The Flash is the latest character released by Sony Online Entertainment to appear in the upcoming MMORPG DC Universe Online. The game will allow gamers to create their own super hero or super villain to fight alongside and against the big names (and some of the small ones) from across the DCU. Comic art living legend Jim Lee and a team of artists are designing each character and environment, then seeing them rendered in 3D. Click through for more of Wally West, including the game’s description of the Fastest Man Alive and some hints of villains players might encounter when running alongside the speedster.

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Reports have popped up today that Warner Bros. Entertainment has bid 33 million dollars to purchase Midway Games. The buyout would include Midway, the Mortal Kombat franchise, and the Chicago and Seattle development studios. Midway has been suffering for nearly two years now, having already shutdown several projects and locations, and laying off much of their staff at remaining locations. The deal apparently does not include the TNA Wrestling license, nor two other development studios. There will be an auction before the deal goes through to allow other companies to take a shot, but it’s expected that WB will come out on top.

A sell-out was expected, as it is the only way at this point that the Mortal Kombat franchise and Midway as a whole could avoid a fatality. Time Warner clearly wants a larger stake in the games industry. Their first major step, buying a chunk of Eidos Interactive, was foiled a few months ago when Square Enix decided to buy the company outright. This move would all but assure a sequel to last year’s well-received Mortal Kombat vs. DCUniverse, and possibly see a new internal development point for more of Warner’s many properties to be translated into games.

Kryptonite, Lex Luthor and Doomsday have yet to fell the “Boy of Steel” (funny, for a lead actor in his 30s now), but finally something may be too deadly for Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman to overcome: A new Friday night timeslot.

Making the rounds in entertainment trades is news that The CW network has laid out their Fall 2009 schedule, and while Smallville managed to survive (news known for weeks, actually), the show looks like odd man out in terms of its choice time of the week. Making way for a new program (The Vampire Diaries) to be paired Thursday nights with the thriving Supernatural, Smallville has been moved to Fridays and given a mere repeat of America’s Top Model (I just threw up a little in my mouth) to carry the night for the network. Gotta love, also, how CW has put together a night devoted to Aaron Spelling material from days of old, 90210 and Melrose Place. I can assure you what network I will NOT be watching on Tuesday nights come September.

Terminator fans know all too well how toxic Friday night prime time can be with the recent cancellation of Fox’s Sarah Connor Chronicles. And despite being touched by an angel with Dollhouse, Joss Whedon fans were infamously burned with the short shrift given to cult classic Firefly. But despite the fact that I am sure Smallville’s move to Fridays is the first step in The CW clearing it off the books a year from now, I really can’t complain about the show’s treatment dating back to its origins on The WB in 2001. Nine seasons for any show in this day and age is remarkable, and in spite of creative ups and downs over the years, there is no denying that Smallville cemented its status in Superman lore years ago.

Ultimately my biggest hope is that the show producers develop a season from beginning to end that’ll make some sort of historical sense in Man of Steel mythology and not make it up as they go along, unsure of the promise of a tenth season. And I know everyone who follows the show has an idea in their head on how the eventual series finale should play out, but I for one would like them to simply end Season 9, regardless of the show’s fate, on a note that gives fans a sense of hope, if not closure. Stay tuned.

If you like what you’ve read so far (c’mon, how can you not?) totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

Last spring Ohio State University’s Wexner Center for the Arts and Cartoon Library collaborated to present Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond, a huge gallery show of Smith’s work, paired with original art from many of the artists who influenced him. It was accompanied by a secondary show dedicated to Thorn, the pre-Bone version of Bone that ran as a comic strip in OSU’s daily school paper, and a series of events including a talk with Scott McCloud and presentations by Paul Pope and Terry Moore.

If one were going to make a documentary focusing on Smith and his work, the show was no doubt an irresistible opportunity to gather material, as Smith, some of his cartoonist friends and peers, his family and friends, a bunch of his fans, and the show’s curator (and someone Smith refers to as his mentor) Lucy Shelton Caswell of the Cartoon Library were all hanging around off and on for a few weeks.

Well, that thought also occurred to director Ken Mills, the co-founder of Mills James Productions, which, like Smith’s Cartoon Books and OSU, is also based in Columbus. Sitting down Smith, Caswell, Pope, Moore, McCloud and plenty of others for interviews, Mills made 76-minute documentary The Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, Bone and the Changing Face of Comics.

The film will have it’s world premiere tomorrow night at—where else?—The Wexner Center , where both Mills and Smith will be on hand to introduce it. If you live in or around Columbus, you can check it out for yourself then (ticket info and suchlike here).

If you don’t but are curious about the movie, well, I could tell you about it.

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Transcribed by Christian Beranek and Tony DiGerolamo

**Note for my readers: Super Frat is a popular webcomic by Tony (The Simpsons) DiGerolamo and Chris (Dracula vs. King Arthur, Sidekick) Moreno. It’s Animal House meets the Justice League!**

Christian Beranek and Tony DiGerolamo recently won a lawsuit against the Federal Government under the Freedom of Information Act to unseal their files.  Since the late 80’s, the FBI had been keeping tabs on the duo for two unrelated reasons.  Since 2003, Beranek has been publishing, DiGerolamo has been writing and artist, Chris Moreno has illustrated the popular webcomic, Super Frat.  Due to the raunchiness of the subject matter and DiGerolamo’s penchant for skewering political figures in the strip, the FBI kicked up their surveillance of the duo.  What follows are the highlights from their previously confidential files:

March 15, 1987:  While in college, DiGerolamo researches a report on local Neo-Nazis for an expose in his TV journalism class.  After a skinhead threatens to beat him with his own video camera, he changes the subject of his expose to “Campus Drinking Laws: Why the Age Should be Lowered Back to 19.” The FBI, monitoring the skinhead’s group runs a routine check on the college student finding several unpaid parking tickets.  He receives a B- on his alternate report.

July 29, 1993:  Christian Beranek is pulled over by New Mexico State Troopers for erratic driving.  This is a ruse as the troopers are actually after his “date”, a transsexual Mexican national known only as “Juanita”.  Juanita was a witness in a capital murder trial against figures in the Mexican Mafia and had eluded her handlers.  Troopers arrested Beranek for drunk driving, but he was acquitted when his lawyer argued that his front tires were on the Mexican side of the border and therefore out of the jurisdiction of the State Troopers.  The case is thrown out.  A routine check of Beranek by the FBI revealed three arrests for public drunkenness, but no convictions.

1996:  DiGerolamo and Beranek, neither one knowing the other yet and living in New Jersey and Virginia, respectively, read their first webcomic.  DiGerolamo wrote about this day on his now defunct blog, “A Taste of Tony”.  “I was just blown away.  The first webcomic opened up so many doors.  I had wanted to do the word balloons on computer, but the whole thing?  It would save tons of overhead.”  Beranek downloaded his first webcomic the same year and was simultaneously flagged by the FBI for posting an X-rated Japanese film in violation of International Copyright Laws.

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Kirk Acevedo, who played Agent Charlie Francis in Fringe, may have just been edged out of the next season.

Entertainment Weekly reports that  Acevedo, who has been in films such as Saving Private Ryan and Invincible, wrote on his Facebook page, “WELL BOYS AND GIRLS THEY DONE DID YER BOY WRONG! THEY FIRED ME OFF OF FRINGE, AND IVE NEVER BEEN FIRED IN MY LIFE!!!!”

The Livejournal ohnotheydidn’t has an image of the Facebook posting in question. There has currently been no word from Fringe backer Fox.

[Image via TVGuide]

The Haven Comics Catalog (on the cover, and therefore hereafter, as Comics!) is a nice little magazine that transcends the fanzine by stepping away from “Who’s going to come back in Blackest Night?” and taking on interviews with figures of substance (their first issue, out this month, features an in-depth conversation with Neal Adams) and solicitation text for Archie, Blue Moon and other secondary and tertiary publishers that won’t ever get ink in Wizard. It’s not as sophisticated as Comics Buyers Guide, but it’s not supposed to be—it’s slick and simple, with large font and simple layouts. The idea behind Comics! is to talk about the medium.

Haven is, of course, a distribution house and while this catalogue is no Previews—there are, after all, some reasonably articulate pieces in here, including a column by Comic Related regular and longtime pulp fiction and comic writer Ron Fortier—its central goal is still to move product. The upside to that is that you’ll probably see some very cool, under-the-radar comics get reviewed in the first few issues of the catalogue. The downside is that you will probably never see a negative review, as it simply wouldn’t make any sense for them to print one.

Look, what they need to do with a catalogue that doesn’t have the Big Two is make it something that people want to grab. I think Haven have accomplished this admirably. As a monthly, and having about 2/3 of its 100 pages taken up by solicitations for new product, one or two decent interviews or feature stories should be enough to generate interest on the part of readers who look down and realize that for less than the cost of a Wizard magazine, they can get something that might not have the sense of immediacy that comes with Internet news sites, but is at least a compelling read…before you get to the ads.

Juliet Landau (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, as well as the voice of Tala on Justice League Unlimited) spoke to Warner Home Video about her role in Green Lantern: First Flight. Landau will be the voice of Labella, a flirtatious alien with ties to both Sinestro and Hal Jordan. Green Lantern: First Flight is due out July 28.

QUESTION: What is the enticement of voiceover for animation?

JULIET LANDAU: It is so much fun! You get to sit with a bunch of actors and play. Really play! There’s no hair and make-up, no primping – just absolute, uninhibited creativity. That’s the real joy of acting. And it doesn’t get any better than working with Bruce Timm and Andrea Romano.

QUESTION: Do you have a preference for the type of characters you play?

JULIET LANDAU: I like playing all different kinds of characters. Each one is it’s own little puzzle. Aliens are fun because you have a lot of freedom. The voice of Labella just came to me when I read the pages in a kind of organic in a way. I immediately felt like she had to sound the way I played her. When I came in for looping (pick up sound work) Andrea Romano described my Labella sound as “honey-voiced.” I think that really captures it.

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It’s confirmed: There will be a fourth Twilight movie. Wrapping up filming on New Moon and Eclipse, Robert Pattinson confirmed that he’s going to make Breaking Dawn.

Readers familiar with the Twilight saga–or those who’ve just heard about it on the Internet–know that the fourth book is the one where things finally get, er, physical between Bella and Edward, and that things don’t go according to plan.  Breaking Dawn contains some scenes that would make the staunchest horror-movie fan a bit queasy. Added to that the fact that the book is essentially three books stuck together, and you get something that might be quite hard to film.

Still, fans might be ready for a little action (double entendre intended) after three movies where most of the plot centers around the breakups and makeups and tension between Bella and Edward (and of course Jacob). Stephenie Meyer’s skill doesn’t lie in epic battles or other things that translate well to film, but in getting inside the head of a teenage girl in love. Yet the middle of Breaking Dawn is told through Jacob’s voice, and it comes out surprisingly convincing as well.

So there are several things in Breaking Dawn that haven’t been in the previous books, some for the better, some decidedly worse, and I wouldn’t want any part of having to translate it to film, but we’ll get to see what becomes of it sometime in the next couple of years.

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.

French cartoonists Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian have spent many, many years chronicling the adventures of Monsieur Jean, a thirty-ish year old writer coping with bachelorhood, mooching friend and past-tense deadlines. Get a Life is a hardcover collection of the earliest Monsieur Jean comics translated into English by Canadian publisher Drawn & Quarterly.

It’s easy to see why Monsieur Jean has been a long-running favorite comic in France. Dupuy and Berberian have a stunning collaboration, full of understated life observations and wry, sardonic humor. Jean’s exotic internal life, filled with castles and dreams of very angry felines, contrasts the simple day-to-day of his waking mind, adding silliness and liveliness, but it’s Jean’s cabal of oddball friends, would-be girlfriends, parents and neighbors that manage to just about remind you of people you’ve met. It’s an impressive performance that showcases the everyday victories and defeats of a fairly ordinary guy.

If readers come across Get a Life at their local library, I’d encourage them to check it out. It may not be a favorite of all readers, but everybody will appreciate the quality of the craft involved, and I suspect that most will identify with many of Monsier’s Jean’s foibles during the course of his battles to keep up at work and in life.

Fantagraphics is making a leap on May 30, as they will release Monte Schulz’s This Side of Jordan, over at the 2009 Book Expo in New York City!

This Side of Jordan is a story set in the Great Depression, following the travels of 19-year-old farmboy Alvin Pendergast. Alvin has spent a year in a sanitarium for tuberculosis, and encounters many of the con men and criminals of America’s seedy streets.

This is the second prose novel that Fantagraphics has ever released, after Alexander Theroux’s 2007 book, Laura Warholic. Monte Schulz is the son of famed Peanuts creator Charles Schulz.

“When I was in my early twenties, and Dad saw that I was developing an interest in writing, he showed me some of the beautiful passages of Thomas Wolfe and John Steinbeck, and lent me his copies of Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg and Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology, and Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Schulz wrote in a press release. “He told me the writer’s gift is to be able to express for people certain ideas and emotions they cannot express for themselves.”

After an underwhelming stretch recently of reissues and box sets that have felt like déjà vu the ninth time over — enough to make fans look to Mattel more and more as a reliable source of new DC action figures — DC Direct this week announced a new batch of figures that are buzzworthy and genuinely appreciated by this particular collector.

Expected to drop in January of 2010, the Justice Society of America‘s second wave was solicited Monday, action figures based on the hit DC Comics series, masterminded up until recently by Geoff Johns and Alex Ross. While we’re still waiting for the delayed first wave of figures (featuring Green Lantern, the Flash, Starman and Sandman), what DC Direct just unveiled is most welcome. Based off the highly regarded “Thy Kingdom Come,” this lineup, while not perfect for my own selfish needs, is solid for JSA fans.
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Charlie’s Angels and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle director McG told WENN during an interview to promote the upcoming Terminator: Salvation that he’s ruled out returning to the Charlie’s Angels franchise…for a rather strange reason. Citing The Terminator, Blade Runner and the films of visionary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick as inspirations, McG says that he wants to work on more “male-dominated” movies, explaining that’s what he grew up enjoying.

McG wished luck to whomever might take over from him on Charlie’s Angels III, which will apparently still star Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, but says he had no interest in being behind the camera for the next installment of the franchise he was instrumental in reinvigorating.

And because I was unable to line up an interview with Keith Giffen for this month’s Gold Exchange installment examining Booster Gold #20, the extra turnaround time dedicated to trying ended up throwing off my schedule and the Q&A never made it to Blog@. Since this is another case of “a different guy’s in charge this time around,” I figured that was enough to justify plugging the column, which features an interview with artists Dan Jurgens and Patrick Olliffe, and which can be seen here.

“I used to kind of imagine I was Wolverine. Somehow, it always got two or three more reps out of me”: Hugh Jackman’s work out secret revealed!

Wait, there’s a future of political cartoons?: Daryl Cagle on the subject of the future of political cartoon syndication, in a must-read piece from Monday.

Diana, Gail and Mary Sue: Noah Berlatsky’s fifteen-thousandth post of the year about Wonder Woman covers Gail Simone’s first arc on the series. In general, Berlatsky seems to hold that no one’s been able to write Wondy right since her creator. Despite enjoying various aspects of many of the talented folks who have kept Wonder Woman comics alive since the Golden Age, I wholeheartedly agree. Berlatsky seems to have liked a lot of what Simone managed to do though, even if she too fell far short of Marston. Here’s a taste:

In the end, then, maybe I spoke too quickly when I said that Simone managed to avoid the traps Marston laid for her. She does outmaneuver several of them…but she’s left with maybe the biggest one of all, which is that, unlike most any other super-hero outside of Mr. A, Wonder Woman was actually about something. Marston had stuff to say, in his cranky way, about real issues, peace and war among them. His solutions to these problems were more or less crazy (have woman rule over the world and teach men submission and love as a way to combat war), but they were thought through and existed in a coherent (if cracked) belief system.

I kinda hope Berlatsky’s working on a Wonder Woman book or something, because he’s gotta have just about enough material for one stockpiled at this point.

This is the first time the thought of Sandman fumetti ever occurred to me: Check out photographer Matt Miller’s super-cool Endless family photo, using models dressed as Neil Gaiman’s seven beings who are like gods, but are not gods. Actually, you should check out all of Matt Miller’s photos…when you’re not at work, as there are a lot of naked ladies. (Via Spurgeon, via Forbidden Planet, via Gaiman’s Twitter, if I’ve got that attribution stream correct).

Consider this a thought exercise. Which of these four covers does not belong with the rest?

Is it: (A) the President, (B) the President, (C) the Vice President, or (D) the President’s slightly anthropomorphized and/or horse-like dog?

Bluewater Productions, who produced bio comics on the presidential candidates (as well as many of the VP candidates) in the past, announced that a comic on Bo Obama (yes, that is a dog with a last name) will be released in September, written by Paul J. Salamoff and drawn by Emmy-winning Disney artist Keith Tucker.

Now, I’m pretty pleased to see something that’s a bit more true-to-life, after seeing barbarians, aliens, team-ups with flagship heroes, and Die Hard reenactments starring the President. I imagine that some in-depth interviews were used to make “Puppy Power: Bo Obama” as revealing and realistic as possible.

Just one of the many goofy images sent our way — a bit of creative graffiti takes us to Claw City:

If you think Wolverine is ticked about this, just wait till he sees what they wrote in that gas station stall off the highway. “For the best there is at what they do, call LOGAN at 555-2106…”

Craig Yoe has announced the imminent publication of a special limited edition of Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster. This limited release will include a substantial amount of material not included in the standard release, such as a bookplate signed by Yoe and Stan Lee, a facsimile of a letter to Yoe from Shuster’s sister, and sixteen pages of additional Shuster artwork deemed too hot for bookstores.

This new material only reinforces Secret Identity’s importance as one of the most revelatory works of comics scholarship in recent memory. As Yoe observes, the comic book witch hunts of the 1950s might have had a far more severe outcome if Dr. Frederic Wertham had made the connection between Superman comics and Nights of Horror, the Shuster-illustrated fetish magazine that had become notorious thanks to its alleged role in inspiring the Brooklyn Thrill Killers in 1954.

Ironically, the very unwillingness of comic book critics to take the medium seriously as an art form kept them from seeing the evidence that was literally right before their eyes. Were they not so willfully ignorant about the distinquishing qualities of comic book artists, Shuster’s work would likely have become the missing link between superhero comics and teenage depravity.

In the interests of full disclosure I should note that I did play a small role in locating some legal material for the book, but my contribution was at best minuscule. The book’s real value comes from the stunning art and Yoe’s compelling historical introduction, which reads like a Beat-poet jazz riff inspired by the era it describes.

Below the jump are a few of my own reflections on Secret Identity and its significance for obscenity law and contemporary culture. Some of the references may seem unfamiliar if you haven’t read the book, so I strongly recommend that you get a copy for yourself!

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That’s right — Ghostbusters III.

Geoff Boucher of the LA Times has reported that Dan Aykroyd and company may begin filming as early as this winter on the epic third part of the two-film (and cartoon…and toy…) franchise.

The big news on all this is not only is Aykroyd on board, but so is Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson… and Bill Murray. Murray holds one-fifth of the controlling interest in the Ghostbusters franchise, and convincing him to fight ectoplasmic evil again is what brought this movie back from the grave.

The film, which Aykroyd described as “a passing-of-the-torch movie,” is being written by Year One scriptwriters Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky.

Well, I already read and reviewed Herogasm, and this week has a couple of other things that I love–Air #9 and my beloved Hellblazer. I may be taking some of your suggestions for some Wolverine books from last week, but as usual, I feel like I’m missing something.

So, recommend/self-promote away!