, creator and executive producer of The Simpsons.

“We are emotionally moved by the Postal Service selecting us rather than making the lazy choice of someone who has benefited society,” said James L. Brooks, executive producer of The Simpsons.

Click here to vote on (or “choo-choo-choose”) what your favorite Simpsons stamp is!

(Spoiler after the jump, so don’t click if you haven’t read the issue yet!)

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Something I’ve always found very interesting in the comics industry is something I’d call “mirroring.” If Marvel, for example, has Civil War coming up, well, DC is not far behind with Infinite Crisis. If the Sinestro Corps War is tearing up the spaceways in the DCU, well, so is Annihilation over at Marvel. Ultimate Universe, meet All-Star Universe. And so on.

So I’ve seen some interesting announcements over the past few weeks, which I thought I’d share. Over at New York Comic Con, DC announced one of the more untraditional titles to be coming out of their Battle for the Cowl event: Gotham City Sirens. Starring Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy, the Paul Dini-penned book is meant to be a “bad girl team-up book” as the three fight for their lives, which to me is an interesting premise in the wake of Birds of Prey’s finale. Check out the cover via the Source:

But remember what I said about mirroring? Last night, over MySpace’s My Cup O’ Joe (with Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning taking over for Joe Quesada — hey, is that mirroring when somebody took over Jimmy Palmiotti’s column?) had an interesting announcement: a new title called Marvel Divas.

Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa described the concept as such: “The idea behind the series was to have some sudsy fun and lift the curtain a bit and take a peep at some of our most fabulous super heroines. In the series, they’re an unlikely foursome of friends–Black Cat, Hell Cat, Firestar, and Photon–with TWO things in common: They’re all leading double-lives and they’re all having romantic trouble. The pitch started as “Sex and the City” in the Marvel Universe, and there’s definitely that “naughty” element to it, but I also think the series is doing to a deeper place, asking question about what it means…truly means…to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns. (And I mean both the super hero industry and the comic book industry.) But mostly it’s just a lot of hot fun.”

So — two books with different casts and very different premises, but also two books filling similar niches in their universes, and trying to capture that most elusive of markets: women. What do you think — is there one particular series you dig more? What do you want to see?

After catching a whiff of this on Warren Ellis’ Bad Signal e-mail list, Blog@Newsarama has done some digging around and found a number of rumors speculating that not only has Fox canceled Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, but in fact will not even air all 13 of the episodes already filmed.

Screen Rant is reporting that, amid sliding ratings, Fox has tapped the May 8th episode–the series’ twelfth–as the season finale. This coincides with a report from Warren Ellis, who had in turn attributed it to Felicia Day’s Twitter page. Screen Rant wonders if it might be a mistake given that Fox had previously committed to airing all filmed episodes of the show but Ellis and Whedonesque both had much more gloomy impressions of the news.

Meanwhile, E! Online is reporting that it’s a good deal more confusing than that. The story explains that there’s the matter of the never-aired original pilot, plus the matter of an unordered 14th episode that was filmed–leaving a total of 14 episodes shot, and only 12 that will ever be aired by Fox–but no change in what actually constitutes the finale. According to Fox, the network is still deciding whether to pick up Dollhouse for a second season.

Confused yet? Check out the links provided and hopefully those should help a little.

The jury is still out on whether this will be the first really great Batman game, though it does sound promising. Today Eidos and Warners announced the (inevitable) Collector’s Edition of the game, and hot damn does it have some cool stuff. From the Press Release:

14″ Batarang with stand
Matches the Batarang’s in-game design

Arkham Doctor’s Journal
48 pages of notes on Arkham’s inmates
Embossed leather dust jacket

2 Sleeve Digi-pack, including:
Game disc
Behind-the-scenes DVD

Code for downloadable Challenge Map
Exclusive “Crime Alley” map, available immediately

OK, the Batarang and Arkham Journal alone sound more than worth the extra scratch for this version of the game. I lok forward to the inevitable injury reports from people throwing the Batarang around, though. No word on if the Journal was written by Paul Dini, who is scripting the game, but I’ll update here if/when I get a response. Regardless, it’s nice to see a Collector’s Edition that actually offers some fun pack-ins. The game is due this summer, and official Facebook and MySpace pages have been setup for fans to keep track of the latest announcements.

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

Invincible Super-Blogger, Punisher enthusiast and Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter annotator Chris Sims doesn’t just write about comics, he can also write the damn things too. Witness, for example, The Chronicles of Solomon Stone, a new webcomic written by Sims, drawn by Matthew Allen Smith and lettered by Benjamin Birdie. The first eight-page installment is up now and awaiting your perusal, and the plan is to follow it up with two more chapters on the next two Wednesdays (Wednesday being new comics day, naturally) until the entire 24-page book, including a pin-up and letter column, is completely complete. Check it out; you have my personal guarantee that it will be the very best comic about a half vampire private detective skateboard champion you read today.

So the odds on seeing any of my favorite Gaiman works on the big screen have always seemed slim. But I love playing the casting game anyway. Today Splash Page noted that actress Emmy Rossum is interested in playing Death (among other roles), and suddenly I could see it.

What do you think?

Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausiello has the scoop on ABC releasing the final episodes of Pushing Daisies and Eli Stone — which were spearheaded by Bryan Fuller (now back on Heroes) and Marc Guggenheim (part of the Spider-Man brain trust).

According to the EW columnist:

* Daisies’ final three episodes will air May 30 to June 13
* Eli Stone’s final four episodes will air June 20 to July 11

The episodes will be aired on consecutive Mondays. While there has been no report of continuing Eli Stone, Fuller in the past has expressed interest in pursuing Pushing Daisies as a comic.

The times, they are a-changin’ — it looks like Warner Bros. is putting their money where their capes are, as they unveiled a new mural on their Burbank lot.

According to the New York Times, the original mural — a Mount Rushmore parody with Bugs Bunny and his Looney Tune friends — had been in place for 15 years before the Hall of Justice-themed mural took its place.

There’s also some needed speculation in the fact that if Warner Bros. has been hurting so badly this past year, why spend the extra cash for a mural? Their belief is that it might heighten the exposure of Wonder Woman and Green Lantern to make a Justice League film easier.

Here’s a shot of the new mural, shot by the able folks of Cartoon Brew:

I think I’m agreeing with the Cartoon Brew folks a bit on this one — while I love that superheroes are getting such a boom, it does feel a little blasphemous to me that we have canceled shows like Teen Titans getting more space than mainstays like Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. What do you think?

Sci Fi Wire has gotten their hands on some of the concept art for the upcoming Phantom made-for-TV film.

We announced yesterday that Ryan Carnes would be donning the jumpsuit, and the film itself would be written by the Knaupfs. But what say you about the possible wardrobe?

…Now discuss.

By Darwyn Cooke (and not Jimmy Palmiotti)

Hey there. It would appear that Jimmy left for Emerald City without a blog for this week, so it fell to me to step in and fill the yawning void that would occur without it.

I’m Darwyn Cooke, by the way. You may remember me from such comics as “To Save Me Why Must I Kill Me?” “The Tight, Tight Costume” and “I Kill You With My Killing Thing”. I’ve been wintering here in Florida with Miss Marsha, just down the street from Jimmy and Amanda. The following is a random pap smear of thoughts and recollections from the winter just past.

ITEM! FIRST A MONKEY, NOW A BEAR

Since early this year, residents of sleepy Safety Harbor and nearby Clearwater have been reporting sightings of a wild bear lurking in the bushes outsides their stately dwellings. The bear seems to be subsisting on a diet of oranges, honey, and airplane sized bottles of vodka. The police say the bear seems to prefer Grey Goose. Comics luminaries such as Jimmy Palmiotti, Brandon Peterson and even Dan Didio claim to have spotted this inhuman killing machine. Is anybody safe? Maybe he just wants a hug.

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Another grisly superhero death: Georgia-area superhero/car dealership mascot Mr. Service suffered a terrible fall and was decapitated in the process. His head was stolen shortly afterward. Of course, everyone knows no superhero ever really dies forever, but the fact that this one helped sell Chevrolets probably doesn’t bode well for his resurrection in the near future.

Tim O’Neil does not care for this Barry Allen resurrection business either: O’Neil talks about the first issue of Flash: Rebirth in this post, pointing out the fact that Barry Allen’s been dead in real time for 23 years. I hadn’t thought of it this way before, but his first appearance was in 1956, meaning he was only “alive” in real time for 30 years. In other words, he’s been dead, like, two-thirds as long as he was alive now. That seems kind of significant, doesn’t it?

Since I’ve so far just linked to negative reactions to Barry Allen’s rebirth, here’s a positive one for “balance”: EW’s Ken Tucker has a post up entitled “’The Flash’ and ‘Secret Warriors’’: Are these the two best-written super-hero comics right now?” The answer is, of course, no, no they are not.

The first inter-company crossover?: Halo and Sprocket cartoonist Kerry Callen has discovered a 1967 Captain Action and Action Boy comic in his basement, one that features the titular characters dressing up as Superman, Batman, Robin, Aqualad, Captain America, The Green Hornet, The Phantom and The Lone Ranger. Man, Captain Action is like a one-man Crisis On Infinite Earths…

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Bernie Krigstein’s one of those comic book legends whose work you just have to read. It’s like watching a Stanley Kubrik film or listening to an Eric Clapton song – even if it’s not your thing, you just have to see for yourself.

Like Kubrik and Clapton, I find Krigstein a mixed bag, but I find few faults with the quality of this book. Over-sized, hardcover, assembled by editor Greg Sadowski, recolored mostly by Sadowski and Marie Severin, the book presents Krigstein’s art in full force.

The earliest stories reprinted here are mostly from Krigstein’s crime comics days, and the stories have the standard early crime comics motif: a criminal plans something evil, but his own character fault or some inherent flaw in his scheme lead to death. Krigstein does make most of the stories look good, however obvious their narratives may be. His panel compositions are strong and focused, and his use of shadow is often staggering, though I find the figures themselves somewhat erratic and backgrounds drop out far too frequently.

Later stories, Krigstein’s art explodes forward, becoming far more consistently striking than early efforts. The ECs (the revolutionary 1950s publisher EC Comics, that is) in particular showcase Krigstein’s fondness for jamming as many panels as possible onto a page (why hasn’t that lesson been learned by more of today’s artists?!), creating staccato bursts of information, tension and character. Sticking to tiered pages, Krigstein’s able to squeeze tons of information into all those panels without sacrificing any storytelling clarity, and each panel remains a succinct statement of the narrative. His figure work and backgrounds remain an occasional distraction though.

There are so many cartoonists who’ve done so much to reshape the comics we read today.  As a fan of the medium, it’s a privilege to have access to volumes like B. Krigstein Comics that we can use to observe the evolution of the comics form, and you can find this and other important historical comics at your local library.

For all the Philadelphia readers out there:

Duane Swierczynski, whose stories have graced the pages of Cable and Immortal Iron Fist, will be interviewing another awesome author — Chuck Palahniuk, the mastermind behind Fight Club and Choke — at the Free Library in Philadelphia next month.

The event will take place May 8th ant 7:30 pm. So check it!