Superpouvoir has posted some concept images from You Have Killed Me’s Joelle Jones, for the upcoming Dark Horse one-shot of Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible:

The book will be written by Zach Whedon, Joss’ brother, and according to Superpouvoir, is due out in November. You can check out some other concepts of Penny and Captain Hammer by clicking here.

Apparently so. This show has been talked about for a while now and it’s good to see some actual footage. Marvel released this little clip (more of a music video actually) of the show and I’m intrigued. Marvel really doesn’t have a show like this out now, or has EVER made a show like this.

I’m a big fan of the SHS toys, I have several that surround my kitchen and my office. I’ll give this show a try especially after hearing some of the voice actors involved: Mark Hamill as Red Skull, James Marsters as Mr. Fantastic and George Takei as Galactus. In addition to the show, coming out this fall, a variety of Super Hero Squad merchandise spin-offs are planned, including a video game from THQ (also coming out this fall), expansion of the Hasbro toy line, and a major fastfood partnership.

So, what do you readers think of the clip? Do you think it’s something you and your child would watch, or is just too kiddie?

A very variant Wednesday: It’s no secret that the Big Two and many of their imitators have embraced variant covers with increasing fervor over the past few years. It’s still surprising to see to what degree some of the major players are embracing them, though. Yesterday Johanna Draper Carlson took a close look at Marvel’s shipping list for today, did some counting and some math and, wow. Visit her site to see the exact numbers and, perhaps of greater interest, what percentage of Marvel’s releases are variant covers this week and how that compares to DC’s total week of releases.

“Rumpus mcgooo?”: Tom Spurgeon has a brief observation about a term Black Canary used in a line of dialogue in last week’s Wonder Woman #34 that’s pretty funny. Do people use that term to refer to asses in real life, or is it DCU slang, or does Black Canary just talk like that? And, if it’s just the way Black Canary talks, why does anyone hang out with Black Canary?

“It’s not that I don’t care about the way they look, but what’s most important is that they be funny”: Michael Kupperman discusses his work in a Honolulu Star-Bulletin feature.

“In the male-dominated world of comic books…it’s interesting to examine whether or not…Muslim super-heroines escape the sexual objectification and sexism that women often suffer in comic books”: Jehanzeb Dar pens an excellent examination of  Sooraya “Dust” Qadir, the female, Muslim mutant character Grant Morrison introduced during his run on New X-Men at Altmulimah.com. I can’t disagree with any of the points raised from any position other than, “Well, at least Morrison and Marvel were trying to be inclusive, and didn’t put her in a bikini or anything.” Which, you know, obviously isn’t a tenable position.

No one was murdered at Comic-Con International: Don MacPherson checked in with San Diego police to see how well comic fans behaved during their annual congregation in the city. Pretty well, apparently.

Leave me alone, it’s late and I’m sleepy but it occurred to me that I hadn’t posted my books for this week. I’m still geeked for Greek Street, though it’s only issue #2, and I’ll be picking up North 40 #2 as well, even though tentacle monsters aren’t usually my thing.

Also, of course, there’s The Boys, and there’s another of these Warren Ellis Avatar novellas, this time something that I’m really into, Frankenstein’s Womb. OK, the title’s rather gross, but I love the original Frankenstein and I’m a sucker for what I suppose could be called literary origin stories, or stories about the writers of famous works that speculate on how they came to be.

So, my dears, as usual, it’s time for you to tell me what I’m missing…

Unless I missed a version somewhere, this will be the third attempt at a new Doom Patrol ongoing series this decade, following John Arcudi and Tan Eng Huat’s 2001 series, which teamed Robotman with an all-new team of heroes and lasted 22 issues, and then  John Byrne’s 2004 series, which involved a continuity reboot that Geoff Johns undid in the pages of Teen Titans and only lasted 18 issues.

Will this attempt fare any better, and hit, say 24 or 36 issues? I can’t hazard a guess. It’s written by Keith Giffen (who’s had mixed success with franchise revitalization in the past), it’s drawn by Matthew Clark (who’s done a lot of work for DC lately, but mostly on out of the way stuff), and it seems to be playing it pretty safe, using the original characters and not rebooting the franchise or doing anything crazy.

It’s also going to be a $4 book, which may make it a tougher sell. On the other hand, it’s going to include a Metal Men back-up by the beloved Justice League International creative team of Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire (and Maguire draws real good Metal Men; just see 2000’s Silver Age: The Brave and The Bold #1 if you need proof of that).

So I guess we’ll see how the market receives it in a few months, and we’ll see if it’s any good tomorrow. I’m certainly going to give it a shot.

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By Christian Beranek

Recently I was able to interview letterer/production guru Thomas Mauer. I hope that my readers will find what follows as interesting as I did. It’s not often you get the chance to peek behind the curtain and see how the nuts and bolts of comic production works — and in such an efficient manner! So with that I invite you to dive in…

BERANEK: Lettering is a under appreciated art form. What made you want to get into the profession?

MAUER: Fortune and glory, of course! Though not as a letterer. I just couldn’t find one for a few short stories I’d written in 2005, did the lettering myself, and then found people who wanted to pay me to letter theirs. So I figured lettering would be a good way to keep a presence in the industry while writing my own comics.

Haven’t written anything substantial since–and fortune? Forget about that. It’s a living, but also a constant hustle. Gotta love it to do it.

BERANEK: Who are some of the great letterers who have inspired your current work?

MAUER: Tom Orzechowski was the first letterer I knew by name. Last year, I had the great pleasure of working on a backup story for SAVAGE DRAGON #143, and thus appeared in the same book alongside him. Tom’s doing SD by hand, hadn’t done hand lettering for years, and he still has the magic touch. We’re sharing space in the upcoming second volume of OUTLAW TERRITORY from Image Comics as well, btw.

Other current influences in my quest for perfect imperfection in digital lettering are John Workman, Clem Robins, and Gaspar Saladino.

BERANEK: What process and programs do you use when you letter a comic?

MAUER: Microsoft Word, Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop are the programs I use. In Photoshop, you can check that the artwork is at the correct size and reformat if necessary. The writer’s dialogue and panel directions come from Word of course. That gets copy/pasted.

Illustrator is what the main work is done in. You can do vector graphics in it, which means balloons and copy (dialogue and effects) can be scaled to any size without losing clarity. This allows you to print books with tiny type or to print out large cloth banners where clarity of the text is very important.

My workflow goes like this:

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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!

From the UPI…

Really, if you want to push a right-wing agenda, you may want the help of a dictionary. I’ll let the Chicago Sun-Times‘ Richard Roeper explain:

Just a few ways in which Obama’s policies differ from a socialist agenda: socialism would mean no health insurance companies; decriminalization of drugs and prostitution; immediate withdrawal of all troops on foreign soil; a certain cap on all salaries in any situation and public funding for the media. I don’t see the White House calling for such measures, do you?

What say ye? Inventive comic tie-in? Guerrilla propaganda at its finest?

Ah, San Diego. The place where magic happens, and true love is in the air.

But sometimes — sometimes you miss your chance. Via Dennis Calero, this Missed Connections report on Craigslist, called “You Were The Zur En Arrh Batman“:

I was the Joker who accosted you after the Kevin Smith panel on Saturday and I found you to be amazingly awesome.
Sadly I didn’t have the chance to get your name or anything. The insanity of the Con kinda sidetracked me…

Anyhow! I’d love to be friends or at least get into contact with you.

That’s just kinda cute. If you can help find this Batman, go right ahead — spammers, go away. This next image, below the cut from Bat-Blog.com, is a bit less wholesome. It’s more like a Batman Tramp Stamp that some ill-advised (male) reader decided to get. This is not for the faint of heart.

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MTV has released this interview with Red director, Robert Schwentke and in his own words, he plans on turning the Warren Ellis/Cully Hamner project into something of a comedy, or at least something “lighthearted”.

“I love the script,” Schwentke said told MTV News. “It’s very funny, which the comic book isn’t.”

I don’t think it was ever intended as comedy, sir. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I laughed at a Warren Ellis script. It is funny to me however that when a film is optioned, the director/studio has a completely different vision. I understand that certain things don’t translate to page from the screen all that well and the movie may suffer from it. Schwentke also went on to say that the violence had been toned down. Understandable since they are probably aiming for a PG-13 rating. I contacted Cully Hamner to see how he felt about the so-called changes.

“Well, talking about a prospective movie and a finished movie are two very different things.  When we were first approached about a film version of RED, I fully expected that the material would see some changes—if for no other reason than the length of the original comic.” Makes sense. He then added, “It would be presumptuous of me to give an opinion on a movie that hasn’t yet been made, based on a couple of comments from the director.  But hey, you know, our comic is still there and available for anyone who’d care to see what our intent was.”

So what do you think, readers? Do you think Red‘s new direction will be well-suited under proper direction, or do you smell another Schumacher?

We’ve been over the booth babe controversy enough, and so I’m not going to rehash that here. However, I was struck by one paragraph in this LA Times piece, by Tod Goldberg, on Comic-Con:

It was the zombie issue that brought forth the sociologist in me. Countless women covered in knife wounds and in advanced stages of decomposition happily posed with men (and boys … lots and lots of boys). The booth for “The Blood Factory” — Danny DeVito’s home of short splatter films … which is to say, films with lots of sex and lots of knife wounds, often concurrently — featured two smiling and bloodied hotties wielding chainsaws who posed and vamped for children of all ages. The sexualization of violence was not something I was prepared for even knowing well how undead vampires have become romance heroes in print and film. Sex was certainly in play without violence too — apparently selling any kind of video game is easier if there’s a vacant-eyed woman wearing a Wonder Woman costume in the booth — and in a way it’s nothing new for these kinds of gatherings since even Renaissance fairs use women as objects, but usually those women aren’t covered in open wounds. I’m no prude per se, but it was nonetheless odd to see young boys getting their cheeks pecked by buxom undead women. Maybe not as odd as the gentleman dressed like Bob’s Big Boy, burger and all, but odd no less.

I would say that what he’s critiquing here is not the sexualization of violence–anyone who’s seen Kill Bill or, well, any action movie, could tell you that sex and violence go hand in hand–but the way women are almost always cast as the victims of that violence. In other words, it’s not that there’s violence and sexy women mixing; it’s that those women are dressed as victims of violence and yet are cheerily posing for pictures with men and young boys. It’s the normalization of women-as-victim of violence that is kinda creepy.

That said, I like female monsters, even the undead variety, in my monster movies. Zombies and vampires, after all, keep coming despite the horrible things done to them. That’s what makes them scary, and in vampires’ case, sexy. The monsters are powerful because they are dead and yet they live.

Goldberg juxtaposes women wielding chainsaws (presumably, the blood they are covered in would be someone else’s) with women covered in (fake) wounds here without question, where in fact they’re two very different things, and I would go even further and say that it does matter whether the women covered in wounds are zombies or simply victims.

This goes to the heart of my disgust with “torture porn” films like Saw and Hostel but love for vampires, zombies, and other freaky monsters. Monsters are subversive, uncanny: they violate boundaries. Torture porn movies do nothing but show us splashy violence, the worst of humanity, and quite often reinforce gender roles: male attacker, female victim. A wounded woman who fights back is entirely different than one who is simply a victim, and a wounded woman who comes back as a monster might be the stuff of worst nightmares.

This just in from Ain’t It Cool News — after Metal Men, Dan DiDio’s going for the monthly gold!

The man behind the Metal Men is moving to an all-new, all-different monthly series later this year, AICN reported. Here’s the quote:

Yeah, I’ll give you a scoop. I’ll give you a spoiler. You know what, I had so much fun writing METAL MEN that I’m actually going to be taking over a monthly title coming up at the end of the year.

The head honcho of DC editorial has been working with Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez on the current Wednesday Comics Metal Men feature — could this be another crack at the Alloy-able Avengers?

Despite my initial thoughts to the contrary, probably not, as they are currently the back-up for the new Doom Patrol series — as reader David Uzumeri notes below, this likely means that DiDio is taking over a different monthly feature, instead,  just referencing Metal Men as the impetus — after all, he did get his start at DC writing Superboy. Thoughts?

Movieline has posted a few photos of the never-before-seen concept art of the ThunderCats that never came to realization. One word: uncanny. Growing up the 80′s ThunderCats was a childhood staple (alongside Transformers and Masters of the Universe) and these photos are amazing. If this is what a ‘Cats movie would look like where do I sign up?

In conjunction with our coverage of Comic-Con 2009, Movieline has obtained [veteran art director Jerry] O’Flaherty’s never-before-seen Thundercats concept art, demonstrating just how gorgeous and ambitious his vision for this production is. After the jump, you’ll see Thundercats renderings of Lion-O, The Pyramid, Third Earth, and Mutant Attack.

You may have remembered that fan trailer that exploded around the net, sending fanboys into a frenzy. With the success of both Transformers movies and the G.I. JOE movie coming out this week, would you like to see ThunderCats roar on to the big screen? If so, who would you cast?

Here’s an interesting view on things from the Wake the Dead podcast, about how we as a society tend to relish stories and characters that are supernatural when times are rough and go awry. Face it, Twilight is a smash-hit, whether in the bookstore or at the movie theater. HBO’s True Blood is one of the most talked about shows on premium cable (I finally discovered the show when the first season came out on DVD) and has a huge cult following.

Some think the paranormal surge began shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. Danny Boyle’s zombie film 28 Days Later appeared in 2002. Dawn of the Dead arose in 2004, and George Romero’s epic Land of the Dead in 2005. World War Z, a zombie apocalypse novel by Max Brooks, has sold more than 200,000 copies since it appeared in 2006.

Now, Mr. Timpane has a point there. . . to an extent. He does mention the Romero films again as well as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Bela Lugosi’s version, and Nosferatu (which came out in 1922), but doesn’t mention Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein which is a zombie movie in its own way. Of course on the comic book side of things we have Marvel Zombies, Blackest Night and the newly announced, Necrosha. I think because the comic code allows it, we can get away with a lot more now. Remember, in the 70′s there couldn’t be vampires and werewovles and such in Spider-Man titles. Both Man-Wolf and Morbius were created through scientific means, not supernatural. Those Marvel guys were crafty, huh?

Now, we also have Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is going into its 16th printing since debuting in April. I haven’t read it, but I hear pretty good things. I don’t think we as a culture are now just opening up our horizons to more supernatural material, I think we’ve always had an interest in the macabre, it’s just that now it is getting a lot of media attention. So, I impose a question to you ‘Rama readers: do you think the vampire/zombie trend will burn and die out soon or will it just grow larger as time goes by?

I found this excellent New York Times Magazine piece on little girls and superheroes the other day, and then had a couple of people email it to me as well. Unsurprising, perhaps, as women and comics is well-known as my beat here and elsewhere, and my fascination certainly extends to little girls and the way they’re socialized.

The author writes from her own perspective: her little girl has graduated from Disney Princesses to Wonder Woman, and she’s thrilled. Like me, she finds Wonder Woman’s costume far less problematic than the gender-specific roles Disney princesses forced her daughter into, and she examines the unique lessons that the superheroine can provide for girls growing up in the current culture: where there are plenty of powerful female role models and yet their media portrayals always seem vexed in ways that their male counterparts’ are not.

In the end, that is the true drama of the superhero: the ordinary Joe who discovers that he has a marvelous gift, something that sets him apart from everyone else, simultaneously elevating and at least potentially isolating him, forcing a series of moral choices about the nature of might and goodness. It’s a story writ large about coming to grips with power: accepting it, demanding it, wielding it wisely. Those themes are rarely explored in the fantasy culture of little girls, yet given how problematic power remains for adult women — in both fact and fiction — perhaps they should be. Consider the connotation of Superwoman, who is more harried than hectic, not something I’d want for myself or for my girl. What’s more, Superwoman is subject to a unique form of kryptonite: the threat of being called a bad mother. Besides, who would want to be referred to as the Woman of Steel?

Little girls do like to feel powerful; in my days working in a nonprofit with elementary-school kids, I remember trying to spot the line where the confident, happy, energetic little girls began to be sullen, nervous adolescents, while their male classmates didn’t seem to cross any such line. I certainly can’t give all the credit for that to superheroes and other fantasy-fictional role models, yet I would love to see a world where these little girls are raised with more visions of female power that isn’t pathologized, in both the real world and in the media by which they are surrounded.

Avatar has unveiled a preview for Frankenstein’s Womb, a graphic novella by none other than Warren Ellis.

Drawn in black and white by Marek Oleksicki, the story examines Frankenstein author Mary Shelley as she explored the abandoned castle of a ghoulish alchemist — and left with the seed of a masterpiece.

MTV has reported that Jennifer Love Hewitt wouldn’t mind wearing the Star-Spangled Swimsuit to play that most awesome of Amazons — Wonder Woman.

Her qualifications (according to her): she’s curvaceous, athletic, has a propensity for gold bracelets (this may be a problem, however, as WW’s bracelets are not gold), and she loves tiaras. And you may recall that last week IDW announced that they would be working on a ten-issue horror comic with Hewitt called “The Music Box.” What do you think? Do you think she could lasso the role?

Via our very own Julius Marx on Action Figure Insider, Hasbro has opened up a poll for its Marvel Legends action figure line!

Nominees include Lady Bullseye, Brother Voodoo, Multiple Man, Deadpool, Fantomex, Constrictor, Bag Head Spidey, Nuke, Terror Inc., the Hood, Valkyrie, and X-Force Wolverine.

The top three winners of the poll will have action figures made of themselves. The poll ends today, however, so vote now!

SCI Fi Wire has a nice interview up with Matt Fraction on his writing the Iron Man 2 video game, but what really stood out for me was this quote about why comics have exploded over the past decade.

“It costs a couple grand to publish a comic book, and it could turn into a billion-dollar movie or game property. And comics have an infinite budget. Film and games can’t match comics for what they’re capable of. Still. The comics are a hundred-year-old technology. A hundred-year-old storytelling technology. And I don’t care what James Cameron is doing with Avatar, and I can’t wait to see it, but I guarantee it wouldn’t hold a candle to what Jack Kirby was doing 40 years ago. Computers are getting to stuff Kirby was doing 40 years ago. You know what I mean? They’re almost to where we were 50 years ago. Congrats.”

It’s certainly a sentiment that has been repeated often, but Fraction’s confidence in comics as a medium is palpable, and is something I don’t think gets out enough in the age of movie deals and comics-to-film pipeline operations. What do you think, Rama readers?

Television’s genre offerings have taken some top honors for the Television Critics Association Awards, Entertainment Weekly has announced.

Battlestar Galactica — a show criminally ignored during this year’s Emmys — was named Program of the Year, while vampire series True Blood was named Outstanding New Program.

Yet perhaps the biggest not-at-all-a-surprise was The Big Bang Theory, which got a number of Emmy nominations, including for lead actor Jim Parsons. For the TCA awards, Big Bang lived up to its name, winning Outstanding Achievement in Comedy.