I’ve always been partial to Sean “Cheeks” Galloway’s character designs, and his Iron Man is no exception:

The Wednesday Comics Teen Titans artist has posted this design above, which was made into a 3D sculpt by Luis-Gomez Guzman. I’ll be honest in saying I can’t even remember who I found this from on Twitter, but you can check the whole thing out by clicking here.

By Holly Golightly of Broadsword Comics

Hey Newsarama Pals!

We’ve been busy busy busy! San Diego Comic Con was totally groovy! A good time was had by all!

Danzig and us!

I even created a video featuring cosplayers and a perky interview with real life witch Tonya Kay.

Tonya will be doing a crossover with Tarot in Issue #59…cover is below…

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Send yours to newsaramaevents [at] gmail [dot] com.

Baltimore:

Kids Love Comics Character Carnival at Baltimore Comic-Con
Baltimore, Maryland – August 31, 2009 – Come one, come all to the Comics Character Carnival at Baltimore Comic-Con.

The Baltimore Comic-Con, one of the best and biggest comic book shows around, is always a family-friendly show, offering a multitude of activities, comics, DVDs, and Manga for kids young and old.  Once again, the fine folks in Baltimore are partnering with Kids Love Comics to present the KLC Character Carnival at Baltimore Comic-Con.

Top kids creators will be in attendance to sign their kid-friendly comics, give tips on comics creation, and help guide the future graphic novelists of tomorrow.  Creators attending include Franco (Tiny Titans), Jimmy Gownley (Amelia Rules), Scott Sava (Dreamland Chronicles), Rich Faber (Roboy Red), Steve Conley (Astounding Space Thrills), John Gallagher (Buzzboy), Mike Manley (Batman:  Brave and the Bold), and others.  This year also introduces a KLC “Artist-In-Residence” program, in which the KLC Cartoonists will set up in the KLC Big Top area, working on a drawing board and giving drawing and storytelling lessons to everyone and anyone.  Also on hand will be caricature artists, a KidzDraw area, and a special KLC Giveaway Print, courtesy of Ka-Blam Printing.

“Organizer Marc Nathan and the Baltimore Comic-Con always put on a great show,” said John Gallagher, the ringleader of this year’s KLC Carnival, “and we are so happy to be back in Baltimo re to help meet young fans and future creators of cool comics.”

Kids Love Comics is an organization of professionals and patrons of the comic book, publishing, and children’s book industries, dedicated to promoting literacy and fun(!) through comics and graphic novels.  For more information on Kids Love Comics, visit their website at http://www.kidslovecomics.com/.

This year’s Baltimore Comic-Con will be held October 10-11, 2009. Convention hours are Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM and Sunday 10 AM to 5 PM. The ceremony and banquet for the Harvey Awards will be held Saturday night, October 10th.

New York:

A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

7:00pm – 9:00pm
McNally Jackson Bookstore
52 Prince Street
New York, NY

http://www.smithmag.net/afterthedeluge

“One of the best-ever examples of comics reportage, and one of the clearest portraits of post-Katrina New Orleans yet published. An essential addition to the ongoing conversation about what Katrina means, and what New Orleans means.” — Dave Eggers

A.D.: New Orleans After The Deluge is an NY Times bestselling nonfiction graphic novel about escaping and surviving Hurricane Katrina–and what happens next in the lives of a cross-section of Crescent City residents.

Please join us Wednesday, 9/16 for a lively conversation about the making of A.D and how Josh translated these real lives into a comic book form; about the evolution of A.D from web to print; about the difference between and the synergistic coexisting of webcomics and books; and about non-fiction graphic novels.

Are you hitting the Long Beach Comic-Con next month?

If so, you may get your chance to check out the Punisher himself. Thomas Jane will be premiering his latest film, “Give ‘Em Hell, Malone,” during the October convention. The action film, co-starring Ving Rhames, pits a gumshoe against the mob.

But wait — what about the comics? Oh, I’m getting there — Jane, along with his Raw Entertainment partner Tim Bradstreet, will be promoting their two new graphic novels, Bad Planet and Alien Pig Farm. Bad Planet deals with a crashed spaceship and giant intergalactic spiders, while Alien Pig Farm follows brothers Johnny, Ray, and Elvis as they bump into a spaceship of pig-eating aliens.

Additionally, Berkeley Breathed, the legendary creator of Bloom County, will also be in attendance, promoting IDW’s collection of Bloom County.

Meanwhile — do you want to help the Hero Initiative? Sure you do! If you start buying your tickets for the show by starting at Hero’s web site, you’ll be giving them a small bit of proceeds from your sale. It’s a good cause, and helps a lot of creators in need, so go for it! Jim McLauchlin has more info on that.

I’m facing a bit of a dilemma.

Usually new comic book day falls on Wednesday, right? And usually I put together a linkblogging post late Tuesday night and set the Blog@Newsarama  robot to post it for me early the next morning, so I can devote my entire Wednesday to the acquisition and reading of new comic books.

But new comic book day has arrived a day late this week, on Thursday, instead of Wednesday, due to the Labor Day. (Thanks for improving working conditions, getting people with full-time jobs a Monday off at the end of summer and completely ruining my week, American Labor Movement!).

Normally on Thursday mornings and afternoons I spend my time working on a post for Blog@, but I can’t go get and read comics and come up with a Blog@ post at the same time, and I need to do both as soon as possible, because the new comic book reading is something of an addiction at this point, and the latter is something I should probably do before you call go home from work and thus stop checking Blog@ for comics-related content.

So here’s the solution I came up with: I’ll liveblog my reading of this week’s books. Will that be entertaining? Informing? Mildly interesting? I don’t know, but it will definitely be a blog post.

So I just got back from my local comic shop with this week’s purchases (By the way, any fellow Columbusites in the reading audience, Sean McKeever is signing at the Laughing Ogre today in support of Nomad, so go visit him and buy his book. I suggest you bring copies of Ted McKeever books with you and ask him to sign those, just to see what happens), and it’s a relatively light week for me.

I’ve been adjusting my weekly comics-buying budget down gradually over the last few years, and it currently stands at $25 (down from an all-time high of $45 in 2005). The arrival of the long-awaited sixth volume of Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&!, which costs $10.99, bumped a trio of $3.99 DC books and a $2.99 Marvel book off my shopping list (Booster Gold, Adventure Comics, Doom Patrol and Marvel Adventures Super Heroes, for those keeping score; I’ll probably pick up some of those if one of the next few weeks are lighter). So this week’s haul consists of Yotsuba&!, Blackest Night: Batman #2, Wednesday Comics #10, Incredible Hercules #134, and Secret Six #13.

I’ve got them all in a little stack on the end table next to my special comics-reading chair, I’ve got a large black coffee from Honey Dip Donuts on Kenny Road in Columbus, and I’ve got my lap top open. So, let’s do this experiment!

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…The hammer is his comic book cover.

What’d you think I was going to say?

Doctor Horrible one-shot, Dark Horse, December 2009, by Zack Whedon and Joelle Jones. Will it be a crash-course in PhD-level Horribleness? Will it be a musical? Only time will tell.

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!

…stays at DragonCon.

Okay not really, because all the energy I put into the con, supposedly was left there because I have been wiped since I got back Monday night. I also think I caught some of the infamous “con crud”. Blarrgh. I didn’t have that much time to log on while I was there, but I did hear something about a CNN article about D*C and I finally got to read it.

The thing that was interesting about this year’s D*C is that it was also the same week as the opening game for Alabama and Virginia Tech. It was a bit of a culture shock, I’m sure

“At first I thought it was really strange,” Hokies fan Emily Nardone of Ashburn, Virginia, said. “But now I see everybody’s having so much fun. And I enjoy looking at the freaks.”

Now that may seem offensive to some at first, but that is essentially what it is. If you get bored, you can go to the bar at the Hyatt and just “people-watch”, which is just a PC way of saying admiring the freakshow and get pictures of costumes.
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Note: This interview discusses—almost immediately—the ending to IDW’s recent series The Life and Times of Savior 28. More than any other issue of the book, it should be noted here and now that the “creator commentary” provided by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Cavallaro in this issue are SPOILER-FILLED. Think of these interviews as a director’s commentary on a DVD; if you don’t want to know who Keyser Soze is at the beginning of The Usual Suspects, then you don’t listen to Bryan Singer’s commentary before your first viewing of the actual movie.

The story of Savior 28 and his Daring Disciple draws to a close with the release of this week’s fifth issue, and while there are some obvious and predictable moments in the issue (let’s face it—there’s one page that we’ve been building to since page one), there are also a few nice surprises along the way. Savior 28 is what we need in our superheroes—in spite of the kind of bad press that would make Peter Parker blush, he inspires everyday people, and in spite of his death (way back in the first issue, so don’t worry folks, I’m not spoiling anything here) he continues, in a way that I can’t imagine most mainstream superheroes being able to compete with, to effect positive change in the world he left behind.

As usual, writer J.M. DeMatteis and artist Mike Cavallaro sat down to discuss the issue with us. (more…)

As widely reported on our mothership site and elsewhere, Paul Levitz will be returning to write the Legion of Super-Heroes in Adventure Comics.  This will, properly, mark the third tenure of Levitz as the scribe for the teens of the future. Though he did share scripting duties at times with Gerry Conway (among others), Levitz was at the helm during “Earthwar”, the multi-part epic that ran from Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241 to #245 in 1978.

Levitz was off of the book by #252; by the time that he returned with issue #281, the title of the book had become, simply, Legion of Super-Heroes. Initially, Levitz was scripting Roy Thomas plots; after a Wildfire origin tale by Roy Thomas in #283, Levitz was sole writer on 284 (cover date February 1982). It’s here, in my estimation, that the reputation of Paul Levitz on the Legion begins in earnest.

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While the site for Disney’s D23 Fan Expo doesn’t mention Marvel Comics at all, one has to assume that the studio’s recently-announced acquisition of the comic book giant plays nicely into a convention that they, as well as the mainstream press, have been comparing to Comic-Con International.

While “D23″ (Short for Disney, 1923, the latter being the year that Walt Disney arrived in Hollywood) was formerly just the name of a fan community of Disney enthusiasts, their decision to launch their own, Disney-centric convention in Anaheim and use it as a springboard for Disney properties raises a number of questions: If Disney expands beyond just their own broad media empire and seeks out partners to make the appeal of the conventions a little greater, will comics publishers or their representatives be invited? What if they decide that D23 and its Disney-only, Marvel-only focus is better press for them than other shows, and begin to trim back Marvel’s convention appearances, or limit the number of high-profile Disney events that can happen at San Diego? Does this render moot the conclusions that some of us were starting to draw regarding Marvel choosing a couple of recent Reed conventions over their Wizard-owned counterparts?

While Marvel’s experiments with “exclusive” conventions was less than impressive, it seems logical that Disney (who already have two year-round attractions dedicated to celebrating their properties) could take the D23 show on the road and “bring Disney to the masses,” as it were. Adding Marvel Comics to that empire stands to help them attract convention-goers who are more than just tourists; they’re walking photo-opportunities, enthusiastic Internet posters and just generally people who are used to the idea of expressing their fandom by getting together in large groups and celebrating all the best things about the entertainment they love.

Some reviews, originally written for last week’s Best Shots, which unfortunately got lost under that big metaphorical couch that is someone’s Spam filter: (more…)

For the second time this month, the comics landscape has been rocked, with today’s announcement that DC president and publisher Paul Levitz would be stepping down after seven years in the driver’s seat of the company. But Levitz’s story started far before 2002 — this is a guy who’s been a heavy-hitter in comics for much of his adult life. And what better way to commemorate his career than to Dial H — for History!

Paul Levitz was one of the first in the industry to get his start through the winding roads of fandom. Levitz, along with writer Paul Kupperberg, assumed editorship of the fan-zine The Comic Reader. While 3,500 readers wasn’t huge back in the early 1970s, it was enough to gain some necessary connections to the business — which soon paid off in a big way, as he became a freelancer for DC at the end of 1972. Of course, it wasn’t the most glamorous job in the world — he was working the letters page for Joe Orlando — but he worked his way up the ladder, even creating DC’s own in-house fan-zine, Amazing World of DC Comics. By his 20th birthday, Levitz had become the editor of Adventure Comics, the home of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Yet Levitz didn’t only toil as a young behind-the-scenes enthusiast — he soon became a writer in his own right. He “graduated” to super-hero stories after giving a check to Bill Finger for two scripts, when the Batman co-creator only wrote one. The only problem? Finger died before he could write the script he owed, leaving Levitz holding the bag. He would parlay that cred to eventually create the Earth-2 Huntress, take over the Justice Society in All-Star Comics, as well as the Legion of Super-Heroes. It was Levitz’s run on the Legion that was probably his most famous work, including the Great Darkness Saga, when the Legion was pitted against Darkseid, who had the powers of Mordru, the Time Trapper, and the enslaved population of Daxam at his command.

Of course, Levitz’s position within the company allowed him to bring some enormous names into the industry through the mid-1980s, in conjunction with Jenette Kahn and Dick Giordano. People such as Alan Moore, John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, George Perez, all made their big DC splashes in part because of Levitz, creating revitalizations of the medium such as Watchmen and the post-Crisis Superman. Indeed, Levitz also decided upon Dan DiDio as the creative ringmaster behind DC’s main lineup, resulting in linewide crossovers ranging from Infinite Crisis to this year’s Blackest Night.

But what about Levitz’s legacy on the industry, past that? I remember briefly meeting Levitz in the summer of 2008, and asking him what his proudest moment in the industry was: he told me that it was helping work out with then-publisher Jenette Kahn what would become the standards of compensation for creators — this includes royalties for freelancers, reprint payments, art returns (which artists generally sell for additional funding), as well as having creator credits on the covers of books. It was an act of good faith that has kept names like Len Wein happy, as seen in this interview:

As I said, the difference between the two companies; DC and Marvel, is I see money off of all of my characters at DC in any incarnation. If they do paperback books, if they do movies… I also created Lucius Fox, the character Morgan Freeman plays in the current run of Batman films, and I do absurdly well off of him being in those films, financially. Because Paul Levitz made sure I signed creator equity contracts whenever I create a character. Even on something potentially so unimportant…as I said to Paul when I argued with him about signing a Lucius contract, “It’s a middle-aged guy in a suit.” He said, “Sign a contract. You never know.” He was right.

Levitz’s touch has extended past the mainstream DCU, as well — Levitz also acted as a mentor for then-assistant editor Karen Berger, who would go on to help start the British Invasion of comics, with writers from the U.K. such as Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, and Peter Milligan being recruited for mature titles such as Sandman, Doom Patrol, and Hellblazer. Berger’s biggest hit, however, was the creation of Vertigo, sort of the art-house division of DC Comics. It’s a gamble that Levitz has been particularly positive about, in terms of what it adds to comics as a whole: “I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve built in Vertigo,” Levitz told Newsarama in 2007. “It’s a larger comics publisher than probably anybody but DC and Marvel, if it were measured on its own…maybe Dark Horse, dependent on the year.”

Now the interesting news of today is the fact that Levitz will be working as a contributing editor as well as a writer. He last stepped into the writer’s seat was concluding the JSA series, before Geoff Johns relaunched the book post-Infinite Crisis. What will he do next? According to a statement today by Dan DiDio, he’s returning home to Adventure Comics, following Geoff Johns’ departure after Issue #6. What say you, Rama readers? Sound off!

Here I am still trying to process the big Disney/Marvel news, and now here’s another big story in the world of corporate, New York-based comics. On the main site, Vaneta Rogers has word of some major reshuffling at DC, including the fact that they will now be “DC Entertainment” (and here are some official statements from some of the players).

My immediate, “But how will this affect me? Because that’s what’s really important” reaction? As a comics reader, I don’t really know what Levitz did on a day-to-day basis a president and how it might have impacted the comics I read every Wednesday afternoon, but I do know that when he was an editor and a writer, I liked a lot of what he edited and wrote, so I’m happy to see he’ll be doing some editing and writing.

And, more importantly, if DC is now DC Entertainment, does that mean they’re going to have to create a new logo, with an “E” in it, if not the whole word “Entertainment?” Becuase it seems like I just got used to the new, blue, swirly logo after decades of the bullet.

I apologize to anyone who was on pins and needles waiting for today’s installment of my thrice-weekly linkblogging. I try to get these up earlier than, like, halfway through your work day, but I was pretty discombobulated by the Labor Day holiday (Although I am proud of myself for remembering that new comics wouldn’t be on the racks until Thursday this week before driving to the shop this year).

Anyway, here are some things you can read when you’re not reading Newsarama, if you’re so inclined…

Ha  how cool would it be if Ant-Man ended up being the best superhero movie ever made?: Because if Pixar did make an Ant-Man flick, it would have a pretty good shot at the crown. Apparently Entertainment Weekly reported that the studio was looking at the least bad-ass sounding Marvel character, and folks reacted here, here, and here. Josh Tyler, who wrote the piece on Cinema Blend, lead off with this observation about the reception of the Disney/Marvel news: “the internet went into one of those all to [sic] frequent fanboy panics, in which nerds ran to their blogs and predicted a world where Marvel would be forced to make Donald Duck the newest member of the Fantastic Four.” Maybe he and I just read different comics blogs, but did anyone predict Donal Duck would be joining the Fantastic Four? Anyone who wasn’t joking, anyway?

“The comparison here is made more pitiful by the fact that Miller’s script for Born Again is hardly perfect… Yet he clearly understood the visual and structural aspects of a comics page as well as the creation of tension and suspense”: On Monday, The Comics Reporter ran an excellent essay by Ng Suat Tong regarding the disparity between the fame and influence of today’s prominent mainstream comics writers versus their artist collaborators, and the general weakness of many of those writers. The essay has sparked some sharp disagreements from other people who tend to  know what they’re talking about, including Heidi MacDonald of The Beat and blogger Sean T. Collins.

I’m afraid I don’t know enough about some of the particular examples cited in the original essay—I haven’t read enough of either Brian Michael Bendis’ Daredevil run or Ed Brubaker’s Captain America run to rate the former greatly superior to the latter, for example—to really argue with Ng Suat Tong or those that argue with him. But I think it’s hard to disagree with some of his broader points. Like, yeah, DC and Marvel often shaft the artists when it comes to collections and promotion, for example, and I’ve always believed the best comics stories are the ones that can only be told in the comics medium. So if Bendis’ Daredevil scripts and Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man scripts read like they could be HBO dramas, then they’re pretty obviously not the pinnacle of the comics medium…although they are likely to be very popular and successful .

Anyway, check the piece out if you haven’t already. It’s definitely a well-written, example-filled thought-provoker and conversation-starter.

“What happens when Direct Market retailers can’t trust Diamond to keep them stocked?”: Blogger and retailer Christopher Butcher has an excellent—and kind of alarming—post about an incident in which a faithful regular  Beguiling customer requested a particular manga from “an imprint of the single largest publisher of books in the world” and he then realized that Diamond had never even solicited it. Butcher talks a bit about his experience as a retailer and the changes in the market he’s seen, and he realizes that the direct market likely won’t collapse over night, so much as gradually disappear:

With Amazon best-seller lists, and New York Times Graphic Novels Bestseller lists, and the popularity of manga, and graphic novels, and the big movie tie-ins and the rapid-fire collection of superhero stories into graphic novels, and THE INTERNET in all its forms (pirates especially), one day we’re going to look around and realize that no one really cares about the notion of a “Direct Market.” Everyone else will have moved on to the idea of graphic novels as a mass-market medium, available in all kinds of formats, from all kinds of venues.

Much more at the link. Give it a read.

Of course, one advantage or waiting until the middle of the day to post this, is it makes it easier to just steal other people’s links: For example, the aforementioned Heidi MacDonald linked to Becky Cloonan and Hwan Cho’s excellent-looking webcomic KGB (Yoink!) and an extensive Wired feature on the Covered blog (and yoink again!).

Is “decidedly different” even a dramatic enough term to describe Bob Burden’s Flaming Carrot?: Speaking of Wired, their Jonathan Liu lists “6 Cool Comics With Decidedly Different Heroes,” ranging from Astro City to The Flaming Carrot.

“Megan Fox Loves the Three Comics She’s Ever Heard Of”: I love (looking at, listening to the voice of) Megan Fox as much as the next guy, who also loves (those things about) Megan Fox, but Laura Hudson’s challenge of Fox’s geek cred at Comics Alliance was pretty funny.

And on the subject of attractive actresses and comics: Apparently there’s a Kate Beckinsale shower scene in the Whiteout movie:

One scene that did make the transition is U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale)’s shower scene. To Hollywood critics, it may seem like a gratuitous moment to show off Beckinsale’s body, when the rest of the film would have her bundled up. Rucka jumped to the film’s defense.

“There was actually a story reason,” Rucka said. “It led to a flashback. There was an issue for the character of Carrie, between the cold and the heat. And you get to see her in the shower.”

Yes! Shower scenes that are there for a story reason are the best shower scenes!

Joss Whedon, the mastermind behind Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Dollhouse, will be writing a one-shot comic with Dark Horse for the supporting cast of this teenage hunter of the dark.

Comics Continuum reports that Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow, will be released this December. A 40-page, $3.99 comic, will be drawn by Karl Moline, looking at Willow’s mysterious new powers of flight and teleportation.

Giddy-up, lil’ Hobbit, for your day in Hollywood may be at hand!

The Hollywood Reporter announced that New Line Cinema, the Tolkien estate, and publisher Harper Collins have finally settled on a long-standing dispute over payment of the film trilogy’s massive earnings.

While the actual numbers of the settlement are still unknown, this much is true — the Tolkien estate has dropped any legal action against the upcoming prequel for “The Hobbit.”

“The Trustees regret that legal action was necessary, but are glad that this dispute has been settled on satisfactory terms that will allow the Tolkien Trust properly to pursue its charitable objectives,” said Christopher Tolkien in a statement. “The Trustees acknowledge that New Line may now proceed with its proposed films of ‘The Hobbit.’ “

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.

As a long-time adorer of Jill Thompson’s artwork, and owner of the entire Scary Godmother library, I was very intrigued when Thompson’s new series, Magic Trixie, came to my attention.

After taking the first book of the series out of the library, I’d definitely recommend it for young readers. Though its thin plot lacks the depth of great children’s literature, Thompson’s playful artwork and silly storyline is engaging to read.

Thompson sets up a nice theme, revolving around Trixie’s being too young to do the things she wants but too old to get all the attention ladled on her baby sister. The family dynamic works, and Trixie’s school friends are effective. The character designs are charming and fun, exactly what you’d expect from Thompson. Magic Trixie is a cute book. It’s not a great book, but it’s definitely worth a look if you can find it at your local library.

When Troy Brownfield of ShutgunReviews and Blog@ fame (among others) wrote me to see if I’d like to post Global Freezing on Newsarama I Googled the e-mail address to see if it was legit.  Color me happy (and surprised) when it was.  Starting today [9/9/9], Jaia, Keesa and White’s story is getting reprinted right here and I could not be happier!  I hope you’ll join us on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays here or at ComicsByEgg.com to see their stories. 

It is. While last week I was drowning in comics (and also finally got my hands on the Unknown Soldier trade, about which I swear I will write one of these days), this week I’ve only got Hellboy: The Wild Hunt and The Unwritten. Granted, those are indeed awesome comics worth a trip to the comic shop, but there’s probably other stuff I’m missing, right?

Right?