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!

He’s captained the USS Enterprise. He broke ground on the Xavier School for the Gifted. And now — he’s a member of the Queen’s elite, receiving his very own knighthood.

CNN reports that Patrick Stewart, best known for portraying Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X, will now be referred to as “Sir Patrick,” which will presumably give him the extra boost to finally take out Magneto — or Sir Ian McKellan — once and for all.

I think that this news is awesome, as it reveals that between Stewart, McKellan, and Saruman alter ego Sir Christopher Lee, the Queen is secretly a comics and sci-fi/fantasy fangirl. Could a Sir Robert Pattinson be far behind? How about a Sir Nathan Fillion? Okay, perhaps a stretch, but it’d be awesome if it were true. Either which way, the official ceremony will take place tomorrow.

Sherlock Holmes continues to do extremely well and deservedly so. I was pleased with the movie. I even got over my annoyance at the very long line I had to wait in. And the lines, they just keep forming. It’s good, even inspiring, to see how people are attracted to this latest incarnation of the famously neurotic detective. Any doubt over the quality of the movie just evaporated for me and there are a number of reasons for this.

A good performance, even a great performance, can be overlooked or taken for granted. That has happened to Robert Downey Jr. over his career but certainly not since Iron Man. People love the guy. He has the star power to carry Sherlock Holmes and he does it with the grace of a great actor. No one has ever gone to see a James Bond movie just for the plot. People want a thrill ride from this kind of movie and that’s what they get with Downey Jr. And, as much as this movie is full of action, it is nice to see that Downey Jr. commands the screen with a number of quiet and quirky moments. He inhabits Holmes completely in much the same manner as he did with Charlie Chaplin.

Since, at its core, a movie like Sherlock Holmes is aiming to be a crowd pleaser, I think it’s more than okay not to hold the story to too high a standard. As far as action flicks go, this story works. Even as a mystery, it’s fine. For my taste, however, mysteries tend to be tedious in general. I am not against a really good one but I’m not terribly disappointed if it turns out the most interestng things lie somewhere beyond solving a riddle as in the characters themselves. I came to see a buddy picture and that’s mostly what I get from this movie.

There’s a funny scene where Jude Law’s Dr. Watson foils the latest Holmes experiment. Exasperated with Holmes as he’s attempting to hypnotize flies while playing the violin, Watson simply raises the glass covering the flies and then asks Holmes if it isn’t possible that the glass cover had anything to do with controlling the flies. This is a hilarious send-up to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. In that creaky 1939 classic, Dr. Watson is a bumbling fool and Holmes is left to experiment with flies up to the very end of the movie. Those guys were not buddies, more like master and servant. In this latest Holmes, you have two equals and so you get something more like the chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Even more on the same vibe with Sherlock Holmes is The Front Page about two newspapermen in the 1920s who have worked together longer than they’ve done anything else. Of the film adaptations of the stage play, my favorite is the 1974 remake, directed by Billy Wilder. In that movie, Jack Lemmon is a lifelong reporter on his last story before moving away with his fiancée. Walter Matthau is his lifelong editor who is none too pleased to have his pal leave and is more than willing to sabotage his friend’s departure with the woman he loves. We see Holmes do his best to undermine the credibility of Watson’s fiancée early on in the movie which ignites the real tension behind the movie.

As it is, the story in Sherlock Holmes gets pretty close to The Front Page without losing its way. If the writers were solely interested in making an artful film, they certainly could have concentrated even more on the dynamics of Holmes and Watson splitting up. Perhaps the most artful film version of Holmes is Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes from 1970. In that film, we get to dig deep into the characters, get a curiously satisfying mystery and even get Christopher Lee as Sherlock’s wiser and older brother, Mycroft. We see Holmes struggle with his cocaine addiction. And we get to explore his sexuality which remains ambiguous up to the very end of the movie. Watson is somewhat his equal but they’re just too different to be real pals. There’s a very moving scene where Watson finally asks Holmes if he’s ever been with a woman to which he gets the most vague reply. This latest Holmes is not so daring in that regard but it leans towards being a quality film. It certainly shares the lush look of Wilder’s film which he acheived without any CGI wizardry.

Sherlock Holmes also achieves its best moments without any special effects. If the plot to this movie ever gets heavy for you, all you need to do is wait for any number of funny and captivating moments between Holmes and Watson. Everyone provides a fine performance in this movie but, without that chemistry between Downey Jr. and Law, of course, there is no picture. Sherlock Holmes, at its core, is a great buddy picture. If the stories should improve on this budding franchise, so much the better. Whatever evolution it should take, that buddy dynamic is the engine that will keep Sherlock Holmes full steam ahead.

The first issue of DC’s Blackest Night miniseries was solicited as a 48-page comic and cost $3.99. It included 40 story pages—that is, 40 actual pages of comic—and eight pages of ads (including two house ads for other DC products). Counting the number of pages featuring ads as part of a given book’s page count is pretty standard practice for DC. Their typical 22-pages-for-$2.99 book is always solicited as “32pg.” on their home page.

But I was rather galled to discover yesterday that while the price tag has remained $3.99 for the next five issues of Blackest Night and the page count continued to be listed as “40pg.,” the number of story pages has fluctuated issue to issue, with the number of ads increasing. This last issue was the shortest to date, down to only 23 pages, or a single page more than the company usually sells to readers for $2.99.

What were we getting in Blackest Night #6 for our extra $1? Well, half a splash-page and exposure to a whole mess of ads for other things DC would like to sell us.

Check it out…

Blackest Night #1

40 story pages

8 pages of ads (2 of which were house ads)

Blackest Night #2

24 story pages

3 pages of prose excerpts from the diary of one of the characters

13 ads (8 house)

Blackest Night #3

26 story pages

2 prose pages

12 ads (8 house)

Blackest Night #4

25 story pages

2 prose pages

13 ads (9 house)

Blackest Night #5

26 story pages

2 prose pages

12 ads (7 house)

Blackest Night #6

23 story pages

1 prose page

16 ads (11 house)

(Click the image above for a larger version of the strip.)

WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 18: “Hostage”

I gotta be honest with y’all: I HATED this strip.  Nothing about it worked for me, and I felt I could do so much better.  When it was initially posted, for the entire week it was up, every time the page loaded, I immediately scrolled down the page just far enough to avoid looking at the strip.  This strip was a necessary bridge until the action really kicked in during Episode 19, however.  In the end, it’s all about delivering on schedule, and as best as you can within that allotted time, so in that regard it was a success.

Speaking of successes, as we move into 2010, I’d like to thank Troy and David here at Blog@Newsarama for helping make WORLD OF HURT’s presence here such a tremendous success, and for making everything so easy for me this.  Of course, I also have to thank my wonderful readers for their devotion and support during WORLD OF HURT’s inaugural year.  The reception I’ve received from you has exceeded anything I could have hoped for.  I hope you join me in the next decade for even more bad-assery.

Have a safe and happy New Year, everyone!

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

And now the story starts Christmas… a week late…

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

King of RPGs vol. 1

Written by Jason Thompson
Illustrated by Victor Hao
Published by Del Rey

There’s something very surreal about reading escapist fiction about characters obsessed with escapist fictions.

Admittedly, I’m probably not the ideal audience for such a series. My old roommate gave me his old PlayStation 2 two years ago, and it’s never come out of the box since. My Dungeons & Dragons experience amounts to three or four sessions in college, until the next bauble caught the attention of my group of friends. I think it was called booze. So if you’re into the scene and get the references, King of RPGs has what appears to be dozens of gags and inside references just for you. Just not for me.  Just keep that in mind.

That said, despite my lack of interest in the surface material, King of RPGs still had something working for it. The characters aren’t anything to write home about, but writer Jason Thompson does an effective job building tension and placing the series’ titular king, Shesh, in scenarios that seem unbeatable.  Or as unbeatable and theoretical combat comes, anyway.

Shesh, you see, has an addiction, and it gets him into some trouble, but always against guys who think they’re bigger and badder gamesters than he is. Thus, Shesh falls back on his game play talents, and his overzealous alternate personality, to win out in the end. It’s comically over the top, with escalating conflicts that are absurd, but entertaining nonetheless. It does occasionally suffer from jumping unclearly between “real” and “fantasy” worlds, particularly in the D&D sequence where some of the guys play women and vice versa.

Victor Hao’s art doesn’t fully support Thompson’s writing, however. The character designs are solid, though overly reliant on hats to differentiate Shesh and Theo. Exaggerated reactions by characters only cause the character designs to break down, leading to some confusion as to just who is reacting to the game play. (Admittedly, perhaps some familiarity with how game play occurs on my part may have helped.) The jumping between reality and fantasy, as well as the extreme angles and speed lines, created scenarios that were nearly impossible to read with any clarity.

For a non-gamer, King of RPGs is a fairly entertaining one-off idea.  It’s not the type of thing I’d go out of my way to read, but I have to admit being pleasantly surprised by its enthusiasm and vigor.  I’m slightly curiuos if Thompson could keep this formula working for me for two books in a row.  For readers who understand the language, I suspect it’s a little more insightful and a lot more fun-packed, and it may even be a title worth seeking out.

MINX creator Andrea Grant, who also goes by the name of “The Pin-Up Poet,” will be hitting the airwaves today, as she is getting featured by none other than G4.

The president and founder of Copious Amounts Press will be on the G4 show Women of the Web 2 TONIGHT, starting at 7pm EST.

“I was thrilled when G4 called me up, because I am taking MINX in a new direction for 2010,” Grant said in a statement. “This is the first time people will get to see the amazing art of Rey Arzeno.”

Slow on the draw this week? Why would you ever say that? Don’t worry, there’s more on the Mothership en route. But for those of you who dig the comic book movies, be prepared — for Night & Fog is coming!

The Studio 407 comic, which came out earlier last year, has been optioned by producers Gil Adler (Superman Returns, Constantine, Tales of the Crypt) and Shane McCarthy (Sweet Judy Blue Eyes).

The film explores a terrifying mist, which turns a pack of World War II soldiers into something far more deadly. One survivor, a security guard, has to break through the horror to rescue his children.

“This material is definitely in my strike zone in more ways than one,” Adler told Variety. “But what really appealed to me wasn’t so much the genre trappings but rather the characters that really drive this story.”

“Speaking of trees dying for no reason…”: I know I’ve linked to Christopher Butcher’s liveblogging his reading and ordering-from the Previews catalog a few times before, but I’m going to do it again. I always enjoy reading what a smart, funny retailer has to say about the mysterious process of acquiring funny books for their shelves and, in Butcher’s case, what one who knows a thing or two about designs has to say about the catalog itself. Here’s part one and here’s part two.

What’s this? Comics need not have their own lists when talking about books?: Writing for Cleveland’s Plain Dealer, Anne Trubek tries to sum up the decade in books, and particular graphic novels get a couple of mentions. Go ahead and see if you can guess which ones they are before clicking.

Wow, 200 issues of Sonic the Hedgehog…: Caleb Goellner, a rival Guy Named Caleb Who Writes About Comics, revisits and old issue of Archie’s long-lived comic based on the video game character in which our hero battles robot parody versions of your favorite superheroes. Can Sonic stand before the mechanical might of Spawnmower?!

I don’t know…No Evil Shall Escape My Sight?: Blogger and Green Lantern fan Sally considers “What Happens AFTER Blackest Night?” and, to illustrate the post, she uncovers perhaps the best Black Hand panel ever drawn. That should be the cover of the Blackest Night trade.

Fantagraphics gets a Clue…: …board game.

But IMDb.com already said Anne Hathaway would be playing The Vultress…: According to a rumor on this site, Spider-Man 4 is being held up because director Sam Raimi and the studio are in disagreement over who the villain should be. He wants The Vulture, they want someone from the current comic books. Does that mean it has to be Menace or Anti-Venom? Quick Marvel, start publishng Mysterio or Lizard comics like crazy!

Well, I guess any movie is conservative or liberal if you squint hard enough…: This Telegraph blog post purports to run down the “Top 10 Conservative Movies of the Decade,” including two based on comic books. One of those two is 300, a movie often talked about in terms of Gerard Butler = George W. Bush, Xerxes = Osama bin Laden or whatever. Yeah, the Spartans seem kinda sorta American-ish here and there, but they’re also a tiny band of warriors trying to defend their homeland from the overwhelming invading force of the largest, most powerful military in the world at the time…which also happens to be a decadent, world-wide empire. In just about any conflict since the Revolutionary War, isn’t the U.S. more like Persia than Sparta…?

This promises to be my most thorough rundown of what new books will be shipping this Wednesday ever, as I think I’ll be able to cover every single new release, on account of there being next to no new books at all.

As you’ve probably heard a long time ago, Diamond’s taking this week off for the holidays, so the only new books will be a couple of books that actually shipped to shops last week, but were embargoed until their street date of tomorrow, December 29.

For those of us addicted to new comic books each Wednesday, that’s kind of a bummer, but, on the bright side, it does offer a chance to spend your weekly comics allowance (and/or and Christmas money you may have gotten) on older books and graphic novels you’ve been meaning to check out when you have some extra cash to spare. I’m sure your local comics shop staffs will be even happier than usual to see you patronizing them this week.

Anyway, let’s take a quick look at the week in new comics…

Blackest Night #6: So here’s the official solicitation from dccomics.com in full: “The secrets of Nekron are revealed as darkness consumes the DC Universe. Everything else: TOP SECRET.” So, not a lot to go on, really. It’s still by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert and, when we last left our beleaguered DC superheroes, they were facing Nekron, his army of undead superheroes, the zombies of everyone who died in Coast City and the surprisingly be-Black Lantern-ed heroes who died by came back to life in the past (Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow I, etc). This is #6 of #8, too, so things really oughta be heating up about now. It’s $4 for about 30 pages.

Fall of the Hulks Alpha #1: Normally I wouldn’t even bother mentioning a new printing of a book simply because  it has a variant cover, but hey, there’s not a whole heck of a lot out this week, so what the hell. Marvel has another version of the kick-off of their Hulks event by Jeff Parker and Paul Pelletier, featuring a new nap-time cover by Ed McGuinness:

Aw, look at all those jade giants and crimsons colossi…they’re just plum tuckered out after all that smashing!

Origins of Siege #1: Well, you can’t beat the price! Marvel.com doesn’t have a lot of details on this free giveaway book, but who’s going to complain? It’s free. As the title suggests, this is a promotional book hyping up their next big—and presumably final for a while liine-wide crossover series, including a new Loki story and origins of the major players in the series.

And that’s about it in terms of new or new-ish material, although you may want to check out the website for Indy Comic Book Week and see what your local shop may have ordered from those offerings, intended to take advantage of Diamond’s week off to get new books into the hands of readers jonesing for their weekly fix.

The Color of Earth
The Color of Water
The Color of Heaven

Written & Illustrated by Kim Dong Hwa
Translated by Lauren Na
Published by First Second

Ambitious. Kim Dong Hwa’s trilogy tracks a mother and daughter in the time of pre-industrial Korea as the younger comes of age, following her from the age of seven until her wedding night ten years later. Young Ehwa is, as the books allude consistently, a flower coming into bloom. Hwa based the story loosely on stories his own mother told him of her childhood, which perhaps supports the incredible air of authenticity that permeates the entire saga.

The Color of Earth begins with Ehwa finding two local boys engaged in a contest to see who can urinate farther than the other. Surprised by the anatomical differences between herself and the boys, Ehwa asks her mother if she is deformed and begins her slow awakening. Hwa manages to balance the inevitable base sexuality of this process with a gentle, poetic touch. A first period, a first wet dream, masturbation, a widowed mother’s sex life and repeated allusions to sexuality are all handled head on, yet softened by Hwa’s poetic language and insistent allusions to flowers and seasons.

It’s boldly sexual, yet steadfastly determined to be allusive and suggestive, a dichotomy that sometimes limits Hwa’s ability to drive home the physical nature of sexuality. Yet he’s consistently able to get to the emotional core of each moment. Ehwa’s belief that she’s about to die when she has her first period is palpable, yet quickly turns to joy and laughter when her mother explains the truth.

In the latter portion of the trilogy, the obsession with marriage and attracting a man may seem chauvinistic, yet it’s hard to argue that such as the custom of the time. Hwa does little to blunt the social expectations of the time, keeping the authenticity throughout. The book’s only slight failing is in Hwa’s limited ability to draw people. The backgrounds, particularly in the detailed double-page rural vistas, are jaw-dropping, detailed and impeccably realized landscapes. Hwa’s supporting characters are rendered with a solid eye to their comic personalities, yet Ehwa and her mother – both beautiful women – becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish as Ehwa enters adulthood. Yes, they are mother and daughter and should look somewhat similar, but one is also twenty years older yet looks essentially identical. Similarly, the comparisons of women to flowers – evolving across three full books – eventually become repetitive and lose some meaning.

As The Color of Earth finds both women in similar straits, waiting for loved men who must earn their fortune elsewhere, The Color of Heaven allows Hwa to explore the differences between Ehwa’s youth and enthusiasm against her mother’s experience and expectation. The respectful relationship balances love and understanding against youth’s need to press against boundaries and an aging person’s jealousy of youth and beauty in those who can’t fully appreciate what they have.

The Color trilogy – The Color of Earth, The Color of Water and The Color of Heaven – manages to revisit an era of Korean history with an eye to historical detail, while maintaining a universal understanding of mothers, daughters and the evolving relationship between the two.  The entire saga is beautifully, poetically human, particularly in its confusion and misunderstandings, and stands about the better comics of the year.

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!

(Click the image above for a larger version of the strip.)

WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 17: “Bluster & Cowardice”

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.

After the personal and professional high of Episode 16, this strip represented a low point in the strip’s history, because, to date, it is the only time I have ever missed a weekly deadline.  Also, although the drawing is fairly strong, if you check the comments from when the strip was first posted, there were some storytelling issues that left the reader confused.  On the plus side, I did like the way Duke’s face turned out in this one.  As the strips progressed, and Duke’s story unfolds, I realized that he sort of de-volved in his appearance, until, when we last see him, the guy’s just a quivering, jowly mess.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

In his Comics Riffs blog for the Washington Post, Michael Cavna writes about the dilemas that are facing the nation’s political cartoonists in light of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed attempt to blow up a plane about Detroit on Christmas Day: Terrorism generally isn’t very funny, most of them are on holiday vacations anyway and yet there is the irrisitable pull of underpants. Well worth a read and keeping in mind in the coming days, as cartoonists return to their drawing desks and the nation’s other various humorists get back to work and try to find ways to joke about something that’s hard to joke about.

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

In the spirit of Newsarama’s own Readers’ Favorites of 2009 Tourney, I thought I’d get a view from my local comics shop and see what my friend in comics, Chris Ureta Casos, the long-time buyer for Comics Dungeon, here in Seattle, had to say about comics in 2009 and much more.

Blog@Newsarama: Chris, with Newsarama’s Readers’ Favorites of 2009 Tourney in mind, tell us your thoughts on what tops your lists of favorites in comics this year.

Chris Ureta Casos: I have a lot of trouble really picking out top favorites for any categories, simply because different creators and titles appeal to me at different times and for numerous reasons. If I had pick on the spot though, my breakdowns would be:

Ongoing Titles: The Boys, the Green Lantern titles

Mini-series: Beasts of Burden, Atomic Robo

Writers: Geoff Johns, Garth Ennis, Peter Tomasi, Gail SImone really shines for her work on Secret Six And Wonder Woman

Artists: Marcos Martin, Darwyn Cooke, Patrick Gleason, Amanda Conner

Covers: Pretty much all the covers Marcos Martin has been cranking out this year. The Cooke covers (regular & variant) for Jonah Hex #50 really stood out for me this month as well.

And just as a general thing I’ve been loving all the great work being put into reprints from Fantagraphics, IDW, and a few others. The newly colored Prince Valiant book was a thing of beauty, as well as the Complete Rocketeer that just came out this month.

Blog@: Moving right along, tell us any thoughts that come to mind regarding trends you’ve observed in 2009.

Chris: Well, the “event” trend along with the nostalgia crawl have been fairly strong for the year. Some events fell on there faces while others actually spiked sales very well and generated a lot of new interest. Then it felt like since we managed to work our way through the bulk of the 80′s nostalgia we for some reason had to immerse ourselves with the ’90′s again which is honestly more than a little bit painful.

Of the more positive trends I would have to go back to the healthy amount of reprinting we’ve seen. Marvel’s finally released the soft cover version of the Marvel Masterworks, which are great if not a few years too late. DC’s Kirby Omnibus collections as well as the Showcase editions and other special hard covers have been fantastic. Then you have Fantagraphics offering such things as Blazing Combat and the Strange Suspense to name a few. Top that off with Dark Horse and IDW really coming up to bat and putting out some impressive collections and it’s just been a dream year for nicely packaged reprint material.

There were plenty of trends I wish we could have avoided. The price bumps, the over saturation of variant covers, and the odd marketing and packaging choices we’ve been seeing from the larger publishers. As a whole, I would think the worse trend is the widening of the gap of communication between consumers, retailers, distributors, and publishers.

Blog@: What can you tell us about your favorite comics from this last decade?

Chris: This is where I really just freeze up because there are just too many things to go on about. I think one of the greatest new titles we’ve seen from the past decade was Atomic Robo, not only for just the actual content (which is amazing) for the actual work ethic of the creators. Joss Whedon’s work on X-Men and his launch of Buffy Season 8 were great in and of themselves but when you factor in the amount of new readership and interest they brought in then you can’t ignore their value.

Geoff Johns has helped to not only resurrect interest in Green Lantern but to push the entire mythology of the creator into being one of the most successful, easily accessible, and expansive properties in the industry.

Pretty much everything Dark Horse has been doing over the past few years has been making me happy, from their production values to their overall content, and they always strike me as one of the if not the most solid publishers.

I don’t think I’ve read a Garth Ennis story I’ve never liked. So, from him launching Battlefields, to returning to Hitman for a few issues, to pinpointing exactly what a Punisher story should be, and to launching The Boys I’ve been a pretty happy camper.

There’s the obvious stuff like All Star Superman, Wednesday Comics, and Scott Pilgrim, which all deserve plenty of praise and attention.

Gail Simone emerging as one of the best writers in mainstream comics has been pleasant to watch. I’m disappointed she doesn’t seem to be doing too strongly on the Newsarama polls.

I was actually one of the minority it seems that really enjoyed Final Crisis and Batman RIP, but hell I thought they were just a lot of fun as experiments.

I feel like I’m neglecting a ton of things….

Blog@: What would you like to share with us about an all-time favorite comic?

Chris: There are two all time favorite books I think need mentioning. First is Mother, Come Home by Paul Hornschemeir. If you want an example of how much emotion can be put into a comic with a very minimal yet expressive style then you need to check this out. This is the only comic I’ve ever written a letter to when it was being published as single issues, and I was incredibly grateful for the reply I got back from the creator. It’s an incredibly sad story, so if you’re a fan of Chris Ware or Craig Thompson you should love it.

The second is Blacksad by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarndio. Pretty much every time I read I realize that this is pretty much the perfect example of the heights the medium can achieve in storytelling and that more people need to know this work so they can understand how high the bar has really been set. The good news is that Dark Horse will be releasing a new compete collection in 2010.

Blog@: How would you describe the experience of reading comics?

Chris: Reading comics for me can range from incredibly transcendent to horribly enraging. I was taught how to read with comics and fortunately (or unfortunately) they’ve stuck with me for the long run, so visual narratives have been engrained into me and I often can get a little too engrossed in what I’m reading.

Blog@: Any quick and easy comment for someone walking in and wanting to read something that will blow their mind?

Chris: I need to talk with the person first and see what type of taste they have. It’s not that easy for me to assume they will like what I think is cool. Considering how excited I get when Starro the Conqueror shows up or Atomic Robo beats up a giant mutant ant with a Buick I think it’s a safe bet not everyone likes the same thing. It’s a little bit more interesting to gauge what a person’s taste is and see if you can find just the right thing for them, which means actually taking the time to expose yourself to different material constantly.

Blog@: What do you see ahead in comics in the new year, or in the future in general?

Chris: This is a hard one, simply because the future of comics really depends on how the economy holds up and how the publishers react. If we continue to see the trend of prices rising and a harder push to online comics, then we may see some really negative and possibly cataclysmic changes to the industry. There are a few things that could really help such as dropping the cost of production and material, but the main concern is that it feels like consumers are being drained of their blood at times and we are in a recession. I have customers who would love to buy more comics, but they can’t even afford 5-10 comics a week.

I was talking with a customer not to long ago, and we were asking the same question about Hollywood and other mainstream outlets and what trends might pop up over the next year. We decided that unless the powers-that-be were complete idiots, they would realize the potential with the increasing amounts of female genre fans with the popularity of Twilight and Firefly. Comics saw substantial new interest from female fans when Buffy Season 8 came out, and there were so many great books coming out at the time to cross-sell such as Runaways, Fables, and Y The Last Man.

Beyond that, I’m personally hoping that the next trend will be a competition between publishers to see who can publish the best reprint material. We’ve already seen both IDW and Fantagraphics release Ditko books of fantastic quality. I see Marvel is finally reprinting the Geoff Johns Avengers run, which, seriously, what’s been the hold up with that? Ideally, DC will now reprint the entire Abnett/Lanning run of Legion as a rebuttal. There are tons and tons of books actually worth reprinting (and no, I’m not talking about the Spider-Clone Saga and X-Men 2099). Books like the Peyer/Morales Hourman, the Jurgens/Epting Aquaman, the Waid/Kubert Ka-Zar, the original Busiek/Bagley Thunderbolts, and much much more. But please please please don’t make them deluxe hard covers. Just make something reasonable so we can easily recommend them to people without forcing them to sell blood to afford them.

Be sure to check out the Comics Dungeon Web site and, for further thoughts from Chris Ureta Casos, read his reviews at the Trusty Henchmen Web site.

“Spider-Man spins web at Gov Isle”: The New York Post’s Rich Calder has a short blog article about the real-world setting of Spider-Man’s most recent adventure, and talks to writer Fred Van Lente about the two-part “Keemia’s Castle” story in Amazing Spider-Man #615 and #616. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer two issues of ASM; thanks to artist Javier Pulido’s work, those are some gorgeously drawn comics.

“From Dutch to Drawings”: Saturday’s New York Times ran a rather extensive profile on the work of Charles T. Gehring, who has spent the last 35 years translating 17th-century records and documents pertaining the colony of New Netherland, which would eventually become New York. His work has inspired several authors and artists, including George O’Connor, creator of the graphic novel Journey Into Mohawk Country. The paper has a slideshow of art and commentary from O’Connor up as well.

N is for Nate Powell: This Arkansas Times recap of 2009 is formatted as the year in review, A to Z. Swallow Me Whole cartoonist Nate Powell gets the N paragraph.

“What a strange year for comics”: American-Statesman staffer Joe Gross offers his top 13-to-17 comics of 2009 (he groups four super-comics together under one heading), kicking off his list by noting some of the big changes (Disney buying Marvel) and strange trends that characterized the year in comics.

The last comic book character I would have expected to see a Christmas ornament of: I mean, I know it’s homemade and all, but still.

We have an appropriate comic to consider this holiday season, a story involving a toy maker. But this story is not as sweet as it may seem, as often is the case with the good stuff.

Fall Out Toy Works is an unusual comic. If you follow Comics Grinder, you know I’m a huge fan of Brett Lewis, the very talented writer of the cult classic, The Winter Men. Well, he’s shifted gears here from his gritty crime fiction but not completely. This time, instead of the Russian mob, you’ll find guys in suits beating up a little boy bear and a tiny bumble bee cell phone. And when a toy maker comes to defend them, one of the thugs looks up and says, “We’re lawyers from Los Angeles…We do whatever we want!” Very strange but very cool.

The story is not only inspired by Fall Out Boy but the band’s front man, Pete Wentz, is credited among the creators. He seems to share some of Gerard Way’s vision for The Umbrella Academy. And that works well with the stylish artwork to this comic that also fits in with the ethereal quality of Phongram, anime and manga. There’s also a tip of the hat to Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and Barbucci & Canepa’s Sky Doll. Lots brewing here for this comic but done with its own distinct flavor.

As you can see from the above samples, artist Sami Basri has a remarkable feel for characters. He loves them as much as Brett Lewis and together they hook the reader into something special. The story itself, involving a toy maker and his creation may not be exactly new, but the way it’s handled here is unique with one hook after another connecting the reader. One scene, for instance, does well in laying out the premise. The Toy Maker is speaking with a cyborg geisha and he’s discussing the notion of fabricating emotions. He wonders if it can really be done and concludes it will be difficult. She says, no, it will be painful.

In these last two issues, we’ve seen the Toy Maker become consumed by the process of manufacturing love, as it were, the perfect mate for a strange and powerful man who leaves very little reason, if any, to be trusted. Bit by bit, Tiffany is created. The Toy Maker even calls in his childhood mentor, the Rabbi, to help him. And it is the Rabbi who supplies the missing piece to the puzzle, a perfect heart-shaped blue diamond. It is only through this diamond that all the emotional information can be properly stored and used. The diamond must be blue, of course, since it’s boron gas that’s needed for conductivity. And so on. In the meantime, Tiffany has come into her own and has snuck out to explore life after dark. She goes to a club. A man asks her to dance. She says she’s not ready. By the end of this second issue, the Baron arrives to snatch up Tiffany along with the blueprints to make more ideal women. She was supposed to be one of a kind and the blueprints were supposed to stay with the Toy Maker. The  Baron had promised! The Toy Maker is enraged.

What is cool about The Umbrella Academy is that, despite all the naysayers who said Gerard Way had no business in comics, it comes across as being something with its own reason to be. Same with Fall Out Toy Works. The comic has a similar love for speaking poetically about love and existence. The name of the band may be attached directly to this comic but the ideas are expressed with care and subtlety. The Fall Out Boy song, “Tiffany Blews,” is echoed in the comic but only in the most indirect way. Whatever the creative process was behind its conception, the end result is that Fall Out Toy Works has taken on a life of its own.

Visit Image Comics, the awesome publisher of Fall Out Toy Works and then go see the official Fall Out Toy Works Web site and always check in with the Comics Grinder Web site just to see what’s up. Here is wishing all of you a peaceful, productive and purposeful new year.

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

May everyone have enough to eat this holiday season!