Good news, Pasty Walker, Hellcat!  This week Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, a longtime faculty member at the Parsons New School of Design, makes his Marvel Universe debut in the pages of Models, Inc. #1. Surely he can answer any of your fashion-related questions.

Models, Inc. features a bunch of Marvel’s model characters, including Millie the Model, Chili Storm, Mary Jane Watson and Patsy herself, as they become embroiled in a murder case during Fashion Week. Paul Tobin and Marc Sumerak are writing, Jorge Molina and Vincenc Villagrasa are drawing, and Scott Clark and Phil Jiminez are providing the covers. I’d go with the Jiminez one (if I were gonna shell out $4 for a comic, which I’m not), as the Clark cover looks positively Landian.

The heavily promoted (by Gunn…on TV!) Models, Inc. aside, Marvel’s actually got a pretty big week. Let’s take a look at what they have coming out this week…as well as other books of note from a few publishers that aren’t Marvel, after the jump.

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Via Twitter, C.B. Cebulski posted an FYI for artists on the upcoming con season:

As there seems to be confusion among creators, this October’s Big Apple Con and April’s Anaheim Con are Gareb Shamus/Wizard shows… Marvel will NOT be at these two shows. Marvel is attending & supporting Reed Expo’s C2E2 in Chicago in April 2010 & NYCC in October 2010.

So what does this mean? Has Marvel chosen a side in the great Con War between Reed Exhibitions and Wizard Entertainment?

Well, I don’t know from a philosophical perspective (although with Disney now at the helm, there could be some modifications), but from a scheduling perspective, sure. And before anyone gets up in arms — it makes sense. The July-based San Diego Comic-Con has been the biggest market in the comic convention constellation for years, and all the comic book companies have to work around that. New York, a Reed event, is easily the second-biggest, and it’s been only recently that Gareb Shamus and Wizard have tried to get their own piece of the NYC turf with Big Apple Con.

Chicago, meanwhile, is the big turf war — and in my mind, I think Reed is going to win it. The major difference between the two conventions is location and time. While Wizard’s convention is known as Wizard World Chicago, it’s actually located in the area of Rosemont, whereas the CC&EE will be located directly at South Lake Shore Drive, in the heart of downtown, near the basin of Lake Michigan.

The more important item is timing: Reed, having shifted next year’s New York Comic Con to October 2010, will start the initial convention salvo by placing their Chicago Convention on April 16-18. Wizard, meanwhile, has their Chicago convention in August — just a few weeks after SDCC. And keep in mind that these conventions cost publishers, both in terms of time, stress, and resources. In other words, Reed allows publishers to have a naturally building schedule — starting strong in Chicago in April, nailing San Diego in July, and then capping a few months later in New York — whereas I feel Wizard is flat-tiring its Chicago event by placing it shortly after SDCC.

What do you guys think?

Variety has reported that Warner Bros. and Paramount made a killing with this year’s summer box office, taking a market share in an action-packed season packed to the gills with genre entertainment.

Warner Bros., which was number one out of the Big Six studios, nearly hit a cool billion, with popular attractions such as Harry Potter. Terminator Salvation didn’t hit quite as hard as WB would have liked, but it was buoyed by the not-so-surprise hit of the Hangover, starring would-be Green Lantern Bradley Cooper, which hit $272 million.

Paramount, meanwhile, had Transformers 2 lead its salvo, with more than $400 million. The awesome reboot of Star Trek also generated a ton of bank at $257 million, and even G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (see some thoughts here) beat back the Terminator with $140 million.

Kevin Smith, director of Clerks, Mallrats, and my personal fav Chasing Amy (not to mention writer of the recently-released Batman: The Widening Gyre), took an enormous undertaking this weekend: 24 hours of straight Twittering.

“I’ve been training for this my whole life, simply by being a lazy fat-ass who’d rather stare at a screen than better himself with a brisk constitutional,” Smith told Reuters.

Of course, when you have more than 1.2 million followers, that tends to generate some nice questions. So we at Blog@ checked it out, bringing to you just a handful of Kevin’s musing — these discussing comics. Considering he’s a comics fan who also has his hands in film, it’s an interesting read.

And if you’re ever seen a Kevin Smith film, you know these Tweets below the cut are filled with vulgarities and likely not safe for work…

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Batgirl artist Lee Garbett has posted up an intriguing new design for Batgirl on his Twitpic account:

Considering there’s a new woman in the cape and cowl, could this redesign be more than just a cool doodle? Could this silhouette — a nice fusion of the Batgirl and Spoiler costumes — be the new Batgirl?

Blog@ is extremely pleased to announce that we’ll be hosting Egg Embry’s “Global Freezing” webcomic from the beginning starting tomorrow. The strip, which will run on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, has been running at Embry’s own “Comics By Egg” at www.comicsbyegg.com.

By way of intro . . .

Here legends begin “Before the world froze…”

Everyone knows the sun is there even if no one has it seen since winter began. Every religion tells
of the good living on in the burning Summer and sinners imprisoned in the coldest Winter. Men are
as rare a find as fire in the morning. Food is caught, not grown. Only those that are built cold
survive. And every person knows, with certainty, that if you travel far enough south you will find The
Warmth.

JAIA’s village slipped beneath the ice one night. Almost alone in this world, she lets her feet carry
her south to something that no one can be certain of – hope.

Check back tomorrow when the opening installment of Global Freezing sets in at Blog@!

Want to help a comics creator in need? Here’s your chance!

Andrew Magnum, artist with Frazetta Comics and Zenescope Entertainment, has been battling with cancer. He’s on his third round of chemotherapy, and obviously medical bills are quite expensive.

Over on eBay, there is an auction going on to help with those bills, as Frazetta is offering a free comics gift bag for one lucky auctioneer, complete with limited edition, signed by Frank Frazetta himself.

Additionally, there are donated scripts by 30 Days of Night’s Steve Niles, as well as artwork by Mark Kidwell, Patrick Blaine, Jason Craig, Josh Medors, Phil Hester, Jay Leisten, Tone Rodriguez, Joe Vigil, Andrew Mangum, John Stinsman, Matt Martin, John Livesay, Mark Sporacio, Ken Lashley, Mark Walters, Eric Powell, Tyler Kirkham, Guy Dorian,Eddie Nunez, Carlos D’Anda, Livio Ramondelli, Joel Gomez, Oliver Nome, Richard Friend Rob Doria, Ceeada Hindahl, Ken Haeser, Buz Hasson, Tommy Castillo, Ju Gomez, Reilly Brown, Jason Baroody, Stephen Suarez, and more.

So what are you waiting for? Help out!

Anime News Network has reported that Hitler’s Mein Kampf has been translated into a manga format by the Japanese publisher East Press.

The manga has apparently sold 45,000 copies already (numbers which, for those keeping score, aren’t the highest for manga, but are equal to the Top 40 listings of mainstream comics, right between Blackest Night: Titans and Fantastic Four), and has led some to push for lifting Germany’s country-wide ban on the book.

Bavarian authorities, however, have resisted allowing the book to be sold, saying (rightly or wrongly) that they don’t feel that manga is an appropriate medium to handle such controversial material. East Press has previously produced manga graphic novels on Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince.

When asked about the book by ANN, East Press editor Kosuke Marou said, “it is a famous book, but there are few who have read it. I think it is [studying] material for knowing Hitler, a man synonymous with ‘devil,’ and what sort of thinking created that level of tragedy.” What do you think?

[Image via Japan Probe]

From Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy’s Labor Days vol. 2, coming soon:

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Tim O’Neil asks, “Has Achewood Lost Its Groove?”: He doesn’t answer the question, just asks it, and ends up with an interesting post that deals with Charles Schulz, Nick Gurewitch, Aaron McGruder and Chris Ware as well.

Is it just me, or does it seem like there’s a superhero or comic book gallery exhibit being announced at least once a week now?: The University of Oregon is having a two-day conference on superheroes Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art’s fall exhibition “Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of a Superhero.” The LA Times blogged about it here, you can learn more about the conference here, and more about the exhibit and the other neat stuff going on around it here.

How Matt Fraction made it: Speaking of the LA Times, they also have a profile of Matt Fraction that’s well worth a read.

This is what I want for every birthday from now on: Australian food blogger Johanna baked an awesome-looking comic book sound effect-shaped birthday cake for a niece’s superhero-themed party. You can see a picture and read a bit more about it here, and I suggest you give the post a look. That way you’ll know what to get me for my birthday.

Wait, what?: This dude thinks the fact that Tom Brevoort said “whenever your leads are white American males, you’ve got a better chance of reaching more people overall” means comic books are “institutionally racist” and that what Brevoort said was “a pretty damning statement.” I think it’s a pretty big jump—like, of the sort The Hulk makes to get around—to take from a simple statement along the lines of “the facts say this” to “the facts say this, because white men rule, everyone else totally sucks.”

Anthony E. Zuiker has made an impressive career as the creator of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. In 2007, nearly 84 million people watched CSI, making it the most watched show in the world. Zuiker’s talent at telling a good crime story has led him to launch his next major project, Level 26, the world’s first digi-novel. Written with Duane Swierczynski (Severance Package), Level 26 is about a seriously demented serial killer and the tortured FBI investigator who is forced to hunt him down. Level 26 releases on September 8.

The interactive quality of this digi-novel is handled by EQAL, with roots going back to its creation of the internet sensation, lonelygirl15. And, while Level 26 is not directly related to comics, there’s a lot going on with its interactive components that someday may become common to the comics medium. Also, there is already a line of CSI comics put out by IDW and who knows what may lie ahead.

Zuiker has an energetic and commanding presence. He stays on point with ease. When asked if he thought his “digi-novel” was the future of reading, he gracefully said no claims on the future have been made. The one sure claim is that he is excited about what he’s doing. It was a pleasure to chat with him at Comic-Con International: San Diego.

Blog@Newsarama:Tell us what it was like for you growing up as your writing talents emerged.

Anthony E. Zuiker: As an only child in Las Vegas, I would often, just for fun, write letters for people as a favor.  Just formal letters.  I was sort of 16 of 16 in letter writing meaning that whenever someone asked me to write something, like get their girlfriend back or a letter to a judge to get out of jail, I would bat a thousand. I was in the hall of fame of letter writing. Then all through high school and in college I would charge people to write their term papers for $300.00 overnight and they were guaranteed at least a B plus. I made a lot of money doing that. When I was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame at UNLV, I said that before they awarded me that maybe I should confess that I put about hundred people through college. My father always said that I had some talent as a writer and I guess I believed him. I’ve always had a way of putting what I’ve envisioned on the page. When I wrote my first movie, The Runner, it went right to video but it was an interesting piece of work with an authentic voice and it landed me an agent and a manager. My first TV script was CSI. It got green lit and, obviously, it took off. We went on to do CSI: Miami and CSI: New York.  I guess my visual way of thinking really worked simpatico with the philosophy of writing scripts in Hollywood.

BLOG@: Do you believe it had something to do with being at the right place at the right time?

ZUIKER: For CSI?  I think so. I think every great show is a sign of the times. It began in the aftermath of the OJ trial. People were just becoming fascinated with forensics. I was able to come in with a show set in Las Vegas, set in the graveyard shift. The idea of people actually going into a crime scene, scrutinizing evidence and the story being put together in flashback, that style of storytelling, felt like a modern day mystery. It felt like a mystery genre of our generation. People liked that. They were learning and watching at the same time which was highly efffective. And with a great cast, CSI had that mystery magic, this different way to tell a cop show which is what I call, “from the crime scene tape down.” And it worked.

BLOG@: It seems like CSI could go on forever. Do you see interest in the franchise shifting?

ZUIKER: Well, what goes up must come down.  You know, we are doing our best right now with all three shows to stay in the top 15, to keep challenging our audience.  We’ve killed people in many different ways. We continue to look for different ways to excite us and excite an audience. We feel because its is a procedural drama, and everybody loves a good mystery,  it has some good long legs to it, we believe.

BLOG@: Let’s say, somebody is totally in the dark on Level 26. How would you describe it?

ZUIKER: We are coining it as “the world’s first digi-novel.”  What a digi-novel is, is it takes all the elements of publishing, movies and internet and combines experience. Level 26 is a horror prime drama. Every twenty pages that you read, you log onto the Web site, Level26.com, enter a code at the end of that chapter, and it unlocks a piece of motion picture footage which bridges you from one chapter to another, so its a continuation of the story, visually, its about three minutes long.  There’s twenty of those experiences per book.  So you figure twenty pages times twenty bridges is about a four hundred page book. That is what the book is, also.  Sometimes its a horror scene, sometimes is a love scene, sometimes its a music video, sometimes when you call the killer, the killer calls your phone back.  So its very interactive.  We feel like in this attention economy, with how fast things are moving with technology, to ask someone to read twenty pages and then see a visual continuance, is a good rhythmic experience, rather than read four hundred pages and do nothing else.  If you read the book cover to cover, no problem.  But the best experience is to read, log in and watch, read, log in and watch.  And then become part of a social community, built by the lonelygirl15 creators, Miles and Greg,  to have this social site that is basically like a Facebook page Level 26, with all the bells and whistles of an interactive Web site.

BLOG@: Do you see this as just another form of entertainment or, in the future, as the way people read?

ZUIKER: Well you know, I think the audience and the reader will determine that.   We are not taking the position that we are going to replace publishing in its current state. My philosophy is that, in this generation, you need to go to your audience and recognize your audience’s behaviors. People now, when they watch television, they’re also on their computer, they’re tweeting, they’re chatting, they’re checking email, they’re TiVoing,  they’re doing multiple things at one time. So to ask someone to sit down and read a 400 page book in this generation, I think, is a tough ask, especially for  younger people. If you can provide them with these visceral/visual speed bumps it might get more young people to read. I think that’s a victory. And, if you’re an existing reader, who already loves to read, quite possibly you’ll try a different way to consume which is to read and watch the bridges. So, we feel that we’re trying to bridge the gap between an older generation and a younger generation in the spirit of where technology is going.

BLOG@: Basically, it can appeal to any age group.

ZUIKER: Here’s the litmus test.  Read the first twenty pages of Level 26, then you watch the first film, something you’ll probably find edgy and cool. If you’re not engaged by it, I may lose you as a customer. But, if you are, I think you’ll probably finish reading it that night. It’s pretty exciting.

BLOG@: The buzz concept in the entertainment industry is transmedia, the book sells the movie, the movie sells the game and so on. It seems like you’re sort of there with Level 26 or could you tell us where you might fit in?

ZUIKER: Sure, transmedia versus what we are doing is a little different. Transmedia is having one brand and launching it in various avenues. We’d certainly like to do that but our core concern is transmedia inside the narrative meaning you go from book to motion picture to Web site and it’s all inclusive in one experience so it’s nice and tight. It’s not about just creating a character and seeing if we can launch it on the Web, on the radio, on a phone and so on. That may eventually happen to Level 26 but, for now, we’re keeping it at the core of our philosophy which is: read, watch and log in and have a compelling story and let people consume that way. We’re not going to jump off any cliffs but keep to the core philosophy of what the digi-novel represents which is reading, watching and logging in.

BLOG@: How would describe in a nugget the story, Level 26?

ZUIKER: Level 26 is about Steve Dark, an ex-Quantico who works in Special Services which involves the worst and most horrific crimes that I can’t possibly tell you here. He’s been chasing an elusive killer named, Sqweegel for  twenty years who has killed over 30 people and has killed Steve Dark’s family. Steve Dark is retired.  He has met the love of his life, she’s pregnant and suddenly they get a message that Sqweegel has returned and he’s been inside Steve’s home. Steve is sucked back into pursuing Sqweegel. And that’s where it all begins.

BLOG@: I know you’re a busy man. Thank you for your time.

ZUIKER: I really appreciate it. Awesome.

I like this interview a lot; it’s full of interesting thoughts about the nature of vampire stories and why they appeal to us.

But I think then the thing that changed everything and gave vampire fiction, if not a new lease on life a new lease on death, would have been AIDS. You hit the early ’80s, and suddenly you have something in the blood, an exchange of blood that kills and is altogether fundamentally about sex. And vampirism essentially came out of the closet as metaphor — not particularly as a metaphor for gay sex, but again as a metaphor for the act of love that kills. Stephen King once said, using the Erica Jong quote, that vampirism is the ultimate ”zipless f—.” And I think you got the resurgence of vampirism in the ’80s as ”zipless f—.” And then in a sort of continuous transmutation, you had Lost Boys, which is essentially vampirism as wish fulfillment — it was really the first time you can absolutely take a pin and point to these great vampire moments on celluloid or on video, or in print, whatever, where people really seemed to have looked around and gone, ”What is the downside of this thing again? Hang on, you get to live forever, you get to be absolutely sexually attractive and you don’t have zits… You have magic powers; what you’re giving up is daylight.”

Gaiman traces the history of the vampire story from Dracula to the modern day–it’s worth reading in its entirety.

As a comics critic, I hate Chris Onstad’s Achewood. As a comics reader, I love it—it’s by far my favorite web comic, and one of my favorite comic strips or comics of any kind…hell, maybe one of my favorite pieces of current fiction of any medium.

The reason part of me hates it and part of me loves it is the same. It’s such a unique strip, there’s nothing really even remotely like it, which, obviously, can make it really hard to explain to others, or talk about at all.

There are a lot of conceptual hurdles that can make entry into the world of Achewood kind of hard, hurdles I struggled with the first few times I tried reading it, until someone eventually advised to just pick a story arc from the archives and start reading—within a dozen or so strips, you should start to not only get it, but dig it. And Onstad is so accomplished at world building that the longer the strip goes on, the more you read of it, the more you get to know the surprisingly dynamic and versatile characters, the better it gets.

Those hurdles? Who are all these crazy anthropomorphic animals, and what species are they exactly? Are they anthropomorphic animals living in an animal-scaled world, or a human-scaled world? Why don’t squirrels have pupils? How is it that four such divergent characters as Mr. Cornelius Bear, Lyle, Teodor and Phillipe are roommates?

Achewood Vol. 2: Worst Song, Played on Ugliest Guitar (Dark Horse Comics) is the book that the Caleb who once struggled with such things could have used to answer such questions.

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“Analysis: Disney-Marvel Deal Brings Changes”: I’ve tried avoiding putting Marvel/Disney news in these little link-blogging posts I do, since a) chances are you’ve read most of ‘em or seen ‘em linked to elsewhere already and b) I’m kinda sick of the topic myself for the time being, but I thought this piece from Adweek was well worth pointing out, if only because the headline is pretty much as generic as a headline can get.

I am shocked and appalled at USA Today’s book critics: This list labeled “Our critics can’t wait to read these” includes a single graphic novel, and it’s the adaptation of World War Z*. Don’t they know what a potentially astounding fall publishing season this is gonna be?

What Would Stardust, The Super-Wizard Do?: That’s a question “Crap Archivist” Alan Scherstuh thinks people in the business world are better off asking than what Spider-Man’s oath or Green Lantern’s patrol schedule can teach them about business. Scherstuh slaps down 2008 book How To Be a Business Superhero and gives it a good kicking in this post.

“It’s not even racism. It’s mathematics”: David Brothers responds to Tom Brevoort’s “whenever your leads are white American males, you’ve got a better chance of reaching more people overall” comment from earlier in the week.

“I’m not Frederick H. Moral Relativism or anything, but I’m pretty sure that when your Glowing Green Space-Cop is losing the moral high ground to the…Punisher, there’s a problem with your story”: Invincible Super-Blogger and the comics blogosphere’s leading expert of Bring It On direct-to-DVD sequels Crhis Sims responds to Cry For Justice’s torture scene a lot more elegantly (and humorously) than I did, in the course of reviewing his weekly purchases.

*Is it an adaptation, or a new comic book branded with the same name as the original book? I don’t know. Commenter Alan points out that it sounds like new material below.

Jamie McKelvie

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(click through for larger version) Ryan Kelly:

Fiona Staples:

Becky Cloonan:

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Molly Crabapple:

Mania has a nice interview up with Alan Moore, discussing the much-debated Marvelman saga, which came back with a vengeance at San Diego Comic Con this year when Marvel announced they had purchased the rights to Marvelman.

While Neil Gaiman and Marvel had certainly expressed enthusiasm about the deal, what about Alan Moore, whose dark designs infused the character with new energy? Here’s a highlight:

Neil will be able to finish his Marvelman story because he has a completely different relationship with Marvel than I have with them—or rather, don’t have. The main thing is that I will feel happy to know that Mick Anglo is finally getting the recompense he so richly deserves. And, I will have distanced myself from a lot of the deceit and ugliness that surrounded the relaunching of Marvelman as a character.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Lana Lang may be in love with television’s greatest hero…

…Chuck.

Kristin Kreuk, formerly of Smallville fame, will be the new love interest for Chuck in the upcoming season, Entertainment Weekly reports. This comes just after the news that Superman Brandon Routh had also joined the cast as a love interest for Sarah.

Kreuk will play Hannah, a former publishing employee who gets laid off, forcing her to work at the Buy More.

G-Man, the Image comic by Chris Giarusso, has gotten its second online game treatment!

In the same old school vein as the last installment, Suntrooper Squadron pits the solar-powered ally of G-Man against a horde of invading asteroids. (Horde? Flock? Gaggle? Pack? You get the picture. Migrating space rocks. Whatever.)

“The original G-MAN: CAPE CRISIS video game had a game engine which allowed players to move both left and right,” Giarrusso told Image. “With G-MAN: CAPE CRISIS: SUNTROOPER SQUADRON, players can now also move up and down, literally exploring every square inch of the screen. This radical shift in gameplay may be shocking at first, but that’s what the evolution of classic old-school 8-bit style video gaming is all about.”

The game, which you can play here, is in honor of the second 32-page issue of G-Man: Cape Crisis, which comes out September 9.

I think one of the things I’ve learned of most use is the separation between the amateur and the professional boils down to two things: practice and craftsmanship. Practice, I can’t help you with that, other than give you opportunities to apply yourselves (see below). But here’s a little tip on craftsmanship:

Chris Sprouse’s interview in the recent volume of MODERN MASTERS mentions his meticulous use of the lightbox in roughing in pages and playing with composition. So, make yourself one.
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It is my pleasure to present the works of Jay Fosgitt, easily the most brilliant and natural cartoonist I’ve ever met. He’s got a book coming out in November, which means it’s in September’s PREVIEWS catalog (the order code for Dead Duck in PREVIEWS: sept090577). Order yourself a copy and get your retailer to get behind this book.

I can’t recommend this guys work enough. It hilarious as well as sharply drawn, but you don’t have to take my word for it, just read the embedded comics below from an archive of previously drawn comics. The Dead Duck Original Graphic Novel is rated “M” for mature and is not suitable for all audiences parental desecration is advised.

Find out more about Dead Duck at JAYFOSGITT.COM
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AND Don’t forget about December Deadline ‘09!

Since the whole Civil War/Dark Reign thing started happening at Marvel, I’ve been telling parents who talk to me about comics that DC is a safer bet if you insist on giving your kids mainstream, in-universe comics for their morality plays. I explain that while both publishers pretty routinely present rape, murder and all that good stuff, and that either of the two should be vetted first by a parent, at least DC had heroes you could look up to.

And then, yesterday, I visited the DC Comics website.

Both Justice League: Cry for Justice, which features hideously amoral representations of superheroes talking sex, ogling teenagers and torturing villains, and Magog—which is inherently amoral, given that his genesis came as an almost-villain in Kingdom Come and each new story featuring the character has seen him kill more or less indiscriminately and then blame it on a military background—were featured on the front page of the site at the same time, along with The Shield, one of J.M. Straczynski’s Red Circle comics. While I know nothing about the Red Circle book, I would have hoped for a Superman or Flash comic—something with a stand-up guy for the hero—would have rated a plug on a page so violence and amorality-heavy. As it stands, the three main images you see on the website of DC Comics are pretty sketchy characters. And I don’t mean to say they aren’t well-developed.

Yes, I know that both DC and Marvel have their respective young readers titles and that these books are geared toward a more and more mature audience–but the reality is, when I was a teenager, Kingdom Come was one of the books that helped me get past the “Oh, cool, he can fly!” mentality and really define what a superhero is. Part of it, to me, is that they’re actually at least somewhat heroic. And these guys just don’t fit the bill.

Hey, kids! Read your own comics.